Cotton is a natural seed fiber that exhibits many attractive qualities. It is comfortable; it breathes; and it can be dyed easily. These traits combined with its wide availability and renewability made cotton desirable for apparel and home use for centuries. As late as 1960, cotton accounted for two-thirds of the total retail apparel and home furnishings market (excluding carpet). Over the next fifteen years the onslaught of synthetics reduced cotton to a one-third share of that market, and projections in 1975 showed that if the rapid decline in consumer demand continued, cotton would be able to claim only 20% percent of the retail market.

Cotton's projected decline would have meant there would be little cotton grown in the United States by the end of the century. This was the situation that scientists and researchers at the Southern Regional Research Center faced when they began studies designed to make cotton competitive with synthetic fabrics. And one measure of their success is that by 2000 cotton owned a 61.5% share of the retail market for apparel and home furnishings (again, excluding carpet), In that year, cotton comprised 76% of all textiles used in men's apparel, and the average consumer used thirty-seven pounds of cotton a year, half again as much as ten years previously. King Cotton was reclaiming his throne.