ATMI Presidents

1910-1920

D.Y. Cooper, 1910-1911, was president of Henderson Cotton Mills and Harriett Cotton Mills, Henderson, N.C. He was born in Granville County, N.C., April 21, 1847 and died in Henderson on December 20, 1920. As ACMA president, he stressed development of a sounder foreign trade.

Captain Ellison A. Smyth, 1911-1912, was associated with Francis J. Pelzer in establishing Pelzer Manufacturing Company at Pelzer, S.C. and was a founder, officer or director of a number of other mills in South and North Carolina. He is credited with installing the first incandescent lighting system in an American cotton mill in f1882: the first electric drives used in cotton mill in 1895; and the purchase of the first Draper automatic looms. He also was involved in banking, in the newspaper business, and in the electric power industry. As president of the South Carolina Cotton Manufacturers Association, he was the first to sponsor a state child labor law. Captain Smyth was born in Charleston on October 25, 1847 and died August 3, 1942 at the age of 94.

W. A. Erwin, 1912-1913, began his textile career in 1882 and for some 11 years served as general manager and treasurer of E. M. Holt Plaid Mills in Alamance County, N.C. He established Erwin Cotton Mills Co. a West Durham, N.C., and, at the time of his death, also controlled the Durham Cotton Manufacturing Company, the Pearl Cotton Mills, Oxford Cotton Milles, Locke Cotton Mills Co. and Erwin Yarn Co. He was born July 15, 1856 and died February 28, 1932.

Scott Maxwell, 1915-1916, began his career at Androscoggin Bag Mill, Lewiston, Me., and worked in mills in New England, South Carolina and Alabama before becoming mill agent at Indian Head Mills, Cordova, Ala. in 1903, a post he held until his death in 1916. He was born at Webster, Me., July 8, 1855, and died November 4, 1916 at Dover, N.H.

John A. Law, 1916-1917, worked actively for a closer relationshop between Southern and New England manufacturers. He was a member of the committee that organized the Cotton-Textile Institute, and was an original member of the National Industrial Conference Board. He served for many years as president of Saxon Mills, Spartanburg, S.C.

Fuller E. Callaway, 1917-1918, organized and directed anumber of cotton mills in Georgia, the best known being Callaway Mills at LaGrange. He served as ACMA president during the difficult first year of World War I, then became chairman of the Commission on European Representation at the World Cotton Conference, which he served as vice president. He was born at LaGrange, Ga., on lJuly 15, 1870 and died February 12, 1928. A son, Cason J. Callaway, served as Association president 1931-1932, and another son, Fuller E. Callaway, Jr., was first vice president.

Arthur J. Draper, 1918-1919, president of Chadwick-Hoskins Co., Charlotte, also served as president of the North Carolina Cotton Manufacturers Association. He was born on April 28, 1875 and died April 26, 1932.

James D. Hammett, 1919-1920, was born March 16, 1868 at Greenville, son of Colonel Henry Pinckney Hammett, one of the South's pioneer cotton manufacturers. He began work at the bottom of the mill in 1890, because assistant treasurer of Orr Cotton Mills, Anderson, S.C. in 1900 and went on to organize Chiquola Manufacturing Co., Honea Path, S.C. and to serve as president of Chiquola, Anderson Cotton Mills, Brogan Mills and Orr Cotton Mills, all at Anderson and Watts Mills, Laurens, S.C. He was a director of Piedmoont and Northern Railway and active in banking. A son, L.O. Hammett, became president of the South Carolina Cotton Manufacturers Association.

Stuart W. Cramer, 1913-1914, is credited with having planned or equipped one-third of the cotton mills operating in the South at the time of World War I. An inventor of note, he was granted more than 60 patents. He was president of the National Council of American Cotton Manufacturers in 1917-1918 and again from 1920 to 1927. He was a vice president of the Cotton-Textile Institure, and a director and treasurer of the Textile Foundation. The National Association of Cotton Manufacturers awarded him a medal in 1913 for his work on the protective tariff.

T. I. Hickman, 1914-1915, was second president of The Graniteville Co., 1889-1915. As Association president, he campaigned energetically for more extesive use of cotton goods, even attempting to get railroads to replace the traditional blue serge of conductors with cotton khaki. He was born April 14, 1866 an died in Augusta, Ga., on March 21, 1941.