Cottages for the Proletariat: Life and Labor on Blue Row in the Graniteville Textile Mill Village, 1845-1870

Summary

In 1845 industrialist William Gregg incorporated the Graniteville Manufacturing Company. Located in Edgefield District’s Horse Creek Valley, Gregg’s model community centered on a textile mill built of local blue granite. The mill grounds contained extensive lawn gardens, trimmed gravel sidewalks, and spouting water fountains. The community included two churches, academy, hotel, stores, boarding-houses, and cottages. All buildings were constructed from local pine in the Gothic Revival style. Twenty-three operatives’ cottages still stand along a street known as Blue Row as the structures originally were painted with a blue wash to match the color of the mill. As few documents remain detailing the early decades of Blue Row inhabitants, recent excavations have been undertaken in the yards of workers’ cottages. Our objective is to gain an understanding of the early home/yard landscape. The recovered artifacts will illustrate the welfare of the house’s inhabitants during the third quarter of the 19th century.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Welcome to the Machine: Industrial Sites and Communities   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 268