Sewing machine

Sewing machine used by workers at Fulton Bag & Cotton Mills, 1889. In 1872, Jacob Elsas and Isaac May established the Elsas May & Co. in Atlanta, Georgia to manufacture cloth and paper containers. Severing ties with May in 1889, Elsas named his new company Fulton Bag & Cotton Mills. At its height, the Mill was the largest employer in Atlanta and provided housing for its hundreds of workers in a surrounding community called Cabbagetown. In the fashion of similar paternalistic mill owners, Elsas attempted to provide his workers with everything he believed they needed: security, medical and dental services, a library, a nursery and even an occasional "picture show." In 1914, labor unrest at the Mill in response to the firing of union organizers sparked the first big strike by organized labor in the South.