The Roaring Twenties:Recession, Boom, DepressionThe Twenties were years of boom and bust, of
revulsion at the thought of war, years of the Jazz Age, hip flasks, gang war, Al Capone, years of
millions of immigrants, and a postwar baby boom that would raise the population by 34.7%, to 123
million the 1930 census.The U. S. Senate rejected President Woodrow Wilson’s vision of a League of
Nations to keep the peace, and he passed ineffectively into history while a cigar-smoking,
womanizing small town publisher, Warren G. Harding, succeeded him, only to die of an embolism early
in his term and leave to Calvin Coolidge the heritage of scandals in the Justice, Navy, Interior
Departments, and the Veterans Bureau. Coolidge said little; the spotlight was on his Secretary of
Commerce, Herbert Hoover, the “Great Engineer” who had so efficiently managed civilian war relief
in Europe and was now the darling of business for his many helpful innovations. He would be elected
president in 1928.The post war boom of 1918-1920 was followed in 1921 by an 18-month recession
brought on by tight credit, a glutted market, heavy inventories and a sharp drop in export trade.
Pay cuts were general, business failures soared. For farmers, the recession would continue into the
Depression years of the Thirties. Cotton went from 16 cents a pound in 1920 to 9.5 cents in 1930.
Growth in such industries as coal, lumber and flour milling was flat.1920 Most Prosperous”What new
developments for the textile industry will the year 1920 bring forth” The Reporter asked in the
first issue of the new year. “As 1918 saw the end of the Great War, the year just completed will be
remembered as a period of readjustment, with business almost at an ebb from the signing of the
Armistice until March or April, and then gradually improving until, by the end of the year, the
textile mills were found to be enjoying a remarkable prosperity, even surpassing that noted during
the war1920 is likely to be one of the most prosperous years in the history of the textile
industry.”In Europe, the British were worried about the assurance of cotton supply for the
Lancashire mills. -Can the U.S. supply us” asked a columnist from Manchester, going on to promote
the growing of cotton within the Empire. His question was timely, for the Sea Island crop was down
from 125,000 bales to 7,000 bales due to a devastating hurricane and the boll weevil, threatening
the supply of fine fabrics for the tailors of Saville Row. The door was open for Egyptian
cotton.Trucks In The MillIn the U.S., the big boom was in the automotive industry, which moved to
first place in both value of product and value added by manufacture. Detroit and other auto centers
would turn out 2,798,737 passenger cars in 1929. By 1930, the census would show 4,135,000 autos,
900,000 trucks and 920,000 tractors on the road and in the field. The production of tires and inner
tubes doubled. Gasoline production quadrupled.A page one Reporter headline exhorted: “Let’s Go! To
The Show, We Mean!” The show was the 1920 automobile show in Boston, an event considered of vital
importance by The Reporter which discussed the merits of the trucks to be shown, and the savings
they offered the mills.Also much on the mind of The Reporter’s editors was the lift truck and its
potential for saving space, time, and manpower, especially in the warehouse.Highly desirable, said
The Reporter, was the one-ton truck with swivel lights, pneumatic tires (early trucks ran on solid
rubber tires) and “a thoroughly proven power tire pump” for use on flats.Lightfast Dyes Help
Industry ThriveThe chemical industry was on a steady growth pattern; domestic producers held onto
the dyestuff market. The American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists was organized in
1921 with 200 charter members. Because of their successful production of colors fast to light and
washing, the printing machine was making a comeback.In other textile laboratories, researchers
inspired by the success of “artificial silk” were working on other man-made fibers that would reach
market a decade later. Meanwhile, production of artificial silk, now called rayon, zoomed from
three million pounds in 1919, to 33 million in 1929.The ice-box, the wood-burning cook stove, the
hand-cranked Victrola for records were giving way to products of the new electrical firms. During
the decade, sales of major appliances rose from $109 million to $268 million; of small appliances,
from $71 million to $106 million; of radios, from $15 million to $338 million. Sales of industrial
electrical appliances went from $46 million to $976 million.Education was becoming more common.
Where there had been only 111,000 high school graduates in 1910, and 231,000 in 1920, by 1930,
there were 592,000.Doctors were becoming better trained, and “vitamin” was the health buzz word.
Medical researchers were inching toward the “miracle drugs” that would reach the public in the
Thirties. The iron lung, developed in 1928, meant life for hundreds of polio victims. By 1930, life
expectancy for men was up from 53 to 58 years, and for women, from 54 to 61 years. The ‘flickers”
were maturing. The Technicolor process was perfected with the in 1922, although it was rarely used
by movie producers because of expense. American Telephone and Telegraph Co. achieved television
transmission from New York to Washington in 1927 although commercial application was far away. In
October, 1927, the first full length sound movie, “The Jazz Singer” with Al Jolson, opened in New
York and ran nationwide in 1928. This ushered in a new era in entertainment, with its massive
influence on the fashions which move textiles out of the stores.Staple Apparel Gives Way To
FashionBefore the World War 1, 80% of mill production had been staples. As the Twenties moved on,
more and more farmers acquired automobiles for the Saturday trip to town and to the movies.
