uickly with the incorporation of the Riverside Cotton Mills which had only 2,240 spindles and a mere one hundred looms. By the turn of the century the mill expanded and operated 67,650 spindles and 200,000 looms. Growth seemed to continue almost exponentially until the depression set in in1929.
             It could easily be said that the depression was the cause of the ill will that the workers felt toward their employers. Although the mills seemed to be doing great, grossing sales in the billions of dollars, the working class in the mills were seeing very little of the industries success. Textile workers earned less than any other laborer. With the success as abundant as it was in the textile industry, it is no wonder that the laborers sought unionization since they were seeing so little of the profit at their end of the industry. In 1902 only one textile workers union in Virginia was reported by the state Labor Commissioner. It had forty members, of whom none were employed (Smith 52). So, massive strikes were impossible to organize and because of this the workers had little leverage. There were still small local strikes that were mostly unsuccessful. One of which was reported in Mill on the Dan. When Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor visited Danville, Virginia where in response to their attempts to organize hoped to catalyze the endeavors. A single mill went on strike in a city that was supported by five others. The company did not compromise, and slowly the workers trickled back to their jobs. In 1929 the first notable strike broke out in Gaston County. This massive strike was preceded by a brief strike in nearby Mecklenburg County, and other smaller labor disputes in counties surrounding Gaston, but this strike, known as the Loray Mill Strike, began the massive spread of unionization sentiment in the south. The year of 1929 marked the boom of the spread of unionization in the south, agitated by t...