Southern cotton mill folk have always been a proud people who asked little of the society outside their towns and villages. They left their rural farms to build an industry--- clearing the trees, burning the bricks and constructing the houses and mills that were to become the economic engine of the "New South."

It matters not if they traveled a mile or a hundred, the world they created was like none they had ever experienced. Yet, as they entered this new industrial frontier, their traditions of strong families, faith in God, hard work, individualism and neighborly cooperation served them well.

Their page in the history of the region and nation has yet to be established. If those who worked in the mills and lived in their villages are to have any role in interpreting their own historical experience---the time to act is now.