High cotton, Stanly County

Loray tower, Christmas Day 2011

Loray

photographs: Kim Church

Many thanks to Lucy Penegar and Preservation North Carolina.

Lewis Hine, photographer, activist

 

Loray Mill, 1908



Loray girls, 1908


Images from the exhibit, "Lewis Hine: Exposing Child Labor in North Carolina, 1908-1918," North Carolina Museum of History.

Triangle Fire, 100 years later

Workers from as far away as California gathered in New York on March 25 to observe the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.  A stirring experience, being in that crowd.  We had sunshine; we had commemorative shirts and hats and buttons and signs; we had solemn, earnest speakers; we had a sense of purpose.  What we were missing was music.  This country desperately needs some new union songs.

* * *

The Villager

Volume 80, Number 42 | March 17 - 23, 2011
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side, Since 1933

Thousands will mark Triangle factory fire 100th anniversary

By Albert Amateau

On Saturday afternoon near closing time on March 25, 1911, a fire flared up in a scrap bin on the eighth floor of the Asch Building on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street where the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory employed about 500 young workers on the top three floors.

Within a half-hour, the fire raged through the lint-laden eighth, ninth and 10th floors where 146 workers, mostly Jewish and Italian girls from immigrant families, lost their lives either in the fire or on the pavement below where 62 of them jumped to escape the inferno.

The door to the Washington Place stairway was locked; the single exterior fire escape soon collapsed from heat and excess weight, spilling victims to the pavement 100 feet below. The Fire Department’s ladder reached only to the sixth floor.

The owners of Triangle Shirtwaist, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were in their factory with their young sons when the fire broke out but they were able to reach the building’s roof and survived. The two owners stood trial for negligent homicide but they were acquitted when their lawyer, Max Steuer, suggested that the surviving victims’ testimony was staged and that prosecutors failed to prove the owners knew that any exit doors were locked at the time of the fire.

However, the owners lost a civil suit in 1913 and had to pay the plaintiffs compensation of $75 for each deceased victim. Nevertheless, Blanck and Harris collected insurance of about $60,000 more than their reported losses, or about $400 per casualty, according to the Web site of the Kheel Archives of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

On Fri., March 25, 2011, the 100th anniversary of the fire, Washington Place between Washington Square East and Broadway will be crowded with an expected 10,000 people commemorating the tragedy that sparked epochal changes in laws regarding safety and working conditions.

Organized by the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, along with Workers United — the labor union that evolved from the International Ladies Garment Workers Union — a procession will begin at 9:30 a.m. at Union Square.



film & photo collage: Kim Church



Erlanger Mill Village

The mill village where my grandmother lived and worked most of her life, and where I spent Sunday afternoons and many long summer days when I was growing up, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.


My grandmother's house, 223 Hames Street.  In disrepair now,
but not beyond salvation.  Which is how my grandmother
regarded most things.



Excerpts from the National Register nomination document:

The houses fall into two main categories: simple, basic house types with spare detailing and Craftsman Bungalows, some of which are remarkably stylish for a mill village. The more basic house types are, for the most part, distributed throughout the earlier sections of the village — a roughly eight-block area just north, east, and south of the mill complex that was built out by 1916-17. In keeping with dwelling types found in other North Carolina mill villages, the majority of these early houses are modest one-story single and double-pile side-gable-roofed dwellings with shed-roofed front porches; a few L-plan, front-gable, and pyramidal-roofed were also erected during this initial construction phase. 

Bungalow, Broad Street

The distinctive bungalows appear in the next development period (1917-23), when approximately fourteen blocks on Broad, Olympia, First and Second Rainbow, and the south end of Short Streets were laid out. The dwellings on the north side of Second Rainbow Street, erected between 1923 and 1929, were the last to be constructed. A 1917 Erlanger Mill Company recruiting brochure states that "the employees' cottages in the newer portion of the village are the most modern bungalow designs, being built with great individuality from thirty original special drawings." Mill employees remember that the houses were painted "green, maroon, and brown" while owned by Erlanger.
 


