Interview with Harry Hardin by Tamara S. Jones

Interview with Harry Hardin by Tamara S. Jones

February 16, 1988

H.H.I went to work at the Bibb in 1930. A friend of mine gave me a job in the carding room when you couldn’t find a job anywhere else. We worked 60 hours a week, from 6 in the afternoon to 6 in the morning for six dollars, and that was just the way of life back then. They didn’t pay anything to learn, I learned for nothing to run frames. A friend of mine, when you couldn’t buy a job, put me to work. I won’t live long enough to be ungrateful to him. He’s dead now – (John Turner). I stayed in the card room. Roosevelt was elected president in 1933 and took office in 1934. The first thing he did was close the banks and had the N.R. A. (National Recovery Act). They cut mu job half in two, cut my hours from 12 to 8 and raised my pay to $12.30 a week. In 1934 they had a nation-wide strike – nationwide – what they were striking for I’ll never know because I told them I thought I was off then. I stayed in the card room – back then, Tammy, they had the opening room, that’s where they open the cotton and put them in the pickers. It’s a cleaning process. It went from open to lap room, that’s still cleaning, and making a lap about 36 inches wide. It went from the lap room to the cards, still cleaning and combing. They had two grades of cotton – a long staple and a short staple.

T.J.Ok

H.HThe Long staple was made into broad cloth or sheeting and the short staple was made into muslin, or course they made sheets out of that too, but they were not as expensive. From the cards they went to combers. All shirt material and fancy sheeting was combed – still cleaning – out of the long staple cotton and from the drawing part of it. The short staple cotton went to the Fly Frames.

T.J. Fly Frames?

H.H. and from there the same process, except finer, the same number of employees called intermediates

T.J. – uh-huh

H.H. – From the Intermediates they went to the speeders. They made a small yarn.

T.J. – Oh.

H.H. – Now Tammy, all of that has been cut out since I’ve been with Bibb

T.J. – Well how did they?

H.H. – They have modernized it.

T.J. Uh-huh

H.H. Before the war there was very little modernizing done, but after the war, a lot of new techniques and different things – and they cut out combers – the cut out three processes. I don’t know how many people cut out, but I remember they had 2,500 employees and when I left Bibb they had 1400 running the same production.

T.J. – What year did you leave?

H.H. –1972. I went to personnel in ’59 and I left in ’72 – I retired.

T.J. – Well, you said there was very little modernization done before the war – was that because the Bibb just didn’t want to spend the money?

H.H. – Well, partly, but they didn’t have that much back then.

T.J. – Uh-huh.

H.H. – No, they didn’t want to spend the money, but they was a few places nation-wide that modernized, but they had to modernize eventually

T.J. – Eventually, just to keep up with the others?

H.H. – That’s right – then after it left the speeders they went to the spinning department - that’s where they made the thread – had fillings and warp. The filling was put on a small bobbin that goes through the loom and warp went to the spooler room and put on a warp to widen until they were 36 inches long or 36 inches wide, and then they go to the slasher room where they put the sizing in it, the starch.

T.J. – Uh huh.

H.H. – And that would make it run the filling, didn’t have any sizing in it, now a 36 inch loom you wouldn’t hardly recognize it, they’re 109-110 inches now, back then they had a shuttle, back and forth, carrying the filling.

T.J. – Uh-huh.

H.H. – But now they are shuttle less looms.They got a tape that intersects half way of that 109 inches and you can’t see it, it’s so fast.

T.J. – So it cuts out the work of a lot of people?

H.H. – A lot of people – that’s what I’m talking about. We had 2,500 people then and now if they’re running full time there is usually about 1,400. Now this was with the big mill and the Anderson mill.

T.J. – Uh huh.

H.H. – I did the hiring for both

T.J. – Oh! I didn’t realize they were a joint…

H.H. Yeah, Bibb owned both of them before I left.

T.J. – This was…uh-huh…

H.H. They bought this one after I come with the Bibb.

T.J. – This was what, in ’34 or ’36?

H.H. Roughly ’33 or’34.

T.J. – Uh-huh

H.H. But, I done the hiring for both mills. I was in charge of safety, security, and looked after the outside. Had 340 houses I rented to the employees.

T.J. – Oh…

H.H. – Back then the Bibb owned them, the houses. You had to work in the plant to get one of them.

T.J. – Uh-huh

H.H. – And I was real happy, never a dull minute.

T.J. – Yes, in some of my readings I’ve done in preparing for this, I’ve read that a lot of mills, you had to have so many people working in the mills.

H.H. – That’s right – if you had a choice place come open and you wanted it, if you had three people working in the mill and I had two’ you’d get the house more than likely.

T.J. – Uh-huh

H.H. – Some of it would depend on the position you held.

T.J. – Uh-huh

H.H. – But we had a five man florist crew, a three man carpenter crew, and a three man paint crew.

T.J. – Uh-huh.

H.H. – And a five man garbage crew – we took garbage up through the village twice a week. The houses were kept in repair and when they got over with the carpenter work and painting, they would start over again.

T.J. – Uh-huh.

