Prologue

PROLOGUE Truman A. Hartshorn" Industrial development in the South is primarily a post-Civil War phenomenon. (1) The early industries, predominantly resource oriented, have sustained their lead, and this has led to a number of paradoxes which characterize Southern manufacturing. By national standards, the region remains largely undeveloped. But industry is prospering; the future promises a stronger profile as the trend toward diversification gains momentum and the region's market share of industry becomes more balanced. TRADITIONAL INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE. Manufacturing became the dominant activity in the South in 1958, supplanting agriculture, the traditional leader. (2) This late takeover was not due to a sluggish manufacturing sector, as employment increases have been consistently strong since WW II in the South. (3) Rather the significance of this timing lies in the overwhelming grip that agricultural pursuits have traditionally had on the South. (4) Moreover, farming in the South was very traditional until recent times. Mechanization was slow, units were small compared to national standards, and farms were not prone to new developments , as the majority were devoted to crops (cotton, tobacco) that were themselves depressed. Thus, when farming began to decline, the fall was precipitous. From Maryland to Texas, the 16 state South released three million workers in the 1940-1970 period. (5) The largely unskilled work force that left the farm was fortunate in that employment was readily available in expanding textile, timber, apparel, and food processing activities. (6) These industries were the traditional leaders in the South. And manufacturing expansion in the South has been synonymous with further growth of these activities, rather than a broadening of the mix. (7) Nevertheless , employment gains have been impressive. The South has witnessed stronger expansion than national rates in non-agricultural employment . (8) Part of this strength is due to the robust nature of services, but it is also explained by the strength of the commodity-producing sector. Resource-oriented industries which are labor intensive, low paying , and small scale endeavors, are the big employers of the region. Half of the states of the 16 state South had food, textiles, or apparel as the leading industry in 1968, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Another three states had primary metals as their major employer, and even in the five states where employment in other sectors led, food, textiles, or apparel industries was the second leading employer. (9) •Dr. Hartshorn is an associate professor of geography at Georgia State University. The guest editor requested that Dr. Hartshorn write this prologue. 64Southeastern Geographer In the most impacted regions of the South, Appalachia, the Atlantic Coastal Plain, and Four Corners area of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri where per capita incomes are the lowest, the dominance of these traditional industries is most pronounced. (10) These areas along with the rest of the South, even though largely rural in character, are attractive locations for these unskilled, low wage paying industries. (11) The employment gains in such rural areas in the South in fact overshadowed work opportunity gains in larger urban markets in the 1960's. With relatively little capital investment many jobs have been produced. The TVA area is a case in point. (12) In the 1959-68 period 5,000 new plants were constructed in this region, and a net increase of 245,000 manufacturing jobs was realized. A quarter of the capital investment led to the creation of half of the new jobs which were in lumber, furniture , textiles, apparel, and leather activities. But half of the investment and 14 percent of the jobs were in primary metals, chemicals, and paper, taking advantage of electric energy. The dominance of industry in smaller urban places in North Carolina is particularly pronounced. Stuart has characterized the greater Charlotte tributary area, called Metrolina, as a dispersed urban region because of the urban-type employment profile of an otherwise largely rural region. (13) And it is also significant that the third largest industrial market in the South, after Baltimore and Atlanta, is the GreensboroWinston -Salem-High Point region of the Piedmont Crescent. Although individually not large in population, these cities are great manufacturing centers for textiles and furniture and partially explain why North Carolina leads the region in...