Between 1870 and 1940, the Carolina Piedmont emerged as the leading industrial region within the American South. Historical and biographical exploration of the "habits of industry" illuminates the meeting ground of white society, Protestant temperament, fatherly authority and capitalist development in the region. Drawing upon oral history interviews, collections of papers and correspondence, and published sources ranging from trade magazines to newspapers to regional research institute studies and general secondary sources, aspects of the Carolina Piedmont's industrialization are discussed across the lines of class and gender.

The region's geography, patterns of settlement and the history of its white yeoman (folk) culture contributed importantly to a Piedmont way of life seen in distinction to that of Southern plantation regions. Consideration of the Carolina Piedmont's post-Civil War development depends upon an appreciation of the region as a stronghold of antebellum yeoman society. Through several extensive biographical narratives, drawn from families whose livelihood shifted from farm to textile mill, household paternalism and work ethic values are followed in their extension from the family to the factory. A history of the development of the concept of the Carolina Piedmont is presented. Finally, discussion of the work and influence of the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina reveals how popular interpretations of the history of the Carolina Piedmont's white folk/working class culture, and the advocacy of regionalism itself, were made to harmonize with a conflict-free theory of society and an uncritical allegiance to American nationalism.