Abstract
This journal examines in details the Elizabethton strike This was a protest of women textile factory workers in Elizabethton ,Tennessee on March 12 ,1929.This strike has since become a very important part of the of the southern Appalachian labor history ,showing women’s distinctive forms of the collective action ,using both gesture and language a points of a culture. Through exceptional description of the sophisticated cultural identity expressed by these striking female workers as depicted in the case of Texas Bill and Trixie Perry ;Association between sexual misbehavior and women’s labor militancy ;Impact the event on other people’s lives. These strikes helped shaped the relation between workers union and the management forever.
On that date, Margaret Bowen led other hundreds of fellow women workers in a walk out. They protested against low wages, unfaireness in the promotion policies, and petty regulations of that only applied for the female workers. Also, they were raising their objection to them being forced to rent houses at high rates.
The women gained a lot of sympathy and emotional support from many people in the USA at this time. Other plants’ management also became under lots of pressure to address the welfare
.At the onset of the strike, there was no active union of workers at the plants. The strike was really devastating .It cost the plants hundred thousand of dollars .Hundred of workers were blacklisted leading to another strike in September 1929.
Meanwhile workers refused to end their strike until the time they had salary increment and reactivated their local union .Besides these all kind s of discrimination at the work place were done away with.This did not solve the issue of strike On April 13 and 14 ,the management sacked members of two Bamberg grievances committees .
The legacy of the year 1929 widespread and multifaceted .As a result of the Local 1630’s defeat and the treatment of the workers ,there was far stretched mistrust and bitterness .This has marked these have become part of laborers and management even today. However, the violence that accompanied the strikes generated a lot of union opposition among many workers. Many sources credit the Elizabethton strikes as the pioneers of a wave of strikes that swept across the Piedmont textile industries from 1929-1930.
The exact role is still a controversial issue of debate among the southern labor historians. Some dispute its contribution to the labor relations while others support it
References
Jacqueline Dowd Hall, "Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South," Journal of American History 73 (September 1986): 355-56.
Brody, David. Worker in Industrial America: Essays on the Twentieth century.USA, Oxford Press,1993.
