Welcome to Greenville, SC, the “Textile Capital of the World”! (of the 20th century that is)

The Upcountry History Museum has an entire gallery dedicated to the industry and its impact on the region’s social and economic life. The history museum is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10AM - 5PM, and Sunday 1 - 5PM. Admission is $5 adults, $4 seniors, $3 children 4 - 18 and free for children 3 and under.

Doffer duties (historical data from the museum exhibit)
In the early textile mills years, and up to mid 1930s, children as young as 7 worked up to 14 hours a day as doffers. With quick hands and nimble fingers they placed empty bobbins on spinning frames and removed them when full of cotton yarn.

Inside the factory, men, women and children worked in hot, lint-filled rooms, where machinery pounded endlessly. Workers risked their health, limbs and even lives while laboring 10 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, year around.

The Model E loom was the industry standard for many years. In this exhibit the motor was removed to show how it would have looked connected to an overhead belt system, which powered the machines before electric motors were introduced.

Mill work was a drastic change of pace for many, especially for farm families. Employees worked according to the mill owner’s clock – their days started and ended with the screech of steam whistles from mill towers.

The whistle notified workers about start time, lunchtime, break time etc. Even people in the village used the mill whistle to tell time throughout the day.

A “lint head” company life
In the early 1900s, mill owners started to provide housing for their workers to keep them close to the mills. One family usually paid 50 cents per room per month for small but adequate accommodations. For some this was their first experience with electricity and running water.

Mill villages offered schools, churches, social clubs, mill sponsored sports teams, and company-operated stores, where workers redeemed company scrip for provisions.

By paying workers in scrip, owners forced them to buy goods from company stores, returning their wages to the mills.

“The town people would walk on the other side of the street from you or on the edge of the sidewalk! That was because we had lint in our hair from the mills.” John Heath, Woodside Mill worker, 1915

Mill workers experienced a true sense of community within the mill village. Ostracized by town people who called them “lintheads”, mill workers banded together and cared for each other.

The stretch-out and the 1934 strike
In the 1920s, mills sought to increase profitability with the “stretch-out”, where dangerous machinery was sped up to increase workers production. The 1933 Cotton Textile Code of the National Recovery Act, set a 40-hour work week, a $12 minimum weekly wage, and an end to child labor.

Frustrated be these restrictions, mill owners employed the stretch-out even more aggressively as a way to control production. Workers could not leave their machines for a moment. In desperation, the usually union-resistant Upcountry mill workers turned to the United Textile Workers of America for assistance.

“After NRA…they sped up so much it makes it so hard. I will have to be nameless here or lose my job.” – letter to President Franklin Roosevelt, signed JUST A WORKER, South Carolina 1937.
During Depression many workers saw their jobs and homes vanish.

As owners demanded more work from fewer workers, employees sought relief in the form of unions. Representatives began recruiting in the Upcountry, and by 1934, labor and management were locked in a bitter conflict.

Governor Ibra Blackwood sided with the owners and sent in National Guard troops to reopen the mills. In Honea Path, orders went out: “Shoot to kill”. Seven striking workers died, and others were injured.

As a consequence of striking many workers were banned from mill jobs, a violation of the strike settlement.

A love for sports…
Mill owners realized employees needed opportunities to escape the daily struggles to make them more productive.
They organized sports teams, featuring mill workers instead of highly paid, outside professional athletes. The first teams played baseball, a relatively new game to the South in the 1880s.

“Piedmont is playing Pelzer and I’m needed.” – James “Champ” Osteen, player for the New York Highlanders.

The teams inspired great loyalty. Workers and villagers flocked to games, cheering, listening to concerts and eating barbecue.

Outsiders shunned the games until a Piedmont player, Champ Osteen, headed north for the major league.

After few other success stories, the textile leagues began attracting audiences from all walks of life and earning reputation for training some of the world’s greatest players.

Shoeless Joe Jackson
“There is a lot of pleasure to be found in the game.” Joe Jackson 1942

One of the greatest baseball players ever came from a mill team.
Joe Jackson had been working in the Greenville’s Brandon Mill for six years when the mill baseball team recruited the 13 years old in 1901.

His amazing talent took him to the big leagues, where he played for the Chicago White Sox. Accused in the 1919 “Black Sox” World Series scandal, he was banned from baseball and certain selection to the Hall of Fame.

A fan from an opposing team gave Jackson his famous “Shoeless Joe” nickname. Jackson, playing in socks after a new pair of spikes hurt his feet, hit a triple.
As he ran the bases the man hollered “Oh you shoeless $%*#*!” A sportswriter overheard this, cleaned it up for publication, and dubbed him “Shoeless Joe”.

Saturdays Specials! Every time Joe hit a home run, his brothers passed around hats to collect money from the fans.

Have a great family vacation in the beautiful South Carolina Upcountry!

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