by Wiley Cash
First published 2018
Twenty-eight-year-old Ella May Wiggins trudges to American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City twelve times each week. Her husband John has abandoned the family again, leaving her to support four young children on nine dollars earned from seventy-two grueling hours at the textile mill. She works alongside her best friend Violet and other laborers whom the mill owners pay less because they employ both white and African American workers. The Goldberg brothers who own the mill face suspicion from the insular community that views them as outsiders. When union organizers arrive with leaflets promising better conditions, Ella May glimpses hope for the first time. The mill owners fight back, claiming the union represents a Bolshevik threat and using every tool including violence to prevent workers from organizing. At the county's largest rally, Ella May must decide whether to join the movement despite the risks to everything she holds dear. Seventy-five years later, her elderly daughter Lilly finally tells her nephew the truth about what happened to his grandmother after that pivotal union meeting, revealing a family tragedy that has remained hidden for decades.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, labor
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, social-change
Setting: Bessemer City, American Mill No. 2
Period: 1920s
396 pages · Paperback · William Morrow Paperbacks
Content warnings: violence