W.W. Williams and Robert Ragan Interviews

 JAMIE STONEY: (inaudible)

GEORGE STONEY: Ok.

W.W. WILLIAMS: These books here are old books. They real old, and a friend of mine gave them to me, an old gentleman. And he said, ah -- when he give 'em to me, he says, "I know that -- that things have changed now from what they was when I -- I had these books, but," he says, "they got -- the fundamentals are still about the same in these." And he said, "I want you to have 'em." And he was a big man, bushy-haired fellah. Had a booming voice. You could hear him -- you could hear him a long ways off when he spoke, and he was -- he was a good 00:01:00fellah. I liked him. A lot of people didn't, but he was a good man. And he was superintendent of a plant, and he was a -- he come up this a-way. That's the way he got his education as a young man hisself. And, ah, I appreciated him even thinking about me and offering me these books and -- and I -- I'm glad that I give -- that he give 'em to me because they've helped me in my lifetime, because I'd study these books to try to get a little knowledge about the kind of work that I was doing and how to -- to figure the things what's supposed to be. And I read the more details in these books, I don't know -- I know most people that's got books that'll tell you about how, like a manual that'll tell you what to do and what not to do and how to do it. And that's good. It's fine. But they are things that happens that's not in this book, but it's a good starting 00:02:00point at where you can come --

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about night school and then the unemployment.

WILLIAMS: Well now, back in those days they had night school. If you wanted to go to night school, you could and you could -- but you would be surprised at the people that didn't want to go. And they would be some of 'em, I think, would be more or less be ashamed to go because they couldn't read and they couldn't write. And it's -- that's sad to me, is when people can't even read a book or read a newspaper. But, anyway, the -- you had an opportunity if you wanted to go, you could. And so it was good that we took up these opportunities that the people give us, the officials of the state and the different ones, and, ah, to give you this opportunity to -- to study and to learn more. And I appreciated that in my lifetime about having schools that we could go to, if you wanted to 00:03:00go. And all these different things that they had for us back in those days and schools, but they didn't have things like we got it today now. It was a whole lot different.

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about your studying at night.

WILLIAMS: Well, when you'd go to whatever -- I liked textiles. So I studied textiles at night. In fact, these books right here, they helped me even in -- even in that. I'd read these books. If I'd run into a problem, even after I got to be a overseeing supervisors in the mill, especially when I got to figuring out the dents in a reed, because, as I said in the beginning of this, I didn't have but a seventh grade education. And when you begin to try to figure out 2 threads to a dent, 3 threads to a dent -- I don't know whether you fellers know what I'm talking about, but that's the reed that goes back and forth. It makes the cloth -- back in those days. And you had have to figure out how long 00:04:00to make that reed and how many dents. Each one of those spaces in there was a dent, how many it would take to go in it. Well, sometime I couldn't remember, but I could come back to these books and they had tell you how to figure it, see, if I'd forgotten it. In fact, I finally wrote it off. We was changing patterns so much, I wrote it off and I put it in my billfold. And whenever I'd get ready to figure, well, I'd just look at that and figure from it. But you can see books helps you in that respect, because it tells you how to do it. And --

GEORGE STONEY: Well, now -- could you talk to -- you mentioned in 1932-'33, you'd come out and how many people were hanging around waiting for jobs, and how that worked.

WILLIAMS: Well, back then you

GEORGE STONEY: Back in 1932.

WILLIAMS: Back in 1932, well, people -- and it was hard to get a job and there was a lot of people out of work. But you could go around these plants, especially what we call the "shift change," and, ah, you -- you couldn't go in 00:05:00'em, but you could stand around. Now some of 'em you could. There was certain ones you couldn't, but like up here in the bleachery, you could go out there and wait and they'd send a man out. If he needed four workers for the evening shift, he'd come out and he'd point 'em out to you. He had say, "I'll take you and you and you and you." And -- and he had pick out the four, how many that he needed. And they the one that got the job, and they was very fortunate, but there'd maybe be 50 or a hundred people there that was still needing work. And it's kind of sad, especially -- of course, I was a young man then, but there's some people that I knew that had families that they really needed a job bad because they -- that was the onliest way to make a living as they didn't have no unemployment insurance or anything of that -- like we got today.

