The rise in standards of living throughout the U. S. in the wake of
World War II brought significant changes to the lives of southern
textile workers. Mill workers' wages rose, their purchasing power grew,
and their economic expectations increased--with little help from the
unions. Timothy Minchin argues that the reasons behind the failure of
textile unions in the postwar South lie not in stereotypical assumptions
of mill workers' passivity or anti-union hostility but in these
large-scale social changes. Minchin addresses the challenges faced by
the TWUA--competition from nonunion mills that matched or exceeded union
wages, charges of racism and radicalism within the union, and conflict
between its northern and southern branches--and focuses especially on
the devastating general strike of 1951. Drawing extensively on oral
histories and archival records, he presents a close look at southern
textile communities within the context of the larger history of southern
labor, linking events in the textile industry to the broader social and
economic impact of World War II on American society.