Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Spring/Section24/Joseph Michaels

Joseph A. Michaels
Born	1868 Burke County, North Carolina
Died	1952 Burlington, North Carolina
Occupation	Cotton mill worker, tenant farmer
Spouse(s)	Laura J. Michaels

Overview

Joseph A. Michaels was a gold miner, tenant farmer, and cotton mill worker in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Biography

Joseph A. Michaels was born in Burke County, North Carolina, in 1868. From the age of nine until he was eighteen, Michaels worked in the gold mines. He and his father moved to Glendale, South Carolina in 1887 to help build a cotton mill. They then moved to Clifton, South Carolina to help build another cotton mill. After this mill was built, Michaels took a job at the cotton mill but due to the low wages, he quit and moved back to Burke County, North Carolina where he worked in the gold mines again. Michaels was married in 1895 and he moved to Converse, South Carolina where he went to work in another cotton mill. His wife was Laura J. Michaels. In 1896, while he was still in Converse, his first child, George, was born. In 1898, Michaels and his family moved to a farm in Spartanburg County, South Carolina where he worked as a tenant farmer in the Spring, Summer, and Fall, and then in a cotton mill during the Winter. It was there that his second child, Dewey, was born in 1898 and his third child, Della, was born in 1900.

Later in 1900, Michaels and his family moved back to Burke County, North Carolina and his fourth child, Jasper, was born there in 1903. He and his family moved again to Spartanburg County, South Carolina in 1905 where his fifth child, James, was born later that year, and his sixth child, Harvey, was born in 1906. In 1908, Michaels and his family moved to Belmont, North Carolina where he, George—who was twelve at the time—and Dewey—who was ten—worked at a cotton mill. Later, they all moved back to Spartanburg County, South Carolina, enabling Michaels to work both on a farm and at a cotton mill again. It was there that his seventh child, Clarence, was born in 1908. In 1910, Michaels’ eighth child, Pleasant, was born but she died after ten months. His ninth child, Carrie Mae, was then born there in 1911.

Michaels then started to help build a new cotton mill in Chesnee, South Carolina and after it was complete, he and all of his children who were old enough went to work at the mill. In 1914, his tenth child, William Jacob, was born there. In 1915, Della was diagnosed with diphtheria and she died later that year at the age of fifteen. In 1916, Michaels’ eleventh child, Thomas, was born. They all moved to Ranlo, North Carolina in 1920 to work in the cotton mills and Michaels’ twelfth child, Lucille, was born.

Michaels and his family moved to Saluda County, South Carolina in 1921 to work at a cotton plantation. They then moved back to Belmont, North Carolina in 1930 and Michaels’ wife died there in 1932. In 1933, Michaels moved to Burlington, North Carolina. He was laid off of work in 1936 due to the social security law and then could no longer find work. It was there, in Burlington, that he died in 1952.

Social Context

Working in the Cotton Mills

Work at the cotton mills started in the picker-house, where bales of cotton were processed. This part of the cotton mill process was usually dominated by men. The other parts of the cotton mill process were typically dominated by women who worked with the cotton fiber and cloth production. Working in the cotton mills meant working long hours in poor conditions. The workday lasted for around twelve hours and brought about low wages. Many mills provided housing around their companies which allowed for greater control over their employees by the mills.

Cotton mills often hired families instead of individuals and then required that at least one person in each household work in the mill to be able to live in the mill housing. Due to this idea of family work—where parents and children work—, many families found it easy to transition from farming to mill work. Mills often had a company store in which they would put workers’ wages, forcing workers to live in the company-provided housing and shop at the company store. This would in turn keep workers in debt to the company, which then forced them to keep working at the company.

Child Labor

North Carolina and South Carolina had child labor participation rates that were of the highest in the entire country in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1899, children under the age of sixteen made up one-fourth of all cotton mill workers.

Cotton mills in the south gave resources to help support schools in the mill communities due to the lack of a public education system. These schools were used to bring in new families and workers into the communities to work for the cotton mill. Schooling in the mill communities also increased the likelihood of those children working at the cotton mill eventually. They were often pressured into becoming adult cotton mill workers after they completed their schooling. However, the school children were often put to work in the cotton mills whenever there was a demand for more labor at the mills. This happened seasonally as labor at the cotton mills varied, and the cost of paying these children was lower than trying to find labor from outside the mill community.

Low wages at cotton mills led parents to send their children to work instead of school in order to help support the family. Children may also have worked more when wages were high and less when they were low because as wages rose, it became more valuable for them to work. These children were typically given the least-skilled and least-paid jobs the cotton mills offered; at the age of twelve they were usually paid five to six cents per hour and then seven or eight cents per hour by the time they were fifteen. Girls under the age of sixteen typically earned a higher wage than boys. However, boys tended to work more often than girls and the more younger siblings the boys had, the more they worked. In general, both male and female older siblings worked more than their younger siblings.

References

• Ancestry Institution. “Joseph Asbury Michaels in the U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current.” Last modified 2020. https://search.ancestryinstitution.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=EqK8&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&qh=BDNYDw9MwpS9XQlTFrdG4w%3D%3D&gss=angs-g&new=1&rank=1&msT=1&gsfn=Joseph%20A&gsfn_x=0&gsln=Michaels&gsln_x=0&msbdy_x=1&msbdy=1868&catbucket=rstp&MSAV=0&uidh=yn9&pcat=ROOT_CATEGORY&h=43404312&dbid=60525&indiv=1&queryId=fe01b2361a1b6218d083487b3c18c908&ml_rpos=3.
• [Folder 281: Abner, John H. (interviewer): Three Bibles], in the Federal Writers' Project papers #3709, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
• Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, Robert Korstad, and James Leloudis. “Cotton Mill People: Work, Community, and Protest in the Textile South, 1880-1940.” American Historical Review 91, no. 2 (1986): 245-286. doi:10.2307/1858134.
• Holleran, Philip M. "Family Income and Child Labor in Carolina Cotton Mills." Social Science History 21, no. 3 (1997): 297-320. doi:10.2307/1171617.
• Lowcountry Digital History Initiative. “Working in the Factory.” Last modified December, 2015. https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/charlestons-cotton-factory/working-in-the-factory.
• McHugh, Cathy L. “Schooling in the Post-Bellum Southern Cotton Mill Villages.” Journal of Social History 20, no. 1 (1986): 149-161. doi:10.1353/jsh/20.1.149.