Michelle Haberland - Striking Beauties: Women Apparel Workers in the U.S. South, 1930-2000

A project that takes as long as this one to complete results in a long list of acknowledgments. It is my particular pleasure, after all these years, to finally have an opportunity to thank all of those who supported me on the long journey to this point.

The Graduate School Fellowship at Tulane University provided me with five years of funding that helped me to research and write the dissertation on which this book is based. In addition, a Womens Studies Grant from the Newcomb Center for Research on Women provided financing for an additional research trip.

Clarence Mohr, my advisor at Tulane University, guided me and the project from the very beginning. His vision for this book and his unparalleled knowledge of southern history inspired me to recognize the importance of the apparel industry to the field of southern history. Moreover, he never lost faith in me, or the project, even when I moved several states away.

Without the mentorship and advice of Robert Zieger, I would surely never have completed this project. Many years ago, Bob inspired me to think of workers in new ways, and in many ways his own work is reflected in the pages that follow. Bob taught me the meaning of the role of mentor in every way. I treasure his counsel and guidance, even more now that he has gone.

Without the kind and helpful folks at the Southern Labor Archives I would undoubtedly have floundered among stacks of boxes. Archivists Annie Tilden, Bob Dinwiddie, Julia Young, and Traci JoLeigh Drummond were especially helpful, as they drew my attention to relevant collections and shared their extensive knowledge of southern labor history. I have begun the process of sending the recordings of the oral histories I conducted to the Southern Labor Archives, for I can imagine no better place to safeguard and respect these accounts of the lives of southern workers.

Emily Clark and Jeffrey Turner deserve a special mention, for it was in our classes at Tulane that this project was first conceived. I will always treasure their good humor and the lasting friendships that developed out of our shared passion for southern history. They are the truest of colleagues.

Since my arrival at Georgia Southern University, I have been fortunate to join a group of colleagues who helped me to persevere and see this project to its conclusion. From the moment I stepped on campus, Annette Laing, Sandy Peacock, and Cathy Skidmore-Hess demonstrated an interest in this project and offered support in a myriad of ways, from reading drafts to invitations to tea at just the right moment. I thank them for making me feel so welcome in the community of scholars and bright minds that they have created down here in southeast Georgia. Special thanks to my dear friends and colleagues Laura Shelton and Jon Bryant for reading drafts and patiently enduring yet another discussion about garment workers. But mostly I want to thank them for helping me to realize that compassion is the historians strongest analytical tool.

At different stages, this book has benefited from careful critiques by Bruce Clayton, Janet Davidson, Mary Frederickson, Kenneth Fones-Wolf, Rebecca Sharpless, John Salmond, Melissa Walker, Jonathan Daniel Wells, Sheila R. Phipps, and an anonymous reader for the University of Georgia Press. Their comments strengthened the manuscript tremendously and I am especially grateful for their insights.

My friendships outside of academe provided me with necessary diversions, reminding me that life continued outside of libraries and apparel factories. The evening assemblages of friends at neighborhood dog parks in New Orleans and Atlanta were particularly welcome respites from the academic world. Andrea Goetze Wilkes is one of those people you come across only rarely in a single lifetime. An attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, Andrea has reminded me of the real-life struggles of workers today and, in so doing, has made the story of the workers in these pages all the more meaningful and compelling. Chris and Jennifer Higgins and Lori Blank and Eric Braun learned long ago to stop asking me about the-project-that-cannot-be-named. Instead, they offered patient support and wonderful distractions in long talks about the South, politics, and the joys and trials of parenting. The friends weve embraced along the way have enriched this project by making it seem so relevant, while at the same time providing a space away from it.

As I traveled through Alabama, it was my great fortune to meet Paula McLendon. Her commitment to social justice for workers rivals that of anyone I have ever met. Paula introduced me to a diverse network of clothing workers in Alabama and provided the necessary contacts for the oral histories that are the backbone of this project. Many thanks are owed to Bobbie and Bill Malone, for they introduced me to Gussie Woodest and thus the first oral history of this project was born. A special word of appreciation is owed to all of the apparel workers and unionists whom I interviewed over the years. Together they helped this historian understand not only the nature of work and life in a southern apparel town but also the true dimensions of southern hospitality.

And finally, I thank my family for being so supportive of my academic and professional pursuits. My father, mother, and sister knew, probably long before I did, that eventually I would finish this book. My sister and mother spent many long hours encouraging me to forge ahead and for that and so many other things, I will be forever grateful. My father has always been a passionate teacher and an academic at heart. He knows, better than anyone, that without his inspiration I would never have attempted a life in academe.

There are no words to adequately express my gratitude for Glen Hamilton. He wisely refrained from reading drafts of the book, despite my repeated requests, but his keen mind and clever wit are evidenced on virtually every page.

Finally, I dedicate this book to my daughter, Norah Maureen Hamilton, in the hopes that she will come to understand that all labor has dignity.

Many of the statistical data presented in this volume are based on one consistent group of statistical records: the Economic Census of Manufactures. This publication began in 1809 as a way to measure the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy. Over the course of many years the census underwent substantial revisions, making comparability from one year to another a sometimes complicated issue. Nevertheless, the regularity of the publication, every two years in the beginning and later every five years, provides a relatively consistent perspective on the nations manufacturing sector.

Working backward, between 1997 and 1954 the data were published every four or five years. The federal government published the census unevenly between 1937 and 1954. The Census Bureau suspended the publication of the census during World War II, resuming it in 1947. There was another fairly long interval of seven years between the first two postwar censuses. The census was scheduled to resume in 1953 but did not actually appear until 1954. So between 1937 and 1947 and between 1947 and 1954, there were no Census of Manufactures reports. And in 1954, when the census resumed publication, the format underwent several important revisions.

From a comparability perspective, there are several problems with the data for 1937. Standard Industrial Classification (sic) codes were developed after the 1937 census. The sic is a system for dividing the manufacturing sector into large industry groups. Within each large industry are smaller branches of the same industry. So, for instance, the sic code for the apparel industry is 23, while the sic code for the textile industry is 22. The last Standard Industrial Classification system lists apparel under Major Group 23: Apparel and Other Finished Products Made from Fabrics and Similar Materials. Within the apparel industry group are dozens of subdivisions for different types of mens apparel, womens apparel, and accessories. Projecting the large industry classification backward in time is difficult and may have resulted in some incomparability issues. In order to provide some general level of comparison, though, for this study the data from each smaller branch of industry (from brassieres and corsets to mens, youths, and boys clothing) were combined to create an apparel industry total for each state. Each of the branches of the apparel industry that follow was listed separately in the 1937 census.