The Origins of Shadowville

The Origins of Shadowville
When the mill shut down

we hit the pavement with a thud

then we got up and kept walking.

Some to the workhouse

some to the poorhouse

some to the whorehouse

and the grave.

-Will Dockery, "Under the Radar"



Starting in late 1983, Will Dockery began working at the former Jordan Mill, called officially at the time Cartersville Spinning Mill, and for the rest of the decade and into the next Dockery was involved in that uniquely self contained world of Millrats and that Deep South working class milleu, and the decade long experience has placed the stamp of Southern Gothic Noir on all his work since in one way or another. This could be what Shadowville really is, or was.

As detailed in Wikipedia, the life of the Mill worker goes back to an earlier time, and when Will Dockery entered this world in his imagination he felt a linage that reaches back to the Shakepearean archtypes, like The Globe, where all the world truly seems a stage.

Verily, the tradition and lifestyle is most direct, indeed, as Lou Reed once said:

"'Passion--REALISM--realism was the key. The records were letters. Real letters from me to certain other people.' -Lou Reed, 1975"

The Upper Priory Cotton Mill, opened in Birmingham, England in the summer of 1741, was the world's first cotton mill. Established by Lewis Paul and John Wyatt in a former warehouse in the Upper Priory, near Paul's house in Old Square, it used the roller spinning machinery that they had developed and that had been patented by Paul in 1738, that for the first time enabled the spinning of cotton "without the aid of human fingers". Wyatt had realised that this machinery would enable several machines to be powered from a single source of power: forseeing the development of the factory system, he envisaged "a kind of mill, with wheels turned either by horses, water or wind."



The mill consisted of fifty spindles, turned by "two asses walking around an axis" and was tended initially by ten women. Contemporary observers make it clear that the machine was fundamentally effective, and hopes for the venture were initially very high. James wrote to Warren in July 1740: "Yesterday we went to see Mr. Paul's machine, which gave us all entire satisfaction both in regard to the carding and spinning. You have nothing to do but to get a purchaser for your grant; the sight of the thing is demonstration enough. I am certain that if Paul could begin with £10,000 he must or at least might get more money in twenty years than the City of London is worth." By 1743, however, the Upper Priory Mill was almost derelict.

Just 40 years later, James Watt markets his rotary-motion steam engine in the same city. The earlier steam engine's vertical movement was ideal for operating water pumps but the new engine could be adapted to drive all sorts of machinery. Richard Arkwright pioneered its use in his cotton mills and within 15 years there were 500+ Boulton & Watt steam engines in British factories and mines.

In 1758, Paul and Wyatt improved their Roller Spinning machine and took out a second patent. Richard Arkwright later used this as the model for his water frame.



The English cotton mill, which emerged as an entity in 1771, went through many changes before the last one was constructed in 1929. It had a worldwide influence on the design of mills, and changed over time. The architectural development of the cotton mill was linked to the development of the machinery which it contained, the power unit that drove it, and the financial instruments used for its construction. In Lancashire, England, the industry was horizontally integrated, with carding and spinning only in southeast Lancashire, whereas weaving was more evenly spread but more concentrated to the north and west of the county. In the USA in Pennsylvania, the process was mostly vertically integrated and led to combined mills where carding, spinning and weaving took place in the same mill. Mills were also used for finishing such as bleaching and printing.



"'When I worked for Cartersville Spinning Mill from October 1983 to September 1990, 7 years, I found myself doing almost everything... elevator operator, booker, records keeper, diplomat, and still managed to create huge volumes of poetry, art, songs and comix during my decade there.' -Will Dockery"

The mill worker's life truly is an alternate world, one that is brought home in various degrees, but some levels and relationships would never happen or survive outside the the fences and gates, the painted over windows, the melodrama and sheer time, sweat, even blood and tears, and the colorful, bizarre and endearing characters that half a lifetime a day is spent with, in 12 hour shifts.

