Some mill workers try to start their own businesses
Some mill workers started their own businesses by purchasing looms and weaving cloth for larger companies. A few of these entrepreneurs succeeded, but it was difficult to find companies that would buy their cloth. Running the looms also took skill and a tolerance for noise.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with George and Tessie Dyer, March 5, 1980. Interview H-0161. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
They made all kinds-dress goods for women and
men. Shirt goods, women's dresses, things like that, apron goods. They
made a lot of blue chambris, men's shirts. You know about that, they
think that's nice now, blue chambris shirts. Put them pockets on double
and put that decoration on, and overall goods the same way. I could have
made a lot of money years ago, if I'd a bought some looms, me and a boy
I knew. We was going to get us a few looms and buy the yarn and make
this here overall goods. But we found out we couldn't sell it to big
companies. Nobody else wouldn't buy our cloth from
us.
- LU ANN JONES:
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Would some people do that, get their own looms and set up in their back
yards?
- GEORGE DYER:
-
They'd start out in small business, small weave shed. They'd buy the yarn
already . . . and they wove it into cloth. They got these designs to
make all this stuff look nice, these blue chambris shirts and overalls.
I knew a German guy in Roanoke, Virginia; he did that in Lynchburg,
Virginia. He become fairly rich. He first started up just a poor boy. He
was raised up; his family was just working class people. He knew about
how to fix these looms, and he started buying a little weave shed
hisself. He ordered the yarn and then he made it into cloth.
- LU ANN JONES:
-
Did you know any people in Charlotte who did that, who would have their
own looms in their back yards or at home?
- GEORGE DYER:
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I haven't.
- TESSIE DYER:
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I knew one. Mr. Beaver that lived up here on Thirty-Sixth Street. He had
a loom down in the basement of his house. I went up there one time to
see him make cloth.
- LU ANN JONES:
-
You say you would help him out some time?
- TESSIE DYER:
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No, I couldn't help because I didn't know nothing about weaving.
- GEORGE DYER:
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Ain't nothing to it, it's simple.
- TESSIE DYER:
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I know when I used to go through the weave room every morning, those
things knocking like that. Oh, I just . . . my ears
almost-made so much noise.