GEORGE STONEY: What influenced the man to say "you rather than you"?

WILLIAMS: You know, I've thought about that and why, I really don't know, unless maybe when he walked out, the man that was in authority, he may have known -- known these people that he picked out. Now it's a possibility -- I don't know that -- that he knew 'em. But, ah, anyway, it's either that or maybe he liked they looks or something. (laughs) I really don't know. I really don't know.

GEORGE STONEY: Now one more thing. You were telling me about your -- your -- your boss, the family that ran the mill. You had something very nice to say about them. Could you talk about that?

WILLIAMS: Yes, I'd be glad to talk about it.

GEORGE STONEY: Just turn more that way, yeah.

WILLIAMS: I'd be glad to talk about that, because I think, ah, the Roddys -- that was they name -- they's a independently owned textile mill. And they were great, great people. They wasn't a one that I knew of that worked for those, 00:07:00that worked in here any length of time that wasn't crazy about the Roddy family, because if you needed help in any way, if you was an employee of theirs and been an employee for quite a while, they'd help you in most any way they could. And, ah, they -- they run they plant maybe a little bit lax. Maybe I ought not say that, but it's true. And, ah, eventually it finally did have to close down back in, I believe, in 1958. But I worked there up till that time, from back right before the war, World War II. And so I -- I thoroughly enjoyed those people because they would -- when you had good – they was making money, they'd throw you a party, they'd put -- say, the Fourth of July, they may give you a bonus 00:08:00and they'd say, "Come on out. We're going to have a picnic." Have the grounds fixed out there and have all the employees to come out and they'd have a picnic. And I -- I thoroughly enjoyed that because they's a lot of the plants around at that time that didn't do that. But they were always real nice to their help. I'll have to say that, because they were good to us.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay. One more thing now and that's -- we don't have to put you through, that, except that I want to go close ups on the books. Simulate over his shoulder.

JAMIE STONEY: Ok.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok.

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GEORGE STONEY: That's exactly right, and then we'll acouple of illustrations.

M2: I realize – I think its much easier when some recognizes how hard you're working—

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M1: (inaudible)

WILLIAMS: And I'm sure the still use these calcuations to figure that by right here even still today as old as this book is.

F1: (inaubible)

JAMIE STONEY: 12,080 divided by 57 equal 22 patterns and 22 dents extra. 60 ends cotton, 2 to a dent, equals 30 dents.

WILLIAMS: Three-O dents.

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WILLIAMS: No I'm not saying that.

JAMIE STONEY: What? What did we do the wrong this time?

GEOGRE STONEY: You didn't take the soap of that—

JAMIE STONEY: Oh, I'm sorry that's usually props does that.

GEORGE STONEY: I know, sorry.

M1: Is that props or pops?

M2: But there are so many other things that we do get right, George. And he jumps on us for the one we miss.

M3: Oh know he's not jumping on you. He's only kidding that (inaudible). I have grandsons that come –

JAMIE STONEY: Turn the page.

M3: Grandma we didn't really mean to do that. They grown men, 21. When they drop something on the carpet—

JAMIE STONEY: Turn it back. That's good.

M3: Is that the battery? Battery there. Is that the battery head? No.

M1: Ok

WILLIAMS: Okay. This is an old-timey loom that was back about -- oh, back in about 1920-25. Real old. This is a jacquard loom.

GEORGE STONEY: We got some of those looms over at the museum in Columbus.

JAMIE STONEY: Just flip the page again.

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GEORGE STONEY: All right. Tell me about your grandfather.

ROBERT RAGAN: Okay. My grand-- I don't know exactly where you want me to start, but my grandfather was G.W. Ragan from Gastonia, North Carolina, George Washington Ragan. And he was one of the early textile pioneers in the latter part of the 1800s and the early part of the 1900s. And this is Grandfather behind me, a portrait of him that was done in probably the 19—

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RAGAN: Setting things up—

JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: All right, sir. Just tell about your grandfather.