Imitation of the fashions shown on the silver screen was inevitable, and staples began to fade as
the auto/movie influence gained strength.Charles A. Lindbergh flew the Atlantic solo in 1927,
becoming a national hero. He went on to survey the transoceanic routes to be followed by Pan
American’s Clipper planes and later by the workhorse DC-3.Cotton Picker InventedFor the mills, the
most significant invention of the period, even if not recognized at the time, was the development
in 1927 by the Rust brothers of the mechanical cotton picker. Before long, the ginning labs of the
Agriculture Department would be dealing with problems of trash in machine-picked cotton, and card
room overseers would be swearing.The years just after the war were marked by considerable
apprehension over the spread of communism from Russia, which was pumping out propaganda calling for
world revolution. A bomb explosion in Wall Street, the roundup of some 2,700 suspected reds by
Attorney General Palmer’s forces and the absorption of the IWVV into the U.S. Communist party fed
the flames of suspicion.These concerns, plus fear of the immigrants landing at Ellis Island, proved
fertile ground for the mushroom growth of the Ku Klux Klan which claimed five million members in
the mid-Twenties, terrorized hundreds of small towns and exercised considerable political power in
Indiana, Oklahoma and Texas. Exposure of their acts of terror by national magazines and
prosecutions for beatings and burnings turned public opinion against the hooded mob so that by 1930
membership had dropped to 9,000. The textile industry could easily afford the loss of the sheet
sales.But, there were grounds for the fears that had lured many men into the Klan, particularly in
the North and Midwest. Communists had taken control of many locals of the ILGWU, the Furriers,
Amalgamated Clothing Workers, United Mine Workers and others, and struggles for control of the
unions continued into the Forties and Fifties.The conservative upcountry of South Carolina recalled
the times in 1914 when the IWW propagandist Joseph Ettor, who had led the strike in Lawrence,
Mass., came preaching the anarcho-syndicalist gospel in the mill villages. In his history ‘Mill and
Town in South Carolina 1880-1920″, Dr. David Carlton said:”The Wobblies moved into Greenville in
early 1914, and, by May, were claiming two thousand members. Although they figured in a minor
incident at one of the mills at the end of May, they attracted little attention until early July
when a wildcat strike at Lewis Parker’s Monaghan Mill escalated into a major confrontation. There
were rallies and parades, one of which featured the very novel sight of a red flag being carried
down Greenville’s Main Street the strike at Monaghan had been the result of an accumulation of
petty grievances and was rapidly defused by the willingness of Parker to consult with a workers’
committee.Carlton noted that the strike leaders generally showed far less knowledge of IWW
principles than did Parker himself, and that Parker had the bulk of the meeting’s proceedings
transcribed and published in the Greenville News of July 17, 1914.Labor Unrest In New EnglandIn
these present days of comparative labor peace, it is sometimes difficult to imagine the problems of
production faced by New England superintendents in the restless days of the Twenties, especially in
plants where immigrant workers had little or no command of English and scant understanding of
instructions. This difficulty of communication was a major factor in the move of some mills to the
South, according to a member of a prominent Fall River family who supervised the transfer of one
such mill to Tennessee.The 48-hour single shift was common in the New England mills while the
non-union South was moving to multiple shifts to keep the machinery operating.After a seven-month
strike in Lawrence, Pacific Mills commissioned Lockwood Greene to find a Southern site for a
finishing plant. The result: the huge plant at Lyman, S. C. built in 1923, now operated by M.
Lowenstein (Springs Industries} which acquired Lyman and Pacific’s mills in Columbia, S. C. in 1955
from Burlington which had bought control of Pacific Mills the year before.The Southern TrekOthers
joining Pacific in the Southern trek were American Thread Company to Dalton, Ga.; Stark Mills to
Hogansville, Ga.; Cascade Mills to Mooresville, N. C.; Worth Mills to Fort Worth, Tex.; and
Southern Worsted Company to Greenville.Those moves were typical. Between 1922 and 1932, 73 mills in
Fall River, Mass., were liquidated, 75% of the city’s textile industry. New Bedford lost 21,000
textile jobs in the same period. The Reporter followed the mills South, T opening a branch office
at 229 East Stone Ave. in Greenville in the mid-Twenties. The publication, now being run by E.
Howard Bennett, son of the founder, Frank P. Bennett, Jr., and C. Randolph Bennett, was enjoying a
more open format, progressing from the grey columns of type of the early days to wide use of photos
and sketches, to wider columns and larger type. The pages were filled with news and ads of
machinery improvements and new accessories.Editorials reflected a scorn for those content with the
old: “The Mule Spinners Union in Fall River voted to strike because of the 10% reduction in wages.
Mule spinners are an anachronism. They are about as important in Fail River as a coachman in a
garage.”Throughout New England, wages were being cut 10%. The mills were running slack, only two or
three days a week. Owners contended they could pay more if workers would be more productive, but
they were up against the traditional union attitude of stretching the work to make the job last
longer.Said the Reporter in 1925: “The interest of New England manufacturers in Southern locations,
and the investigation of the claims of advantages in Southern manufacturing conditions as to wages,
hours of operation, taxes, etc., increases rather than otherwise. Since the first of the 1925 year,
there have been more New England manufacturers scouting through the South than there were during
the whole 12 months of 1924. “The operatives in New England cotton mills themselves seem to be the
only persons who can put a stop to this transferring of machinery from the East to the South. IF
they will, of their own volition, double up the machinery tended per operative, the whole situation
will be reversed and no one in the country can beat the New England mills and operatives on such a
basis.” Driving ForcesAnother great concern for all types of mills was the control of costs. “The
industry needs more roughneck treasurers,” said the Reporter in commenting on the poor
profitability of a group of mills.The drive for mill efficiency brought men with stop watches and
clip boards to tile intense indignation of many Southern workers who felt robbed of respect and
dignity. In March and April of 1929, the indignation resulted in unorganized, spontaneous walkouts
in Greenville, Elizabethton, Tenn., Marion, N. C. and Gastonia, N. C. Once their anger was vented
and their complaints heard, most of the strikers stayed out only a short duration, except at
Gastonia, where the National Textile Workers Union led by Communists Fred Beal and George Pershing
took over the movement. Tempers rose. Nearly all of the townpeople and most workers knew little of
the union moven1ent and mentally linked it with an alien threat to society. The cliche equation of
the times was: labor unions plus strikes equal Communists plus atheism plus social equality with
the Negro. The Gastonia strikers had no community support. While trying to break up a strikers’
meeting. the Gastonia police chief was fatally shot. In another incident, a woman striker was
killed. Beal and other defendants were convicted of conspiracy to murder the police chief and
sentenced to 5 to 20 years. A legacy of bitterness was left to boil over in the 1934 textile
general strike, of which more later.The Twenties saw the end of the reign of one of the industrys
most notable personalities. William M. Wood of American Woolen Co.. and the start in business of
two others, J. Spencer Love, founder of the world’s largest textile concern Burlington Industries,
and Royal Little, whose Textron flashed like a giant comet across textile skies before Little moved
on to other ventures.William Madison Wood (1858-1926), grandson of an immigrant from the Azores who
had anglicized his name started at the bottom as a mill operative and rose through the ranks to the
heights. He was assistant manager of Washington Mills at Lawrence. Mass., owned by Frederick Ayer
of Boston, when he married Ayer’s daughter.In the 48-month depression of 1893-97, he persuaded his
father-in-law to buy bankrupt mills and consolidate them into the American Woolen Co.. a
conglomerate that became official in IS99. Wood served as treasurer until President Ayer died, but
he was the big shot; full page ads in The Reporter carried the name William M. Wood, Treasurer. in
large type under the company logo. When President Ayer and other officers were named, they were
listed in small type in the body of the ad. Egotist though he was, Wood was a full-blown trash
mover. In 1905, he built Wood Mill, 30 acres under one roof, employing nearly 10,000 workers.
