Lyr Add: Cotton Mill Blues

03 Oct 02 - 09:49 PM (#796518)
Subject: Lyr Add: COTTON MILL BLUES (Wilmer Watts)
From: harpgirl

Cotton Mill Blues

by Wilmer Watts & The Lonely Eagles

I have a pleasant time
Trying to sing the cotton mill rhyme;
Live in Belmont, a lousy town,
Work in the mill by the name of Crown.

Cho. Got the cotton mill blues,
    Got the cotton mill blues,
    Got the cotton mill blues,
      On my mind.

Perhaps you'd like to know my name,
You never will, I don't sing for fame;
Sing so the well-off classes know,
How a cotton mill man has to go.

chorus

We have hard times, you all well know,
To church we never get to go;
When the Sabbath comes we are tied down,
Workin' the whole week 'round.

chorus

Uptown people call us trash,
Say we never have no cash;
That is why the people all fret,
Call us ignorant factory set.

Chorus

Education we have none,
Papa, mama, daughter, or son;
That is why the people all fret,
Call us the ignorant factory set.


Recorded 29-30 Ocotber 1929 NYC (mx GEX 2460-A)
Released on Paramount 3254 (nov 1930)

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03 Oct 02 - 11:07 PM (#796562)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cotton Mill Blues
From: GUEST

Version in the DT. Also see version in thread 24157: Cotton Mill
Also other threads.

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04 Oct 02 - 01:26 AM (#796603)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cotton Mill Blues
From: Stewie

This song is not related to the song of the same title in the DT, nor to the song in link posted above by Guest. It is related to a particular strike. Mark Wilson gives the background in his notes to his compilation 'Rich Man Poor Man: American Country Songs of Protest':

... only several months prior to the present recording was a major strike against the Loray Mill in Gastonia, North Carolina. Unlike the Marion uprising, led by the A.F. of L. associated United Textile Workers, the Gastonia strike was run by the communist National Textile Workers. Despite considerable red baiting, the mill workers seemed to genuinely embrace the leftist union. As in Marion, however, the strike ended in failure, with the murder of folk composer Ella May Wiggins and the framing of the chief organisers of the strike. For a first hand account of the incident by the NTWU's leader, Fred Beal, see his fascinating 'Proletarian Journey'.

The radicalism of that strike shows its impact on the present recording made by a group of hands from the Loray Mill. Although Ronald Lee Nelson reports that Watts was never a particularly strong adherent of unionism, this startingly direct homemade composition is obviously a product of the miserable treatment these workers suffered - when it would take nearly a day's (12 hours!) work to earn the cost of a 78 such as this one. Incidently, Dave McCarn [author of 'Cotton Mill Colic', 'Rich Man Poor Man' etc]is said to have shared Watts' hesitations about collectivisation. A proper understanding of such ambivalence, in light of the conditions reported in these songs, would tell us much about the nature of American political life.

The Lonely Eagles consisted of Wilmer Watts (1895-1943, guitar, often played knife style), Charles Freshour (1900-1959, guitar) and Palmer Rhyne (banjo). Together, they (and the related aggregation of Watts and Wilson) contributed one of the most unusual and ingratiating ensembles on 78s. Some of their material was quite negro-influenced and they nicely localised 'The Midnight Special' to their local experience as 'Walk Right In Belmont'. It is not known whether they were acquainted with Dave McCarn. [Mark Wilson, note on 'Cotton Mill Blues' in booklet insert to 'Rich Man Poor Man: American County Songs of Protest' Rounder LP 1026]

--Stewie.

