"Rhetorical Reagan: The 'Great Communicator's' Art of Persuasion"

by Taylor Penley

Runner up for best Upper Division Paper

When President Reagan stepped toward his podium on a gray June day in 1987, the burdens of the world required he consider what stood at stake. On the more cordial side of the Iron Curtain, West Berliners gathered to hear a message from the third American president to visit their city since John F. Kennedy, but, at this president’s back, the Eastern half of the Iron Curtain’s divide received a message of unity foreign to human subjects of Pravda and strident red visual propaganda. Reagan stood at the base of Germany’s Brandenburg Gate, looking out over the Western side of a great European divide, the divide between two international powers and their clashing ideologies. With that divide serving as a backdrop and solidifying image of garish messages he would soon deliver to his crowd, America’s fortieth president assumed his place at the epicenter of worldwide conflict and spoke aloud into the trio of microphones before his face. This began the speech that would spark controversy on either side of the curtain; this became the rhetoric that would change the world.

            Delving into the rhetorical nature of Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech by tonal analysis helps solidify the fortieth president as a key figure in fostering peace in Eastern Europe. Some Reagan critics and Cold War scholars, such as TIME magazine editor-at-large and award-winning journalist Romesh Ratnesar, cite Reagan as a “supporting role” in fighting against Soviet expansion while crediting the Eastern empire’s true downfall to Premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s internal influences (189). To Ratnesar, speechwriter Peter Robinson’s words, spoken through Reagan, were “as much an invitation… as a challenge,” but whether exclamatory language and imperative demands equal invitation remains subject for debate. (Ratnesar quoted in Yoshitani 357). The moment most restated and televised from President Reagan’s speech, the part quoted in Ratnesar’s work, resembles an invitation none. It is, instead, an imperative statement, a command that change be brought to a divided Europe. “General Secretary Gorbachev,” Reagan spoke with sternness, “if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” These now-familiar words, prophetic of an impending age without the East-West divide that still existed that day in Berlin, reiterated the vigorous message Reagan sought to convey to an international audience while challenging an opposing leader before the world.

In Reagan’s timeless challenge, repetition solidifies Mikhail Gorbachev as the West’s chief adversary. Repetition’s role as a rhetorical device proves solid, with Nathan Atkinson, David Kaufer, and Suguru Ishizaki describing its employment as “the simplest way” of “increas[ing] an element’s amplitude” within an argument (360). In Reagan’s address, affirming his tenacious challenge to Gorbachev means reminding the Soviet leader of his sole ability to facilitate Moscow’s calls for “reform and openness” referenced earlier in his address. The redundancy of “Mr. Gorbachev” serves to, as Kaufer, Atkinson, and Ishizaki state, increase the “quantity of the element [within an argument]” by “increas[ing] its presence relative to elements” (360). This increase in quantity means that frequently mentioning “Mr. Gorbachev” not only repeats an adversary’s name, but also introduces this adversary at length, making him the center focus and best possible proponent of reunification between East and West.

Reagan works to strengthen his own assertions with ethos by employing the word “if” to simultaneously cast doubt on assertions made by the Soviet Union. The conditional conjunction surfaces three times in the most iconic lines of Reagan’s address as he makes direct address to Gorbachev. If Gorbachev “seek[s] peace” or “seek[s] prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,” or “seek[s] liberalization,” he will fulfill Reagan’s request to reunify Eastern Europe and bring an end to the Cold War. This conditionality indicates that if the Soviet leader values his own credibility in the eyes of the world, he will adhere to Reagan’s admonitions and act upon his previously expressed desires for peace and prosperity. American tendency to characterize communist leadership as deceitful and insincere, as exemplified by Reagan’s calls for the USSR to act upon its messages of unity and cooperation with the West, becomes rooted in a logical example that, in Aristotelian terminology, utilizes a two-fold logos that further vindicates trust in American disdain for Soviet leaders while illustrating their inconsistencies with a concrete example. Soviet leadership preaches peace and claims to work in the best interest of its citizenry, but Reagan questions such assertions with boldness and selective setting as he stands before a symbol among the most iconic characterizations of the Eastern European divide and Soviet isolationism: The Berlin Wall.

As the Brandenburg Gate Address unfolds further, Reagan attempts to facilitate civil discourse between two world powers while not abandoning undertones of his Reaganesque defense policy coined as “peace through strength.” His rhetorical approach shifts from calling out world leaders and demanding they act upon their claims to a more inviting, appeasing language Ratnesar cited as characterizing the entire speech. The statement “…I invite Mr. Gorbachev: Let us work together to bring the Eastern and Western parts of the city closer together, so that all the inhabitants of all Berlin can enjoy the benefits that come with life in one of the greatest cities in the world” indicates Reagan’s previous demands, though harsh, exemplify his willingness to favor peaceful collaboration over violent confrontation. If, as Gabriele Bechtel indicates in a Rhetoric Society Quarterly article on persuasion and politics, the purpose of rhetoric through persuasion is to “[bring] users to identify themselves with the speaker’s interests,” Reagan accomplishes this by calling for a diplomatic approach to US-Soviet relations instead of each entity enforcing its ideals through conflict which would inevitably lead to mutually assured destruction (226-227). For years, Americans feared a strong approach to international affairs with the Soviet Union because they believed this approach would be more provocative. Reagan seeks to dispel these fears with his language, demonstrating his willingness to work with Premier Gorbachev to bring together Eastern and Western nations, but he also seeks to reiterate an ultimatum which urges the USSR to take action and foster the change it claims to encourage. Reagan exercises his knowledge of the Soviet Union’s ego, touting their position on the world stage as being conditional on how its leadership responds to his unifying message. “Calling out” irresponsible Soviet leadership that claims to aspire for peace and unity with the West indicates the USSR’s willingness to speak without action and this willingness inadvertently depicts their leadership as paper tigers. 

In addressing both Eastern and Western factions, Reagan finds himself addressing two audiences with two different receptions at once, employing double discourse to sustain his rhetoric. Reagan’s rhetoric is situational, injecting fragments of the German language into its content to address audiences on either side of the Berlin Wall while employing his generic American English to speak to a significant percentage of the Western world. This use of double discourse or double voicing not only expresses his personal opinion, but also calls his listeners to take these opinions into account. Daniel A. Grano of Rhetoric Society Quarterly indicates the tendency of double-voicedness to focus on “interior and exterior” affairs (2). By this definition, Reagan appeals to a Western audience more likely to agree with his premises while simultaneously addressing Soviet leaders and sympathizers. His use of German brings his assertions directly to the physical audience before him and to the audience on the opposing side of the Berlin Wall at his back, indicating he wishes to instill these “interior” American ideals in an “exterior” location such as Germany or the Soviet Union.

Reagan, well-versed in Soviet power structure and Gorbachev’s personal tendencies, understood how to appeal to these enigmas while invoking the human condition using pathos and supplemental ethos. Emotionally, he brings forth an alarming image of this communist power structure, citing “failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even… too little food” as results of systemic flaw within the Soviet economy. This dismal image of failure contrasts with the “level of prosperity and well-being” Reagan credits to Western achievement. These images, in turn, add credibility to Reagan’s assertions regarding capitalist supremacy, providing an effective example of Aristotelian ethos. “Freedom leads to prosperity,” he says, “Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.” The United States, the nation Reagan leads through the tail of the Cold War, becomes synonymous with freedom in this regard, indicating the American value of equity supersedes the Soviet ideal of equality. By citing America’s successes and the USSR’s failures, Reagan seeks to validate his message that favors Western p and shuns the Eastern standard. As the leader of a nation experiencing such success, President Reagan then functions as a strong voice for positive change abroad.

Standing before the Brandenburg Gate and delivering his address was one of many instances, which allowed President Ronald Reagan to assert his role as “the American hero” and to “energize his foreign policy” (Rowland and Jones 23). However, the speech’s rhetorical vigor proves lasting, with many media outlets, historians, and political analysts citing it as one of the most influential speeches of the 20^th century. Reagan, also known by his coined title of the “Great Communicator,” relayed his “peace through strength” foreign policy with each carefully crafted sentence his “Tear Down This Wall” speech involves. Ironically, this most resonant speech of Reagan’s presidency underwent continuous admonishment during its drafting phases. “Some within the NSC and the State Department,” Rowland and Jones write, “endeavored to tone down the most confrontational lines in the speech drafts” (24). In fact, the speech’s most recognizable line, “tear down this wall,” had been excluded or rephrased by speechwriters and cabinet members in seven drafts of the speech, each rewrite or exclusion serving to “soften” the language’s blow (Rowland, Jones 26). This most resonant line, once diminished to a less poignant “after twenty-six years, it is time for the wall to come down,” resurfaced in the speech only with Reagan’s final decision. Bold, straightforward, and demanding language, similar to the “tear down this wall” line, helped characterize President Reagan’s foreign policy and the American image it shaped during the 1980s. However, Reagan’s bold and relentless rhetoric does not neglect elements of humanism and morality, two elements often credited to more liberal minds.

Reagan begins his moral appeal with a physical depiction of the German divide as somber and isolating. “From the Baltic, south,” he says, “…barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers.” With the following line, he continues, stating that “further south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same--still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state.” Reagan’s primary appeals to pathos surface in his garish depictions of life behind the Iron Curtain, life which is nothing more than a game piece of the state. He sets this life in direct contrast to the Western lifestyle equated with freedom and economic success, providing post-World War II Japan, Italy, France, and Belgium as examples of nations who credit their economic rebirth to the free world.

While journalists and critics, such as Romesh Ratnesar, question the role of Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric and policies in the Soviet Union’s collapse, other esteemed sources, including now-deceased journalist Charles Krauthammer, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, and journalist Tom Brokaw, assume a different position (Rowland, Jones 23). Krauthammer asserts that Reagan’s “policies of unrelenting toughness” were the primary factor in the USSR’s exponential demise during the late 1980s and the early 1990s and Brokaw, while speaking on Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate Address, described Reagan’s influence on this demise as something “[no one] can diminish” (Rowland, Jones 23). The extent to which Reagan contributed to the reunification of Eastern Europe, however, generates more debate than discussion of whether or not he had any involvement at all. Speaking at the Brandenburg Gate gave direct address to West German civilians in attendance and a less direct, but deliberate address, to East Germans listening from the other side. Thirty-three years after the speech’s delivery, its impact extends to Americans as time and history have solidified its plot in a transformative time, a time in which uncertain futures and animosity transitioned into hopeful futures and a reunified world.

