By Leonora Beck Ellis.
While the political economist knits his brows in perplexity over the
immoderate increase of cotton mills in the Southern States, and the
social reformer cries vehemently against their child labor and low adult
wages, these problems are solving themselves by natural processes which
man’s economics or sociological theories can neither hurry nor retard.
Cotton manufacturing has traversed the road to its base of supply,
and can no more be severed from it again than the descending rivulet
can turn and run up hill. Child labor is only a complicated error of
new conditions, and will in due process fall to inevitable decay. The
wage problem mutates everywhere, yet optimism assures us that it bears
steadily towards solution.
But the mill people of the South are a new and picturesque labor class.
Some glimpses of their homes and family life will, we believe, afford
interest to the reader for entertainment as well as to the student of
sociology.
* * * * *
There are points of distinct difference between the factory operatives of
the South and those of any other section of our country or of Europe.
In the first place, there are no urban instincts in these Southern mill
communities. Whatever virtues they lack at least they have not the vices
of cities. The good and the evil in them are still such as belong to a
strictly rural people. But no one must expect, after another decade and a
half, to find the same thing true; for, with the passing of the present
generation, this unique characteristic must of necessity be largely lost.
Gregariousness of living is potent to efface such a mark even when
deeply stamped.
It may be asked, What are the indications of this quality which, for
want of a better name, is termed rusticity? The signs are many and easy
to read. No observant person can miss the plain evidence even in his
first day with the mill people. He walks past the cottages, row on row,
and sees prince’s feather and bachelor’s button growing in the tiny
yards, patchwork quilts sunning from the windows, and strings of red
pepper festooned on the back porches. The boys are quite often chewing
tobacco, but they are not smoking cigarettes. Often, alas! the girls dip
snuff, but they do not lace in their waists, nor attempt handkerchief
flirtations. The women are given to quiet, and a profound reserve
usually marks their social intercourse. The festive gatherings in the
entertainment halls on Saturday nights are either stiff parties or
genuine country dances. The “barbecue” is common on a general holiday and
the “all day singing” of a Sunday still remains the acme of enjoyment,
affording the perfect blending of sociality and devotion.
A second quality differentiating our people from the Northern factory
communities of to-day, is what may well be called their unmodified
Americanism. Up to the present time there is an entire absence of the
foreign element of population among them, and the effect of such absence
is very marked. Not only do better manners prevail in this people sprung
from our own soil, but better morals, greater social purity, less
turbulence and lawlessness. Remember, that observance of law is easier,
more natural, even to illiterate Americans, than to other nations,
because Law has typified to them from childhood the majesty of right, not
the tyranny of might.
[Illustration:
MILLS 1, 2 AND 3, PELZER, S. C.
]
The finer respect for women which marks American manhood, extends also to
these toilers. Except among their very lowest, motherhood inspires the
regard it meets with in other social strata. And while in many of the
mills the number of female employees exceeds that of males, yet in few of
the better kind are there any mothers of young children at work.
These considerations lead at once to the questions, Where does such a
class of labor come from? What are its antecedents?
The first is easily answered: The operatives have poured into the new
factories, not from town or city, but from the country, direct from
the cotton fields, we may say, to the mills. It was certainly not an
anomalous movement when cotton was bringing 4¾ cents per pound. But
as the staple moves back to its old prices, 10 and 12 cents, some
reactionary phases must be looked for and provided against.
The antecedents of this class of labor deserve attention. A great
majority of the operatives come from the agricultural class known as
tenant farmers; that is, men who farm the land for others, paying as rent
a considerable portion of each year’s crop. The tenant system was adopted
in the South during the period of disorder and chaotic ruin following the
Civil War, when our old system of labor was dissolved and no better base
remained on which to build anew the fabric of agricultural life. Unfit
as it is for a country of such institutions as ours, and the source in
itself of very sore evils, the tenant system still had a necessary part
in the last half century.
Many of the tenant farmers of the last generation had indeed “seen
better days.” Not a few had been freeholders before the war, although
usually of the little farms interspersed here and there among the great
plantations of the aristocrats. Many others had been overseers, factors,
agents of various sorts. A very small proportion came from the class of
decayed gentlemen. The rest were made up from those strata usually lumped
together in our designation, “crackers,” or, in the South Carolina term,
“poor Buckra.”
[Illustration:
HOMES FROM WHICH THE MILL PEOPLE COME.
]
Such are the antecedents of the mass of operatives in the new mills
of the South. Bearing in mind this derivation, you will not find it
difficult to account for many qualities, traits and habitudes that
might otherwise appear anomalous. For example, their extravagance is a
characteristic almost without parallel among other classes of toilers.
But it is simple of explanation.
The transition from a dollarless past to a many-dollared present would
render any class of untutored human beings extravagant. Through a long
period of tenant farming, these people scarcely saw a piece of money
from Christmas to Christmas. Each year’s supplies were either furnished
by the owner of the land, or bought on credit at a nearby store, to
be paid for when the cotton was picked. The harvest came, sometimes
good, sometimes bad; but good or bad, it seemed uniformly to take it
all to pay the merchant and the landlord. The tenant rarely enjoyed
even the sorry pleasure of selling his cotton and paying the hard cash
to these creditors; instead, he usually hauled the raw product of his
toil directly to them, then turned apathetically away to begin his
half-hearted preparations for another year’s crop. His wife and children
shared his labors, sharing also his empty-handedness.
