(Lewis Hines/National Archives)

New York Times bestselling author Wiley Cash’s 2017 novel, The Last Ballad (2017, Willamm Morrow) is set in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina in 1929 and inspired by actual events. It chronicles an ordinary woman’s struggle for dignity and her rights in a textile mill; The Last Ballad is a moving tale of courage in the face of oppression and injustice. It is based on true events and tells the story of Ella Mae Wiggins, whose ballads about the poverty of mill workers in the South, and their repression by mill owners, lived on after her death in a Gaston, NC, workers’ strike.

Dr. Edgar talks with author Wiley Cash about what drew him to the real-life story of Ella Mae Wiggins and about what it was like to be working in the mills of the Carolinas in the 1920s and 1930s.

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