The Rise and Fall of Southeast Textile Mills

A multi-model AI analysis · February 2026

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Part One: The Arc of an Industry

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Part Two: The Companies and the Workers

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The Textile Crescent

From the 1880s through the late 20th century, the Piedmont region of the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Virginia was the center of American textile manufacturing. Cities like Gastonia, Greensboro, Spartanburg, Greenville, and Danville built their economies around the mill.

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The Major Players

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Company	Location	Fate
West Point-Pepperell	West Point, GA	LBO ’89, bankruptcy ’92 — now WestPoint Home (Icahn)
Cannon Mills	Kannapolis, NC	Pillowtex bankruptcy, 2003 — 7,650 laid off
Burlington Industries	Greensboro, NC	Acquired by WL Ross, 2003
Dan River Mills	Danville, VA	Bankruptcy, 2004
Cone Mills (White Oak)	Greensboro, NC	Rolled into ITG ’04; plant closed Dec 31, 2017
Springs Industries	Fort Mill, SC	Merged Coteminas ’05 → Springs Global
Milliken & Co.	Spartanburg, SC	Still operating (diversified, private)
Parkdale Mills	Gaffney, SC	Largest yarn spinner in Western Hemisphere

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The Stages of Decline

Stage 1: Sewing Leaves (1990s)

Labor-intensive cut-and-sew operations migrated to Mexico and Central America under NAFTA and Caribbean Basin Initiative trade preferences. The mills — spinning and weaving — held on longer.

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Stage 2: The 2005 Quota Shock

The WTO’s Agreement on Textiles and Clothing quotas expired January 1, 2005, removing limits on imports from China and Asia. U.S. clothing imports rose ~10.8% in the first half of 2005 alone.

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Stage 3: Compounding Forces

Retail consolidation (the Walmart effect), corporate debt from leveraged buyouts, and automation all contributed. The Pillowtex bankruptcy in 2003 — 7,650 workers laid off in a single day — was the largest mass layoff in North Carolina history at the time.

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The Companies

West Point-Pepperell

Founded 1880 on the Chattahoochee River. Merged with Pepperell Manufacturing in 1965. Acquired J.P. Stevens in 1988. Then William Farley’s $1.73B junk-bond LBO in 1989–90 loaded the company with unsustainable debt. Bankruptcy in 1992, emerged as WestPoint Stevens. Second bankruptcy in the 2000s. Today: WestPoint Home under Icahn Enterprises. The Chattahoochee Valley towns — West Point, Lanett, Valley — never recovered.

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Cone Mills

Founded 1891 in Greensboro. Synonymous with American denim. The White Oak plant (1905) was the country’s most iconic denim facility. Cone filed Chapter 11 in 2003 — not acquired by Burlington in 1996 as one model initially claimed (caught and corrected by cross-pollination). Wilbur Ross bought both Burlington and Cone separately out of bankruptcy, merging them into International Textile Group in 2004.

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Springs Industries

Founded April 1887 as Fort Mill Manufacturing Co. First yard of gingham woven early 1888. By May: 200 looms, 8,000 yards/day. Merged with Brazilian Coteminas in October 2005, forming Springs Global — effectively offshoring the identity of a company in Fort Mill for over a century.

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Milliken & Company

Spartanburg. Private, secretive, still operating. Roger Milliken led from 1947 until his death in 2010. Peak employment: ~25,000. Today: ~7,000–8,000 with ~$3.8B revenue. Survived by pivoting from volume to innovation.

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Parkdale Mills

Gaffney, South Carolina. The survivor. Largest yarn spinner in the Western Hemisphere: ~25 plants, 60% of domestic U.S. cotton, 900M lbs/year. Strategy: automate relentlessly, compete on capital efficiency, not labor cost.

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The Labor Fights

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1929 — Gastonia (Loray Mill Strike)

Organizer Fred Beal arrived January 1929. Workers walked out March 30 over the stretch-out — more looms per worker, same or lower pay. Demands: $20/week minimum, union recognition. On September 9, Ella May Wiggins, 29, ballad singer and mother, was shot and killed traveling to a union meeting. Five men charged. All acquitted.

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1934 — General Textile Strike

The largest single strike in American history at the time: 400,000–500,000 workers across the Eastern seaboard. Governor Talmadge of Georgia declared martial law, interned strikers in what a federal mediator called concentration camps. At the Chiquola Mill in Honea Path, SC, mill guards opened fire on picketers — seven killed. The strike ended in failure. Workers returned without concessions. Labor organizing in the South was poisoned for a generation.

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1974–1980 — J.P. Stevens Campaign

August 28, 1974: workers at seven Stevens plants in Roanoke Rapids, NC voted to unionize, 1,685 to 1,448. Stevens refused to sign a contract. Six years of attrition followed. The ACTWU ran a pioneering corporate campaign — pressuring board members at Manufacturers Hanover and Avon. Consumer boycott: “Don’t Sleep with Stevens.” The 1979 film Norma Rae was based on organizer Crystal Lee Sutton. Contract signed October 1980 covering ~3,500 workers. Widely called a pyrrhic victory — the industry was already dying.

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What Remains

Adaptive Reuse

Revolution Mill, Greensboro: 800,000 sq ft campus, textile ops ceased ~1982. Now 155+ businesses, ~183 apartments. Phase 2 opened 2024 ($38M in tax credits).

Judson Mill, Greenville: Built 1912, closed Oct 2015. Now 204 apartments. Displacement concerns documented by Furman University researchers.

Adaptive reuse converts production facilities into real-estate ecosystems. Different jobs, different economics. “The engine is no longer cotton — it’s the capital stack.”

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Research Gaps

This analysis covers approximately 50% of the intended scope. Remaining gaps: BLS macro-employment data (requires programmatic access), detailed profiles of Cannon Mills / Burlington / Dan River / Fieldcrest, the mill village social system (company housing, stores, scrip, child labor), and the intersection of race and civil rights with textile employment.

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