This went on through the dragging years of the South’s agricultural
prostration, until the last decade came, with its mills and its
industrial revolution, when the moneyless and landless ones drew into
the new communities, to try bread-winning under unfamiliar conditions.
The mothers and daughters had often worked on the farms, so they did not
hesitate at the factory door, except when very young children claimed the
care of the former. In most instances, indeed, the women’s fingers proved
the readiest for the new occupation.
[Illustration:
THE MOUNTAIN TOP CABIN
]
But neither women nor men acquired dexterity without a period of
laborious effort, such as all workmen must struggle through when,
possessed of only the inherited instincts of generations of bucolic
ancestors, they set themselves to some form of mechanical labor. That
period being done with, a certain amount of skill began to appear in all
fairly intelligent operatives, and shortly they found themselves bringing
home each Saturday night, or alternate Saturday night, according as pay
day fell, an amount of money that to them seemed an amazing treasure-pile.
[Illustration:
A TYPICAL MILL COTTAGE.
]
Cases such as the following are found in every prosperous factory
community: The father, mother, and six or eight boys and girls, ranging
from twelve to twenty odd years, are at work in one mill. Large families
are the rule in this class, remember. Now, the adults, if fair weavers,
easily average $22.99 apiece per month. The younger members of the family
are probably spinners, and average about $14 each. This family, then,
that in the old life of the farm thought themselves fortunate indeed to
handle $100 in cash throughout a year, now bring home something like
$175 every month!
Is it strange to you that extravagance seizes upon this metamorphosed
household? If the sudden transition from pennilessness to plethoric
pocket-books did not lead in itself straight to spendthrift living, the
precedents of their neighbors would speedily teach the trait.
So the housewife loads the table with luxuries hitherto unknown; the
pretty girl is tempted into all the caprices of dress that her little
Vanity Fair may flaunt, while the father and brother can scarcely tell
whither their dollars speed on such swift wings.
[Illustration:
THE LYCEUM, PELZER, S. C.
]
Yet this wastefulness, too, is but a phase, destined to gradual
elimination in the development of the process by which an agricultural
people are converted into a manufacturing one. With all their illiteracy
this class is not devoid of understanding; and when a certain
bewilderment of these early years is past, it will be borne in upon them
in countless ways, by their school privileges, their larger experience,
their clearer views of the outside world, by their own innate manhood,
indeed, that there are far other uses for hard-earned money than to be
lavished on mere food, clothing and shelter. Many of them are already
opening their eyes to the fact that for an abundance of things to eat
and wear, they have bartered a certain independence and manliness which
are fostered by agricultural pursuits, even the lowliest, and which
breed sturdier virtues than mere factory dependents can hope to transmit
to their children. Awakening perceptions such as these are leading to
different results: to a rescinding of extravagance always; sometimes
a return to the farm; occasionally to the laying aside of money or
investing it in a home just outside the factory property. But in most
cases I find a steadfast purpose growing,—to work straight on where they
are for the present, and save every cent possible to educate the coming
generation and set their feet in the path that leads to freedom. I have
even found several young men and women putting aside money to go to
school on when enough is saved, and many go to school and work through
alternate half years.
But how can they save money? clamor those who have been studying the
comparative wage-scale of Northern and Southern factories, without
acquaintance with the actual conditions of the latter. By reasonable
economy, is the answer in this case as others.
From $20 to $30 per month is paid good weavers throughout this section,
while the average spinner draws from $10 to $16. These are regarded as
good living wages in a country where the prices of necessaries range much
lower than in the East or the West. Houses are to be heated only about
four months in the year, and fuel is comparatively cheap, in many places
less than $1.50 per cord for wood, while coal averages less than half the
price it brings in Northern markets. Clothing in this warm climate costs
far less than in a colder region. Farm and garden supplies are purchased
for what seems to the Northern mind an absurdly low price, and dairy
products are never high. Besides, in all the rural mill communities,
which are now counted by the score to every one in a city, a garden patch
always and often pasturage for one cow can be counted on with every
cottage.
House rent is not a considerable item. The mill cottages rent by the
month on the basis of 60 cents to $1 per room, and the houses range in
size from three to eight rooms, four, however, being the rule. With few
exceptions, these cottages are fairly comfortable, and built with due
regard to sanitation. Outside of cities, each one has its ground space
where the inmates may grow flowers and vegetables, thus fostering a form
of local attachment that is by no means weak.
From this brief survey, it may be deduced that while the one-time tiller
of the soil has surrendered something in becoming a factory operative,
he has also come into new privileges and potentialities. When you
strike your balance between gain and loss, do not overlook the weighty
consideration of the school advantages and other educational facilities
which such people have acquired by coming from sparse and remote
settlements into their present community life.
* * * * *
During a recent cold snap the young and tender editor of this youthful
publication accompanied the blizzard to a small Tennessee town. The
office of the little hotel was full of commercial travelers trying to
keep warm around a single grate. A half-frozen Italian organ grinder,
with his monkey, entered, but was crowded away from the fire by the
traveling men. He found a chair away back in the corner of the room and
soon fell asleep. But suddenly he woke with a scream; the traveling men
rushed to him and asked him what was the matter. He said he dreamed he
was in hell and was freezing to death. “Freezing to death in hell! How is
that?” asked one of the boys. “Well,” replied the Italian, “the drummers
crowded around the fire so I couldn’t get to it.”—_Robert. L. Taylor._
[Illustration]