Avondale Mill Village (Birmingham)

This article is about the Avondale Mills workers' village in Birmingham, for others see Avondale Mill Village (disambiguation).

Avondale Mill Village was a section of housing near the Avondale Mills plant in Avondale. It was located between 4th Terrace North and 5th Court Alley North and between 37th and 40th Street North, behind the massive brick mill building.

In 1912 the village was described as housing 600 workers in about 130 one-story cube-shaped frame houses built over an flattened area of cinders. The district had no paved streets or sidewalks. Rows of saplings had been planted in front of the houses and patches of weeds and grass struggled through the cinders here and there. The alleys behind the houses were lined with ash-barrels and privies. The school, provided for white children, was staffed by a single teacher.

In 1910 sociologist Lewis Wickes Hine photographed child laborers in the mill and the adjoining village. Two years later, while researching an article for The Survey, A. J. McKelway found the "moral conditions" of the village to be "deplorable." The village school was sparsely attended and "broken-down mill girls" often found themselves residing in a "row of houses of uncertain reputation" dubbed "Hell's Half-Acre" at one end of the village.

In 1924 the company gave names to some of the alleys on which houses had been constructed. 4th Court Alley North, then called "4th Alley", south of what later became 5th Avenue North, which is now Messer Airport Highway, was renamed Shady Avenue. 3rd Avenue North was named Broad Avenue, and 2nd Avenue North was called Park Avenue.

References

• McKelway, A. J. (January 6, 1912) "Conservation of Childhood." The Survey Special issue "Birmingham: Smelting Iron Ore and Civics." Vol. 27, No. 14, pp. 1515-26
• Taylor, Graham Romeyn (January 6, 1912) "Avondale." The Survey Special issue "Birmingham: Smelting Iron Ore and Civics." Vol. 27, No. 14, pp. 1466-67