How SC’s once-dominating textile industry has transformed to supply new employers

Inside a textile plant operated by Milliken and Company, one of the largest remaining textile operators in South Carolina. (Provided by Milliken)

South Carolina has largely shed its textile label, remaking itself into a state known for automotive and aerospace manufacturing.

But the Palmetto State still has upwards of 200 locations that the state’s Commerce Department categorizes as textile manufacturing facilities. About half of those are in the Upstate, though York, Charleston and Berkeley counties boast their fair share.

“We still do have a strong textile industry here,” said John Lummus, president of Upstate SC Alliance economic development organization. “It has not in any way gone away like a lot of people would think. It’s still a significant part of our industrial base.”

Through the late 19th century and much of the 20th, textile mills dotted the South Carolina landscape.

In 1883, the state was home to 27 mills, WYFF-TV in Greenville reported in a special on the industry’s history . By 1909, there were 169.

Early on, the owners built entire communities, known as “ mill villages ,” around the factories for a guaranteed labor supply. According to the South Carolina Encyclopedia , by 1920, an estimated one-sixth of South Carolina’s white population lived and worked in the villages, where companies controlled not only housing but shopping, schooling and recreation.

The industry would survive the ups and downs of two world wars, the Great Depression and labor strikes over harsh and dangerous working conditions (see information box at the end).

By the mid-1950s, South Carolina mills and weavers were producing more than half of the clothing worn in the United States. A decade later, Greenville declared itself the “textile center of the world.”

The industry peaked in the mid-1970s, with 437 mills operating in the state and employing about 143,000 workers.

Then, foreign competition began to chip away at the Southeast’s dominance.

With the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the mid 1990s, eliminating tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico, production began to move across the border where labor costs were less due to lower pay. In 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization, the issue was further exacerbated.

Textiles today

The industry today employs more than 18,000 people in South Carolina, according to data from the National Council of Textile Organizations, down from more than 24,000 people less than a decade ago.

“Clearly the industry is a mere shadow of its former self,” said Michael Walden, a retired economist at North Carolina State University.

Still, though not the giants they used to be, several long-standing companies remain, Walden said.

They’ve adapted, turning from making most of the clothing found on store shelves, to supplying the U.S. military and the state’s new leading manufacturing industry – automotive.

The largest of the remaining firms is Milliken & Co., with a dozen textile manufacturing sites, as well as warehouses and a large corporate headquarters in Spartanburg, said David Smith, president of Milliken’s textile business.

Milliken’s textile arm employs about 2,000 people in the state.

As an example of how Milliken is constantly changing, Smith said, more than a third of the products Milliken makes today did not exist five years ago. And nearly two-thirds of the products it is currently developing are focused on markets it does not currently serve.

Milliken makes bullet proof vests and uniforms for the military, which requires some clothing to be American made. It produces flame resistant clothing for firefighters and factory floor workers, sports wear and heavy-duty merchandise for Patagonia and Carhartt, and weaves fiber optic telecommunications cable, Smith said.

“Chances are you woke up this morning on a mattress containing a Milliken product. Chances are the roof over your head contains a Milliken product,” Smith continued.

“The warm or cool air blowing through your ductwork passes through a Millikan product. When you get to the car, you’ll find our products in the tires, under the hood, in the trunk and in the interior.”

A spin-off company started by Milliken, Sage Automotive, makes high-end car seat fabrics at a plant in Abbeville.

“The way you survive is to go into product areas that don’t have as much foreign competition,” Walden said. “That’s exactly the kind of maneuver a company that wants to continue to exist has to do.”

Advanced materials

Clemson University, too, is an example of how the industry has changed and the college has followed suit.

The Upstate school once had a department devoted to textiles. But in 2010, that independent program ended and was merged with those for engineers and scientists studying other materials , from ceramics and glass to plastics and metals.

Professor Phil Brown is the textile specialist within the new combined program. He said the change makes it easier for the different fields to work together.

“And that’s where the magic happens,” he said, meshing their expertise to create new products, such as biomedical devices, fiberglass, carbon fiber, and the chemical treatments that make textiles resistant to oil, water and other hazards.

Brown’s research includes working alongside NASA to develop a durable textile that could hold up long-term in space , allowing astronauts to survive and live on the moon or possibly Mars for multiple years while conducting research.

He also looks for ways to make textile production more environmentally friendly. That’s an area of particular importance as some of the chemicals used to make things water and stain resistant have now been deemed “forever chemicals” — toxic, hard to eliminate and linked to diseases such as cancer and developmental disorders in children.

