The Rise Of Southern Industry Analysis

Wrapped up, tied up, tangled up; this was the scene of the south and all that in habited the once thriving haven for King Cotton in America. The end of the civil war marked a new turning point in the south for both blacks and whites. The defeated south had to leave behind the golden plantation era, and soon emerged the presence of textile mills. In the documentary film, “The Rise of Southern Industry”, a deeper and more personal look is taken into the lives of the different individuals and the family units that fought, endured, and later thrived to see the greater light at the end of the tunnel.
One of the very first quotes in the introduction of the film was “keep a man hungry and he’ll work”. This was every working man in the south; hungry, and in a position to continue to provide for their families even when the foundation of cotton and farming was stripped from under them. The many testimonies tell about this struggle, how even as the textile mill industry was on the rise and farming on its way out, farmers particularly did not want to work for a textile mill. The drastic career change was looked down upon by the entire
After becoming freed men and henceforth being promoted to struggling sharecroppers, they found themselves as second class citizens having to fight for the same jobs as the already established poor working white class. During the rise of the textile mill industry in the south, African Americans moved to inward but lived in separate and unequal textile villages. Blacks were not allowed to work within the textile mills and were not allowed to work any of the machines. Black men were given the scrap jobs that only included warehouse labor. Early on, textile mills would not hire black women; therefore their only option was to work for the white families in the white villages, to take care of the household, wash clothes, and take care of the