The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1881-09-10


men or women. They are not the
exception to the rule at the South.
The class of women that / write
about constitutes a large majority
of Southern women-the great
middle class. These women have
always borne their share of the
burthens and responsibilities of
life. They have always earned
their own bread by honest daily
toll. and they have never been
thought burthen, but rather a
help, to the male portion of the
population. Southern women
have always been the manufactur-
ing portion of that people; they
have always made large majority
of all the textiles, cotton and wool
len, used by the family until with
in the last fifteen years, and in
many communities the same thing
is now done by the women.
In the writer's recollections, and
he is now young man, nearly all
of the domestics, woollen blankets,
wearing apparel, cotton and wool
lens were spun and woven at home.
The bed clothing of all kinds, and,
in fact, everything used by the
family, except shoes and hats,
were made at home by the women.
They did much artistic work in
| this direction, and I have, during
the war, heard Northern men ex-
press the greatest establishment at
the neat handiwork Of Southern
women. The articles are not less
manufactured by being done at
the homes Of the people than If
thew were made in factories. The
white female portion of the South
ern people were the ones who
made these things. The negroes
were never expert mechanics and
they were only used to make the
very coarsest garments worn. A
large quantity of the clothing used
by the negro population even was
made by the white mistress of the
family and her daughters. These
manufactures-home manufactures
if you please-were in every neigh
borhood in the South. They were
on nearly every farm in that
country; and they were carried on
by people who were in possession
of property, and valuable property
at that, for these same people lost
s11, 100000 from 1860 to 1870,
and if they had not possessed they
could not have lost it. The wo-
men were the only laborers used,
and they made nine-tenths Of all
the goods ever used in the South
prior to 1850 They were regularly
made on the farms where consum-
ed. No part of this country has
furnished more female manufactu-
rers than the South has always
furnished.
1t is usual slur against South
ern people that its white popula-
ton does not labor with its hands.
Now, in 1860, the negroes were
owned by one-ffth of the white
population. The other four-ffths
had their own labor TO perform
and the census of that year shows
that country to have possessed in
valuable property and franchises
as much per capital as any other
portion of this country, leaving
out the two then money centres.
Boston and New York Their
women helped in every way ex-
cept in the field digging in the
ground to make this wealth, and
they could not have done more
than they did with the machinery
they had. 1t took the whole time
of the female population to make
the material from its raw state in
to cloth and from cloth into cloth
ing. They thus saved the money
made by the men and accumulated
it for use.
At Augusta, Ga, the people are
only changing from private home
manufacturers into public,corpor-
ate manufacturers, and they thus
adapt themselves to the changed
demand for woman's service.
What has been done at Augusta
can and viii be done in every
Southern community. Every
Southern female of this class de-
sires to help the males in the life
struggle and they will do their du-
ty as they always have done it.