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Sisterhood Denied: Race, Gender, and Class in a New South Community: Chronology

Sisterhood Denied: Race, Gender, and Class in a New South Community
Chronology
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table of contents
  1. Cover
  2. Series Page
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. Foreword
  8. Acknowledgments
  9. Contents
  10. Tables and Maps
  11. Chronology
  12. I. Intentions
  13. II. Making Factories Without Walls
  14. III. In the Fields
  15. IV. The Human Harvest
  16. V. Capitalists and Patriarchs
  17. VI. In the Factory
  18. VII. The Other Workplace
  19. VIII. Beyond the Fragments
  20. Appendix
  21. Notes
  22. Index

Chronology

1854North Carolina Railway comes to Durham’s station.
1869Blackwell Durham Tobacco Company is incorporated.
1870Julian Shakespeare Carr, son of wealthy Chapel Hill merchant, buys into Blackwell firm producing Bull Durham smoking tobacco.
1874James B., Washington, and Benjamin Duke move into Durham to establish a factory.
1881County of Durham is formed. The Dukes decide to begin cigarette making in Durham; Blackwell Durham follows.
1884W. Duke & Sons begins using the Bonsack cigarette-making machine. James B. Duke goes to New York to seek capital, markets, expertise, and cheaper labor; he establishes a factory in New York City. Durham Cotton Manufacturing Company is founded in East Durham.
1885The Dukes begin full-scale mechanized production of cigarettes in Durham and begin hiring local workers.
1887Cigarmakers Progressive Union and the Knights of Labor become active in Durham. Blackwell Durham Company abandons cigarette production.
1888The last skilled hand-cigarette maker is displaced from the Duke factory.
1890sOther textile mills are founded in Durham with profits from the tobacco industry.
1890American Tobacco Company is founded by the merger of five leading cigarette companies; James B. Duke becomes president.
1892Erwin Cotton Mills Company is founded.
1894Golden Belt and Durham Hosiery Company are founded.
1894–98The Populist-Republican fusion begins to win state offices.
1898White supremacy campaign by the Democratic Party brings it back into office. The Carrs organize Durham Hosiery Mills. Blackwell Durham Tobacco Company is taken over by American Tobacco Company.
1900Disfranchisement campaign succeeds in securing constitutional amendment to restrict suffrage. Textile workers strike Erwin Mills and other companies across the Piedmont.
1901Major North Carolina textile companies, including Erwin Mills, meet and decide not to hire any worker dismissed from mills for union activity.
1903Durham Hosiery Mills opens the first mill run with black labor.
1905Washington Duke dies as the last Duke in active oversight of local industry.
1910Erwin Mills builds No. 4 plant next to Erwin No. 1 in West Durham.
1911U.S. Supreme Court breaks up American Tobacco Company into eight constituent companies. Liggett and Myers takes over the W. Duke Company factories; American Tobacco Company takes over the Blackwell Durham Tobacco Company; each receives one-fourth of the cigarette business formerly controlled by the trust. Cigarette production returns to importance in Durham tobacco industry.
1918–19Following wartime inflation and labor scarcity, union activity begins in Durham among tobacco, textile, and hosiery workers.
1919Durham Hosiery Mills begins experiment in industrial democracy for white employees.
1920–21Panic and recession lead to a sharp drop in tobacco and cotton prices; wages are reduced 40 percent; industrial democracy experiment ends.
1924Julian S. Carr dies.
1925–29Workers renew efforts to organize; employers systematically use mutual cooperation, industrial espionage, welfare activities, dismissals, and other methods to prevent successful organization.
1933Passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act gives workers the right to organize. TWIU sends an organizer into Durham; Local 176 at L and M and Local 183 at American are founded.
1934United Textile Workers organize locals in Durham, stage General Textile Strike. Local 194 at L and M is founded; Local 193 at American is also founded but disappears. In September, all textile mills in Durham close down.
1935L and M becomes the first employer to bargain with industrial employees in Durham.
1936Local 183 wins its first contract from American Tobacco Company.
1937Textile Workers Organizing Committee launches a drive to organize southern textile workers; TWOC organizer arrives in Durham to aid locals in West Durham and Golden Belt. Local 208 of the TWIU is founded, breaking away from Local 194 at L and M.
1938Local 246 of TWOC wins a landslide victory at Erwin Mills, begins negotiations for a contract. Local 208 receives the first contract for a black industrial union in Durham from L and M. Passage of Fair Labor Standards Acts eliminates homework and imposes minimum wage. Tagging the bulls ends in Durham. Massive layoffs of black women employed as stemmers begins.
1939Strike by Locals 176 and 208 wins preferential shop from L and M. Local 194 signs its first contract with L and M.
1940Strike held at Erwin Mills over workloads and failure to negotiate contract.
1941Under pressure from the federal government, Erwin Mills signs a contract with Local 246, Textile Workers Union of America (CIO).

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