treading the traces of discarded history

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Oral istory Society

Treading the Traces of Discarded History: Oral History InstallationsAuthor(s): Alison MarchantSource: Oral History, Vol. 20, No. 2, Making Histories (Autumn, 1992), pp. 48-50Published by: Oral History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40179289.

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TREADING THE TRACES OF DISCARDED HISTORY:ORAL HISTORY INSTALLATIONSALISON MARCHANT

TIMEAND MOTIONIN ROCHDALETime & Motion was commissioned by Rochdale Art Galleryduring the Summer Festival of 1990. For many years I hadspoken with my relative, Alice Slater, who lives in Lancashire,about her experiences as a cotton weaver. When Rochdale ArtGallery invited me to create a new art work, Time & Motionbegan to take form.The conditions of the Rochdale Art Gallery project werethat I create an art-work both in the gallery and at a locationof my choice, anywhere in Rochdale. I felt that I would likemy main work to take place in a local cotton mill, and so theexhibition organiser approached Barchant Cotton Mill inRochdale, where Time & Motion took place.In the upper disused floor of Barchant Mill I suspended aroll of cotton fabric which cascaded to the floor from a centralbeam. Projected onto the fabric were huge and hauntinggrainy images of mill women's faces whose eyes seems tostare out, confronting the viewer. The archive portraits wereloaned to me from Rochdale Library. I reproduced detailsfrom these formal groupphotographsonto slides. As projections,the women's faces dominated the factory interior, touchingandstretching from both floor and ceiling. Amid the relentlessclatterof looms still functioning at BarchantMill, theprojections

Time and Motion

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dissolved like ghosted faintness, suggesting the fragility ofhumanexperience. Surroundingtheprojections, the installationspread out across the floor as a complex of discarded clogs,mill workers' clothing, and fragments of past mill activity.

Accompanying the visual aspects of the installation was asound-tape comprising a recording of the Barchant Milllooms, intercut with elements from an interview with AliceSlater, whose voice spoke loud and clear, filling the entirefactory floor. She and her husband stood, along with thecurrent cotton mill workers, watching the installation, whichtook place from the 25th - 27th of August1.In the attic above, from the eaves and lodged in darkcorners, were the remnants of past mill work activity: brokenbobbin pieces, dusty oily rags, loom-machine belts, pieces ofcotton and reels of thick twined cotton thread. This debris wascollected and scattered before the viewers, around clogs andmuseum-like mill workers' clothing, to create an aged effectupon the floor. Onto this debris-stricken floor I scattered a pileof pink printed tags labelled '8s Ring Yarn'. I uncurled loom-belts as if to unwind the past, and frantically swept to thesound of looms inmotion, my shadow cast onto the projections.I dragged a heavy chain from one end of the space to the next,back and forth. I untangled the threads of discarded cottonreels and placed them within the arrangement. Imoved slowlyand carefully to the sound of Alice's voice, chalking strikelock-out dates to add a further layer to the installation. Thehumid air of the mill's upper floor caused the chalked wordsto fade and be re-inscribed:Drawing attention to a conventional, detrimental process(whereby history is made and perceived as novelty/nostalgia,and emptied of substance) objects and experiences undergo amovement, counteracting the stasis of the museum, to createa web of interacting forces.

Time &Motion illustrates a process of shifting; for example,clothing from museums, carrying the imprint of their formerwearers, is moved into the disused and desolate work space,creating an ominous presence, a scene of confrontation. Thevoice of Alice Slater recalls her memory of mill work, addingto the Installation the reality of the compulsion of wagelabour. The archive projections are re-represented so thatdetails of faces are drawn out of the posed and formalisedphotographs to reveal the identities of the women, hinting atpossibilities for self-determination, an autonomy from theway in which our lives are determined by work.The Time & Motion' of the title subverts its usual definition;a time and motion study being a means of surveillance of theproductivity of individual workers, where the motion of the

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looms becomes a monotonous, thundering sound. TheInstallation rejects the confines of these meanings, and movesinto real time: the struggle for re-definition, where meaningfulrelationships and connections can be made. Time and Motionsuspends the moment of exploitation, portrayingit as potentiallyparalysed where the only movements are the words spokenand those chalked onto the mill floor, which focus upon thenotion of knowledge and experience as defined by the millworkers themselves:I started work when I was 14. We had no choice, you knew youwere going into the mill, if you were clever, or whatever, itdidn't matter you had to go there.Well it was a bit of a shock the first time I went in, the noiseand the dirt and the fluff, it was terrible. I thought, oh, I won'tbe able to stand this, but you did. We used to start at seven inthe morning, and seven till ten in the morning on Saturdays.Iworked in the mill forty years, I left to have my children, thenI went back after the war and worked part-time ... Nearlyeveryone went back to work after having their childrenbecause they couldn't afford to stay at home. One wagewasn't enough especially if your husband worked in the milltoo.

