GLENCOE COTTON MILL AND VILLAGE—1880-1954—QUICK FACTS

WORKERS - in general, about 110 to 150 workers

1890 = 133 workers

1924 = 134 workers

(In 1905, 500 persons were dependent on Glencoe; however, about half lived outside the village.)

1890: Women & children comprised 70% of Glencoe’s work force.

1908: Men comprised 60% of the workforce.

1924: Men comprised 70% of the workforce.

1924: Only 2 children were employed at Glencoe.

By contrast, in 1907-08, 90% of all spinners in the South were children under 21. Half were under 14.

PAY SCALE

1889 11 hour days—66 hours per week—6 day week

Men earned $1 to $2 per day

Women earned 50 cents to $1 per day

Children earned 40 cents per day

1905 10.5 hour days—63 hours per week—6 day week

Men earned 75 cents to $2.75 per day

Women earned 60 cents to $1 per day

Children earned 40 cents per day

1925 10 hour days—55 hours per week—half day Saturday

Men earned $2.10 to $6.60 per day

Women earned $2.10 to $2.38 per day

1930s 8 hour days

SCHOOLING

Glencoe Mills provided a 3-room schoolhouse for village children from grade 1 to 8 from 1880 to 1936. It was located at the northern end of Glencoe Street. In 1936, Alamance County built the brick building at the top of Glencoe St., on Union Ridge Rd., as the Glencoe Elementary School, which operated until 1963. From 1963 to 1979, this building was used as the county school offices.

LOOMS & SPINDLES

1882 186 looms 3120 spindles

1900 186 looms 4000 spindles

1905 206 looms -----------

1907 206 looms 5000 spindles

1926 206 looms -----------

1940s-50s 5760 spindles

MILL VILLAGE HOUSE RENT

There were 44 village homes built in Glencoe in the 1880s and 1890s, on 2 streets, Front St. and Back St., now known as Glencoe St. and Hodges Rd., plus a few homes on River Rd.

$1.40 a month for a 3-room house

$2 for a 5-room house, or 50 cents a week

1930s Autos and improved roads ended isolation of villages and allowed workers to live outside villages and drive to work.

After the mill closed in 1954, Glencoe owner continued to rent the houses to former workers. Gradually, people moved away from the village, leaving Glencoe village abandoned to nature.

OTHER MILLS SOLD OFF THEIR MILL HOUSES

1930s & 40s—Burlington Industries begins to sell off its mill housing.

Other large mill complexes did likewise and that continued through to 1982.

Reasons for the sell-off:

1. There were fewer workers from each house as child labor was banned.

2. Minimum wage laws were being passed and mill owners felt they could better use money normally spent on housing to pay wages.

3. New generation of mill owners did not have the “paternal” drive their forebears did.

4. Mill owners blame the close-knit mill village community for the discontent of laborers.

GLENCOE DAMS

1880 Log and stone

1909 Wooden dam on cement foundation

Mid 1940s Reinforced concrete dam

Glencoe Cotton Mill was very slow to convert to electric power. Glencoe ran on water- power from 1880 to the late 1930s, but it did use some electric power--starting in1894-- from the Latonia Power Plant a short way upstream on the Haw River.

GLENCOE MILL ADDITION

A one story with basement was added to the front of the mill in the late 1940s to 1950s, costing $350,000.

GLENCOE FABRIC

Glencoe Cotton Mill produced all cotton checks, stripes, and woven plaids from bale to bolt. In 1880,

bales of cotton were brought by mule, 3 miles from the RR depot in Burlington and later, by truck.

1890—produced napped goods and outings for blankets and sleepwear.

1900-15—production of cotton flannel for outer clothing increased when new

napping machinery was purchased in 1902, 1904, and 1909.

BLACK WORKERS

Glencoe had no black workers in the mill, but there was a black cook for Mr. Holt—Richard Duck.

However, black men did work in the village doing the dirty or heavy work and general tasks. *

1920 Black workers constituted less than 5% of North Carolina’s textile force.

1950 Black workers constituted 4.8% of South Carolina’s textile force.

*Most of the black workers used to perform menial and the dirtiest type jobs, with rock bottom wages, such as moving cotton bales, cleaning streets, working in picker houses breaking open bales of cotton.

1960s Significant numbers of black workers were working in textile mills in the South.

LABOR UNREST

1886 Augusta GA --Knights of Labor led an unsuccessful 3-month strike of thousands of employees. Graham and Burlington, NC also had strikes.

1900 As Alamance County was the center of the textile industry in NC, the National Union of Textile

Workers organized many locals here. In Haw River, a fired worker set off a strike that spread throughout Alamance County. Mill owners did not recognize the union, evicted union members from mill housing, and the union withdrew support from the strike. This defeat broke the union in North Carolina.

1918 United Textile Workers of America organized workers to keep wartime pay gains.

1919-21 Walkouts in Georgia, South Carolina, & North Carolina.

Armed forces were brought in to stop the uprisings.

1920 Stretch-out with lowered wages up in the northern textile mills

1921 Northern mill migration en mass to the South for lower labor costs and no worker aggravation.

1929 Strikes at Elizabethton, Tennessee and Marion, North Carolina were put down by armed force. Violent conflict at Loray Mill in Gastonia, North Carolina ends in 2 deaths—the police chief and Ella May Wiggins.

1934 Widespread strikes led by United Textile Workers brought mills to a standstill. This was the largest industry-wide strike in American history. The strikes were futile because the unions and the federal government failed to support the workers when mill owners ignored the new Nat’l Industrial Relations Board regulations.