Oral history interview with Ethel Marshall Faucette, November 16, 1978, January 4, 1979

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At age eighteen, Ethel Marshall Faucette began her official employment at the Glencoe Mill Town cotton mill making outing shirts. She remained for nearly 50 years at the same mill until its closing in 1954. As a young child, Faucette brought lunch to fellow village mill hands. While they ate lunch, she worked on the machines, learning various skills that would train her for future mill work. Her early practical education of mill tasks allowed Faucette to complete multiple jobs during her long-time employment at Glencoe Mill. Her father served as the mill's superintendent, and due in part to his managerial role in the mill, he instilled a strong work ethic in his eight children, and dismissed work-related gossip. The social benefits and economic limitations of mill life from the late 1910s to mid 1950s are exposed in Faucette's account. She describes the twelve-hour shifts and physical layout of the mill. Faucette explains how the mill owner's acceptance of the new eight-hour work day labor law prevented the growth of organized union activity. Instead of painting a picture of discontent, she downplays the perils of working in a mill. Faucette remembers that workers rarely complained about loud noises or potential health hazards. In fact, they largely accommodated changing work tasks and found avenues for relaxation at the mill. Because Glencoe Mill relied on water to power the machine, the unpredictability of nature resulted in free time for mill workers. Not until the advent of electrical power did workers have to relinquish leisure time during the arid summer season. Faucette also portrays the cohesive nature of a mill village among blacks and whites. Although blacks were omitted from employment as mill hands, they forged a social bond as domestic workers. Faucette's family demonstrated how mill hands took care of their own when they adopted an orphaned child of a fellow mill worker. The social and religious socialization of mill workers is exemplified throughout the interview. Faucette hints, however, that the emergence of a heightened consumer culture and increased job mobility contributed to the loss of the mill village's social cohesion.