When I first worked in the mill I was sort of tenting - we hadto do the sweeping for a trained weaver who we had to workfor. We had to lie on the floor; sweep under the looms, and wegot 6 shillings for doing four looms like that The fluff wasdeep, deep and everywhere was covered in this fluff, itcouldn't have been healthy. Those were the conditions at thetime and we had no protection. Many people I knew hadbronchitis and other ailments later in life, and I'm not surprisedbecause all that, was in the air all the time.

There were tattlers, managers and bosses higher up. It wasvery strict, the managers were always looking around, walkingaround to see if they saw you talking, laughing or mindingyour work. By talking you did a lot of sign language, so youcould talk to someone right across the shed. I think that's whypeople in Lancashire talk more clearly, because we had to useour lips to pronounce, we would read each other's lips.2TYINGTHE THREADSIN OLDHAMTying the Threads was an Installation which took place atOldham ArtGallery from 18th January- 1 1 h April 1992. TheInstallation combined a small selection of extracts frominterviews from Oldham local history library and sixteenextensive interviews of my own with the following localwomen: Lillian Hirst, Harriet Berry, Alice Whitehead, AliceTait,Ivy Scott,Doris Bradbury,Sheila Cartmill, Lilly Challkinor,PatGormley, Alice Hulton, Olive Jones, Maria Maksymowych,Joan Moores, Alice Partington, Edith Taylor and IngridWilson. Four of the women interviewed were currently workingin the cotton industry, so comparisons could be made in termsof the history. While Oldham Museum paints the usualnostalgic view of life in the industry Tying the Threadsportrayed a very different reality. By interviewing sixteenwomen, some of whom began in the mills early this century

as half-timers, through to contemporary workers who starteda few years ago, a nearcomplete picture was mapped out. Likethe representation of Alice Slater's accounts in Time andMotion, the Oldham mill workers are portrayed as the history-makers as opposed to the traditional industrial revolution'pioneers'.At Oldham Art Gallery the Installation was laid out withdissolving slides onto the far wall. Again I re-photographedimages from the local archive, collaging threads onto re-printed archive images; these I later produced as slides. Itinted the slides so some were sepia, faint green, blue or grey,adding subtle colours to re-create an atmosphere. The galleryspace was long and narrow, so from the projections at the farend wall threads of cotton spanned out, criss-crossing fromfloor to ceiling, back and forth across the space, until thethreads themselves formed a scale equivalent to a loom.Interspersed between the threads were objects from the localhistory museum which were once used by local cotton workers.The threads and objects criss-crossed over the projections andcast shadows as the oral history tape I had compiled with thelocal Oldham mill workers played throughout the gallery.

Tying the ThreadsTo the left a window of the gallery was blocked off bycotton strike dates, and the names of Lancashire mill working

suffragists. Many early radical suffragists were mill workers- working class women. In 1808 The Times reported: Thewomen mill workers were more turbulent than the men'. In1834 there was the Eight Hour Riot in Oldham, and amongthose arrested was Sally Whitehead, a cotton worker. AtPeterloo several banners were inscribed 'Universal Suffrage',and sixty-five years later there was a demonstration to theHouse of Lords - four of the female Peterloo survivors (whowere also mill workers) were on that demonstration. Theywere Mary Collins, Catherine McMurdo, Susannah Whittakerand Alice Schofield. Otheractive suffragistsfrom theLancashirecotton mills include Sarah Reddish. Mrs Winbott, AnnieHeaton, Annie Kenny (born in Oldham), Cissy Foley andSelina Cooper.3 Undoubtedly there were many more, but

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none received the recognition attributed to middle classwomen ike thePankhursts. heworking lasses areconstantlydenied hepowerof theirownprintedwords,so little is knownof the few women we can name:My job wasputtingraw cottonin the back of the rollerso thatit comes outas a coil. It was called 'feeding the devil*,andIgot bysinnosis.The damagewas alreadydone. I had chronicbronchitis at seventeen, and I had to go into the hospitalbecausethey thoughtI hadconsumption.The Union ust broughtme small food parcelswhenIhadthispoisoning Idon'thave much aith nunions).It's the dust hatdidit.Icould feel the dustgoing upmynose and nmythroat.Therewerebig lumpsof dustalways flying about.Breathingproblemswerecommon;a lot of people I workedwith,earlyon, got bysinnosis. I didn't get compensation because mydoctor irst dentified t as bronchitis.Butapart romanythingelse itgives you abadheart. collapsed lastWednesday,andthe nursesaid I could collapse anytimebecause my heart sunderstrainandis notstrongenoughto help my circulation.I had to be tested in Manchesterandthey asked me to blow(into a measure).ButI couldn't blow into it at all 4

