A Fabric of Defeat

“Perceptive in analysis and engaging in style, Bryant Simon’s impressive volume provides a masterly investigation of the political life of white South Carolina millhands during the first half of the twentieth century. . . . This deeply researched and well-written volume stands as a rigorous study that fills a real need — a major exploration of the working class politics of southern millhands in the modern period. This is a significant effort.” — Journal of Social History

“An interesting and valuable contribution to our understanding of twentieth-century white southern legal culture.” — American Historical Review

“An excellent study of the politics of South Carolina textile workers, from the Progressive era through the New Deal and World War II. It is, first and foremost, an artful blending of the subfields of labor, political, and southern history, but the book will be of interest to political scientists and to students of cultural studies as well. Simon’s exploration of the limits of New Deal reform is superb, and his analysis of the multiple dimensions of millworkers’ identities is insightful, and often provocative.” — Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“A significant addition to the new scholarship on southern working-class whites.” — Journal of Southern History

“This well-written book. . . . provides an unusually engaging perspective on twentieth-century southern working-class history.” — The Journal of American History

“Represents essential reading for those who seek a deeper understanding of the American south’s tortured course in the twentieth century.” — Business History

“A distinctive, original study that adds to the growing list of important studies in southern labor history.” — Reviews in American History

“An exhaustively-researched and finely-written account of the ways politics shaped the lives of South Carolina’s mill workers even as they shaped politics.” — South Carolina Historical Magazine

“Bryant Simon’s elegantly written book is both a rigorous examination of white working-class politics in the New South and a poignant recreation of a culture that has largely disappeared. It is a story about great possibilities and ultimate failure, about the struggle for economic democracy in a society deeply committed to white privilege and racial segregation. Sympathetic to his subjects, yet true to history, Simon takes us into the homes, factories, and voting booths of South Carolina mill workers who fought to better their lives through a political process they could never hope to control.” — David M. Oshinsky, Rutgers University

“This beautifully written study of the South’s classic industrial population offers a provocative new interpretation of how white working-class identity and politics shifted over the first half of the twentieth century. Even those who dispute some claims will find themselves captivated by Simon’s powerful rendering of the promise and tragedy of this story. Southern historians and labor historians will have to read this book; others will want to.” — Nancy MacLean, Northwestern University