Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 542

Of course, the principal old grievance which they had, and which want back as far as the Gastonia strike, and had constantly been a grievance in their minds, was what they called the “stretch-out.” That means the audition of more looms, or more machines, to one man's job than had previously been the case. The axelanation of this adding of more looms, or more spinning machines, to one man's, or one girl's, job is that toxtile machinery was constantly improving, and that the practice of having humidifiers in every spinning and weaving room had brought about a condition where the amount of brakage on the threads, either in spinning or in weaving, was reduced to a minimum. The humidification itself tended in that direction, and that indeed is true, and the Luprovement in the machines was such that they didn't have sudden changes of tension and would spin a more even thread. In the weaving you would bring down a more even thread from the spinning room and it would enter into the looms and shuttles with regularity, so that the looms moved at a uniform pace without the tensions on the thread. Therefore, the threads didn't break. All that a loom tender does anyhow is mend threads. The weaving has been automatic for a hundred years. It has not ocen a hand weaving operation, but an automatic operation. Even the looms that make





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help