Double dormers, Broad Street

Historical Background: New York textile magnates Abraham and Charles Erlanger purchased a 250-acre portion of the Grimes estate north of Lexington for a new mill site in 1911. The Erlanger brothers wanted their own source of checked cotton dimity fabric for the one-piece men's underwear (union suits) manufactured for the BVD company in their Baltimore plant, and a group of Lexington businessmen, led by George Mountcastle, persuaded them to locate a production facility in North Carolina. Charles Erlanger's son Milton hired local and out-of-state carpenters and masons to build Erlanger Cotton Mills and supervised the undertaking that began with the construction of a concrete dam in December 1913.

A long, rectangular, brick building with a two-story main mill at the south end, a larger one-story weave shed at the north end, and a two-story picker room in between encompassed the eastern section of the 1913 Erlanger Cotton Mills complex. This building originally housed 25,600 steam-powered spindles and 680 looms; the first cloth was woven on March 28, 1914. A boiler house and turbine room extended from the east elevation of the main mill. Early photographs of the east elevation illustrate that the area bordering Mill Street was nicely landscaped with small trees, a variety of shrubs, and a paved sidewalk. The western section of the mill complex included a two-story brick warehouse (divided into three sections by interior firewalls) with one-story waste and opener rooms on the north end. The large rectangular reservoir north of the warehouse and two towers between the main mill and the warehouse supplied water to the mill's sprinkler system.

Production doubled by 1916 with the introduction of two labor shifts and the installation of new equipment and facilities including 15,360 additional spindles, 420 new looms, and a 5,000-spindle yarn plant. Erlanger Mills employed approximately 1,400 workers during its first years of operation and produced eight million yards of fabric annually. Mill employees worked an average of fifty-five hours a week and lived in the village of frame houses surrounding the mill complex. Workers could rent a variety of houses at the rate of twenty-five cents per room per week, which included the cost of electric lights, water, and sewer.

The Erlanger Company published the first issue of The Erlanger Community, an illustrated newsletter that contained commentary on life in the mill village, in November 1919. A letter from Dr. P. P. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner of Education, to Erlanger residents declared that: "Erlanger is beautiful for its broad streets and clean sidewalks, its cozy houses with their large yards ... its playgrounds and its plots of ground for the common use of the people.... Close enough to the town of Lexington and the railroad station to give the needed contact to the outside world, Erlanger is still free from the crowding and noise and dust and dissipations and vices of the city."



A rare two-story


The Erlanger Cotton Mills complex included an office (circa 1915), additional warehouses north and south of the reservoir, and a two-story yarn mill (completed in 1916) off the main mill's southeast corner by 1923. A one-story brick cloth room and storage space stood directly west of the of the north end of the main mill building. The warehouse north of the reservoir was expanded between 1926 and 1929. Production shifted to cotton dress and shirt fabrics around 1925, when men started wearing two-piece underwear instead of union suits. The Erlanger plant included 46,000 steam- and electric-powered spindles and 1,240 cloth looms operated by 1,600 employees by 1927, when annual production was twenty million yards of cotton fabric. The growing popularity of rayon fabrics in the early 1930s resulted in the gradual incorporation of synthetic fibers into Erlanger products, which translated into a need for new equipment and the space to house it.



One of the newly restored houses on Park Circle



Modifications to the Erlanger plant reflected changes in the textile industry as a whole, as textile manufacturers focused on expanding productive capacity, improving textile quality, and reducing labor costs in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The mechanization of the textile industry during this period resulted in the loss of jobs, decreased pay, and poor working conditions; unions consequently found more support among mill employees. The Great Depression further contributed to layoffs and pay cuts at Erlanger and elsewhere, and set the stage for mill workers across the South to participate in the General Textile Strike of 1934. The strike temporarily shut down the Erlanger plant, and after the strike ended the Erlanger Mill Company fired known union sympathizers.

