Carolina Linthead

About the Book

Most of the American textile manufacturing business is now either bankrupt or has moved offshore. This leaves what used to be the Carolina textile belt riddled with former company villages which are having to scamper to provide water, housing and utilities for the mill villages—services that once were provided by the plants themselves. “Carolina Linthead” hopes to tell what basic, warm communities these once were. The author, who was born and reared in the Southern textile belt, gives such a glance. And while he’s at it, he tells of his determination to get out of the insular surroundings and join the “real world.” He tells of growing up in the age when life was simpler and even radio was a new-fangled thing. The biggest recreation for most people was visiting each other. They didn’t invent front porches, but these came in mighty handy. Also, it gave a big impetus to textile village baseball. You might even say that most cotton mill people either spent most of their lives either visiting neighbors or going to ballgames. Just maybe such recollections will prompt other former lintheads to sit down and jot a few things about their own histories.

About the Author

John D. Wilson is a native South Carolinian and was reared in Spartanburg County, mostly in Tucapau (now Startex), S.C. He was an Army medic in World War II, graduated from Woffford College in 1949 and lived five years in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Ethiopia. He spent 35 years as a newspaperman and is now a retired editor, living with his wife in Martinsville, VA. They have a son, a daughter and five grandsons.