Show 1 Alabama's amas Industries r rI ft I I iii i t tilt S i t 1 s 's Paper From Alabama Pine at a Mobile Milt Mill ll PreDa Prepared by l National Society ty IY j Washington L 0 u U more wore than a halt half century cen S SLIGHTLY tury Jury ago Alabama was almost wholly an agricultural r region lon and I 1 a small railroad Junction town Today the state stale though thought t r It still numbered among the tile southern I growing cotton regions has tins more wore than ISOO 2800 Industrial establishments and Birmingham now a city of ot more than thana t a quarter of ot a million Ion Inhabitants Is called ld the Pittsburgh of the South i 1 While Washington first President struggled with a new nations nation's many problems s and Paris still sUIl rocked from revolutionary re disorders white while pioneers from Virginia the Carol Carolinas Inns and Georgia Georgia Geor gia gin began to penetrate Alabama ma Sohie were settling along the bee bre on land claimed by hy both bolh Spain and the United States Slates Some as traders founded crude posts that grew to towns others married to Indian women lomen took no part In the life lite of new white while colonies Occasionally there was the or fugitive from trout Atlantic Atlan Allan tic coast const Justice just as ns Savannah Jack s j toasting boasting he be had slain so many ninny men that he could swim In their blood were It collected d In one poo pool j 1 Rut But ut the historic rush of seek homo ers which was to put tens of ot thousands thou thou- sands of whitest whites on Alabama lands landsI I within a generation did not begin till J 1 after arler 1800 1500 When treaties with the 1 1 Choctaws In S and threw open 1 rich lands for settlement new routes of ot travel were opened and th the human tide moved Into Alabama along with other great migratory tides to the west Ry By y thousands had staked out homes In the picturesque quE Tennessee Tennes see ste valley Talley which crosses northern Ala Ala- bama The ol old Immigrant or Federal flood Rond from Georgia west was to Alabama what the ancient Via Appia was to the country south of Rome Home The trek and trudge e over O It was so continuous SUS SU'S one Early parly writer that for days s 's journeying jour toying against the Immigrant tide tIe he was wall always s 's In sight of wagon trains pack horses nail and lon long Ions files flies of trampIng tramping tramp tramp- ing sin slaves Yes Whitney's Whitneys s new cotton gin n helped start these men wt west t anI and extended extended ex tended slaver slavery England after her Industrial In i revolution was bidding for cotton and rich cheap ap cotton colton land was the lure From Virginia the Carolinas Caro Caro- liens linas and Georgia came planters mer mtr merchants merchants chants and artisans the well to often In elegant carriages barouches or sulkies Other thousands walked nil all the thi W V How They Went to Alabama It Tt was like the later inter gold rush to California In one ont of ot the Issues of t tho the Augusta Chronicle Is recorded the fact that there passed through a n aman aman man his wife a son and his wife with a n cart but no hor horse e The man manbo bo had a belt helt over his shoulders and amI drew drw the cart The old woman was walking walk wall log ing carr carrying a rifle and driving a n arow cow row Others lied had their goods packed In a hogs head with put In Inthe Inthe Inthe the ends and shafts attached It Is recorded that some families rolled their goods In this manner all the way train from Carolina to Alabama You ou can an talk Mill t to older Alabama residents who she remember what their grandfathers hers told of this historic migration ihen Shen they came with It as young men mell My Iy grandfather brought his bees In hives hires says a Birmingham law lawyer lr If It they swarmed the whole wagon ajon train turned out drumming on pots and pans Inns to make muke the bees settle again He lie brought garden seeds and amI young fruit trees Even I a strand of pussy I Illow 1 worn as n a hatband he planted on the new land he chose chose and and Its It's i hill ll growing there I When my folks first settled they had bad to ride a mule by compass miles mites to the nearest blacksmith to get Plow points sharpened If their fire tire died out they used to borrow fire tire There being no matches a 0 boy on a horse borse was sent to the nearest neigh neigh- bor tor to come galloping home with a burning burling piece of pine fat s In fn Alabama annals was ras as the 1 i of on the Tom Tom- Certain n distinguished hed French French- men Inn banish banished ell from after NaP Nan's Nans Na r-n. P n's ns sun had set migrated here to tart start vineyards and ond olive groves groys They acre T r rc sa says s 's history men who had bad wn UI UIn n Napoleon on Intimate terms i ah h had had conspicuous part In the fifty intrigue and campaigns of the thet t f r r. i h h revolution revolution and and voted toled to exea exe exe- jI u a Trench French king king and and ladles who lut hd I figured In the voluptuous drawing tims IHm of St. St Cloud and glittered In Inh he h and favors ors of Josephine nd Marie ylarie Antoinette Fortunes