DRAFT OF HISTORY OF HOSIERY
WORKERS UNION IS INTEREST
INGLY WRITTEN, COVERING A
QUARTER OF A CENTURY
(Taken in Part from Fortune Magazine)
(Continued from Last Week)
The story of a hard-boiled union which does its own wage
cutting, which has entered into an offensive and defensive alli
ance with its manufacturers, and which is the white hope of sta
bilization in a chaotic industry.
Up to 1925, the American Federa
tion of Full Fashioned Hosiery Work
ers (hereinafter known as “The Un
ion”) was just another labor union,
which is to say that it was a com
posite picture of the economic hopes,
fears, and desires of several thousand
human beings. These men and wom
en lived for the most part in Phila
delphia. They lived there because
their existence was bound up in the
great hosiery mills which centered
there. Most of them had another
common characteristic: they wore
glasses. For the making of full-fash
ioned hosiery is a job in which the
years of high production are limited
by eve-strain. Most of the union’s
members were men; skilled knitters,
many of them sons of Nottingham
shire knitters. They spent the major
part of their existences watching the
intricate play of their machines, ad
justing incredibly tiny loops of silk
on incredibly close-set row's of need
les. The women members of the un
ion, less numerous then than now
(when they outnumber the men over
two to one) worked at less highly
paid jobs. They were toppers, loop
ers, seamers, boarders, menders, pair
ers, stampers, boxers—a great army
of auxiliary workers.
All these men and women had come
together in the Union for one great
purpose; to keep their wages at as
high levels as possible. For this, they
had gone through costly strikes, as
in the big Philadelphia 1921 strike,
which cost over $150,000; for this
they had lived for months on strike
pay of $16 a week for married men
and $8 for the unmarried; for this,
many of them ran a daily risk of be
ing fired by non-union employers; for
this, they had stood long watches on
picket duty. Just as in any other
rather small, fairly prosperous indus
try, the fight had been a hard one.
In 1899 the Philadelphia leggers
earned $16 to $18 for a 60-hour week,
footers $20 and $22. They struck
for more money in 1899, were de
feated and were so disgusted with
the defeat that nothing more was
heard of a labor movement in the in
dustry for ten years. But in 1909,
40 or 50 knitters formed their own
local union of the United Textile
Workers—Local 706. The first sev
era! presidents held office without
leaving jobs at the mill. Then in 1911.
Big Frank McKosky, left his knitting
machine to devote his suave persua
siveness to the duties of a business
agent on full time. In 1925 Big
Frank had long returned from lead
ership to chiropractSe and had been
succeeded by a keen, conciliatory lit
tle man named Gustave Geiges, who
was like the elder Rockefeller, a Bap
tist, no Socialist. The little band of
forty had become 4,000 men and 8,000
women. And it was apaprently en
tering the promised land of high
wages. For in 1925 one of the great
post war booms suddenly roared up
like a rocket into the industrial heav
ens.
In 1919, some 6,300,000 dozen pairs
of full-fashioned silk stockings were
produced; in 1925 this figure was
12,300,000 and by 1929 it had reach
ed 26,900,000 dozen—i. e., 322,800,000
pairs of full-fashioned silk stockings
or eight pairs per annum for each
and every United States female above'
ten years of age. This whole boom,
which determined the fortunes of
.thousands of workers, was based on
the distinction between seamless thin
ly cotton) and full fashioned mainly
silk) hosiery. Now seamless stock
ings are knitted as tubes of about the
same diameter throughout. They!
.are pressed into the appearance of
being shaped to the leg—a delusion, j
Full fashioned stockings, on the con-1
trary, are knitted flat with the edges
curved by dropping stitches, so that,
when the two edges are sewed to- j
igether at the seam the stocking real
ly does follow the desired contour.,
Seamless tockings are much cheaper,
lo make, but they do not fit the ankle
if they fit the calf, and vice-versa.!
There was a time when only a very
wealthy or a very wicked woman in-,
dulged in full-fashioned hosiery, and
f NOW!
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—Set resists of a large five-quart tea kettle, two sauce pans, one large roaster with self
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PAYNE-FARRIS CO*
(PHONE 8483 116* S. COLLEGE ST. CHARLOTTE
jwhen seamless stockings (generally
of cotton, were good enough for the
poor but honest working girl. After
the war cane the flapper, and the
contour of the feminine leg emerged
into the open. About 1925, the Am
erican woman of every size, shape,
age and condition hitched her skirt
,up several notches and—“silk stock
inn made short skirts wearable.” The
full-fashioned boom began tentatively
in 1919, sprang into full flower in
1925, and has lasted ever since. It
has outlasted the Flapper; it has
;ven outlasted the short skirt. It has
proved to be as permanent a rise in
the American standard of living as
the post-war automobile boom. In
1919, some 60 per cent of total wom
an’s hosiery consumed was seamless
as against only 20 per cent full-fash
ioned. Today the proportions are al
most reversed, with seamless stabiliz
ed at one-quarter of total produc
tion.