Understanding the Reagan Administration’s fundamental peace through strength defense policies is best achieved by analyzing its consistent assaulting rhetoric against eastern communism. The President’s anti-Soviet discourse surfaced at every turn, with justification for his policies stemming from a sense of urgency for strengthened missile defenses as emphasized by the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). However, Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech served to reinvigorate a sense of strength his administration had debatably lost through negotiations with the USSR. Scott Monje, in his work entitled Defining Documents of the Cold War, asserts that “Margaret Thatcher was upset by the proposal [Reagan] made to Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986” which diminished U.S.-Russia supplies of intercontinental ballistic missiles (471). Thatcher, being one of Reagan’s closest friends and allies throughout his presidency, supported his notions of peace through strength, but that support diminished as Reagan offered a more diplomatic approach to the East-West imbalance in missile defenses. Reagan then knew his speech at the Brandenburg Gate had to accomplish two things: to reinvigorate his peace through strength message and to reinforce his authoritative, demanding presence on the global stage.

Reagan’s negotiations with Gorbachev had offered a window into the Soviet condition, a condition which illustrated need for economic and political reform. From this window, Reagan saw the necessity of calling out Soviet leadership, namely Gorbachev, before the entire world by using his own negotiative rhetoric against him. In his Brandenburg Gate Address, Reagan mentions these negotiations, stating that “because [the United States] remains strong, the Soviet Union came back to the table” and, in light of this, Reagan attempts to convince his Western audience skeptics that strength can be assumed through strong negotiative measures instead of threat. “Because we remained strong,” Reagan states, “we have within reach the possibility, not merely of limiting the growth of arms, but of eliminating, for the first time, an entire class of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.” Diminishing the quantity of ballistic missiles inspired fear in many conservatives in Reagan’s corner, conservatives whose support for Reagan depended on strong national defense as an issue of electability. Reagan’s address is clear in tone, demanding that the Soviet premier exercise his willingness to open doors between East and West by “tearing down the wall.” Reagan, by illustrating how his negotiative rhetoric exemplified strength and facilitated productive discussion, proves he did not sway from conservative-approved peace through strength initiatives in favor of Carter-era negotiative approaches, but rather bolstered his own ideas. Reagan structures his statement so that his audience will believe that, by bringing Soviet leadership to the negotiating table, his rhetoric has successfully caused these leaders to cave under pressure of strong Western demands. Though this may or may not have bore the intent of a direct message to those, such as Prime Minister Thatcher, who admonished his diplomatic discourse, Reagan does attempt to strengthen the credibility behind his own decisions.

Second to concerns about total nuclear disarmament were concerns regarding U.S. response to potential Soviet nuclear threats in the aftermath. Margaret Thatcher, prior to her 1979 election as Prime Minister, spoke on Soviet tendencies to disregard mutual agreements in favor of continuous military expansion in her “Britain Awake” speech. Such concerns that the Soviet Union would continue their under-the-table military expansion called Reagan to speak directly to those concerned. “I pledge to you,” he directly addresses his audience, assuming a more genuine, promising, and personal tone, “that we will maintain the capacity to deter Soviet aggression at any level at which it might occur.” Reagan reflects back on the Strategic Defense Initiative, also coined “Star Wars,” to better convey this promise, asserting that the research behind the initiative to shield Western populaces from Soviet intercontinental missile attacks will continue. Reagan’s use of the personal pronoun “I” bears significance to his listener as he makes a personal guarantee that he will continue to serve the safety and best interests of his people as opposed to pandering to Soviet interests. Reagan seeks to instill trust within his audience with this personal tone, assuring each concerned individual that his administration will provide the essential protection and guidance America needs during what would become the final years of the Cold War.

Another aspect of West German society to which Reagan appealed, an aspect also crucial to American principle, was the promise of freedom and what its promise could offer to the isolated world behind the Iron Curtain. “The East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other. And our differences are not about weapons but about liberty,” Reagan asserts in his address, concluding his statement with special attention to West Berlin, saying “Berlin stands security in its liberty. And freedom itself is transforming the globe.” By Reagan’s attempts to convince his audience with this rhetoric, each member would be led to assume that the West must have an advantage in the Cold War. This advantage stems from the fundamental liberties expressed in societies that emphasize ideals such as freedom, individualism, and social mobility, found in the enlightenment philosophies of Adam Smith, the “Father of Capitalism,” and John Locke, the “Father of Liberalism.”  According to Political Behavior contributor Keena Lipsitz, “the concern for liberty developed in human groups as they responded to the challenge of dealing with individuals who would bully and attempt to dominate them” (59). This “concern” shows centuries after its development, with the central oppositional stance against Soviet policy being its disregard for liberty. Reagan reiterates this comparison between Soviet “equality” and American “liberty,” citing the failures of one and the successes of the other to fortify his argument. Reagan’s syllogistic approach to Soviet failures deduces that failures of the Marxist system stem from its unwillingness to assume ideas that coincide with his own fundamental beliefs attributable to various Western philosophies and American foundational literature.

Diverging from the Marxist “equality of outcome” ideal, Reagan’s expressions of liberty find root in equality on the premise of “the innate “God-given” equality of all people” (Lipsitz 59). This “God-given” equality provides equal authority to the people, authority which allows for the “removal of tyrants” as it is “very much in tension with authority” (Lipsitz 59). Instilling this premise, along with other premises crucial to Western philosophy, would provide individuals oppressed by the Soviet government with adequate justification to assemble and reform its centralized structure. By this definition, Soviet equality fails due to its denial of basic fundamental liberty and individualism in favor of a systemic equality enforced by other humans who assume the position of equalizers. Reagan attempts to sustain this idea as well as his notion that Marxist governments are “obsolete” in the “age of redoubled economic growth,” and of “information and innovation” by citing the upcoming youth as a hopeful generation that fosters the growth of liberty.

It is no coincidence that Reagan’s address occurred in Berlin, the place Reagan himself cited as the “meeting place of East and West.” The “Tear Down this Wall” speech’s transcript passage containing this description of Berlin exemplifies Reagan’s trademark tone of hope, of inspiration, and of optimism with language that regards the city’s positive future. Berlin, in a late 1980s context, embodies a willingness of ideologies to come together for the good of humanity. Reagan’s coined identity as the “Great Communicator” is only intensified by his ability to optimistically present scenarios that should otherwise be approached with detriment and his gift for instilling hope for the future that not only are America’s best days are ahead, but also the world’s. Today, thirty-three years after Reagan delivered his address before the Berlin Wall, his presence in these former-Soviet nations is secure. In Warsaw and Przymore, Poland, Budapest, Hungary, Tbilisi, Georgia and even near the site of his speech in Berlin, he stands in bronze figures that encapsulate a legacy, a foreign policy, and a rhetoric which changed the world.

           

Works Cited

Atkinson, Nathan S., David Kaufer, and Suguru Ishizaki. "Presence and Global Presence in Genres of Self-Presentation: A Framework for Comparative Analysis." Rhetoric Society Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 4, 2008, pp. 357-384. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/216250603?accountid=10403.

Bechtel, Gabriele. "Rhetoric Online. Persuasion and Politics on the World Wide Web." Rhetoric Society Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 2, 2008, pp. 224-228. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/216255534?accountid=10403.

Grano, Daniel A. "Wise Ignorance and Socratic Interiority: Recovering a Dialogic Rhetoric." Rhetoric Society Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 1, 2007, pp. 1-18. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/216247502?accountid=10403.

Lipsitz, Keena. “Playing with Emotions: The Effect of Moral Appeals in Elite Rhetoric.” Political Behavior, vol. 40, no. 1, Mar. 2018, pp. 57–78. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s11109-017-9394-8.

Monje, Scott C. “Volume 2: End Game: Ronald Reagan’s ‘Tear Down This Wall’ Speech.” Defining Documents: The Cold War (1945-1991), Oct. 2016, pp. 471–477. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=khh&AN=12710 6366&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Ratnesar, Romesh. Tear Down This Wall: A City, A President, and the Speech That Ended the Cold War. Simon & Schuster, 2009.

Rowland, Robert C., and John M. Jones. "Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate: Moral Clarity Tempered By Pragmatism” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, vol.  9, no. 1, 2006, pp. 21-50. ProQuest,         https://search.proquest.com/docview/231176637?accountid=10403, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rap.2006.0030.

Yoshitani, Gail. “Tear Down This Wall: A City, a President, and the Speech That Ended the Cold War - By Romesh Ratnesar.” Historian, vol. 73, no. 2, 2011, p. 3

"From Candlewicking to Chenille: The Story of the Rise of the Tufted Textile Industry in Dalton, Georgia

by Rachel Pinson

Best Upper Division Paper

                                         “Home Means More with Carpet on the Floor”

                                                                         - Carpet Institute Marketing Strategy 1945-1947

            Located in the rolling foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the southern Appalachian region of Northwest Georgia, sits the serene and bucolic town of Dalton. Originally called Cross Plains, the denizens changed its name in 1847, to honor the founder of the city, Edward Dalton White. Many historical events have occurred in Dalton, like when the General passed through it during the Great Locomotive Chase of the Civil War.  However, the most notable historical event is how serene little Dalton became known as the “Carpet Capital of the World.” The origins of Dalton becoming the “Carpet Capital” happened by chance when a young girl rediscovered the lost art of tufting bedspreads in 1895. This eventually led to the tufting of carpet, which grew out of the tufted bedspread industry that began in the early 1900s. Dalton being located in the Appalachian region of Georgia is ironic because most people associate the Appalachian region as being home to backward, illiterate and poverty-stricken people. However, because the tufted carpet industry grew out of the tufted bedspread industry in Dalton, it quite literally catapulted Dalton from anonymity to become an anomaly because, during the late 1960s and the early 1970s, more millionaires per capita lived in Dalton than anywhere else in the United States.[1] This essay will seek to explain how the entrepreneurial and economic opportunity that inspired many women to craft and sell tufted bedspreads in the early 1900s was still around sixty-eight years later when four men founded the anomalous Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc. in the Appalachian region of North Georgia.

