Southern textiles have been of a coarse nature, and this is still true in the main, but a steady progress in quality and variety of output has characterized the years since 1915. The South manu factures cotton goods falling in all of the 28 more general classi fications of the 1925 census, and it is notable that in all but three instances—bunting and bandage cloths, table damask and tyre fabrics other than duck—the South either led New England in the per cent of increase, or suffered a less decrease than New England. Of 31 more particular classes of goods, the South con tributes to 21 and is represented by individual plants in others. The manufacture of knit goods, chiefly from unmercerized cot ton yams, but also from silk and rayon, has had a striking growth in the South, adding an important branch of the textile industry. The total value of products for 1925 was $123,352,791, a gain of $14,613,442 over 1923. In 1923 Tennessee was the leading South ern State in knit goods, and in 1925 this industry still ranked first in the State in number of wage-earners (14,986) and value of product ($44,006,467), but by the latter year North Carolina had passed it in value of product—iii plants turning out goods, chiefly hosiery, worth $44,300,819. Half of the production of Tennes see is hosiery, and one-fourth knit underwear. While there are 241 knit goods plants in eight Southern States, the chief centres are Durham and Winston-Salem, N.C., and Knoxville and Chat tanooga, Tenn. Georgia ranks third in the industry in the South, with products worth $17,020,011. Negro operatives are used in part in this industry, particularly in North Carolina, on coarser grades of output. Wages in the knit goods industry, as in cotton manufacturing proper, are conspicuously lower in the South. Southern knitting mills are turning to the national market with their finer and more specialized products. While the industry in the South has grown remarkably, it does not as yet threaten the older centres such as New York and Pennsylvania.
Except for scattered plants, the South until recently had no means of dyeing, bleaching and finishing its textiles within the section, but was wholly tributary to New England in this im portant department. Finishing plants were being established rapidly in the South, there being 23 in 1923 and well over 4o in 1928, North Carolina having the largest number. The new rayon industry is adding another branch to Southern textiles. In the two years ending in 1928 more than $25,000,000 has been in vested in rayon manufacture in the South, mainly in central and eastern Tennessee, and Virginia and West Virginia.
ern armies acquired a liking for the Southern tobacco.
Early in the '7os, though checked by the panic of 1873, pro duction mounted. The heavy taxes on manufactured tobacco, which affected Southern manufacturers immediately the war was over, favoured the factory owner who had a little more capital than his competitors and was a little more cunning in evasion. Thus concentration in the industry was further encouraged. Then came the cigarette machines. Cigarettes were not much smoked in the United States until about 1880, and then were made by hand. The cigarette machines led on to formation by a young Southerner, James B. Duke, of the American Tobacco Company, the "Tobacco Trust," in 1890. Duke, after a promising success with his father and brother at Durham, during which time he invented the sliding cardboard cigarette package, had established a branch cigarette factory in New York city. For six years he set the pace in the "tobacco war" between rival large manu facturers, in which millions were poured out for advertising com peting brands. Finally, five firms were forced into a combination. The combination, of which Duke was president, paid high divi dends, and branched out into the manufacture of plug tobacco and all-tobacco cigarettes. The older plug tobacco factories in the South had employed a large proportion of negro men, with negro women working as stemmers. The cigarette factories, where the work was light, though confining, tedious and unhealthy, brought a shift to white operatives. The tobacco factories exploited the poor whites of the South, especially women and children. In 1905 in Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky, the average annual wage of men was $272, of women $183 and of children $119. In the North wages ranged at least 25% higher. Though the propor tion of children in the industry the country over fell from 21 to 9% between 1880 and 1905, North Carolina, which remained the worst offender, had almost 2o% children in the latter year.
The tobacco industry in the South is given more largely to ma chine production than that of the country generally. The manu facture of cigars in Florida, mostly by hand, is the outstanding exception, this State in 1926 paying a larger internal revenue tax on cigars ($4,089,643) than any States except Pennsylvania and New York. This industry is far more localized than textiles, the chief Southern States being North Carolina, Virginia and Ken tucky, in order. Winston-Salem is the largest tobacco manufac turing centre, and Reidsville, Durham and Statesville, N.C., are the other chief points in that State. The extent to which the North Carolina industry is mechanized, is indicated in the fact that while it employs a little over one-third more workers than Florida, the value of its products is eight times as great. North Carolina in 1925 produced almost 35 thousand million more cigarettes than New York, its closest rival in this branch. While machine tobacco workers in the South are still poorly paid, it is probable that they have more to spend, on the whole, than textile operatives.