North vs. South: The Textile Industry in the Postbellum Economy
Abstract
The textile industry in the United States in the postbellum period witnessed forced changes to its methods after the Civil War. Some regional territories needed to reinvent themselves to survive the broken post-war economy. This study examines the textile industries in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Matoaca, Virginia. It seeks to understand the economic conditions surrounding the industry in the north versus the south. This study will compare how each of these territories labored to achieve economic growth in the postbellum era.
The textile industry in the United States in the antebellum period held a solid foundation, flourished, and established communities in their respective areas. After the Civil War, economic conditions crashed, and the textile industry needed to reinvent itself in the postbellum period. This study will examine the textile industry in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Matoaca, Virginia, and seek to understand the economic conditions surrounding the industry in the north versus the south, and how they achieved economic growth in the postbellum era. This short study will utilize a comparison methodology and analysis through narrative. The narrative style allowed for an insight into the lives of everyday “millhands” and gave a deeper sense of their personal struggles, rather than classification as a number.[1]
New Bedford, a port city in Massachusetts, established itself economically as a whaling and sea industry community in the antebellum period. One of the biggest exports- whale oil, sustained the community and surrounding areas. After the Civil War, the whaling industry took several economic blows. Earl F. Muldernick noted that by the 1870’s higher insurance premiums, devastating accidents in the Arctic, and major loss of property (ships and cargo) left the whaling industry in a precarious position. To add insult to injury, technological advances in refined petroleum began to become a popular source of energy, phasing out the use of whale oil.[2] Leaders scrambled to find ways to boost the local economy. A new and younger generation of community officers became proponents for bringing manufacturing to New Bedford. After all, the city’s location and climate seemed perfect for textile and other types of manufacturing. They could take advantage of the ports by shipping their wares cheaply and importing coal to power their machines. Although a power struggle ensued between the older, more conservative generation and the new leadership, eventually, manufacturing created an exciting new venture for the racially diverse New Bedford. The textile workers in this area were overwhelmingly immigrants or native-born of immigrant parents. Workers hailed from England, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Canada (French Canadians), Russia, and Poland to take advantage of new economic opportunities. The textile industry in New Bedford grew rapidly through the 1880s, and by 1900, became the third-largest textile economy in the nation.[3] The advent of a new enterprise growing at a rapid pace did not come without its problems. Eventually, workers complained of long hours, low wages (including wage instability), and rough working conditions. In the summer of 1894, textile workers’ wages were cut, some by as much as sixty-eight cents per week, and they threatened to strike if their wages were not reinstated. Some of the mill owners decided to shut down production for several weeks, presumably to call the bluff of the workers.[4] It is unknown if the correlation between slashed wages and the economic downturn in the area was a residual of the national depression of 1893. That is a viable question for a separate study.
Virginia was no stranger to cotton production in the antebellum period. Utilizing slave labor to keep production costs low, the cotton/textile industry in this area competed on a smaller scale compared to the larger industries in New England, as they did not have a significant need for factories up to that point. Beth English argued that economic growth was substantive in the postbellum period; however, the instability of reliance on one product for financial prosperity caused a discourse to increase production in a more calculated manner. This led to the professionalization of the industry through newly built mills and factories with technological advances in machinery.[5] After the Civil War, the importance of the newly professionalized industry would become detrimental to the re-building of the broken economy in the south. Families began relying on their younger members to contribute to the home through earned wages. Mills and factories began campaigning to hire young people and offer them an opportunity for economic freedom. The workers in these factories were young, white, native-born men and women but the working population was overwhelmingly female. Opportunities for African American women did not exist in the textile industry-they were relegated to the tobacco industry or household service.[6] The Matoaka Manufacturing Company was one such mill that employed massive numbers of women. According to English, Matoaka Manufacturing Company employed 90 percent of the female wage earners in the area in 1880, with only a five percent downturn by 1900.[7] Much like their counterparts in New England, workers complained of exhausting hours, low wages, stifling working conditions, and instability in the market at certain periods. Anthelia Holt, a Matoaka worker, described in a letter to her friend Lottie the uncertainty of shift availability at the mill in 1889. She stated that “there is some talk of the mill stopping and I have been waiting to find out if it was going to stop but I have not found out yet…”[8] During the economic depression of 1893, she relayed to Lottie in December that they did not work for two weeks but would be called back to the mill the following week.[9]
The comparison of the textile industry in New Bedford, MA, and Matoaka, VA in the postbellum period showed that both cities needed to find new ways to boost their economies after the war. They both utilized technological advances that allowed their business to run more efficiently, were affected by the problems of rapid growth and employee demands, and witnessed the forced closure of the mills and cutting of wages for workers during economic hardship. Both took advantage of the majority of the population in their hiring practices, although a glaring difference in these two areas was the hiring of immigrants in the north and white women in the south. Both territories, through innovation and management during peak and low seasons, kept their communities economically sound through the turn of the century.
1. For a deeper study of the textile industry in New England, see Thomas Dublin, Transforming Women’s Work: New England Lives in the Industrial Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994); Janet Greenless, When the Air Became Important: A Social History of the New England and Lancashire Textile Industries (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019); Kingston Wm. Heath, “From Whalers to Weavers: New Bedford’s Urban Transformation and Contested Identities” IA. The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology 40, no. ½ (2014): 7-32; for a comprehensive look at the textile industry in Virginia, see Beth English, “Anthelia Holt (1861-195): The Correspondence of a Textile Mill Worker” in Southern Women and the Progressive Era: A Reader, ed. Giselle Roberts and Melissa Walker (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2019); “‘I Have a Lot of Work to Do’: Cotton Mill Work and Women’s Culture in Matoaca, VA, 1888-95” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 114, no. 3 (2006): 356-83; for a general view of the textile industry in the north and south, see Alice Kessler-Harris, “Working For Wages” in Women Have Always Worked: A Concise History (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2018).
2. Earl F. Mulderink, “‘The Great Hope For the Future”: New Bedford in the Postbellum Era” in New Bedford’s Civil War (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), 187-88.
3. Ibid., 195.
4. “Yarn Mills May Yield-Cloth Companies are Likely to Fight to the End,” The Washington Post, August 22, 1894.
5. Beth English, “Wage-Earning Women Work and Community in Virginia’s Cotton Textile Industry” in Virginia Women: Their Lives and Times ed. Cynthia A. Kierner and Sandra Gioia Treadway (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2016), 52-53.
6. Ibid.,57-58.
8. Anthelia Holt, Matoaca, Virginia, to Lottie v. Clark, Namozine, Virginia, 31 [sic] [30] September 1889, 434901a4-9ee7-42d9-a59e-acdd19fabc8f. William & Mary Special Collections Research Center. https://scrcguides.libraries.wm.edu/repositories/2/digital_objects/
9. Anthelia Holt, Matoaca, Virginia, to Lottie V. Clark, Namozine, Virginia, 1893 December 1, id92236, Box: 2, Folder: 1. Lottie V. Clark Papers, Mss. 65 C54. William & Mary Special Collections Research Center. https://scrcguides.libraries.wm.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/360194