The Transition in the Countryside commodity—what economists call supply—the lower the price will...

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The Transition inthe Countryside

As you read, look for:• problems faced by the state’s farmers• organizations founded to help the state’s farmers• the Fusionist movement• the 1898 election and its results• the Spanish-American War• vocabulary terms furnishing merchant, interest,

supply, Farmers’ Alliance, farmer cooperative store,money supply, collateral, Populist Party, Fusionists,

white supremacy

This section will help you meet thefollowing objectives:8.5.01 Analyze the importance ofthe agriculture, textile, tobacco, andfurniture industries to the economicdevelopment of the state.8.5.05 Assess the influence of thepolitical, legal, and social movementson North Carolina.

While North Carolina’s urbanpopulation grew after Recon-struction, the vast majority of thestate’s residents continued to live inthe country. In fact, the farmingcommunities were growing as fastas the towns. This created a crisis.By 1890, there were so many farmfamilies that there was not enough“good land,” land that was fertileenough to raise good crops. As aresult, many farm families lostmoney for years. Some farmers ac-tually lost control of their financesand even their land and homes.

More Farms, Same Amount of LandHow North Carolina farming got so crowded can be understood by

looking at the growth of Stanly County, located in the Uwharries. Therewere just over 800 farms there in 1850, when North Carolina was finallybecoming prosperous. Because the state was no longer “Rip Van Winkle,”very few of these families left the county and moved west. After the CivilWar, when the children of these families grew up, they too stayed in the

The Transition inthe Countryside

Above: As farming became moredifficult, many farmers had toborrow money from furnishingmerchants to keep going. This isMurray and Mingus General Mer-chandise in Catawba, establishedin the 1890s.

342 Chapter 10: Towns, Trains, and Transitions

area and tried to farm. By 1890, Stanly had more than 2,000 farms, andthose farmers were plowing twice as much land as they had before. Muchof this newly farmed soil was not very productive. Farmers just startingout had a harder time to make things grow than had their fathers andgrandfathers. To compensate, farmers went to town and borrowed moneyfrom furnishing merchants—storekeepers who let them buy fertilizer,seed, tools, and other supplies to make a crop.

The furnishing merchants in towns and at new country crossroadsstores all over the state were happy to provide credit. The farmers whoborrowed from the furnishing merchants had to pay interest (a chargefor borrowing money), which made the merchants even more money.Plus, many merchants loaned money and materials to farmers only ifthe farmer sold his crop to that particular merchant. That put the farmerat a disadvantage, since he did not have the ability anymore to shoparound for the best price.

Falling Crop PricesBorrowing in town created a second problem for farmers. Since they

had to borrow, they increased the size of their crops to help pay back theloans. This was particularly the case in the 1890s. Cotton production wentfrom 336,000 to 460,000 pounds. More significantly, because of the ap-peal of cigarettes, tobacco production grew from 36,000 pounds to 128,000pounds. One of the rules of the marketplace is that the more there is of

James W. Cannon ofConcord went farm tofarm in Stanly County,

soliciting business.Cannon eventually started

Cannon ManufacturingCompany, which later

became Fieldcrest Cannon.

Above: In the late 1800s, cottonproduction soared. These cottonbales are waiting for shipment atthe Kinston railroad station.

Section 4: The Transition in the Countryside 343

a commodity—what economists call supply—the lower the price willbe for that commodity. By the 1880s, North Carolina farmers were hurtin the pocketbook by the fact that so many of them were doing the samething. The more they grew each year to pay off their loans to merchantsin town, the less they got back for all their hard work.

Thousands of farmers throughout the state—both black and white—went broke during the 1890s. They often could not pay off the loans tothe merchants when their harvest was sold. The merchants then “car-ried over” their debt to the next spring. This also hurt the farmers, be-cause their debt kept getting bigger. The farmers then logically boughtmore seed, tools, and fertilizer to plant even bigger crops. When thou-sands continued to do the same thing, the price they received for cottonand tobacco continued to be too low to pay off their debts.