Between them, the Washington and Wood mills alone added 16,000 jobs to the Lawrence economy in 10
years. But, Wood was notorious in New England as an exploiter of labor, which made him an unwitting
accomplice of the IWW in the 1912 strike described earlier.The January 8, 1925 issue of The
Reporter carried the bold headline: “President Wood Has Resigned.” There was no doubt in the
textile world who was meant. The Reporter commented that Wood had carried the whole load of the 60
mills of American Woolen on his shoulders, and that although a highly competent administrator would
succeed him, there was no comparable giant in sight.The article on the resignation passed on a bit
of financial gossip: “The late A. D. Juilliard was largely identified with American Woolen Co., and
he had become a great factor in the financial affairs of New York City. He undoubtedly helped Mr.
Wood a great deal. It will be remembered that 10 or 12 years ago, the American Woolen Company had
about $20 million of common stock outstanding, and that suddenly about $10 million of it was
redeemed and paid off. We have never known it to be fact, but we have always believed that this $10
million represented A. D. Juilliard’s cashing his ticket in the American Woolen Company. “The Royal
Little SagaThe fortunes of American Woolen and Royal Little’s Textron would mingle nearly 20 years
later. Little, a relative of that Arthur O. Little of research fame who did fabricate a silk purse
from a sow’s ear, was only 27 when, with $10,000, a partner and three employees, Launched Special
Yarns in 1923 in Providence, R. 1., working with the relatively new ”artificial silk” which took
the name “rayon” in 1924, following the idea of Kenneth Lord of Burlington Industries that the
luster of the fiber suggested the rays of the sun. Little formed Franklin Rayon, later Atlantic
Rayon, producing ladies undergarments of rayon.World War 11 brought him opportunities he quickly
seized. While busy with war contracts, he found time to buy old mill buildings in both North and
South and to install modern machinery to meet a demand that seemed insatiable.Little changed his
company’s name to Textron in 1944, and by 1952, had 15 mills, mostly in the South. In that year, he
worked out a merger with American Woolen, which had lost the git-up-and-go of William Wood’s day
and, although still New England’s largest textile firm, was down to 27 mills (12 of them not
operating) and was losing $1 million a month because’ said Fortune Magazine, the company was “a
major producer of staples in an age of style.” Two years later, in 1955, Little had created Textron
Amerotron through a merger of Textron, American Woolen and Robbins Mills, with a subsidiary,
Amerotron, operating the textile mills of his budding conglomerate. Within two years, Amerotron had
liquidated the New England mills, had consolidated the best of the machinery into the Southern
plants, and had built an up-to-date woolen mill at Barnwell, S. C.Not long afterward, Little began
acquiring non-textile businesses and, in 1963, sold seven textile mills to Deering, Milliken whose
president, Roger Milliken, knew that style, not staple, was the best seller and who was staging the
Milliken Breakfast Show for buyers at New York market time. Royal Little moved on as master of
conglomerates and as author of How To Lose $100,000,000 and Other Valuable Information’.Enter
Burlington’s LoveJ. Spencer Love started his textile career in modest fashion but built bigger and
better than others. In 1923, with the help of local businessmen, he formed Burlington Mills in
Burlington, N. C.. a small cotton mill employing 200 with himself as plant manager. He experimented
with rayon, first as a decorative yarn, then as dress goods, later as drapery and upholstery
fabric, then rayon crepes, taffetas and sheers.Burlington expanded steadily, even in the Depression
years, and achieved $1 billion in sales in 1962, the year of his death, the first textile firm to
do so. He and his associates recognized in the twenties the possibilities of the first synthetics.
