fabric of history

influenza

2009-07-02T00:15:00.000-04:00

Equally as pressing as wage increases was the severe curtailment of production during 1918. Nine valuable days were lost during February and March as a result of the federal Fuel Administrator's order. But these were nothing when set against the effects of the influenza epidemic which swept through the eastern United States in the fall of 1918.

As Charlottesville fell under its deadly grip, schools were closed, large gatherings of people ceased, and many businesses were crippled by sickness. At the Woolen Mills, the disease "worked havoc": sometimes half the workers were ill. When the attack had subsided, it was found that the equivalent of twenty-three days had been lost. All told, the mill was in effect closed down for five and a half weeks during 1918. --Harry Poindexter

war bonuses

2009-07-01T00:05:00.000-04:00

Wages also rose to new heights. Between 1914 and 1916, the company spent about $52,000 annually for "hand labor." Pay raises became necessary following the entry of the United States into the war. In May, 1917, the first wedge was opened when the board granted an increase of ten cents per day for each extra day worked to all employees who had reached "standard pay." In November, a ten percent raise was extended to all workers. During 1918, with three successive wage boosts totaling thirty percent, the cost of labor skyrocketed to $77,000?fifty-four percent higher than 1915. None of the raises had been formally requested by the employees. The management classified them as war bonuses and probably considered then temporary.--Harry Poindexter

wool costs were especially alarming

2009-06-30T01:10:00.000-04:00

The Charlottesville Woolen Mills weathered the war years well, but not before experiencing some discomfort from these conditions and several peculiar to itself. The cost and supply of wool and dyes were constant worries. Wool costs were especially alarming. The company had paid out only $149,000 for that purpose in 1914. Two years later it spent $192,000; in 1918 raw wool cost the mill over $400,000.--Harry Poindexter

wartime restrictions

2009-06-29T00:15:00.001-04:00

Amiss House, Woolen Mills Road

The result of these maneuvers was that the War Department "virtually annexed the business of fabricating the wool." Yet as late as the spring of 1918 only forty-five percent of American woolen mills were making cloth for war use. The remainder, after exhausting their private stocks, had to depend on uncertain allocations for civilian consumption.

Harassed mill owners could get some satisfaction from the brisk civilian demand for cloth and from the opening of South American markets previously supplied from Europe. But, despite the high price tags on consumer goods, profit margins fell before the onslaught of wool costs, wage increases, the scarcity of vital chemicals, and such wartime restrictions as the?by the Fuel Administrator in January, 1918.--Harry Poindexter

wool prices climb

2009-06-26T00:22:00.003-04:00

With the entry of the United States into the war in April, 1917, the problem of raw materials became grave for American mills. Speculative buying quickly caused raw wool prices to climb sixty-five percent. To curb inflationary rises, the government bought a large quantity of wool during the summer of 1917 which it threatened to dump on the market if prices went too high. In the fall, the government purchased 233 million pounds from England and shortly afterwards placed all wool imports under a licensing system.

The heaviest blow fell in April, 1918. Early in that month, the War Department ordered all woolen mills to hold their looms at the service of the government and blocked the flow of raw wool to civilian cloth makers except by special permits. A few days later the wool growers' association, faced with the threat of seizure, agreed to sell to the government all raw wool at prices current on July 1, 1917. Nevertheless, wool prices had jumped to double or treble their pre-war level, and fabrics rose in price nearly two hundred percent.--Harry Poindexter

the spectre of a wool famine

2009-06-25T10:40:00.003-04:00

With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 American woolen manufacturers suddenly faced "the spectre of a wool famine." Sixty-five percent of the industry's raw wool in normal times was imported, most of it coming through British channels from Australia and other British overseas possessions. Great Britain, however, quickly placed strict controls on this flow in 1914 and at times diverted all of it to her own use. At the same time, other war materials clogged up shipping facilities which had previously transported wool and dyes to American shores. Fluctuating high prices and uncertainty of supply, twin offspring of this sudden turn, brought many headaches to mill owners.-- Harry Poindexter

Monticello Mountain Motel 1958

2009-05-22T09:59:00.002-04:00

Does anyone know the location proposed for the Fuller Monticello Motel?

