In 1837, Edwin M. Holt -- a thirty-year-old, fourth-generation North Carolinian -- established a small spinning mill on his family's land along the Haw River in rural Orange County. By his death in 1884, Holt's small spinning mill had come to dominate the textile industry in Alamance County -- which divided from Orange County in 1849 -- and gave the area an industrial legacy that would last for generations. Covering the Holt dynasty from the founding of the Alamance Factory in 1837 to the strike of 1900 that eventually shut down most of the family's mills, Alamance provides an excellent social history of southern industrial development. Bess Beatty intersperses chapters on the rise of the Holts with profiles on their workers to provide a thorough explanation of how industrialization affected sectional, familial, racial, and gender relations across class lines. Focusing on class formation and conflict, she rejects the long-held view that southern owners were paternalistic and that workers were docile and deferential, instead arguing that owners and workers had a contentious class-driven relationship, with both sides striving to maximize their economic success. Moreover, while Beatty shows that slavery, secession, war, defeat, and postbellum race relations influenced the development of southern industry, she maintains that industrialization in the South was not fundamentally different from that in other regions of the country. Alamance's story of southern industrial power makes an outstanding contribution to the history of southern communities and will fascinate those interested in the region, as well as students of social, business, and labor history.
Publisher Ed and Editor Amy Standifer owned and operated the Bastrop Advertiser newspaper for a remarkable 47 years. During World War II, they encouraged submissions of letters and photos from persons in military service as well as from families on the home front and printed military news plus press releases. This compilation of 727 articles about 390 men and 5 women in military service is a microcosm of WWII; 34 of the men lost their lives and 8 became prisoners of war. For readers more interested in WWII history than in persons’ names, we have bold-faced all words in the text that tell military news and happenings.
This will help us customize your experience to showcase the most relevant content to your age group
Please select from below
Login
Not registered?
Sign up
Already registered?
Success – Your message will goes here
We'd love to hear from you!
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.