Being a longtime Jack Kerouac fan and student, Dockery was also amused often at ancient clanging machinery branded as "Made in Lowell", and that Columbus, Georgia itself was once known as "The Lowell of the South", Lowell Massachusetts being Jack Kerouac's home town.

Her creep crawls

the narrow stairway

of the Candlelight Motel

to watch for her

from a window.

Rethinking

his infatuation

but clinging

to his vision of her

as the red lipped stranger.

-Will Dockery

In 1814 the Boston Manufacturing Company of New England established a "fully integrated" mill on the Charles River at Waltham, Massachusetts. Despite the ban on exporting technology from the UK, one of its proprietors, Francis Cabot Lowell, had travelled to Manchester to study the mill system, and he memorised some of its details. In the same year, Paul Moody built the first successful power loom in the US. Moody used a system of overhead pulleys and leather belting, rather than bevel gearing, to power his machines. The group devised the Waltham System of working, which was duplicated at Lowell, Massachusetts and several other new cities throughout the state. Mill girls, some as young as ten, were paid less than men, but received a fixed wage for their 73 hour week. They lived in company-owned boarding houses, and attended churches supported by the companies.

1814 was also the year of the Battle of Horseshoe bend, pretty much the beginning of the end of the Creek Nation in Alabama. Will Dockery being partly of Creek descent and also Irish, the main race of the settlers of early Alamaba and Georgia, lost much of his heritage and actual family during the Creek War, on both sides of the conflict.

The Battle of Horseshoe Bend (also known as Tohopeka, Cholocco Litabixbee or The Horseshoe), was fought during the War of 1812 in central Alabama. On March 27, 1814, United States forces and Indian allies under Major General Andrew Jackson defeated the Red Sticks, a part of the Creek Indian tribe who opposed American expansion, effectively ending the Creek War.

The battle is considered part of the War of 1812. The Creek Indians of Georgia and Alabama had become divided into two factions: the Upper Creeks (or Red Sticks), a majority who opposed the American expansion and sided with the British and Spanish during the War of 1812, and the Lower Creek, who were more assimilated, had a stronger relationship with the US Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins, and sought to remain on good terms with the Americans.

The Shawnee leader Tecumseh went to Creek and other Southeast Indian towns in 1811–12 to recruit warriors to join his war against American encroachment. The Red Sticks, young men who wanted to revive traditional religious and cultural practices, were already forming, resisting assimilation. They began to raid American frontier settlements. When the Lower Creek helped United States forces capture and punish leading raiders, they were punished by the Red Sticks.

In 1813, militia troops intercepted a Red Stick party returning from obtaining arms in Pensacola. While they were looting the material, the Red Sticks returned and defeated them, at what became known as the Battle of Burnt Corn. Red Sticks raiding of enemy settlements continued, and in August 1813 they attacked Fort Mims in retaliation for the Burnt Corn attack. After that massacre, frontier settlers appealed to the government for help.

As Federal forces were devoted to the War of 1812, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama organized militias that were commanded by Colonel Andrew Jackson, together with Lower Creek and Cherokee allies, to go against the Red Sticks. Jackson and his forces won the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814.

Horseshoe Bend was the major battle of the Creek War, in which Andrew Jackson sought to "clear" Alabama for American settlement. Colonel Jackson commanded an army of West Tennessee militia, which he had turned into a well-trained fighting force. Added to the militia units was the 39th United States Infantry and about 600 Cherokee, Choctaw and Lower Creek fighting against the Red Stick Creek.

After leaving Fort Williams in the spring of 1814, Jackson's army cut its way through the forest to within 6 miles (10 km) of Chief Menawa's Red Stick camp of Tohopeka, near a bend in the Tallapoosa River, called "Horseshoe Bend," in central Alabama, 12 mi east of what is now Alexander City. Jackson sent General John Coffee with the mounted infantry and the Indian allies south across the river to surround the Red Sticks' camp, while Jackson stayed with the rest of the 2,000 infantry north of the camp.

