“M” is for Mill villages

“M” is for Mill villages. Early textile entrepreneurs built not only factories but frequently entire villages. Employment contracts were signed with entire families, rather than with individuals, and mill villages were central to retain employees. The mill villages declined many reasons, beginning in the 1920s. Automobiles made it easier for workers to commute to jobs. Tougher child labor laws undermined the custom of hiring families to work. After World War II as the village were sold off and institutions supported by the mills declined, leaving behind only the physical artifacts of the mill village: rows of identical houses surrounding in many cases, a silent and empty mill village. When mill villages were at their peak in the early 1900s, it has been estimated that as much as one-sixth of South Carolina’s White population lived and worked in them.