Lintheads: Insult or Badge of Honor?

“The other children would kind of look down on you. You’d go to school and they’d call you linthead and all that stuff. You was kind of from the wrong side of the tracks.” ~ From Like a Family

Image taken from Like a Family

Questions

1. Who is shown in this picture?
2. Analyze the faces in the picture, what do their expressions tell you about their lives?
3. Examine the clothing of of those pictured, what details do you see, and what can you interpret from them?
4. What is in the background and why might the photographer have set up the picture this way?
5. Linthead is a term that refers to textile mill workers. Examine this picture and explain how you think this term originated.
6. What feelings does this image evoke? Do you think the photographer was trying to convey a message or feeling?

From: Linthead: 

growing up in a Carolina cotton mill village

Questions

1. What is the overall tone of this excerpt?
2. Explain how working at the mill become part of a worker’s identity in this excerpt.
3. How does the townsperson identify the mill worker? Analyze how they are making judgments.
4. Contrast how the townsperson sees mill workers and how mill workers see themselves in this excerpt.
5. Is “linthead” a negative or positive term?

The Following Excerpt is From OLYMPIA MILL AND VILLAGE Upper Richland County, South Carolina Historical and Architectural Inventory

By the 1920s, Olympia had a Y.M.C.A., five churches, a medical dispensary, and playgrounds, athletic fields, parks, and a school that were the envy of Columbia. Columbians may have wanted better recreational facilities and schools for their children, but most Columbians looked down upon their “linthead” neighbors, although The State had at first lauded them as “industrious, intelligent, frugal, and have the native instincts of honesty, integrity, and fidelity which are essential to good citizenship.” 

One villager recalled, “You always heard that Olympia was rough because of the so-called white trash element. I take offense at that, because the majority of these people have worked hard since they were children, and they didn’t have the benefits that their critics had.”

Thus, the social ostracism of some Columbians and a strong pride of place, particularly after the improvements of the early 1920s, fostered a tight, cohesive spirit and helped operatives turn “linthead” and other derogatory terms into badges of pride. This pride is still in evidence

Questions

1. What is the overall tone of this excerpt?
2. Contrast how the townspeople see mill workers and how mill workers see themselves in this excerpt.
3. Explain why the people of Columbia distance themselves from the mill workers despite the fact that the mill community had many amenities which Columbia did not?
4. Explain how working at the mill become part of a worker’s identity in this excerpt.
5. Analyze why the mill workers would turn the term “linthead” into a “badge of pride”? (you can use examples of other terms that have been changed in this way)

The Following Audio Excerpts are from Documenting the American South

Alice P. Evitt speaking about the term Linthead
Click here for Transcript

Questions

1. What is the overall tone of this excerpt? How does Alice feel?
2. What experience did Alice have with townspeople?
3. Contrast how the townspeople see mill workers and how mill workers see themselves in this excerpt.
4. Given Alice’s experience with town people why would she feel that mill people were better than townspeople?
5. Explain how working at the mill become part of a worker’s identity in this excerpt.
6. Identify how the way townspeople viewed mill workers increased divisions between the two groups.

Tessie Dyer speaking about the term Linthead
Click here for Transcript

Questions

1. What is the overall tone of this audio excerpt?
2. Townspeople could easily identify mill workers by the cotton lint on their clothing. How did this enable further stratification between townspeople and mill workers.
3. As Tessie speaks about mill workers she says “they” instead of “we” even though she worked at the mill. Interpret what this says about her feelings towards mill workers.
4. Knowing that having cotton lint on their clothing made mill workers easy to identify, examine why the woman Tessie worked with put great effort into her appearance.
5. Identify how Tessie and her coworker are similar.