On March 27, 1814, General Andrew Jackson led troops consisting of 2,600 American soldiers, 500 Cherokee, and 100 Lower Creek allies up a steep hill near Tohopeka, Alabama. From this vantage point, Jackson would begin his attack on a Red Stick Creek fortification. At 6:30am, he split his troops and sent roughly 1300 men to cross the Tallapoosa River and surround the Creek village. Then, at 10:30 a.m., Jackson's remaining troops began an artillery barrage which consisted of two cannons firing for about two hours. Little damage was caused to the Red Sticks or their 400 yard long log-and-dirt fortifications. In fact, Jackson was quite impressed with the measures the Red Sticks took to protect their position. As he later wrote:

It is impossible to conceive a situation more eligible for defence than the one they had chosen and the skill which they manifested in their breastwork was really astonishing. It extended across the point in such a direction as that a force approaching would be exposed to a double fire, while they lay entirely safe behind it. It would have been impossible to have raked it with cannon to any advantage even if we had had possession of one extremity.

Soon, Jackson ordered a bayonet charge. The 39th U.S. Infantry, led by Colonel John Williams, charged the breastworks defending the camp and caught the Red Sticks in hand-to-hand combat. Sam Houston (the future statesman and politician) served as a third lieutenant in Jackson's army. Houston was one of the first to make it over the log barricade alive and received a wound from a Creek arrow that troubled him the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, the rest of Jackson's troops, under the command of General John Coffee, had successfully crossed the river and surrounded the encampment. They joined the fight and gave Jackson a great advantage. The Creek warriors refused to surrender, though, and the battle lasted for more than five hours. At the end, roughly 800 of the 1000 Red Stick warriors present at the battle were killed. In contrast, Jackson lost fewer than 50 men during the fight and reported 154 wounded.

Chief Menawa was severely wounded but survived; he led about 200 of the original 1,000 warriors across the river and into safety among the Seminole tribe in Spanish Florida.

On August 9, 1814, Andrew Jackson forced the Creek to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson. The Creek Nation was forced to cede 23 e6acre&mdash;half of central Alabama and part of southern Georgia&mdash;to the United States government; this included territory of the Lower Creek, who had been allies of the United States. Jackson had determined the areas from his sense of security needs. Of the 23 e6acre Jackson forced the Creek to cede 1.9 e6acre, which was claimed by the Cherokee Nation, which had also allied with the United States. Jackson was promoted to Major General after getting agreement to the treaty.

This victory, along with that at the Battle of New Orleans, greatly contributed to Jackson's national reputation and his popularity. He was well known when he ran successfully for president in 1828.

The battlefield is preserved in the Horseshoe Bend National Military Park.



Two currently active battalions of the Regular Army (2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 7th Infantry Regiment) perpetuate the lineage of the old 39th Infantry Regiment, which fought at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

In fiction, Eric Flint has written a series of alternative history novels, Trail of Glory, that begin with the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. In Flint's version, Houston is only lightly wounded in the battle. He is breveted to captain by Jackson and sent to Washington to help negotiate a peaceful settlement between the United States and the Cherokee, Creek and other Southeastern tribes. He arrives in Washington shortly after the Battle of Bladensburg, where he rallies defeated US troops and organizes black teamsters into an ad-hoc artillery force to successfully defend the Capitol building and prevent the British from burning Washington.



Back to the history of the Millrat Culture, in the 1840s George Henry Corliss of Providence, Rhode Island improved the reliability of Stationary steam engines. He replaced slide valves with valves which used cams. These Corliss valves were more efficient, and more reliable than their predecessors. Initially, steam engines pumped water into a nearby reservoir which powered the water wheel, but were later used as the mill's primary power source. The Corliss valve was adopted in the UK, where in 1868 more than 60 mill engines were fitted with them.



Into the Deep South the ancient Culture of the Millrat spread...

