The textile industry employs the greatest number of operatives, or at least concentrates them more. From the farms or the mountain coves, or only one generation removed from that environment, they have been drawn to the mills by various motives. The South is still sparsely settled, and the life of the tenant farmer or the small landowner and his family is often lonely. Until recently, roads were almost universally bad, especially in winter, and a visit to town or even to a neighbor was no small undertaking. Attendance at the country church, which sometimes has services only once a month, or a trip to the country store on Saturday afternoon with an occasional visit to the county-seat furnish almost the only opportunity for social intercourse. Work in a cotton mill promised not merely fair wages but what was coveted even more—companionship.
During the period of most rapid growth in the textile industry, agriculture, or at least agriculture as practiced by this class, was unprofitable. During the decade from 1890 to 1900 the price of all kinds of farm produce was exceedingly low, and the returns in money were very small. Even though a farmer more farsighted than the average did produce the greater part of his food on the farm, his "money crop"—cotton or tobacco—hardly brought the cost of production. The late D. A. Tompkins, of Charlotte, North Carolina, a close student of cotton, came to the conclusion, about 1910, that cotton had been produced at a loss in the South considered as a whole, at least since the Civil War. Many farmers, however, were in a vicious economic circle and could not escape. If they had bought supplies at the country store at inflated prices, the crops sometimes were insufficient to pay the store accounts, and the balance was charged against the next year's crop. Men who did not go heavily into debt often handled less than $200 in cash in a year, and others found difficulty in obtaining money even for their small taxes. To such men the stories of $15 to $25 earned at a mill by a single family in a week seemed almost fabulous. The whole family worked on the farm, as farmers' families have always done, and it seemed the natural thing that, in making a change, all should work in the mill.
To those families moved by loneliness and those other families driven by an honest ambition to better their economic condition were added the families of the incapable, the shiftless, the disabled, and the widowed. In a few cases men came to the mills deliberately intending to exploit their children, to live a life of ease upon their earnings. There were places for the younger members of all these families, but a man with hands calloused and muscles stiffened by the usual round of farm work could seldom learn a new trade after the age of forty, no matter how willing. Often a cotton mill is the only industrial enterprise in the village, and the number of common laborers needed is limited. Too many of the fathers who had come to the village intending themselves to work gradually sank into the parasite class and sat around the village store while their children worked.
During the early expansion of the industry, the wages paid were low compared with New England standards, but they were sufficient to draw the people from the farms and to hold them at the mills. In considering the wages paid in Southern mills, this fact must never be forgotten. There was always an abundance of land to which the mill people could return at will and wrest some sort of living from the soil. For them to go back to the land was not a venture full of unknown hazards. They had been born on the land and even yet are usually only one generation removed, and the land cries out for tenants and laborers. It must also be remembered that though the wages measured in money were low, the cost of living was likewise low. Rents were trifling, if indeed the tenements were not occupied free; the cost of fuel and food was low; and many expenses necessary in New England were superfluous in the South.
With the increasing number of mills and the rising price of agricultural products, the supply of industrial laborers became less abundant, and higher wages have been necessary to draw recruits from the farms until at present the rate of wages approaches that of New England. The purchasing power is probably greater for, while the cost of living has greatly increased in the South, it is still lower than in other parts of the country. This does not mean that the average Southern wage is equal to the New England average. While there is a growing body of highly skilled operatives in the South, the rapid growth of the industry has made necessary the employment of an overwhelmingly large number of untrained or partially trained operatives, who cannot tend so many spindles or looms as the New England operatives. Again, much yarn in the North is spun upon mules, while in the South these machines are uncommon. For certain purposes, this soft but fine and even yarn is indispensable. Only strong, highly skilled operatives, usually men, can tend these machines. The earnings of such specialists cannot fairly be compared with the amounts received by ordinary girl spinners on ring frames. Again the weekly wage of an expert weaver upon fancy cloth cannot justly be compared with that of a Southern operative upon plain goods. Where the work is comparable, however, the rates per unit of product in North and South are not far apart.