Arbor Day

2009-04-25T16:01:00.002-04:00

10:00 a.m. April 24, Riverview Park-- Parks and Recreation Director Brian Daly officiates at the planting of the City of Charlottesville's Arbor Day Tree. A requirement of being a "Tree City" is planting a tree on Arbor Day. Ten trees were planted.

president's house

2009-04-12T23:12:00.001-04:00

courtesy of the Elizabeth Valentine Meade Collection

Woolen Mills Road Walking Tour

2009-04-06T12:25:00.003-04:00

The Woolen Mills walking tour was well attended. Thanks to the members of the larger Central Virginia community who took the time to walk our built environment, at the foot of a mountain, in a bend of the river.
Please visit again.
If the history was hard to hear, a partial recap can be found on the Woolen Mills Road website.
For more on Th. Jefferson's sheep
Preservation Week activities continue

Woolen Mills Road Walking Tour

2009-04-02T00:02:00.000-04:00

Pictured above, home of Woolen Mills carding supervisor, Warren S. Graves
Join Victoria Dunham and Bill Emory for a walking tour of the Woolen Mills, 12-1pm, Sunday April 5. Meet at the Woolen Mills Chapel, 1819 E Market Street.
Tour is part of "Preservation Week 2009"

171

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Henry Clay Marchant, b. April 1, 1838, d. October 11, 1910

In the 1870s. Clay Marchant's vision for the social structure of the Woolen Mills Village began to take shape. That vision employed a two-pronged approach combining humanitarianism and practicality. His company started providing housing for his employees as well as for management. Mill records show him purchasing food and fuel by the boxcar and selling it to his employees at cost. A primitive form of health insurance was set into place. And in a gesture that was quite unusual, even in the present day, Marchant chose to live among his workers, in a house that was eventually owned by the mill itself.

In an 1881 company report, Marchant made a telling statement regarding his attitude towards his workers?a statement that would set the tone for the mill village for decades to come:

"The property of a manufacturing company must ultimately rest on the efficiency and fidelity of its labor. It must be impaired by whatever impairs the comfort and morale of its operatives. It must be promoted by whatever promotes their self respect, elevates their character, and cultivates local attachments and the home feeling. Nor is it easy to estimate the pecuniary advantages of such a liberal policy as shall strengthen our hold on the entire body of employees, and more particularly on those whose value is apt to bring tempting offers from abroad."

Personal ethics formed the central core of Marchant's life and informed his company's policies as well. Prospective employees were assessed to ensure that they were "of good character." The people holding management positions had to exhibit exemplary character in addition to possessing the required strong work skills and leadership abilities. As a result, Woolen Mills employees developed a reputation in the greater Charlottesville community for responsibility and honesty, a fact that aided them when applying for credit from banks and store owners.

southern initiative and southern capital

2009-02-08T09:06:00.002-05:00

Grover Maddex's house is for sale, 1613 Woolen Mills Road

In its own small way, the Charlottesville Woolen Mills helps to prove the fallacy of Mitchell's thesis. Ante-bellum in origin, it was revived in 1865 by Southern initiative and Southern capital. A period of notable prosperity preceded 1880 and the foundations had been already firmly laid. When the mill expanded suddenly in 1882 and absorbed Northern capital, it was purely the result of an accidental fire. Except for that event, the company would probably have waited many years to launch out on a program of expansion. Just as in 1865, destruction proved in the end to be an incentive for successful growth and innovations. --Harry Poindexter

New South?

