Dallas Mills Dallas Village Dallas People

Dallas Mills, Dallas Village, & Dallas People is the true story of Dallas Mills from when it was only a dream back in the 1880s through its fiery end in the 1990s. It is the story of Dallas Village, and of "The Queen City of the South," Huntsville, Alabama. And it is a tribute to the more than 12,000 Dallas People listed in this book. This is Book 1 in a series of five books about the textile mills of Huntsville, Alabama. We have written it to answer the questions about the origin of the company, its development, and explosive growth and influence in Huntsville and Madison County, along with its unexpected labor and union problems and abrupt closure. To give long due credit to those who built and worked in the mill; those who made it what it was and helped transform "The Queen City of the South," Huntsville, into the city it is today, we have included the names of all the Dallas People we could discover. What we have written has been verified through multiple sources; however, our accuracy is directly dependent on the truthfulness of the sources that provided information over the past 130 years.

Under Cedar Shades spans five generations of American women and their families as they struggle to endure displacement, color discrimination, famine, war and exploitation in 19th century America. The story begins with the forced removal of the Cherokees along the Trail of Tears in 1838 and continues as many of them intermingle with Welch, African, Portuguese, and Scots-Irish immigrants. Family secrets abound, as a modern-day descendant presses her grandmother for answers to who she is. But her grandmother harbors a terrible secret she can neither forget nor reveal. Under Cedar Shades is about endurance in the face of adversity, discrimination and injustice. It draws on the Cherokee belief in the sacred nature of the cedar, which never loses its branches, even in winter. “A multigenerational saga, comparable in characterization and narrative skill (though not in size) to the work of James Michener. . . .A fascinating and entertaining piece of historical fiction.” (Amazon.com six-star reader review) “Underwood does a fine job humanizing the contradictions underpinning the inception of the United States – treaties and hypocrisy, land stolen at bayonet point, slavery for some and autonomy for others. . . . Her strengths lie in evoking broad washes of ancestral time punctuated by detailed scenes of domesticity . . . . Lively characters keep pages turning at a steady tick.” (Kirkus Discovery Reviews)

In the early 1900s, Huntsville, Alabama, had more spindles than any other city in the South. Cotton fields and mills made the city a major competitor in the textile industry. Entire mill villages sprang up around the factories to house workers and their families. Many of these village buildings are now iconic community landmarks, such as the revitalized Lowe Mill arts facility and the Merrimack Mill Village Historic District. The "lintheads," a demeaning moniker villagers wore as a badge of honor, were hard workers. Their lives were fraught with hardships, from slavery and child labor to factory fires and shutdowns. They endured job-related injuries and illnesses, strikes and the Great Depression. Author Terri L. French details the lives, history and legacy of the workers.

After examining origins, Flynt (Southern history, Auburn U.) studies farmers, textile workers, coal miners, and timber workers in depth and discusses family structure, folk culture, the politics of poor whites, and their attempts to resolve problems through labor unions and political movements. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR