# Women of distinction/Chapter 95

CHAPTER XCV.
MISS RUTH LOWERY.
As strange as it may appear, and equally as contrary to what was at first hoped for or expected, it is none the less an important and well established fact connected with the history of American slavery that many of the
MISS RUTH LOWERY.
now paying industries of the South were born in crude negro huts, as were also many of the modern and improved implements now so useful in the agricultural and domestic arts. In many cases, however, the idea was seized by the stronger and more active element, who ​only carried into practical execution what had already been conceived and made known by his less favored contemporary, to whom but little if any public credit was ever given for the suggestion. Like all normal human beings he had a mind and used it in such a way as to accomplish the most possible with expenditure of the least amount of energy. And thus there was proven to be a real and true inventive and ever active genius running through the very being of this enslaved people.
And now with the opportunities which many of them are well using to improve both their mental and material condition the present is only a positive index to the disclosure of much of this latent force in the near future.
Still more strange and amusing is the fact that it was left for a negro female to pave the way and introduce the silk culture into the great and wealthy State of Alabama.
As it is the custom of many of our more favored friends to attribute any of our important accomplishments to the "white blood infused into the veins of some of us" we take pleasure in calling attention to her portrait, which proves to be that of a pure African.
This woman was Ruth Lowery, of Huntsville, Alabama. While we are thus musing with a mind filled with more facts than we have either space or ability to write we are pleased to quote the following from Frank Leslie’s Newspaper of August 17, 1878, which is quite convincing:
In the "New South" there is neither room for drones nor brainless people; capital finds ready and profitable investment; labor, skilled and conscientious, reasonable employment. In looking over the new ​industries, either in the full tide of success or in encouraging progress, it is really singular that it has been left for poor colored people to inaugurate an enterprise that capital and experience have long tried in vain to establish in this country. The stor}' of the inception of silk culture in Alabama possesses elements of a highly romantic character, and the condition to which Mr. Samuel Lowery has brought the industry at Huntsville shows that the State may become the peer of France in this great business.
Mr. Lowery was born in Nashville, Tenn., December 9, 1832, his father being Elder -Peter Lowery, a slave, who purchased the freedom of himself, his mother, three brothers, two sisters and a nephew, and became the first colored pastor of a church in the South, preaching in the Second Christian Church at Nashville from 1849 to 1866. Ruth Mitchell—afterward the wife of the "Elder"—was a free woman, who devoted the results of her energy to the funds Peter had accumulated for the purchase of his freedom. The amount, $1,000, was paid over forty-five years ago. The couple v"ere married, and Samuel was the only child. At the age of twelve he was placed at Franklin College, Tenn., where, in spite of his color, he commanded the respect of the faculty and pupils. At the close of the war Samuel began reading law, and was the first colored man ever admitted to the Supreme Court of Tennessee and the courts of Northern Alabama. In due time he married, and in 1875 he was directed, by curiosity, to call upon Mr. and Mrs. Theobold, at Nashville, who had brought some silk-worm eggs from England. His daughters, Ruth and Anna, accompanied him. Upon hearing Mrs. Theobold describe the methods of raising the worm Ruth became so deeply interested that she begged her father to purchase some of the eggs and give her leave to try the experiment of hatching them. To this he consented, and shortly after the family removed to Huntsville, where he opened a school. His daughters introduced sewing, knitting and needle-work among the poor girls, and began preparations for hatching the eggs. Having no books to advise her, Ruth received all her knowledge of the subject from that stern but thorough teacher, experience.
During the first season the Corporation of Huntsville granted her a large white mulberry in the midst of the city, upon the leaves of which her first worms were fed. This tree is perennial in Southern Alabama, but drops its leaves in from four to six weeks in the latitude of Huntsville. It is not troubled with parasites, and the worms fed ​upon it have proved unusually healthy. She made sixteen spools of strong silk, spun some with a device of her own, and saved about one thousand good eggs for the second season. For the spools she received premiums from the Huntsville Mechanical and Agricultural Fair. Having become satisfied of the ultimate success of the enterprise, the Lowery family and the boys and girls in the school devoted all their time not required by the curriculum of the institution to the eggs and worms. This first success attracted considerable attention among the prominent citizens, and generous offers of assistance were made by some of the large landed proprietors, who saw in the introduction of the new cultivation a source of wealth capable of well-nigh indefinite development. Among those who take an active interest in the introduction of the silk-worm culture is one of the ante-bellum Governors of the State, Reuben Chapman, on whose estate Mr. Lowery's Industrial Academy is situated.