The object of this paper is to present a brief history of the American textile industry—origins, progression, and decline. The paper explores the birth of textiles in New England, its migration to the South, how economic superiority grew amongst the Southern colonies, and economic advantages over the North—with particular reference to North Carolina. The paper also examines the structure of the textile industry workforce, the parallels between the New England and Southern workforce as well as the differences, and the effects of those differences. The paper’s main contention is that the history of the textile industry in the United States has followed the same sort of pattern internally in the past as it now seems to be following internationally: the industry tends to migrate to where it can employ workers at the cheapest rates to produce mass materials.
