You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Monday January 4, 1915
From The Labor World: Southern Mill Workers Continue Fight Against Peonage
A family of southern cotton mill workers.
By Lewis W Hine, November 1914
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From Saturday's edition of
The Labor World comes news of the unyeilding fight against peonage being waged by the men, women and little of children of the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills of Atlanta, Georgia:
Evicted from the company shacks soon after the strike was started, the workers are living in army tents purchased by the United Textile Workers of America. President Golden is on the ground, and is in charge of the strike.
One of the main issues involved is that contract workers were compelled to sign before being employed, and which permitted the company to hold back one week's pay. Should an employe leave the company for any cause without giving five full days' notice, they forfeited all wages due them for the current week worked, in addition to the loss of the previous week's wages held back. Able lawyers have declared this contract to be "nothing more or less than a system of peonage."
A related article in the same edition of
Labor World describes efforts being made by the National Child Labor Committee to pass child labor legislation at the federal level. A conference is being held, beginning tomorrow, in Washington D. C. Representative Palmer and Senator Owens will be present to discuss the Palmer-Owen Bill which would put age restrictions upon child labor in the mines and mills of the nation. Night work would also be forbidden for children.
Lewis W. Hine, the famous photographer sponsored by the N. C. L. C., has just returned from another visit to the south. He stated:
I was shocked to find conditions still so bad in North Carolina. The legal age limit there for factories is 13 years, but from my study of 20 mills in North Carolina alone, I believe that there are hundreds of violations, and that the 1910 census figures which reported 4,000 children under 14 in the cotton mills of that one state and 100,000 children under 14 in non-agricultural work throughout the country, are a conservative estimate of the number of young children at work today. There are still 20 other states besides North Carolina in which the employment of children under 14 in mills or canneries is legal, so that the physical danger and the lack resulting from premature work continue unchecked.
An example of the work of Lewis W. Hine:
Photograph by Lewis W Hine of Family of Cotton Mill Workers in Georgia, January 22, 1909
A family working in the Tifton (Ga.) Cotton Mill. Mrs. A.J. Young works in mill and at home. Nell (oldest girl) alternates in mill with mother. Mammy (next girl) runs 2 sides. Mary (next) runs 1 1/2 sides. Elic (oldest boy) works regularly. Eddie (next girl) helps in mill, sticks on bobbins. Four smallest children not working yet. The mother said she earns $4.50 a week and all the children earn $4.50 a week. Husband died and left her with 11 children. 2 of them went off and got married. The family left the farm 2 years ago to work in the mill.
From The Labor World of January 2, 1915:
SOUTHERN MILL WORKERS STILL OUT
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Conditions of Peonage in Textile Mills
Makes Wealthy Employers.
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ATLANTA, Ga., Jan. 1.-The seven months' strike of textile workers against the Fulton Bag & Cotton Mills is being stubbornly contested by 1,200 men, women and children, who insist on their right to be members of a trade union.
Evicted from the company shacks soon after the strike was started, the workers are living in army tents purchased by the United Textile Workers of America. President Golden is on the ground, and is in charge of the strike.
One of the main issues involved is that contract workers were compelled to sign before being employed, and which permitted the company to hold back one week's pay. Should an employe leave the company for any cause without giving five full days' notice, they forfeited all wages due them for the current week worked, in addition to the loss of the previous week's wages held back. Able lawyers have declared this contract to be "nothing more or less than a system of peonage."
The strikers charge that the company has made vast sums of money out of this system and that the last large mill built by the Fulton concern was practically paid for out of the moneys retained under this contract.
The owners of the mills own mills in Dallas and New Orleans. They have rejected every attempt to settle the difficulty. These efforts include overtures by the representatives of over 100 Georgia churches, prominent citizens of Atlanta, and several mediators from the Federal Department of Labor. Every peace offering has been met by the claim that "there is nothing to arbitrate."
Because this strike means relief from conditions existing in many southern states among textile workers, the trade union movement is giving financial aid to this sturdy band of fighters.
