Back to Tennessee

I've never been to Tennessee. I should probably go though, because I now know two great songs about going back to Tennessee. Whoa, man. Boy do I love having a blog...yeah, this has something to do with industrial history.


Of course, the Grateful Dead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7oNS-bDZqc

And, from her really, really good and brand new album The Harrow and the Harvest, Gillian Welch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRA3sQoCluo

This made me wonder what's so great about Tennessee, and then I found this: http://www.bemishistory.org/ Click it! Bemis, Tennessee (Bemis also being, weirdly, the most annoying of my childhood parental nicknames): Where Industry and Friendliness Blend Into Progress. Early 20th century southern cotton mill ideology at its most succinct!

Anyway, after my snotty northern socialist self got over that old-timey corporate line, I got to thinking about the thousands of very local industrial history sites around the country. The website isn't the slickest, but its grassroots community focus, pride, and content is apparent -- an online exhibition, local events, ways to contribute memories, conduct family research, and get involved in preservation. And that's an immediate audience connection that bigger, shinier museums sometimes struggle to capture.

The Memory Keeper

Yankee Magazine? Yankee Magazine! The Memory Keeper -- worth a read.

Joe Manning's Lewis Hine Project is an ongoing attempt to track the lives and descendants of hundreds of young mill workers photographed by Lewis Hine throughout Massachusetts as part of an early 20th century National Child Labor Committee investigation. Hine photographed kids at work in mills, mines, sweatshops, and farms around the country. As a snapshot of the history of work and exploitation, the photos are powerful; but what happened to these kids? Finding out how their stories played out is an incredibly compelling way to more deeply understand the history, meaning, and experience of work in people's lives.

Seems like this collection is ripe for such efforts around the country...anyone heard of other individuals, museums, or organizations attempting to track the lives and descendants of Hine's subjects?

From the article:

"These children returned to their spinning machines and their looms and went back to work. They grew up and lived their lives. Many of them likely forgot their brief encounters with Hine. Almost none of them ever saw their photographs or heard how they were used.

"For me, this is an enormous album of unfinished stories," Manning says, gesturing to his binder. Hine had taken only snapshots: two-dimensional renderings of a single moment in time. Manning needs more than that: "I look at one of these kids, and my reaction is: Whatever happened to this kid? Is that it? Is this all I know? Is this all I'll ever find out?" That's Manning's goal: He wants to find out what happened next."

Featured folks from the article:



Dana Smith for Yankee Magazine, 2011. Jenn Ford, great-granddaughter of Mamie Laberge, with her great-grandmother's photograph.



Lewis Hine, 1911. Library of Congress. Mamie La Barge at her machine. Under legal age. Location: Winchendon, Massachusetts.

Lewis Hine took many more pictures of Mamie Laberge and her family during his visit to Winchendon than are featured in the article. Check them out at the Library of Congress.

More factory music

The Lowell Factory Girl, courtesy of modern-day Wobbly David Rovics. More music in museums.