             This essay is not the first work to detail the tufted carpet industry of Dalton, Georgia. Two informative and detailed books about the tufted carpet industry of Dalton, Georgia are Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry by Randall L. Patton with David B. Parker and Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of the Tufted Carpet Industry by Thomas M. Deaton. Although, both books chronicle the rise of the tufted carpet industry, each framed the narrative in a different way. In Carpet Capital, Randall L. Patton framed his narrative to tell the story of how the tufted carpet industry rose to become a major industry in the New South during the post-World War II period.^[2] The term “New South” was coined by Henry W. Grady in speeches that he gave in the years after the Civil War. In those speeches, Grady implored the Southerners to look towards the industrialized nature of the North and to model their own economy in that way, instead of just rebuilding their agrarian society.

             According to Patton, “most scholarship on industrial development in the American South has focused on what James C. Cobb has called ‘the selling of the South,’ which is the feverish pursuit of outside investment by southern state and local governments and boosters.”^[3] In other words, most of the written accounts of the industrial South have been propaganda-like in nature because they were trying to persuade outsiders to bring their businesses to the South to help it grow. Patton’s reason for writing Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry was to show how the tufted carpet industry helped to industrialize not only Dalton, Georgia, where it began, but also the South as well.

            In Bedspreads to Broadloom, Thomas M. Deaton framed his narrative as a way to tell the story of the tufted carpet industry by presenting it as “the story of the people who worked, dreamed and created the companies, the machines and the carpet.”^[4]  As a caveat to his narrative, Deaton informed the reader that “not every story can be told,” so he selected the ones that best “represented both the present and the past of those who created the tufted carpet industry."^[5] Although some of the same entrepreneurs and their carpet mills are featured in both Randall L.  Patton’s book and in Thomas M. Deaton’s book, there are differences between the two. One difference is that Patton provided a more extensive timeline of the tufted carpet industry, by mentioning practically each one in his narrative, whereas Deaton focused on only a few of the major carpet mills and their founders. Another difference is that Deaton’s book is more detailed than Patton’s because he focused on only a few carpet mills. However, both books begin by chronicling the life of Catherine Evans Whitener, the inspiration behind the tufted carpet industry.

            The tufted carpet industry has a very humble beginning, that began when a young girl, Catherine Evans, rediscovered the lost art of tufting bedspreads in 1895. Catherine Evans was born on August 10, 1880 to William R. and Nancy A. Evans in a farmhouse that was located one mile west of Reo, near Dalton, in Whitfield County.^[6] She was the “second of six children” and because she lived in a rural portion of Georgia, she only received a fifth-grade education.^[7] In 1892, when Evans was twelve years old, she went to visit her cousin, Milton Tate, at his home in McCutchen, Georgia, and, while she was there, she “saw a bedspread that attracted her attention.”^[8] The design of the bedspread was “square [and] checked off by quilting frames.”^[9] Evans admired the “craftsmanship of the spread,” so much “that she wanted to replicate it so that she could have one of her own,” but after “inquiring among the older women in her family, she realized that none of them knew how the spread had been produced.”^[10] After Evans returned home, “the memory of the beautiful “counterpane,” [as bedspreads were referred to in the late 1800s], remained in her mind,” and, three years later, in 1895, when she was fifteen years old, she “again visited the Tate home and examined the spread more closely.”^[11] At her second look at the bedspread, Evans realized that it was “tufted,” which meant that “several strands of thread were pushed through the cloth [and] then clipped,” which produced a beautiful design.^[12]

            The technique that Catherine Evans had rediscovered was called “candlewicking,” which had been “practiced in the United States since the 1700s,” but had become a lost art by the time the Civil War began in the 1860s.^[13] The term candlewicking refers to the practice of hand-tufting “plain stitches [that] are sewn into a sheet of fabric (usually cotton), then are clipped on the top of the fabric and fluffed to make tufts.”^[14] The result is “short pieces of yarn that look like regular stitches on the bottom of the fabric and fuzzy pompoms on top.”^[15] The following is the process of how Evans, in her own words, described how she made her first tufted bedspread:

            I got the material (flour sacks) seamed it together, placed it on the floor, took quilting frames and marked it off (with a pencil) in squares of about three inches. Then I got white thread which was in skeins, and ran it off on the spinning wheel to make 12 strands of number eight yarn. I put in a bodkin (curved) needle and started working.^[16]The finished bedspread was “like that Irish Chain quilt pattern in squares.”^[17]

            Evans had thus successfully resurrected the lost art of “candlewicking,” but, in the process of making her own bedspread, she also created a new sewing technique. The new technique was the tufting stitch, “which is a running stitch of yarn sewn into the base sheeting and cut between stitches to form the tuft.”^[18] To ensure that the tufts stay in place, “the unbleached sheeting is then laundered so it shrinks around the base of the tuft leaving it securely anchored.”^[19] Evans’ new technique improved upon the original tufting design, which then changed how materials were tufted in modern times. The process of how Catherine Evans rediscovered candlewicking is significant to the origins of the carpet industry, as Thomas M. Deaton stated, because most of the carpet that is produced in the United States is “manufactured by the [mechanized] tufting process, which comprises insertion of pile tufts by a row of eyed needles which penetrate a primary backing fabric, thus forming tufts from the yarn threaded through the eyes of the tufting needles.”^[20] The modern mechanized tufting process was inspired in part by Catherine Evans' creation of the tufting stitch and in part by inventor, Glenn Looper, who is credited with creating the first tufting machine that could tuft larger items more easily.

            In 1896, Evans crafted her second hand-tufted bedspread, and, once again, her entrepreneurial instincts kicked in by allowing her to, ingeniously, create different patterns by using common household items like “plates, saucers or anything [else] round” to create the curves in some of her “conventional patterns.”^[21] Evans’s second bedspread was adorned with a “star and circle design.”^[22] To create the new design, Evans sketched or “laid out” the star design on the cloth with chalk or a pencil, and she then, “used saucers or plates to outline the circle designs.”^[23] Some of the other popular designs for the tufted bedspreads were copied from quilt patterns. These included the “Wild Rose,” the “Double Wedding Ring,” “the Washbowl” and the “Irish Chain” pattern that Evans used for her first tufted bedspread. In later years, one of the most popular designs was the “Peacock” design, which was invented because different colored yarns would be left over after a bedspread was finished, and one person thought to create a Peacock design out of the left over yarn so that all the yarn could be used.^[24] 

            After Catherine Evans had finished her first two tufted bedspreads, she laid aside her craft because she had no need for any more bed linens, but, in 1900, when she next picked up her needle, the action sealed her fate to become the founder of the tufted textile industry that created tufted clothes, home goods and carpet. In 1900, Evans’s brother Henry married Lizzie Creamer of Trion, Georgia, and, as a wedding gift, Evans made them a tufted bedspread in the “Star” design.^[25] Creamer’s sister, Mrs. John Lange, admired the bedspread so much that she offered to buy one from Evans.^[26] At first, Evans was hesitant to sell one of her bedspreads, but, in the end, she agreed to sell the spread for $2.50, because “the cloth and thread cost $1.25” and Evans charged $1.25 for her labor.^[27] Mrs. John Lange wanted to pay more for the bedspread but Evans “did not want to charge [more] ” because “[back] then a man worked for one dollar a day” and Evans had already charged more than men made in a day.^[28]

            After buying the bedspread, Mrs. John Lange “moved to Summerville,” where Evans’s bedspread caught the attention of the ladies there.^[29] Soon, many of the women in Summerville wanted a tufted bedspread, and, as Evans’s bedspreads grew in popularity, four things happened: Evans moved “four miles southeast of Dalton” in 1909, she increased her price for a finished bedspread, she found a faster and easier way to produce the bedspreads and she also began teaching others how to make them, which led to the creation of the tufted bedspread industry.^[30] The price for the spreads was increased because it became harder for Evans to keep up with all of the orders she received. To ensure profit, Evans then created a new technique to expedite the tufting process. As Evans stated, “it was a task to mark off spreads with a pencil, so I figured out an easier way. I put a work spread on the floor, put the spread to be stamped over it, and by rubbing with a tin box lid-which had been rubbed on a meat skin-made the pattern to be worked appear in black dots.”^[31] The aforementioned technique made it infinitely easier for Evans to tuft a bedspread because the pattern became easier to see, which, therefore, allowed her to produce bedspreads more quickly. However, she was still swamped with orders, so she taught her new neighbors in Dalton how to tuft, which marked the first time that she began outsourcing the labor to create hand-tufted bedspreads. Evans would “stamp the spreads, then the ladies would take them home, [tuft them ] and bring them back when finished and get more to make.”^[32]

            Inadvertently, and by teaching other women how to tuft, Evans had created a lucrative cottage industry in Dalton, Georgia. A cottage industry occurs when a business or manufacturing process takes place in a person’s home. Evans made the bedspreads in her home, but, as the demand grew, she again had to outsource to acquire the materials she needed to complete the bedspreads, but this time she incorporated local businesses into her entrepreneurial purview. Evans entered into a contract with “Dalton’s Elk Cotton Mill to produce 25-pound lots” of yarn, which allowed her to not have to waste valuable time spinning the yarn herself on her spinning wheel.^[33] Evans also wanted to create colored yarns, so she “wrote to numerous mills asking for information about color-fast yarns.”^[34] In the end, Evans chose to obtain her dyed yarn from the Franklin Process Dye Company that was located in Providence, Rhode Island because they manufactured the color-fast yarn like Evans was looking for. Ironically, in later years after the “demand became so great” for dyed yarns, the Franklin Company built a plant in Greenville, South Carolina and another one in Chattanooga, Tennessee to dye the yarn and to be closer to their buyers.^[35] The process of Catherine Evans creating a cottage industry for hand tufting bedspreads and by outsourcing to acquire the materials she needed in the early 1900s helped to establish the entrepreneurial and economic opportunity in Dalton, Georgia that led to it eventually becoming known as the "Carpet Capital of the World."  

