Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World

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Photo, Doffers at the Bibb Mill No. 1, Lewis Hine, 1909, Like a Family.
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The companion to a book of the same name, this website offers selected oral history resources that examine lives in southern textile mill towns from the 1880s to the 1930s. The site is divided into three sections. "Life on the Land" discusses agricultural roots of the rural south, changes in farm labor after the Civil War, and economic factors that caused the transition to mill work in the late 19th century. "Mill Village and Factory" describes work in the mills and life in the company mill towns. "Work and Protest" discusses labor protests of the 1920s, formation of unions, and the textile strike of 1934.

The site contains 15 photographs and nearly 70 audio clips drawn from oral history interviews with descendants of millhands and others involved in the history of the Southern textile industry. There are valuable links to Southern history, oral history, and textile mill history websites. This site is ideal for studying rural southern life and labor history from Reconstruction through the 1930s.

Lowell National Historical Park [MA]

Description

The Lowell National Historical Park presents America's Industrial Revolution via the example of the textile industry's use of the Merrimack River. The park also presents local history. Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), famous member of the Beat Generation and author of On the Road, was born in Lowell.

The Patrick J. Mogan Cultural Center offers exhibits. The park also offers tours, non-circulating library access, and teacher workshops. Appointments are required for library use. The website offers oral history transcriptions and a lesson plan.

Alfred P. Sloan Museum [MI]

Description

The Alfred P. Sloan Museum of Flint Michigan presents local history, historic automobiles, and scientific principles. Historic topics are covered in the Hometown Gallery and Piersen Automotive Gallery. Collections include more than 125,000 artifacts including textiles, prehistoric objects, and more than 80 historic vehicles made in Flint.

The museum offers hands-on activities; exhibits; films; a vehicle conservation and restoration shop; archival access; arts and crafts workshops; group tours; group picture-puzzle scavenger hunts; more than 11 hands-on educational programs, ranging from autowork to the fur trade; a planetarium; and a lunchroom. Reservations are required for school groups. Separate reservations are required for use of the lunchroom by large groups.

The Art of Weaving

Description

Max Hamrick, a Colonial Williamsburg weaver, talks about the process and place of weaving in colonial-era society.

To listen to this podcast, select "All 2006 Podcasts," and scroll to the May first program.

South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum

Description

The South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum is South Carolina's official state military museum. It presents the history of military actions involving South Carolinians. Collections include uniforms, weaponry, Civil War battle flags, and textiles from the 19th and 20th centuries. Wars covered include Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Seminole War, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II. Exhibits are designed to meet state educational standards.

The museum offers exhibits, approximately one-hour school tours, monthly home school programming, Scout tours, JROTC tours, summer day camp, and teacher workshops. School tour options include a general tour and a tour with a focus on African American military history. The website offers activities to be completed at the museum, lesson plans, classroom activities, and a series of educational video clips.

Nevada State Museum

Description

The Nevada State Museum presents Nevada history. Exhibit topics include the Carson City mint, geology, Native American life, and Columbian mammoths.
Collection highlights include a 19th-century coin press, mammoth fossils, slot machines by designer Charles August Fey, the USS Nevada silver service, and a 1902 Basque sheepherder's wagon. The museum includes the Marjorie Russell Clothing and Textile Research Center, which preserves more than 10,000 artifacts.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, 90-minute guided hands-on student tours, and unguided student tours. Areas of emphasis available for student tours are geology, Native American culture, Nevada history, and botany and zoology. Appointments are required for all tours. The textile research center offers programs on costume history, as well as research library access. Appointments are required for library access. The website offers 14 virtual exhibits.

Nevada Historical Society

Description

The Nevada Historical Society museum collections house over 15,000 artifacts, including mining and ranching equipment, artwork, clothing, and items related to the state's gambling industry. The permanent exhibition on Nevada history illustrates the lives of the earliest inhabitants of the Great Basin, the desert stretches of the Immigrant Trail, the Comstock era, the effects of Nevada's liberal marriage and divorce laws, and the rise of the gambling industry. The Nevada Historical Society's library, photograph, and manuscript collections constitute the largest and most complete repository of materials related to the history of Nevada and the Great Basin. Materials available to the public include books, newspapers and periodicals, print files, maps, government documents, subject files, ephemera, manuscript collections, and over 500,000 photographs.

The museum offers exhibits, guided and self–guided tours, hands-on activities, in–classroom presentations on a variety of subjects, a documentary presentation and discussion series, screenings of movies which are set in Nevada, and a research library. The website offers virtual exhibits, children's activities, and a comprehensive PDF outlining available teacher resources.