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Dissertation Information for James Michael Shirley

NAME:
- James Michael Shirley

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- Emory University (USA) (1986)

ADVISORS:
- Jonathan Prude

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- James L Roark
- Dan T. Carter

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: FROM CONGREGATION TOWN TO INDUSTRIAL CITY: INDUSTRIALIZATION, CLASS, AND CULTURE IN NINETEENTH CENTURY WINSTON AND SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA (LABOR, SOUTH)

Abstract: This study describes the evolution of two southern towns in the North Carolina piedmont as they experienced vast economic changes during the nineteenth century. Before the Civil War Salem, founded in 1766, and Winston, established in 1849, were small commercial centers with artisans and merchants engaged in an extensive trade with farmers in the neighboring countryside. But beginning in the 1830s and culminating in the 1890s the two towns made the transition from a local economy based on exchange with nearby rural communities to an economy that extended beyond county and state boundaries, thus bringing deeper involvement in a regional and national market economy. By the 1890s Winston and Salem had evolved into a major industrial center of the southern piedmont employing large numbers of semi-skilled workers in factories and mills manufacturing textiles and tobacco products.

This study considers how an evolving industrial economy in Winston and Salem created two groups intimately intertwined, but who faced differing long-term prospects. The economic changes that occurred during the nineteenth century held different meanings for those who lived in Winston and Salem. For the workers larger, mechanized workshops meant declining skill levels and, consequently, declining opportunities for upward mobility to independent shopowner. By the 1880s many workers realized a growing dependence on their employers and a loss of dignity as their status declined from journeyman to factory operative. On the other side, men with new ideas and capital saw vast opportunities. During the post-Civil War era men who moved successfully from craftsman to merchant and manufacturer came to dominate the economic, political, and cultural lives of the towns. This study focuses on attempts of both the workers and the employers to determine their roles in the new economy, and the conflicts these efforts produced between the two groups in Winston and Salem.

MPACT Scores for James Michael Shirley

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-06-02 11:14:41

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Students under James Michael Shirley

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None