   

Alley behind Park Circle: no dumping



Text excerpted from: Erlanger Mill Village Historic District, nomination document, 2008, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington DC. 

Thanks to my mother for her help and company.

Henry River: no trespassing

In my recent travels through Burke County I chanced upon this ghost town, upriver from Brookford.  Henry River mill village was founded in 1904 by the Rudisills and the Aderholdts -- relatives, no doubt, of Orville Frank Aderholdt, police chief of Gastonia in 1929 and a central figure in the Loray Mill strike.

 

From the Past:
Henry River Mill Village

by Mickie Vacca, Executive Director, Historic Burke Foundation

"Voice of the Foothills" Newspaper, February 2003

Sitting on the eastern edge of Burke County is a preserverationist's dream, a diamond in the rough, the Henry River mill village. Built as a planned community, the Henry River mill village was a self-contained complex with its own mill, dam, water and fire-protection systems, and company store. In later years the Henry River village gained amenities such as walkways, terraced green spaces, and fieldstone retaining walls. Today most of the village's original buildings remain sited along a small gorge of the Henry River, west of the Catawba County line, the most intact and unaltered example of an early industrial environment in Burke County.

In 1904 Michael Erastus Rudisill laid out the mill and village on a 1500-acre tract, chosen for its hydropower potential. Rudisill, along with his brother Albert Pinkney Rudisill, built the village and engineered the dam and mill building along with David William Aderholdt, Miles R. Rudisill, and Marcus Lafayette Aderholdt. The mill was incorporated as the Henry River Manufacturing Company. The company manufactured fine cotton yarns. Beginning in 1905, a 30-foot reinforced concrete dam was constructed with a three-story brick mill building. The mill building burned in 1977.

The residential area of the village consisted of approximately 35 small worker's cottages. Twenty-one are standing today. These 1-1/2 story duplex houses were laid out along the steep contours of the river's northern bank. The workers lived in boarding houses or workers' cottages built by the company, which were leased at nominal fees.

Around 1907 the four mill owners, the Rudisills and the Aderholdts, built new homes for themselves just outside the village. Although one burned in 1935, three of the four houses are still standing today.

Since the loss of the main mill building, the centerpiece of the village today is the two-story brick company store building. This building served as a mill office with the upper floor used as a school room and for church services from 1907-1917. In 1912 a steel truss bridge engineered by the Rudisills was built across the Henry River. When built, it was reputed to be the highest bridge in the state. During the 1916 flood, this bridge was one of the few not destroyed. In 1960 a new concrete bridge replaced the steel truss bridge.

The Henry River Mill originally ran on waterpower. In 1914 a steam plant was installed then in 1926, the mill was converted to electric power. The mill was closed for several years and was purchased by Wade K. Shepherd in 1976. Equipment and materials were stored in the mill building when it burned in 1977.

The mill and village are designated to the North Carolina Study List of the National Register of Historic Places. Late in 2002 through the Burke County Partners in Economic Development's Heritage Preservation Committee began efforts to explore development of the historic site for the benefit of all Burke County citizens. Early in 2003 the formation of a Henry River Mill Village Committee has begun looking into working with the property owner to devise ways of preserving the mill village intact.

North Carolina has an established record of preserving important industrial sites. Some other mill villages that have been developed very successfully in North Carolina are Glencoe mill village in Alamance County, the Eden Mill complex in Chowan County, and the cultural arts center being developed near Hendersonville at the Grey Mill Complex. Suggested uses for the Henry River mill village have been as a residential community, as a resotred historic mill site, or as a cultural heritage center showcasing artisans of North Carolina and their crafts.

The presence of the site on the North Carolina Register Study List puts it one step closer to eligibility for North Carolina and federal tax credit programs. The property can be developed for commercial or private uses. Using preservation covenants and following the Secretary of Interiors standards for restoration, buyers can take advantage of either 40% commercial tax credits or 30% private tax credits. The PEG's Heritage Preservation Committee is actively working to encourage interest in this important remnant of the change in American lifestyle from an agrarian to an industrial society. Today the remaining buildings of the Henry River mill village speak eloquently of the industrial heritage of Burke County.