"'Every now and then this Confederate stuff comes up, and so I refer, again and again, to a history book available at the Bradley Library that nails the situation in terms that for some reason nobody much wants to discuss. In fact it won't be surprising if this post is ignored... again. The book is 'Rich Man's War: Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley' By David Williams. And, yes, it wasn't so much 'white or black' in the South back then, it was whether you were 'rich or poor'. Now why is that just not surprising to me, ever? This is running long but click the link and see the way the plantation owners manipulated the situation, and I'll see if I can excerpt some key bit, time & interest permitting. This is some fascinating, heavy reading...'-Will Dockery"

Rich Man's War

David George  wrote: > In alt.arts.poetry.comments: > > > it won't be a stylish venue > > but the work will be fresh and genu > > > and you'll look neat upon the seat > > as the bowl quickly fills with ... . > > David George, gotta run for a while put wanted to add this before I > go, while I have it on copy-paste mode: > > http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.dylan/msg/b3d95326d4cfcb5a?h... > Again, I'll point out that it goes deeper than "White vs. Black" on > racism, but really racism was manufatured, a fakery, created by the > rich plantation owners of the South in the years just before the Civil > War, to keep poor whites & black slaves from forming a possible, & > natural, solidarity. While racism thrived afterwards, the whole issue > is a matter of the hate being a /manipulation/ of the rich > intellectuals against the naive poor people. This book, "Rich Man's > War", makes it all very clear, from somewhat censored historical > facts: "Rich Man's War: > Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the Lower > Chattahoochee Valley > By David Williams > Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1998. $34.95 > > Reviewed by Thandeka > > The importance of David Williams's new book, Rich > Man's War: Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the > Lower Chattahoochee Valley, cannot be overestimated. > > [...] > > Williams accomplishes this stunning feat by studying > the socioeconomic factors in the South that led first > to the Civil War and then to the defeat of the > Confederacy, focusing primarily on the thriving > industrial center of Columbus, Georgia, and its > surrounding area, which by 1860 was producing almost a > quarter million cotton bales annually. During the > war, this area became a center for war-related > industries because it was deep in the southern > heartland, far from major theaters of combat; had rail > connections to every major city in the South; and was > at the head of navigation on the Chattahoochee River. > Williams, who grew up in the area, uses photographs > and family history in the book, as well as archival > material. The result is a vivid depiction of the life > and times of a people who called the Civil War "a rich > man's war and a poor man's fight." > > Williams begins by retelling how the southern planter > class created the white race for purposes of class > exploitation. Until then in Colonial America, > people's race was defined by their class, and there > was no distinction in law or custom between European > and African servants, all of whom were known as > "slaves." Not surprisingly, these bondservants lived, > loved, worked, and rebelled against their upper-class > oppressors together. > > [...] > > But under the planters' new race laws, race was > defined by genealogy. Masters and servants who could > claim that all their ancestors came from Europe became > members of the white race. In truth, of course, the > "poor whites" continued to be viewed as an alien race > by the elite. As one Georgia planter wrote a friend, > "Not one in ten [poor whites] is. . . . a whit > superior to a negro." Privately called "white trash" > by the elite, the poor whites were publicly embraced > as racial kin by the planters, 3.7 percent of the > population who owned 58 percent of the region's slaves > and were dead set on keeping their exploited workers > divided by racial contempt. Because the antebellum > South's pervasive class exploitation depended on > fabricated white racial pride, any challenge to racial > solidarity among whites threatened to reveal the > hidden class system. Here lay the path to revolution. > > Thus it's not surprising that writer Hinton Rowan > Helper's 1857 book The Impending Crisis of the South, > which exposed the race-class link, was publicly > burned; a Methodist minister spent a year in jail for > simply owning