Perry Hicks talks about working in a cotton mill in western North Carolina in the early twentieth century. He was born in 1899 and began working at a young age because he dropped out of the six-month school he was attending. He explains the influence the unions had: "naturally, I have, all my life, been opposed to the unions." He says that the unions caused inflation, so the poor people didn't come out ahead anyway. He eventually left the cotton mill because he couldn't support his family.

Dewey Helms, born in 1903, talks about working in McDowell County, North Carolina, in the early twentieth century. He came from a family of farmers and carpenters, and when he was old enough he began working in the furniture factory for eleven cents an hour between school terms. In 1923 he began working at the mill because the pay was better. He said the only other job you could get besides furniture and mill was the railroad, which didn't pay very well either. He eventually began weaving and repairing looms as a career.