Labor

Organized as the Pittsburgh Reduction Company in 1888, the company changed its name in 1907 to the Aluminum Company of America and began using the acronym ALCOA in the early 1900s after applying the acronym to company-owned sites in Tennessee.…

Developed by the Jackson Fibre Company (a division of the Bemis Brothers Bag Company) beginning in 1900, the town of Bemis rose from the cotton fields of Madison County as a model company town created by the vision of Judson…

George L. Berry was president of the Tennessee-based International Pressmen's and Assistants Union (1907-48), a prominent labor leader and advisor who served on several New Deal labor committees during the 1930s, and U.S. senator from Tennessee (1937-38). Born in Lee…

Influential labor leader Paul Revere Christopher was born in Easley, South Carolina, the son of Clarence Christopher, a craft unionist. Christopher graduated from high school in 1930 and attended Clemson Agricultural College. In 1931 he returned to the textile mills,…

From 1866 to 1896 Tennessee state government adopted the widely used convict lease system to make prisons self-supporting and provide revenue to fund the state debt. Under this system, the state leased prisoners to private companies and made them responsible…

On March 12, 1929, Margaret Bowen, a worker at American Glanzstoff, led a walkout of 523 women operatives. After other shifts joined the walkout the next day, the plant closed on March 14. Four days later Bemberg workers struck in…

While New England is the birthplace of America's textile industry and the Carolinas are known for massive textile production, the small town of Englewood, Tennessee, serves as a reminder of the ties between industry, workers, and the resulting community. Covering…

Gerald Foley, union organizer and president of the Tennessee Federation of Labor, was a native of Pennsylvania. Foley's family moved to Nashville when he was a boy. A plumber by trade, he joined organized labor while still in his teens…

The worst mine disaster in Tennessee history took place on May 19, 1902, at the Fraterville mine, near Coal Creek (now Lake City), Campbell County. At about 7:30 a.m., 184 men and boys entered the mine. Minutes later a horrendous…

Lizzie Crozier French, organizer of the Knoxville Equal Suffrage Association, president of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association and the Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs, and state chair of the National Woman's Party, was one of five daughters born to John…

On July 1, 1933, textile workers at the Harriman Hosiery Mills (HHM) plant in Harriman seized the opportunity created by Section 7 (a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act to organize a local union of the Hosiery Workers, part of…

The history of the Highlander Folk School reflects the course of organized labor and Civil Rights movements in the South, as well as the struggles of southern activists between the 1930s and early 1960s. Established near Monteagle in 1932 by…

Chartered in 1961, the Highlander Research and Education Center is the institutional successor of the Highlander Folk School. The adult education center operates in a considerably different context, however, working with more diverse, complex, and far-reaching issues and constituencies. Its…

Myles F. Horton, a founder and director of both the Highlander Folk School and the Highlander Research and Education Center, was a progressive educator whose programs not only contributed significantly to the labor and Civil Rights movements, but also made…

Zilphia J. Horton, activist and artist, was born in Paris, Arkansas, as Zilphia Mae Johnson. A graduate of the College of the Ozarks, she grew up determined to use her musical and dramatic talents on behalf of the southern working…

The International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union of North America (IPPAU-NA), was organized in 1889, when disgruntled pressmen and press feeders left the International Typographical Union (ITU) and, with the combined membership of thirteen locals, formed a new pressmen's union.…

Founded in 1869 by a group of Philadelphia tailors, the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor grew slowly as a secret organization under the leadership of Uriah Stephens. In 1879, when Terence V. Powderly, a machinist and…

In the case of Knoxville Iron Company v. Harbison (183 U.S. 13) the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an 1899 Tennessee statute requiring cash redemption of store orders and other noncash payments to employees. At issue was a suit brought against…

In its broadest context, "labor" refers to a very diverse set of conditions: slave and free labor; craft and industrial labor; farm and factory labor; and blue, pink, and white collar labor. Because there are few theses, dissertations, or secondary…

The Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad achieved national recognition as one of the most profitable and influential railroads in the southern market from the second half of the nineteenth to well into the twentieth century. The foundation for the company's…