In this book, Bryant Simon brings to life the politics of white South
Carolina millhands during the first half of the twentieth century. His
revealing and moving account explores how this group of southern
laborers thought about and participated in politics and public power.
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.