Growing Numbers ofSharecroppers

While merchants in town con-tinued to make profits that they putinto factories, many white farmersfell into the same sharecropping ar-rangements that African Ameri-cans had been forced into duringReconstruction. Almost 93,000farmers were sharecroppers in1900, compared to 53,000 in 1880.Sharecropping, remember, was anarrangement between the land-owner and the farmer to split theprofits from the harvest of a par-ticular crop. Because the land-owner wanted the most for hisinvestment, he typically required

the farmer to plant one crop only. That crop was usually cotton or to-bacco, which was sure to sell and be used in the state’s factories. Thishurt sharecroppers, for they usually had to borrow even more money tobuy food and clothing for their families while they grew the crop. Thus,the debt increased again. In many areas where cotton and tobacco farm-ing was booming, the majority of farmers were sharecroppers.

Thousands of families became so discouraged they moved to town totake industrial jobs. John Frye, for example, was one of those young menfrom Stanly County who tried to make a living off the land. Frye hadbeen wounded at Gettysburg and was partially disabled. He inheritedabout eighty acres—barely enough for himself, let alone his four grow-ing sons. Frye borrowed year after year for fifteen years, seldom makingany money. In 1885, he lost his land and continued on as a sharecrop-per. In 1890, Frye finally packed up his family and moved to the Odellcotton mill in Concord. All four of his sons became weavers.

In 1890, the price ofcotton dropped to

an all-time lowof 5 cents a pound.

Above: This building is a typicalsharecropper home in the late1800s. This particular house is atPoplar Grove north of Wilmington,a plantation where peanuts ratherthan cotton or tobacco were grown.


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HISTORY BY THE H IGHWAYHISTORY BY THE H IGHWAY

The Waldensians

A Protestant religious groupknown as Waldensians movedfrom the Italian Alps to NorthCarolina in 1893. They werethe only significant group ofimmigrants to come into thestate during this period. In theearly 1900s, the Waldensiansestablished the town of Valdesein the foothills. When theyfound that farming was notthriving in the state, they builttheir own factories and knitsocks and made bread. TheWaldensians continued to havetheir own church and customsthrough the twentieth century.

The Waldensians

Below: Main Streetin Valdese. Right:The WaldensianPresbyterian Church.


North Carolina’s leaders were aware by the 1880s that most farmershad problems. One of the reasons North Carolina College of Agriculturaland Mechanical Arts was opened in 1889 was to help farmers learn newmethods to grow crops more efficiently. Most farmers, of course, couldnot afford to send themselves to college, so they organized into groupsof like-minded neighbors to help one another. By the 1890s, the state’sfarmers had become angry enough to turn their organization into politi-cal protest groups.

Farmers’ OrganizationsIn the 1880s, one North Carolinian became the champion of farmers

throughout the state. Leonidas L. Polk, an Anson County native, becamethe first commissioner of agriculture for the state. After serving in thatpost, Polk became editor of The Progressive Farmer. This Raleigh news-paper tried to give farmers good advice about planting and help themsolve their problems. When the Farmers’ Alliance, which had beenstarted in Texas by troubled farmers, reached North Carolina in 1887,Polk headed it. By 1890, Polk had moved to Washington, D.C., to be-come the national head of the organization, in effect, the nation’s chieffarm leader. Polk died soon after. Had he lived, he might have been astrong candidate for president of the United States in 1892, since so manyfarmers across the nation were experiencing the same problems that NorthCarolina faced.

The Alliance first tried to help farmers by opening farmer coopera-tive stores. These stores bought fertilizer and other supplies in bulk, whichlowered the cost. Too many farmers, however, were already so far in debtthat they could not take advantage of the offers. Most of the co-op storesdid not survive.

Polk and other Alliance leaders tried to find a solution to the farm prob-lem. They believed there was not enough money to go around in the na-tion to give farmers their fair share. The nation was rapidly building citiesand factories in the North, and the money supply (the amount of cur-rency and coin available for each person) was actually going down eachyear. If there was more money to go around, farmers would be able toborrow it at a cheaper rate. Plus, if farmers had more money in their pock-ets, they could grow less, whichwould make farm prices go up.

The Alliance leadership askedCongress, and in particular Sena-tor Zeb Vance, to pass laws thatwould allow the government toprint new money and loan it tofarmers. The farmers would usetheir crops as collateral (some-thing pledged to guarantee the re-payment of a loan). Vance did notlike the idea, since crops can eas-

Top: Leonidas L. Polk helped launchthe Populist Party in North Caro-lina. Above: The Farmers’ Alliancetried to ease farmers’ economicproblems by creating cooperativestores. Shown here is an advertise-ment for a tobacco product madeby the Farmers’ Alliance.

