I love hearing people tell their stories about how cotton makes them feel, so much so I have welcomed a series of posts on the topic. It isn’t the factual pieces I write like what a cotton plant looks like as much how warm it makes hearts as well as bodies. There have been several of these that I just love!

Well, last week, as I was getting back in the swing of things after the holidays, I stumbled on a post by a writer I met earlier this year while I was in Austin. Addie Broyles does a great job of writing about a family quilt from generations ago. I had to ask if it was cotton and she said she was certain it was! So here’s a short excerpt of it and a photo from her blog… I’m sure once you read it, you will want to follow the link over to her site! I skipped part of it that you’ll want to catch back up on!

….. Like always, I slept on the couch under the fern, but this time, I had a new source of warmth: my great-great-grandmother Lena’s postage stamp quilt.

Lena and her husband, Gustaf, have given my family more than they ever could have imagined. Maybe they knew the roots they were planting when they left Sweden’s Gotland island, 10 years apart, in the late 1800s, but I doubt she could have guessed that her granddaughter would still be making pies with her rolling pin, much less than her granddaughter’s granddaughter would Instagram it.

She could have never guessed that that quilt she made when she got to Springfield (at least we think), would still be in such good condition that the newest member of the family, 7-month-old Nash, would chew on its corners.

via Sleeping under a quilt that’s older than all of us | The Feminist Kitchen.

The post Wrapping Up in History, Family & Cotton appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

With the guest post series, I had no idea how diverse some of the posts would become and have to admit that Kevin surprised me when he sent me a post he published on the Cotton Boll Conspiracy and asked if I’d like to repost it for his submission.

Kevin’s goal has been first and foremost to write this blog as though he was “the only one reading it. The Cotton Boll Conspiracy exists simply because it’s something I enjoy doing. Its topics are ones I enjoy, find interesting or believe to be of significance to someone somewhere. I never saw a need to attach my name to something that I was essentially writing for my own enjoyment.” So I love that somewhere along the way, he came across cotton as a component for paving roads and that it stuck for him.

Cotton Roads: Recalling an Ill-Conceived Idea

Using cotton as a key ingredient in road building seems difficult to fathom today but during the 1930s it was all the rage, at least for a short while.

Part of the reason was that because in the midst of the Great Depression there was an abundance of three things: Unemployed Americans, cotton and roads that needed to either be built or refurbished. Someone somewhere came up with the idea of combining the three.

Hence, for some time, cotton roads were said to be the wave of the future, and the soft, fluffy staple fiber became a major element in road building across a good part of the US.

The idea apparently came about when a New Deal entity called theAgricultural Adjustment Administration sought ways to increase consumption of American cotton, the price of which had been driven down through overproduction.

At the same time, the Works Progress Administration was on the lookout for a means to create more jobs for the unemployed, and in 1935 the government launched an experiment, dubbed “cotton roads,” that filled both needs, according to Michigan History magazine.

Some 24 states, including South Carolina, participated in the project to use cotton fabric on the road base as a reinforcement.

A 1930s government film explained the process:

After a dirt roadway has been graded, a priming coat of asphalt is spread over it. On top of this, strips of cotton fabric are laid like so much carpet and the overlapping edges tacked down. With the pouring of a final coat of asphalt, the cotton is embedded between the two layers, forming a strong reinforcement which is said to prevent cracking and erosion. Gravel is then spread on the surface and a steamroller completes the job. The road costs a trifle more than average but lasts from three to five years longer.

While Michigan History reports that within two years, the venture was deemed unsuccessful and abandoned, a 1944 book titled ”Better Living in the Postwar World” apparently didn’t get the message:

… ’cotton roads’ have been built in a number of states to try out a specially woven cotton mesh used as reinforcement for asphalt highways. ‘Some day, perhaps,’ declared the National Association of Manufacturers, ‘you will ride on partly cotton roads in a partly cotton automobile on partly cotton tires to a picnic where you will use cotton seed oil on a salad which you will eat with a cotton-handled fork.’

And then again, maybe you won’t.

