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Author: Jarrett Craft

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Humble Beginnings: The Griffin Knitting Mill

The Boyd family, owners of a cotton warehouse in downtown Griffin, began their involvement in Griffin’s textile industry by establishing the J.D. Boyd Manufacturing Company in 1897. This company was a small start-up which failed shortly after the death of J.D. Boyd Senior. J.D. Boyd Manufacturing disappeared from listings and was replaced by the Griffin Knitting Mill under Douglas Boyd and his brother-in-law J.W. Mangham. J.W.'s brother J.J. would join the business soon after.

The Boyd-Mangham clan organized their new company with a capital stock of $20,000 in 1900, manufacturing both men’s and women’s underwear. The venture appears to have been a cursed one from the start. In 1900, not long after the mill commenced operations, a train killed one of the mill's female employees after her dress was caught in the tracks. Not long afterwards, in February of 1901, a notable labor dispute occurred when the mill's superintendent assaulted a female employee. According to reports, he told her to complete some extra orders, which she refused to do without receiving a ticket for it. In those days, knitting mill employees were paid for each item, pair, or bundle that they produced instead of at an hourly rate. Essentially, the superintendent attempted to force her to work for free. When she refused, he forcibly ejected her from the building while she stabbed him repeatedly with her knitting needle.

1905 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map showing the newly vacant Griffin Knitting Mill after the business failed. The Boyd-Mangham group shortly remodeled and refit the building to produce cotton products, rechristening it as The Central Mills. Photo Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

between him and the woman’s friends. The Griffin Rifles were called out in response to that and the wider unrest amongst the mill’s employees, while warrants against several employees were sworn out by the superintendent for rioting. Either way, this was not good publicity for the young company. J.J. Mangham became involved in the business by 1903. Under his leadership the company expanded their product line and added additional machinery, even coming up with the “Griffin Knit” brand. Anticipating growth, they built a small mill building at the corner of Experiment Street and West Broad Street. However, the knitting mill failed shortly after the new building was completed.

Building an Empire: The Boyd-Mangham Group in the 1900s

The Spalding Cotton Mills. The tower housed a water tank which fed the fire suppression sprinklers while the section behind it housed the mill's cotton carding and yarn spinning operations on the first and second floors respectively. The section immediately to the right of the tower was home to a picking process on the first floor and slashing and spooling on the second floor. The one story annex on the far right served as the mill's weaving facility. Note the elevated skylight which spanned the length of the building, bringing extra light into the center of the mill. Photo Courtesy of Jarrett Craft.

Despite the setbacks, Douglas Boyd and the Mangham brothers were on the rise. In 1899-1900, the Manghams partnered with Griffin's preeminent businessman, W.J. Kincaid, to build The Spalding Cotton Mills with the goal of producing 4-yard sheeting. The stockholders laid the new mill's cornerstone on August 25th, 1899 amidst much fanfare. The new mill was ambitious, being capitalized at $100,000 and projected to house 5,000 spindles in 1899. They quickly doubled their investment to $200,000 in capital stock, with a planned expansion of the mill's equipment to bring it up to 9,000 spindles and 300 looms, only 60 days after opening.  In 1901, after production had commenced, a fire broke out in the picker room which caused $500 ($15,081.71 in 2020) in damages.

In 1902, J.J. Mangham took over from W.J. Kincaid as president of The Spalding Cotton Mills. His brother J.W. and Douglas Boyd were also voted officers of the mill. They took advantage of the 10 percent dividend paid out by the profitable mill and the duly confident mood of local and state-wide investors to embark on further ventures. They organized their next mill, Boyd-Mangham Manufacturing Company, in May of 1902 with $125,000 in capital stock. The size of the mill showed the ambition of its owners, as it housed 10,000 spindles and 300 looms. The new mill produced “fancy weaves”. By 1909, the mill had increased its capacity by 50 percent, boasting a total of 15,000 spindles and 410 looms still producing fancy weaves.

This postcard depicts the Central Mills, the third mill built by the Boyd-Mangham group. The facility was originally built to house the Griffin Knitting Mill, but was expanded and adapted for the Central Mills. The section of the mill in the background, with the tower, was home to weaving operations on both floors. The portion in the foreground operated drawing, carding, and weaving machinery on the first floor. The second floor was where cotton the fiber was spun, spooled and warped. Photo Courtesy of Jarrett Craft.

