Oral history interview with Eula McGill, February 3, 1976
Subtitle: interview G-0040-1, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2006
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Women labor union members; Women textile workers; Labor unions; Officials and employees; Textile workers; Social life and customs; Depressions; Organizing; Strikes and lockouts; Textile industry; Dwight Manufacturing Company; Women's Trade Union League; Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
Other titles: Interview G-0040-1, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Eula McGill, February 3, 1976; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: This is the first part of a two-part interview with union activist Eula McGill. McGill describes what it was like to grow up in various mill towns in Georgia and Alabama during the early twentieth century. Born in Resaca, Georgia, in 1911, McGill grew up in Sugar Valley, Georgia, where her father worked in the Gulf State steel mill. McGill describes her childhood and early education in this mill town, focusing on her early awareness of union activism in the town. At the age of 14, McGill had to leave school because of her family's economic hardships; she found work in a textile mill as a spinner in the Dwight textile mills. During her teen years, McGill continued to work in textile mills, during which time she briefly married and gave birth to a son. Because she had to work, McGill's parents became the primary caregivers for her child. In the late 1920s, McGill moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where she briefly worked at the candy counter at Kress's department store. Shortly thereafter, McGill migrated to Selma, Alabama, where she returned to the textiles industry as a spinner at Selma Manufacturing. McGill describes working during the early years of the Depression, when it became increasingly difficult to make ends meet. During the early 1930s, McGill became involved in labor activism and helped to organize a local union and general strike in 1934. Following that, she moved up in the ranks of the labor movement as a labor organizer. She emphasizes her work with the Women's Trade Union League and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union. In addition, she explains some of the obstacles that the labor movement faced in the South and what it was like to be a single woman who worked as a labor organizer.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on May 6, 2008).

Interview participants: Eula McGill, interviewee; Jacquelyn Hall, interviewer.

Duration: 03:49:44.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Mike Millner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 365.3 kilobytes, 420 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series G, Southern women, interview G-0040-1, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Patricia Crowley. Original transcript: 95 p.

Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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