H.H. – They kept the shrubbery cut, the banks sodded, the grass cut – it was a showplace!

T.J. – Yeah!

H.H. – In the fall of the year people had these big ferns, pot plants, I’d take those ferns, take the Negroes and garbage truck and mark those ferns with the addresses, put them in the green house we had here. You can see where it’s been torn down.

T.J. – The Bibb owned that? Ok…

H.H – Yeah, keep them and look after them in the winter and in the spring of the year we’d take the same crew and put them back on the porches where we got them. We had a woman’s club, a men’s club, an athletic club, and they looked after their own.

T.J. – And all of this was run through you through the mill?

H.H. - Well, after I went to personnel, yes.

T.J. – Well, it was all mill, sort of like a part of…

H.H - When I went Bibb, they gave me a little blue book. It said “You are Now a Member of the Bibb Family” and they weren’t joking.

T.J. – Yeah.

H.H. – We looked after our own.

T.J. – Uh-huh.

H.H. – We didn’t need any outsiders – we had our own post office, drug store, grocery store, it’s just an ideal place to work for.

T.J. Well, uh…

H.H. – The mill went on short time one time and two or three days a week – the mill would give them orders for groceries when people would get in a bind – and then they went back to work they could pay it if they didn’t it was alright, if they did it was alright.

T.J -. Yeah, Um…

H.H. – Now, is there anything else you want to know?

T.J. - Yes, there’s lots of stuff I want to know.

H.H. – Alright.

T.J. – When you went to work down here in the mill, you said it was in the ‘20’s. When did you go to work down there?

H.H. – 1930.

T.J. – 1930, okay. When you went to work down there, they were hiring young men that were coming in…

H.H. – There wasn’t any personnel office. The foreman could hire you in the department and this friend of mine was night foreman in the carding department, and he gave me a job when you couldn’t buy one.

T.J. – Right…

H.H. – And they didn’t care if you quit because there was some barefooted boy out there waiting on it. We had 15 minutes at 12o’clock at night and that’s all. We worked. We got paid for 60 hours, ten cents an hour.

T.J. – Uh-huh, well if you went to work there in the 30’s then, there was a strike then…

H.H. 1934 – a Nation-wide strike.

T.J. – Right, and the Bibb followed suit with that strike then…

H.H. – No, they shut us down – the outsiders shut us down, they got the National Guard in here. They set up machine guns on the front of the mill down here. And they started back up – the employees in the village, they didn’t want to quit. They was an estimates 5000 people from 35th street to the hotel up here. Just milling ad agitating. They called me every kind of S.O.B. you can think of, but I collared every one of them after that and…

T.J. – Yeah?

H.H. – They was my twin brother – Ha!

T.J. – Oh yeah?

H.H. – But – Roosevelt went into office – he was elected in ’33.

T.J. – Uh-huh.

H.H. And when he went into office the first thing he done was close the banks, a lot of banks were going busted at that time.

T.J. – Uh-huh

H.H. – He closed the banks and we got paid off with script – for a month or five weeks, something like that, until the banks opened again.

T.J. – Because the Bibb just didn’t have the cash to pay, right?

H.H. – No, they had the cash but the banks were closed.

T.J. – Right, okay…

H.H. So they just wrote script – I wish I had kept some of it, but I didn’t. But it was just as good as money.

T.J. – Well, if they issued scrip – the Bibb didn’t have a company store?

H.H. – No…

T.J. – Was this scrip taken in local businesses around here?

H.H. – Yeah, yeah, around here. I don’t know about other places.

T.J. – The local businesses then took that scrip back to the Bibb and cashed it in?

H.H. – That’s right.

T.J. – But this didn’t go on for very long, just for…

H.H. – About 5 weeks or something like that.

T.J. - Well, when you said outsiders came in – when you were talking about the strike – talking about union men – like from the north and from the outside coming in…

H.H. – I don’t know where those folks come from…

T.J. – Oh, really?

H.H. – But they’re the ones who shut us down.

T.J. – Then the National Guard came in to…?

H.H. – To do their job.

T.J. – Uh-huh

H.H. – You couldn’t go past 2nd avenue here – they roped the village off.

T.J. So people on the outside couldn’t get in or people in the village couldn’t get out?

H.H. – Well, they could get out.

T.J. – Uh-huh.

H.H. – People that lived in the village could, but you couldn’t demonstrate or picket.

T.J. Uh-huh.

H.H. – Gene Tallmadge was Governor

T.J. – Yeah

H.H. – And they had National Guards and machine guns and we opened back up.

T.J. – Gosh, how long did that chaos last?

H.H. – Less than a week.

T.J. – Um-hum, so it wasn’t a long time, just long enough to frighten people?

H.H. – That’s right, that’s right.

T.J. – I Know, I’ve heard my great-grandmother talk about it.

H.H. – They run some of them home, some of these pickets, and run them to their house and jumped on some of them.

T.J. – So there were people from the Bibb wanting this strike, then?

H.H. – Not many. Very few – it was outsiders that shut us down, people the Bibb wouldn’t have.

T.J. – Yeah, and obviously they were wanting to come and take over, but it didn’t work.