RAGAN: Fine. Ah, my grandfather was G.W. Ragan from Gastonia, North Carolina, the "G.W." being for George Washington Ragan. He was born in 1846. He was in 00:12:00the Civil War as a young teenager. I think he went in at 16 or 17 years old. This is my grandfather behind me, G.W. Ragan. Ah, he was one of the early textile pioneers in the South in this part of North Carolina in both the late 19th century and early 20th century. Built some of the first mills in that area and I'll be glad to tell you anything that I know about him, being sort of a textile historian and a family historian.

GEORGE STONEY: Would you show us the picture –

M1: Uh, just a moment please. G.W. we have one—

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JAMIE STONEY: Yeah since I'm now rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok.

RAGAN: Are we rolling? Ok. My grandfather's name was G.W. Ragan, from Gastonia, North Carolina, a textile center, as we know. He was born in 1846. As a young 00:13:00teenager, he joined the Confederate Army and served in the army, and the "G.W." is for George Washington Ragan. He normally liked to go by "G.W." And this is my grandfather, George Washington Ragan, whose portrait is behind me, who was one of the pioneer textiles leaders in the South at the end of the 19th century and in the early part of the 20th century, which I'll be talking about. This is my father, Caldwell Ragan, Sr., also from Gastonia, North Carolina, who was one of the textile pioneers starting in 1916-1917 in the industry, and he was in it for over 50 years at several mills. And I'll be glad to tell you anything that 00:14:00I can. I'm sort of a textile historian of some sorts and a -- and a family historian.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you show us a picture that's going to show where your grandfather's store was and explain that?

RAGAN: Certainly. Certainly. Thought maybe a good place to start out is, there's a town in Gaston County called McAdenville. And it's also known today as Christmastown, U.S.A. Many people have seen it at that time. It's a beautiful little mountainous village between Charlotte and Gastonia. And -- and in a large sense the textile industry of Gaston County at least started in McAdenville. It wasn't the first mill, but it was one of the really first nice mills built by Colonel R.Y. McAden, who was a prominent banker and railroad man, and later a prominent textile man. But several mills were built at that area. The town of McAdenville came into being. And I think what makes it interesting 00:15:00is that people, like my grandfather, G.W. Ragan, started there. He ran the McAden and Ragan General Store. And another gentleman by the name of George A. Gray, who was also one of the textile leaders at the same time, he was the superintendent of the McAden mills. And at nighttime, the story goes that, ah, Ragan and Gray would get together after their jobs were over at the store and the mill -- they'd get together at the general store, around the old legendary pot-bellied stove, and they would talk about textiles. (CUCKOO CLOCK) They would talk about, ah, things that they wanted to do. At the time, they were both, ah, didn't have the means to do this, but, ah, they were interested in getting started. Excuse the cuckoo clock, that's one of the things—

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RAGAN: The two gentlemen we're talking about, George Ragan and George Gray, they really -- it's a very typical example of how the industry started in this area. My grandfather, G.W. Ragan, ran the store at McAdenville, the McAden and Ragan store. George Gray was the superintendent of the McAden mills. Neither of 'em had a financial interest in the mill. My grandfather did have a financial interest in the store. But these were two ambitious and energetic men. And the legend goes that after their duties were over during the day, many, many times they would go to the McAden and Ragan store at nighttime and just talk about their ambitions. They saw the Colonel McAden, Colonel R.Y. McAden, was making a tremendous amount of money in the textile business. And they obviously had ideas of their own that they would like to do this someday. So they'd talked these things over and in a few years both of them began 00:17:00building mills in nearby Gastonia. And, ah, Ragan was a businessman. He knew the business aspect. He knew buying and selling and Gray was the technical men, and one of the few men at that time that had the actual knowledge of how to run the machinery and the employees of a textile mill. And these two gentlemen got together and founded mills. And it was a typical example with other people in the -- in the mill business, too. One would be business oriented and the other would be technical oriented. The same was true with the Stowes and the Linebergers. The Stowes were the business people and the Linebergers were the more technical oriented people. The same with, ah, Colonel Armstrong and, ah, 00:18:00Wingate and Dunn. Armstrong was the promotional businessman and the others were involved in, ah, the more technical knowledge. And the same with, ah, Groves and, ah, Gray -- or Groves and Withers, you know, whoever it was. So that's how it got started. And, ah, to get back to the McAdenville venture -- and it's a beautiful town today -- I hope you gentlemen will go by and visit it. I have a few photographs here. This is a photograph, Mr. Stoney, of the original script. Do you want to hold that up or?