With Boyd-Mangham Manufacturing up and running on a solid footing, the group turned their attention to yet another project. This time, they already owned a suitable property with a factory building, the old Griffin Knitting mill at the corner of Experiment Street and West Broad Street. Under the leadership of J.J. Mangham, the group incorporated The Central Mills in 1905. To house the new company, they expanded the old knitting mill and equipped it with 10,000 ring spindles, 400 twisting spindles, and 160 looms producing “Cotton Crepe”. By 1909 there were only 8,000 ring spindles, but they were replaced by 60 additional wide looms as the mill transitioned to the production of wide sheeting.

Building on the momentum accrued over the course of the decade, the Boyd-Mangham group organized yet another cotton mill, Cherokee Mills, in 1907. The group began construction and had ordered machinery by June of 1908. This new mill, still listed as under construction in 1909, was envisioned as a producer of cotton sheeting. The Boyd-Mangham group incorporated their latest venture with a capital stock of $200,000, with the plant able to house 10,000 spindles and 350 looms.

The Cherokee Mills shortly after its completion. The 1st floor housed cotton carding and yarn spinning operations, while the second floor held additional yarn spinning equipment and looms for weaving the thread into sheeting. On the right in the background, the engine room held a 900 horsepower steam engine and a 60 horsepower dynamo for generating electric power. The section of the mill which stood beyond the engine room housed a picking operation on the first floor and warping and slashing equipment on the second floor. Photo Courtesy of Jarrett Craft.

The Top of the Mountain: The Manghams Buy in to Griffin Manufacturing

The first half of the 1910s proved to be a changing of the guard for Griffin’s textile industry. This process began with the retirement of W.J. Kincaid from the textile business. Kincaid was no longer listed as president of Griffin Manufacturing and Kincaid Manufacturing in 1910. Because textile directories usually collected their data several months before the release of the new year’s directory, this means that he likely resigned his post in mid to late 1909.

Following his resignation, in February of 1910, Kincaid sold off his $200,000 ($5,397,768.42 in 2020) in Griffin Manufacturing Company stock to Seaton Grantland, H.W. Barnes, B.R. Blakely, and J.P. Nichols. James W. Brawner, Kincaid’s close associate, also sold $37,000 in stock to J.P. Nichols, Douglas Boyd, and J.J. Mangham because he wanted to focus on other interests, namely assuming the presidency of Kincaid Manufacturing. J.P. Nichols and H.W. Barnes took over as executives. This did not mean that Kincaid was through with the textile industry, as on September 15th, 1911 W. J. Kincaid, Allan Little, J.M. Brawner, and Frank Ingram bought 1,000 shares of stock in Kincaid Manufacturing from Seaton Grantland at a price of $100,000 ($2,698,831.58 in 2020). This all just meant that he was making room for a new group of leaders.

The Kincaid Manufacturing Company's southwestern facing façade. Photo Courtesy of Jarrett Craft.

Douglas Boyd and J.J. Mangham’s acquisition of Griffin Manufacturing stock from James W. Brawner was prestigious, as stockholders of Griffin Manufacturing had traditionally been the leaders of Griffin’s economy. It made sense that the men who controlled 41 percent of Griffin’s spindles would want to join that group. Surprisingly, this acquisition in Griffin Manufacturing Company’s stock represented the Boyd-Mangham group’s high-water mark. By December of 1911, they were forced to sell three out of their four mills as part of a long-running bankruptcy and embezzlement scandal.

With His Hand in the Cookie Jar: J.J. Mangham's Trial

This collapse was a major shock for the people of Griffin and the Georgia textile industry as a whole, as the Boyd-Mangham group of mills were seen as generally prosperous and well run enterprises. Many believed that the Boyd-Mangham saga began as a knock-on effect of the Panic of 1907, in which the stock markets of New York crashed, causing runs on trusts which formed an integral part of the stock system. The stock market, and economy as a whole, only really stabilized after J.P. Morgan intervened to provide cash for the banks and trusts which were receiving too many withdrawal requests to deal with. However, economic tremors continued for several years thereafter, including a considerably more minor Panic of 1910.

