Cottonseed Price-Fixing in Eastern North Carolina, 1903–1907

“While we rightly emphasize our progress in textiles, in tobacco, in lumber and in furniture, we often forget the little cottonseed and its economic significance, ” wrote an observer of the North Carolina cottonseed industry in 1925. 1 Despite its rank as one of the most valuable classes of southern manufacturing between 1890 and 1930, cottonseed processing has received little attention from historians. 2 By transforming excess seed into useful products, cottonseed processors created so great a demand for their raw material that it became the second largest cash crop in the South. 3 Cottonseed crushers engaged in an annual frenzy of seed buying that, if not checked, caused seed prices to soar. The attempts of early twentieth-century oil mill operators in eastern North Carolina to control cottonseed prices by minimizing competition for seed is the subject of this article.