JAMIE STONEY: We're getting a heavy glare.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok, just leave it there and we'll get it over your shoulder later. Let's go back to and you just explained what you had there, the script.

RAGAN: Okay. This is the script. It's a copy of the script. This particular one is just 10 cents, "McAden Mills will pay to their employees 10 cents in merchandise at the McAden and Ragan Store." And this was a typical way to pay 00:19:00employees back then. It was issued by the mill and took the place of money, and then the employees would spend that money in the store and thereby providing both the store and the mill with a livelihood and the normal trade that goes on. So I don't know that they were entirely paid in script, but certainly a big part of the salary was paid in script. McAdenville's a very beautiful town, and here are some other pictures of the -- there were three mills there. This is one of the mills and these are two others, and they were very pretty. They had beautiful bell towers and little turrets that looked like fortresses. And it was probably the first what I would consider real mill, I mean where you've got a brick factory building and ever-- the others had been in wooden buildings that 00:20:00looked like houses and were very small, and this was a good-sized, very prosperous operation. Ah, from there, the photographs that I have sort of go to Gastonia because within a few years, ah, in the, ah, early mid- to late-1880s, Gastonia, with the coming of the railroad at that area, became the most progressive, the most likely place that industry would start. And people like my grandfather moved there and had a general store at first and then, in 1888, the first cotton mill, the Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing Company -- and this is a picture of the Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing Company -- it began operations there and the first yarn ever shipped from Gastonia was on October the 10th, 1888. This venture was -- the prime mover was R.C.G. Love and, ah, along with 00:21:00George A. Gray, L.L. Jenkins, J.H. Craig, Captain J.D. Moore and my grandfather, G.W. Ragan. They were the ones that were the stockholders in -- in that. Mr. Gray was the first superintendent. Just very shortly after that -- this was another experience in the life of the town -- my grandfather, ah, was the prime mover in the second mill in Gastonia, the Trenton Cotton Mills. This was in 1893, and, ah, he was very pleased to have with him Mr. George Gray as the superintendent of the mill. That mill, the Trenton, was in operation for 80 years. My father, Caldwell Ragan, was also one of the managers of the mill during his time in the -- in the industry. He had gone into it after they had sold another mill, and then he went back into the business at the Trenton. The 00:22:00building is still there, and it's a very good architectural description of how textile mills looked, because even though it's not running as a factory now, the -- it hasn't been, ah -- the windows haven't been bricked over and everything. It looks like one of the pretty old textile factories. And it is on Main Street in Gastonia. Ah --

GEORGE STONEY: Now one thing.

RAGAN: Certainly.

GEORGE STONEY: These handsome old mills were built for something other than just to house the factory. Why is it that factories then were so well designed compared with the way they look now?

RAGAN: Well, I don't that (clears throat) "well-designed" is the word, but they maybe to us of a different generation look more beautiful because you had, ah, towers. The towers held things like bells and offices that would probably not 00:23:00be needed today. The offices probably would not be big enough. The bells would not be needed. You had smokestacks. Of course, the early mills, at least off -- the ones that were inland, off the streams, were steam mills. And so you had to have these big, beautiful smokestacks and water towers. And -- and later, mills, ah, were designed more simply, which may have been a better design as far as the functional aspect of the mills, but they didn't look quite as -- what I think of as quite as beautiful, because they didn't have these beautiful towers.

GEORGE STONEY: I may be fishing for something that's false and tell me, but were these designed to be a kind of, ah, statement of the owner?

