The Uprising Of '34

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Film Review: The Uprising of ‘34

During the 1934 textile strike over half a million textile workers walked off the job. For a time, these new union members, in response to New Deal legislation, stood up for their rights and became a force to be reckoned with in the South. Then management moved in and crushed the strike. Some mill workers were murdered, thousands more were blacklisted, and many were so intimidated that "union" became a dirty word in Southern communities for decades to come. The Uprising of ’34 is a film documenting this strike. The film used interviews with mill owners, workers, and union leaders to illustrate the times and conditions both had to operate in. The interviews were also used to show opinions from all sides of mill life.
The film starts off with a description of how mill work became popular because of the Great Depression. People were forced to give up their farms and migrate into mill villages because they knew the Mill owners would take care of them. Whole families went to work in the mills, working 12 hour days on average. But for their work the mill owners provided housing, charged little rent, and made electricity and water available. The mill owners had total control over the workers. Everything in the mill village was run by the mill owners so that meant all the money made fell back to the mill. The owners set strict rules that had to be followed such as; no drinking, gambling and having to attend church. If these rules weren’t followed the punishment was losing your job. Losing your job meant being kicked out of your house and the mill village. In the interviews the workers talked about how they can remember watching people being moved out of house and left on the street for not following rules. They also talk about how this created a paternalistic relationship between the workers and mill owners.
The Uprising of ’34 also shows the relationship between black and white workers. Black a...