More of Burlington as our textile story continues.Signs of big trouble ahead had been mounting
since the mid-Twenties. Overseas. Benito Mussolini’s Black Shirts seized power in Italy and Il Duce
became the symbolic dictator, pounding his chest and talking conquest. In Russia, Stalin maneuvered
his way to total political control and began the terror that would eliminate millions. In Germany,
a wartime corporal Adolph Hitler, was harassing the weak leaders of the Weimar Republic.In the
United States, markets for many industries had been turning slack for several years, and the
textile mills were flirting with recession while millions speculated in stocks about which they
knew little, speculation whose volume mounted steadily until 1929 when the market crashed on
October 24, and again on October 29.The Great Depression had begun.Burlington IndustriesJ. Spencer
Love was 22 in 1919, a Harvard graduate just back from World War I service, looking fruitlessly for
a job in the Boston area, when he decided to head for Gastonia, N. C. where his uncle ran Gastonia
Cotton Manufacturing Co., founded by his grandfather in 1870. He got a job as assistant to the mill
manager. Within seven months, he purchased controlling interest for $250,000, using $3,000 in
personal savings, the rest in notes and loans co-signed by his father, a professor of mathematics
at Harvard.The mill was in trouble in the post-war depression, but Love coped by selling the real
estate, storing the machinery and looking for a new location. He found it in Burlington, N. C.
where the Chamber of Commerce helped sell stock to build a new plant.Burlington Mills, which was to
grow into the nation’s largest textile firm, was chartered November 6, 1923.Production in the new
plant started before the building was completed: half the weave room floor was mostly dirt. First
products turned out by the 200 employees were flag cloth, bunting, cotton scrims, curtain and dress
fabrics and diaper cloth. Many of these products were out of style within a year, and new products
were tried, but not successfully.Love decided to try rayon, then in its experimental stage. He
began making rayon bedspreads which sold well. The firm was soon a national leader in weaving
rayon. A second plant was built in 1926, and the firm opened its New York sales office in
1929.Expansion continued in the Depression years of the Thirties as Burlington took over closed
mills. By the end of 1936, Burlington had 22 plants in nine communities and had moved headquarters
to Greensboro, N. C. In 1937, the company was reorganized to consolidate its various associated
companies and its stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.The war years brought
concentration on military production, including development of parachute cloth made with the new
nylon fiber. In 1944, Burlington opened its first overseas plant.After the war, the company renewed
its diversification efforts and its construction of new plants, easy to spot because they were
built with one wall of wood which could be torn out on short order to allow expansion. The firm was
diversifying into new product areas, a move reflected by the name change to Burlington
Industries.Love died in 1962, the year Burlington became the first textile firm to pass the $1
billion mark in sales. Charles F. Myers, Jr. and Henry Rauch assumed the leadership, the first in a
line of distinguished executies succeeding the founder.Burlington has responded swiftly and
positively to the changes resulting from the volatility of the textile markets in recent years. The
Domestics division was sold to J. P. Stevens and Co., Inc., and Burlington bought C. H.
MaslandandSons, a major supplier of molded floor carpets, truck liners and interior trim parts for
automobile and truck manufacturers. The company created a specialized military fabrics organization
and is developing new proprietary products for protective clothing and equipment. It is a leading
producer of glass, rayon, aramid, and carbon fabrics for composites materials in which fabrics are
treated with resins and other substances to obtain high strength-to-weight ratios, used especially
by the aerospace industry.Today, Burlington operates 83 plants world-wide71 in 10 states, 12 in
four other countries. Its 43,000 employees turn out this range of products:

• for apparel markets: yarn, greige fabrics; knitted fabrics of polyester and polyester blends;
  woven fabrics of worsted, worsted blends, cotton, cotton blends, nylon, polyester, polyester
  blends; denim, corduroy; printed fabrics; fabrics for home sewing.
• for residential and commercial furnishings markets: carpets; rugs; draperies and shades;
  bedspread ensembles; mattress ticking, upholstery; restaurant table cloths and napkins.
• for industrial markets: woven and non-woven fabrics and carpeting for the automotive,
  electronics, communications, construction, utilities, aerospace, defense and other industries.

Annual sales in 1986 were $2.8 billion, with net earnings of $56.5 million.

ATMI Presidents Dr. John H. McAden, 1899-1902, was the only Association present to serve three
terms. He was born in Caswell County, N.C. on March 13, 1835 and died August 15, 1904. He worked to
establish steamship connections between the ports of the U.S. and those of Mexico,South America and
the Orient, and for the improvement of cable facilities. He served on the Associations board until
his death.George B. Hiss, 1902-1903, had served as secretary of the Association before assuming the
presidency. He was born December 6, 1858 and died December 8, 1928. He had been among the founders
in 1897.W. C. Heath, 1903-1904, also was one of the Association founders. He was born in Union
County, N.C., November 24, 1866, and died February 7, 1937. He entered the textile industry in 1895
as secretary-treasurer of Monroe Cotton Mills, Monroe, N.C., and later served as director of
Manetta Cotton Mills, Lando, S.C.; Cliffside Mills, Cliffside, N.C.; Newton Mills, Newton, N.C.;
and Henrietta Mills, Henrietta, N.C.R. S. Reinhardt, 1904-1905, was another founder. He was born in
Lincoln County, N.C., January 1, 1858 and died September 11, 1925. He came to Lincolnton in 1890 as
manager and part owner of Phifer Mill. He was active in North Carolina cotton mill management for
35 years.R. M. Miller, Jr., 1905-1906, also served 1906-1910 as president of the North Carolina
Cotton Manufacturers Association. He was president and treasurer of the Elizabeth Mills, Charlotte,
N.C. During his administration, a principal problem was the Chinese boycott of American
goods.Arthur H. Lowe, 1906-1907, was the first New Englander to be president of ACMA. He was born
at Rindge, N.H., on August 20, 1853 and died October 27, 1932 at Fitchburg, Mass. He also was a
founder and president of the New England Cotton Manufacturers Association. During his career, he
established the Lowe Manufacturing Company, Fitchburg, Mass., and president of Amoskeag
Manufacturing Company, Manchester, N.H.Simpson Bobo Tanner, 1907-1908, was an early leader in
developing the Red Sea, Chinese and Manchurian markets for American cotton goods and was a great
advocate of trade with Latin America. He was born in Spartanburg County, S.C. on December 8, 1852
and died in Rutherfordton, N.C. on July 3, 1924. In 1887, he organized the Henrietta Mills Company
at Henrietta, N.C. and the second plant at Caroleen. He organized and directed the Florence Mills,
Forest City, N.C., and had interests in several other cotton mills in western North Carolina. T. H.
