Global Lehigh Strategic Initiatives (without descriptions)
Athens' Early Industrialization
1. Michael Gagnon
Georgia Gwinnett College
Athens
Historical
Society
Presentation
Georgia Museum of Art
February 10, 2013
3:00 PM
2.
3. The Lackawanna Valley in Pennsylvania; Note similarities of
presentation to View of Athens from Carr’s Hill
4.
5. Athens in the Middle 1840s
University of Georgia
Athens Factory
Original Train Station
Commercial Center
6. Gavin Wright’s Big Questions
About Early Southern Industrialization
• What delayed the start of Southern industry
and what caused it to start?
• Why didn’t the Southern mill building boom of
the 1840s succeed?
• What delayed New South factory building for
15 years after the end of the Civil War?
7. Overview
• Augustin Clayton starts first “Georgia Factory”
for political reasons
• Becomes a model for Southern Industry
– Three Factories by 1835, with $100k invested
– Starts with slave labor but finds white labor
cheaper
– Develops mill villages to accommodate “poor
whites” working in factories
• Other Factories develop surrounding Clarke
– Scull Shoals, Mars Hill, High Shoals
14. Culture of Improvement
• Culture is how we make sense of our lives
• Class divisions/Geographic divisions
• Lots of Educational Opportunities
• Lots of Entertainment
• Growth of Religion/Reform
16. Recurring for a brief moment to past associations and
recollections connected with our late honored fellow-
citizen, we call to mind his unceasing efforts to advance
the interests of Athens, and set it forward on an active
career of commercial prosperity, to increase its facilities
for trade, to enhance the value of private property, and
to render it permanent as a place of business. In calling
up and passing in review before us the respected
names of the generous foster-fathers of our present
prosperity, we can bring to mind few . . . who draws
more largely upon our gratitude for past exertions to
serve us.
Obituary of William Dearing
Southern Banner, June 9, 1853
17. • Major Industrialists
• Minor Industrialists
• Industrial Investors
• Clerks
• Superintendents
• Workers
Different Categories Of People Involved
in Industry
18. Industrialists• 1830s-1840s
– Major: Augustin Clayton, William
Dearing, James Camak, and William
Williams
– Minor: Alexander B. Linton, John
Nisbet, and Thomas W. Baxter
• 1840s-1860s
– Major: John White, Dr. John S.
Linton, Albon Chase,
– Minor: Thomas N. Hamilton,
William P. Talmage, and William S.
Grady
• Beyond 1860s – Robert L.
Bloomfield, etc
19. 1st Generation Industrialists
• Risk Takers:
James Camak wrote to his friend in Texas in 1844,
“You recollect my love of change. Tho’ things are
going as well with me here … I am getting tired of my
situation; … Suppose I come to Texas …?”
• Prime of Life: started industrial pursuits between
ages 39-54, median age: 47.
• Professions: Doctors, Lawyers, Merchants, Bankers
• Gentlemen, but not necessarily Planters
• Not originally from Athens; generally attached to it.
20. 2nd Generation Industrialists
• Leadership frequently inherited factories from
1st generation
• With general incorporation law in 1847, family
groupings come to dominate stockholding in
individual factories
• Families with factory stock tend to be
connected to other families with factory stock
• Creates a maturing industrial class
21. Work Force
• Aspiring young men desiring to become
merchants clerk in factories, sometimes
becoming office professionals
• Superintendents rise out of working class by
1850s
• Work force matures in factory life, with most
women seeing factory work as life-stage
before child-bearing
22.
23. Ancillary Industries
• Insurance – Southern Mutual
• Bobbin Mill
• Paper Mill
• Gas Works
• Foundry
• Tend to be run by upwardly mobile
entrepreneurs
Athens Bobbin Mill
24. Civil War
• General Sherman targeted Southern industry
• Factories prospered during war
• Factories that survived were poised to take
leading role when war ends
26. Conclusions
• Much of what we know about New South
factory life was worked out in the Antebellum
period
• The “New Men” of the New South had already
become part of Athens industrial archetype by
the 1850s
• There is no one “right way” to industrialize;
each place works out the rules for its own day
and place