When Cotton Was King

Long ago, cotton was king of the South. Textile mills governed small towns in a sort of paternalistic society. Mill workers lived in mill housing and had most of their basic necessities taken care of by their employers. A sad by product of this era of capitalism was child labor which was captured on film by the photographer Lewis Hines, a social reformer of his day. This photograph was taken in 1908 and is a photo of my great grandmother Sara "Sadie" Agnes Lenore Barton (Howard). The photograph was in government archives and her face had been unidentified until it was recently posted in the Lancaster News by Joe Manning. Joe is a history buff working on the Lewis Hine Project and is attempting to identify the children in some of Mr. Hines' photos (http://www.morningsonmaplestreet.com/). The photograph of my grandmother was taken when she was 13 in the Lancaster Cotton Mill in Lancaster, SC. My father's father was her only son to survive childhood. I had no idea that she had worked as a child laborer, I just knew as most people in Lancaster did, that their family worked for "Springs." As of a few years ago, all of those looms have fallen silent. Springs Industries is virtually non existent and unemployment in Lancaster has reached 19%. We live in the town next to Lancaster, Fort Mill, the former headquarters of Springs. Fort Mill continues to thrive due to it's proximity to Charlotte. When we decided to move back to SC after years away we chose a wonderful neighborhood full of fabulous amenities for our children. We discovered that the developer is Clear Springs, a subsidiary of the same textile mill company that put my great grandmother to work as a child. As my children so happily skip through our carefully manicured neighborhood my grandmother's face haunts me. And I remember that the pitter patter of all of the feet that are now welcoming summer were once used to climb onto the tops of dangerous looms to fix the machines that couldn't be reached by larger adult hands. And I'm grateful to the grandmother I never knew and the eyes that look out of a photo, eyes that look much like my daughter's.

Millie's Face Painting Masterpiece

One of my favorite people, Kristen, stopped by with a little homemade strawberry ice cream today (made with Springs Farms strawberries that she had picked and then made into a yummy ice cream concoction). It just keeps on rainin' so we sent the kids upstairs to play while I stuffed my face with the goodness (Ms. K claimed to have already had enough..more for me I guess). Here's what happens while grown ups stuff their faces and do a little too much gabbing. Nora and Kristen's daughter Kamryn emerged from upstairs having created their own Disney World face painting station. Art work by the talented Emilia. Nice.

Nothin' Like a Pink Petti

I've recently been a bit obsessed with my new camera lens that was recommended to me by my friend Brooke (Canon 50 mm 1.8 II). It's cheap and takes great portrait shots. Yesterday was a cloudy day so I took the opportunity to take some photos of the girls. They chose their outfits which consisted of pink pettiskirts that their Nana bought and rain boots. Our photo session was in downtown Fort Mill which has an old park area with monuments and a gazebo. A batch of weird concrete sculptures and a giant checkerboard has been added since the last time we were there. Really a wonderful place to take photos. In the pictures the girls look all cheery and sisterly. And they were, for about 15 minutes. After that Emilia decided that she knew how to set up every shot and Nora decided to use a stick to start a sword fight with her sister. Then there was a major meltdown where one kid decided that I had taken more photos of the other. After that I bribed them with ice cream and all was well for another 10 minutes. No one complained about the pettiskirts though. That's one rockin' piece of fashion. So fluffy, soft, and pink, pink, pink. I want my own. Seriously. I think for our next girls night I'll twirl my own petti.