Thanks to my anonymous cupids! 3 hearts.

[Lint Head]

[KT2000]

1. If I had seen one of your posts

earlier - I would have given you a heart too because I like your name!

[Lint Head]

2. Thanks. Maybe you know this but....

It comes from a slang pejorative referring to people who works in Cotton Mills.

[KT2000]

3. No - I didn't know that

I'm a seamstress and lint is part of my life but surely in much smaller amounts than a cotton mill so I guess that is why your name struck me so. Thanks for the explanation.

I hate to think what all that lint and dust did and does to the workers' health in the mills. One of my interests is chemical exposure and disease. I recall a study that found the formaldehyde levels in a garment factory to be within "normal" range when they measured the air. When they measured the lint and dust - the amount was 5,000 times higher. That is what goes up the nose and touches the skin and eyes and is inhaled. I cannot imagine what the levels would be in the mills.
I'm sorry there was a pejorative for workers who had to risk their health.

[Lint Head]

4. I wear that name with pride. I was born next to a textile mill quite a few decades ago.

My Dad worked in the mill as a weave room manager and my Mom worked there for a while then became a cosmetologist.
We were located on the south side of town with the more upper class folks on the north end. They would use that term as a put down.
Of course we had words we for them too. My Dad lost his hearing from working in a mill for so long. I moved on and have done well but those days live in my heart. My Grandmother was also a seamstress and taught me how to sew.

[KT2000]

5. As well you should

wear the name with pride!
The whole textile industry was a powerful building block in this country. We could not have survived without it.

The closest I have come to a mill is the movie Norma Rae and a visit to the Pendleton factory. The noise was incredible. So many sacrifices by workers including your Dad.
I don't know if you are male or female but if you are male and your Grandmother taught you to sew - that was wise of her. Some of the alterations I do for men are so simple they could really do it if they put their mind to it.

[Lint Head]

6. I am male. When some folks find out I can see they asked me if I was in the Navy.

Ha!

[KT2000]

7. Then -

That's funny about the Navy. When at sea I guess there are no seamstresses to put their clothes back together. My friend gave me her father's button supply when he closed his dry cleaners - mostly Navy officer, Coast Guard, and Catholics priests' buttons. You can tell a lot about society from a dry cleaner's button stock!