Textile Workers
Across northeastern Pennsylvania, practically each town had some kind of textile mill. At one time, the Duplan silk mill in Hazleton was the largest in the world. Now, most people might not even know that the industry existed here.
In this module we will examine the lives of the workers in the textile industry in northeastern Pennsylvania, including silk mills and garment manufacturing. As a class, we will research these forgotten factories and construct a digital map of where they were located.
Some topics we will explore:
- Duplan Silk strikes - relationship to Paterson (N.J.) silk strike
- Uprising of the Twenty Thousand in 1909
- ILGWU and Min Matheson, local organizer; “runaway shops,” Unity House in the Poconos
- Garment factories: Leslie Fay strike
Sources
Oral history interviewsNewspaper articles about strikes
James Oppenheim poem, "Bread and Roses," The American Magazine, December, 1911.
Film: Norma Rae
Readings
Stepenoff, Bonnie. Their fathers' daughters : silk mill workers in Northeastern Pennsylvania, 1880-1960. Selinsgrove [PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1999.Golin, Steve. The Fragile Bridge: Paterson Silk Strike, 1913
Tripp, Anne Huber. The I.W.W. and the Paterson Silk Strike of 1913
The growth and decline of the women's garment industry and the ILGWU in Pennsylvania's northeastern anthracite region, 1930 to present. Conference on the History of Northeastern Pennsylvania (11th : 1999 : Nanticoke, PA)
