A Fabric of Defeat
The Politics of South Carolina Millhands, 1910-1948
Bryant Simon
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 11/2000
Pages: 368
Subject: History, Political Science
| University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807864494
DESCRIPTION
Taking a broad view of politics, Simon looks at laborers as they
engaged in political activity in many venues--at the polling
station, on front porches, and on the shop floor--and examines
their political involvement at the local, state, and national
levels. He describes the campaign styles and rhetoric of such
politicians as Coleman Blease and Olin Johnston (himself a former
millhand), who eagerly sought the workers' votes. He draws a
detailed picture of mill workers casting ballots, carrying
placards, marching on the state capital, writing to lawmakers, and
picketing factories. These millhands' politics reflected their
public and private thoughts about whiteness and blackness,
war and the New Deal, democracy and justice, gender and sexuality,
class relations and consumption.
Ultimately, the people depicted here are neither romanticized nor
dismissed as the stereotypically racist and uneducated "rednecks"
found in many accounts of southern politics. Southern workers
understood the political and social forces that shaped their lives,
argues Simon, and they developed
complex political strategies to deal with those forces.
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