Rennie, 1908-1909, was one of the first presidents of the Association to take an active part in
opposing federal legislation harmful to the textile industry. He was born at Victory Mills, N.Y. on
September 30, 1857. He served his apprenticeship in textiles in Lewiston, Me. And, in 1882, moved
to Graniteville, S.C. as superintendent of three mills. He became president of Pell City
Manufacturing Company, Pell City, Ala., in 1908.Lewis W. Parker, 1909-1910, president of Parker
Cotton Mills Company, also was a lawyer and banker and, at the height of his career, was regarded
as the outstanding textile executive of South Carolina. He controlled mills operating a total of
340,000 spindles and 8,564 looms. He was knows for deep concern for the welfare of his employees,
instituting programs to provide education, recreation and hospital care. He was born in Abbeville,
S.C., in 1865 and died in 1916.

The US government last month approved safeguard cases against China for brassieres and man-made
filament fabric and delayed until October 1 decisions on safeguard requests for sweaters, dressing
gowns, wool trousers and knit fabric. In the meantime, US textile industry and labor union leaders
re-filed petitions to continue through 2006 nine safeguards covering 16 products currently
protected until the end of this year; and filed four new petitions to cover men’s wool suits,
man-made fiber coats, cheesecloth and polyester filament fabric.

The safeguard activities are proceeding as US and Chinese negotiators continue their efforts
following four failed attempts to reach agreement to regulate US imports of Chinese textiles. A
fifth round of bilateral consultations was beginning as

Textile World
went to press. Cass Johnson, president, National Council of Textile Organizations,
Washington, noted the approved safeguards are for threat-based cases filed in December 2004, and
said they [validate] the US textile industry’s prediction that China would surge into the market in
a disruptive way.

Safeguard cases covering skirts, socks, woven blouses, nightwear/pajamas, swimwear and
curtains are expected to be decided after October 1. These cases, if approved, will be eligible for
a 12-month safeguard, while safeguards for those cases approved prior to September 30 will expire
at the end of this year hence, the filings for the extension of the nine current safeguards.

“The US textile industry is re-filing these petitions now to give the US government the
opportunity to renew the current safeguards seamlessly in January 2006 if no comprehensive textile
agreement [
with China] is reached,” Johnson said.

October 2005

Textile Industry Meets Demand Of Booming U.S. PopulationIn the beginning, in 1887 when Frank P
Bennett first published The American Wool and Cotton Reporter as today’s ATI was then named, the
textile industry was expanding at a furious pace to meet the demands of a market that was growing
even faster. Despite a horrendous death rate for babies and a life expectancy of only 46 years for
men, 48 for women, the population was increasing at a rate of 20% to 25% each decade (from 50
million in 1880 to 63 million in 1890 to 76 million by the turn of the century). And this growing
population needed clothes.Immigrants were pouring in to people the new states admitted to the Union
in the closing years of the century (North Dakota’ South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Utah)
and to join the rush for land in the Indian Territory that would become Oklahoma. . . millions in
need of overalls or corduroys for the week’s work, and blue serge suits for Sunday- go-to-meetin’.
The girls and womenfolk often made-do with house dresses made of printed flour sacks, but they
coveted something finer for church wear. Sacking was a big seller in those days, used for bulk
commodities like sugar, then re-used around the house. In decades to come, paper would supplant
fabric for such toweling and handkerchief use.Mostly FarmersTwo-thirds of the population then lived
on the farm, working from can-see to can’t-see at endless chores; tractors were years in the
future, and Twenty Mule Team borax celebrated the large teams that hauled freight wagons or the
giant combines.Villages, towns and cities were small by today’s standards, but the towns and
cities, and many villages, were linked by the expanding web of railroads and by the telegraph. Farm
to-village roads were muddy ruts in winter and dust beds in drier times. If and when weather
permitted, Saturday was market day, the family heading for town, sitting on stub-legged chairs in
the back of wagons loaded with whatever the season could produce for barter or sale: butter and
eggs most of the time; pelts from trap lines in the winter; surplus of potatoes and other garden
stuff in the summer and fall, to be exchanged for staples flour, sugar, coffee, salt.In more remote
sections. . . the Appalachians, the Ozarks. . . the bartering would often include yarn for use on
the wooden hand looms that persisted well into the 1940’s. The demand for home-use yarn had
prompted the start of many of the small cotton mills in the South in the 1830’s and 1840’s, most of
them with only 1,500 to 2,500 spindles run by men from New England’s established textile industry.
The isolation of the farms was mind-dulling: no television, no radio, no telephone, little mail
beyond the county’s weekly newspaper, little to read except the Bible, and not many could read.
Those were the days of the one-room country schoolhouse, if and when school kept. In 1899, in all
of the U.S., only 72% of the children from ages 5 to 17 were enrolled in school, but a very small
percentage of those finished high school. In fact, in 1900, the entire country produced only 62,000
high school graduates. Most girls only received four to eight years of elementary
education.Inventions AboundBut, in the towns and cities, there was excitement. . . news of
inventions, of new manufacturing enterprises, new markets and new adventures in domestic and world
politics. In 1887, Gottlieb Daimler in Germany produced the first successful automobile. Nikola
Tesla was inventing the alternating current induction motor, soon to be put to use in the mills.