Wall Street flooded with crowds during the early days of the Panic of 1907. Several sources blamed the misfortunes of the Boyd-Mangham group on losses received during the 1907 panic and the ensuing recession. Photo Courtesy of Soerfm, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Boyd-Mangham group of mills, with the exception of the newly built Cherokee Mills, were forced into bankruptcy during this tumult. In May of 1911 the Boyd-Mangham Manufacturing Company halted production and began bankruptcy hearings, having filed a list of assets and liabilities which listed a number of debtors amongst the assets. Those parties denied owing anything to Boyd-Mangham Manufacturing, so an investigation ensued. Investigators shortly found enough evidence to procure a warrant for J.J. Mangham’s arrest on Thursday July 6th. Mangham was arrested on Friday the 7th. Charges against him included obtaining money under false pretenses and paying dividends on stock which had not been issued.

On Saturday July 8, 1911 J.J. Mangham gave testimony in his bankruptcy trial, pleading the 5th lest he incriminate himself. The stress of these charges appears to have weighed heavily on J.J. Mangham, as the 17th of August, 1911 saw his trial postponed on the grounds that he was mentally and physically unable to be of use to his lawyers. A doctor from the Piedmont sanitarium, where Mangham was a patient, testified in his defense. His brother J.W.’s case was also postponed. Doctors declared Mangham fit enough to resume the trial by November of 1911. The trial neared its conclusion by November 23, 1911, by which time the state had concluded its argument after questioning several Atlanta Bank officials and Griffin businessmen. All that was left was for Mangham’s defense to wrap up the cross examinations. By this point, onlookers filled the courtroom to watch the closing arguments, as the Atlanta Journal Constitution claimed that the case garnered a large attendance on account of the prominence of the issue.

Shortly afterwards, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Mangham, who was de facto in charge of Boyd-Mangham Manufacturing, created false entries in the company books so that it showed $200,000 more in assets than actually existed. He also fabricated a $150,000 unimpaired capital stock, which was actually impaired,  and $80,000 surplus which did not exist. Mangham evidently discounted the stock of the mill in Atlanta banks. The banks provided him with credit which he used to speculate illegally. Meanwhile Mangham further claimed that the company owed him $10,000, when he actually owed it several thousand instead.

Boyd-Mangham Manufacturing Company circa 1910. At this point much of the second floor housed the mill's thread spinning operation. This in turn fed the looms which produced fancy weaves, taking up the majority of the first floor. This mill became the epicenter of J.J. Mangham's embezzlement trial. Photo Courtesy of Jarrett Craft.

On the 25th of November, 1911 the court found J. J. Mangham guilty of embezzling $23,412.50 ($631,876.27 in 2020) and paying out illegal dividends on Boyd-Mangham Manufacturing Company stocks, a felony and a misdemeanor respectively. He was sentenced to 4 years at the state prison in Milledgeville. Mangham’s lawyer promptly filed a motion for a new trial. The motion was granted and the new trial set for December 29th, although other indictments were still pending against Mangham. Mangham’s case worked its way up through the appeals courts of Georgia before his final appeal was defeated on August 10th, 1912 in the State Appellate Court. His case could not be appealed any further because he was not charged with any Federal offences. Mangham surrendered to the prison on the 19th and began serving his sentence at the state farm in Milledgeville.

Picking up the Pieces: The Aftermath of the Mangham Trial

On April 2, 1913 J.J. Mangham’s lawyers announced that they would ask the prison commissioners to pardon Mangham, even though he had served less than a year of his prison sentence. On the 8th of November, 1913 a petition signed by 600 citizens of Griffin calling for clemency for the convicted J.J. Mangham was presented by two attorneys to a commission. Mangham had already been in prison since August of 1912, just the beginning of his 4 year sentence for embezzlement, along with a 1 year sentence for a misdemeanor. Even half of the jury which convicted him asked for his release on the grounds that Mangham had already been punished enough.

