Topics Related to unions

On November 15, 1958, the Textile Workers Union of America called a strike at the Harriet-Henderson Mills in Henderson. The union had targeted cotton mills across the state since 1946 as part of “Operation Dixie.” By 1958, more than a thousand local workers had enrolled in the union, accounting for one in seven of all union members in the state.

One of North Carolina’s best known folk heroines, Ella Mae Wiggins is most famous for helping to organize Gaston County mill workers for better working conditions and higher wages.