A History of South Carolina, 1865-1960 by Ernest McPherson Lander Jr

Author:Ernest McPherson Lander Jr. [Lander, Ernest McPherson Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV)
ISBN: 9781469644110
Google: jAdlDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Published: 2018-06-15T01:42:35+00:00

b. Mill Schools

Before the Civil War, William Gregg set up a school at Graniteville and made attendance compulsory for all village children too young to work in the factory. This idea was generally followed by other textile mill owners elsewhere in the state. For support the companies drew upon the public school fund, but this was usually insufficient to meet their wants. As a consequence, a majority of the mill companies invested their own funds in school property and supplemented the teachers’ salaries.

The one-room school was not the rule in the mill village. Rather, a three- or four-room building was common with at least four grades taught. In 1907 August Kohn estimated the companies had investments in school properties amounting to $300,000 or $350,000. And in 1920 W. A. Shealy, state supervisor for mill schools, reported 145 such schools in operation at an annual cost of about $100,000 to the companies in addition to funds supplied through public taxation. He added: “Better salaries and better living conditions are attracting many of our best teachers to the mill schools. . . . The trustees of these schools are demanding the best and willing to pay good salaries for the right teacher.” Nevertheless, the supervisor pointed to crowded classrooms, inadequate playgrounds, and the neglect of industrial training at the mill schools.

With the passage of the “6-0-1” law, the mill schools were gradually taken wholly under public control. In 1925, the last year that the superintendent of education included a report of the mill schools, 130 were in operation with almost 30,000 pupils.27

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