Chapters in Athens Heritage

Chapters in Athens Heritage. Industry. To avoid high tariffs on cotton sent north for processing, local investors opened their own textile mills. By 1840, Clarke County was the third largest textile producing area in the country., There were three large textile mills on the Clarke County rivers. Each had four important ingredients: water power, machine power, money power, and human power. Building the mills, buying complicated machinery, and paying workers required more capital than one individual could supply Groups of investors pooled their money and hired mill managers. The company manager ran the mill and many other aspects of the worker's life. The company provided support for housing, utilities, schools, medical attention, stores, churches and recreational teams. Generation after generation of mill workers lived in this paternalistic system, some flourishing, some always in debt., (captions) , Robert L. Bloomfield - A strong paternalistic mill manager, Mr. Robert L. Bloomfield built the St. Mary's Episcopal Church for his workers. The red steeple on Oconee Street remains today., Mill laborers were mostly farm families who migrated to the city to find employment for the entire family. The first mill managers were northern men trained in British textile industry techniques., A drawing of workers at their looms on this Athens, GA bank note issued July 4, 1859 illustrates the importance of the textile mills to the local economy.