In 1900, the Farmers’Alliance had more than

2,000 chapters and90,000 members in

North Carolina.


ily be lost to weather or mismanagement. After Polk’sdeath, angry Alliance leaders decided that farmers neededto elect their own congressmen to pass the new laws.Many Alliance members joined a new political group, thePopulist Party or People’s Party, to accomplish this.

The Fusion MovementThe Populists in North Carolina ran candidates for the

state legislature (which still chose U.S. senators) and forCongress throughout the 1890s. Most Populists had oncevoted for Democrats, the party that had cancelled manyof the reforms of Governor Holden. When the Populistsdid not win in 1892, the Republicans in North Carolinaoffered to help them win the 1894 election, in return forrestoring some of the Holden reforms. And so, the Re-publicans and the Populists nominated one set of candi-dates, with each party providing half of the candidates.Together, they swept the state.

The Fusionists, as they were called, controlled NorthCarolina from 1895 through 1898 and reintroduced manyof the old Holden reforms. The legislature made county government elec-tive again, allowing the people of a county to choose their own justicesof the peace. Fusionists also passed an election law calling for an elec-tion judge from each party to be present when votes were counted. Allthree political parties could now be sure that they were getting a fair count.The Fusionists wanted to improve schools in rural areas, but the farmerswere not willing to pay more taxes.

Fusionist reforms clearly restored the fortunes of Republicans in thestate. White voters in the Mountains had an easier time at the pollingplace, as did black voters from the Coastal Plain. As a result, in the dozencounties where blacks were the majority, they elected African Americanofficials. All thirty-two justices of the peace elected in Edgecombe Countywere black. Most of the city officials in Wilmington were black.

The reformers also attempted to help the poor of both races. Theypassed a law making it easier for someone to pay back their debts with-out losing their land. The legislature even discussed taking tax moneyaway from the public universities and sharing it with the private colleges,to give people more choices in education.

The 1898 ElectionAll the Fusionist ideas alarmed the Democrats. If Republicans gained

a new foothold, they feared the state would be plunged back into “Ne-gro Rule,” and Democrats would lose their power. In particular, the lead-ers in the east saw they would no longer be able to control their ownlegislators and congressmen. Eastern Democrats, led by Furnifold M.Simmons of New Bern and Charles B. Aycock of Goldsboro, decided theywould repeat the same type of racial slurs that they had used during

Above: In 1896, George HenryWhite was elected as the Fusionistcandidate from North Carolina’sSecond Congressional District.At the time, he was the only AfricanAmerican representative in Con-gress. He was reelected in 1898.


Above: Furnifold M. Simmons,a former congressman, was themastermind of the Democrats’1898 campaign. Right: Duringthe Wilmington race riot of1898, a white mob burned theoffices of a black newspaper andattacked black neighborhoods.

Reconstruction to recapture unhappy white voters. With their white su-premacy campaign, the Democrats successfully took back control of NorthCarolina. White supremacy is the belief that the white race is superiorto the black race, or any other race.

The white supremacists organized clubs in every county in the stateand, through sympathetic newspapers like The Charlotte Observer andThe News and Observer in Raleigh, spread any stories they could about

blacks making mistakes or committing crimes. They were helpedwhen a white girl, Emma Hartsell of Cabarrus County, was mur-dered. A neighborhood posse of whites and blacks immediatelylynched two black men found with blood on their shirts. Emma’sfather had been a Populist; when he publicly regretted ever vot-ing for Fusionists, the tide turned. As racial tensions got worsethroughout the state, the Democrats won a narrow victory andtook back the legislature from the Fusionists.

Just after election day, violence swept through Wilmington,as white mobs took vengeance on African Americans who hadlong run the city. Republican officials were given hours to take atrain out of town, black businesses were burned, and perhaps asmany as sixty African American residents of Wilmington weremurdered. Some of the bodies were thrown in the Cape Fear River.This episode became known as the Wilmington race riot.


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CAROLINA CELEBRIT IESCAROLINA CELEBRIT IES

Charlie Soong

North Carolina has long had aclose connection to the vast Asiannation of China. For example,Matthew T. Yates of Raleigh was thefirst Christian missionary to go intothat country, in 1847. He servedfor forty years, and hundreds ofother state residents went there todo similar service.