To put the severity of his sentence into perspective, the Register brothers, who committed involuntary homicide, were only given a sentence of 3 years. It was not until the 17th of August, 1915 that Governor Harris pardoned J.J. Mangham. The Governor was evidently swayed by three things: the petition from Griffin’s citizens, the fact that Mangham’s wife was on her deathbed, and that the prison commission recommended his release.

Pictured here is the No. 1 mill of the newly formed Georgia Cotton Mills, a consolidation of 3 of the Boyd-Mangham group's mills. This mill was formerly known as The Spalding Cotton Mills. Photo Courtesy of the Griffin-Spalding Historical Society.

The results of the trial were cataclysmic for the Boyd-Mangham group of mills. Not only were two of their owners convicted, as J.W. was saddled with charges of declaring illegal dividends which carried a $1,000 fine, the mills were also forcibly sold to Atlanta-based businessmen. On Dec. 9th, 1911 The Spalding Cotton Mills, The Central Mills, and Boyd-Mangham Manufacturing Company were sold at auction, each one for considerably less than they were appraised at. Boyd-Mangham Manufacturing and the Spalding Cotton Mills were valued at a combined $313,000, selling for $70,000 and $45,000 respectively. The Central Mills were sold for $48,000.

The sale of these three mills represented the largest forced sale made in middle Georgia up to that time. The Atlanta Journal Constitution claimed that efforts would be made to have the mills back in business by the following fall. Furthermore, Cherokee Mills went into bankruptcy as well, and was idle by April of 1912. It reportedly owned Lowell Machine Shops $15,292 ($404,195.94 in 2020) amongst other debts. By October 25th, 1912 the Cherokee Mills was advertised for sale as part of the bankruptcy.

When the dust settled Kincaid Manufacturing Company absorbed the Cherokee Mills, it became Kincaid No. 2. The other three mills from the Boyd-Mangham group were eventually consolidated under the corporate name of Georgia Cotton Mills. Clyde L. King, a businessman from Atlanta, controlled Georgia Cotton Mills with a capital base of $400,000. The new corporation produced shirtings, drills, sateens, huck, terry towels, and diaper cloth with a combined 30,000 spindles and 1,000 looms. In the early 1920s Georgia Cotton Mills went through some stormy times and they brought in a new president, John H. Cheatham, from the Hartwell Mills in Hartwell, Georgia. He quickly restored the mills to a profitable state, and in 1924 he offered to purchase the common stock of Kincaid Manufacturing Company. When the Kincaid stockholders accepted his offer, the Georgia Cotton Mills merged with Kincaid Manufacturing, finally bringing the Boyd-Mangham mills back under one corporate roof. The combined Georgia-Kincaid mills would later be renamed Dundee Mills, a name which became synonymous with Griffin textile production.

Author: Judy Rowell

Laurine Dixson was born in Bowdon, Georgia on August 25, 1912. She married Forrest Entrekin in 1930.

In 1950, at the age of 38, she was a homemaker with 2 children Jerry, age 16, and Linda, age 8. In November of that year, Forrest Entrekin died at age 42. She owned a car but did not drive and had few options to support her family.

She took a job at Scoggins 5 &10, a dime store in Bowdon soon after the death of her husband.  James and Sarah Scoggins had purchased their store in 1949, the year before Mrs. Entrekin became a widow. At that time most counters had a small cash register, and the sales force consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Scoggins plus two or three full-time employees. Laurine Entrekin was one of those valuable employees.

Customers, with the aid of one of the sales staff, when needed, would go to different counters to find items they wished to purchase and pay for their purchases at that area. Customers might often pay at two or three different cash registers before leaving the store.

Mrs. Entrekin worked there for approximately one year before a relative helped her secure a job at Warren Sewell Clothing Company in Bowdon. She was hired as a seamstress and sewed the collar on a man’s suit. She was a petite lady, and handling the entire coat (especially the wool coats during summer) was difficult as she was expected to make production (complete a required number of sewn collars) each day.