            In 1917, Evans and her brother expanded the family’s cottage industry into a full-fledged business when they “formed the Evans Manufacturing Company.”^[36]  This gave Evans a bigger place to produce and sell her tufted bedspreads, which then allowed her to make them in a more timely manner. The next year, 1918, was a banner year for Evans because that was when her business really took off. On July 3, 1918, Evans was approached by a Mrs. Parmalee, who offered to sell Evans’ bedspreads. Evans agreed, and Mrs. Parmalee “was on the next train to Atlanta,” where she went “to Rich’s Department Store and came away with an order for 24 spreads.”^[37] Around the time Evans’ business was expanding, another local Dalton lady, Mrs. Eugenia Jarvis, saw that there was opportunity and profit to be gained from widely marketing the tufted bedspreads, so she became Catherine Evans’ agent.^[38] Jarvis would stamp out the spreads in her home, following Evans’s method of rubbing it with a piece of tin covered in meat grease,  and she also “typed out countless letters to individuals and business firms to acquaint them with the spreads, their prices and to ask for orders.”^[39] One of the first large orders Jarvis received was from Wanamaker’s Department Store in Philadelphia, when they ordered one dozen of Catherine Evans’s hand tufted bedspreads.         

            Although many bedspreads were sold throughout the North and the South, via the many women peddling their wares to different stores in both regions, the most unique way to purchase a hand tufted bedspread was to buy it on Bedspread Alley. Bedspread Alley was “also known as Bedspread Row, Bedspread Boulevard [and] Bedspread Line,” but its proper name was US Highway 41, which was a well-traveled road that stretched from Michigan to Florida. In the 1920s, the stretch of US Highway 41 that ran from Dalton to Cartersville became known as “Bedspread Alley” because the tufters would hang their bedspreads out on lines to dry in the breeze and sun.^[40] As people, including many tourists and salesmen, traveled along Bedspread Alley, they would stop and often buy their favorite bedspreads “off the line.”^[41] The most popular pattern that attracted the most attention and the most sales, “12 to 1,” from the other patterns was the “Peacock” design of “feathered birds facing each other” with their tails fanned out and “covering the breadth of the [bed]spread.”^[42] The success of the tufted bedspread industry in Dalton soon led to it earning the nickname, “the Bedspread Capital of the World.”^[43]            

       On January 22, 1922, Catherine Evans, then forty-two, married W. L. Whitener, who did not have a head for business, although he allowed his new wife to continue to express her entrepreneurial prowess by letting her continue to hand tuft bedspreads. After her marriage, Catherine Evans Whitener’s next entrepreneurial venture was to expand her business by making hand tufted candlewick “mats and kimonos [bathrobes].”^[44] Although Whitener owned her own company, she “lacked [the] funds to expand her business [in a way] to emulate textile mills of the North, so her efforts remained a successful cottage industry with a confederacy of women working in their own homes.”^[45] After Whitener’s bedspread business took off, many of the ladies she taught to tuft began their own cottage industries, by selling bedspreads they made out of their homes, much like Whitener did with her original business. As Whitener stated: “I taught a lot of people how to make tufted spreads. Some of them became competitors, but there was plenty of work and orders, enough for all of us.”^[46] Although responsible for helping to create the entrepreneurial and economic opportunity in Dalton, Georgia, Catherine Evans Whitener was not a competitive entrepreneurial cutthroat that excluded or drove others out of business, like some men became in the late 1980s. Instead, Whitener's contribution to helping Dalton become the "Carpet Capital" was to foster a sense of community development of the tufting industry, which led to the creation of the tufted carpet industry in the 1950s.  

            One competitor that Whitener was kind enough to help when they were so strapped for money due to the post-World War I recession where they owed $22,000 dollars was B.J Bandy and his wife Dicksie. Whitener gave the Bandy’s some of her bedspread patterns, and, soon, Mrs. Bandy had made enough money selling the bedspreads throughout the North that they could repay their debt. After Mr. Bandy and other men became involved in selling bedspreads in 1922, and with the invention of tufting machines, the tufted bedspread industry was transformed from a women’s cottage industry into a male dominated fully-fledged tufted textile industry that specialized in tufted carpet. The men then continued the out-sourcing technique that Whitener started by having others make bedspreads, but “where she had found enough workers in her neighborhood, they soon expanded over all North Georgia.”^[47]

            One of the first male founded industries in Dalton was Cabin Crafts, which was founded in 1932 by Robert McCamy and brothers, Fred and Lamar Westcott. Cabin Crafts produced tufted bedspreads, along with other tufted items like small bath mats and toilet tank covers. One interesting fact about Cabin Crafts is that founder Fred Westcott befriended Fred Peters, one of their buyers that lived in California, who also happened to be Clark Gable’s brother-in-law.^[48] Because of Peters’ connection to Clark Gable, the producers of David O. Selznick’s Civil War drama, Gone With the Wind used two Cabin Craft bedspreads to adorn Scarlett O’Hara’s bed at her plantation called Tara in the movie. The bedspreads were in the patterns of “Henry Clay” and “Rosette.”^[49] After Cabin Crafts was established, other men created their own industries, like B.J. Bandy, who built two textile plants: Southern Craft Company in Rome, Georgia and Bartow Textile Company in Cartersville, Georgia. His companies proved to be very profitable, and his efforts were rewarded when he “became the first person to ever make a million dollars in the bedspread business.”^[50]

            As aforementioned, the creation of the tufting machine advanced the tufting industry and expanded it from the tufting of bedspreads to the tufting of carpet; however, there is some discrepancy about who made the first tufting machine. As R.E Hamilton, an editor for the Dalton News newspaper quipped, “if you were to invite the man who invented the [tufting] machine to meet you on the steps of the courthouse in Dalton, it would be impossible to go up the steps-people claiming that honor would be standing elbow to elbow with no wiggle room.”^[51] This is interesting because, apparently, everyone had experienced a common "brainstorm" of retooling  Singer sewing machine model 3115 into a tufting machine.[52] However, the one man who is usually credited with creating the tufting machine is Glenn Looper. Looper created “a single-needle tufting machine that inserted large yarn into a fabric and cut the tufts with a scissors-like mechanism.”^[53] In 1940, Joe Cobble and Lewis Card improved upon Looper’s tufting machine by creating a pass machine that used multiple needles to “sew tufted fabric by making a number of passes” over it.^[54] The addition of more needles caused the tufting machines to expand in size from small table-top machines, like Singer sewing machines, to the bigger sized tufting machines that could produce larger items, like wall-to-wall carpeting and in the 1950s, “production of carpet and large-sized rugs rapidly began to eclipse the production of bedspreads, bathmats and robes as the popularity of those items started to wane.”^[55] This was the time when Dalton transitioned from the “Bedspread Capital of the World” to the “Carpet Capital of the World.”

            Throughout the 1950s, many other men created other successful carpet companies, but, as Randall L. Patton asserted, it was the “Dalton district of the 1960s [that] exemplified the hopes of those southern leaders who had advocated entrepreneurial capitalism as a development strategy in the 1940s,” and which had first been exemplified in the entrepreneurial spirit and opportunity that Catherine Evans Whitener began when she rediscovered the lost art of tufting in 1895.^[56] As Patton also stated, one great example of this is found in the story of the “origins, rise and eventual sale” of Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc. because the story of Galaxy accurately portrays the “‘second wave’ of the carpet industry’s growth after 1967."^[57] The story of Galaxy also shows how one company grew from anonymity to become an anomaly in the tufted carpet industry. Galaxy grew from anonymity because it was just another in a long string of other carpet industries that produced carpeting to become an anomaly because of the vision of its founders and because it was not established in the carpet cradle of Dalton, Georgia.

            Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc. was the brainchild of two North Georgia natives, Bobby Mosteller and Charles Bramlett, who both had a background in and experience of the interworking of a carpet mill because each had worked for other carpet mills. However, in 1968, they decided to take advantage of the economic and entrepreneurial atmosphere that Catherine Evans Whitener had established in North Georgia by starting their own company. Bobby Mosteller had been born and raised in Murray County, Georgia, but, after serving in the military for two years, working in his father’s car dealership as a bookkeeper and teaching math at Murray County High School, Mosteller finally entered into the carpet industry in 1958.^[58]

            Mosteller’s first foray into the world of carpet occurred when he began working in production at Katherine Chenilles; chenille is what tufting is called when it is done by a machine rather than by hand. Mosteller worked at Katherine Chenilles for three years. In 1961, Mosteller left Katherine Chenilles “to become customer service manager at Pride Carpet Mills in Calhoun, Georgia.^[59] Mosteller only worked at Pride Carpets for a year because they became a union mill, and he was uncomfortable working in a unionized mill. After leaving Pride Carpets, Mosteller, initially got a job as a tufting room supervisor at the Dalton plant of E&B Carpet Mills, but he quickly moved up through the ranks and “by 1964, Mosteller was a stockholder and vice president at E&B.”^[60] E&B stands for Evans-Black, which was named after its founders, Eddie Evans and Art Black. Evans and Black’s first company, Evans-Black Carpet Company, worked as a wholesale distributor company, established in Dallas, Texas, that did not make its own carpet. After the two ran into competition from other manufacturers that sold directly to retailers, they formed E&B Carpet Mills in 1959 and began manufacturing their own carpets.  

            As Mosteller was rising through the ranks at E&B, he met and befriended the Dalton-area native, Charles Bramlett.^[61] Bramlett went to Dalton High School, and he played football with the infamous Bob Shaw, who founded both Shaw Industries and Engineered Floors, two of the major  and most successful floor surfacing facilities in present-day Dalton. Charles Bramlett entered into the carpet industry earlier than Bobby Mosteller, working for many of the big names in the carpet industry throughout the 1950s and the 1960s. Bramlett worked for Cabin Crafts, and he also worked at McCarty Chenilles. He continued to work there, even after it was bought by Gene Barwick, who turned it into Barwick Mills: “the largest company in the industry in the late 1950s and 1960s.”^[62] In 1960, Bramlett “was hired away to work with E&B Carpets,” where he met Bobby Mosteller.^[63]

            Bobby Mosteller also met the other two founders of Galaxy, Irv Harvey and Irv Pomerantz, while they were all working at E&B. Irv Harvey was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 24, 1931. Harvey, like Bobby Mosteller, served in the military as an “enlisted man in the U.S Army Signal Corps in Georgia from 1952 to 1954, where he attained the rank of Sergeant.”^[64]   Harvey’s career in the carpet industry began in October 1954, “when he became a sales trainee for [the] Pinsky Floor Covering Company, a floor covering distributor in Chicago.”^[65] Also, like Bobby Mosteller, Irv Harvey rose through the ranks at Pinsky, where he eventually became a salesman; however, Harvey left Pinsky in 1958. After his departure, Harvey formed his own sales agency called Hymans and Harvey, and, in 1963, he joined E&B Carpets, where he “organized their Midwest Service Center” and “became the company’s first regional manager.”^[66] Irv Pomerantz had also been part of the carpet industry for a number of years before he began working at E&B. Pomerantz was a successful salesman and formed a close friendship with Irv Harvey because they both lived in Chicago and worked in the Midwest branch of E&B.

