Tag: Cotton Mills

Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Union Bulletin: “Child Slavery in the South” by Gilson Gardner

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote, Suffer Little Children, CIR May 14, 1915

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 29, 1907
Gaston County, North Carolina – Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of October 26, 1907:

Child Slavery in the South

Gilson Gardner in Chicago Journal.

Child Labor in South by G Gardner 1, W-B Ldr p7, Oct 5, 1907

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What about child labor in the south? Is it really true that small children work in cotton mills at night? or are those stories exaggerated?

I came here to see, because Gaston county has more mills then any county in a state that has more mills than any state in the south.

I find: Little girls, of an age to still care for dolls, working all night in the mills, pacing up and down between the long spinning frames, in a jar and roar of wheels. I find bright-faced little American girls, 8 to 12 years of age, toiling bare-footed in the heat and flying lint. These children tell me they can not read the words on my business card, because they have “most forgot” what they learned in the “second reader.”

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Mother Jones on the Iniquities of Child Labor in the South

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones, Stand with Working People, LW, Dec 15, 1906

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 19, 1906
From The Labor World: Young Lives Ground Up for Profit

Mother Jones March of the Mill Children, 1903, with text

Mother Jones has never forgotten the cruelty of Child Labor since the summer of 1903 when she led the mill children of Philadelphia on a march to Oyster Bay. They made the long trek in the summer heat in order that they might tell President Roosevelt about the hardships of their lives spent at work instead of in school. The President refused to meet with the children and Mother takes a few jabs at the “Great Prosperity” President in the following article on the subject of Child Labor in the American South.

BABY WAGE-EARNERS IN
SOUTHERN MILLS
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“Mother” Jones Writes Stirring
Article on Iniquities of
Child Labor in South.
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Cotton Mills Produce a Type of
Children Easily Recognized
As Most Puny.
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(By “Mother” Jones.)

After thirteen years of absence I returned to see what improvements had been made in the industrial conditions of the mill workers of the sunny south.

I found that there had been marvelous progress made as far as the mills and machinery were concerned. Looking at the advancement in that line, one would think that the day of rest for the workers must be near. Instead of bringing rest and leisure to the workers, however, this perfected machinery brings only a more merciless exploitation than was ever practiced before. With the advancement in machinery has come a corresponding advance in the methods of exploitation. That is all the difference the improvements have made upon the workers.

I stood one morning in the early dawn and I watched the slaves as they entered the pen of capitalism. I could see the shadows of the slaves passing along in the brush to the mill at twenty minutes to six in the morning. Children, roused from the heavy sleep of youth, left their beds reluctantly and entered the institution of capitalism to create wealth for others to enjoy.

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