George Eastman produced the popular Kodak box camera in 18S8, and before long, snapshots of new
dresses could be in the mail; “smile was the word of the day.First Man-Made FiberIn England in
1892, C. F. Cross discovered viscose, leading to the later manufacture of rayon, “artificial silk”,
much less expensive and easier to manufacture than the real thing. Rudolf Diesel patented the
internal combustion engine that bears his name. Marconi developed wireless telegraphy, and King
Gillette was hailed by millions of men for his invention of the safety razor, particularly by those
executives headed for Worth Street meetings who no longer had to scrape their whiskers with a
straight-edge razor in the swaying washroom of a Pullman car (Most towns boasted a daredevil who
could shave the back of his neck with the straight-edge as the train barrelled along).Scientific
American reported the seeds of things to come: Oliver Heaviside’s discovery of the ionosphere in
1892; James J. Thomson’s work with the electron in 1897; and Marie and Pierre Curie’s discovery of
radium in 1898.Henry Ford made his first auto, the Quadricycle, in 1896, but the people’s
automobile was still many years away. Cuba’s efforts to break away from Spain aroused much sympathy
in the United States, and when the battleship Maine was blown up in Havana harbor in 1898, war with
Spain was a certainty. The American fleet broke the back of the Spanish navy, and a defeated Spain
ceded to the U.S. the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Soon thereafter, Congress annexed
Hawaii (in 1893, the U. S. had organized the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, so the islands
were ripe for plucking).ATI Begins With Queen Victoria’s 50thIn the same year as the establishment
of the American Wool and Cotton Reporter Queen Victoria observed her golden jubilee by celebrating
50 years on the throne of a British empire that was still expanding in Asia and in Africa.The
French too were expanding their colonies in Africa and in southeast Asia, while the new German
empire demanded its share of the world’s potential colonies and worked diligently at building its
army and navy and at achieving technological and economic equality with the British. German
chemical firms were already advertising in the Reporter.In Russia, foreign entrepreneurs were
building industries employing millions of former serfs as that country continued its struggle to
modernize despite the despotic conservatism of Czar Nicholas II. Construction on the Trans-Siberian
Railway began in 1891, carrying the Russian empire toward an Asia that sharply contrasted
modernizing Japan with the continued long sleep of the Chinese under their Manchu conquerors and
the Europeans who controlled the ports.The Japanese, imitating the Americans and Europeans, wanted
an empire too. They jumped on the hapless Chinese in 1895 and took as loot the island of Formosa
(Taiwan) and Port Arthur on the mainland. The European heavyweights objected to such greediness and
forced the return of Port Arthur. The “civilized” world was startled by the technical and military
progress the Japanese had made of since Commodore Perry had forcibly ended their centuries-long
isolation.Enter Frank P. BennettAll these events and their implications for the American textile
industry were grist for the mill of Frank P. Bennett whose early career had prepared him well for
the work and for the rising influence of his American Wool and Cotton Reporter.Young Bennett had
worked part-time in a job printing shop while attending Chelsea High School in Malden, Mass. and
got a job with the weekly Malden Mirror after graduation, doing everything that needed doing:
soliciting advertising, writing news reports and editorials, setting type and operating the
press.Like many enterprising young men of his Day he succumbed to wanderlust and worked on
newspapers as far west as Salt Lake City while seeing the country. He returned to Massachusetts in
1876 at age 22 to work for the Commercial Bulletin in Boston. Five years later, in 1881, he swapped
jobs, from managing editor of the Commercial Bulletin to managing editor of the Boston Advertiser,
then owned by Henry Cabot Lodge, a valuable mentor to the young journalist. In his spare time, he
wrote on finance for The Tribune in New York and for the New York Daily Press. His work brought him
into contact with the leading textile executives and financial figures the time and he won their
respect.A Weekly For Movers And ShakersFrank Bennett was 33 when he decided, in1887, that the
textile industry needed a publication to serve its nationwide needs for information. The American
Wool and Cotton Reporter began weekly publication from offices at 19 Pearl Street in Boston, and
quickly built a network of correspondents.Bennett’s years as reporter and editor gave him access to
the movers and shakers of Boston and New York to the facts and rumors of a churning economy, to the
hopes, the fears, the visions and judgements of men who played with gusto the game of making money
in a time when what they made they could keep no income tax. The Reporter, just as its descendant
does today, covered all aspects of the textile industry, from sheep man and cotton planter to mill
operator and mill operative, to machinery maker to designer of apparel to garment manufacturer to
retailer. Coverage extended to Europe, with letters from London, Liverpool, Lancashire, France,
Switzerland and Germany conveyed to the Boston office by the liners and packets plying the
Atlantic, with time lag from date-of-writing to date-of-publication of as little as two weeks.
Letters, sorted in the mail cars of hundreds of trains, brought domestic news, and the telegraph
was available for items of greater importance.This flood of information and the need to keep his
field correspondents active (they were paid by the “string” of published material, at so much per
inch) resulted also in Bennett’s publication of Investor Services and his operation of Bennett’s
Information Services which offered to provide (for $2 per report information on any stock, any
store, or any piece of real estate in the country.Bennett’s editorials reflected the man: candid,
plain-spoken, out-spoken. He did not hesitate to warn of impending danger, as when British
investors began to dump their shares of U.S. companies, provoking the great panic of 1893 when the
heavy transfers of gold to London to pay for the dumped shares left the country short of currency.