            In the mid-1960s, Bobby Mosteller and Charles Bramlett began discussing the idea of going into business for themselves. As Mosteller recalled, “after the workday was over, around 5:00 p.m., Charlie and I would…go into the office, sit down and put our feet up and talk about going into business for ourselves someday.”^[67] The men’s far off someday became a reality in 1967, when Armstrong World Industries acquired E&B. It was during the transferring of companies that Mosteller and Bramlett decided to venture out into the accommodating entrepreneurial fray and create their own carpet mill.

             Mosteller and Bramlett were both proficient in the manufacturing aspect of the carpet industry, but they felt they needed someone to help with the sales and marketing aspect of the industry; so, they asked Irv Harvey to join their venture and be their sales and marketing man. Harvey agreed to join their team as their marketing man, but he suggested that they bring Irv Pomerantz into the fold as the salesman. On March 18, 1968, Bobby Mosteller wrote the following to Art Black of E&B, as part of his resignation letter:

            The most difficult decision of my life, one that will effect the lives of the persons most dear to me, my family, and the people whom I love and feel very close to, on a personal as well as a working relationship. The decision has been to leave these people and the company that has been part of my life for the past five years…therefore effectively immediately I give you my resignation. […] A new company is being formed of which I will be a part of and in our evaluation of many factors have made this decision.^[68] On April 11, 1968, Bobby Mosteller, Charles Bramlett, Irv Harvey and Irv Pomerantz founded Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc., and Harvey became president, Bramlett became executive vice-president, Pomerantz became vice president-Marketing and Mosteller became vice president-Manufacturing.

On April 11, 1968, Bobby Mosteller, Charles Bramlett, Irv Harvey and Irv Pomerantz founded Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc., and Harvey became president, Bramlett became executive vice-president, Pomerantz became vice president-Marketing and Mosteller became vice president-Manufacturing.

           

The new company was founded during the height of the Apollo space program, which was trying to adhere to President Kennedy’s 1961 vow to “land a man on the moon and bring him home before the end of the decade.” This led the quartet to choose the name “Galaxy” because it fit into the new era of “space-age” design and technology that was created during the 1960s. Galaxy’s logo was in the shape of a spiral that had nine stars scattered throughout. Four of the stars symbolized the four founders and the other five stars represented the first board members of Galaxy. In keeping with the space theme, many of Galaxy’s “initial styles had space-based labels and names associated with the space program, such as ‘Schirra Shag,’ named for one of the Apollo astronauts” and “Spaceway.”[69]

            Galaxy Carpet Mills was an anomaly almost from its inception because the four founders were vastly different, and this led to them making some unique decisions in how the business should be set up. Bobby Mosteller and Charles Bramlett had been born in Georgia and were both Southern Baptists. Also, they had become close friends when they worked at E&B Carpets together. Irv Harvey had been born in Illinois and Irv Pomerantz had been born in New York, but both of them were Jewish and they too had formed a close friendship with one another while working at E&B. Ironically, each man was skilled in a different area of the carpet industry, but his expertise correlated with that of his close friend. For example, Mosteller and Bramlett knew the most about how to properly produce carpet, and Harvey and Pomerantz knew the most about marketing and sales, respectfully.

            The aforementioned differences led the men to split the functions of Galaxy up in such a way that appeased everyone. Irv Harvey really wanted to move back and live in Chicago because both he and Irv Pomerantz had been living in Dallas, Texas while they worked for E&B; so, they established Galaxy’s official headquarters in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, which was a suburb of Chicago. As Irv Harvey stated, “from [the headquarters in Elk Grove Village] the carpet will be sold and distribution made to retail outlets throughout the country.”[70] Bobby Mosteller and Charles Bramlett chose to remain in Georgia, where they established Galaxy’s production mill in Chatsworth, Georgia. This was ironic and also made Galaxy an anomaly because Dalton, Georgia was the “Carpet Capital” and most of the carpet produced was made within a 50-mile radius of Dalton. So, it was strange for the headquarters of a carpet company to be found in Elk Grove Village, Illinois that was not in any way associated with the production of carpet. It was also strange for the manufacturing facilities to be located in Chatsworth, Georgia because carpet production “had never really ‘taken off’ in Chatsworth” or in surrounding Murray County.[71]

            In response to the question of why they chose to make their base of productions in Chatsworth, Irv Harvey stated, “Chatsworth was chosen because of the availability of labor and land for future expansion.”[72] Harvey also stated, that “the location will be convenient to both skilled and unskilled labor in the immediate area, who now travel to Dalton to work.”[73] The Chatsworth plant had 33,000 square feet of space and it “contain[ed] 2 tufting mills (with the capacity of 4), a finishing oven, a shearing machine, storage capacity for 500 rolls [of carpet], miscellaneous other equipment and approximately 2,000 sq ft of office space.”[74] It was a testament to Mosteller and Bramlett’s entrepreneurial prowesses that they chose to build their production mill in Chatsworth instead of in Dalton because Dalton was already home to so many other mills that Galaxy could have gotten lost in the sea of other mills located there. This way, with Galaxy out of the entrepreneurial fray in Dalton, they would be sure to accrue and turn a steady profit because there would be less competition for workers and materials in Chatsworth than in Dalton.

            The following is Irv Harvey’s marketing strategy for Galaxy when it began in 1968. The company’s marketing organization will consist of a network of regional warehouses located throughout the country, for storing and shipping direct to its customers. These will be carpet specialty stores, department stores, furniture stores, and carpet contractors. By not selling through independent distributors, the company will build a reputation for being very competitively priced, even while it is achieving higher net profits than they otherwise would be able to attain.[75]Galaxy then followed Harvey’s plan as stated in a 1968 advertisement,

            [Galaxy] initially had a line of 8 to 10 qualities [of carpet] in the low to medium price bracket. These [were] made of synthetic fibers-nylon, acrylic, and polyester. Having a short line will enable Galaxy to maintain inventory in depth for prompt shipment and reliable service to its customers. For the present, the line will concentrate on high volume styles in popular colors.[7]And, by the end of 1968, Galaxy had made $864,368 in sales and they had about fifty people in their employ.

            For the first two years, from 1968 to 1969, Galaxy did moderately well for a new company, in terms of taking advantage of the economic opportunity afforded by the carpet industry. However, the company soon hit an economic snag, despite Irv Harvey’s intricately designed plan for Galaxy that almost made them closed down production for good. In 1970, Galaxy was on the verge of going bankrupt, so company president Irv Harvey called an emergency meeting to be held between the founders in Chicago. This meant that Bobby Mosteller and Charles Bramlett would have to fly to Illinois. Harvey had booked them flights in coach, but, upon hearing this arrangement, Bramlett told him to exchange them “because we’re going to Chicago first-class, even if this is the last time.”[77]  Fortunately, Mosteller and Bramlett took with them samples of a new style of carpet, called Caravelle. The Caravelle sample consisted of a solid-colored, scroll pattern design that, ultimately, saved Galaxy from going under because it proved to be a popular among customers.

            After the bankruptcy scare in 1970, Galaxy steadily improved and gradually began implementing Irv Harvey’s plan. The company’s next course of action after the bankruptcy scare was to build a dye house on their property in Chatsworth. With their own dye house, Galaxy could save money and make a better profit by not having to hire out and send the materials off to be dyed. This would allow them to begin the process of creating a vertically integrated system, which would eventually allow them to own and control all of the different aspects of the carpet industry in Chatsworth.[78] Unfortunately, the company ran into some water issues that resulted in them not having enough water to adequately supply a dye house in Chatsworth; so, they built the dye house in Dalton. When it opened in 1971, the Dalton dye house had “21,000 square feet of space.”[79] It also contained “nine dye becks, a complete extractor, and a drying unit.”[80] A dye beck is a large vat that is full of dyes, chemicals and water that has a reel across the middle of the vat. Carpet, in pieces or rolls, is then placed in the vat and turned continuously around the reel, which ensures that the carpet is fully dyed. A complete extractor is a carpet cleaning machine that is used to fully deep-clean the carpet before it is sold. At the end of 1971, Galaxy’s gross sales “was over 21 million dollars” and they had “over 400 employees” working at the “mill, warehouses and offices.”[81]

            In 1972, Galaxy continued to follow Irv Harvey’s plan by focusing on selling a variety of  “middle of the road” or average, understated styles that had affordable prices because as Harvey stated, “we always wanted to be the Chevrolet of the [carpet] industry.”[82] What Harvey meant by his statement is that he wanted to emulate Chevrolet’s marketing strategy of mass producing and selling a variety of car models, whereas Chevrolet’s competitor Ford only produced one model of car for the masses when the companies first began. Galaxy’s carpet prices ranged from “$8.95 to $13.95 a square yard,” whereas other carpet company’s sold their carpet for prices that ranged from the twenty to thirty dollar price point.[83] As the company slogan put in, Galaxy made “very rich carpet that not so rich people can afford.”[84] At the end of 1972, Galaxy offered “38 styles of carpet with an average of 12 colors per style.”[85] Also, in 1972, Galaxy went public and began selling shares of stock in their company. In all, over 300,000 shares of “over-the-counter” stock sold in 1972. Over-the-counter meant that Galaxy sold its stock through a broker instead of through a stock exchange, but, in 1973, Galaxy joined the American Stock Exchange, and its symbol was GXY.[86]

            Galaxy continued to expand, in both size and profits, throughout the mid-1970s, which allowed them to become an innovator in the carpet industry before their 10th anniversary. In 1974, the Dalton dye house was “expanded by 43,460 square feet” and Galaxy acquired the “Volunteer Spinning Mill,” which they quickly “expanded by 6,000 square feet.”[87] In 1975, Galaxy evolved to become an innovator in the national carpet industry by taking advantage of a lucrative economic opportunity offered to them by the Dow Chemical Company. In 1975, Galaxy was operating “one of the largest regional distribution networks in the nation,” because, thanks to the foresight of Irv Harvey and Irv Pomerantz, they had distributions centers in many cities scattered throughout the United States.[88] Also, Galaxy carpet was being sold in many of the United States’ largest carpet retailers and they had achieved their dream of vertical integration because they had their own spinning, heatsetting, finishing and dyeing facilities scattered throughout North Georgia and Tennessee. Because of this, Galaxy soon caught the eye of the Dow Chemical Company, who offered Galaxy a partnership opportunity to work with them to create a new urethane backing for carpet.

