Marguerite Stewart interview with Burl Jackson “Jack” Bandy and Altha Sue Quinton Gordon (part two)

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Research notes

Part two of the 1974 interview (part one is u-mvs4y9t5g4k3g), from the John Burrison Georgia Folklore Archives at the Atlanta History Center (via the Digital Library of Georgia, https://dlg.usg.edu/record/geh_p17222coll18_584). Atlanta History Center item p17222coll18/584. Speakers: the archive names the interviewer as Marguerite Stewart and the interviewees as Burl Jackson "Jack" Bandy (1926-2020) and Altha Sue Quinton Gordon (1928-2011). In the transcripts a woman called "Joy" both asks Bandy questions (part one) and answers questions about learning to hand-tuft (part two); she is probably Altha Sue Quinton Gordon, but the recording does not say so. Bandy speaks of his own parents as early spread makers; that he is the Dalton carpet manufacturer for whom the Bandy Heritage Center is named is likely but not stated in the interview. The transcripts were made from the audio and published to the research tool on 2 Nov 2026; part two repeats several passages, apparently transcription artefacts. From the transcript (part two): - Bandy: machines were developed to do jobs done by hand; fringes once made mechanically are now done with "a jet fringe which is by air". - Joy, on learning to hand-tuft: her mother first made spreads for herself; two or three years later "Mrs. Bandy and Mrs. Bates and a few people here in Dalton" took it up "as a cottage type thing", with sheeting, yarn and stamped patterns; workers brought back the week's work and picked up more. - Pay: "all from cents up to two dollars depending on how much tufting was to be put on them"; elsewhere "ten and twelve cents and up to forty cents"; she made "three or four dollars a week". She learned "out of necessity". - Tools: "little leather guards for your hands to push the needle through, and another one on your finger to pull it through", and finger stalls made from old inner tubes, because the thread was strong and heavy. The men did the clipping, kept the scissors sharp and stamped the patterns in the yard. - Patterns were "mostly from nature": "a cluster of grapes", "a ribbon bow", and one "called the double wedding ring". - Spreads were sold "mostly up North", some locally; "almost everybody in Dalton had a tufted spread back then". - Spreads were boiled to shrink the sheeting and hold the tufts; for whiteness they were dipped in homemade soft soap and left on the line for up to a week in the sun, then washed. The first coloured yarn sold as fast colour "wasn't", and ran when boiled; later a fast colour was developed. - Some spreads carried "ten or twelve pounds of thread"; then lighter spreads came, "And they got to doing it by machine. That's when the hand tufting started going out. That's when it all went into the mills."