From the standpoint of the employer it may be possible that the wages per unit of product are higher in some Southern mills than in some New England establishments. In the case of an expensive machine, an operative who gets from it only sixty to seventy-five per cent of its possible production may receive higher wages, or what amounts to the same thing, may produce at a higher cost per unit than a more highly paid individual who more nearly approaches the theoretical maximum production of the machine. There is much expensive machinery in the Southern mills. In fact, on the whole, the machinery for the work in hand is better than in New England, because it is newer. The recently built Southern mills have been equipped with all the latest machinery, while many of the older Northern mills have not felt able to scrap machines which, though antiquated, were still running well. However, the advantage in having a better machine is not fully realized if it is not run to its full capacity. Both spinning frames and looms have generally been run at a somewhat slower speed in the South than in the North. This fact was noted by that careful English observer, T. M. Young: "Whether the cost per unit of efficiency is greater in the South than in the North is hard to say. But for the automatic loom, the North would, I think, have the advantage. Perhaps the truth is that in some parts of the South where the industry has been longest established and a generation has been trained to the work, Southern labor is actually as well as nominally cheaper than Northern; whilst in other districts, where many mills have sprung up all at once amongst a sparse rural population, wholly untrained, the Southern labor at present procurable is really dearer than the Northern." ¹ This does not mean that Southern labor is permanently inferior; but a highly skilled body of operatives requires years for its development.
¹ T. M. Young, The American Cotton Industry, p. 113.
In the beginning there were no restrictions upon hours of work, age, or sex of operatives, or conditions of employment. Every mill was a law unto itself. Hours were long, often seventy-two and in a few cases seventy-five a week. Wages were often paid in scrip good at the company store but redeemable in cash only at infrequent intervals, if indeed any were then presented. Yet, if the prices at the store were sometimes exorbitant, they were likely to be less than the operatives had been accustomed to pay when buying on credit while living on the farms. The moral conditions at some of these mills were also bad, since the least desirable element of the rural population was the first to go to the mills. Such conditions, however, were not universal. Some of the industrial communities were clean and self-respecting, but conditions depended largely upon the individual in charge of the mill.
As the years went on and more and more mills were built, the demand for operatives increased. To draw them from the farms, it was necessary to improve living conditions in the mill villages and to increase wages. Today the mill communities are generally clean, and care is taken to exclude immoral individuals. Payment of wages in cash became the rule. The company store persisted, but chiefly as a matter of convenience to the operatives; and in prices it met and often cut below those charged in other stores in the vicinity. The hours of labor were reduced gradually. Seventy-two became the maximum, but most mills voluntarily ran sixty-nine or even sixty-six. The employment of children continued, though some individual employers reduced it as much as possible without seriously crippling their forces. This was a real danger so long as there were no legal restrictions on child labor. Children worked upon the farm as children have done since farming began, and the average farmer who moved to the mill was unable to see the difference between working on the farm and working in the mill. In fact, to his mind, work in the mill seemed easier than exposure on the farm to the summer sun and the winter cold.
Men who were not conscious of deliberately exploiting their children urged the manager of the mill to employ a child of twelve or even ten. If the manager refused, he was threatened with the loss of the whole family. A family containing good operatives could always find employment elsewhere, and perhaps the manager of another mill would not be so scrupulous. So the children went into the mill and often stayed there. If illiterate when they entered, they remained illiterate. The number of young children, however, was always exaggerated by the muckrakers, though unquestionably several hundred children ten to twelve years old, and possibly a few younger, were employed years ago. The nature of the work permits the employment of operatives under sixteen only in the spinning room; the girls, many of them older than sixteen, mend the broken ends of the yarn at the spinning frames, and the boys remove the full bobbins and fix empty ones in their stead. The possible percentage of workers under sixteen in a spinning mill varies from thirty-five to forty-five. In a mill which weaves the yarn into cloth, the percentage is greatly reduced, as practically no one under sixteen can be profitably employed in a weaving room.