Last year, Clemson broke ground on a new $130-million Advanced Materials Innovation Center that’s scheduled to open at the end of 2025.

“(The textile industry) is still huge. It’s just different,” Brown said.

The production floors of these companies also differ greatly. Once a labor-intensive industry, more of the work is now done by machines rather than by hand, Walden said, requiring fewer people to run the plants.

With automation comes a need for workers to have higher technical skills, as well as the ability to learn new tools and processes. But even if someone hasn’t attended a technical college to gain that extra knowledge, they can still get a job at Milliken and go through the company’s in-house training, said Smith, the Milliken executive.

Still, Milliken has not been without its setbacks.

It shuttered two mills in the second half of last year. At its plant in Saluda, 140 people lost their jobs. The closure of its Union plant impacted 120 workers.

Beyond Milliken, Lummus gave several other examples of Upstate textile companies that have carved out a niche.

Standard Textile in Union employs about 150 people making towels for the Marriott hotel chain and others.

Glen Raven in Anderson expanded operations three years ago and employs more than 750 people making awnings for storefronts.

Textiles across SC

Outside the Upstate, carpet maker Shaw Industries announced plans for a $500 million expansion of its plant in Aiken, adding 300 new jobs. In turn, the company received a $1.75 million state grant to pay for roads and utility needs, as well as tax credits for each new job.

But now Shaw is cutting back operations at its plant in Irmo, laying off about 200 of the plant’s 300 employees and offering them jobs in Aiken, according to documents filed with the state Department of Employment and Workforce.

The company still employs about 1,200 people, according to the agency, making Shaw one of the larger textile companies operating in the state.

In Berkeley County, Valley Forge Flag Company sews U.S. and state flags. Albany International, headquartered in France, has a manufacturing plant that makes various conveyer belts used on machinery that makes paper goods. Nearby, in Charleston County, Honeywell Safety Products makes gloves and specialty clothing worn by utility company line workers.

A new purpose

And in York County, a company spun off from one of the area’s former textile giants is helping to redevelop a historic mill building.

Fort Mill was once home to Springs Industries. Founded in 1887 as Fort Mill Manufacturing, the cotton textile company changed the Charlotte-area suburb from a largely agricultural community into an industrial powerhouse.

For more than 100 years, the company expanded its reach. In 1988, it operated 24 plants in South Carolina and employed nearly 18,000 people, the Charlotte Observer reported at the time . Globally, the company employed 23,500 workers at 39 plants in six states, Belgium, England and Japan.

Textile Industry Comes Back to Life, Especially in South

Then, in the mid 2000’s, Springs merged with a Brazilian company, Coteminas, and shuttered the last of its South Carolina manufacturing operations in 2007, the Observer reported .

In March, the town of Fort Mill started making plans to buy the former Springs Industries headquarters for a new town hall, the Rock Hill Herald reported .

Many of South Carolina’s former textile mills have been repurposed, often into high-end apartments and office buildings, thanks to generous state tax breaks .

Now, one of those redevelopment projects will house a textile printing subsidiary, Springs Creative, still operated by descendants of Springs Industries founder Samuel Elliott “Captain” White.

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The Chiquola Mill Massacre

One of the nation’s largest labor strikes , the General Textile Strike, launched on Labor Day 1934 at factories across the South and up the East Coast.

In South Carolina, it also became one of the deadliest.

On Sept. 6, 1934, what became known as Bloody Thursday, newly deputized residents of Honea Path in Anderson County fired on strikers at the Chiquola Mill, killing six workers who were shot in the back as they fled. A seventh later died of his injuries, and dozens more were injured.

The strike continued and ultimately failed, ending weeks later with no pay hike or even a guarantee that returning workers could keep their jobs, according to the South Carolina Encyclopedia .

Thousands attended the victims’ funeral. But the 11 men charged with murder were acquitted, according to the SC Picture Project , a nonprofit that works to preserve South Carolina landmarks.

However, outrage over the violence helped spur passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which established the 40-hour work week, created the minimum wage and barred child labor.

“The deaths of the seven Honea Path men was not in vain,” Frank Beacham , grandson of the mill’s superintendent (and then-mayor) who organized the gunmen, wrote in 2009 to commemorate the 75th anniversary.

“Out of these laws came reforms that vastly improved the lives of all American workers,” he wrote about a subject that was taboo when he grew up in Honea Path. “That’s why these workers were heroes and why their history should be honored.”

By Editor Seanna Adcox