Both before and after the Civil War, children were a significant part of the workforce at the Athens Factory. Before the Civil War, these children would have been both enslaved Black and free white kids.
Unfortunately, there are no known photos of kids working at the Athens Manufacturing Company, but there is one photo (taken around 1910) of children employed locally at the Whitehall Mill (located near the intersection of Milledge Avenue and Whitehall Road; now condominiums) and there are many early 20th-century photos of children working in Georgia taken by photographer and anti-child labor activist Lewis Hine.
Georgia allowed factory work for children and had some of the nation’s most permissive child labor laws. Campaigning for reform of these laws became a popular progressive era cause for outsiders (like Lewis Hine) and for Athens natives like Jacqueline Wilkins.
Social work in Athens really seems to arise to meet the needs of these millworker kids and their families.
- A night school to educate the millworker kids (and their parents) is first mentioned in the 1850s though it seems to have been short lived. (Though the mill workforce was integrated, this night school was segregated by race.)
- The most significant effort to help mill kids was launched in 1897. “The Night School,” was founded by Miss Louie Lane, the woman known as “the Jane Addams of Athens.”
- With support from Athens’ Women’s Club, Miss Louie opened her doors on Oconee St, just up the hill from what is now Nuci’s Space. After a few years of success enrolling hundreds of students, she expanded and moved across the river, offering classes in the Oconee Street School (after it opened in 1907) and in the Neighborhood House, a settlement house she founded that was located where the Dairy Queen is now on Oak St.
- The Night School was open in the evenings when the children were not working and it also provided many additional services, including showers, daycare, and social events to the kids and their families.
- The Bessie Mell Home is another early social service agency. It opened in 1889 to serve the families who worked in this building. Located in downtown Athens on the NW corner of Thomas and Washington across from the Civic Center. It served women and children providing places to stay and also lessons.
- UGA’s Hargrett Library owns a collection of sewing samplers that were made by children at Bessie Mell.
- A second settlement house for mill families in Athens that was founded after 1910 to serve families working for the Southern Mill. The Hiawassee Settlement was located across the street from where White Tiger BBQ is now at the corner of Boulevard and Hiawassee. It is now a church parking lot.
Gallery
Click to see full image
Some Adolescents in a Georgia Cotton Mill by Lewis Hine (1909)
This photo was taken in Macon, but our local work force was similar. After Emancipation, mill work in Athens was largely racially segregated and/or limited to white workers. Lewis Hine took many photos of mill workers and advocated for improved working conditions for children.
Children working at Whitehall Mill (1910)
Whitehall Mill was located at the south end of Milledge near where it dead ends into Whitehall Road. To locate the old mill, take a left on Whitehall and an immediate right after the road crossed the river. The mill is now condominiums.
Making Human Junk Lewis Hine (1915)
Lewis Hine (1874 -1940) was a Northern social reformer. His efforts on behalf of the National Child Labor Committee were resisted in Georgia. They were widely understood as another northern effort to bankrupt the South.
East Athens Night School
East Athens Night School (1901)
The East Athens Night School was opened by Louie Lane in 1897 for the children working in the mills. The children customarily went to work for 12 hours from ~6am to ~6pm, and then went to school in the evenings.
Night School Locations (1901)
The red star indicates the location of the School of Social Work (then, the Athens Manufacturing Company). The Night School was initially (1897) housed just around the corner (green star) to serve children working in our building and in the nearby Check Factory (now UGA’s Chicopee Building) and Climax Hosiery Mill (located at Oconee and Wilkerson). As it grew it needed more space and moved across the river. It operated a “neighborhood house” that provided services like a settlement house and in 1915 employed a “social worker.”
Night school is interestingly written about (1911)
A description of the graduation activities at the Night School.
Swat the Fly Campaign
Children collect 17,000 flies. (1912)
Swat the Fly (1915)
If you hope to save your baby's life...
Bessie Mell Industrial Home
Object of the Home (1889)
“...to relieve the suffering...but never to do this by giving...”
Bessie Mell was located at the corner of Thomas and Washington in downtown Athens. The map shows it near liveries, cotton warehouses, a blacksmith, and two liveries.
Bessie Mell Industrial Home (~1910)
Bessie Mell Home located at the corner of Thomas and Washington Streets in downtown Athens.
Welfare Work in Athens (191)
In 1889, the Athens Industrial Home (later named for founder Bessie Mell) was formed to assist the families working for the Athens Manufacturing Company. (Athens Manufacturing Company operated two mills: a mill in the SSW building that was often called the Athens Factory; and “the check factory” in the old Armory that’s now UGA’s Chicopee Building.)
Hiawassee Settlement House
Hiawassee Settlement to be opened
“...not to duplicate school, church, or other helpful places..."
Hiawassee Settlement (1914)
The Settlement House pictured here was located directly across from what is now White Tiger Barbecue (on Hiawassee at Boulevard). The Southern Mill was located just north of the Settlement across the railroad tracks (now Creature Comforts). White Tiger was the Southern Mill’s company store.
“Settlement which is revolutionizing whole city area” (Athens Banner Herald 1915)
Article on the social services being provided to mill workers & their families at Hiawassee Settlement House: night school, Bible study, etc. This House was located across from White Tiger BBQ in Athens. It is now a church parking lot.
Revolutionizing (1915)
More descriptions of the work of the settlement.
Hiawassee Athens Banner (1916)
List of their work.