CHAPTER XXXIV. 



THE COTTON FACTORY IN THE SOUTHERN STATES 



"The four Southernmost States make a great 

 deal of cotton. Their poor are almost entirely 

 clothed in it in winter and summer." 



So wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1786. Without 

 doubt his observation was first-hand and authentic. 

 But where was this cotton manufactured? In a 

 cotton mill somewhere? No, that cannot be, for 

 no cotton mill had yet been built on American soil. 

 The cotton was home manufactured from lint, the 

 seed having first been hand-picked. This manu- 

 facturing was done in the home, for the home use 

 of the inhabitants and the household. With the 

 coming of the cotton gin, not only did the pro- 

 duction of cotton increase, but its manufacture 

 and use increased as well. 



Before the Civil War slave women, directed 

 by their mistresses, largely clothed the plantation 

 force with "homespun," as it was called. And it 

 may be noted that even now, in spite of the cheap- 

 ness of the manufactured product, many an old- 

 fashioned country woman still cards her cotton into 

 rolls, spins the product into thread on the spinning 

 wheel, and with laborious shuttle weaves the 

 thread into vari-colored counterpanes for her 

 beds, into "breeches cloth" for her good man, or 

 into underclothing for herself. 



(311) 