2009-02-04T21:21:00.001-05:00

Mitchell's concepts have been attacked on two fronts. Avery Craven, for example, has shown that Southern industrial interest dated at least to the 1850's and was primarily a reaction to Northern anti-slavery crusades. On the other hand, C. Vann Woodward denies the validity of placing any rigid date on the growth of Southern industry and maintains that no revolution occurred. The expansion of business which characterized the New South made little change in its proportion of the nation's manufactured goods. In 1913 as in 1860 the South had a colonial economy, subservient to Northern investments and transportation and producing mainly items whose final value was due mostly to processes performed outside the South.--Harry Poindexter

Senate Bill 957

2009-01-23T08:43:00.005-05:00

This site is full of references to the Rivanna. The Rivanna River was the center of life for the Woolen Mills Village. For the millenium previous the river had been the center of life for the People of Virginia.

For thousands of years the Monacans were widely dispersed over all of Piedmont and Mountain areas of Virginia. Towards the Late Woodland era, ca. AD 900 - 1700, a pretty strong emphasis of villages on the major rivers for access to transportation and trade and good agricultural soils. From the South Fork Dam east along the Rivanna there is abundant evidence of Monacan villages, as any local farmer or housing developer can tell you, all the way to juncture with the James. --J.L.Hantman

The Virginia legislature is considering the bill above (Senate Bill number 957) which would extend the "scenic river designation" to the Rivanna from the site of the Woolen Mills dam upstream.

Since it annexation of the the right bank of the River in 1963 the City of Charlottesville has taken slight advantage of this asset. Possibly, with state recognition, the City will take another look at this jewel at its feet.

blessing in disguise

2008-12-29T11:19:00.001-05:00

Riverview Cemetery

The fire of 1882 was a blessing in disguise. It enabled the company to install new, efficient machinery and to expand its facilities. The fire also opened the door to new sources of capital, and the mill received its share of the Northern money which flowed into the New South after Reconstruction and the revival of prosperity. But it is only by coincidence that the date of this development fits into old conceptions about the origins of the New South.

The nature and causes of Southern industrial growth after the War of Secession have been matters of dispute among historians. The traditional view, fostered by such apostles of the New South as journalist Henry Grady, was popularized by Broadus Mitchell. According to Mr. Mitchell, Southern industry prior to 1880 was practically in the Middle Ages. In that year a sudden industrial revolution seized the South. Northern funds, combining with a burst of sectional interest, brought the region within a few decades to an industrial Renaissance. --Harry Poindexter

a sense of duty

2008-12-07T10:34:00.002-05:00

Lynchburg Coke and Staunton Coke c. 1900; Virginia Coke, November 16, 1915; Cordele, Georgia Coke, c. 1900, Blue Charlottesville Coke, patent November 16, 1915; Staunton Coke c. 1900; background, Burnett Cocaine bottle c. 1900-- bottles courtesy the Carr Collection

In their concern for adequate living quarters, encouragement of educational and religious activities, and insistence upon high moral standards, the woolen mill owners reflected a prevailing attitude of Southern businessmen in the New South. A sense of duty and responsibility in providing the proper environment for the molding of character was the underlying concept. It was well expressed by the president of the Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia in 1911:

The supreme obligation of Southern patriotism in business endeavor is the duty of improving our best asset--the Southern people. The richest resource we have is our youth. In their veins runs the blood of the best American stock. They should have a fair chance to make the most and the best of themselves, and the first care of our successful men of business should be to see that they have that chance.

Unlike the welfare capitalism of the 1920 's, that exercised by the Charlottesville Woolen Mills was primarily interested in the moral fibre of the village community. Whether the workers were contented with it is impossible to say. The absence of labor disturbances seems to indicate that they were. --Harry Poindexter

Lot 4, Woolen Mills Road

2008-08-23T11:55:00.002-04:00

photo courtesy of Schultz-Covert Collection

This photo was found recently in the house at 1809 Woolen Mills Road, located on lot 4 of the 1887 subdivision of land north of Woolen Mills Road (Albemarle County DB 88 Page 260). In 1920, according to the US Census, 1809 was inhabited by Athalia Spencer, her husband John and sons William and John.
A "J Shisler" is listed on the Woolen Mills payroll during the decade of the 20's. But in the year 1920 the census taker records John (53 y.o.) and John junior (19 y.o.) as railroad bridge carpenters.

