Skip to content

A thread through time

Slavery & Race

How did race shape who grew the fiber, who ran the mills, and who was kept out?

The cotton economy rested on enslaved labor, and the Southern mill that followed was built as a whites-only workplace. Trace that line from the plantation to the Civil Rights Act.

12 stories across 7 chapters

  1. 1790–1810 · The Industrial Spy

    Biography

    Moses Brown: The Quaker Capitalist

    The abolitionist financier whose family fortune was tangled with slavery.

    Read the story →
    Moses Brown (1738-1836), the Quaker merchant who financed Slater's first mill.
    Martin Johnson Heade, "Moses Brown," oil on canvas, 1857 (posthumous). Brown University Portrait Collection. Public domain.

  2. 1793–1850 · The Cotton Kingdom

    Tragedy

    The Second Middle Passage

    The forced migration that built the Cotton Kingdom.

    Read the story →
    A coffle of enslaved people marched past the U.S. Capitol-the domestic slave trade that forcibly moved about a million people into the Cotton Kingdom.
    "A slave-coffle passing the Capitol," wood engraving, 1876. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (LCCN 98510280). Public domain.
  3. Impact

    Lords of the Loom, Lords of the Lash

    The political alliance between Boston mill owners and Southern planters.

    Read the story →
    Abbott Lawrence, Boston textile magnate and namesake of Lawrence, Massachusetts-a leading "Cotton Whig" allied with Southern planters.
    Charles Fenderich, "Abbott Lawrence," lithograph, 1844. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (NPG.66.88). CC0.
  4. Biography

    Eli Whitney's Patent Trap

    The inventor of the gin made little from it.

    Read the story →
    Eli Whitney's patent drawing for the cotton gin, granted March 14, 1794.
    Eli Whitney, patent drawing for the cotton gin, March 14, 1794. Records of the Patent and Trademark Office (Record Group 241), U.S. National Archives. Public domain.
  5. Tragedy

    The Hands That Picked

    The enslaved people who grew the cotton, as named individuals and as the largest financial asset in the American economy.

    Read the story →
    Enslaved men, women, and children picking cotton and carrying it in baskets on a Georgia plantation.
    "Picking cotton on a Georgia plantation," wood engraving, 1858. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (LCCN 2002698525). Public domain.

  6. 1861–1865 · Uniforms of Conflict

    Innovation

    Measuring the Union Army

    How wartime measurement shaped ready-made sizing—and what the myth of 'S, M, L' gets wrong.

    Read the story →
    Union soldiers in standardized uniform during the occupation of Baton Rouge.
    Andrew D. Lytle, Union soldiers in formation, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Andrew D. Lytle Collection, Louisiana State University Libraries Special Collections. Public domain.
  7. Impact

    Uniforms and the Black Soldier

    When the right to wear blue was an argument for citizenship.

    Read the story →
    Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, in full Union uniform at Fort Lincoln, Washington, D.C.
    William Morris Smith, "District of Columbia. Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, at Fort Lincoln." Library of Congress, Civil War Glass Negatives (cwpb.04294). Public domain.

  8. 1880–1920 · The Gilded Age of Wool

    Impact

    The Piedmont Mill Village

    A new social order built around the Southern cotton mill.

    Read the story →
    The company-owned mill village of the Highland Yarn Mills, High Point, North Carolina.
    Lewis Wickes Hine, "High Point, North Carolina-Housing. General view of company-owned mill village-Highland Yarn Mills," 1936-1937. Works Progress Administration National Research Project, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 518534). Public domain.

  9. 1920–1930 · The Electric Loom

    Biography

    Ella May Wiggins: The Singer of Gastonia

    A mill mother shot dead on the road to a union rally in 1929.

    Read the story →
    Ella May Wiggins, songwriter and Loray Mill strike organizer, killed September 14, 1929.
    Unidentified photographer, Ella May Wiggins. Public domain in the United States, via English Wikipedia.

  10. 1960-1985 · The Long Integration

    Labor

    Opening the Mill Gates

    How Black workers used Title VII to integrate the South's largest industry.

    Read the story →
    A cotton mill at Darlington, South Carolina, about 1905. In 1956 the Darlington Manufacturing Company closed days after its workers voted for a union-the case behind the Supreme Court's 1965 Darlington decision.
    Illustrated Post Card Co., "Darlington, S.C. Cotton Mill," tinted halftone postcard, c. 1905. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

  11. 1980–2000 · The Branded Empire

    Biography

    Air Jordan and the Sneaker Economy

    How a basketball shoe became a foundation of modern brand culture.

    Read the story →
    A 2020 retro release of the Air Jordan 1 in its 1985 black-and-red "Banned" colorway.
    HI 622, "Air Jordan 1 Banned" (2021). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  12. Impact

    Hip-Hop and the Logo

    How a culture that brands did not market to redefined their reach.

    Read the story →
    Run-DMC's Adidas sneakers on display at the Bata Shoe Museum. The group's 1986 deal with Adidas was the first endorsement contract between a hip-hop act and an athletic brand.
    rrafson, "Run DMC Adidas," Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto (2013). Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Other threads