Causes of the Decline of TWUA after 1950
Scope and Content Note: Profitable northern mills were bought out by speculators and conglomerates for their war profits. The choice was then whether or not to reinvest these profits in the textile industry or in industries which were less subject to depression and cycles. If investment was made in textiles, the question was whether to invest in the North where land was expensive and the textile job was the worst job in town and attracted the worst workers; or in the South where one could get tax breaks, cheap land, modern plants, and workers who saw textile jobs as the best jobs in town because the plants were newer and cleaner than most other southern industries. It was, therefore, inevitable that the industry would become southern, and in the South any employer who wanted to could defeat the Union.