In addition to working from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday for Sewell’s (the colloquial name for the apparel) company, she continued to work at Scoggins 5 & 10 during her one-hour lunch break from 1:00 to 2:00, and all day on Saturdays. During the later years of Mrs. Entrekin continuing to work a second job, the dime store changed to self-service with cash registers at the entrance.  It was most important to have help during lunch as the “Sewell lunch hour” was the busiest time of the day. Mrs. Entrekin would eat the lunch she had brought from home, run “up town” and assist the then full-time clerks at the cash registers.

Customers usually found what they needed and carried the items they desired to purchase to one of the “check outs” as they were commonly called. As items were rung they would be bagged and ready to leave the store as soon as they were paid for. Often times customers would hand a hand full of items over to the cashier along with a couple of dollars and say, “Put these on layaway for me.” Many times the cashier would have no idea who the person was, but before anything could be said, Mrs. Entrekin would grab the layaway and already had the name written down. She knew almost everyone who worked at the plant.

With hourly wages at the plant standing at $1.00 in 1961, a 5 &10 lunch hour job for the employees such as Mrs. Entrekin, gained a bit of extra income and were favored with a discount on purchases. The practice benefitted the merchant owner, as well. With the limited time for shopping and especially during the holiday seasons of Christmas, Easter, and Mother’s Day when items were placed on layaway, the clerks like Mrs. Entrekin expedited the process by being familiar with the names of the people from the plants coming in to pay a dollar or fifty cents on their chosen items. Time was saved for the shopper as well as the merchant. Thursday and Friday (payday) were especially busy days.

Laurine Entrekin worked at Warren Sewell Clothing for 24 years, retiring in 1976. The Bowdon Bulletin noted her retirement on Monday, June 16, which was marked with a retirement dinner and a picture in the “Sewell Life” section of the paper. She passed away on October 26. 2005, at the age of 93.

Author: Brandon Cohran

History is the memory of perspective. Events are remembered by how they are documented. Leon Shiver, the feature of this story, grew up in a cotton mill village in Rome, Georgia. He has collected memorabilia and artifacts from the Anchor Duck mill, as well as attended annual reunions of the people who grew up in the mills. Years later, Leon understood the importance of his story and reached out to us at the Center for Public History, in order to share his love of history with us. Leon has sent us personal stories and accounts from his childhood that has helped us to understand what it was like to live in the textile mill villages, that we research and study now. Leon has welcomed many students from the University of West Georgia to his home in order to look over and photograph items from his personal collection of documents, items, and photos. Because of our relationship with Mr. Shiver, we have been able to improve our understanding of textile mill life in Georgia, while adding his stories, maps, and photographs to our collection. 

The history of the textile industry in northwest Georgia contains many narratives. Economically, the textile mills that were spread throughout this region led to the stabilization of many communities. Some cotton mills were later revitalized as apartment lofts or stores, and mill village homes remained in use in the decades following the mills closing down, preserving the structures, but the historical importance on the economy is lost. Anchor Duck Mill and part of the mill village, however, closed in 1958 and has since been razed, but Leon Shiver appreciated the history that was around him as he worked to preserve any of the history that he could. He sent his personal stories from his childhood of growing up in a mill, as well as allowing students and faculty to visit his home to see his collection of memorabilia of the Anchor Duck Mill. This is his story.

Leon Shiver was born in 1939, and his family moved to Rome, Georgia, in 1940 from Sale City, Georgia. His family came to Rome, on his uncle’s promise of work at Anchor Duck Mill for his father, who was trying to fight the Great Depression as a farmer. Anchor Duck Mill, incorporated in 1900, manufactured cotton duck, which was a heavy-duty cloth used for products, such as ropes and sails. Howard Shiver, Leon’s father, began working at Anchor Duck Mill as a sweeper in the weave rooms keeping the floors clean and kept, but he worked his way up to “Loom Fixer” as he then worked maintenance upkeep on looms.

Cotton mill work was not an easy job. It was especially not a clean job. Leon recalled how his father climbed under the looms in order to fix them, but “both men and women chewed tobacco in these days, as smoking was prohibited, and often the tobacco spit would be under the looms.” He remembered that his father “always had a change of bib overalls for obvious reasons.” Due to his hard work in the mill – first sweeping dust and debris up from the weave room, and then working on looms themselves – Leon’s father moved up in the company and was promoted all the way to “Second Hand,” or a position similar to a foreman. Howard Shiver’s promotion meant that the Shivers were moving houses, too. In company villages, the employee rented housing was offered on a tier-based system, meaning that the higher your position at the mill, the “bigger and better house you could rent.” The price tag that came along with this upgrade was “50 cents per room per week,” Leon recalled while looking over a photograph of one of his childhood homes in the village.

