The 1914–1915 Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills strike was a labor strike involving several hundred textile workers from the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The strike, which involved about 500 millworkers, began on May 20, 1914, and ended almost a year later on May 15, 1915, in failure for the strikers.
The Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills was a cotton mill facility located in Atlanta's Cabbagetown neighborhood that began operations in the late 1800s. By the early 1900s, it was one of the largest mills in the American South and the largest industrial employer in the city. However, workers criticized many aspects of the mills, including several unpopular company policies, unsafe working conditions, and the use of child labor in the mills. In 1897, the mills saw two labor strikes that contributed to a greater push for unionization within the mills. In October 1913, following another brief strike, workers organized as Local 886 of the United Textile Workers of America (UTW). In response, the company hired private investigators to infiltrate the mills and report union activity back to the supervisors. On May 20, 1914, in response to the company firing over 100 union members, several hundred millworkers went on strike.
Shortly after the outset of the strike, the company evicted striking families from their company-owned houses. Many found shelter in a boarding house rented out by the UTW. In addition to this, the UTW and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) provided abundant financial and organizational support for the strike, as they saw the success of this strike as an important gateway to further textile organizing in the southern states. The strike attracted many noted labor activists, including Sara Agnes Mclaughlin Conboy and Ola Delight Smith, and many public organizations in the city supported the strike. These groups included the Social Gospel-oriented Men and Religion Forward Movement and the Atlanta Federation of Trades. The former petitioned for federal intervention to arbitrate an end to the strike, while the latter provided several thousand dollars in financial support. However, despite the public support, the company took a hardline stance against the strike and refused to negotiate. Due to the labor surplus in the city at that time, striking workers were easily replaced and production levels quickly returned to pre-strike levels. Additionally, the company hired a private investigation firm to spy on the union, with one spy rising in the ranks of the union and corresponding regularly with the strike leaders. By August, with finances dwindling, the union opened a tent city in lieu of its rented boardinghouse. Several months later, however, the UTW and AFL restated their commitment to the strike and UTW President John Golden even traveled to Atlanta to lead the strike himself. However, by February 1915, Golden had returned to UTW headquarters and many strikers were pessimistic about their chances of securing a favorable outcome. While efforts persisted for several more months, on May 15, the strike was officially called off and the tent city was dismantled. Many of the strikers never worked for Fulton Bag and Cotton again.
Historians contend that the strike was among the first major textile strikes in the Southern United States, with historian Gary M. Fink referring to it as "[t]he southern equivalent of the great 1912 "Bread and Roses" textile strike". Historian Jacquelyn Dowd Hall stated that it was the first strike in the region that received significant support from the AFL and UTW, while historian Joseph B. Atkins considers it a precursor to other textile strike action in the region, including the 1929 Loray Mill strike and the 1934 Textile workers strike. Historians have also discussed reasons for the strike's failure, which they commonly attribute to the labor surplus caused by mass migration to Atlanta from the surrounding area, an emphasis on racial rather than class solidarity among the mills' white workers, a hardline anti-union stance from the company, and a lack of participation from rank and file strikers in strike decision-making.
Background
Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills
In 1868, businessman Jacob Elsas formed the Elsas, May and Company in Atlanta in order to produce paper bags for use in carrying dry goods, such as flour and sugar. By 1870, the company was also producing cotton bags, and in 1876, in an act of vertical integration, Elsas chartered his own textile mill in Atlanta. This mill began operations in 1881, and in 1889, Elsas rechristened his business ventures the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills, Inc. By this time, the company was the single largest industrial employer in the city. By the early 1900s, the mills were one of the largest in the Southern United States, with the company's facility including four textile factories and several warehouse and machine shops. According to historian Mark K. Bauman, Elsas employed industrial paternalism within his company and the mills. In the Factory Lot neighborhood where the mills were located (later renamed Factory Town and now known as Cabbagetown), the company operated a clinic while Elsas supported a settlement house in the area and offered to build a school near the mills if the government of Atlanta agreed to maintain it. In addition, jobs at the mills offered above-average wages while rent for lodging near the facilities were fairly low.
However, many workers worked long shifts in unsafe working conditions, and child labor was prevalent, with many children employed in the mills. Additionally, the company leveled fines against employees for a number of rules violations, further reducing their take-home pay, while the comparatively high cost of living further reduced employees' purchasing power, and while other mills offered employees land to grow crops or raise livestock, Fulton Bag and Cotton did not, requiring employees to purchase all of their food. Factory Town was also notorious for its poor living conditions, with a general lack of sanitation and overcrowding, and outbreaks of diseases such as pellagra and tuberculosis were common. The town had been condemned as a health hazard by the Atlanta Sanitary Department. Elsas also employed industrial espionage in order to maintain control over the mills' operations. Some workers in the late 1800s and early 1900s complained about a general lack of privacy within the mills and an abundance of workplace rules to follow. In addition, workers who had called out sick were sometimes visited by a company doctor to ensure that the worker was not lying about their illness. As part of a labor contract signed between the employees and the mills, Fulton Bag and Cotton took no responsibility for occupational injuries and reserved the right to fire and evict workers without notice, as well as to withhold the employee's last week of pay for quitting without giving the company a five-day notice before leaving. At the time, no other mill in Georgia had such a provision, and while it was disliked by the workers, a 1909 ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed its legality. These conditions, among others, all contributed to a high rate of turnover, and the mills were regarded by workers in Atlanta as a "hobo mill".
Early labor disputes and unionization at the mills In 1885, workers at the Fulton Cotton and Spinning Company (a precursor to the Fulton Bag and Cotton Company) organized as Local Assembly 4455 of the Knights of Labor. In November of that year, 50 weavers went on strike due to a dispute with management over their wages. The strike affected a total of 150 workers and saw the destruction of some mill machinery, which caused the Knights of Labor to disavow the strike within a week of its beginning. By 1888, Local 4455, having suffered from financial difficulties, ceased to exist.
In 1897, two labor strikes occurred at the mills. The first was caused by the hiring of twenty African American women to work in the mills' folding department in jobs that had traditionally been held by white Americans. Elsas had announced their hiring to the rest of the workers in the mills' folding department on August 3. The new hires would be physically segregated from the rest of the employees in the facility and were not hired to replace any existing jobs. The following day, he had the new hires arrive early, but when the white folding workers arrived at 6 a.m., they performed a walkout and were joined by the remainder of the white workers at the mills by 11:00 a.m., causing the mills to shut down. A group of about 1,400 workers gathered outside of the mills, with the police called to maintain order as the situation grew violent. By 3:00 p.m., a mass meeting was held where many of these strikers signed up to join the Textile Workers' Union. Elsas, worried about the escalating situation, agreed to negotiate with the strikers, with former U.S. Secretary of the Interior M. Hoke Smith brought in as an arbitrator. On August 5, Elsas agreed to fire the new African American hires, and the strikers returned to work, with some working increased hours as overtime. However, Elsas denied the strikers' demands to fire all African American employees at the mills, instead leaving them employed only in certain departments within the mills. Additionally, Elsas refused a demand that "no member of the Textile Workers' Union or anyone who participated in the strike should be discharged because of their union affiliation, or because they participated in the strike; and that all former employees should be reinstated in their positions". Despite the refusals, the white workers at the mills considered the strike a success, and the white women who had started the walkout were honored by being at the front of that September's Labor Day parade. Additionally, the union began to strengthen its position and affiliated itself with the Atlanta Federation of Trades (AFT), the city's organization of local unions.