it; and three Southerners were hanged > for reading it. Here is some of what Helper said: > "The lords of the lash are not only absolute masters > of the blacks. . . . but they are also the oracles and > arbiters of all nonslaveholding whites, whose freedom > is merely nominal, and whose unparalleled illiteracy > and degradation is purposely and fiendishly > perpetuated." According to Williams, this work sold > more copies than any other nonfiction book of the era > and was called by one historian "the most important > single book, in terms of its political impact, that > has ever been published in the United States." > > [...] > > Having set the scene, Williams gives his account of > how most poorer southern whites dealt with the "rich > man's war." He begins this section of the book by > reminding us that Georgia's very decision to secede > from the Union was never put to a popular vote. > Rather, it was made by secession delegates, 87 percent > of them slaveholders in a state where only 37 percent > of the electorate owned slaves. These delegates knew > better than to heed antisecessionist delegates' plea > to submit the decision to the electorate for final > determination. After all, more than half the South's > white population, three-quarters of whom owned no > slaves, opposed secession. > > Next Williams details the Confed-eracy's corrupt > impressment system. Georgia was one of the first > Confederate states to legislate the right to > confiscate, or impress, private property for the war. > Not surprisingly, corruption ran rampant among > impressment officers, of whom one Georgian said, "They > devastate the country as much as the enemy." Another > Georgian predicted that the widespread corruption > would "ultimately alienate the affections of the > people from the government." It did. > > [...] > > To add insult to injury, planters continued growing > cotton (rather than food) and traded with the North as > poorer whites and the army faced starvation. Williams > also tells us that all too often, funds that should > have been distributed to indigent families wound up in > the pockets of corrupt officials. Not surprisingly, > by 1863, food riots were breaking out all over the > South, led by the starving wives left behind as their > starving husbands, sons, and fathers died for the rich > men and their slaves. > > And always, the racial degradation of the poor white > continued. As Williams reminds us, most of the South's > higher-ranking officers came from the slaveholding > class and treated those under their command like > slaves. One soldier thus complained in a letter home, > "A soldier is worse than any negro on [the] > Chattahoochee river. He has no privileges whatever. > He is under worse task-masters than any negro." > Soldiers were also punished like slaves, says > Williams: "whipped, tied up by the thumbs, bucked and > gagged, branded, or even shot." > > [...] > > Thus did the desertions begin. By September 1864, two > thirds of Confederate soldiers were absent without > leave. One hundred thousand went over to serve in the > Union armies. Thousands more formed anti-Confederate > guerrilla bands, of which one historian wrote that > they were "no longer committed to the Confederacy, not > quite committed to the Union that supplied them arms > and supplies, but fully committed to survival." These > bands, Williams tells us, "raided plantations, > attacked army supply depots, and drove off impressment > and conscription officers. . . . One Confederate > loyalist, a veteran of the Virginia campaigns, said he > felt more uneasy at home than he ever did when he > followed Stonewall Jackson against the Yankees." > > Meanwhile, Williams writes, "One prominent antiwar > resident of Barbour County held a dinner honoring > fifty-seven local deserters. Though a subpoena was > issued against the host, the sheriff refused to > deliver it." The draft was by now difficult to > enforce, nor did disgrace attach to either desertion > or evasion. Indeed, Williams concludes that the > Confederacy would have collapsed from within if there > hadn't been a Union victory. > > [...] > > ...the bands of poorer Southern whites who organized > against the Confederacy and who indeed were abused and > exploited by their overlords, first as wage-slaves and > then as canon fodder. Sadly, these Confederate > deserters never understood that not even the one thing > they held onto as their own—their self-image as > whites—actually belonged to them. Rather it was one > among many means used by rich men to exploit them. > > The Rev. Thandeka is associate professor of theology > and culture at Meadville/Lombard Theological School.