            The new urethane backing that the Dow-Galaxy partnership created was the cost-effective prime urethane carpet pad. Prime urethane backing is made from pieces of foam that are cut into sheets, that are then attached to the tufted carpet. The urethane backing made the carpet more cushioned and softer to walk on. As Irv Harvey stated, “urethane is tougher than the synthetic rubber that’s used for backing on many carpets.”[89] Because Dow Chemical Company partnered with Galaxy Carpet Mills to create the urethane backing, Galaxy was given exclusive rights to use the new urethane backing for one year. So, Galaxy created a new carpet that used the new backing, which led them to, quite appropriately, name their new product: Future Step®. Once other companies could use the urethane backing, urethane backed carpet “made up about 25 percent of the carpet that [was] sold nationwide,” at that time, and it was all thanks to the Dow-Galaxy partnership.[90]

            Galaxy’s next innovation in the carpet industry came in 1977, when they re-enticed people to buy new carpeting after becoming one of the first carpet mills to use an internationally renowned fashion designer to create a designer line of carpets. The fashion designer that Galaxy chose to work with was Oleg Cassini, who, himself, was an innovator in the fashion world.

            Oleg Cassini was born in Paris and rose to “international eminence” when, shortly after entering the White House, Mrs. John F. Kennedy named him her official couturier. Responsible for the sheath and the “little white collar dress,” knits, the military look and the A-line, Cassini was one of the first prominent designers to undertake male fashions. Some of his contributions to men’s wear are the blazer look, the turtle-neck for evening, the blue-jean look, the western look and the colored shirt for men.[91]

            The man behind this outrageous idea was Galaxy’s president and marketing extraordinaire, Irv Harvey. The following was Harvey’s rationale for how he came up with this idea: Twenty-five years ago, when most carpet was made of wool and there were five basic colors to choose from, people changed their carpets once every 15 years. Now it’s down to once every seven years, although it’s virtually impossible to wear out nylon, which is what 95 percent of today’s carpet is made from.[92]What Harvey meant by this was that because nylon carpet was tough to destroy,  people kept the same styles for many years; so, Galaxy, striving to be like Chevrolet, needed to introduce new and unique carpet styles that would entice people to buy new carpets. Harvey also meant that in the earlier days of carpet it was used out of necessity to cover the floor, but, in 1977, carpet was being used for aesthetic purposes because there were more colors and styles to choose from.   Galaxy’s Oleg Cassini line consisted of six carpets that “were based on the designs of the Italian Renaissance styles of [Cassini’s] native Italy” in striped and tiled patterns.[93] The Cassini Line was unusual because all of “its 20 colors coordinate[d] with every one of its six distinct patterns, and the consumer [was] able to choose multiple color-coordinated patterns without need[ing to consult] an interior designer.”[94] Galaxy’s price for the Oleg Cassini Line was $15.95 to $19.95 a yard and by Galaxy introducing a new “designer” line, they would be able to “get regular buyers of Galaxy carpet to trade up to a more expensive and attractive carpet.”[95] They would also “gain new customers who regularly [bought] more expensive ‘designer’ carpets to save money by spending less than $25 dollars a yard of more for those carpets.”[96]

Cassini designed the carpets in 1977, but they were not released until 1978, which was a smart economic strategy for Galaxy because 1978 marked Galaxy’s 10th anniversary of being in business in the carpet industry. After the Oleg Cassini Line was released, it took the United States by storm. Every home furnishings trade paper carried a story about the Cassini Line, and “nearly 350 newspapers” throughout the country carried articles about Cassini’s designs.[97] Galaxy also marketed the Line in three ways: by issuing carpet retailers an Oleg Cassini Merchandising Kit, by featuring it in a television ad campaign and by offering a sweepstakes for the distributors who purchased Cassini designed carpet. The Oleg Cassini Merchandising Kit made for retailers consisted of a “poster with a photo-script of text and pictures from the television commercial, an oval plaque, suitable for wall hanging or counter display with the words ‘Oleg Cassini for Galaxy’ written in gold on a deep-brown, earth-tone background,” similar to the carpet colors and four-color brochures that each contained pictures of the six different styles of carpet.[98]

            The television ad campaign used to showcase the Cassini Line consisted of a “30-second television spot” being featured in a four-week long advertising campaign that was shown in “15 cities throughout the United States.”[99]  The commercial reached an “estimated 20 million households of adults age[d] 18 to 49.”[100] The commercial featured a person’s feet walking on each of Cassini’s six carpets with Oleg Cassini’s voice being heard describing the unique concept found in each design. At the end of the commercial, an announcer’s voice is heard telling the audience that Oleg Cassini designed the carpets, while the camera is panning back to show Cassini standing there.

            Galaxy’s last marketing strategy offered a sweepstakes prize for the distributors that purchased Cassini designed carpets. Every distributor that bought the carpet would be entered for a chance to win an “Adventure in Style,” which was a grand trip to Italy for two people.[101] The “Adventure in Style” was a deluxe trip that featured “accommodations at the finest hotel, gourmet meals [and a chance to see] the best of Italy.”[102] The trip was scheduled for May 8-17, 1980 and “one trip was given away to two people every three months for the first nine months the line was out.”[103] There was also a consolation prize for those that did not win the “Adventure in Style” because, with every dealers’ first purchase, they received an Oleg Cassini designer necktie.

            As the 1970s drew to a close and the 1980s began, Galaxy was still riding high and enjoying the economic gain they had made by partnering with Oleg Cassini to make designer carpets. In 1980, Galaxy’s third innovation that they introduced to the carpet industry was the Vividye™ technique, which they received exclusive permission to use throughout the 1980 fiscal year. This meant that, yet again, Galaxy was on the leading edge of the industry and could use a process before anyone else could. The Vividye process “applied a random flow of color to the carpet’s surface to create a unique, distinctive and marbleized effect.”[104] Each of the colors blended together harmoniously in abstract patterns, which would add a subtle dimension to any decor that a person had in their home.[105] Galaxy’s use of Vividye in the early 1980s helped keep them on the edge of the industry because they had introduced lighter, pastel and shaded colors, which “delighted their retailers” because most other carpet companies were “just beginning to move away from the earth tones-rust, beige, brown and tawny-gold-that dominated the 1970s home decorating schemes.”[106] 

            In 1982, Galaxy Carpet Mills was “ranked number one among the eight publicly-owned companies that exclusively produced carpet” by the Kurt Salmon Associates, a management consulting firm that annually published a performance profile of textile companies.[107]  Some of Galaxy’s competition included “Shaw Industries, Peerless of Canada, Masland, Salem and several other industries.”[108] Out of eleven categories that Kurt Salmon Associates analyzed, Galaxy obtained higher numbers than Shaw Industries in nine of them. Galaxy also had a slightly higher net income of percentage of sales than did Shaw. Galaxy’s net income was 4 percent, and Shaw’s was 3.36 percent.[109] However, Shaw Industries had higher gross sales and a greater net income than Galaxy did.

            In 1983, Galaxy was the 12th largest carpet manufacturer in the United States, and about 85 percent of their sales were sold directly to retailers.[110] One perk of Galaxy having their headquarters in the midwestern city of Chicago was that they could fill orders faster than most other carpet companies, whose headquarters were in the eastern city of Dalton. Depending on where a retailer was located, Galaxy could get orders to them in as little as two days or as long as two weeks, whereas, it took other companies six to eight week’s time to ship carpet to their retailers.[111] Galaxy could fill and ship orders faster because, along with their headquarters being somewhere other than Dalton, they also had showrooms and distribution centers scattered throughout the United States that housed supplies of carpet. This allowed Galaxy to be able to ship its carpet faster than other companies that did not have distribution centers located throughout the United States.     

            Throughout the mid-1980s, an economic price war swept through the carpet industry, and Galaxy got caught in its tide. The price war placed every carpet company in competition with the others, and, because of this, Galaxy’s earnings fell and continued to be off until late in 1986 and on into 1987, when Irv Harvey, Irv Pomerantz, Bobby Mosteller and Charles Bramlett decided to restructure Galaxy’s marketing strategy. For years, Galaxy had been following the marketing plan that Irv Harvey created in 1968, that said that Galaxy would produce good quality but lower priced carpets that anyone could afford and they also eventually created their own vertically integrated plan by owning every aspect of the carpet production, themselves, from the tufting to the dyeing of the carpets. However, in 1986, the company changed their plan by “reaching an agreement with [the] Sears [Roebuck Company] to become a major carpet supplier for [their] retail chain.”[112] Galaxy would “manufacture ‘private label’ carpets that would be [sold under] the Sears label in stores.”[113]

            Also, in 1986 and 1987, to help bring up their revenue, Galaxy’s researchers and chemists had been researching how to include stain resistant fibers into carpet, but DuPont beat them to a finished product. DuPont was a chemical company, but, in the early 1960s, its products had been useful in furthering the carpet industry by having them convert to their new invention, nylon fibers to make carpet instead of cotton and wool fibers. In 1985, DuPont chemist, Armand Zinnato discovered that “‘certain dye-resist agents previously used to improve wash-fastness’ in carpet fibers ‘would also impart stain-resistance.’”[114] DuPont called their new product “Stainmaster,” and, in January 1987, they licensed Galaxy to be one of their initial twelve mills to market and sell Stainmaster products.

