Agrarian origins, industrial experience, and militancy: An analysis of textile workers

Abstract

What are the impacts of agrarian origins and industrial experience upon worker militancy? Investigations of this question have been framed by reference to the experiences of newly proletarianized workers‐their path to the factory via farming and their industrial experience or socialization into nonfarm working class life. Some argue that newly proletarianized workers are prone to militancy due to their inexperience with factory discipline and marginal workplace positions. Others maintain that the characteristics of recently arrived workers fail to promote or may even inhibit militancy. These competing perspectives are examined by analyzing the effects of farm background and personal and intergenerational industrial experience on four measures of militancy for a sample of textile workers from a Southern community. The analysis suggests some support for the perspective that workers with less personal experience in the mills have higher levels of militancy. Workers from farm backgrounds were slightly more militant than their nonfarm counterparts. In contrast, intergenerational experience in the mills was not consistently related to militancy, indicating that its effects may be mediated by other worker characteristics.