Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1957-01-29
Does His Own Diqqinq

ITO Wv" SSHS
With just a bit more dig
ging" on the part of the writer
of your interesting MANA news
feature tJanuary 49, on the
disappearance Of the Southern
mill village, you could have
had an even better story.
Your story strongly intimates
individual houses from their
textile employers made very
good buys and that the COM
panies behaved rather altru-
istically about the whole deal.
AS one who has been actively
concerned with this particular
problem for the past 20 years,
I can describe many cases
where the employees were &C
tually gouged in these deals.
Moreover. the employers made
themselves very nice lump
of cash money as a result of
these transactions, even in
those cases where the sale price
of the home appeared to be
moderate by conventional
standards.
Most of this mill housing
was miserably substandard and
generally required SO much
fixing that the final cost of a
livable dwelling unit was fairly
high. especially in relation to
the wage levels of the workers
involved. BY and large. these
were flimsily built wooden
shacks, often on shaky, ter
mite-weakened wooden stills;
sagging floors and ceilings
were commonplace. I have
been in many such homes
where the walls were entirely
unlined. In very few cases did
these mill houses have indoor
toilets: most had only a spigot
bringing water into the kitchen
not even a sink. AS late as
five or six years ago we knew
of villages where all the drink
ing and washing water was
carried from a standpipe half
a block away. Outside toilets
in a number Of cases polluted
the water supply from adja-
cent wells.
The typical mill village was
built 80 to 40 years ago. Land
cost was negligible; the crude
frame structures. at most, cost
from $500 to $4,000, fire.
Cuently much less. Almost no
maintenance work was done on
these shacks; streets and side
walks were the exception
even where the villages we're
erected on land that was later
annexed to a sizeable city or
town.
At the time the biggest wave
of mill village selling began,
the general housing shortage
in the South was at its most
acute stage tthe immediate
postwar period and the en-
ploye was actually forced to
buy If he wanted to keep a
roof over his head. A typical
selling price for one Of these
mill houses was about $1,000
with payments spread over a
period of from three to five
years. Bear in mind the fact
that these buildings had cost
about half of this figure to
build and that in nearly every
case the companies had col
lected in rents over a period of
years much more than this
original cost. Up until the
minimum wage reached 40
cents per hour, practically all
cotton mill workers living in
company houses paid rent at
the rate of IS cents per room
per week, plus something extra
for water, lights, ETC.. OF
roughly 81 to So per month
After the enactment of the
wage and hour law in 1897
rentals almost universally
doubled. The typical rent was
about SO to $40 per month.
In some instances where
represented the union in con-
nection with the sales of mil
housing, the companies were
unloading these properties only
because local health author
tiles were requiring sewerage
and major structural improve
ments. The terms which the
companies attempted to impose
on the tenants were such that
1t would have been impossible
for a mill family-at that time
earning an average OF IS cents
per hour--to have kept ur
mortgage payments, assess
ments for sewerage connec.
tions, etc. plus hefty repair
costs. And it was only with
the greatest difficulty that We
reached agreements to have
these payments spread owe
longer terms so that the indi'
vidual could manage all thes,
payments on his meager earn
ings.
The Textile Workers Unior
OF America and. indeed, every
sensible observer Of Southern
conditions. were glad TO see TIL