Business leaders in the piedmont: working for
the piedmont or working for themselves?
by Dan L. Morrill
In the late 1 800’s more and more
North Carolinians began to
experience a lifestyle that
differed from what they had known
on the farm. No longer was toiling
in the cotton, corn, or tobacco
fields under a bright, hot sun the
principal way these folks made a
living. They migrated from the
farms to work in emerging
industrial centers in the piedmont,
like Winston, Greensboro,
Salisbury, and Charlotte. There,
most of them became laborers in
tobacco factories, furniture plants,
and textile mills. One textile worker
in the Mecklenburg Mill in
Charlotte described what the daily
routine was like for his mother:
After a hard shift of breathing
in cotton lint, her ears ringing
from the constant "banging”
and "slappin”’ of the motor
belts, and the eternal never
ending “swishing” of the
bobbins and thread, she often
worked late into the night
hours at our own home. Still
tired from the previous day’s
work, she would crawl out of
bed at 4:30 a.m. the next
morning, cook breakfast and
head out to the mill again to
begin another shift.
From 1 880 to 1 900 the size of
the industrial work force in North
Carolina doubled each decade.
The value of factory production
rose from $20,095,037 in 1 880 to
$94,91 9,663 in 1 900. Th is is an
increase of more than 400 percent.
A group of intelligent, bold, and
aggressive businessmen were
mainly responsible for the dramatic
rise in the number of factories in
the North Carolina piedmont
between 1 880 and 1 900. They
were also responsible for
attracting farm families to their
factories. The businessmen were
leaders of the so-called New South
movement. They included
distinguished figures such as
R. J. Reynolds in Winston, Forsyth
County, J. M. Odell and Samuel L.
Patterson in Concord, Cabarrus
County, Edwin Holt in Alamance
County, and H. F. Schenck in
Cleveland County, to mention
only a few.
These entrepreneurs— people
who organize and manage
business or industrial ventures —
were convinced that the South
could overcome the poverty and
shame produced by the Civil War.
They thought that the South could
do this only if it copied the northern
states and industrialized. These
men saw themselves as
missionaries in a quest to
transform their native region. They
wanted the South to regain a sense
of sectional pride by building a
robust, modern economy. “New
ideas have taken a firm hold in the
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