wages

2008-08-07T07:30:00.000-04:00

1809 Woolen Mills Road

It is extremely hard even to estimate wage rates at the Charlottesville Woolen Mills. The annual payroll increased rather steadily over the years--from $15,700 in 1883 to $37,500 in 1896 and $52,400 in 1913. In 1881 an average annual wage of only $270 prevailed. Eleven years later, this figure stood at $311 but declined to about $300 in 1906. However, such estimates show only a trend, they give no clue to hourly rates for different classes of workers. Since even the length of the work day and work week is unknown, one cannot judge the liberality or lack of it on the part of the management. It is clear, however, that wage increases were smaller in proportion to profits than were dividends of cash and stock.--Harry Poindexter

fifty families

2008-08-05T07:28:00.000-04:00

Since these people were nearly all from nearby communities, the mill apparently avoided the worries of unstable foreign labor which comprised most of the workers in the woolen industry. In many instances the mill employed several members of a single family--a further stabilizing factor. In 1892 half of the 115 workers were women and, according to a local paper, their wages were "good." At that time, all the employees were obtained from only fifty families, which raised living standards more than annual wages might indicate.--Harry Poindexter

footnote

2008-08-03T10:44:00.000-04:00

In order that "his high ideals, abounding faith, and honesty of purpose may live after him as an inspiration to future generations," Marchant's second wife, Fanny Bragg Marchant, bequeathed the bulk of his estate to the University of Virginia on her death in 1926. This gift provided for a loan fund for "deserving and needy students" and for two annual fellowships of $450 each to be given to students studying to be medical missionaries or preparing to enter the ministry. Bearing Marchant's name, these awards were fitting memorials to a man who contributed much to the "industrial, civic, educational and religious life" of Charlottesville. Will of Fanny Bragg Marchant in Comptroller's Office, University of Virginia.--Harry Poindexter

workforce size

2008-07-30T09:10:00.001-04:00

Only by chance can one find out how large the laboring class of the mill was during these years. There had been about seventy employed at the time of the fire, but larger facilities required more hands after 1882. By the early nineties the number had swelled to 115. In 1906 the force of 150 employees was double that of 1882. These figures indicate that the Charlottesville mill was considerably larger than most American woolen mills, but very small if compared to many in New England.--Harry Poindexter

Aunt Louise

2008-07-29T08:24:00.001-04:00

Jean, Louise and Brenda Baltimore courtesy of the Baltimore-Pritchett Collection

Life was not so dull as these attitudes might suggest. Newspaper items tell of occasional band concerts and annual Christmas parties in the new chapel. Now and then on a warm, pleasant evening, employees and their families got together for outdoor suppers of oysters, creams, cakes, nuts, fruits, lemonades, etc. Such events brightened considerably the end of a long working day.--Harry Poindexter

marriage of morality and business

2008-07-28T09:29:00.002-04:00

detail, Union Chapel, 1930

Naturally any person hoping for a supervisory job needed "exemplary character" as well as ability. "The management," a visiting reporter penned in 1892, "recognize [sic] the responsibility of his position in being placed over a large number of employees, many of whom are quite young, and in the formation of whose character the head of the department is largely instrumental, and they make it a necessary qualification...that he be a man of strict sobriety and good morals." The influence of men like Marchant and Knowles is quite evident in this marriage of morality and business.

Results were encouraging. After twenty years as Commonwealth's Attorney, Micajah Woods in 1892 could recall no case in which a mill worker was a defendant. In fact, "he knew of no community more conservative, sober and moral."--Harry Poindexter

persons of good character

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Rea Hudson, 1930, Courtesy of the Baltimore-Pritchett Collection

These expenditures, never very large, reflected the sincere interest of the mill owners in the well-being of their laborers. It was as if the directors considered the company primarily responsible for the workers' conduct and attitudes. Led by Marchant, the management undertook to screen out all undesirables. The background of any prospective employee of either sex was closely examined and "only persons of good character" were hired.--Harry Poindexter