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A thread through time

Labor & Organizing

Who did the work, and what did it take for them to be heard?

From the Lowell turnouts of the 1830s to the J.P. Stevens campaign of the 1970s, follow the people who ran the machines as they organized, struck, and were broken or won.

38 stories across 15 chapters

  1. 1790–1810 · The Industrial Spy

    Labor

    The Rhode Island System

    America's first factory system built on the labor of children.

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    Boys who worked in the Quidwick Company mill at Anthony, Rhode Island-child labor that persisted a century after the Rhode Island System began.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "All these boys (and more) worked in the Quidwick Co. Mill. They went in when the signal was given. Anthony, R.I.," April 16, 1909. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 523181). Public domain.

  2. 1793–1850 · The Cotton Kingdom

    Tragedy

    The Hands That Picked

    The enslaved people who grew the cotton, as named individuals and as the largest financial asset in the American economy.

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    Enslaved men, women, and children picking cotton and carrying it in baskets on a Georgia plantation.
    "Picking cotton on a Georgia plantation," wood engraving, 1858. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (LCCN 2002698525). Public domain.

  3. 1820–1845 · The Lowell Mill Girls

    Material Culture

    Boarding House Life

    Corporate supervision of the worker's whole life.

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    Two Lowell mill workers photographed in their best clothes.
    Unidentified photographer, two Lowell mill women, tintype, c. 1870. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell Libraries. Public domain.
  4. Material Culture

    The Lowell Offering

    A literary magazine written by mill workers.

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    The first issue of The Lowell Offering, a magazine written by women mill workers.
    Front page of The Lowell Offering, No. 1, 1840. Merrimack Valley Textile Museum. Public domain.
  5. Biography

    Sarah Bagley: A Labor Voice in Print

    A weaver who became the public voice of industrial reform.

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    A young woman winding shuttle bobbins in a New England weave room.
    After Winslow Homer, "The Bobbin Girl," wood engraving, c. 1871. National Park Service (NPGallery). Public domain.

  6. 1840–1920 · The Silk City

    Labor

    The Paterson Pageant

    The 1913 strike that staged itself in Madison Square Garden.

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    IWW poster for the Paterson Silk Strike pageant at Madison Square Garden, June 7, 1913.
    Robert Edmond Jones, poster for the Paterson Strike Pageant, Madison Square Garden, June 7, 1913. Public domain (published 1913).
  7. Impact

    The Multiple-Loom System

    The speed-up that triggered an industrial uprising.

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    A Paterson silk weaver tending four looms at once-the work assignment that triggered the 1913 strike.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "Paterson, New Jersey-Textiles. Weaver operating four-loom system," 1936-1937. Works Progress Administration National Research Project, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 518541). Public domain.
  8. Biography

    Hannah Silverman, Strike Captain

    A teenager who led the women's picket lines.

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    Elizabeth Gurley Flynn with striking silk workers and their children in Paterson, spring 1913.
    Unidentified photographer, "Paterson Strike, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, etc.," 1913. Internet Archive (mms_kerr_bx_2_fl_29_05). Public domain.

  9. 1846–1860 · The Sewing Revolution

    Impact

    The Seamstress and the Machine

    An economic cost rarely written into the history of the machine.

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    Nine-year-old Jennie Rizzandi helping her parents finish garments at home in a New York tenement.
    Lewis Wickes Hine for the National Child Labor Committee, "11:30 A.M. Jennie Rizzandi, 9 year old girl, helping mother and father finish garments in a dilapidated tenement," New York City, January 1913. Public domain.

  10. 1870–1910 · The Garment District

    Labor

    The Sweatshop System

    Exploitation engineered into the architecture of the tenement.

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    "Knee Pants at Forty-Five Cents a Dozen"-a Ludlow Street sweatshop photographed by Jacob Riis.
    Jacob A. Riis, "Knee Pants at Forty-Five Cents a Dozen-A Ludlow Street Sweater's Shop," from "How the Other Half Lives" (1890). Public domain.
  11. Material Culture

    Lewis Hine and the Camera as Indictment

    A sociologist with a flash camera redefined documentary photography.

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    Addie Card, a twelve-year-old spinner in North Pownal, Vermont-one of Lewis Hine's most widely reproduced photographs.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "Addie Card, 12 years old. Spinner in cotton mill, North Pownal, Vermont," 1910. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Open Access (165230). CC0.
  12. Biography

    The Uprising of the 20,000

    The strike that built the ILGWU—and set the stage for Triangle.

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    Striking shirtwaist makers in New York during the Uprising of the 20,000.
    Bain News Service, "Group of mainly female shirtwaist workers on strike, in a room, New York," January 1910. Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection (cph.3a51055). Public domain.

  13. 1880–1920 · The Gilded Age of Wool

    Labor

    Bread and Roses

    The 1912 Lawrence strike that united dozens of nationalities.

