Rural Factory Industries

Excerpts from the report: In 1930, as one part of a comprehensive survey of economic and social conditions in the southern Appalachians, the Division of Farm Population and Rural Life made a study of the rural industries other than farming then operating in Knott County, Ky., to learn the contribution of these industries to farm incomes and to rural living conditions. A preliminary report of this study has been issued. The industries operating in Knott County were largely the so-called handicraft, fireside, or small-shop type with the exception of sawmilling, stone quarrying, and coal mining. None were factories. The present study has practically the same objective except that it was expanded to include a brief analysis of the community effects of rural industrial developments in addition to their financial contributions to farm family incomes. The producing units (except the barrel shops, an automobile body shop, and a small pottery) were factories using power-driven machinery or other equipment of larger size than that found in the handicraft, farm shop, or other small-scale production units (except sawmills) included in the earlier study. A few of the factories in the present study, however, send out partially completed articles to surrounding homes where certain steps in the manufacturing process are undertaken. Then, in contrast to the earlier study, the present one does not include all of the manufacturing industries operating in any one county, but consists of brief studies of manufacturing units scattered over 15 States east of the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers. All of these factories are situated either in towns having populations (with two exceptions) of 6,000 or less in 1930, or in the open country not adjacent to larger incorporated places, and all but two employ some farm people on a full- or part-time basis.