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04 Oct 02 - 02:01 AM (#796611)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cotton Mill Blues
From: Stewie

The thread on 'Banjo Sam' reminded me that this is also reissued on 'Paramount Old Time Tunes' JEMF 103, an anthology compiled by the John Edwards Memorial Foundation [now the John Edwards Memorial Forum at the University of North Carolina]. This LP is probably Harpgirl's source for the reissue. The note to the song in this LP indicates that the redoubtable Archie Green has traced the relationship of the piece to a much longer poem titled 'A Factory Rhyme'. To Green's knowledge, the poem turned up only once - sent in to a column by Francis W. Bradley, Dean of the Graduate School at the Uni of Sth Carolina, in 'The State and Columbia Record' in February 1961. The woman who forwarded the poem had obtained it from her uncle, a North Carolinian, some 60 years previously. Green suggests Watts somehow had access to the poem, shortened it and set it to music.

This nowise negates Wilson's comments about Watts' motivation for recording the piece.

--Stewie.

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30 Aug 22 - 06:30 PM (#4151547)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cotton Mill Blues
From: cnd

Thanks to the bot for bringing this thread up, this is a song and artist I'm not familiar with. You can listen to this song here. The lyrics seem largely correct.

As Stewie brought up, the mills and their exploitation of cheap southern labor was prolific in North Carolina, especially the piedmont, and this fomented in the 1920s to cause dozens of strikes throughout the south. At the time of this recording, the mills were seen as doubly-evil because they were often (but not always) owned by Northerners (Loray was owned by the Rhode Island-based company Manville-Jenckes), outsiders (Bessemer City's American Cotton Mills, Inc. No. 2 was owned by Latvian-born Jews), or managed/controlled by northerners (both Loray and Greensboro's Cone Mills), in addition to their obvious labor conflicts.

I did a good bit of research on the Loray Mill Strike and its eventual impact in unionization in the state of North Carolina in both high school and college. It's fair to say that the Loray Mill Strike single-handedly set back unionization in the state by decades, and to this day NC remains one of the least unionized states. Here's an excerpt from what I wrote in one of the papers:

The importance of the union’s outsider status can be best seen through the Forest City, Bessemer City, and High Point strikes, which all occurred within the next three years. The Forest City strike was “Characterized by a manifest hostility against... the National Textile Workers' Union,” and found the support of local Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, who advised the strikers “to dodge the European radicals” of the Loray Mill Strike [1]. A year later, in Bessemer City, Communist leaders who came were literally tied up and driven out of town by the strikers, and A. F. of L. leaders who came were also asked to leave [2]. A similar situation occurred in the strikes in High Point in 1932 ([3], p. 55; 58-59).

Despite the successes of the locally-led strikes, critics point out that they were too weak and small in scale to maintain the victories they made, likely due to a lack of support from a larger organization; as a result, many of the issues tended to come back to haunt the workers ([3], p. 60). Nonetheless, the Forest City, Bessemer City, and High Point strikes are examples of strikes in a similar time period and situation that were successful under local leadership, as opposed to the failure of the Loray Strike, which had strong outside influence. They also demonstrated the locals’ fear of Communists and their association of all unions with Communists, as shown by the response of locals to the A. F. of L. leaders in Bessemer City.   As Margaret Larkin pointed out, even A. F. of L. strikes in Elizabethton were decried as Communist-led [4]. And though evidence of anti-Communist attitudes was obvious in North Carolina after 1929, there was little evidence in the state before then except for one report in 1920 [5].

Of course, in the full paper, I discussed the probability that the Communist excuse was used as a simple method of convenience, and also the possible instigation of the mill strike by non-unionists, but regardless of who caused it, the Loray Strike was very detrimental to unionism in the state. Some historians claim that the Communist presence in Gastonia set back labor relations in North Carolina at least a generation [6].