Or, when a British syndicate attempted to form a woolen/worsted trust (monopoly) to control
production and prices in the American market; this was before the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. and
trusts were flourishing in nearly every industry. . . the Standard Oil Trust, the Steel Trust, the
Barbed Wire Trust, the Sugar Trust, etc.Or, when he sharply admonished sheep men for including
“dung locks” with the fleece;Or, warning that productive capacity in the late 1890’s could be
excessive since it was increasing faster than the population.”I Told You So!” He could not resist
an occasional I told you so, eg.:From its inception in 1887, the American Wool and Cotton Reporter
has, we are convinced been a safe guide. It has sometimes been our lot to be considerably ahead of
the times, and in some cases we have been obliged to withstand a widespread criticism until our
friends could catch up with us. An instance of this has occurred in the last few months. Our view
regarding the wool market was at the start antagonized by not a few persons for whose judgment we
have always had the greatest respect. Time has fully substantiated our position, many who
previously criticized us have frankly acknowledged the clearness of our prevision.It goes without
saying that our only purpose is to be of the most assistance to the various classes in whose
interest the ‘Reporter’ was started.”By the time of the War Between The States the American textile
industry, launched at Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1790, had grown to 1,091 mills with 5,200,000
spindles processing 800,000 bales of cotton and had outstripped English mills in the economical
production of coarse, heavy fabrics. The industry was centered in New England which had 570 of the
1,091 mills. Massachusetts and Rhode Island alone accounted for nearly a third of the mills and had
18% of the spindles. Fall River and Lowell, Mass. and Providence, R.l., were the leading textile
centers.Biggest of all the mills was Naumkeag Steam Cotton Co. in Salem, Mass., with 65,584
spindles. The average mill housed only 5,000 to 12,000 spindles, with mule spindles out-numbering
ring spindles two-to-one. Most mills used waterpower to run the machinery, but the more dependable
steam engine was rapidly coming into use. Smaller “country” mills worked only during daylight,
those in the urban areas were lighted by gas.Spectacular GrowthThe spectacular growth of the
industry in the early years of the Reporter is illustrated by the figures on spindles and looms in
Chart below.

While the Southern mills were learning how to make coarse goods, the Northern mills turned
more and more to production of the fine goods, a market long dominated by the British, with some
input from the French.British InfluenceThe British exhibit at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in
Philadelphia had included fine woolens and worsteds, inspiring New Englanders to master the art
(the great American Woolen Company was to grow out of this effort, but more about that later]. The
impetus toward greater progress in fine goods production and in improvement of mill machinery came
largely from individuals and families with long experience in the industry. In the 1880’s, however,
many mills were built in communities with no manufacturing tradition, by companies organized by men
with little or no textile experience and manned by unskilled workers. . . all depended on skilled
overseers and superintendents from New England mills for training and for operating know-how.
Opportunity pounded on the doors of many ambitious young men who had started at the bottom of the
ladder: Horatio Alger’s fiction was often fact.This was particularly true in the South where the
promotion of cotton mill companies sometimes took on aspects of a religious revival, with
subscription to mill stock be coming a civic duty because of the jobs that would result.And,
location in the South was attractive tomany Northern investors for many reasons,but principally
because:

• the supply of raw material to be processed (cotton) was readily available without the cost of
  long haul freight charges,
• water power sites along the Fall Line and in the Piedmont were plentiful, and the day of
  hydro-electricity was at hand,
• labor was plentiful and eager to work “in the shade” after years of field work at 40 cents a
  day. The going rate for hands at many mills was $12.50 for 144 hours or two weeks work,
• states and cities taxed mills lightly; many cities had a gentleman’s agreement not to annex
  mills into their limits, resulting in a ring or belt of mills around a city.

The new mill communities in the South had little or no rental housing when the mills were
built. The more urbanized North had attracted capital investment in tenements for its workers. To
attract theirlabor, Southern mills built entire villages, most often on hills for drainage, with
“shotgun” houses having privies in the back yard. Wells for water were spaced about two blocks
apart in the middle of the street. For most of these villages, piped water did not come for a
generation.Mill VillagesThe owners and the managers of these mills were very paternalistic, just as
management of early New England mills had been, particularly those of Lowell, Mass. They provided
boarding houses for single men, community centers for recreation, plots to raise vegetables, a
common pasture for cows kept by the farmers-turned-millhands. They built churches and subsidized
the pay of preachers. In return, they expected their workers to lead sober and moral lives.
Hang-overs, card playing, unblessed pregnancies, and the like, could lead to dismissal.Some mills
provided schools for elementary grades; compulsory public education was yet to come. Children went
to work in the mills at 8, 10 or 12 years of age. Many old-timers who moved their families from the
farm to the village recalled that their lot as young mill hands was not as dreadful as pictured by
some journalists and social reformers. The alternative on the farm was daily chores, chopping
weeds, picking cotton from sun up to sundown. In the mill, they had the companionship of many other
children and the added benefit of working “in the shade.”National magazines and reform
organizations in nearly every state persisted in efforts to pass child labor legislation, but
parents were often indignant at the suggestion that “the law” might take away their authority over
their offspring, might deprive the family of their earnings.New Mill FeverThe fever for building
mills continued in the North and South. By 1890, New England was home to 60 per cent of all the
cotton mills in the country, but this proportion dropped to 49 per cent by 1900 as the South’s
share increased from 21 per cent in 1890 to 39 percent in 1900.With all these mills increasing the
production of greige goods, the result was need for more bleacheries, dye houses and print works,
to the economic benefit of Providence, R. I., Waltham, Mass., Stockport, N. Y., Wilmington, Del.,
Fall River, Lowell, and Peabody, Mass., where many such plants were located.In 1880, there had been
191 dyeing, bleaching, and printing plants. By 1890, the number had grown to 248 and by 1900 to
298.There were steady improvements in the equipment operated in all these mills and finishing
plants, but few major innovations. One of these was the humidifier, introduced soon after 1881,
which allowed mills to take advantage of steam power, later of electric power, and to move away
from the rivers, on whose proximity they had depended for the humidity needed in spinning and
weaving.Ring Spindle Invented In 1830, Jenks had invented the ring spindle, which replaced the
double-armed flyer of the throstle with a wire “traveler” running on a fixed steel ring. Sawyer
vastly improved this system in 1871, achieving high speed spinning that led to production of fine
yarns.Most Southern mills employed ring spinning from the very beginning: mills in the North were
reluctant to discard throstle and mule spinning that still worked well, thus giving the Southern
mills an unintentional competitive advantage. Here is a statistical comparison of the relative
growth of mule and ring spinning:The most important innovation was that which dealt a mortal blow
to the “kiss of death” shuttle: the Northrop shuttle-changing device. The “kiss of death” was the
term applied by public health officials to the old-style shuttle that had to be threaded by sucking
the filling thread through the shuttle eye. Weavers told their learners they wouldn’t qualify as
real weavers until they had sucked eight yards of yarn into their stomachs. The public health
people pointed out that repeated “kissing” of the shuttle by different workers led to the
transmission of germs in a time when highly contagious influenza and tuberculosis competed with
heart disease as the leading cause of death. But, there were few health officials, and scant
general knowledge of how disease spread.The cure was the shuttle-changing device invented by J. H.
