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The Yount brothers established their mill in Indiana during the pioneer period when only primitive industry was emerging on the frontier. Daniel continued to operate the mill through the economic boom of the 1850s and 1860s through sectional crises. His strong hands were at the levers of the mill during the rest of the 1800s. Through these times of economic prosperity and depression everyone in Daniel’s family had a relationship with the mill across three generations. At every decade in the history of the mill circumstances changed and the family adapted to the new realities.
At the same time textile workers came to work for Daniel. These immigrants looked for and found a better life for their family in a woolen mill on the banks of Sugar Creek. Their children learned a good craft, brought wages into the home, worked in proximity of relatives, and had a complete day off for leisure one day a week. The children prepared for a career that would make them employable in their adopted country. These immigrants experienced a decent job, a steady income, a dependable future, and hope for their children’s success through economic prosperity produced through industrial apprenticeship.
Just four miles away Caleb Mills was the president of Wabash College; he spent his life working for change in education. He provided leadership in educational reform lobbying the state legislature for public libraries, higher education, and providing a public-school education to every student. He had a different view of the future that students would need an education and values to perpetuate a democratic society. Some young men would even attend the university to learn the skills necessary to steer communities through education, religion, commerce, and politics. This was a future based on knowledge and everyone needed to participate through the common schools, public libraries, or universities.
In a small company town, the Yount family owners and workers labored in a woolen mill while educator Caleb Mills, located in the county seat, helped the community change to an education-based economy. Both those associated with the mill and the professor think they will give children the best chance for the future, but both Daniel Yount and Caleb Mills die before it comes to pass. Today communities working with industrialization and deindustrialization still work with educational reform to improve the lives of their children. In the contrast between the apprentice system of learning and public education, the extant industrial site serves as a metaphor to provide critical commentary for educational policy in the twenty-first century. The Yount family who built a successful business and failed to change in the next generation illustrated the process of industrialization and deindustrialization, illuminating the importance and function of the mill in the lives of the owners and workers in the mill company town of Yountsville.
In the Midwest multiple stories about German working immigrants exist in urban areas, but there are few stories of immigrants as capitalists in rural areas. The story of the Yount family is a familiar one of an immigrant family who with talent, labor, and advantage built an industry. Local newspapers and magazines have told this story many times, but they rarely stress the fact that the Younts were an immigrant family. Forgetting the advantages they had in knowledge, skills, talent, and capital tends to lump all immigrants as poor laborers, which is not the story of the Yount family.
Moreover, local people rarely told the story of the immigrant families who came to work in the mill. The stories of these people are revealed through census data that documents their ethnicity, family labor, and gender which were important narratives to explore in Midwestern life as a contrast to the well told stories of people working in eastern mill communities. In a small rural town were stories of working women with children, working single women, families working together in the mill, and immigrants from England, Ireland, and Scotland. While it was difficult to track the families after the mill closed one thing was certain most of the families left the area to find mill work elsewhere. Deindustrialization, dislocation, adaptation, and reuse were familiar problems in the Midwest.
Caleb Mills spent his entire life teaching and in service to education across the Midwest. He was a tireless advocate for educational reform, and the reforms he promoted had a definite effect on the families at Yountsville. Child labor laws with teeth are not enforced until after Yount’s Mill closes. The termination of child labor caused declining incomes for families working in the mills, and the eventual baring of the youth population from the mill caused the mill owners to pay more money to employ older workers.
Public funding for education remains controversial. The Midwest does not have a uniform story to tell on educational reform with some areas making rapid strides and other areas tardy and poorly funded. Then and now nothing starts a fight in the Midwest like talking about how to fund the public schools. The controversy over spending time and effort on vocational education versus strengthening college preparation skills and liberal arts education remains pertinent in the twenty-first century. In an age where people expect employment in seven different jobs in a career, preparing for a variety of careers rather than one job might be the most prudent course to take.
Educational reform was a symptom of the rapid changes occurring during industrialization. Caleb Mills led the forces of change and helped students who had a future adapting to new industry. Caleb Mills saw the tools for preparation for the future of the community to be the establishment of libraries, public schools, and private universities. Citizens in the twenty-first century look to these same tools to adapt to change in economic circumstances.
At the same time Caleb Mills worked for change in education, rapid industrialization called for changes in business and industry. Nearly every American has had to deal with the wider historical processes that allowed them the capacity to make a living. This preparation for life might be found in the home, in the school, or in the community, but every generation found a way to educate themselves. Dan Yount addressed these opportunities to utilize the most up-to-date technology, the turbine, which led to more power and produced a greater output for the mill. Positioning his mill to serve more clients meant that he could provide a variety of products and a full production line processing fiber to finished goods for his community. In addition to working with technology, Dan employed more workers in the form of immigrants.
As time progressed the business folded, and the deindustrialization of the site began. The diaspora of people came first as they found new opportunities, careers, or locations when the mill closed. The adaptive reuse of the mill as a boarding house followed next as a residence and bed and breakfast. The deindustrialization continued as the ruin played a role in the constructed memory of the local community.
(Excerpted from Introduction)
