Charles LeRoy Lewis - Special Collections - University of Baltimore

LEWIS #099 1:1:13
over on Parkdale Avenue. That was . The
one thing I didn* miss there; a lot of times cord and duck
.would be spoiled - things would happen to it and they had
a machine that we would throw that into and it would turn
it back to cotton. And then it was called because
it was brown and it was used for bedding and stuff of that
sort. In fact, today if you notice any of the bedding
mattresses and all come apart it sort of has a brownish tint
and it's sough-looking; and that's cotton and it was made
into lampwick, and duck, and curd and where the bobbins would
break - instead of wasting that, that was all throwed back
in that machine and made back into cotton. Very fascinating
to watch it work.
Harvey: Well, you first job d m
did you get that jab?
there at Meadow Mill - how
Lewis: Well, 1 walked over into the office and I asked the
man if he was hiring anybody: I don't recall who was in the
office, but I did know some of the men these and he sent me
up to E3r.Isaac McDonald who was the boss of the spinning room.
And =.Isaac McDonald would give me a job . . . my job was to
take bobbins when the girls doffed them I was supposed to take
them down to the spoolers and dump them in the bins for the
spoolers and keep the doffers in empty wagons so they could
keep them all doffing. And that was my job.
And in them days the girls initiated you, and of
course I was initiated [laughs].
Harvey: Well, what happened . . . hm'd they initiate you?
Lewis: Well - I think that would be better left unsaid.llaughs]