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Vol. 24:3 ISSN 0160-8460 December 1996
Access to Records Documenting the Sale of Southeastern Mill Villages Caps Project to Preserve History of the South Carolina Textile Industry
As part of Clemson University Libraries' South Carolina Textile Research Resources Access grant from the NHPRC, a unique collection of records including many plat maps documenting the sale of textile mill villages to mill workers is now available. During the course of this project, which extended from 1991-1994, the University Libraries was approached by Mr. Alester G. Furman III, a prominent Greenville, South Carolina, businessman, regarding the disposition of some of his firm's papers. Mr. Furman's real estate company served as the agent for the sale of approximately one hundred textile mill villages between 1940 and 1960. George Vogt, then Director of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, was instrumental in referring Mr. Furman to Clemson regarding the disposition of these records.
The records of the Alester G. Furman Company consist of files documenting the sale of real estate, primarily residential housing, by textile manufacturing companies during the period c.1945-1970. The Furman Company served as the broker for the sale of real estate which, with respect to the residential housing, in most cases was sold to the mill workers. Furman handled the loan applications, insurance, and all other matters related to the sale. The textile manufacturers involved in these sales had their factories located in Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. This collection documents one of the most significant turning points in the history of the textile industry. The sale of the mill villages changed the relationship between the mill and its workers while at the same time providing capital for the renovation of the mills. The workers became home owners and could sell the homes if they so desired, thus changing the nature of the closely knit mill communities at the time of their sale.
The records are arranged alphabetically by the name of the textile firm and usually contain correspondence, records of financial disbursements, and sometimes insurance and other materials related to the sales. Most of the sales and the bulk of the records are from the 1950s and 1960s. There is an individual folder(s) for each mill community which often contains detailed listings of the names of the purchasers of homes and the amount of the purchase, method of payment, and status reports related to the liquidation of all properties and transfer of funds held in account. In the case of the J.P. Stevens Corporation, there is considerable documentation from the mid-1980s related to the sale of Stevens property after the purchase of that firm. In most cases, there are plat maps of the mill community or other property at the time of sale, although some plats may have been drawn up several decades earlier. The plats and sale information provide a snapshot in time of the mill communities at the very moment when they were to be forever changed.
The Furman Company sold the real estate of a number of textile firms whose records were processed as part of this project, including the collections of the Clifton Manufacturing Company and the J.P. Stevens Company. Overall, the project achieved its goal of providing access to a number of significant manuscript collections documenting the history of the U.S. textile industry, particularly in South Carolina.
Pickens Cotton Mill, Pickens, South Carolina. Surveyed by Walter Dairs, 1958. Alester Furman Company Records, Oversize Drawer 78, Folder 15.
The Clifton Manufacturing Company collection is distinguished as a unique source by its size, diversity of documentation, and strength in the areas of manufacturing production and labor relations. They show in detail the operation of the mills and their output. Clifton's employee records are extensive in documenting health and safety, with long runs of accident reports filed with the firm's insurance companies, and also include payroll records for a number of years through the mill's history. In similar fashion, there are extensive personnel records in the collection, as well as material related to a number of labor disputes during the 1930s and 1940s. The collection's extensive correspondence files document the relationship of this mill complex with both the larger world of the American textile industry and the financial community which underwrote it, including correspondence with shareholders and with organizations such as the South Carolina Cotton Manufacturers Association.
Although not as extensive, the other collections have particular strengths. The J.P. Stevens Company records include documentation related to the expansion of this firm through the acquisition of numerous mills in the South after World War II, as well as considerable materials about the takeover of the firm and its successor, West Point Pepperell, during the 1980s. There is also a large collection of photographs. The Lowenstein records include some material related to the social life of the mill villages, including the sale of a mill village. Material related to the Chiquola Manufacturing Company includes an insurance map of the plant from 1902, financial and stockholder reports, 1902-1958, and photographs from the 1930s. Some of the photographs document community life such as sports and fraternal organizations. The records about the Orr Mills include documentation about the sale of the mill village in Anderson during 1949. The Satre Collection with its oral history tapes of textile executives and educators serves as a counterpoint to the oral history collections held by other repositories. All told, these collections provide a collage of documentation about textile mill history in South Carolina, complementing each other in a manner that their total value for researchers is considerably greater than any one collection.
Fulton Bag & Cotton Mills, Atlanta, Georgia. Surveyed by Picknell & Picknell, 1957. Alester Furman Company Records, Oversize Drawer 77, Folder 11. Photographs courtesy Special Collections, University Libraries, Clemson University.