Growing up in a mill village meant that the company created the community, and maintained all the necessities of life, but also provided the amenities, too. When Leon was a boy, age 11 or 12 in the early ‘50s, he went to work for Robert Branton, who operated a grocery store. Leon delivered groceries all throughout the mill village to folks. He recounted that deliveries were hassle-free because “in those days, nobody locked their doors, so I could put stuff in the icebox as needed and the rest on the kitchen table.” Mill villages often had their own schools in place as well, and Leon attended one where approximately 90% of his classmates were from the mill village. The mill company stores were common throughout the textile industry, and Anchor Duck Mill had its own store as well as company scrip for employees to use at the company store, like Leon Shiver’s shown here.

When Leon was not delivering groceries around the mill village, he was taking photographs. In 1948 or ‘49, his father won a camera from a punchboard drawing that Leon used to take photos of the “Village People” when his family lived on Blanch Avenue in the village. Leon told us stories of running around the mill village taking photos of his friends and family, such as Carl Dunn who boarded with the Shivers on-and-off throughout their time at Anchor Duck Mill. Photography stayed a passion for Leon throughout his life and travels to this day.

Sports played a prominent role in many mills throughout Georgia. Anchor Duck was no different, as it hosted a baseball team, and both a women’s and men’s basketball team. Leon was very familiar with the baseball field growing up because his childhood home was right across the street from it. Leon shared the story about a time that Rome experienced heavy rainfall and bad flooding. Silver Creek, the river that flowed through Anchor Duck’s property, periodically flooded. Leon recalled that during one of these floods, the scoreboard from the baseball field washed away and right by his house. He then used the board as a raft to float around while the water was high enough. 

Leon experienced some negative times growing up in the mill village, too. The General Textile Strike of 1934 caused shifts in the political and social spheres regarding workers’ labor rights and tension among workers at Anchor Duck. In 1948/49, workers at Anchor Duck led a strike of their own, but Leon’s father, as a Second Hand at the mill, worked throughout the strike. Since Howard Shiver was a Second Hand, he continued to work, even when the strike happened at Anchor Duck. As he was leaving one night, he was threatened by two Strikers, but Howard encouraged them to move along without any trouble. Leon, as a child of a worker, also felt the tension of the strike because he was “frequently accosted by the striker’s children, called a ‘scab’ and generally harassed by them.” Leon carried ‘chunking’ rocks in his bicycle basket in order to ward off the striker’s kids and to get home safely. 

Anchor Duck Mill was Leon’s home growing up. His family experience is a common story for mill families that once lived in communities in the Textile Trail corridor. We, at the Center for Public History at the University of Georgia, are grateful that he preserves and shares his memories, scrapbooks, and photographs. Leon understands the significance of the textile industry and the people who worked in the mills. He loves to share his story – and collection – with anyone who is interested as he often says that “history is meant to be shared” and that he is glad that he is able to help to tell the story of Anchor Duck Mill and other surrounding mills.

 Leon is an annual attendee to the Anchor Duck Mill reunion that is held every fall. This reunion is where Leon gets the opportunity to share – and grow – his collection of memorabilia and artifacts regarding Anchor Duck Mill and surrounding mills, including Pepperell and Shannon mills. Leon has contributed to our work at the Center for Public History in many ways since getting to know him. Photographs from his collection were used in our first guidebook that was published as part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. In addition, Leon contributed new items to the Center’s archival collections, as Leon provided us with blueprints and maps of cotton mills and a photograph album documenting the 1971 worker’s strike from the mill in Trion, Georgia.   Leon’s willingness to share his collection and personal story provides the Textile Trail with a new depth of knowledge of this region’s shared history, as well as new resources to interpret and explore the history of the textile industry in northwest and central west Georgia.