RAGAN: I think that that was probably true, but --

GEORGE STONEY: Explain that as though I didn't ask the question

RAGAN: Yes, you're partially explaining it, but I don't know that that was all the way true. I can't really speak to that because in the early days, as we had 00:24:00discussed at one of our other -- in one of our other conversations, capital money was extremely hard to come by. Now later that may have changed somewhat, but I guess it was making a statement. It was the new South. A lot of these mill ventures, it was really a community effort. Ever -- like the Trenton Cotton Mill that my -- G.W. Ragan and George A, Gray were the founders, but it had farmers, it had distillers involved. It had doctors. It had lawyers involved. The whole town of Gastonia was trying to raise itself not only from the Civil War, but it was a new town, too. And the area of -- was distraught from Reconstruction. So, yes, they were very proud that they were producing, 00:25:00having a place there for employment and the circulation of money. The circulation of money was extremely important in the early days. I don't think we can even understand it now, because there was very little, if any, cash money in the community. It was really a distraught area after the Civil War. Ah, you know, people weren't starving. There were good, fine folks here, but it was mainly a farming area and, ah, the thought of going to a job that paid cash money was -- was unusual and different and very appealing for anybody to be able to get money and then go to the store and buy store-bought goods. So in that way, yes, it was a statement of the community that "We're going to rise above our problems and this is going to be something that is prosperous and it going to be something that's going to be improved on in the future." So they did know 00:26:00that they were laying the foundation for a -- a town, a city, an industry and for wealth in the -- in the South. And these things did happen. It didn't happen overnight.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, ah, your -- talk about the building of the cotton mill villages. Just mention the fact they were built. Why were they built?

RAGAN: Okay. I -- I do have a good feeling on this, and a lot of this from talking with older people and from the --

GEORGE STONEY: I do have a good feeling about what?

RAGAN: About the mill villages.

GEORGE STONEY: Start over--

RAGAN: I have a very good feeling about why mill villages were started in conjunction with the mills during the early days, both from talking with older people through my lifetime and also from the minute books of some of the Ragan-controlled mills that specifically addressed this information. And I was 00:27:00brought up during an era when everything that I read and everything that was asked of me indicated that the mill villages were built to -- how should we say it -- control the employees, to keep them there and everything. And maybe it developed into that at a later date, but in the late 1800s and early 1900s, I feel very strongly, from what I have studied and learned, the mill villages were a necessity, were a complete necessity. The raising of capital -- I can't stress that strongly enough -- was a very difficult thing. And if -- and to have extra money to build a mill village that was not an absolute necessity 00:28:00did not make economic sense. If -- if I may take just a little time to go over one story that I think may be interesting to us, is when my grandfather, G.W. Ragan, was -- had decided to build the Trenton Cotton Mills at Gastonia -- this was in 1892 when they decided to build it -- it was completed in 1893 -- ah, the first person he contacted was George Gray, who had the technical knowledge. Grandfather Ragan was in charge of raising the money for the mill. The amount sounds small. I think $60- or $65,000 was enough to build a 3- or 4,000-spindle, ah, yarn mill, cotton mill, at that time. You know, Ragan and Gray had some money to put in it. They contacted doctors and lawyers, anyone 00:29:00that they knew that had money. They would work very hard to find somebody with $2 or $3 or $4,000 that could be put into the mill. And the -- the interesting case that I'm trying to get around to is that one gentleman, by the name of H.D. Stowe, S-t-o-w-e, lived across the Catawba River in Mecklenburg County, and my grandfather knew that Mr. Stowe was a prosperous farmer and had some money to invest. So, on horseback, my grandfather and Mr. Gray went over to see Mr. Stowe, and, ah, this was back during the days that things didn't move as fast. You had to spend most of the day to get across the river and talk with people and you didn't get right down to business. You talked about other things. But, anyway, they went over and talked to Mr. Stowe and told him why they had come. They were telling, ah, ah, Mr. Stowe that they were organizing a cotton mill in 00:30:00Gastonia and that they thought that the prospects were good for the mill to make money and to pay dividends and they would like for him to put in what he felt like he could do, $3- or $4,000 in stock in the Trenton Cotton Mills. And they said Mr. Stowe was sort of interested. And he said, "Well, you gentlemen," said, ah, "won't you please stay for dinner?" They called the midday meal back then, which as a very large meal, "dinner." So my grandfather and Mr. Gray stayed for dinner and Mrs. Stowe had them in and they started talking. And they were telling Mrs. Stowe about, ah, ah, the prospects of this cotton mill. And Mr. Stowe said, "Well" --