Where can I find recorded speeches about working in factories during the first half of the 20th century?

these are not exactly what you're asking for but maybe of use: an http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2050252/bombastic_super_american_selling_of_cotton_plants_old_movie/ on how the southern cotton mills were the key to american progress & superiority http://www.archive.org/details/EasierWa1946 - Presents the case for motion study in the workplace and advises supervisors on how to convince skeptics that it is a good thing. http://www.archive.org/details/Conquerb1943 - Encourages American workers to make the best possible use of their time in a war where industrial production and combat are synchronized on an international level. and here is a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvbG9Sjp97o on the influence of Frederick Taylor's "scientific management" principles on Ford (at 4:20 - Henry Ford watched it for awhile, then he had an inspiration. Instead of moving the men past the cars, why not move the cars past the men?)

You might contact http://library.uml.edu/clh/index.Html for some of their http://library.uml.edu/clh/OH/OrHist.htm materials. This might be of special relevance, since the City of Lowell, MA was literally built as the first site for large scale factory work in North America. The principal industry there from the 1830s was textile manufacturing, using the power of the Merrimack River's natural head at the nearby falls. In the first half of the 20th century, subsequent waves of immigrants washed through Lowell, transforming the city from a New England culture, to one heavily influenced by the Irish, Greek, and Italian immigrants that came. The story of Lowell is also chronicled in a unique urban http://www.lowellma.gov/community/historicpark, which also has some audio interviews, speeches by mill workers trying to organize at various times, and related materials.