One Mill, One Community: Economic effects of a Textile Mill closing

One Mill, One Community:Economic effects of a Textile Mill Closing in Rockdale County.

Research GoalsThis research examines what effects the closing of a single textile mill had on a single community.Rockdale County was a rural community that over the years became dependent on the Milstead Mill as the largest employer.Community leaders began a concerted effort to attract new industry and diversify the local economy. Research will show:• The mark made by the Milstead mill on wages earned,

the number of wage earners and on the added value by manufacturing in Rockdale County from 1950 to 1990.• Comparison to the state of Georgia for the same time

period.• Local leaders were successful in bring new businesses

and their efforts improved as the community became a part of suburban Atlanta in the 1970’s.

Photo Source: Callaway Beacon, Milstead 50th anniversary, Sept. 20, 1954. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gacmils/callaway_beacon.htm

The Milstead facility located on the Yellow River and just north of Conyers was already a significant industrial complex when Fuller E. Callaway purchased it in 1905. The Milstead Division of Callaway Mills was a small but profitable unit of the company for 55 years manufacturing cotton duck.

Milstead Plant, 1910, showing old paper mill and Milstead Manufacturing Company from across the Yellow River. Courtesy of Milstead, Georgia history portal, http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gacmils/milstead_plant_1910.htm

However, competition from cheaper textile imports began to hurt the U.S. textile industry just after the Korean War. Callaway, as with other textile companies, began a spiral of cost reduction measures that eventually lead to consolidation of its operations and closing of several of its facilities, including Milstead in 1960.

The Milstead Division of Callaway Mills

Rockdale County, Georgia In 1920, Rockdale County had a

population 9,521 and just seven manufacturers. Per capita income was $809.56.

The number of wage earners in Rockdale County remained relatively flat over 20 years (from 382 in 1920 to 364 in 1940).

The community recovered by after World War II and more than doubled the number of wage earners by 1950.

Population Growth Comparison Rockdale Georgia

1940 7,724 - 3,123,723 -1950 8,464 8.74% 3,444,578 9.31%1960 10,572 19.94% 3,943,116 12.64%1970 18,152 41.76% 4,589,575 14.09%1980 36,747 50.60% 5,463,105 15.99%1990 54,091 32.06% 6,478,216 15.67%

Population Growth of Rockdale County 1940-1990

Source: U.S. Census, general population, 1940-1990.

Factors Involved in the Decline of the U.S. Textile IndustryThe Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in occupied Japan lifted the last economic restrictions at the onset of the Korean War. Japan had been a world leader in textiles before World War II and had made significant progress in rebuilding the industry by 1951. Japanese low textile wages and encouragement from the U.S. worried

American textile industrialists about competing against the Japanese. The American Cotton Manufacturers Institute feared that the Eisenhower Administration was willing to sacrifice the U.S. textile industry in order to keep Japan as a strategic ally and out of the communist sphere.

Agricultural Act of 1954 authorized subsidizing cotton export pricing with the goal of creating demand for American cotton overseas.

Factors in the Decline of the U.S. Textile Industry The federal Agricultural Act of 1954 authorized subsidizing cotton export pricing. The subsidy began at six and a half cents per pound and later increased to eight and a half cents. U.S. textile industry leaders pointed out that the subsidy

created a two-price cotton system where domestic textile manufacturers paid a higher price for U.S. cotton while foreign competitors paid a lower price for the same cotton.

The textile industry was faced with foreign competitors who enjoyed the advantages of cheap labor and cheap U.S. cotton while the domestic prices remained higher.

The Result:American textile exports reached a peak of $875 million in 1947 and dropped steadily over a decade. Textile imports surpassed exports in the U.S. in 1962 at $300 million.

Textile Imports and Exports affected by the Agricultural Act of 1954

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics, figures for Cotton Manufacturers, p. 898-890.

The manufacturing Census of 1963 shows wages divided by wage earners to average at $3,310.90 for Rockdale. Eleven years later the manufacturing Census shows wages bottomed out to an average of $640.00 in 1970.The 1980 census figures shows a slow recovery in wages in Rockdale County while the upward trend for the state continues. The line graph above demonstrates the trends for Rockdale County and the state of Georgia.

