by Mary Vorse
University of Illinois Press, 1991
Paper: 978-0-252-06217-9
Library of Congress Classification PS3543.O88S77 1991
Dewey Decimal Classification 813.54

ABOUT THIS BOOK
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The most famous of the bloody southern textile strikes that took place in the late 1920s occurred at the Loray Mill in Gastonia, North Carolina, where workers endured fifty-five-hour work weeks, the stretchout, and pay so low that everyone in their families over sixteen normally was expected to enter the mill. Strike! is a vivid portrait of the mill workers' living and working conditions, the discomfort of the few southern liberals, the labor spies, the wavering morale of the strikers, the shootings, deaths, and trials, and the vigilante mobs.
 
The story is told by Mary Heaton Vorse, the leading labor reporter of the period, who had covered major strikes since 1912. This novel was the first of six inspired by the Gastonia strike. Critics hailed it as the best.