H.H. – No, no too good.

T.J. – Right – it’s just that the Bibb had to be a parent to everybody.

H.H. – That’s right.

T.J. – It’s just like hitting your mother or father in the face.

H.H. – That’s exactly right – my Dad helped put that first machinery in the mill.

T.J. – really?

H.H. – Everyone in my family, including my kids, has worked at the Bibb at one time or another.

T.J. – Really? Well when did your Daddy go to work there?

H.H. – Must have been in 1899 or 1890 something.

T.J. – Oh gosh, how old was he?

H.H. – He was 77 when he died. He was born in 1880; - he must have been 20 when he came from Alabama.

T.J. – Oh gosh, so they were young men coming to work

H.H. – Yeah, that was before my time

T.J. – I understand that – what I was trying to find out though was, I know that the textile mills hired young people, like children, before the child labor laws and I just wondered if your Mama or Daddy had been hired like…

H.H. – No, they might could have, I remember my mother working when I was wearing little aprons and I’d cry after her.

T.J. – Uh-huh

H.H. – W had a maid that would stay round the clock, I thought she was my mother for a long time.

T.J. – Yeah

H.H. – But she was a good colored girl and I loved her just like I did my mother.

T.J. – Yeah

H.H. – Nellie and I wish I had brought pictures. We have pictures of five generations. I was about this high and Nellie was in them.

T.J. – Well, if your Daddy helped put the machinery in the mill, is that what you’re…

H.H. – Yeah, some of the first machinery, sugar, I don’t know whether it was… (Unintelligible)… but the mill is not much older than that. They lived at Tallassee, Alabama, and they got word that the Bibb was hiring, so he and his brother came to Columbus and went to work.

T.J. – And they worked there all their lives, too.

H.H. – He retired from the Bibb

T.J. – Yeah

H.H. – In fact, that’s the only job he ever had.

T.J. – Really?

H.H. – Yeah and I stayed with them 43 years

T.J. – Ya’ll have been a good family with the Bibb.

H.H. – Well, they were good to us too, Tammy. Every one of my brothers, sisters, and kids, at one time or another, has worked with the Bibb

T.J. – well, they were good to everybody then.

H.H. – My Son ran spinning looms at night and went to high school.

T.J. – really?

H.H. – My Daughter, one of them, worked in the office. She finished high school when she was fifteen years old, but she had to wait until she was sixteen to go to work. That was the first job she ever had.

T.J. – Well now, that was not unusual for this area was it?

H.H. – That’s right.

T.J. – To go in there, it was sort of like it was payback for the things that the Bibb…

H.H. – The situation. It’s not the Bibb anymore, but it was back then.

T.J. – Yeah.

H.H. – If somebody got in a tight, uh, Tammy, I, two dozen people I guess, I made up money for, as high as eleven hundred dollars.

T.J. – Really?

H.H. – That… that… bad circumstances.

T.J. – Yeah

H.H. – We just looked after our own, had our own church, our own schools-

T.J. – Well, if you were working there before the Bibb bought the Anderson Mill, there was competition between the two mills, obviously, there had to be with them being that close together.

H.H. – Yeah, but that didn’t make any difference, not really

T.J. – Well, I’m just curious as to why the Bibb had such a show place as the village and the Anderson mill never had any kind of mill village or anything. I understand there was a mill store that a Fate Leeburn ran.

H.H. – Yeah, he was in with the Meritas Company and the management. Some of those people, I understand, would never draw a payday. They owed it for groceries, to the café. They issued make-shift money, they called it boog-a-boo, that’s what they called it, honey, it looked something like this.

T.J. – OH, is that boog-a-boo?

H.H. – No, I got this down in the Bahamas. I’m keeping it for a souvenir.

T.J. – Well, so that was to… if they paid people with that stuff, that was scrip, more or less.

H.H. – That’s, they didn’t… the banks wasn’t closed when I’m talking about.

T.J. – I know what you mean…

H.H. – But they’d go out and buy five dollars’ worth of stuff and sign for it and they’d take it out of their check. A lot of the folks would never see any money, I understand.

T.J. – They just…

H.H. – Used that boog-a-boo

T.J. – But they never had any kind of mill village down there. Would you guess as to why that is, I mean, I’m just curious about it.

H.H. – When Bibb City was built, we were in the country. I remember it was built the hard way. Have you been through the village?

T.J. – Uh huh

H.H. – All those banks were built with mule slides. They used no mechanized machinery at all. No back hoes, no steam shovels, just mule power.

T.J. – I never thought that, that would be the way they would be built

H.H. – That’s the way they were built.

T.J. – And all that was done by the mill?

H.H. – Yeah

T.J. – They had it all done?

H.H. – Bibb manufacturing company.

T.J. – Well, was there a church here in the village?

H.H. – Yeah

T.J. – That was a part of the mill?

H.H. – Yeah, Porter was one of the big wheels in the office in Macon and the church was named Porter Memorial Baptist Church.

T.J. – And the preachers in that church, were they hired and as much an employee of the mill as you were?

H.H. – No, no the church hired their own people.

T.J. – OK, I see. So they were elected within the church.