---

Once Thriving Village
Now a Ghost Town

from The News Herald, Morganton, NC -- March 27, 2005

by Lauren Williamson

Driving through the old Henry River Mill Village today reveals no similarities between the once thriving community that existed.

Long ago, Henry River was well known for its water power and Lincoln County native Michael Erastus Rudisill wanted to build upon it.

He traveled to Henry River early in the 1900s with the hopes of building a cotton mill along the river. His brother, Albert Pinkney Rudisill, ventured to the site and engineered the building of the Henry River Dam.

Several others, including Gus Quickie, Monroe Houser, Miles R. Rudisill, David William Aderholdt, and Marcus Lafayette Aderholdt, came to Henry River about the same time. The group formed a corporation known as Henry River Manufacturing Company.

Construction of Henry River Mills was complete in 1905, and thus the cotton manufacturing began.

In its early years, the mill operated 4,000 yarn-making spindles. By the time it shut down in the late 1960s, the mill had 12,000 spindles and produced fine combed yarn for lace.

The village consisted of not only the mill and company store but a boarding house and 35 clapboard structures that housed the mills' workers and their families.

Local native Frank Eckard grew up on the south side of the river and fondly remembers his days growing up around the mill village.

"When I was a kid, I used to go with my grandparents and uncles over into the village," he said. "They had a farm and sold their milk and vegetables over in the village.

Eckard said he always looked forward to traveling around the village whenever his family went to sell their produce.

"Most everyone there worked at the mill," Eckard said. "They bought most of the stuff they needed at the store. It was its own thriving community."

The booming village, however, began to vanish after the mill was closed in 1973. Wade K. Shepherd bought it in 1976, but never got to open for business because of a fire in 1977 that destroyed the entire mill.

In 2002, The News Herald published an article by correspondent Don Benfield about the village's disintegration.

In the article, Bud Rudisill described the vivacity of the old village and its residents. For 82 of his 88 years, Rudisill resided in the village, having been born in one of the 21 remaining workers' houses and raising his five children for 52 years in a house opposite the old store building, the article said.

Before his father died in 1930, Rudisill had to quit school at the age of 14 and start working in the mill in order to help out his family.

"I had to quit school when I was partway through the fifth grade," he said.

Twelve-hour shifts filled with backbreaking labor took up a good part of the workers' days, with an hour taken out for lunch, but that time rarely taken in reality. The mill had to be run nonstop for the entire 12 hours.

In the hours when mill workers weren't working, they either tended to gardens and livestock, or found ways to entertain themselves, such as square dancing, playing baseball or just going over to a neighbor's place and chewing the fat. Others took a different approach, Rudisill remembers.

"Used to be a lot of drinkin' goin' on around here, he said. "A lot of it. But back then there wasn't much that you had to do..."

The days of the thriving village are long gone now. Instead of the busy mill town, the area is more of a ghost town.

After the mill burned, the community seemed to die out along with it. Workers moved on to new jobs and new communities. Weeds have overtaken the homes' yards and the houses themselves are rundown and falling apart at a steady rate.

When driving through the village today, it is hard to imagine the scores of children playing by the river or the men and women hanging out after working hours.

Eckard and his wife, Diane, have spent numerous hours around the old village, making maps and notes and interviewing folks who either lived in the village or who had relatives who did.

Preservations advocates, government representatives and tourism officials are considering ideas for redeveloping the crumbling village along the Henry River in eastern Burke County.

The group wants to reactivate an application to add the village to the National Register of Historic Places, a designation that could mean tax credits for rehabilitation work.

The Historic Burke Foundation is currently working on the application to have the site placed on the National Register of Historic Places and hopes to have it completed by summer, said Mickie Vacca, director.

"I remember when it was a boom town," Eckard said. "It's sad now, it really is."

---

photos by Kim Church

additional photos by Diane Fields at Abandoned: Mill Village.