Memories of a strike
Trammel remembers a strike. She thinks that union members came in from Spartanburg to stage a protest. They did not succeed in shutting down the mill, perhaps because workers like Trammel's son were willing to crawl through the crowd to get into the mill.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Naomi Sizemore Trammel, March 25, 1980. Interview H-0258. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ALLEN TULLOS:
-
Do you remember any time that there were anything like unions trying to
come into the mill back then, or strikes going on, anything like that
during the Depression?
- NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:
-
Yeah, they had trouble with that.
- ALLEN TULLOS:
-
What do you remember about that?
- NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:
-
[laughter] I just remember Spot,
that's my baby, crawling under that—right through
them people, and went right on to the mill, and went to work. I can just
see him crawling along. [laughter]
- FLORENCE GRIFFITH:
-
Oh, yeah. I was working at that time. That's right after we
had married.
- ALLEN TULLOS:
-
And you were working in the Judson Mill?
- FLORENCE GRIFFITH:
-
Yeah.
- NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:
-
Yeah, they was come from Spartanburg or somewhere. They come from
somewhere over here, a whole gang of the—you know. And Judson
didn't believe in that, or something. And Spot come there to
go to work, he just paid no attention. He just crawled through that
crowd—got down, and crawled through, and went on to work.
then, didn't want us to go to
work. I wasn't working at that time.
- ALLEN TULLOS:
-
Did the mill shut down because of that?
- NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:
-
No, Judson never did shut down. They
didn't—they'd like to have done it, but
they didn't.
