The Politics of Whiteness

Race, Workers, and Culture in the Modern South

Michelle Brattain

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780691007311
• eBook ISBN: 9780691236810
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The Politics of Whiteness presents the first sustained analysis of white racial identity among workers in what was the South's largest industry--the textile industry--for much of the twentieth century. Grounding her work in a study of Rome, Georgia, and surrounding Floyd County from the Great Depression to the 1970s, Michelle Brattain paints a richly textured local portrait of how the varied social benefits of whiteness shaped the experience of textile millhands and, as a result, Southern politics. In doing so, she challenges traditional views of Southern politics as dominated by elites and marked by passivity among Southern workers. Brattain uncovers considerable white working-class political influence and activism for decades starting in the 1930s--which, by re-creating and defending Southern institutions grounded in the idea of racial difference, helped pave the way for resistance to the civil rights movement.


Structured chronologically, this book revises the current understanding, in the Southern working-class context, of paternalism, the New Deal, the 1934 General Textile Strike, the Second World War, and the Fair Employment Practices Commission. It addresses the vast influence of Eugene Talmadge and his son in twentieth-century Georgia politics, and the emergence of Republican influence in the South. Finally there came the moment when formerly explicit defenses of white supremacy were transformed into an intangible, but still powerful, politics of whiteness. The Politics of Whiteness will interest anyone concerned with the history of American politics, the labor movement, or race in America.

Index

AFL-CIO: and civil rights, 225, 227; Georgia State Convention (1968), 261; and regional split over civil rights, 225, 227–29, 266–67, 270. See also Committee on Political Education

African Americans: and 1946 primary, 159; and adverse effects of urban renewal, 275; and association by whites with work, 35–36; and discrimination against by wartime manpower officials, 95, 96, 106, 109–11; and frustration over persistence of inequality, 273–77; and labor shortage during World War II, 109–11; and NAACP voter registration campaign, 156–57; occupations of, 36, 48, 56; population of, in Rome, 15; and textile industry, 35–36, 37, 55–56, 92, 96, 109; as union members, 140, 228–29; wages of, 26

Alabama Mills Corporation, 166

Anchor Duck Mill and Village, 32, 45, 49, 53, 58, 62, 63, 90, 92, 97, 112, 136; and 1933 strike, 64–65; and 1934 strike, 67, 69, 77; organization of workers 126, 128–29; sale of, 166; stretch-out in, 62, 63, 70. See also Anchor Rome Mills, Local 787

Anchor Rome Mills, 210, 264; and 1948 strike, 170–182, 191, 196; and management’s campaign against union, 166–170. See also Anchor Duck Mills, Local 787

Aragon, GA, 71, 226

Arnall, Ellis, 103–104, 108, 154, 250; as segregationist, 105; and three Governor controversy, 160–61

Atlanta Constitution, 30, 37

Atlanta Journal, 178, 197

Atlanta World, 104

Bachman, Robert, 168, 175

Baldanzi, George, 124, 146, 194, 196, 198, 199, 208, 215

Barkan, Solomon, 227

Bartley, Numan, 160

Battey, George MacGruder, 20, 26, 31, 35–36

Bell Aircraft, 89, 116

Berry College: anti-integration views of students, 244

Berryton Mills, 67

boosterism, 9, 18, 30–35, 44, 58–59, 82, 83–84, 163, 186, 209, 219; and 1948 strikes, 171–72, 195; alleg...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Prologue The Politics of Whiteness
• One: Boosterism, Whiteness, and Paternalism in the New South: The Creation of Wage Work
• Two: “Labor’s Best Friend”: Talmadge, Paternalism, and the 1934 Strike
• Three: “So-Called Fair Employment”: World War II and Whiteness
• Four: “Still a White Man’s Georgia”: PAC, Operation Dixie, and the Resurgence of Talmadgism
• Five: “Some Romans Have Red Faces”: The 1948 Strikes
• Six: Making Friends and Enemies: Political Action in Postwar Georgia
• Seven: The “So-Called ‘Civil Rights’ Bill” and the Republicanization of Rome
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index