Women in the Mill Village
The first waves of migration off the farms were primarily single women and widows. Since these women had limited access to land, they were eager to take the steady work and housing the textile mills provided. An example of this was Bynum, North Carolina in 1880, where widows headed nine of the fourteen households in the mill village.
Economically, women mill workers were a valuable asset to mill owners. Earning 60% of a man’s wage, owners saw women as cheap, unskilled labor, and therefore sought them out for employment. Once inside the mill, the labor force was often separated by sex. Women worked as spinners and weavers, while men performed more of the skilled work, heavier jobs, and supervisory tasks.
Women played a vital role in the farm family, from cooking, cleaning, and rearing children to gardening and fieldwork. When families moved to the mill villages, married women with children often faced the dual responsibilities of managing the household and working in the mill. Mill village women moved in and out of millwork as babies were born and the family’s domestic situation changed. The numbers of married women and mothers entering the mill grew as child labor laws kept young children from working, and economic necessity forced both parents to seek paid employment.
It was a job. I’d get up at five o’clock in the mornings, because you had to be at work at six. I got up in the morning and I’d make the dough and have biscuits for my children, so whenever they got up they’d put it in the oil stove oven and cook them. Then we’d come home and do a washing, and you had to wash on a board outdoors and boil your clothes and make your own lye soap. It was just a day of drudgery, but with God’s help, I got it done.
Edna Hargett, weaver in Chadwick-Hoskins Mill, Charlotte, North Carolina
Sexual harassment affected women mill workers more often than men. Without laws to protect female employees from workplace discrimination, women often had to fend for themselves. Some men tried to intimidate women by shouting and using profanity. Single women often felt dating pressure from their supervisors.
Though excluded from nearly all jobs in the mills, black women filled a vital need in the mill village. Mill families sometimes employed black women as domestic workers to clean homes and keep children while parents worked in the mill. Wages were extremely low, and taking care of mill workers’ children kept black women away from their own homes and families.
In the mill village, women served as the fabric that kept the community strong. With closely positioned houses, women developed a social culture of visiting and gossiping with neighbors. Because homes had no air conditioning, this visiting usually took place on front porches. From there, women learned the news of the town, and fostered a close community where everyone knew each other’s troubles, hardships, triumphs, and joys.
Marker is on Glencoe Street, on the left when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
