Carolina Cotton Mill String Band - ca. 1905

   

Spray had a thriving community of traditional musicians that was inadvertently created by the mill system there.
  Recruiters were sent into the hill country to bring in impoverished farmers to work the factories.
These rural folks changed only their mailing addresses, not their culture.
  They brought with them their fiddles and banjos and mountain dance tunes. 

Pictures from Kinney Rorrer’s collection - Text from Kinney Rorrer’s booklet essay in High Wide & Handsome