            Even though Galaxy was one of twelve companies tapped to market Stainmaster products, they realized its potential to be a hit with the public before the other companies, and they channeled all of their energy into producing as much stain-resistant carpet that they could. This proved to be a very fortuitous move on the part of Galaxy’s founders because consumers did see the usefulness of having stain-resistant carpet and, because so few companies were selling it, they were willing to pay more for it. Because Galaxy produced more stain-resistant carpet than the other smaller companies they could sell it for a higher price. In 1987, Galaxy’s broadloom [tufted, wall-to-wall] carpet line sold “at an average of $7.17, compared with an industry average of $6.16.”[115] Some of the new styles, treated with Stainmaster, that Galaxy created was “Regal Elegance,” “Union Square,” “Glen Haven,” “Sonora Sands,” and “To Priority.”[116]  Galaxy also produced carpets, labeled as its “spot-less collection,” that used other stain-resistant fibers such as “Anso, V worry-free, Gold and Silver Labeled Wear-Dated, and Scotchgard StainRelease,” which that came in a wide variety of colors and styles.[117]

            In 1988, Galaxy celebrated its 20th anniversary of being in business in the carpet industry, but its days were numbered because of two important things that Galaxy experienced in the late 1980s: flooding and agglomeration. In 1988, “the roof collapsed on Galaxy’s Dalton dye house and [the] insurance payoffs did not come close to meeting company costs for repairs and lost production.”[118] No sooner had Galaxy fixed the roof, then the area around the Dalton dye house flooded and their production was again disrupted while extensive repairs took place. Also, in the late 1980s, Shaw Industries had begun to take advantage of the entrepreneurial atmosphere in Dalton by taking the carpet industry into the new direction of agglomeration or consolidation. Shaw Industries was a “merciless competitor” because they were the “undisputed low-cost producer in the industry” and they would also buy out smaller companies that could not keep up with the way Shaw did its business.[119] To keep up with Shaw, Galaxy would have had to get “lean and mean” by drastically downsizing the number of their employees.[120] Bobby Mosteller and Charles Bramlett did not want to do that to any of their employees because Mosteller felt like Galaxy “was one big family” and Bramlett did not want to be the cause of any of the thousands of people that Galaxy employed to lose their job.[121] The industry had changed and the founders of Galaxy could not keep up and still retain their integrity, so it was time for them to end their dream.

            After having been incorporated for twenty-one years, Galaxy announced on May 1, 1989 that they had accepted a buyout offer from the Montreal based Canadian firm, Peerless Carpet Corporation. At its height, Galaxy boasted $285 million in sales and operated a dye house in Dalton, spinning mills in Fort Oglethorpe and in plant in South Pittsburg, Tennessee.[122] On June 12, 1989, Peerless President and Chief Operating Officer, David H. Arditi, wrote the following letter to all Galaxy employees:

            Peerless Carpet Corporation was established in 1954 by our current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Bram Garber and [it] is the leading Canadian manufacturer and distributor of broadloom carpet for both Canadian and foreign consumption. The company is also the exclusive distributor of Congoleum resilient floor covering and is a major distributor of carpet underpaying, adhesives and other accessories. Peerless is also the leading Canadian manufacturer of bathroom broadloom, bath sets, bath mats and scatter rugs.[123]  Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc. sold to Peerless Carpet Corporation in 1989 for $46 million dollars, and, after Peerless took over, “some 280 [former Galaxy employees] were trimmed down to the current workforce [number] of 1,864,” but Steve Silverman, executive vice-president of Peerless/Galaxy, said that those “employees would have left anyway through normal attrition.”[124] It is ironic that two of the companies, Shaw Industries and Peerless Carpet Corporation, that Galaxy beat in the 1982 Kurt Salmon Associates annual “Performance Profile of Textile Companies" would be same two companies that forced them to leave the business and then buy them out. However, out of the two, only Shaw Industries remains a powerhouse in the carpet industry to this day because, in 1995, Mohawk Industries bought Galaxy from the Peerless Carpet Corporation, which gave them access to use Galaxy’s plant in Chatsworth. In tribute to Galaxy, Mohawk has a collection of “Galaxy Carpet” that is made of Stainmaster®, WearDated® or Anso® nylon fibers, like the original Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc. originated and innovated in the 1970s and the 1980s.

            In conclusion, from bedspreads to broadloom, the tufted carpet industry has had a long and storied history that all began when one young girl rediscovered the lost art of tufting in 1895, thereby creating an economic and entrepreneurial opportunity in Dalton, Georgia that was still around sixty-eight years later when four men founded Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc. in 1968. Catherine Evans Whitener rediscovered the lost art of tufting materials after she noticed a bedspread at her cousin’s house in 1892 that no one in her family knew how it had been created. The bedspread intrigued Whitener so much that she just had to learn how it had been created. In 1895, her efforts were rewarded when she successfully made her own tufted bedspread, and, in the process, improved upon the old way of tufting by creating a new tufting stitch. In 1900, she made history when she crafted another hand tufted bedspread for her brother’s wedding. The bedspread then captivated the women of Summerville, Georgia, after Whitener’s brother and sister-in-law moved there, and soon everyone wanted one of Whitener’s beautiful bedspreads. Whitener became so swamped with orders, due to her entrepreneurial prowess, that she taught other women how to tuft. This led to the creation of a very lucrative cottage industry of women selling tufted bedspreads from their homes or along the infamous stretch of US Highway 41 that became known as “Bedspread Alley.”

            In the 1930s, the men of Dalton began to take notice of just how lucrative the women’s bedspread industry really was, so they decided to get involved and when they did, they turned the tufted bedspread industry into a fully-fledged textile industry that made bedspreads, mats and bathrobes but most importantly, carpet. One of the first male dominated industries was Cabin Crafts, who made the tufted bedspreads that were used on Scarlett O’Hara’s bed in the 1939 movie classic, Gone With the Wind. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, many other men created their own companies and many of them sold tufted carpeting, however, it was in the late 1960s, with the creation of Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc., that the entrepreneurial spirit that Catherine Evans Whitener first began in Dalton re-emerged during the “second wave” of the carpet industry. 

            Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc. was founded by four men, Bobby Mosteller, Charles Bramlett, Irv Harvey and Irv Pomerantz, and, throughout its twenty-one year existence, Galaxy grew to become an anomaly in the carpet industry. One of the ways that Galaxy became an anomaly was because its founders were split up into two groups, which caused the business to be divided as well. Bobby Mosteller and Charles Bramlett were close friends from Georgia and they knew the most about how to properly produce carpet, whereas, Irv Harvey and Irv Pomerantz were close friend who lived in Chicago, Illinois and they knew the most about marketing and sales, respectfully. This led the men to decide to let Harvey and Pomerantz establish Galaxy’s headquarters in Elk Grove Village, which was a suburb outside of Chicago, while Mosteller and Bramlett established Galaxy’s production plant in Chatsworth, Georgia. Having Galaxy’s headquarters and distribution centers outside of Dalton, where tufted carpet originated, was a bold move that paid off, because it allowed Galaxy to produce and ship its carpet faster than other companies who had their headquarters and distribution centers in Dalton.

            Galaxy was also an anomaly that took advantage of the entrepreneurial opportunity started by Catherine Evans Whitener, by becoming a leader in the carpet industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Galaxy produced good quality carpets that had reasonable prices that everyone could afford. Galaxy was also one of the first companies to have a world-renowned fashion designer, Oleg Cassini, to design a whole line of designer carpet for them. Galaxy also partnered with other innovators in the carpet industry, like the Dow Chemical Company and the DuPont Chemical Company, to produce innovative styles of carpet: the urethane backed Fashion Step® and the stain-resistant Stainmaster® carpet. In each of these situations, Galaxy was given the exclusive rights to use the products for one year before it was released to the other carpet companies, which gave them a head start in sales for the next year.    

            Despite being born in the 1800s, Catherine Evans Whitener got to see and experience much of the first wave of the carpet industry that included watching how the cottage industry she created of hand tufting bedspreads evolved into the mechanized process of tufting broadloom carpets. Whitener also saw how Dalton, Georgia transformed from a serene and bucolic town into an industrial hotspot, which was home to many millionaires that had profited due to her entrepreneurial and economic prowess, although she died on June 2, 1964, before the second wave of the carpet industry began. In 2001, Whitener was inducted into the Georgia Women of Achievement Hall of Fame because of the entrepreneurial opportunity that she started that fateful day in 1900, after she sold her first bedspread for $2.50. However, the four founders of Galaxy all worked in one (or more) of the first wave of carpet industries before they created Galaxy during the second wave in 1968. All of them are now deceased, except Bobby Mosteller, who still lives in Chatsworth. Irv Harvey died on June 25, 2006, at the age of 75. Charles Bramlett died on August 18, 2014, at the age of 82. Irv Pomerantz died on December 17, 2018, at the age of 92. Although Catherine Evans Whitener, Irv Harvey, Charles Bramlett and Irv Pomerantz are no longer here, their legacies still live on as reminders of the many innovators and entrepreneurs in the tufted textile industry, that transformed Dalton, Georgia from the "Bedspread Capital of the World" to the "Carpet Capital of the World."           

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY

Bobby Mosteller-Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc Collection. Bandy Heritage Center for Northwest Georgia. Dalton State College. Dalton, Georgia.

Catherine Evans Whitener Collection, Crown Gardens and Archives, Dalton, Georgia.

Hamilton, R. E. “Bedspread Bonanza.” Condensed from The Christian Science Monitor in Reader’s Digest. 15 March 1941.

US Congress. Congressional Record. 91st Cong., 1st Session., 1969. Vol. 115, pt. 28.

SECONDARY

Callahan, Ashley. Southern Tufts: The Regional Origins and National Craze for Chenille Fashion. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2015.

Deaton, Thomas M. Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of the Tufted Carpet Industry. Acton, MA: Color Wheel, 1993.

 Garrett, Laurel “From Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of Dalton’s Carpet Industry,” Rural Georgia, 1987.

Patton, Randall L., and David B. Parker. Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999.   

Tamasy, Robert J. Tufting Legacies: Cobble Brothers to Card-Monroe, The Story of the Men Who Revolutionized the Carpet Industry. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Inc, 2010.

 Webb Robert, “Catherine Evans Whitener: Inventor, Businessperson, Mother of Georgia’s Tufted Textile Industry,” Whitfield-Murray Quarterly Historical Society, 2000, Volume 19- No. 4.

            ^[1] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 231.

            ^[2] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), xi.

           

            ^[3] Patton and Parker, Carpet Capital, 2.

           

            ^[4] Thomas M. Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of the Tufted Carpet Industry (Acton, MA: Color Wheel, 1993), x.

           

            ^[5] Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom, x.

           

            ^[6] “Mrs. Catherine Evans Whitener, 83, Dies,” Newspaper Clipping, Catherine Evans Whitener Collection, Crown Gardens and Archives, Dalton, Georgia.

           

            ^[7] Robert Webb, “Catherine Evans Whitener: Inventor, Businessperson, Mother of Georgia’s Tufted Textile Industry,” Whitfield-Murray Quarterly Historical Society, 2000, Volume 19- No. 4.