Just how Bad was it?

Sources: U.S. Census of Manufacturing for 1954, 1963, 1972, 1982 and 1987.

Callaway Mill Ruins in Milstead on the Yellow River

All that remains of the Callaway Textile Mill in Milstead are granite pillars where the mill sat above a water confluent that powered the mill equipment.

Source: James Tingley, YouTube channel, Milstead Division-Callaway Mills, Rockdale County, Georgia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBOH_qbGids

Atlanta Constitution, Apl. 9, 1960

Conclusions:The decline and eventual closure of Textile mills in the 1950’s left a huge hole in local economies that some communities struggled to fill. Rockdale County is one of these communities and offers a unique perspective on the influence of the mills. County officials moved aggressively to recruit industries to replace the Milstead mill. Conclusions reached are the following:

• New businesses were smaller and involved in light industrial assembly that paid less. This is evidence in the sharp drop in wages and value added by manufacturers in Rockdale during the decade following the mill closing.• Rockdale benefited greatly in the 1970’s and 1980’s by its proximity to

Atlanta. Explosive population growth and completion of Interstate 20 allowed Rockdale to become a part of the metropolitan Atlanta.• Even with these advantages, Rockdale suffered from the sin of becoming

too dependent for too long on a single textile mill on the Yellow River to drive its economy.

Conclusions continued:There is also compelling questions to ask about Rockdale’s approach to attracting new industry.In comparing Rockdale with rural counties in North Carolina that also lost textile mills one must wonder if Rockdale could have completely left its rural roots behind and used its advantages of population growth, improved transportation and proximity to a major urban center to attract larger industry with better paying jobs.Also to be considered is Rockdale’s standing with other metro Atlanta counties that were competing with Rockdale to attract industry.

Bibliography• Barksdale, Margaret G., E.L. Cowen and Frances A. King. A History of Rockdale County. Conyers, GA. T.H.P.

Publishing, 1987.• Brown, Martha, Deborah Manget, Jackie Smith and Chloe Rutledge. The Heritage of Rockdale County.

Conyers, GA. Don Mills Publishing, 1998.• Coclanis, Peter A., and Louis M. Kyriakoudes. "Selling Which South? Economic Change in Rural and Small-

Town North Carolina in an Era of Globalization, 1940-2007." Southern Cultures, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Winter 2007): 86-102.

• English, Beth. A Common Thread: Labor, Politics, and Capital Mobility in the Textile Industry. Athens, GA. University of Georgia Press, 2006.

• Flamming, Douglas. Creating the Modern South: Mill hands and Managers in Dalton, Georgia, 1884-1984. Chapel Hill, NC. University of North Carolina Press, 1992.

• Gaventa, John, Barbara Ellen Smith. “The Deindustrialization of the Textile South: A Case Study.” In Hanging by a Thread: Social Change in Southern Textiles, edited by Jeffrey Leiter, et al, 181-198. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Green, Hardy. The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills That Shaped the American Economy. New York. Perseus Books Group, 2010.

• Parthasarathi, Prasannan. “Global Trade and Textile Workers.” Ashgate Companion to the History of Textile Workers, 1650-2000, ed. Lex Heerma Van Voss, et al (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Group, 2010)

• Vanderburg, Timothy W. Cannon Mills and Kannapolis: Persistent Paternalism in a Textile Town. Knoxville, TN. University of Tennessee Press, 2013.

• “Mill Closing at Milstead Is Rumored,” Atlanta Constitution, 9 April 1960.• “Pattillo Plans Large Industrial Development in Rockdale County,” Rockdale Citizen, 10 November 1960.• Peter A. Coclanis, et al, “Selling Which South? Economic Change in Rural and Small-town North Carolina in an

Era of Globalization, 19402007.” Southern Cultures, Vol. 13, no. 4 (Winter 2007).• U.S. Census, 1919 Census of Manufacturers of Georgia (U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce,

1920).• U.S. Census, 1939 Census of Manufacturers of Georgia (U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce,






1990).

Notable sources

One Mill, One Community: Economic effects of a Textile Mill closing

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