Northrop, an Englishman hired in 1881 by George Draper and Sons of Hopedale, Mass. Northrop first
tried his device in a mill in October, 1889. He also developed a self-threading shuttle and shuttle
spring jaws to hold a bobbin by means of rings on the butt, all leading to the filling changing
battery that was the basic feature of the 1891 Northrop loom, regarded as one of the greatest
technical developments in the industry. Until that time the loom had to be stopped to replenish
filling.Draper’s Northrop loom permitted a dramatic increase in production, and in the number of
looms that a weaver could work.Water Power Gives Way To SteamEarly mills had been powered by the
force of falling water, with the power transmitted to machines by intricate systems of belts driven
by shafts linked by gears to the water wheel. Steam gradually replaced water as the power source.
As late as 1900, however, water still furnished 50% of the power for the mills of Manchester, Mass.
and 49% for those of Lowell. Steam liberated the mill from the riverbank but not from power
transmission by gear and belt. That liberation came with the electric motor, whose birth coincided
with the birth of the American Wool and Cotton Reporter.As Sidney B. Paine has written, electric
motors were practically unknown in the commercial world prior to 1886. The alternating current
motor was still in the laboratory stage, the first polyphase induction motor being placed on the
market in 1892. A few mills had used small direct current motors, but no mill was electrified until
Columbia Mills Co. (Columbia, S. C.) made the momentous decision to sign a contract July 31, 1893
with General Electric Co. for two 500-kilowatt, 3-phase, 36-cycle, 600-watt generators and 17
65-horsepower induction motors, each of the motors serving a separate section of the mill,
independently of the others. To save space, the motors were suspended from the ceiling. Development
of electric power for the mills then spread swiftly.Textile EducationIn the later years of the
century mill owners were realizing the need for training future overseers, superintendents and
managers. Leadership and interest in working in the industry were often lacking in second and third
generations of family-owned mills, and the owners realized they would have to hire those who could
do what the founders did.When the Philadelphia Textile Association was organized in 1882, a main
purpose was to establish a textile school. Sufficient funds, however, could not be raised at the
outset. So,Theodore C. Search, one of the association organizers, started a school of his own, in
one room, with crude apparata, teaching five weavers from Philadelphia mills at night. His example
inspired the Philadelphia association to try again, this time successfully, and what is now the
Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science came into being, alma mater of many of the industry’s
leaders.In 1895, Mr. Search exhibited the work of the Philadelphia School at the thirtieth
anniversary meeting in Boston of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers. His address on
textile education led Massachusetts textile men to have legislation passed providing matching funds
for textile schools, leading to institutions at Lowell, Fall River and New Bedford. The South
followed the examples: Clemson College (Clemson, S.C.) opened a textile department in 1898, Georgia
Institute of Technology and the North Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1899, the
AandM College at Storkville, Miss., in 1901, and the AandM College at College Station, Texas, in
1904.ATMI’s Roots The American Textile Manufacturers Institute, Inc. is the central trade
association for the cotton, man-made fibers and wool segments of the American textile industry, its
membership comprising 85% of the industry’s production.ATMI is active in government relations work,
statistics and economic research, public relations, safety and health, marketing, environmental
preservation, international trade, data processing and almost any area of activity, except
technical, which might be of concern to its individual members and which may best be handled
through combined effort.ATMI is descended from the Southern Cotton Spinners Association,
incorporated in 1897 in North Carolina; the name was changed May 3, 1903 to American Cotton
Manufacturers Association. ACMA was incorporated March 8, 1905.The Cotton-Textile Institute was
organized October 4, 1926, incorporated in New York, and was merged with ACMA September 30, 1949 to
form the American Cotton Manufacturers Institute, Inc.On April 30, 1958, the National Federation of
Textiles, formed in 1934, merged with ACMI.The NFT’s predecessor organization is said to be The
Silk Association, organized in 1872. The name of ACMI was changed on October 1, 1962 to American
Textile Manufacturers Institute, Inc.The Association of Cotton Textile Merchants of New York, which
was organized on January 17, 1918, was consolidated with ATMI January 17, 1964.The National
Association of Finishers of Textile Fabrics, which was originated January 12, 1898 and staffed on
January 6, 1914, was consolidated with ATMI May 20, 1965.The National Association of Wool
Manufacuters, which was formed Novemer 30, 1864, merged with ATMI on July 1, 1971.Early Industry
LeadersColonel J. T. Anthony, 1897-1898, founder and first president of the Southern Cotton
Spinners Association which became the American Cotton Manufacturers Association. He was born on
November 12, 1843 in Hanover County, Virginia; served in the Army of Northern Virginia in the
division commanded by General George A. Pickett. He moved to Charlotte, N. C. some 12 years after
the war. In addition to textile interests, he engaged in the lumber, ice, coal, and cottonseed
trade. He died in July, 1930.