THE PILL and advertising in the 1960s

Ask yourself, "Would this ad have run before birth control was easily available?"

Click on image to see it larger.

(SOURCE: Sunset, November 1967)

Okay, now ask yourself this, "Will an ad like this run in the coming years if certain politicians make women's reproductive choices a thing of the past?"

Just something to ponder.

The company behind Morgan-Jones, so to speak, was Spring Mills, Inc.

The company started in April 1887, when a group of 14 men and two women organized Fort Mill Manufacturing Company to produce cotton cloth. At that time, the Northeast and Midwest were booming, and cotton manufacturing was seen as a way to industrialize and revive the depressed South. Samuel Elliott White, a local planter and Civil War veteran, was elected the company's first president. Among the investors was Leroy Springs, a merchant who would become White's son-in-law and a key force in the company's development. The company produced its first yard of cotton cloth in February 1888. Its first annual report, in May 1888, stated that the plant had 200 looms and was producing 8,000 yards of cloth daily.

In 1892 many of the same investors started a second plant in Fort Mill. In 1895 Leroy Springs and others established another company, Lancaster Cotton Mills, of Lancaster, South Carolina. Toward the end of the century, with the Lancaster mills flourishing, Springs acquired control of the Fort Mill plants, which were experiencing difficulties, and other troubled cotton mills in Chester, South Carolina. The Lancaster operation expanded in 1901 and again in 1913 and 1914, when it was said to be the largest cotton mill in the world under one roof. In 1914 Leroy Springs led the establishment of Kershaw Cotton Mills in Kershaw, South Carolina.

Leroy's son, Elliott White Springs, joined the company in 1919 after distinguished service as an aviator in World War I. According to the younger Springs's biographer, Burke Davis, Leroy Springs ordered Elliott to learn the business without pay. It took Elliott Springs a while to settle into the business; several times he quit and came back. In these early years, Elliott Springs was more interested in both writing--his best-known work is War Birds, Diary of an Unknown Aviator--and social life than in textile manufacturing.

Leroy Springs seemed to lose interest in the business himself during the 1920s. He ran up debt and let the equipment run down; he also speculated in the stock market. In 1928 a disgruntled cotton buyer shot Leroy Springs in the head on a street in Charlotte, North Carolina. Springs recovered physically, but became emotionally withdrawn. Shortly before Leroy Springs's death in 1931, Elliott Springs took over management of the company.

At this time, the family's textile operations consisted of six plants with 5,000 employees. Elliott Springs--until then considered a playboy and a dilettante--led a dramatic revitalization of the business, which was suffering from the Great Depression as well as from Leroy Springs's neglect. He negotiated with creditors to save the mills from foreclosure, went without salary for a period, and bought used but useful machinery at bargain prices to upgrade operations. In the fall of 1933, he bought a former J.P. Stevens plant in Chester, South Carolina. Also in 1933, Springs consolidated the various mill properties into a single company, Springs Cotton Mills.

In 1934 the United Textile Workers of America attempted to organize workers at the Springs mills. Elliott Springs allowed the union to address the workers at a company-owned baseball field in Chester. After the organizers had spoken, Springs mounted the platform and told the workers that if they went on strike, he would close the plants and take his family to Europe. The workers later voted unanimously against union representation.

During the 1930s the Springs facilities had been expanded and modernized, despite the Depression. With the arrival of World War II, Elliott Springs turned over the company's entire production capacity to the military. Early in 1942 the company began manufacturing fabrics for a variety of military uses, including uniforms, tents, gas masks, and gun covers. All the Springs plants won awards from the U.S. Army and Navy for superior production.

The mills ran overtime, sometimes seven days a week, to keep up with wartime production. Elliott Springs feared this schedule would wear out the mills' machinery, so he instructed one of his plant managers to buy and store every replacement part available--an effort that paid off when the mills resumed normal operations in 1945. At the close of the war, Springs began construction of a bleaching plant and moved the company into the production of finished fabrics and consumer products, such as sheets and pillowcases. Also in 1945, the company established Springs Mills, Inc. in New York as the sales organization for its products. (SOURCE: International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 19. St. James Press, 1998.)

To read more about the history of this company visit this website. Since the information at the site dates back to 1998 there's no indication about how much of this companies work is now being done in third world countries, but one can guess. Another sad bit of information about where we are in this country today.

Now, what gives with the weird owl, almost life size? Do owls normally fit into your bedside decor?