Industrial Development
Though the Old South was in the main agricultural, it was not entirely destitute of industrial skill. The recent industrial development is really a revival, not a revolution, in some parts of the South. In 1810, according to Tench Coxe's semi-official Statement of Arts and Manufactures, the value of the textile products of North Carolina was greater than that of Massachusetts. Every farmhouse had spinning-wheels and one loom or several on which the women of the family spun yarn and wove cloth for the family wardrobe. On the large plantations negro women produced much of the cloth for both slaves and family. Except on special occasions, a very large proportion of the clothing worn by the average Southern community was of household or local manufacture. Hats were made of fur, wool, or plaited straw. Hides were tanned on the plantations or more commonly at a local tannery and were made into shoes by local cobblers, white or black.
Local cabinet-makers made furniture, all of it strong, and some of it good in line and finish. Many of the pieces sold by dealers in antiques in the great cities as coming from Europe by way of the South were made by cabinet-makers in Southern villages in the first half of the nineteenth century. Farm wagons as well as carriages with some pretensions to elegance were made in local shops. In fact, up to 1810 or 1820 it seemed that the logical development of one or two of the South Atlantic States would be into frugal manufacturing commonwealths. Few of the thousands of small shops developed into real manufacturing establishments, however, though many continued to exist. The belief in the profits apparently to be made from the cultivation of cotton and tobacco changed the ideals of the people. To own a plantation on which he might lead a patriarchal existence became the ambition of the successful man. Even the lawyer, the doctor, or the merchant was likely to own a plantation to which he expected to retire, if indeed he did not already live on it while he engaged in his other occupation. As the century went on, the section began to depend more and more upon other parts of the country or upon Europe to supply its wants, and general interest in Southern industries began to wane.
Textile establishments had appeared early in the century. The first cotton mill in North Carolina was built in 1810 and one in Georgia about the same time. Much of the machinery for the former was built by local workmen. Other mills were built in the succeeding years until in 1860 there were about 160 in the Southern States, with 300,000 spindles, and a yearly product worth more than $8,000,000. The establishments were small, less than one-third the average size of the mills in New England, and few attempted to supply more than the local demand for coarse yarn which the country women knit into socks or wove into cloth. The surplus was peddled from wagons in adjoining counties or even in a neighboring State. Little attempt was made to seek a wider outlet, and many of these mills could supply the small local demand by running only a few months in the year.
During the Civil War, however, these mills were worked to their full capacity. At the cessation of hostilities many mills were literally worn out; others were destroyed by the invading armies; and fewer were in operation in 1870 than before the War. During the next decade, hope of industrial success began to return to the South. The mills in operation were making some money; the high price of cotton had brought money into the section; and a few men had saved enough to revive the industry. Old mills were enlarged, and new mills were built. The number in operation in 1880 was about the same as in 1860, but the number of spindles was nearly twice as great.
The Cotton Exposition at Atlanta in 1881 and the New Orleans Exposition in 1884 gave an impetus to the construction of mills. There were prophecies of future success in the industry, though some self-appointed guardians of the South proved, to their own satisfaction at least, that neither the section nor the people were adapted to the manufacture of cotton and that all their efforts should be devoted to the production of raw material for the mills of New England. Difficulties were magnified and advantages were minimized by those whose interests were opposed to Southern industrial development, but the movement had now gained momentum and was not to be stopped. Timidly and hesitantly, capital for building mills was scraped together in dozens of Southern communities, and the number of spindles was doubled between 1880 and 1885 and continued to increase.
In developing this Southern industry there were many difficulties to be overcome, and mistakes were sometimes made. Seduced by apparent cheapness, many of the new mills bought machinery which the New England mills had discarded for better patterns, or because of a change of product. Operatives had to be drawn from the farms and needed to be trained not only to work in the mills but also to habits of regularity and punctuality. The New England overseers who were imported for this purpose sometimes failed in dealing with these new recruits to industrialism because of inability to make due allowance for their limitations. Accustomed to the truck system in agriculture, the managers often paid wages in scrip always good for supplies at the company store but redeemable in cash only at infrequent intervals. The operatives therefore sometimes found that they had exchanged one sort of economic dependence for another. Another difficulty was that a place for Southern yarn and Southern cloth had to be gained in the market, and this was difficult of accomplishment for the product was often not up to the Northern standard.
Managing ability, however, was found not to be so rare in the South as had been supposed. Some of the managers, drawn perhaps from the village store, the small town bank, or the farm, succeeded so well in the broader field that others were encouraged to seek similar industrial success. As the construction of new mills went on, the temper of the South Atlantic States began to change. The people began to believe in Southern industrial development and to be eager to invest their savings in something other than a land mortgage. An instalment plan by which the savings of the people, small individually but large in the aggregate, were united, furnished capital for mills in scores of towns and villages. In 1890 there were nearly a million and three-quarters spindles in the South compared with less than six hundred thousand ten years before.
It seemed as though nearly every mill was profitable, and the occasional failures did not seriously check the movement, which developed about 1900 almost into a craze in some parts of the South. In these sections every town talked of building one mill or more. The machine shops of the North, which had been cold or at least indifferent to Southern development, woke up, as Southern mills began to double or triple their equipment out of their profits. Agents were sent to the South to encourage the building of new mills, and to give advice and aid in planning them. The new mill-owners were good customers. They had learned wisdom by the mistakes of the pioneers, and they demanded the best machinery with all the latest devices. Long credit was now freely offered by Northern manufacturers of machinery, and some of them even subscribed for stock—to be paid, of course, in machinery.
The Northern textile manufacturers also woke up. They found that in coarse yarns the Southern mills were successfully competing with their products. Some pessimistic representatives of the industry in the North prophesied that the Southern mills would soon control the market. Some New England mills built branch mills in the South; some turned to the finer yarns; and some sought to throw obstacles in the way of their competitors. It has been freely charged by many Southerners that New England manufacturers bore the expense of labor organizers in an unsuccessful attempt to unionize the Southern mill operatives. It has also been charged that the propaganda for legislation restricting the hours of labor and the age of operatives in Southern mills was financed to some extent by New England manufacturers, and that the writers of the many lurid accounts purporting to describe conditions in Southern mills received pay from the same source.