[1] "Differences Adjusted At The Florence Mills" - Forest City Courier, April 11th, 1929, p. 1
[2] Theodore Draper - "Gastonia Revisited", Social Research (Spring 1971), pp. 25-26
[3] John G. Selby - "'Better to Starve in the Shade than in the Factory': Labor Protest in High Point, North Carolina, in the Early 1930s", The North Carolina Historical Review, (January 1987), pp. 55-60
[4] Margaret Larkin - "Tragedy in North Carolina", The North American Review (Dec. 1929), p. 689
[5] Robert J. Cain - "Communism", Encyclopedia of North Carolina
[6] Robert Justin Goldstein - ", Little "Red Scares": Anti-Communism and Political Repression in the United States, 1921-1946, p. 51

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31 Aug 22 - 08:58 AM (#4151587)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cotton Mill Blues
From: cnd

Here's the poem Stewie referenced above, from The State and Columbia Record, February 19th, 1961, p. 12C. "Carolina Folklore" by F. W. Bradley. I have decided to include the column in its entirety to include the original context, including Mr. Bradley's bullish but probably misguided belief in the "better lot" of his contemporary millhands.

......

Sixty and seventy years ago cotton mill workers were an under-privileged class. The names "lint-head," "mill hand," were not complimentary, and the mill workers felt the slight. They had left the farm, where life was hard, but where they had been respected as members of the community. Mill work meant regular pay, and better pay by far than any farm hand could get, so they moved to the town and the mill village. But here they became self-consciously a class to themselves.

Mrs. M. P. Mitchum of Columbia sends this poem, evidently written by a cotton mill hand 50 or 60 years ago:

A FACTORY RHYME

Now while I have a leisure time
I'll try to write a factory rhyme.
I live in Greensboro, a lively town,
And work in a factory, by name, The Crown.

Perhaps you would him to know my name,
But you never will -- I don't write for fame,
But I write to let all classes know,
How cotton mill hands have to go.

'Tis not the intent of my heart
To write anything that would start
Animosity between my employer and me;
But what I write let factory people see.

That while in factories we remain
We are looked upon as a set insane;
The upper tens who swell and fret
Call us the "ignorant factory set."

We are not bred in college walls,
Never played in theaters, nor danced in opera halls,
Nor eat ice cream, nor drink lemonade
Nor smoke cigars, Havana made.

Nor went to picnics every other day,
Nor went on excursions without pay (free)
Nor wore fine clothes nor derby hats,
Nor rode bicycles nor played balls and bats.

But now I'll tell you what we do,
And factory hands know it is true;
We rise up early with the lark,
And work from dawn till alter dark.

We have hard times as you all well know;
To church we hardly get to go.
When Sabbath comes we are tired down
From working hard the whole week round.

We are looked upon as the lowest grade
Of the whole creation God has made,
And I'll have you all to never forget,
We're called the "poor ignorant factory set."

We pay high prices for all we eat,
Molasses and coffee, bread and meat.
And should we fail our money to get,
We are called the "lying factory set."

The merchants love to see us work,
But our company on Sunday they still shirk;
But when payday comes and our money they get,
Then we're the "paying factory set."

Education we have none,
Father nor mother, daughter nor son,
And that is why the people fret,
And call us the "ignorant factory set."

And now you've read this rhyme all through,
And know that what I've written is true;
And I hope all Christians will never forget
To pray for the "ignorant factory set."

But in the end we hope to see
These people as happy as they can be,
And when the Judge on his throne will sit,
We hope he'll say "Come in, happy factory set."

CHANGED TIMES

To those who know the facts this is a faithful and true picture of the mill villagers. The village was always on the wrong side of the railroad track. The villagers were looked down upon. The drab monotony of the houses was depressing. And the villagers them-selves were sometimes little moved to protest. They were used to being at a disadvantage. In one village, not far from the State House, a mill family was accustomed to use the family bathtub to store salt pork during the winter. It was not unknown for children to be sewed up in their underwear for the winter.

