Textile Mills — Supporting Documents

Ruth Rouse

Lewis Wickes Hines (1874-1940)

History of Textile Mills

Franklinsville Manufacturing Company

Deep River Mills

Loray Mill

General Overview Information

  1. Change in the Textile Mill Villages of South Carolina’s Upstate During the Modern South Era : Master thesis by Claire E Jamieson
  2. A row of houses of the cotton mill people. Lydia Mills, Clinton, S.C. Witness, Sara R. Hine. Dec. 2, 1908. L.W.H. Location: Clinton, South Carolina.
  3. Sanford Cotton Mill. Accident case. Carl Thornburg a 12 year old boy who went to work at 11. A few weeks ago he caught his arm in the “lapper” machine, and broke it in 2 places. He said: “I sure didn’t mean to. Was jus goin through the lapper room an fust thing I knew everything went black.” The family is hard-up. Father is a paralytic. Here is a real chance for a mill to do a benevolent deed by making some recompense to this crippled boy and his paralytic father. They think it’s charity to give a boy work under legal age, but when he is injured they forget that side of it. No suggestion of any kind of recompense has been heard. Jim Browning said he was 12 years old, but that is doubtful. Has worked 6 months here; gets 50 cents a day. Is in the 2nd grade at school. Location: Sanford, North Carolina.

  4. Openers – First Process in Manufacturing Cotton, Dallas Cotton Mills, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A.

  5. Drawing frames – five strands are drawn into one, White Oak Mills, Greensboro, N.C.
  6. Weaving cotton cloth, Dallas Cotton Mills, Dallas, Texas
  7. Spinners in a cotton mill. See 2134(?).
  8. Hine # 2134 Dependent (able-bodied) Parents. Smith Family, West Point, Miss. Three girls (in front) work in the mill. This boy and others work up town. Came from an Alabama farm six months ago. Smallest spinner runs two sides. “Father just putters around. Don’t work steady.” “We all like the mill work better’n the hot sun on farm.” House barren and run down. Location: West Point, Mississippi.
  9. Sunday ball game. All work, (a help) in Laurel (Miss.) Cotton Mill. Location: Laurel, Mississippi.
  10. Boy at warping machine, Catawba Cotton Mill, Newton, N.C. Location: Newton, North Carolina.
  11. Operator repairing break in thread in warp winding. Laurel cotton mills, Laurel, Mississippi
  12. Young boy on warping machine Elk Cotton Mills. Location: Fayetteville, Tennessee.
  13. Young doffers in Elk Cotton Mills. Location: Fayetteville, Tennessee.
  14. A doffer boy in Globe Cotton Mill, Augusta, Ga. Location: Augusta, Georgia.
  15. Winding machine, where large cylinders of warp are prepared for later use in weaving cloth. Laurel mills, Mississippi

  16. Carding (cotton) Helmshore

  17. No. 1. Card Room, Massachusetts Mills in Georgia. Lindale, Ga.
  18. Weaving room, cotton mill, Augusta, Ga., U.S.A.
  19. Operator of thread-making machine. Laurel cotton mill, Laurel, Mississippi
  20. Warping room, cotton mill, Augusta, Ga., U.S.A

Process

Timeline

  • 1861-1865 — Civil War
  • 1870s — Textiles were the one of the few southern industries to see growth
  • 1880s — “Cotton Mill Campaign” led by William Gregg, Henry Hammett and Daniel Tompkins
  • 1898 — Spanish American War
  • 1903 — NC enacted a child labor law, prohibiting children younger than 12 from working
  • 1905 — One half of all southern looms and spindles were within a one hundred miles radius of Charlotte
  • 1913 — Lewis Wickes Hine photographs children working in textile mills
  • 1917 — WWI
  • 1929 — Loray mill strike in Gastonia, NC
  • 1930 — Decline of the textile mills