ephemera

photo from the collection of Lola Holloway, unknown horse, unknown rider. Text below from the preface to Harry Poindexter's "A History of the Charlottesville Woolen Mills, 1820-1939", reprinted with the permission of his wife.

The conception of the ante-bellum South as an area hostile to commercial life is slowly being undermined. But the extent to which historians are able to modify the old view will depend to a large degree on researches into pre-war Southern Industrial activity. Unfortunately, such studies are not numerous.

The present work is an attempt to supply information which may fill in a small part of this gap in Southern history. The story of the Charlottesville Woolen Mills gives abundant evidence of long, persistent efforts to promote textile manufacturing in Albemarle County. The obstacles which slowed its growth before 1865 were primarily economic and technological in nature rather than psychological. Crude machinery and the lack of well trained personnel limited the mill for generation to the production of coarse cloth incapable of competing with Northern or foreign fabrics. Until after 1850 transportation facilities proved a handicap to expansion. And until well after Reconstruction had ended, the mill was financially undernourished. But when these limitations were removed?which occurred between 1865 and 1885?the company converted its latent energies into a thriving, efficient textile business.- Harry Poindexter