But those days are gone with the wind. Mill workers are no longer poor. If two or three members of a family work, their wages now would equal what the president of the mill got in the old days. They are no longer ignorant. Their schools are as good as the best, and better than most. And I am convinced that the social barrier no longer exists, either. The mill worker "plays in the theater and dances in the opera" as much as anybody. The greater the contrast between the life of mill workers 60 years ago and their life today, the greater is our debt to this naive poet, who has so faithfully and accurately told us how things were in his time. Mrs. Mitchum's uncle, Henry Tocker, sent this poem from Columbia to her family in Greeleyville. Her uncle came originally from N. C. So, evidently we are indebted to a Tar Heel poet and mill worker in Greensboro, N.C., for the poem. It has been copied probably scores of times and handed down, just as this copy was.

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31 Aug 22 - 10:08 AM (#4151594)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cotton Mill Blues
From: cnd

A note about some of the mills

CROWN COTTON MILL, GREENSBORO
(gathered from browsing the results of a newspapers.com search in NC for "Crown Cotton Mill")

Greensboro's Crown Cotton Mill opened about 1890, located in downtown Greensboro along E Washington St. The mill was sold in 1895, and re-opened that year and in 1897 and after a period of inactivity. In 1897, the mill was purchased by Bamford Bros., of New Jersey. The mill closed the following year, and the building was used as an apple evaporating and drying outfit run by the de Wolf & Christiansen Co. of New York. It was listed in a register of mills active in Guilford county in 1899, but was abandoned again by 1900. In 1902 there were plans for the Southern Bobbin Works to take over the building, but after a storm blew off part of the roof, the deal seems to have fallen through. in 1919, a portion the land was sold by its long-time proprietor, a Dr. C. D. Benbow; that's the last time its name shows up in NC newspapers.

If that piece of trivia is to be believed, then the poems authorship can be confidently dated to between 1890 and circa 1899, when the mill was active in milling activities. It's worth noting, however, that Dalton, GA was home to a much more long-lived and successful Crown Mill, and that the song could have originated from there. It also should not be confused with Charlotte's Gold(en) Crown Hosiery Mill, which operated from 1894-1901, when the owners sold the machinery.

CHRONICLE MILL, BELMONT

Work began on Chronicle Mill in 1901, and it was opened in 1902. The mill electrified in 1912, and managed to operate until 2010, when it closed. It has now been converted into some swanky apartments.

Chronicle was not the first mill in Belmont; the earliest preceding mill I found was the Stowesville Cotton Mill (1853). From a biography about the city of Belmont:

"Although the Industrial Revolution had been taking place in the United States for decades, Belmont didn't experience it's effects until 1853 when the Stowesville Cotton Mill was opened. This mill was one of the first three Cotton Mills in Gaston County. After the mill was erected, Belmont continued to have a very small population. It was not until textile manufacturing arrived that Belmont really experienced an economic boom. Textile manufacturing became an important industry for much of the south, including the Charlotte metropolitan area. Gastonia, located just west of Belmont, was the fourth largest textile center in the state. As Gastonia and Charlotte grew, Belmont continued to maintain much of its agricultural character and did not experience the true effects of the industrial revolution for a few more decades....

In 1901, the Chronicle Mill became the first textile facility within Belmont. Access to the railroad, proximity to Gastonia and Charlotte, and being surrounded by waterways, provided an ideal location for the emerging textile industry. By the 1930’s, over twenty textile mills called Belmont home. This caused the population to soar from 145 at the turn of the century to over 4,000. Many of these mills were planned as distinct “mill villages” which often included churches, stores and residences to serve and house mill workers. These mill villages often provided a sense of community for the workers and their families. The legacy of these mill villages lives on today. When traveling through Belmont, you will see neighborhoods and architecture that act as a reminder of the impact the mills had on the area." (link)

If the song indeed originated in Belmont, that's a little less useful for dating the song, given the length of mill workmanship in the area. I believe Greensboro to be the likely origin place, just due to the obscurity of its mill: who would make a song and go to the effort of name-dropping one of the least successful mills in the state? It could just be a chance coincidence, and the poem originated in another area under a different mill's name and a Greensboro local changed the name, but that's difficult to ascertain for certain.

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