The Rise of Cotton Mills in the South

These pages represent a partial exploitation of materials gathered with a view to their ultimate use in more extended form. Many phases of the problem have been left entirely untreated, but the research upon these subjects has not been without indirect service in the present study. In the case of two chapters written midway of the investigation, in revision care has been taken to bring them into consonance with the indications which developed from subsequent discoveries. It is hoped, therefore, that their lack is rather as to completeness than as to fidelity of temper.

Unless this presentation is entirely inadequate, in addition to the more objective economic forces, in the rise of cotton mills in the South, there will appear the human elements that lie at the core of the development.

For assistance, my first thanks are due to Professor Jacob H. Hollander and Professor George E. Barnett, of The Johns Hopkins University, who have contributed in a hundred ways over the whole period of study, and to Dr. Nathaniel R. Whitney, formerly of The Johns Hopkins University and now of the Iowa State University, who helped form my original conception of the problem. In the wider aspects of my study I have drawn upon the experience and judgment of my father continuously. Acknowledgment is due Miss Ellen Rothe and Miss Ethel Hubbard, of the library staff of The Johns Hopkins University; to the authorities of the library of the Peabody Institute of Baltimore, and to the officers of the reading room of the Library of Congress.

In two field investigations in the South, many gentlemen connected directly or indirectly with the cotton manufacturing industry have been instituting in extending their time and counsel and courtesy. From lack of space, it is not possible to make individual mention of all of these in this place; foot-note references to the interviews must be understood each one as expression of appreciation. For extraordinary assistance, however, it gives me pleasure here to return thanks to Hon. John Skelton Williams, Comptroller of the Currency; Mr. George A. Nölting, Jr., of Richmond, Virginia; Mr. O. D. Davis, of Salisbury; Mr. J. L. Hartsell, of Concord; Messrs. J. Lee Robinson and S. N. Boyce, of Gastonia; and Miss Anna L. Twelvetrees, Mr. Sterling Graydon and Mr. Hudson Millar, of Charlotte, North Carolina; Mr. W. J. Thackston, of Greenville; Mr. August Kohn, Professor Yates Snowden and Mr. William W. Ball, of Columbia, South Carolina, and Mr. T. S. Raworth, of Augusta, Ga. Of more intimate sort is my obligation to Professor K. Roberts Greenfield, of Delaware College, who by his constructive criticism has helped shape my opinion in a large way and has at many points improved the text as such.

I cannot fail to acknowledge, finally, my gratitude to Mrs. Charles Reuter and the members of her family, under whose roof most of these pages were written.

Broadus Mitchell

Baltimore, February 6, 1918.

THE RISE OF COTTON MILLS IN THE SOUTH

CHAPTER I

THE BACKGROUND

This opening chapter undertakes a broad survey in brief compass of the historical and economic background out of which the cotton manufacturing industry of the South, as a distinct development, emerged. Thus to begin the story of the rise of the mills with discussion of a period which commences a century in advance, is not unlike the production of a play hopeful in conception, robust in theme and rapid in action, but in which the curtain first rises on a stage which remains empty throughout an entire act.

In viewing the period lying back of the concerted erection of cotton mills in the South, some observers have said they caught satisfying glimpses of men and facts not only presaging but causally related to the main action later. In spite of the present writer's usual disbelieve in the sufficiency of the evidence in these findings, it is a primary purpose of this discussion to give their statements, together with the supporting testimony that they deliberately and others incidentally have brought forward.