Creating the Modern South: Millhands and Managers in Dalton, Georgia, 1884-1984
Built by local entrepreneurs during Dixie's Cotton Mill in Dalton, Georgia, acted as a magnet for thousands of newly impoverished white farm families who moved to the factory and its company-owned village from the surrounding countryside. In Creating the Modern South, Douglas Flamming examines one hundred years in the life of the mill and the town, providing a uniquely perceptive view of Dixie's social and economic transformation.

With a sophisticated blend of statistical analysis, oral history interviews, and a variety of such traditional sources as company records, federal census schedules, and local newspapers, Flamming weaves an empirically convincing, richly embroidered description of life in a southern cotton-mill village. Whereas some historians have characterized southern textile workers as slaves in an "industrial plantation" system, and others have described the creation of an autonomous culture of opposition to management, Flamming focuses on the intimate, ever-changing, and potentially explosive relationship between millhands and managers, effectively demonstrating that both groups acted as architects of the emerging industrial order.

The Crown Mill story addresses important issues of social change faced by the modernizing South: the origins of small-town industry, worker migration from farm to factory, and the rise of an industrial elite; the adaptation of rural customs to an industrial environment and the development of a working-class culture; the advent of mill-village paternalism and the dilemmas of unionization; the impact of World War II on southern life; the collapse of paternalism and the antilabor backlash of the 1950s; and the decline of Dixie's cotton mills in the burgeoning Sunbelt economy. Ultimately, the history of the Crown Mill community both underscores the human dimensions of industrialization and places the New South in the broader context of an industrialized America.
1118879907
Creating the Modern South: Millhands and Managers in Dalton, Georgia, 1884-1984
Built by local entrepreneurs during Dixie's Cotton Mill in Dalton, Georgia, acted as a magnet for thousands of newly impoverished white farm families who moved to the factory and its company-owned village from the surrounding countryside. In Creating the Modern South, Douglas Flamming examines one hundred years in the life of the mill and the town, providing a uniquely perceptive view of Dixie's social and economic transformation.

With a sophisticated blend of statistical analysis, oral history interviews, and a variety of such traditional sources as company records, federal census schedules, and local newspapers, Flamming weaves an empirically convincing, richly embroidered description of life in a southern cotton-mill village. Whereas some historians have characterized southern textile workers as slaves in an "industrial plantation" system, and others have described the creation of an autonomous culture of opposition to management, Flamming focuses on the intimate, ever-changing, and potentially explosive relationship between millhands and managers, effectively demonstrating that both groups acted as architects of the emerging industrial order.

The Crown Mill story addresses important issues of social change faced by the modernizing South: the origins of small-town industry, worker migration from farm to factory, and the rise of an industrial elite; the adaptation of rural customs to an industrial environment and the development of a working-class culture; the advent of mill-village paternalism and the dilemmas of unionization; the impact of World War II on southern life; the collapse of paternalism and the antilabor backlash of the 1950s; and the decline of Dixie's cotton mills in the burgeoning Sunbelt economy. Ultimately, the history of the Crown Mill community both underscores the human dimensions of industrialization and places the New South in the broader context of an industrialized America.
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Creating the Modern South: Millhands and Managers in Dalton, Georgia, 1884-1984

Creating the Modern South: Millhands and Managers in Dalton, Georgia, 1884-1984

by Douglas Flamming
Creating the Modern South: Millhands and Managers in Dalton, Georgia, 1884-1984

Creating the Modern South: Millhands and Managers in Dalton, Georgia, 1884-1984

by Douglas Flamming

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Overview

Built by local entrepreneurs during Dixie's Cotton Mill in Dalton, Georgia, acted as a magnet for thousands of newly impoverished white farm families who moved to the factory and its company-owned village from the surrounding countryside. In Creating the Modern South, Douglas Flamming examines one hundred years in the life of the mill and the town, providing a uniquely perceptive view of Dixie's social and economic transformation.

With a sophisticated blend of statistical analysis, oral history interviews, and a variety of such traditional sources as company records, federal census schedules, and local newspapers, Flamming weaves an empirically convincing, richly embroidered description of life in a southern cotton-mill village. Whereas some historians have characterized southern textile workers as slaves in an "industrial plantation" system, and others have described the creation of an autonomous culture of opposition to management, Flamming focuses on the intimate, ever-changing, and potentially explosive relationship between millhands and managers, effectively demonstrating that both groups acted as architects of the emerging industrial order.

The Crown Mill story addresses important issues of social change faced by the modernizing South: the origins of small-town industry, worker migration from farm to factory, and the rise of an industrial elite; the adaptation of rural customs to an industrial environment and the development of a working-class culture; the advent of mill-village paternalism and the dilemmas of unionization; the impact of World War II on southern life; the collapse of paternalism and the antilabor backlash of the 1950s; and the decline of Dixie's cotton mills in the burgeoning Sunbelt economy. Ultimately, the history of the Crown Mill community both underscores the human dimensions of industrialization and places the New South in the broader context of an industrialized America.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780807861462
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 11/09/2000
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 468
Lexile: 1430L (what's this?)
File size: 5 MB

About the Author

Douglas Flamming is associate professor of history at the California Institute of Technology.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Beautifully written, it combines the rich specificity of a case study with broadly applicable synthetic conclusions."—Technology and Culture

A detailed and nuanced study of community development. . . . Creating the Modern South is an important book and will be of interest to anyone in the field of labor history."—Journal of Economic History

A rich and provocative study. . . . Its major contribution to our knowledge of the South is its careful account of the evolution and collapse of mill culture."—Journal of Southern History

Ambitious, and at times provocative, Creating the Modern South is a well-researched, highly readable, and engaging book."—Journal of American History

In one sense this fascinating analysis of the Crown Cotton Mill, an owner-managed, 'new South' textile corporation, stretches and reinvigorates business history's classic venue: the company biography. In another, it deepens social history's customary form: the community study."—Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Flamming brings generations of people to life in a story told with remarkable skill. His book stands out, even among the superb literature on southern textile workers, for its powerful detail, chronological sweep, and empathy for everyone involved."_Edward L. Ayers, University of Virginia

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