Interview with Shirley Lally
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Download Interview with Shirley Lally - Audio File (41.3 MB)
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Date of Interview
10-27-2000
Duration of Audio File
0:45:07
Interviewee
Shirley Lally
Age
Born approximately 1930 or 1931, 69 or 70 at date of interview
Gender
Female
Description
Lally worked 40 years at the mill in the predominantly female finishing department, inspecting and counting reams of paper by hand. She was married to another mill worker. At the time of unionization in the late 1960s, she led a group of activist women who rebelled against the mill's practice of laying off women with greater seniority than men, successfully changing seniority policy for women for the better.
Birth Place
Westbrook, Maine
Residence
Westbrook, Maine
Occupation/Work History
Worked in finishing department at S. D. Warren as a paper counter inspector, 1950s-1990s; shop floor leader for women's issues in the 1960s
Role
Union
Mill or Principal Employer
S.D. Warren Company
Keywords
Westbrook, Maine
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Hillard, Michael G. PhD, "Interview with Shirley Lally" (2000). S.D. Warren Company. 6.
https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/sd-warren/6
Comments
Reminiscences include life and work in finishing department - how women counted reams of paper by hand while inspecting their quality, rampant favoritism in job assignments and sexual harassment. Also discusses legendary mill paternalism, for example financially rescuing workers. She and her husband purchased one of the mill's original housing for workers, a John Calvin Stephens designed home on Brown Street in Westbrook, Maine.