Working in textile mills before the mid-1900s was rife with danger. The entire mill line was exposed to hundreds of fast-moving parts—belts, spindles, shuttles–that could easily snag you if you were not paying attention. It was not uncommon for workers in mills to have accidents, such as getting a limb caught in a machine, which would leave them injured for life. Working in a mill could also result in chronic illness, as the lint in the air that workers breathed could accumulate in the lungs, causing respiratory problems.

Adults were not the only ones to face the hazards of mill life. Unlike today, when you have to be at least a teenager to go to work, children were permitted and even encouraged to work in textile plants so that they could help their families financially. These children, due to their small size, would be tasked with climbing on the machinery to reach places that adults could not, allowing them to fix any breakdowns or tangling of textile lines. That also meant that, because they were reaching into and climbing on the machines, they were very likely to fall victim to accidents.

Thankfully, as time went on and machinery safety and building architecture improved, so did working conditions. Federal laws began to prohibit children from working until they reached a reasonable age and the health and safety of employees began to receive more attention from authorities. Outside of government intervention, workers also began to band together to form unions that acted to intercede both with employers and with the government to work for improvements such as shorter workdays and fair pay. While the successes of unions varied from time to time and place to place, their work often did lead to reforms that greatly improved life for mill workers.

Textile History, Women’s History, Our History

On November 10^th, 2013, the West Georgia Textile Heritage Trail Team traveled to the Dalton Freight Depot in Dalton, Georgia, to host a History Day where staff would gather the recollections, artifacts, and photos of people who had connections to the textile history of the Dalton area. One of the people who came to give to see us was a woman by the name of Rosa “Midge” Murphy. Midge is a very strong woman who began working in textile mills in 1953 when her first child was 3 years old. She had to go to work to earn money for her family, but she also found ways to enjoy her work and, judging by her stories, she did it very well.  In an era where women faced many limitations in the working world because of their gender, Midge used perseverance, creativity, and determination to make a career in the textile industry and earn the respect of her male bosses and coworkers.

Over the course of 30 years, Midge worked in multiple textile mills and accumulated a host of skills and priceless experiences. At one mill, the quality of her work and the strength of her personality earned her so much respect, when they opened up a mill in England in 1968, they asked her to go abroad to the new branch to train the new employees. Though pleased by the request, she decided not to go because her son was graduating from school that year and she wanted to be there when he graduated.

At another carpet mill, Midge became the first woman in Dalton to run a new type of carpet-making machine because the male machine operator who normally did the job frequently got called away for other tasks. On one particular occasion, when she was called to stand in, yet again, for the male operator, she realized that she was doing this man’s work for LESS pay than he was making, due in part to her gender. In the course of her interview, she told us that when she came upon that realization, she simply sat down and refused to operate the machine, telling her superior, “Until I get operators pay, I ain’t running that d— machine!” She was then escorted to the “boss” (a fellow called “Big Joe”) where her supervisor explained the situation and asked for an intervention. After hearing Midge’s story, Big Joe asked if she could do all of the tasks required of an operator. When her supervisor replied that she could, the boss replied that, since that was the case, she should probably make operator’s pay. By demanding (and receiving) pay equal to that of her male counterparts in the Dalton carpet mills, Midge achieved what many women are still fighting for to this day!

Midge’s adventures did not end there. She later worked at Normandy Carpet, another carpet mill in Dalton, and her skills won her a position where she did a good amount of traveling for the company, training regional employees on how to operate new machines. She shared with us that she and her female co-worker (who formed a sort of team with Midge) were often received with a bit of condescension by the men that they were to teach until they had proven their considerable skill.

After a visit to her nephew in Warner Robbins, Georgia, in 1980, Midge decided to leave Normandy Carpet to open up her own tailoring business where she utilized the skills she had acquired throughout her years in the textile industry. Her shop was quite successful for over two decades and she frequently did work for the US military. Eventually, because of her son’s concern for her health, she closed down her business and now only works part-time, spending the rest of her hours volunteering by reading to children and dressing up as Mrs. Claus for the holidays. She also spends a good amount of time quilting and giving some of her creations to new mothers for their babies.

Midge was not only an important player in the textile history of Dalton but was also a great asset to the women’s movement in the late 20^th century.