Comer, James McDonald
Avondale Mills Office Files, 1920-1958
Biography/Background:
James
McDonald "Donald" Comer, one of nine children of Braxton Bragg Comer
(governor of Alabama
and later senator), was born on a Barbour County, Alabama, plantation on October
14, 1877. In 1890 the family
moved to Birmingham. Donald Comer served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines for
four years, 1898 - 1902.
Resigning his commission at the end of that time, Comer returned home and became
Secretary-Treasurer of B.B.
Comer & Sons, a corporation that ran the family's plantation.
When his
father was inaugurated to the governorship in 1907, Comer became Secretary of
Avondale
Mills, a textile manufacturing firm founded by B.B. Comer. In 1927 Comer became
president and treasurer of
Avondale Mills, which in time would employ about 7,000 people and produce a wide
variety of cotton goods. In
addition, Comer served on the boards of numerous firms — business, charitable,
and educational — both locally
and nationally. In 1936 he was elected President of the American Cotton
Manufacturers Association. In 1947 he
was nominated by the publisher of Dixie Business to the named the South's
"Man of the Year."
Source:
Breedlove,
Michael A. "Donald Comer: New Southerner, New Dealer." Ph.D.
Dissertation, American University, 1990.
Scope and Content:
This
collection includes the records of the business operations of the cotton mills
from 1920 to about
1939, and more general correspondence covering a later period. The first 128
boxes of the collection are largely
filled with bills, receipts, requisitions, letters of inquiry and application,
financial, legal, and banking papers, and
routine business correspondence.
The remaining
boxes are comprised mostly of correspondence reflecting Comer's interest in the
health of
the textiles industry, foreign competition in this market, and social and
economic situations in the South.
Guide to Collection:
File level
guide available in the Archives Department.
Subject Areas:
Avondale
(Birmingham, Ala.)
Avondale
Mills.
Comer,
Braxton Bragg, 1848-1927.
Comer, James
McDonald.
Cotton
manufacture -- Alabama.
Textile
industry -- Alabama.
Collection Number: 7
Size: 151 linear feet (146 boxes)
Restrictions: Standard preservation and copyright restrictions.
RA/7-10-01
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