Like a Family

Winner of the 1988 Albert J. Beveridge Award, American Historical Association, Co-Winner of the 1988 Merie Curti History Award in American Social History, Organization of American Historians. Winner of the 1988 Philip Taft Labor History Award.

First published in 1987, this text is based on a series of interviews, letters and articles from the trade press. It uncovers the voices and experiences of workers in the Southern cotton mill industry during the 1920s and 1930s, and offers a significant contribution to American social history.Since its original publication in 1987, Like a Family has become a classic in the study of American labor history. Basing their research on a series of extraordinary interviews, letters, and articles from the trade press, the authors uncover the voices and experiences of workers in the Southern cotton mill industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Now with a new afterword, this edition stands as an invaluable contribution to American social history. ""The genius of Like a Family lies in its effortless integration of the history of the family--particularly women--into the history of the cotton-mill world.""--Ira Berlin, New York Times Book Review "" Like a Family is history, folklore, and storytelling all rolled into one. It is a living, revelatory chronicle of life rarely observed by the academe. A powerhouse.""--Studs Terkel ""Here is labor history in intensely human terms. Neither great impersonal forces nor deadening statistics are allowed to get in the way of people. If students of the New South want both the dimensions and the feel of life and labor in the textile industry, this book will be immensely satisfying.""-- Choice |A classic study of labor history in the textile industry of the South during the 1920s and 30s. The authors drew from extensive interviews, letters, and newspaper articles to reconstruct the lives and struggles of factory workers and their families. This edition includes a new prologue and epilogue.