Louisville's Black Laborers of the Campbell Tobacco Company, 1915-1930
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Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2021-01-01
Type of Work
Department
History
Program
Historical Studies
Citation of Original Publication
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This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by UMBC for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/repro.php or contact Special Collections at speccoll(at)umbc.edu
Distribution Rights granted to UMBC by the author.
Access limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan thorugh a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.
Distribution Rights granted to UMBC by the author.
Access limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan thorugh a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.
Subjects
Abstract
This theses is a bottom-up narrative about the black tobacco workers of the Campbell Tobacco Company in Louisville Kentucky between 1915 and 1930. It focuses on the lived experiences and working conditions for these workers, specifically in the year 1920. This theses addresses the question: what happens when we explore tobacco labor through the eyes of the laborers rather than the company owners and management? This research found that Campbell workers often lived in segregated or lower quality housing close to the factory, working conditions were difficult, many of these workers were born in Kentucky, and they had minimal opportunity for upward mobility. Moreover, Campbell's black employees were prevented from unionization in the 1920s, putting their livelihood at the company largely in the hands of the company's management from the early 1900s to 1950, when unionization occurred. To combat difficult working conditions and institutionalized segregation, Louisville's black community created businesses, community services, healthcare, and educational resources. A digital map grounds the written theses to spatially show the destroyed Louisville landscape where some of those pieceworkers lived.