United States 1929

Synopsis

The Loray Mill Strike of 1929 is perhaps the most infamous strike in southern textile industry history, helping to build antiunionism among workers that would last for most of the twentieth century. In 1928 the mill began introducing more efficient methods that significantly reduced the workforce, cut wages, and increased company profits. Workers at Loray were ripe for action when an organizer for the communist-backed National Textile Workers Union, Fred Beal, came to town in early 1929. When mill officials began firing workers who had contact with the union, Beal called a strike against Loray. What followed was a mini-class struggle between mill workers and the Gastonia establishment. Ideas of race, gender, religion, and class all came under attack. Before the incident ended, the local police chief, Orville Aderholt, and a popular female striker, Ella May Wiggins, had been killed. The trials that followed...