The Cotton Mil Campaign: North Carolina's first Crowdfunding Effort

<p>We may think of crowdfunding as a recent phenomenon, but North Carolinians have been using community-financing to create businesses since the late-1800s. This post highlights a video about what became known as the Cotton Mill Campaign.</p>

Author: Steven Pennington

We often think about crowdfunding as a recent phenomenon that spawned from the internet. Crowdfunding rouses thoughts of an entrepreneur with an idea and the dream of starting a business, but little capital to get that dream off the ground.

On October 21st, the UNC Center for Competitive Economies hosted a symposium called “The Past and Future of Crowdfunding North Carolina Economic Development.” LEAD will soon be publishing another article on crowdfunding, explaining North Carolina’s recent legislation and what it means for our state’s businesses and investors.

But until then, we wanted to pass along a short video presented at the event, produced by a group called The Techies. It discusses the role of local capital in financing 19th century industrialization in North Carolina.

[video:https://youtu.be/VFRAC-agnmg align:center]

 

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