Title: Oral History Interview with Eula McGill, September 5, 1976. Interview G-0040-2.
Identifier: G-0040-2
Interviewer: Hall, Jacquelyn
Interviewee: McGill, Eula
Subjects: Women in trade-unions    Women's rights    Women in the textile industry    
Extent: 02:13:11
Abstract:  This is the second interview in a series of two conducted with labor activist Eula McGill. In this interview, McGill focuses on her continuing work in the southern labor movement from the 1930s to the 1970s. McGill begins by explaining her views on workers' education and labor leadership. According to McGill, teaching workers about the history of the labor movement was especially important. In the 1940s, McGill was an active participant in Operation Dixie; she describes in detail labor campaigns in La Follette, Tennessee, (1943) and in Dickson and Bruceton, Tennessee (1947). During this time McGill also continued to work actively with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union throughout the South. McGill briefly remarried, but for the most part she dedicated her life to the labor movement. Here, she speaks in more detail about what it was like to be a single woman working within the predominantly male labor movement. She emphasizes the transient lifestyle and some of the challenges she faced as a woman trying to organize both men and women.