Schools Part 1
Schools Part 1
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The Education of a Mill Village
By 1924, Cooleemee's founding generation had much to be proud of. Behind them stretched better than twenty years of uphill struggle to build their new society. Now their decision to leave the farm for the village had begun to pay off. Many had migrated to the village knowing little of the industrial world that would be their future. Most still listed themselves in the 1900 Census as farmers and farm laborers. On the building site they had performed the jobs of labor, teamsters, and country carpenters---to name only a few. By 1924 most village children could read and write. A number of its pioneers had worked themselves up to leadership positions in their new neighborhood. Other old hands had risen to top mill jobs such as weavers and loomfixers. A few of their children had even gone off to college. It could be argued that much of this new society's success was the result of an excellent educational experience. This experience meant more than attending one or another of Cooleemee's schools. For this generation, formal schooling was only half of the equation. To understand it we must briefly step back in time and place Cooleemee's new society of 1924 in some historical perspective. While it probably was not the number one discussion around the kitchen table, Cooleemee people had a second reason to be proud of themselves in 1924; they had played at least a small part in the economic recovery of their state. The Civil War left in its wake death, destruction, and near total economic collapse of the state' s ante-bellum economy. By 1880 N.C.' s cotton textile industry employed some 3,232 workers---a population only a little larger than "Greater" Cooleemee's in 1924. From this small handful, the industry began to grow. Between 1885 and 1915, the number of mills had grown from 60 to 318. To fill these mills and their villages poured some 150,000 to 200,000 people. By 1923, North Carolina's textile industry had overtaken Massachusetts as the nation' s leading textile producing state. New England's textile men had been certain that the Southern textile industry would never become a threat. The South, they believed, had too few of the necessary ingredients for industrialization on such a massive scale. At the core of such needs was a skilled and disciplined work force. Writing of the South's common white folks after the War Between the States, Northern travelers considered them in a condition beneath the slaves of old. Surely, the Yankees argued, this society of "poor white trash" did not constitute much of a threat. The old mill men who built the industry were Southern and they therefore knew a lot more about their people and what they were capable of accomplishing . Yet, even for them, the task was a formidable challenge---one that began with education. This education had to reach from the top down to the lowest sweeper and doffer boy. At the top of the Erwin Mills chain, everyone was required to take correspondence courses toward improving production. One such course ended in January of 1921. Virtually all the top men of Cooleemee completed the course, most received A's and B's. To turn thousands of rural people into a skilled and disciplined industrial labor force required something old and something new. The something old was brought to the mills by the people the themselves----this was the rural practice of the "family labor system." The something new were the mill schools. SOMETHING OLDToday's parents turn to formal education when considering their children's future earning power. But that was not a widespread attitude at the turn of the century. The basic countryside "schooling" unit was the family. Children's education was a collective effort of parents, kith and kin. "Child labor" in the mill villages, made so much of by reformers of that era, was merely a continuation of long established country practices. From the rural folk's perspective each generation was obliged to look after the next. Young people were made to understand the importance of learning what "Ma and Pa" knew best---how to make a life and a living. In the countryside, father knew the seasons, the peculiarities of the crops, the habits and care of farm animals, how to hunt and fish---and hundreds of other important aspects of earning a living. For the girls, mother taught them how to care for babies, how to cook, quilt, tat, garden and can---how to manage a home and family. All learned duty to family and mutual obligation between neighbors. Upon moving to the village, the family hired on as a whole. Each separate member produced a portion of what, in fact, was a collective family wage and subsistence. For the early generations, schooling in the 3 R's didn't necessarily translate into more income. EVEN MANAGERS STARTED WORK EARLYA 1930 survey of fifty mill managers found that 38% of them had started work between age 7 and 11. 46% had started before the age of 14. Spinning Room overseer C.W. Alexander began work at the age of 10 as a doffer boy. The practice of taking children into the mill as helpers (without pay) to be trained by parents or relatives, did not condemn them to a life of ignorance and hopelessness. Far from it. Such a practice helped the whole family and fulfilled their obligation of seeing to their children's future. Nor did working in the mill exclude children from acquiring at least an elementary education. In Cooleemee's early years, many children combined formal education and on the job training. In 1910, Luther C. Booe---age 16---worked in the Cloth Room while attending school. Fourteen year old Ray Fritts worked in the Roller Shop and young Minnie Dula was a cashier in a store. The Phelps family had two children working and going to school. Mary Jordan, age eleven, was the youngest. She was both a spinner and a scholar. NORTH CAROLINA MILL SCHOOLSThe creation of the mill school system grew out of two general interests coming together. The first interest was of the companies who built the mills. The second interest was of the people who moved to the villages. For many, the hope of either acquiring an education, or seeing to their children's schooling, was a strong motivation for the move. They often selected their new homes based on the educational opportunities available in that mill village. On this point the millowner and the mill worker's interest joined. For the millowner, recruitment of a good work force depended very much on the selection of the best workers. One indicator of the more stable and productive workers was the interest they shown in education. Even if the parents were illiterate, interest showed in their children's education was a good sign of a productive and stable worker. Mills that paid little attention to education were obliged to accept whoever happened to come along. Mill schools also helped to instill habits and ways of thinking better suited to industrial work. On the farm, control over the productive process was left up to each individual farmer. Punctuality, regular attendance, reliability, and attentiveness, were largely unstructured---guided only by nature's necessities and the individual's will and character. In industrial society, one was but a part of many. If production was to improve the individual had to be socialized to suit the needs of the overall production process. FOUR ROOM SCHOOL HOUSEWe know from two documents that some sort of school existed at least as early as 1899. From a journal kept by S. J. Tatum, we find a listing for a school at the "#4" household. Several documents lead me to believe it was in one of the small mill houses on Main Street. Our second reference to a school comes from the diary of Jake Eaton, whose whole purpose for coming to Cooleemee was to complete his education. Young Jake had arrived on November 4, 1899 and took a carpenter's job with M.D. Lefler. In January 1900 he switched to driving a wagon. In between Jake performed odd jobs with John Tatum, who was working for his father Samuel Jesse. In 1900 he made a deal with Tatum that would allow him to attend school. In return for room and board, he agreed to meet the train for the mail at the Junction each day---and to feed all the horses. Jake began school that month. A newspaper report of November 13, 1899 announced the appointment of O.C. Wall as the first school principal. It does not appear that Wall actually took thejob. Rather, this honor fell to Sadie Tatum. Her opening of a school was announced in March 1900. She taught a four-month course for the grand salary of $25 a month. The next reference to a Cooleemee school comes two years later. In March of 1902 the Rev. J.B. Craven became principal with Miss S. A. Jeter as his assistant. At this time we can make only a rough guess as to the number of students attending this school. THE EIGHT ROOM SCHOOL HOUSEIt now appears that Cooleemee's beloved wooden "Eight Room School House" was built sometime in 1902 and opened in 1903. This school would be the primary village school for twenty years. The wood school house on Watts street was a graded school and may have been the first in Davie County to hold this distinction. Another hint that 1902 was a big year for education is reflected in the visit on June 12th of the state's "Education Governor", Charles Brantley Aycock. He delivered a speech at the Shoals. Aycock was in the middle of reforming the state's public educational system and was campaigning for James Y. Joyner to become the State's superintendent of public instruction. Present-day Joyner Street may well have been named for him at that time. The Eight Room School house was a two story wood frame
building whose back stretched an entire block to Duke Street. Coal stoves in
each separate room provided the heat, and local boys were hired for the job,
providing kindling wood and the fire to get the whole thing going. ---Jim Rumley
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