© Gaia Son
Wayne Strachan Farms Ft. Hancock TX © Gaia Son
Cotton
F. G. Barton Cotton Factors – Cotton Row – Memphis, TN
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
- Memphis Cotton Exchange – F. G. Barton, President 1932-1933
- Cotton and Race in the Making of America: The Human Costs of Economic Power – Gene Dattel dot com
- BUILDING IT OF BRICK AND HOLLOW TILE: LEE WILSON AND BLACK LABOUR By Professor Jeannie Whayne, Department of History, University of Arkansas
- FG Barton Cotton – Flickr
Cotton – Fulton & Sons – Slavery & Cotton – History of Memphis TN
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
Negroes in Tennessee
- Little is known concerning the coming of the first Negroes to Tennessee, but there is reason to believe that they were in the territory much earlier than is commonly supposed. It is probable that Negroes were with De Soto when he camped near the present site of Memphis in 1541, since they were known to have been with him when he left Spain the previous year. A century later the French are reported to have sent “an army of 1,200 white men and double that number of red and black men who took up their quarters in Fort Assumption, on the bluff of Memphis.” The next Negro to set foot on Tennessee soil seems to have been with Colonel James Smith and a group of Long Hunters who explored the Cumberland country in 1766. Known to history merely as “Jim” this “mulatto lad” inspired a stanza in Colonel Smith’s diary. Another “negro fellow” accompanied James Robertson in 1779 when he came down from the Holston Settlement to the site of what is now Nashville.
- The new settlers brought Negroes with them and by 1790, when the first census was taken, there were 3,417 slaves in the Territory. Six years later, when Tennessee became a State, there were 10,613 Negroes in a population of 77,282. As a result of the invention of the cotton gin and the rapid growth of the cotton industry, slavery was widely expanded between 1790 and 1835. By 1840 Tennessee had 183,057 slaves whose per capita value was about $550 as compared to less than $100 in 1790. – TENNESSEE: A GUIDE TO THE STATE – New Deal Network – Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
Google Books
Tennessee's historic landscapes: a traveler's guide By Carroll Van West - Google Books
- Fulton & Sons Cotton – Flickr
- History of Memphis – City of Memphis dot org
Navel Lint Industry Booming Across Southern States – Bankrolls Teabagger Movement
Courtesy of Flickr via Wikipedia
According to The National Cotton Council of America, the U.S. cotton industry has suffered severe economic setbacks from lowered prices arising from increased global production of the natural fiber. Climate change and the unpredictable inclement weather nationwide has also affected the wildly vacillating production of pounds of cotton per acre, making for unstable pricing per bale from year to year. Additionally, the removal of quotas has created a highly competitive global market. Sustainability must also be considered when it takes over 700 gallons of water to produce one cotton T-shirt alone. Perhaps we are witnessing the unravelling of a historically contentious and ecologically unsound crop.
Ironically, we are also witnessing the rise of a grassroots cottage industry that seems to be booming where the cotton industry first took foothold in the U.S. during the early days of slavery – navel lint-wear. Fueled by rising unemployment and discontent with the current administration in the White House, white Southerners are gathering their rosebuds and collecting their belly button lint for a resilient recycled thread. The accumulation of the fluffy fibers from the navels of couch potatoes from Maryland to Texas are being collected and reworked into a cost-effective and ecologically friendly cloth. Since dead skin cells or collagen are also included in the mix of belly button lint, a curiously stronger thread – not unlike a 50-50 polyester thread – is being produced for pennies a bale. Some reports claim that highly hirsute southern males are able to produce over 6 mg of lint hourly. Gossypium aside, this booming industry may be providing the funds that bank-roll the Teabagger Movement nationwide. Contemplate that!
Put Some Polka Dots On It - blogspot
New technologies for extracting navel lint also increases capital for the booming industry.
Gossypium hirsutum – Wikipedia