HarrietBerry s one of many elderlywomenI interviewedinOldhamwho still sufferfrom thepoorworkingconditionsof themillstheyworked n. HarrietBerryworked rom1923-1937 and like manymill-workerswho suffer ill healthfromthe industry he received no compensation.Lily Challinorwas born in 1940 and has worked in thecotton industry ince 1958:

I beganworkin the industry n 1958, andearly in the sixtiestherewas a lotof dole, short imeworking.When we wentinthemills,the mills werehigherwages,that'swhy we wentin.Now,eventhoughIhave an excellentworkrecord, 've neverbeen on the dole, I get 3.00 an hourfor doing the samejobI've done for thirtyyears.Yes, I havebysinnosis,Igot it about6 years ago, Ididn'tgetcompensationno,justapension.But it won'tget worseasI'monsyntheticsnow,aslongas I don'tgoon cotton t shouldstaythe same.It's the fibresin the cottonthat hits yourchest.5

MariaMaksymowychwas born in the Ukrainein 1930.Shehas worked nOldham nthecottonindustry ince 1955:I'm a ring spinner.I've beendoing my job for 36 years,ringspinning.Some people get bysinnosis, when you work for a

longtime in the mill you have to watchyourself.You alwayshave to wash yourhands beforeyou have meals, wash yourmouthout,youhave to look afteryourself.See everytimeyouhave anx-ray in the chest. You have an x-ray every 5 years,I think.They used to come to the mill in the yard,a specialmobilex-ray;we used to have so you knewwhetheryou gotit or not.Themachinerymakesa lot of noise andyouhave towearearplugs, because it does affect your hearing f you don't wearthem.It's five yearssincetheyaskedme towear hem. Beforewe didn'tknow, nobodyknew, nobodywas botheringabouthearingaid, but now they do.6Bysinnosisanddeafnesshavebeen two commonresultsofhazardousworkingconditions in the cotton industry.Often*kissing the shuttle' caused mill-workers to lose their teethfromsucking in dirt,dust and oil along with the thread.7IngridWilsonexplained o me that he oil used nthe cotton

industry caused skin cancer. Ingrid Wilson was born inAustria n 1931 and workedin the cotton mills through he1950'stol980's:When he men did theoilingtheyhad a certainkindof oil, andwhentheyoiled thespindles, heyhad ittlecupsandtheyhadto take the spindles out and put oil in. You had to movebecause that oil gave you skin cancer. That was when I wasstill working.There were tapes,and themtapes areturning ourspeeds,two on this side, two on the other side. Sometimes the tapeslips off, becauseunderneath hemill you had a big tin rollerthatwentover,andtheyhadtogo andcheck that.They put hemachineon, and checked to see that hetapewas still on, andtheoil splashed.Thenthey gotburntout,theyhad marks.Themen had markson their skin on theirarms,on theirlegs andaround here (indicates stomach and groin area). They gotburntout, but it didn'tmake a hole, itjust left a skin bite, itneverwentany deeper, talwaysleft a bit. Littleringsandthatoil causedskin cancer.8

The aim of myoralhistoryresearchandpractice s to makework which includesworkingclass people, but whichis alsoavailable orviewingandcriticismby working lassaudiences,and is not simply my view of them.[BothTime and Motion andTyingthe Threadsarecurrentlyavailable for hire. For further information contact AlisonMarchant, Hillyfields, Loughton,Essex, IG102JT.]

Notes1 RochdaleArtGalleryExhibitioncatalogue,Grade Fields LiveArtCommissions1990,pp. 16-17.2 Interview with Alice Slater,born 1920,Longridge,Lancashire.Recordedby AlisonMarchant une 1990.3 Jill Liddingtonand Jill Norris,One Hand

Tied Behind Us, Virago 1978.4 Interview with HarrietBerry, born 1909,Oldham,Lancashire.Recordedby AlisonMarchantNovember 199 15 Interview with Lily Challinor,born 1940,Oldham,Lancashire.Recordedby AlisonMarchantNovember 1991.6 Interview with MariaMaksymowych,born

1930, Ukraine. Recordedby AlisonMarchantNovember 1991.7 Information romOldhamLocal HistoryLibrary nterviewwith Minnie Walkden.Recordedby Freda Millet.8 Interview with IngridWilson born 1931Austria. Recordedby Alison MarchantNovember 1991.

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