Tobacco farmers in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina apparently experimented with a cooperative marketing venture in
the 1920s. The organization was called the
Tri-State Tobacco Growers Association. It also is seen referred to as just the Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association.
Caswell County, North Carolina, farmers participated. In 1925 these farmers were dissatisfied with the Association and published the following meeting notice:
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All twelve of the Association members listed in this notice are known and can be found in the
Caswell County Genealogy database.
Mrs. Sallie Jones, a wealthy
Caswell County widow, is thought to have been a member of the Association. At least the records of the Association show that she was a member on 19 September 1922. Why was she not listed in the above notice? Were female members not "recognized" by fellow
Caswell County members of the Association, or had Mrs. Jones seen the risks and withdrawn her tobacco crops from the cooperative marketing effort?
(Image Courtesy Scripophily.com LLC)
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This Mrs. Sallie Jones was Sarah
Hundley Lipscomb (1869-1952), who had married Thomas
Oldham Jones (1856-1909). After her husband died in 1909, Sallie Jones purchased the Clarendon Hall mansion in
Yanceyville and moved her family there. She retained, however, substantial farm acreage in
Caswell County and must have been actively involved in tobacco farming.
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References
1.
The Tri-State Tobacco Growers Association, 1922-1925: The co-op that failed : the story of the North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina tobacco growers co-operative in operation for the years 1922-1925--as gleaned from the association files in 1940), Nathaniel Clenroy Browder (1983).
2. Southern Historical Collection
Wilson Round Library
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC
Collection Number: 03322
Collection Title: Tri-State Tobacco Growers Association Records, 1921-1927.
Collection Overview
Size: About 3,000 items (3.0 linear feet).
Abstract: Administrative correspondence, reports received, statistics, mimeographed releases, articles and speeches, and miscellaneous other records of the secretary and other officers of the Tri-State Tobacco Growers Association, a cooperative association of tobacco growers in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Also included are papers of Sydney D. Frissell, sometime officer of the association and University of North Carolina graduate student in rural social economics, in connection with his study of cooperative marketing.
Creator: Tri-State Tobacco Growers Association.
Language: English
