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Lintheads and Barons: Filling the Silences of the Loray Mill Strike

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Lintheads and Barons: Filling the Silences of the Loray Mill Strike GRIFFIN, SALLY WYATT, Ph.D. Lintheads and Barons: Filling the Silences in the Loray Mill Strike. (2009) Directed by Dr. Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater. 149 pp. This dissertation intends by contextual analysis to examine a Southern textile community and through its literature—formal and informal, and written before, during, and after the 1929 Lora Mill strike—to show how the stories of this community construct a “figured world” in which identities were formed and lives were made possible through the genres and language practices of different social groups in Gaston County. It argues that each discourse—that of the mill barons, the mill workers, and the communist labor organizers— developed primarily along lines of money and social class, and shows how each discourse defines itself and is subsequently defined, silenced, and/or given voice by the others. It studies the genres of each written discourse (histories, newspapers, dramatic presentations, songs, and other studies) from a power standpoint that each genre maintains this particular social context. LINTHEADS AND BARONS: FILLING THE SILENCES OF THE LORAY MILL STRIKE by Sally Wyatt Griffin A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2009 Approved by Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater Committee Chair © 2009 by Sally Wyatt Griffin APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater Committee Members Nancy Myers Hepzibah Roskelly July 8, 2009 Date of Acceptance by Committee July 8, 2009 Date of Final Oral Examination ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my chair, Dr. Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, who helped me work through the many stages of this endeavor and who offered encouragement in the most hopeless times. I also wish thank the members of my committee: to Dr. Hepzibah Roskelly, whose guidance through the theory of Kenneth Burke was invaluable, and to Dr. Nancy Myers, who guided me through the writing styles and helped me reach the other side. I also wish to thank Dr. Lil Brannon who read the same draft over and over and explained premises over and over and demanded that I not give up. And I extend heartfelt gratitude to my Skype buddies who stayed up way past their bedtimes to offer encouragement and advice. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. GASTON COUNTY: THE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE DISCOURSES ............... 1 Terms of the Argument ............................................................................. 2 Situating My Interests ............................................................................... 4 The Intentions of the Study ....................................................................... 6 Language as Identity and as Power ........................................................... 7 Theoretical Background .......................................................................... 11 Overview of Chapters ............................................................................. 17 Chapter II: The Barons: A Discourse of Power ............................ 17 Chapter III: The Workers Sing Their Misery ............................... 22 Chapter IV: The Communists Hide Motives in the Labor Movement .............................................................................. 24 Chapter V: Church Members and Mill Workers: Remembering the Hard Times ....................................................................... 25 Conclusion ............................................................................................. 27 II. THE CULTURE OF OWNERSHIP: BARONS CONSTRUCT THE COMMUNITY........................................................................................... 29 Women’s Clubs Perform: A Pageant to Celebrate the Successes ............. 35 Minnie Stowe Puett: Teacher and Sister of Early Textile Giant Defines the County ............................................................................ 42 R. L. Stowe Sr.: A Memory of Self ......................................................... 50 Joseph Separk’s Directories .................................................................... 54 Conclusion ............................................................................................. 61 III. DISADVANTAGED PLACES: THE WORKERS SEARCH FOR RECOGNITION ........................................................................................ 63 Ella May Wiggins Transgresses in Full Sight .......................................... 68 Children Write ........................................................................................ 85 Dave McCarn Sings about the Mills ....................................................... 86 Conclusion ............................................................................................. 90 IV. AGENTS OF REFORM: UNION LEADERS SPIN THE STRIKE STORY ..................................................................................................... 93 iv Laying Blame: William F. Dunne Reverses the Roles ............................. 97 Fred Beal: Reaching Understanding through Symbolic Death ............... 104 Communist Woman: Vera Buch Weisbord Personalizes the Workers ........................................................................................... 113 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 120 V. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF STORIES: VOICES AND SILENCES .......... 122 Bertha ................................................................................................... 128 Harold .................................................................................................. 133 John ...................................................................................................... 135 Norma .................................................................................................. 138 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 140 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 143 v 1 CHAPTER I GASTON COUNTY: THE INSIDE AND THE OUTSIDE DISCOURSES Methods of talking and ways of seeing issues often evolve in communities along social and economic lines. These discourses require and sometimes create speaking and writing genres that define the communities and map out the power structures that further define and divide the members of the community. Individuals define themselves, define others, and negotiate power through the discourses in which they participate. This dissertation intends to examine a Southern textile community and through its literature— formal and informal and written before, during, and after the 1929 Loray Mill strike— show how the stories of this community construct a world in which identities are formed and lives are made possible through the genres and language practices of the various social groups. It argues that each of three discourses—the mill barons, the mill workers, and the communist labor organizers—developed primarily along lines of money and social class and shows how each discourse defines itself and is subsequently defined, silenced, and/or given voice by the others. It studies how each discourse employs genres in relation to the power or lack of power that each genre maintains in this particular geographical and social context. In the early years of the nineteenth century Gaston County, North Carolina, was a quiet place, carved out of two adjoining counties, and butted against the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The seeming peacefulness of the county was interrupted in 1848 2 when the first pieces of textile machinery rolled into the county and the beginning industrialization divided the people into two groups; owners and workers. Within sixty years the communists arrived to start labor unions and each group established its own discourse, privileging some and disprivileging others, each with its obvious motives and its hidden motives, each with its silences. The ensuing battle of ideals became one of the bitterest of the management-labor disputes in the United States textile industry and its effects are evident in Gaston County today, nearly a century later. It is within this context that the mill barons, the mill workers, and the communist union organizers established their unique discourses. This contextual analysis follows the prescriptions set forth by Harold Bazerman and Paul Prior: a contention that “regards particular rhetorical acts as parts of larger communicative chains, or conversations” (183). The discourses of each of the three social groups act and react within the larger context of the community as a whole and define themselves and the others in relation to this community. Just as these discourses are dependent on each other, they also operate independently of each other and so demand that the contextual analysis be combined with a textual analysis to understand what Bazerman and Prior refer to as the interplay between the two (362). It is within this intertextuality that the motives of each discourse can be observed and understood most fully. Terms of the Argument Linguist James Paul Gee argues that discourse situates us in relation to others and defines our possibilities and gives us access to live within and outside the
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