The Myth of Tupelo's Industrial Tranquility

University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2012 Perfect Harmony: the Myth of Tupelo's Industrial Tranquility Wendy D. Smith Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Smith, Wendy D., "Perfect Harmony: the Myth of Tupelo's Industrial Tranquility" (2012). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 266. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/266 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “Perfect Harmony”: The Myth of Tupelo’s Industrial Tranquility, 1937-1941 A Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of History The University of Mississippi by Wendy D. Smith August 2012 Copyright © 2012 by Wendy D. Smith All rights reserved ABSTRACT Despite a vast amount of research on Southern labor in the 1930s, historians paid little attention to Northeast Mississippi. This predominantly rural area, though, boasted some of the largest garment factories of the period. Local businessmen established a cotton mill and three clothing manufacturing companies in Tupelo, the seat of Lee County. Town boosters boasted of harmonious relations between workers and management at each of the industrial facilities. In the spring of 1937, however, the cotton mill hands undertook a sit-down strike. Five days later, the women in the Tupelo Garment Company tried to initiate a strike. Both efforts failed. The cotton mill owners refused to negotiate. When it became clear that the operatives would not end the strike, management closed the plant indefinitely. The leaders of the strike at the garment company received little support from the majority of workers who earlier pledged allegiance. The plant manager fired the six women identified as the organizers of a local independent union. For the next four years, National Labor Relations Board hearings and organizing efforts by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union rocked the small town. The experience of the cotton mill workers and the garment company women expose Southern paternalism as a façade created and accepted by area businessmen but rejected by local workers. This study also challenges the prevailing opinion that Southern workers were bereft of class-consciousness. Without fitting into the Marxist definition of a proletariat, the farm women, who commuted to and from the factories via school buses, created a class-consciousness which related more to their rural identity than to their factory experience. ii DEDICATION Aleyna and Kenny iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor Dr. Elizabeth Anne Payne for introducing me to Southern labor history and guiding me to this topic. She opened important avenues of research by introducing me to individuals with specific knowledge of Tupelo’s industrial history, such as Frances Ledyard Ivy, Bruce Smith, L. E. “Bo” Gibens and Jack Reed, Sr., all of whom were generous with their time. She also provided important information about George McLean and Harry Rutherford that I would not have discovered otherwise. I am very thankful that she allowed me to be a part of the North Mississippi Women’s History project and for her direction in turning interviews into conference presentations. I am forever indebted, however, for her exceptional editing efforts. Special thanks go to Dr. Robert Haws, who as chair of the History Department of the University of Mississippi, provided funding for conference attendance as well as participation in an oral history workshop at the University of California at Berkeley. I also appreciate the research funding provided by Dr. Joe Ward, the current chair of the History Department, and the accommodations he provided during a serious illness. Dr. Jeff Watt’s willingness to cover my teaching responsibilities during that time is also much appreciated. I benefitted greatly from a dissertation fellowship provided by the Graduate School of the University of Mississippi. I am grateful to Dr. Sheila Skemp who introduced me to US women’s history and for the independent readings she supervised. Dr. Michael Namorato also provided the opportunity for independent study that served particularly useful during comprehensive exams. I would like to thank them both for serving on my dissertation committee. Special thanks is also extended to Dr. Melvin Arrington for agreeing to read this iv dissertation on short notice. In addition, I would like to thank Betsy Hamilton for sharing her family’s records and personal memories concerning Milam Manufacturing and Elizabeth Milam. I am also grateful to Jill Smith of the Union County Heritage Museum for suggesting that I interview Frances Gardner, who provided an eye-witness account of the creation of a home union in the New Albany branch of the Tupelo Garment Company. All of the participants in the North Mississippi Women’s History Project inspired me to continue to focus on the history of North Mississippi. I would also like to acknowledge Joseph Bonica who first researched Tupelo’s labor unrest for his master’s thesis “Stick By the Homefolks” at the University of Mississippi. I appreciate the work of the archivists who assisted my research at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Tab Lewis from the National Archives and Records Administration, and Sarah Malcolm from the FDR Library. Support and encouragement came also from many of my graduate colleagues, who shared in both the excitement and frustrations of research and writing. Discussions with Dionne Bailey, Thom Copeland, Stella Lindsey, Suzanne Farmer and Joe Farmer often provided valuable insight and sparked fresh ideas. Most importantly, I would like to thank my family for the emotional and physical support without which this would not have been possible. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 I. NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT .......................................20 II. COTTON AND COWS: THE SEARCH FOR ECONOMIC STABILITY ..............................................................57 III. "THE FAMOUS STRUGGLE AT TUPELO": THE COTTON MILL STRIKE .........................................................................................85 IV. "THEY FAILED TO STICK": THE TUPELO GARMENT FACTORY .........................................................................111 V. "WE MUST HAVE A UNION": THE STRUGGLE FOR THE GARMENT WORKERS .................................................139 VI. "BOSS LOVE": PATERNALISM AND CLASS-CONSCIOUSNESS .....................................................174 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................204 APPENDIX ......................................................................................................................219 VITA ................................................................................................................................224 vi LIST OF FIGURES 1. MISSISSIPPI REGIONS ...............................................................................................22 2. NATIVE AMERICAN LAND GRANTS .....................................................................26 3. POPULATION 1840-1860 ............................................................................................29 4. SLAVEHOLDERS IN NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI ...................................................30 5. NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI COUNTIES BEFORE DIVISION .................................40 6. NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI COUNTIES AFTER DIVISION ...................................40 7. WHITE FARMERS IN NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI, 1900 ........................................55 8. ALL FARMERS IN NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI, 1900 .............................................56 9. NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI TENANT FARMERS ....................................................62 10. THE TUPELO COTTON MILL .................................................................................69 11. MILL VILLAGE .........................................................................................................72 12. LEE COUNTY DAIRY COWS ..................................................................................76 13. LEE COUNTY MILK PRODUCTION.......................................................................76 14. "SIT DOWN" ADVERTISEMENT ............................................................................91 15. IDA SLEDGE AT THE NLRB HEARING ..............................................................121 vii INTRODUCTION AN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY For years, Southern labor historians focused their attention on the cotton textile industry in the Piedmont. The question often

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