This is one of the three movements of workers which the A. F. of L. convention in Philadelphia last month, voted to send out an appeal to assist the organizations involved.
[photograph added]
Labor World Reports News from the National Child Labor Committee:
CHILDREN EXPOSED TO MANY ACCIDENTS
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Conference at Washington
to Discuss Whether Government Should Interfere.
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Lewis W Hine
Exposure to accident and a definite tendency to tuberculosis, are the penalties that young children pay for working in the cotton mills, according to Lewis W. Hine, staff photographer of the National Child Labor Committee, who has just returned from several weeks of investigation in the south.
I was shocked to find conditions still so bad in North Carolina. The legal age limit there for factories is 13 years, but from my study of 20 mills in North Carolina alone, I believe that there are hundreds of violations, and that the 1910 census figures which reported 4,000 children under 14 in the cotton mills of that one state and 100,000 children under 14 in non-agricultural work throughout the country, are a conservative estimate of the number of young children at work today. There are still 20 other states besides North Carolina in which the employment of children under 14 in mills or canneries is legal, so that the physical danger and the lack resulting from premature work continue unchecked.
Palmer to Speak.
With these facts in mind, the National Child Labor committee is calling a conference of all interested in the protection of children, at Washington on the 5th and 6th of January, to emphasize the need of a federal child labor law. The speakers will include Representative A. Mitchell Palmer, of Pennsylvania, who introduced last January the child labor bill which is on the calendar of the present session, Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma, who sponsored the bill in the senate, Felix Adler, Florence Kelley, and Edward T. Devine. Others invited are Jane Addams, Julia C. Lathrop, John Mitchell, James R. Mann, Victor Murdock, W. O. Hart, and Secretary Wilson of the Department of Labor.
Palmer-Owen Bill.
The Palmer-Owen bill was drafted by the National Child Labor Committee, and proposed a 14-year limit for all children employed upon factory, mill or cannery products shipped in interstate commerce. It limits the hours of children 14 to 16 in the same occupation to 8 hours per day and forbids their employment at night; and it prohibits the employment at any time of children under 16 in mines and quarries.
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[photographs added]
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SOURCE
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Jan 2, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
See also:
"Hellraisers Journal: Sarah Conboy of United Textile Workers
Tells of Evictions of Southern Strikers" byJayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The Survey: Social, Charitable, Civic:
a Journal of Constructive Philanthropy, Volume 32
Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, 1914
From The Survey of Aug 8, 1914
(search with "Fulton Bag & Cotton Mills," choose p.476)
http://books.google.com/...
IMAGES
NC Cotton Mill Workers by Hine, Nov 1914
http://www.loc.gov/...
Family of Georgia Cotton Mill Workers by Hine, Jan 1909
http://www.loc.gov/...
Strike On, flyer from Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills Strike of 1914-15,
Atlanta, Georgia, July 1914
http://www.armstrong.edu/...
Lewis W Hine
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Child Labor, Boy with Cans, Lewis Hine
http://reelfoto.blogspot.com/...
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Mill Mother's Lament - Pete Seeger/Margaret Smith
Mill Mother's Lament
We leave our homes in the morning,
We kiss our children good-bye,
While we slave for the bosses,
Our children scream and cry.
And when we draw our money,
Our grocery bills to pay,
Not a cent to spend for clothing,
Not a cent to lay away.
And on that very evening
Our little son will say:
“I need some shoes, Mother,
And so does Sister May.”
How it grieves the heart of a mother,
You everyone must know.
But we can’t buy for our children,
Our wages are too low.
It is for our little children,
That seems to us so dear,
But for us nor them, dear workers,
The bosses do not care.
But understand, all workers,
Our union they do fear.
Let’s stand together, workers,
And have a union here.
-Ella Mae Wiggins
WE NEVER FORGET
ELLA MAE WIGGINS
They'll have to kill me to make me give up the union.
-Ella Mae Wiggins
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