When production of full-fashioned
hosiery was shooting up at a dizzy
rate, anyone could make money in the
industry, so far had demand out
stripped supply. There are tales of
knitters who scraped together their
savings, got liberal bank loans, and
set up as manufacturers with' more or
less success. And there are tales of
the chambers of commerce in such
Pennsylvania towns as Stroudsburg,
Montgomery, Pottstown, or Lebanon
offering to build a mill free of charge
for a budding full-fashioned manu
facturer. New Hosiery Mills sprang
up in'the South and out in the mid
dle West. This ferment of activity
bred two insistent demands; for ma
chines and for knitters to work them.
So frenzied was the demand for ma
chines that Reading Textile Machine
Works, then as now, the only sizable
United States maker of full-fashion
ed machines, had to allot its produc
tion as far as two years ahead. The
full-fashioned machine is not only
about twelve times as expensive as
the seamless ($8,000 as against $600),
but it is also much more complex so
that skilled knitters are required to
wo k—st whereas unskilled girls op
erace seamless macmnes. With knit
iters in demand everywhe •, wage*
.soared up to fabulous heights, until
knitters were getting $75 and more a
.week, and were the highest paid skill
ed labor in the country. There were
.many cases of knitters making $5,000
find over a year. But the manufac
turers apparently cared little what
,wages they paid (non-union shops
were often as well paid as union
shops), providing they got produc
tion. This they got in bigger and
bigger chunks, hut never quite enough
to satisfy them. In the last year of
the boom (1929) the industry’s pro
ductive. capacity actually increased
25 per cent. Which as we shall see,
was 25 per cent too much.
Meanwhile, what of the Union? Its
rank and file, the thousands of knit
ters and toppers and loopers who
worked night and day in the hum
,ming mills of Philadelphia and other
hosiery centers, were uncritically en
thusiastic about the high wages they
were receiving. And there was no
doubt that so far as increasing num
bers were concerned, the Union was
flourishing like a green bay tree. (Of
the 30,000 members of the entire
United Textile Workers in 1929, some
15,000 belonged to the Union we are
considering. But the boom was not
an unmixed blessing to the Union.
While the Union treasury was get
ting comfortably full and the Union
was gaining members, it was losing
ground proportionately in the indus
try. For as new mills opened up,
they showed a natural tendency to
pick out non-union localities. And
some Union mils, anxious to get pro
duction without interruption of labor
troubles, moved away into non-union
territory, became, in the contemptu
ous slang of the Union, a “runaway
mill.” Thus it came about that dur
ing the boom the unionized propor
tion of the industry dropped from
over 75 per cent to under 60 per
cent.
Follow this story and find how you
fit into this picture.
(Continued next week)
"‘REMEMBER . . . You Always Save at Belk Bros.!
MEN’S
FURNISHINGS
For Spring and Easter
At Hulk's
New Spring
Ml I IM S
• Fancies!
• Solids!
• Whites!
97c
These are cf course, fast col
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Also included in this group
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Other Shirts at $1.50
and $2.00
r
Men’s & Young Men’s Pants
A wonderful assortment of men’s
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slacks or regular styles I
and *4II
sen s Ties
Fancy patterns and
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Unusual values at
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25c
Easter Ties
Colorful ties for your
Easter outfit. They’re
lined with wool and
are hard to wrinkle.
Others at fi7e.
18i'
Men's and Jfoun^ Men’s
Sweaters
BMW sweaters-come in-all -the popular shades and
pattens far spring. They eome in slip-oser, button To
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Junior Stetsons
Here is the type hat
that will be very
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Youthful models and
smart spring colors.
50
Men's Socks
These are selected ir
regulars of regular
50c sox . . . made
bv a famous maker.
Fancy patterns,
plaids and clocks.
25r
Men’s Xew Sprint* Hats
Lightweight felts will be very popular this spring.
They are shown in light greys, tans, browns and $*^95
blues. Rolled or narrow brims. Be sure that you get * Jm'~r
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Men’s Department—Street Floor
BELK BROS, CO.
CHARLOTTE, H. C.
Pender Stores
Aaatrer Yo«r Problem# o#
ECONOMY
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The Union Lebel is the O. K. uunn
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USE . . .
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DOMESTIC LAUNDRY
Phone SI71
(DjumL
FOREMOST MILK
jUL dfjialihfyuL
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Phones 711C—7117
|
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Charlotte's Pioneer Optometrist
Eyes Examined — Glasses Fitted
Respector of Better Eyeglasses
Since 1899
109 Vi Sooth Church Street
A Complete Optical Service
Phone 3-4864
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