Complex Cloth
Welcome to Complex Cloth, an ongoing project—a work-in-progress—woven from multiple histories related to the University of Georgia School of Social Work, the profession of social work in Athens, and the historic mill building that the School now occupies at 279 Williams Street in Athens, Georgia.
What is Complex Cloth?
The University of Georgia School of Social Work sits on the banks of the North Oconee River at a site called Cedar Shoals. The waterpower generated at these shoals was first harnessed for industrial purposes by the “Athens Cotton and Wool” mill, which began producing thread and cloth in 1833. The mill investors reorganized themselves as the “Athens Manufacturing Company” in 1835, but the Williams Street mill was always known locally as the “Athens Factory.” During its first 25 years in business, the Athens Factory was re-built three times after fires and floods, and the current brick building, erected in 1857 after a devastating fire, now houses UGA Social Work.
Complex Cloth is a project that investigates the history of the Athens Factory in the context of social work. What does it mean for a School of Social Work to be located in a cotton mill—likely built by enslaved labor—that was established to turn slave-produced cotton into wealth for white mill owners? How do social work students reflect on common practices at the Athens Factory—like slavery and child labor—that were legal and considered ethical in their time?
Complex Cloth also explores Athens’ first social work experiments, several of which—The East Athens Night School & Neighborhood House, the Bessie Mell Home, and the Hiawassee Settlement—were developed to serve mill workers and their families.
Complex Cloth seeks to tell these stories and many others.
The Athens Factory and the School of Social Work: From 1832 until Today.
Map of 55 acres that William Dearing, John Nisbet, Augustin Clayton and Abraham Walker purchased from William Carr for $8,000 in 1832. The map shows the existing pre-industrial mills on the east side of the river that had been operated by Daniel Easley and others. The Athens Factory was built across the river from those pre-existing mills.
Chicopee Manufacturing Company (Athens, Ga.) records, Hargrett Library, UGA
The Athens Factory and its dam on the North Oconee River are clearly visible in George Cooke’s View of Athens from Carr’s Hill (1845). In this period, the mill workforce comprised free white and enslaved Black laborers.
Hargrett Library, UGA
This 1874 map shows the expanded footprint of the Athens Manufacturing Company. After 1870, the company ran cotton mills on William Street (now UGA School of Social Work) and also upriver at the former armory (now UGA's Chicopee Building).
Hargrett Map Collection, Hargrett Library, UGA
This Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows the factory as it operated in 1885. In 2023, only the central buildings remain: the Social Work Dean’s office, our larger classrooms, and the bulk of faculty offices are in the “(Cotton) Spinning & Carding” building; the “Wool Carding & Spinning” building houses smaller classrooms, offices, and the computer lab; and the student lounge occupies the area where the turbine wheels once spun.
Sanborn Fire Insurance maps for Georgia towns and cities, 1884-1941, Digital Library of Georgia
David Earnest’s photograph of the Athens Manufacturing Company (c. 1890) captures the factory building and the dye house (with cupola on top). The dye house has since been destroyed.
David Lewis Earnest photograph collection, Hargrett Library, UGA
This photo (from ~1910) captures a young boy fishing on the east bank of the North Oconee, the factory dam, the Athens Factory, the outlines of some factory housing and the steeple of St. Mary’s Church. The factory dye house no longer stands.
Oconee Hill Cemetery records, Hargrett Library, UGA
The Athens Factory after a 1918 flood.
Georgia Photograph File, Hargrett Library, UGA
Photograph (May 1978) of the top floor of the Athens’ Factory’s “cotton wing,” taken as the mill was undergoing renovation. This third-floor space is now hosts Social Work professors' offices.
Patricia Irwin Cooper papers, Hargrett Library, UGA
The old mill re-opened as O’Malley’s Bar in 1978, and it was a popular UGA drinking spot in the 1980s and 1990s. This photo of O’Malley’s in the snow is believed to have been taken in the 1980s.
Hargrett Library, UGA
The UGA School of Social Work moved to the old Athens Factory in 2015. This view of the School can be seen from the east bank of the North Oconee River.
Photograph (2022) courtesy of Jane McPherson.
The University of Georgia School of Social Work.
Photograph courtesy of UGA School of Social Work
Complex Cloth is the project of Dr. Jane McPherson, Associate Professor and Director of Global Engagement at UGA School of Social Work. This project is ongoing and under construction. If you have information to add to the website or if you have questions about the project, please contact Dr. McPherson at jmcpherson@uga.edu.
Telling Complicated Stories—or Why History Matters for Social Work
This 3-part lecture complicates the stories we tell about the social work profession, while looking locally at the history of Athens, Georgia. In Part 1, Dr. McPherson discusses social work’s history of “facilitating injustice” (Yoosun Park’s term) and provides a few examples that reach beyond Georgia. In Part 2, she highlights the stories of pioneering Black social workers and social work institutions in Georgia, whose histories should be shared more widely. In Part 3, she brings us back to Athens, Georgia, where she lives and works, where she delves into the history of the Athens Factory (in whose building the University of Georgia School of Social Work now operates) and then explores links between social work’s beginnings here and a dominant white supremacist ideology.