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    Children of Lawrence strikers sent to stay with supporters in New York during the 1912 strike.
    Bain News Service, children of Lawrence strikers sent to sympathizers in New York City, 1912. Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection. Public domain.
  14. Innovation

    The Wood Worsted Behemoth

    The 'eighth wonder of the world' on the Merrimack.

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    The American Woolen Company's Wood Worsted Mill in Lawrence, at its opening the largest mill building in the world.
    Emw, "Wood Worsted Mills; west and south sides; Lawrence, MA" (2011). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
  15. Impact

    The Piedmont Mill Village

    A new social order built around the Southern cotton mill.

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    The company-owned mill village of the Highland Yarn Mills, High Point, North Carolina.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "High Point, North Carolina-Housing. General view of company-owned mill village-Highland Yarn Mills," 1936-1937. Works Progress Administration National Research Project, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 518534). Public domain.
  16. Impact

    'The Chinese of the Eastern States'

    French-Canadian migration to the New England mills, and the 1881 report that slandered it.

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    Workers entering the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company mills at 6 a.m., Manchester, New Hampshire.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "6 A.M. Going to work in Amoskeag Mfg. Co., Manchester, N.H.," May 21, 1909. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 523200). Public domain.
  17. Impact

    The Dagenhart Boys and the Law

    How a Charlotte cotton mill family carried child labor to the Supreme Court, and why it took twenty-five years to end it.

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    Children on the night shift at Highland Park Mill No. 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina, at 10:30 at night. Hine noted that one boy had worked in the mill for nine years, half of it at night.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "A few of the hands on the night shift in Highland Park Mill No. 3, Charlotte, N.C. 10:30 P.M. January 7/09," 1909. Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection (LC-DIG-nclc-01577). Public domain.

  18. 1911 · The Ashes of New York

    Biography

    Frances Perkins: The Witness Who Built the New Deal

    A young reformer watched the fire and helped remake American government.

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    Frances Perkins, who witnessed the Triangle fire and became the first woman to serve in a U.S. cabinet.
    Bain News Service, "Frances Perkins." Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection (LCCN 2014708218). Public domain.
  19. Biography

    Clara Lemlich, Two Years Earlier

    The warning the industry refused to hear.

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    Clara Lemlich, whose call for a general strike in November 1909 launched the Uprising of the 20,000.
    Portrait of Clara Lemlich, c. 1910. ILGWU Archives, Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University. Public domain.

  20. 1920–1930 · The Electric Loom

    Impact

    The Great Piedmont Migration

    How electricity and cheap labor moved an industry south.

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    Workers leaving the Loray Mill in Gastonia, North Carolina, at closing time.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "Closing hour Loray Mill, Gastonia, N.C. November 7, 1908." Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection (nclc.01352). Public domain.
  21. Biography

    Ella May Wiggins: The Singer of Gastonia

    A mill mother shot dead on the road to a union rally in 1929.

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    Ella May Wiggins, songwriter and Loray Mill strike organizer, killed September 14, 1929.
    Unidentified photographer, Ella May Wiggins. Public domain in the United States, via English Wikipedia.
  22. Tragedy

    The Marion Massacre

    Six strikers killed at the Marion Manufacturing Company gate, less than three weeks after Ella May Wiggins.

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    The power house and Columbia Duck Mill on the Columbia Canal. Opened in 1894, Columbia Mills was the first textile mill in the world driven entirely by electric motors.
    A. C. Bosselman & Co. (publisher), "Electric Power House and Columbia Duck Mill, Columbia, S.C.," postcard, c. 1910. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

  23. 1934 · The Great Textile Strike

    Labor

    The Flying Squadrons

    Mobile labor organizing in the Piedmont South.

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    Arrested pickets marched into Georgia's military internment camp under armed guard (left), and a guardsman behind a steel barricade at Kannapolis, North Carolina (right).
    Unidentified press photographers, "Imprisoned for Striking Under N.R.A.; Cold Steel Against Unarmed Workers," Daily Worker (New York), September 22, 1934. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  24. Tragedy

    The Honea Path Massacre

    Six dead at the Chiquola Mill gate in about three minutes; a seventh died later.

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    Armed strikebreakers at the Chiquola Mill in Honea Path on September 6, 1934, the day seven strikers were shot dead at the mill gate.
    Unidentified photographer, armed men at the Chiquola Mill, Honea Path, South Carolina, September 6, 1934. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  25. Impact

    The Stretch-Out

    The speed-up that detonated the 1934 strike.

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    A Paterson silk weaver tending four looms at once-the work assignment that triggered the 1913 strike.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "Paterson, New Jersey-Textiles. Weaver operating four-loom system," 1936-1937. Works Progress Administration National Research Project, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 518541). Public domain.
  26. Tragedy

    Saylesville and Woonsocket

    The National Guard fires on strikers in two Rhode Island mill towns.

