Oral history interview with Eula McGill, September 5, 1976

Description:

This is the second part of a two-part interview conducted with labor activist Eula McGill. In this interview, McGill focuses on her continuing work in the Southern labor movement from the 1930s to the 1970s. McGill begins by explaining her views on workers' education and labor leadership. According to McGill, teaching workers about the history of the labor movement was especially important. In the 1940s, McGill was an active participant in Operation Dixie; she describes in detail labor campaigns in Lafollette, Tennessee, (1943) and in Dixon and Bruceton, Tennessee (1947). During this time McGill also continued to work actively with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union throughout the South. McGill briefly remarried, but for the most part she dedicated her life to the labor movement. Here, she speaks in more detail about what it was like to be a single woman working within the predominantly male labor movement. She emphasizes the transient lifestyle and some of the challenges she faced as a woman trying to organize both men and women.

subjects: Interviews,  Women labor union members,  Labor unions,  Officials and employees,  Industrial relations,  Labor unions and education,  Sexism,  Organizing,  Strikes and lockouts,  African American labor union members,  Southern Summer School for Women Workers in Industry (U.S.),  Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America,  United Mine Workers of America

People: Eula McGill (1911-2003)

Places: Southern States,  Tennessee,  Bruceton