           

            ^[8] Ashley Callahan, Southern Tufts: The Regional Origins and National Craze for Chenille Fashion (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2015), 5.

           

            ^[9] “Catherine Evans Whitener Began a Mammoth Industry,” The Daily Citizen-News, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[10] Robert Webb, “Catherine Evans Whitener: Inventor, Businessperson, Mother of Georgia’s Tufted Textile Industry,” Whitfield-Murray Quarterly Historical Society, 2000, Volume 19- No. 4.

           

            ^[11] Callahan, Southern Tufts, 5.

           

            ^[12] Callahan, xxi.

           

            ^[13] Laurel Garrett, “From Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of Dalton’s Carpet Industry,” Rural Georgia, 1987.

           

            ^[14] Ashley Callahan, Southern Tufts: The Regional Origins and National Craze for Chenille Fashion (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2015), xxi.

           

            ^[15] Callahan, Southern Tufts, xxi.

           

            ^[16] “Women Dominated Industry,” Citizen-News, Article by Cheryl Wykoff, September, 6, 1987, 4C, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[17] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 85.

           

            ^[18] Women Dominated Industry,” Citizen-News, Article by Cheryl Wykoff, September, 6, 1987, 4C, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[19] Women Dominated Industry,” Citizen-News, Article by Cheryl Wykoff, September, 6, 1987, 4C, CEW Collection.

            ^[20] Thomas M. Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of the Tufted Carpet Industry (Acton, MA: Color Wheel, 1993), 207.

           

            ^[21] Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom, 4.

           

            ^[22] Ashley Callahan, Southern Tufts: The Regional Origins and National Craze for Chenille Fashion (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2015), 4.

           

            ^[23] Callahan, Southern Tufts, 4.

           

            ^[24] Peacock Alley Poster, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[25] “Mrs. Catherine Evans Whitener, 83, Dies,” Newspaper Clipping, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[26] “Mrs. Catherine Evans Whitener, 83, Dies,” Newspaper Clipping, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[27] “If I Had Been A Man,” Chattanooga News- Free Press, Catherine Evans Whitener, June 30, 1990, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[28] “If I Had Been A Man,” Chattanooga News- Free Press, Catherine Evans Whitener, June 30, 1990, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[29] “Mrs. Catherine Evans Whitener, 83, Dies,” Newspaper Clipping, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[30] Thomas M. Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of the Tufted Carpet Industry (Acton, MA: Color Wheel, 1993), 4.

           

            ^[31] “If I Had Been A Man,” Chattanooga News- Free Press, Catherine Evans Whitener, June 30, 1990, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[32] “If I Had Been A Man,” Chattanooga News- Free Press, Catherine Evans Whitener, June 30, 1990, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[33] Thomas M. Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of the Tufted Carpet Industry (Acton, MA: Color Wheel, 1993), 4.

           

            ^[34] Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom, 4.

           

            ^[35] Deaton, 4.

           

            ^[36] Robert Webb, “Catherine Evans Whitener: Inventor, Businessperson, Mother of Georgia’s Tufted Textile Industry,” Whitfield-Murray Quarterly Historical Society, 2000, Volume 19- No. 4.

           

            ^[37] Thomas M. Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of the Tufted Carpet Industry (Acton, MA: Color Wheel, 1993), 5

           

            ^[38] Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom, 5.

           

            ^[39] Deaton, 5.

           

            ^[40] Peacock Alley Poster, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[41] Peacock Alley Poster, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[42] “A Brief History of the Tufting Industry,” CEW Collection.

           

            ^[43] Robert J. Tamasy, Tufting Legacies: Cobble Brothers to Card-Monroe, The Story of the Men Who Revolutionized the Carpet Industry (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Inc, 2010), 7.

           

            ^[44] “Mrs. Catherine Evans Whitener, 83, Dies,” Newspaper Clipping, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[45] Robert Webb, “Catherine Evans Whitener: Inventor, Businessperson, Mother of Georgia’s Tufted Textile Industry,” Whitfield-Murray Quarterly Historical Society, 2000, Volume 19- No. 4.

           

            ^[46] “Mrs. Catherine Evans Whitener, 83, Dies,” Newspaper Clipping, CEW Collection.

           

            ^[47] R. E. Hamilton, “Bedspread Bonanza,” Condensed from The Christian Science Monitor in Reader’s Digest, March 15, 1941.

           

            ^[48] Thomas M. Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of the Tufted Carpet Industry (Acton, MA: Color Wheel, 1993), 22.

           

            ^[49] Peacock Alley Poster, CEW Collection.

                      

  ^[50] Cong. Rec., 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 1969, vol. 115, pt 28: 37856.

           

            ^[51] Robert J. Tamasy, Tufting Legacies: Cobble Brothers to Card-Monroe, The Story of the Men Who Revolutionized the Carpet Industry (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Inc, 2010), 8-9.

               ^[52] Tamasy, Tufting Legacies, 8.

           

            ^[53] Robert J. Tamasy, Tufting Legacies: Cobble Brothers to Card-Monroe, The Story of the Men Who Revolutionized the Carpet Industry (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Inc, 2010), 9.

           

            ^[54] Tamasy, Tufting Legacies, 31.

           

            ^[55] Tamasy, 55.

           

            ^[56] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 207.

           

            ^[57] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 209.

           

            ^[58] Patton and Parker, Carpet Capital, 210.

           

            ^[59] Patton and Parker, 210.

           

            ^[60] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999),  211.

           

            ^[61] Patton and Parker, Carpet Capital, 211.

           

            ^[62] Patton and Parker, 211.

           

            ^[63] Patton and Parker, 211.

            ^[64] Autobiography of Irv Harvey, Bobby Mosteller-Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc Collection, Bandy Heritage Center for Northwest Georgia, Dalton State College, Dalton, Georgia. Bobby Mosteller collection

           

            ^[65] Autobiography of Irv Harvey, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[66] Autobiography of Irv Harvey, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[67] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 211-212.

           

            ^[68] Bobby Mosteller, Resignation Letter to Art Black, 18 March 1968, BM-GCMI Collection.

            ^[69] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 212.

           

            ^[70] Bobby Mosteller-Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc Collection, Bandy Heritage Center for Northwest Georgia, Dalton State College, Dalton, Georgia.

           

            ^[71] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 213.

           

            ^[72] History of the Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc Portfolio by Bobby Mosteller, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[73] History of the Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc Portfolio by Bobby Mosteller, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[74] History of the Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc Portfolio by Bobby Mosteller, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[75] History of the Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc Portfolio by Bobby Mosteller, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[76] 1968 Advertisement for Galaxy Carpet Mills, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[77] Michael Edgerton, Newspaper Article, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[78] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 214.

           

            ^[79] A Progress Report from Galaxy Carpet Mills, Inc. June 1978, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[80] Overview Letter of Galaxy, From Irv Harvey to Bobby Mosteller, January 4, 1972. BM-GCMI Collection.

                      

  ^[81] Overview Letter of Galaxy, From Irv Harvey to Bobby Mosteller, January 4, 1972. BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[82] Michael Edgerton, Newspaper Article, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[83] Michael Edgerton, Newspaper Article, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[84] Handout for Customers of Galaxy’s Grand Opening of its new headquarters and Midwest Regional Branch in Elk Grove, October 24, 1971, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[85] A Progress Report from Galaxy Carpet Mills, Inc. June 1978, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[86] A Progress Report from Galaxy Carpet Mills, Inc. June 1978, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[87] A Progress Report from Galaxy Carpet Mills, Inc. June 1978, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[88] Bobby Mosteller-Galaxy Carpet Mills Inc Collection, Bandy Heritage Center for Northwest Georgia, Dalton State College, Dalton, Georgia.

           

            ^[89] Michael Edgerton, Newspaper Article, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[90] Michael Edgerton, Newspaper Article, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[91] “The Galaxy Universe”- The Official Publication of the Employees of Galaxy. Chatsworth, GA. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. 1977, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[92] Michael Edgerton, Newspaper Article, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[93] The Daily Herald, Newspaper Article, December 24, 1977. BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[94] The Daily Herald, Newspaper Article, December 24, 1977. BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[95] Michael Edgerton, Newspaper Article, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[96] Michael Edgerton, Newspaper Article, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[97] A Progress Report from Galaxy Carpet Mills, Inc. June 1978, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[98] A Progress Report from Galaxy Carpet Mills, Inc. June 1978, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[99] A Progress Report from Galaxy Carpet Mills, Inc. June 1978, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[100] A Progress Report from Galaxy Carpet Mills, Inc. June 1978, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[101] Oleg Cassini Merchandising Kit Brochure, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[102] Oleg Cassini Merchandising Kit Brochure, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[103] Oleg Cassini Merchandising Kit Brochure, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[104] 1979 Galaxy Carpet Mills, Inc. Annual Report book, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[105] 1979 Galaxy Carpet Mills, Inc. Annual Report book, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[106] Chicago Business, Newspaper Article by Joanne Cleaver, February 21, 1983, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[107] Dalton Daily Citizen Newspaper Article, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[108] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 219.

           

            ^[109] Patton and Parker, Carpet Capital, 219.

           

            ^[110] Chicago Business, Newspaper Article by Joanne Cleaver, February 21, 1983, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[111] Chicago Business, Newspaper Article by Joanne Cleaver, February 21, 1983, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[112] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 221.

           

            ^[113] Patton and Parker, Carpet Capital, 221.

           

            ^[114] Patton and Parker, 270.

           

            ^[115] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 222.

           

            ^[116] Dalton Carpet Journal, Dalton, GA, Sunday March 20, 1988 Article, Bob Murdaugh, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[117] Dalton Carpet Journal, Dalton, GA, Sunday March 20, 1988 Article, Bob Murdaugh, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[118] Patton and Parker, Carpet Capital, 223.

           

            ^[119] Patton and Parker, 222.

           

            ^[120] Randall L. Patton and David B. Parker, Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999), 222.

           

            ^[121] Dalton Daily Citizen, June 10, 2003 Newspaper Article, Matthew Lakin. BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[122] Dalton Daily Citizen, June 10, 2003 Newspaper Article, Matthew Lakin. BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[123] David H. Arditi, Peerless Letter to all Galaxy employees, 12 June 1989, BM-GCMI Collection.

           

            ^[124] Dalton Citizen News, 12 April 1990, BM-GCMI Collection.