Fortune Made In Cotton Thus through ante belum decades ou saw sa Alabama grow up Politics c bubbled Towns plantations staves slaves all multiplied multiplier Paths and mere tracks tricks on the ground turned to roads Palatial Pala ala Palatial steamers with romantic names and string bands blinds hand leek and steam calliopes to entertain the passengers came to ply the rivers Cotton Collon was waR king sometimes It was SO O A cents a pound pound and more Real Iteal estate companies abounded and the South Smith saw Its first land boom Slumps followed fol fel lowed booms but men talked alwa s 's of slaves and cotton cotton and and more cotton Fortunes grew From rom New Nw York ork to New r-ew Orleans Orleans before before lS 1840 the 19 the o-the the Pony onrI I Express was running With ho boy riders and MX 00 horses rela relayed every elEry 12 2 miles the fast mall averaged 14 milts miles an hour hurl I Mounted on blooded saddle horses attended by slave In grooms body hody servants IIer kid gloved sons of the blue Iolue bluestockings bluestockings stockings sought culture at nt Tuscaloosa where the new lIew university was set A railroad one olle one of the first built hullt In America was AmerIca was the boast of fUR cumbia Its tiny luny coaches ran on en wooden wood en In rails drawn by bJ hor horses until It Its toy locomotive f came In tn ISM I Rut flat much cotton otton still went by hy keel heat over the winding vinding Tennessee river up to the Ohio and down to the Mississippi ls to New IW Orleans After shops and mills In crea creased More men began to tn spin weave saw aw lumber smelt Iron ore make shoes pi plows 0 an and furniture every everything thin from a ax handles handle to steam boats hoats But Rut only In a II small ilia 11 way Ala bourn was still 1111 a ft big bli buyer of ot north north- made ern-made things and essentially Sinn These e were old plantation cIA days that golden age alre of Alabama ml whose mere mention still arouses emotions In the horn born Southerner Then the guns of ot Sumter u the Con Con- Years of ot war and ruin tot for Alabama In which she learned one ont good gooI Its It's lesson on that she could coul support herself live within her own boundaries rips Then that quiet Palm Sunday Runday at Ap An- when hn the great opponents Grant and Lee without parade hand music swords or cannon salutes quietly made terms of surrender Per For more morl than Ihan n a century cotton colton was the s symbol of life The poor renter with one mule numbe and one plow like the rich planter With domain Intact from slave times depended on this on one crop Then Varied Industry Rut But ut world worle conditions change Some Som I old C customers Irs overseas P no longer on mIt must from buy most in of cotton I us UM More more It Is raised elsewhere as as In Africa Asia So Ro now It grows s rn harder for Alabama to sell cotton abroad at a II fair price Rut But It has thought talked planted picked ginned pressed and sold cotton so po long and so fixed fint fintIs Is this only cotton-only habit that the state Imports much butter milk potatoes even hay Happily escape Is In sight What t with science research farm schools schools- and good example of the more alert farmers who prove Alabama can nn grow much besides cotton cotton- you cotton you ou see dawnIng dawn dawn- dawning ing In the state a n new ne diversified agriculture But Rut that Is not all From the North orth men have come coine with money and machines ma ma- machines chines chiDes starting milts mills II shops shop smelters many Industries new v to Alabama Its factories scattered over the state with workers to he be fed open a n widening market for Alabama fruit vegetable poultry and dairy farms Swiftly as ns the lives lI of ot states are measured you see this clamorous alien aUen culture of smoke ane and steel stell being Im Imposed Imposed Im- Im posed on n a proud leisurely society accustomed for generations to Its va vast t tI I plantation homes homE's and calm well ordered rural existence With her water power coal ores lumber raw cotton surplus labor lallor and an fine climate Alabama Is forced to hid bid her hand And An Industrialism Is trumps Cotton she will w grow Indefinitely Butmore Rut But more of other things too reaching tiro-reaching reaching finally a happier economic balance between between between be be- tween town and country life lite Colleges dot the state free county busses haul children many miles mills to consolidated consolidated con schools and far more teachers teach ers era are graduated each fach year than the state can use You ou need ned no rubber yardstick to measure educations education's march Next Nut to schools electric power li is lithe the prime factor In la Alabama's growth It H has worked miracles here Men dammed the streams and blazed wide avenues through the woods for rows of steel towers that carry arry wires to all aU parts of the state stale Wherever raw materials ma mn exist there power Is sent Copper wire hosiery silk condensed milk steel freight cars braid and end ribbons rib rib- bons boas electro chemical products all these and more are now manufactured In the state |