Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World

541 Pages·2000·28.63 MB·English

by  Jacquelyn Dowd Hall

L I KE A F A M I LY
THE FRED W. MORRISON SERIES
IN SOUTHERN STUDIES

Like a Family
The Making of a Southern
Cotton Mill World
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, James Leloudis
Robert Korstad, Mary Murphy
Lu Ann Jones, Christopher B. Daly
WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHORS
FOREWORD BY MICHAEL FRISCH
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill and London
© 1987 The University of North Carolina Press
Foreword and afterword © 2000
The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
The paper in this book meets the guidelines
for permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Like a family: the making of a Southern cotton mill
world / Jacquelyn Dowd Hall . . . [et al.].
p. cm.
Previous ed. published: Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1987.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8078-4879-4 (pbk.: alk. paper)
i. Cotton trade — Southern States — History.
2. Cotton trade — Southern States — Employees —
History. 3. Southern States — Social conditions.
4. Textile factories — Southern States — History.
I. Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd.
1109077. A 131.55 2000
30.5.9'7 — dczi 99-0878622
Frontispiece: The rising generation, Augusta,
Georgia, 1909. Detail from a photograph by Lewis Hine.
(Courtesy of the Photography Collections,
Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, University of
Maryland at Baltimore County)
04 03 02 01 oo 5 4 3 21
THIS BOOK WAS DIGITALLY PRINTED.
To Our Families
in Every Sense of the Word
and to DC, AG, and DL
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C O N T E N TS
Foreword by Michael Frisch / xi
Preface / xvii
Acknowledgments / xxvii
Note on Sources / xxxi
PART ONE: COTTON MILL PEOPLE
Chapter i. Everything We Had / 3
Chapter 2. Public Work / 44
Chapter 3. From the Cradle to the Grave / 114
PART TWO: AIR AND PROMISES
Chapter 4. Hard Rules / 183
Chapter 5. Turn Your Radio On / 237
Chapter 6. A Multitude of Sins / 289
Epilogue / 358
Afterword / 364
Notes / 385
Bibliography / 447
Index / 477
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M A PS A ND
I L L U S T R A T I O N S
Maps
i. Textile Spindleage in the Southeast, 1929 / xxxii
2. Counties of the Southeast, 1929 / xxxiv
3. Rivers and Railroads of the Southeast, 1930 / xxxvi
4. Selected Mill Towns of the Carolinas, 1930 / xxxviii
Illustrations
A North Carolina mountain Card room hands at the
farm / 11 Franklinville Manufacturing
Company / 70
Men gathered for wheat
threshing / 23 Men and women weaving at the
White Oak Mill/71
Advertisement for Altamahaw
Plaids / 27 Women drawing in at the White
Oak Mill / 75
Officers and superintendents of
the Cone family's Proximity and The card room at the White Oak
White Oak plants / 32 Mill / 83
The Gaffney Manufacturing Swimming in the whirlpool on
Company / 35 the Deep River / 89
Workers at the Franklinville Girls enjoy a break from
Manufacturing Company / 54 work / 91
Doffers at the Bibb Mill The superintendent's house at
No. i / 57 the Franklinville Manufacturing
Company / 117
Learning to spin / 65
D. A. Tompkin's plan for a
Men opening bales of cotton at
four-room mill house / 118
the White Oak Mill / 68