Chapters in Athens Heritage

Chapters in Athens Heritage. Labor Force. Many kinds of people were important threads in the weave of Athens' historical industrial fabric., The first mill workers were white men and women, and seasonally leased African-American male slaves. During the Civil War, skilled slaves, white women, and conscripted soldiers kept the mills open to manufacture thread, uniform material, and weapons. Replaced by returning soldiers, black workers had little access to mill jobs again until the 1960s. For almost 100 years, the Athens mill work-force consisted of predominantly Scotch-Irish immigrant families, including young children. This began to change as laws mandating standards for safety, children's education, minimum wages, length of the working day and racial integration were enacted., (captions) , Mid-1800s engraving of African Americans working in mill., Circa 1900 photo of Athens school children who may have worked in the mil. Child labor laws went into effect in the early 1900s, providing access to primary education, and restricting children 10 and under from working in the factories, Freed from slavery in 1846, Horace King constructed buildings and covered bridges with his former owner and friend John Godwin. King then taught his sons and daughter the trade. The King family may have constructed this bridge at Oconee Street seen from the Athens Factory dam., Public higher education for women in Athens was unavailable for over a hundred years. The University of Georgia enrolled it first while woman in 1918 and first black students in 1961.,