Billings disputes the assumption that an incipient merchant class built the state's cotton mills; he reveals that a majority of the early mills was owned by prominent planters and agrarians. He shows the persistent hegemony and support for industrialization among the landed upper class and describes several generations of five powerful North Carolina families who spread plantation paternalism to the mill-village system. Billings compares this with similar cases in Germany and Japan.
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- ISBN13 9780807896198
- Publish Date 15 January 2011 (first published 30 January 1979)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 5 June 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint The University of North Carolina Press
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 297
- Language English