One thing is for certain, a bunch of PR folks somewhere must have been on the ball, because the articles, films and other mentions of the concept behind ”Cotton Roads” during the 1930s are all unfailingly rosy.

Has anyone heard about cotton being used in paving since the 30s?

PS. – In no way do I think I’m that good of a PR person!

The post Instead of Country Roads, They Could Have Been Cotton Roads? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

When you wear your passion on your sleeve (or in your Twitter handle like @JPlovesCOTTON) it is really easy for other people to share that passion. This was part of the presentation I gave during the 140 character small town conference (140conf) that I’ve talked so much about. But I really hadn’t talked about what I was doing at the 140conf, which probably makes a few people scratch their heads but for others, I think you’ll understand that it feels like I’m patting myself on the back to share something like that.  But I recently got such a clear reminder of how making that passion known helps get others to share in it, I decided I would go ahead. That’s when it was really clear to me I wasn’t sharing this story from purely a personal interest but in trying to find others who share that interest. So here’s the audio on my passion that event on the 140 conference blip station. I hope some of you find it interesting or entertaining.

In this I talk about how less than 2% of Americans farm and when you look at cotton, it comes down to .006% of us are engaged in cotton farming (thanks to Shawn the magnificent at the National Cotton Council for doing that math!) I said that if I, as someone who had a daily awareness of cotton wasn’t willing to shout COTTON ROCKS now and then, then who should I expect to do that?

Before I went to the 140 conference, I got in touch with a bunch of people who I thought may be able to make the trip to Hutchinson – people I follow on Twitter who I’d like to meet, friends from college in the area, etc. One of the folks I hoped would be able to make the trip was Alexis Ceule (@AlexisCeule and her blog Confessions of a Social Media Mamapreneur). She couldn’t but took time to introduce me to a friend who was making the trip from Kansas City and she watched the livestream. We touch base now & then on various things but recently Alexis sent me a link to an eBay auction just like this one for a pamphlet on Cotton in series Coca-Cola produced called Our America! I’m sure the fact that Coke is as Southern as I am, has already come to mind for some of you – it sure did for me!

When I clicked on the link, I knew I HAD TO HAVE IT! What’s fun is it seems the seller (Weird Stuff Antiques @WeirdStuff) stumbled on quite a few copies of the pamphlet that Coke produced several decades ago (kind of sad it doesn’t have a date on it but it is sold in the 1940-1959 section ).  I bought two on my first crack but I’m thinking I should have bought some as off-beat but inexpensive Christmas gifts (pretend you are surprised if I am able to get more LOL!)

Its an activity book that lets you read about different parts of the cotton industry and some of the innovations that had been delivered then. The book is really interesting and reminds me of a lot of posts I should get to writing on how things are done now!

Rather than try to write this book all out, I’ll let the photos speak for themselves! At least until I think through whether I want to do a series of then & now. Here’s the dedication page to give you a flavor of the text!

To the Boy and Girls of the United States,

in infancy, surrounded by fabrics manufactured from cotton; living in homes in which cotton appears on every side; sharing in new and astonishing uses of cotton; to them we dedicate this book and these pictures.

To All Whose Labor Produces Cotton and Provides Material Made From It,

men who till and prepare land for the birth of cotton; workers who sow seed; stooping, patient toilers who pick cotton; operatives who speed cotton through intricate processes that change it into delightful fabrics for daily use; to all these, in gratitude for the gift they help to produce, we dedicate this book and these pictures.

To All Whose Patient Experiements Give Cotton New Uses,

makers of new machines, developers of new methods of manufacturing and using cotton fabrics, chemists who find ways of changing cotton into new forms of value and usefulness; to all men of genius who make cotton increasingly helpful, we dedicate this book and these pictures.

Do you like the idea of doing a then & now series on cotton, using this as the history base?

(By the way, the title of this blog post is a take off of a great mystery book by Kinky Friendman called Elvis, Jesus & Coca-Cola.)

The post Cotton, Kansas, & Coca-Cola: Results of Sharing My Passions appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.