Mill Village Life In Working-Class White Neighborhoods
Each mill village contained its own churches, schools, recreation centers, and stores, building tight-knit communities. Here, children in the Edgemont community gather in the community center, 1956. Though wages were low, mill village families supported each other through hard times. Many treated their neighbors like family.
Courtesy Durham Herald Co. Newspaper Photograph Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Unlike tobacco, the textile industry in Durham was almost exclusively limited to white workers.
Textile companies built cheap, subsidized housing for white workers in areas near the factories.
Despite low wages, white workers had more opportunities for upward mobility and homeownership than Black workers.
Floor Plan of a 4-room Golden Belt mill village home, circa 1910
Courtesy Open Durham
“I don’t know of a better company to work for. They keep the houses in good repair and rent them to us for almost nothing. I pay $1.50 a week for my four rooms, bathroom, and garage. If I didn’t live in a company house, I’d have to pay $5 a week for a house not kept in as good condition as this.”
– James Jackson, Erwin Mill worker
“His mill villages are better than most other companies’, and the ones at Erwin are especially good. But he preaches baths, swimming pools, and that kind of thing and then won’t pay a wage that is anything near even a living wage.”
– Arthur Cole, Union leader at Erwin Mills
Like many mill villages, Erwin Mill provided the community’s basic amenities. The company store is pictured here in 1946.
Courtesy Durham Herald Co. Newspaper Photograph Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A couple stands in front of their home on Case Street in Monkey Bottom, a poor white neighborhood on the fringe of the Erwin mill village, circa 1900.
Courtesy John Schelp, Old West Durham Neighborhood Association
Mill employers had a great deal of control over workers lives. If people were suspected of actions such as drinking or sexual promiscuity, company management could fire them from their job and evict them from their home.
“The police published a docket and if your name was in that paper you needn’t go back to work. That was it.”
– I. L. Dean, 9th Street business owner
“In the early 1950s, we decided to sell the houses to the people who lived in them. We had all the property appraised and we reduced that appraised value by ten percent and offered them the houses at that price.”
George Parks, former president of Golden Belt
Each mill village contained its own churches, schools, recreation centers, and stores, building tight-knit communities. Here, children in the Edgemont community gather in the community center, 1956. Though wages were low, mill village families supported each other through hard times. Many treated their neighbors like family.
Courtesy Durham Herald Co. Newspaper Photograph Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Unlike tobacco, the textile industry in Durham was almost exclusively limited to white workers.
Textile companies built cheap, subsidized housing for white workers in areas near the factories.
Despite low wages, white workers had more opportunities for upward mobility and homeownership than Black workers.
Floor Plan of a 4-room Golden Belt mill village home, circa 1910
Courtesy Open Durham
“I don’t know of a better company to work for. They keep the houses in good repair and rent them to us for almost nothing. I pay $1.50 a week for my four rooms, bathroom, and garage. If I didn’t live in a company house, I’d have to pay $5 a week for a house not kept in as good condition as this.”
– James Jackson, Erwin Mill worker
Like many mill villages, Erwin Mill provided the community’s basic amenities. The company store is pictured here in 1946.
Courtesy Durham Herald Co. Newspaper Photograph Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“His mill villages are better than most other companies’, and the ones at Erwin are especially good. But he preaches baths, swimming pools, and that kind of thing and then won’t pay a wage that is anything near even a living wage.”
– Arthur Cole, Union leader at Erwin Mills
A couple stands in front of their home on Case Street in Monkey Bottom, a poor white neighborhood on the fringe of the Erwin mill village, circa 1900.
Courtesy John Schelp, Old West Durham Neighborhood Association
Mill employers had a great deal of control over workers lives. If people were suspected of actions such as drinking or sexual promiscuity, company management could fire them from their job and evict them from their home.
“The police published a docket and if your name was in that paper you needn’t go back to work. That was it.”
– I. L. Dean, 9th Street business owner
“In the early 1950s, we decided to sell the houses to the people who lived in them. We had all the property appraised and we reduced that appraised value by ten percent and offered them the houses at that price.”
George Parks, former president of Golden Belt