Mill owners initially built villages near textile mills to attract families of workers. By 1900, 92% of workers lived in mill-owned housing. A typical mill village in the 1920s consisted of about 350 houses located within walking distance of the mill. In most cases, the company owned the houses and charged workers rent. In 1908, rent averaged $3.57 monthly – about half that charged outside the mill community.

Mill villages proved beneficial both to workers and owners. Workers lived close to their jobs and neighbors, creating a strong sense of community within the village. By locating the housing close to the mill, owners could keep watch over employees both during and after work hours. Owners often built villages outside of city limits to avoid city taxes and laws and maintain a rural atmosphere familiar to most workers. D.A. Tompkins urged owners to remember that mill workers were “essentially a rural people. They have been accustomed to farm life, where there is plenty of room… the ideal arrangement is to preserve the general condition of rural life.”

The boys slept in one room, and the girls slept in another. And mother and Daddy had a room. And the kitchen. We never knew what it was to have a dining room. We didn’t have a living room or a den or nothing like that; we wasn’t used to it.

Bessie Buchanan

Durham, North Carolina

The mill houses built in these villages were simple constructions. In the 1800s, most houses were either two-story, four-room, I-frame clapboards or one-and-one-half story half-and-parlor style homes. At the turn of the century, D.A. Tompkin’s Cotton Mills, Commercial Features suggested three and four room “factory cottages” as the standard when building mill villages. After this time, most mill towns followed Tompkin’s design.

Before 1910, few mill homes had electricity or running water. A decade later about half had electricity, but only about a quarter had running water. Villagers often shared water pumps located on the streets, and very few had any form of sanitation system. This led to health problems for families, and diseases spread easily throughout the villages.

In order to recruit workers, the mill owners permitted families to bring with them much of their rural way of life. Villages were designed so that most mill homes had a garden for growing food and nearby areas for livestock. Many residents kept their small dirt yards swept free of grass just as they had done on the farm. Since the company owned the mill homes and the land upon which they were built, families had little concern for property lines. Mill children, therefore, came and went through neighbors’ yards with ease. This relaxed comfortable attitude towards neighbors fostered a sense of community among villagers.

Marker is on Glencoe Street, on the left when traveling west.

Courtesy hmdb.org

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