page_title: Huntsville, Alabama
section_title: After the Civil War
hierarchical_section_title: Huntsville, Alabama / History / After the Civil War
caption_attribution_description: English: Original description: Coming out at noon, Merrimac Mills. All workers, even the boys at the side of the gate. Huntsville, Ala., 11/18/1910. Photographed by Lewis Hine.
context_page_description: Huntsville is a city in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama. It is the county seat of Madison County but extends west into neighboring Limestone County and south into Morgan County.
  It was founded in 1805 and became an incorporated town in 1811. The city grew across nearby hills north of the Tennessee River, adding textile mills, then munitions factories, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the United States Army Aviation and Missile Command nearby at the Redstone Arsenal. The National Trust for Historic Preservation named Huntsville to its "America's Dozen Distinctive Destinations for 2010" list.
  The city's population was 180,105 in 2010, making it Alabama's fourth-largest city. Huntsville is the largest city in the five-county Huntsville-Decatur-Albertville, AL Combined Statistical Area. The Huntsville metropolitan area's population was 417,593 in 2010, making it the second most populous metropolitan area in the state. The Huntsville metro's population reached 462,693 by 2018.
context_section_description: After the Civil War, Huntsville became a center for cotton textile mills, such as Lincoln, Dallas, and Merrimack. Each mill company constructed worker housing, in communities that included schools, churches, grocery stores, theaters, and hardware stores, all within walking distance of the mill. In some of these, workers were required to buy goods at the company stores, which sometimes overcharged them. The mill owners could throw out workers from housing if they violated policies about behavior.
  A dairy cow called Lily Flagg broke the world record for butter production in 1892. Her Huntsville-resident owner General Samuel H. Moore painted his house butter yellow and organized a party to celebrate, arranging for electric lights for the dance floor.  An area south of Huntsville was named Lily Flagg before 1906. This area was later annexed by the city.
caption: Child workers at Merrimac Mills in Huntsville, November 1910, photograph by Lewis Hine
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