I cannot fail to acknowledge, finally, my gratitude to Mrs. Charles Reuter and the members of her family, under whose roof most of these pages were written.
This opening chapter undertakes a broad survey in brief compass of the historical and economic background out of which the cotton manufacturing industry of the South, as a distinct development, emerged. Thus to begin the story of the rise of the mills with discussion of a period which commences a century in advance, is not unlike the production of a play hopeful in conception, robust in theme and rapid in action, but in which the curtain first rises on a stage which remains empty throughout an entire act.
In viewing the period lying back of the concerted erection of cotton mills in the South, some observers have said they caught satisfying glimpses of men and facts not only presaging but causally related to the main action later. In spite of the present writer's usual disbelieve in the sufficiency of the evidence in these findings, it is a primary purpose of this discussion to give their statements, together with the supporting testimony that they deliberately and others incidentally have brought forward.
The total of this study will show that the development, as such, not only first substantially showed itself, but had its complete genesis, about the year 1880. It is plain that in order to present, however, the conclusions of students who have believed they discerned signs of it in earlier years, it is necessary to include in these preliminary pages much that will not appear as fact exhibit, but rather as opinion. And not simply this, but in seeking to make clear the opposite theory, free recourse is taken to the findings and statements of others than the writer.
No apology is made for the incorporation of secondary material. On the contrary, this is intentioned. Lying, after all, outside of the central facts to come under view in this essay, exclusively original research in so extended a period has not seemed justified. In the second place, it has not appeared necessary for the reason that there has been usually less dispute as to the facts and the completeness of the data that much study has uncovered, than as to the right interpretation of material evidences agreed upon. Besides these considerations, it should be understood that much which might carelessly be taken as second-hand information, is really entirely and valuably first-hand. Peculiarly in the case of the economic history of the South, the statements of those who spoke from intimate elbow-touch with and active participation in the events of the various periods are sources in the finest sense. This is particularly true with respect to the work of the late Mr. D. A. Tompkins, which is repeatedly made use of. No document giving a photograph of conditions at one point of time could replace an utterance which sprang from his rich association with the whole fabric of the South's economic life, and which voiced the result of his long and sensitive responsiveness to stimuli external and internal. He absorbed influences as a sponge does water, and when pressed his books and speeches yield observations quick, living, liquid. There is considerable reason for belief, too, that Mr. Tompkins' concepts, however correctly or incorrectly interpretative of the past, stood in a causal relation to the cotton manufacturing development in his active period and continuing to a less extent even to the present.