The most famous connectionwas a Chinese native who came toNorth Carolina as a refugee. Heused the lessons he learned and theconnections he made in NorthCarolina to create the most pow-erful family in China in the first halfof the twentieth century.

Soong Jiashu (pronounced “soonyal-shue”) was one of the impover-ished Chinese who came to theUnited States at the time of theAmerican Civil War. Soong workedfor an uncle in a shop in Boston sell-ing silk and tea. When the uncle ob-jected to Soong going to an American school, Soong stowedaway on a ship. The ship captain took pity on him and broughthim home to Wilmington. The people of Wilmington be-friended him, and he joined the Fifth Avenue MethodistChurch. It was at this time that he became “Charlie.” Thelocal newspaper announced in 1880 that he was “the firstCelestial [the nickname for Chinese there] that has eversubmitted to the ordinance of Christian baptism in NorthCarolina.” Soong met Julian S. Carr, the owner of BullDurham Tobacco. Carr all but adopted Soong and paid forhim to take courses at Trinity College. Carr then paid for his

Charlie Soong

education at Vanderbilt Universityin Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1886, Soong returned toChina as a Methodist missionary.When he encountered financialhardship, he combined preachingwith business. Soong proved to bean ambitious entrepreneur. Afterworking as a translator forwesterners at the largest flour millin China, he saw a need for Bibleswritten in Chinese. He printed themand sold them to other missionar-ies. Soong then began to print lit-erature for “the Chinese nation-alists,” reformers who wanted toreorganize the old empire alongWestern ways. Soong himself be-came an ardent Nationalist. Soongalso began to import the cigarettesmade in Durham. This made him amultimillionaire.

Soong died during World WarI, but his children, all of whom

were raised to be Methodists, continued to be some of themost important citizens of Nationalist China. His first daugh-ter was married to the richest man in China, H. H. Kung,head of the national bank. His second daughter was mar-ried to the president of the republic, Sun Yat-sen. His thirddaughter was married to the most important military fig-ure of the republic, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Chianglater was the head of the Nationalist government that wentinto exile on the island of Taiwan after World War II. His sonsall created great fortunes in the Chinese republic and laterin San Francisco and New York.

Above: Charlie Soong first attendedTrinity College and then graduated fromVanderbilt, where this photo was taken.


THE ART OF POLITICSTHE ART OF POLITICS

“Yellow journalism” is a term coined in the 1890s to refer to newspapers that relied on sensationalreporting of crime and other stories to build up circulation. Sensationalist news reports following theexplosion of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor is often given as one of the reasons for the SpanishAmerican War. In this cartoon, the two leading practitioners of yellow journalism, Joseph Pulitzer(left) and William Randolph Hearst (right) are shown pushing against a stack of children’s blocks

spelling “war,” symbolically fighting over who deserved credit for starting the war.

The Spanish-American WarNorth Carolinians had more on their mind than white supremacy in

1898. During the summer, the United States went to war with Spain overconditions in Cuba. During what came to be called the Spanish-Ameri-can War, America won quick victories in Cuba and the Philippine Islandsin the Pacific. The United States eventually annexed the Philippines andhelped Cuba become an independent nation.

North Carolina raised three regiments for the war. Given the tensionsof the times, the regiments were totally segregated. Two were made up

Opposite page, above: On May 1,1898, Commodore George Deweyled a force of eight gunboats intoManila Bay in the PhilippineIslands, soundly defeating theSpanish navy. Opposite page,below: This statue of Ensign WorthBagley stands on the grounds ofthe State Capitol in Raleigh.


It’s Your Turn

1. How did a furnishing merchant earn a profit?2. What North Carolinian became the national leader of the Farmers’

Alliance?3. What two political parties formed the fusion movement?4. Why were newspapers such an effective weapon in promoting the

white supremacy campaign?

of whites; the third was black volunteers. A white company from Hickorywas even told it could not keep its black barber in camp, even though hewas an official member of the unit. Despite the racial prejudices of theday, an African American, Charles Taylor of Charlotte, commanded theblack regiment. Colonel Taylor became the highest-ranking black officerin the army during the war.

None of the North Carolina regiments came under fire in the war, butnaval officer Worth Bagley, a Raleigh native, was one of the first Ameri-cans to be killed. State citizens soon erected a statue to honor his memoryin the Capitol square. Several other state residents were later killed serv-ing with the Philippine occupation forces in an unofficial war that lastedinto the new century.


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