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    The historic marker for the Saylesville mill village in Lincoln, Rhode Island.
    Shadowe, "Saylesville Historic District," Lincoln, Rhode Island (2014). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

  27. 1940–1950 · Synthetic Warfare

    Material Culture

    Rosie's Coveralls and the Cotton Duck Mills

    American mills as a logistical front in the war.

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    Nylon stockings. DuPont put nylon hosiery on national sale on May 15, 1940-"N-Day."
    Antique Rose, "Nylon stockings" (2006). English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

  28. 1960-1985 · The Long Integration

    Labor

    Opening the Mill Gates

    How Black workers used Title VII to integrate the South's largest industry.

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    A cotton mill at Darlington, South Carolina, about 1905. In 1956 the Darlington Manufacturing Company closed days after its workers voted for a union-the case behind the Supreme Court's 1965 Darlington decision.
    Illustrated Post Card Co., "Darlington, S.C. Cotton Mill," tinted halftone postcard, c. 1905. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  29. Biography

    The Real Norma Rae

    Crystal Lee Sutton, a cardboard sign, and the seventeen-year fight to organize J.P. Stevens.

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    A cotton mill at Darlington, South Carolina, about 1905. In 1956 the Darlington Manufacturing Company closed days after its workers voted for a union-the case behind the Supreme Court's 1965 Darlington decision.
    Illustrated Post Card Co., "Darlington, S.C. Cotton Mill," tinted halftone postcard, c. 1905. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  30. Labor

    Remember Darlington

    A mill closed to punish a union vote, and the Supreme Court case that followed.

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    A cotton mill at Darlington, South Carolina, about 1905. In 1956 the Darlington Manufacturing Company closed days after its workers voted for a union-the case behind the Supreme Court's 1965 Darlington decision.
    Illustrated Post Card Co., "Darlington, S.C. Cotton Mill," tinted halftone postcard, c. 1905. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
  31. Impact

    Brown Lung

    Byssinosis, the Carolina Brown Lung Association, and the fight for a cotton dust standard.

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    Fifteen-year-old Bertha Bonneau tending a jack speeder in the card room of the King Philip Mill. Card rooms, where cotton was opened and combed into roving, carried the heaviest loads of the dust that causes byssinosis.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "King Philip Mill-Card Room. Doffer on Jack Speeder. Bertha Bonneau, 15 years," Fall River, Massachusetts, 1916. Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection (cph.3b33420). Public domain.

  32. 1980–2005 · The Great De-Industrialization

    Impact

    The Kannapolis Collapse

    When the world's best-known towel company closed in a single day.

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    Cannon Mills at Kannapolis, North Carolina, once the world's largest towel producer. Its successor Pillowtex closed the plant on July 30, 2003.
    Tichnor Bros. for Dixie News Company, "Cannon Mills, Kannapolis, N.C.," postcard, c. 1930-1945. Boston Public Library, Tichnor Brothers Collection. Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
  33. Material Culture

    Ghosts of the Mill Town

    What remains in the buildings the looms left behind.

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    The Loray Mill in Gastonia in 2013, during its conversion from a shuttered mill into apartments and shops.
    Upstateherd, "Loray Mill, Gastonia, NC" (2013). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

  34. 2010–2020 · The Reshoring Frontier

    Innovation

    The Automated Factory

    Robotics, digital knitting, and the limits of the 'factory of the future.'

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    A computerized flat-bed knitting machine. Automated knitting of this kind underpins the small, highly automated mills of the reshoring era.
    Elkágyé, "Contemporary flat knitting machine" (2018). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

  35. 2020–Present · The Circular Reckoning

    Tragedy

    The Shein Reckoning

    Inside the platform that adds thousands of new styles a day.

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    A textile-recycling bin beside ordinary waste containers. Most discarded clothing worldwide is still landfilled or incinerated.
    Daniel Capilla, "Textile Recycling Container and Waste Containers," Málaga, Spain (2022). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  36. Impact

    The New York Fashion Act

    A major U.S. attempt to legislate apparel supply chains—still unpassed.

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    A worker pushes a cart of fabric bolts between delivery trucks in Manhattan's Garment District, April 1973.
    Dan McCoy, "A frequent sight in midtown Manhattan's famous Garment District (between Broadway and Eighth Avenue)," April 1973. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 549867). Public domain.
  37. Tragedy

    Rana Plaza

    The 2013 factory collapse in Bangladesh that exposed the hidden supply chains of American brands.

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    Rescue workers search the wreckage of Rana Plaza in Savar, Bangladesh, three days after the eight-story garment-factory building collapsed on April 24, 2013.
    Sharat Chowdhury, "2013 Savar building collapse," April 27, 2013. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5.
  38. Labor

    From El Monte to SB 62

    Slavery in a Los Angeles suburb in 1995, and California's 2021 law making brands answer for their sweatshops.

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    A textile-recycling bin beside ordinary waste containers. Most discarded clothing worldwide is still landfilled or incinerated.
    Daniel Capilla, "Textile Recycling Container and Waste Containers," Málaga, Spain (2022). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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