Working the Shift

Working the Shift. . Turning raw cotton into cloth was a multi-step process. As a result, textile mills had different jobs all along the production chain. In the opening room, men unfastened cotton bales and loaded them into cleaning and fluffing machines. From there cotton moved to the picker room where workers cleaned it further and machines formed it into large sheets. Employees in the carding room oversaw the formation of clean, uniform, cotton ropes called slivers. Machines rolled these slivers out and others twisted them until they became thinner and stronger. In the spinning room, women tied broken threads and operated machinery that wound the fibers tighter, and doffers replaced full spools. Spoolers transferred the yarn from spool to spool, and workers in the slashing room coated the yarn with starch to make it strong enough for weaving. Finally, in the weave room, workers “drew-in” or threaded the looms according to the cloth pattern, and the weavers operated the looms., Workers’ jobs depended on their age, gender, and race. Pay rates were linked to the job workers performed as well as their experience, speed and skill. In 1904, a weave room supervisor could expect to earn around $15.00 per week, while a doffer would make as little as $2.40. Some employees earned a set hourly or weekly wage; others received pay based on their production rates. Most earned between $3.00 and $7.00 weekly. During the late nineteenth century, mill hands usually worked six twelve-hour days each week. Not until 1938 did the eight-hour day become standard., It seems like me and Jim’s got old with the mill but age aint hurt the mill none. When it slows down it can git new parts and we caint. What’s worse we soon aint goin’ to have money to buy rations for feeding our wore-out bodies. The mill keeps makin’ money but it has to give to them that’s young and strong, I reckon, and even to them it caint give a regular livin’. , Mary Smith, Durham, North Carolina, Textile mills operated on a family based labor system. Mill owners recruited entire families from the countryside to live in mill housing and work in the mills. Once a part of the mill village, many families found that members of the larger community were prejudiced toward them. This was especially true in urban areas where those who lived in town referred to mill folk as “poor white trash,” and “linthead.”, Adapting from farm to millwork was difficult for other reasons as well. Workers had to keep up with the pace of machines and endure noisy, hot, crowded conditions. On the farm, they had set their own schedules and ordered tasks according to need; in the mill, their time belonged to the mill owner, and work never ended. Millwork, according to Chester Copeland, “was nothing but a robot life…there’s no challenge to it – just drudgery. The more you do, the more they want done.” Others, however, found paid work rewarding. Icy Norman discovered, “after I got used to being in there, I really loved my work… I got pleasure out of it, and it made me happy to do my job.”