This relates in so many ways, worth a repost.



Following the American Civil War, mills grew larger. They started to be built in the southern states of South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi, where cheap labour and plentiful water power made operations profitable. Cotton could be processed into fabric where it grew, saving transportation costs. These were usually combination mills, (spinning and weaving) that were water powered and used a slow burn design technique. They used a belt and pulley drive system, and the heavier ring frames rather than mules. At this point they only spun and wove coarse counts. The mills were mainly in open country and mill towns were formed to support them.New England mills found it increasingly difficult to compete, and as in Lancashire, went into gradual decline until finally bankrupted during the Great Depression. Cotton mills and their owners dominated the economy and politics of the Piedmont well into the 20th century.

In 1929, for the first time there were more spindles in the USA than in The UK. In 1972, India had greater spindleage than the USA, and it was in turn surpassed by China in 1977.

The situation of Unions and Union "agitators" was a minor one by the 1980s, as every now and then some folks from a Union would stand outside the gates and try to hand of literature... which the Supervisors told employees before clocking out to ignore these folks, do not accept any of the flyers, with the hint that dire results such as termination could follow.



When Will Dockery, along with Tom Snelling, John E. Jones and Paul D. Wilson founded a local Arts Collective for a time known as ' New Garde' and Dockery began Self-publishing his long running Zine, Shaman Newspaper, he found out personally that because of the fear among the Company of Union infiltration that officially, /no/ written literature was allowed inside the Mill, including newspapers, magazines or books, but self made works such as the many zines, Chapbooks, Mini-Comics, et cetera that Dockery had been making for years, and that was being read and enjoyed by the workers in the Mill, was a definte and particular no-no.

One morning before quitting time, Dockery was called into the office of Personell Director Pat Patson, who had a copy of Shaman Newspaper on her desk, saying this had been found in one of the break areas, and that while it was "nice work" and all, there were strict rules against such material being distributed inside the Mill... off the property of course, he could do as he pleased.

This was an unfortunate setback for much of Dockery's local audience, although his nationwide distribution was pretty wide through the Zinester network through snail mail, most of the people he knew at the Mill were almost strictly seen at the Mill, and though pretty close in that setting, most he never saw when not on the job.



Also, Dockery didn't realize that just 50 years before, actual violence would have been an option against his actions, like the events of 1935 in La Grange, Georgia:

Anyone read this book yet?

[Legacy in LaGrange

Sounds almost as explosive as the Big Eddy Club book or Wicked City by Ace Atkins.

Yes, I was born and spent much of my early days in LaGrange, and though I'd heard of the Union and Mill problems from my grandparents, they never let on things were that bad in 1935. Now this was just a few years after the Great Depression began, so I wonder if the events were just swallowed in with the rest of the miserable times that era seems to abound with. Just shows how lucky those of my generation are to have missed madness like all that: "LaGrange, GA - 1935 - Three little boys sit on the curb, sad, confused, wondering where they will sleep tonight. All of their worldly possessions lie strewn about on the sidewalk. Georgia National Guardsmen have just evicted the boys' families from their mill-owned homes. When Callaway Mills employees went on strike, Governor Talmadge declared martial law in LaGrange. Soldiers patrol the streets and tell neighbors not to talk to one another -- and they mean business. A large machine gun sits in the middle of the mill village, at the front gate of Unity Mill.

A few blocks away, on Park Avenue, a fight breaks out between soldiers and mill workers. After the soldiers deliver a fatal blow to the head of a WWI veteran, they arrest the others and transport them to a military internment camp in Atlanta. Meanwhile, in Germany, Nazi newspapers celebrate the Georgia state militia's successful union busting, calling it a sign of fascism's coming global triumph..."



Thus, Will Dockery's time in the world of the Mills and the ancient, rude yet eloquent culture was in the sharp decline, the Gotterdammerung of King Cotton, and the sounds and visions, the patterns and relationships reflected this, as he often wondered just how long he could be pain so relatively well just to ride an elevator from first to second floor from Dusk to Dawn, drinking coffee, drawing comic strips, and writing poetry.

About exactly seven years, that's how long.

In a taxi watching a sporting house

Beside a Linwood vacant lot

Silverdollar moon portspotting

Constellation like a sailor's knot.

The sky was black, ink and glitter in the night

Train whine saxophone out beyond the light.

I'm in love with a ghost blue turns to grey

Put a pyramid on my head to take my pain away.

Shadowville, Shadowville Speedway

Riding slow down a one way street.

-Will Dockery