23. American Woolen Co., Washington Mills, Lawrence, Mass., (#170 A-C), surveyed July 15, 1924
Factory Insurance Association , 1924
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Washington Mills in the 1920s During the year just past [1900] these mills consumed the total yearly clip of about 4,000,000 sheep, reckoning six and a half pounds to each animal. They produced 11,985,000 yards of worsted cloth, double width. This would measure 6,809 miles of 54-inch cloth, or 13,618 miles of single width. If every one of the 3,600,000 human beings in Greater New York were men grown, the annual production of these mills would make them all a suit with about 88,000 yards left over. -Quote from the A Sketch of the Mills of the American Woolen Company (1901) commenting about the volume of production.
Surveyed in 1924, this set of fire insurance plans for Washington Mills documents over 40 years of re-development after industrialist Frederick Ayer acquired the complex in the 1880s. The new proprietor demolished existing ten story brick buildings, some of which dated back to the 1840s. They were replaced with modern structures ranging in height from two to seven stories. Functionally, the cotton department was abolished with the company focusing entirely on woolen manufacturing. The plan’s title reflects another major corporate change; in 1899, the Washington Mills Company merged with seven other New England woolen factories to form the American Woolen Company, which eventually expanded to consolidate 60 woolen factories.
24. Everett Mills (Colored Cotton Mill), Lawrence, Mass., (#2885), surveyed October 29, 1891
Associated Mutual Insurance Companies, 1891
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Everett Mills, located on the north side of the Merrimack River and North Canal at their junction with the Spicket River, was the site of the start of the 1912 Bread and Roses strike. The mill complex is depicted in this 1891 insurance plan prepared by the Associated Mutual Insurance Companies, which characteristically included a site plan, perspective view, and numerous cross sections. Another feature that is particularly noticeable in this example is the color coding for building construction materials – yellow for wood, red for brick, and gray for stone – a convention widely used in other fire insurance mapping. The large stone building identified as Main Mill No. 1 was originally constructed from 1846-48 by the Essex Land and Water Company for the Lawrence Machine Shops to manufacture and repair machinery for the new town’s textile mills. Following the depression of 1857, this shop was sold to Everett Mills and converted to produce cotton goods. The start of the 1912 strike is attributed to Polish women workers who walked out of Everett Mills after learning of a pay cut. The strike quickly spread to Lawrence’s other mills and had wide support among the city’s newest immigrant groups.
25. Lawrence Strike, Strikers
[unknown author], 1912
Courtesy of Lawrence History Center, Photograph Collection
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In terms of textile history milestones, Lowell is recognized as the beginning of the large integrated textile mills. On the other hand, Lawrence, where the industry expanded and matured, is known especially for the 1912 textile strike, also known as the “Bread and Roses” strike, after a poem published by James Oppenheim in American Magazine in December of 1911. This strike spurred the rise of labor unions as well as future strikes, eventually resulting in the demise of the New England textile industry and its move to the South.
The strike, which brought together recent immigrants speaking at least 25 different languages, was led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It was prompted by a two-hour pay cut resulting from a Massachusetts law enacted January 1, 1912. This legislation shortened the work week for women from 56 to 54 hours. Ten days later, the female Polish workers at the Everett Mills discovered that their pay had been reduced, along with the cut in hours. The strike spread rapidly through nearly every mill in Lawrence, growing to more than twenty thousand workers. Carried on throughout a brutally cold winter, the strike lasted more than two months, from January to March. The success of this strike defied the assumptions of conservative trade unions within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) namely, that an immigrant, largely female and ethnically divided workforce could not be organized. Displayed here are two photographs and a poster documenting the strike activity, which attracted national attention.
26. Confrontation Between Militia and Strikers
[unknown author], 1912
Courtesy of Lawrence History Center, Photograph Collection
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27. A Proclamation! Is Massachusetts in America?
[unknown author], 1912
Courtesy of Lawrence History Center, Photograph Collection
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28. “Bread and Roses”
from American Magazine
[unknown author], 1911
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