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fabric of history

  • rare executive ability


    The board went, in fact, as far as New York City and hired Duryea Van Wagenen. Van Wagenen had been recommended to the board by mill owners at Danville, Virginia, despite the fact that he had had no experience with woolen mills. His chief qualifications were his [...]
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    Posted: September 26, 2009, 10:14pm EDT

  • a strong executive officer


    Pireus Row from Moore's Creek

    The group discovered that "this condition of affairs has worked serious injury to the mill." They feared worse troubles would develop if the situation were not altered. Friction between Valentine and Marchant had existed from the first, the committee reported, and [...]
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    Posted: September 22, 2009, 11:46pm EDT

  • the gauntlet was down


    Courtesy of the Elizabeth Valentine Meade Collection

    Personal antagonisms within the management continued until 1918 to add to the miseries of the mill. It was the old story of divided authority and a natural jockeying for position. Valentine, as president and general manager, was supposed to [...]
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    Posted: September 21, 2009, 11:47pm EDT

  • uncertainties and problems


    photo courtesy the Taylor Collection. Pantops background, 313 Steephill Street and Woolen Mills Road foreground

    A glance at the rising volume of sales enjoyed by the Charlottesville Woolen Mills during the war years will not reveal the uncertainties and problems which hovered over the management. The [...]
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    Posted: September 20, 2009, 1:52pm EDT

  • government seizure


    Advertisement in the 1943 VMI Bomb

    Military schools, absorbing about two-thirds of the cloth produced, provided the basic prop upon which the mill rested. Only one crisis of sizeable proportions occurred during the war years regarding this market. That resulted from the government's seizure of the [...]
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    Posted: September 17, 2009, 11:19pm EDT

  • no order was forthcoming


    When the United States went to war in 1917 the Charlottesville company attempted to shift at least part of its production to war contracts. Negotiations with the Navy Department were carried on in 1918 at Washington and New York, but no order was forthcoming. Despite its wide experience [...]
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    Posted: September 16, 2009, 10:26pm EDT

  • influenza


    Equally as pressing as wage increases was the severe curtailment of production during 1918. Nine valuable days were lost during February and March as a result of the federal Fuel Administrator's order. But these were nothing when set against the effects of the influenza epidemic which swept [...]
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    Posted: July 02, 2009, 12:15am EDT

  • war bonuses


    Wages also rose to new heights. Between 1914 and 1916, the company spent about $52,000 annually for "hand labor." Pay raises became necessary following the entry of the United States into the war. In May, 1917, the first wedge was opened when the board granted an increase [...]
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    Posted: July 01, 2009, 12:05am EDT

  • wool costs were especially alarming


    The Charlottesville Woolen Mills weathered the war years well, but not before experiencing some discomfort from these conditions and several peculiar to itself. The cost and supply of wool and dyes were constant worries. Wool costs were especially alarming. The company had paid out only $149,000 for [...]
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    Posted: June 30, 2009, 1:10am EDT

  • wartime restrictions


    Amiss House, Woolen Mills Road

    The result of these maneuvers was that the War Department "virtually annexed the business of fabricating the wool." Yet as late as the spring of 1918 only forty-five percent of American woolen mills were making cloth for war use. The remainder, [...]
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    Posted: June 29, 2009, 12:15am EDT

  • wool prices climb


    With the entry of the United States into the war in April, 1917, the problem of raw materials became grave for American mills. Speculative buying quickly caused raw wool prices to climb sixty-five percent. To curb inflationary rises, the government bought a large quantity of wool during [...]
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    Posted: June 26, 2009, 12:22am EDT

  • the spectre of a wool famine



    With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 American woolen manufacturers suddenly faced "the spectre of a wool famine." Sixty-five percent of the industry's raw wool in normal times was imported, most of it coming through British channels from Australia and other British overseas possessions. [...]
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    Posted: June 25, 2009, 10:40am EDT

  • Monticello Mountain Motel 1958


    Does anyone know the location proposed for the Fuller Monticello Motel? [...]
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    Posted: May 22, 2009, 9:59am EDT

  • Arbor Day


    10:00 a.m. April 24, Riverview Park-- Parks and Recreation Director Brian Daly officiates at the planting of the City of Charlottesville's Arbor Day Tree. A requirement of being a "Tree City" is planting a tree on Arbor Day. Ten trees were planted.' [...]
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    Posted: April 25, 2009, 4:01pm EDT

  • president's house


    courtesy of the Elizabeth Valentine Meade Collection [...]
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    Posted: April 12, 2009, 11:12pm EDT

  • Woolen Mills Road Walking Tour


    The Woolen Mills walking tour was well attended. Thanks to the members of the larger Central Virginia community who took the time to walk our built environment, at the foot of a mountain, in a bend of the river.
    Please visit again.
    If the history was hard [...]
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    Posted: April 06, 2009, 12:25pm EDT

  • Woolen Mills Road Walking Tour


    Pictured above, home of Woolen Mills carding supervisor, Warren S. Graves
    Join Victoria Dunham and Bill Emory for a walking tour of the Woolen Mills, 12-1pm, Sunday April 5. Meet at the Woolen Mills Chapel, 1819 E Market Street.
    Tour is part of "Preservation Week 2009"[...]
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    Posted: April 02, 2009, 12:02am EDT

  • southern initiative and southern capital


    Grover Maddex's house is for sale, 1613 Woolen Mills Road

    In its own small way, the Charlottesville Woolen Mills helps to prove the fallacy of Mitchell's thesis. Ante-bellum in origin, it was revived in 1865 by Southern initiative and Southern capital. A period of notable [...]
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    Posted: February 08, 2009, 9:06am EST

  • New South?


    Mitchell's concepts have been attacked on two fronts. Avery Craven, for example, has shown that Southern industrial interest dated at least to the 1850's and was primarily a reaction to Northern anti-slavery crusades. On the other hand, C. Vann Woodward denies the validity of placing any rigid [...]
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    Posted: February 04, 2009, 9:21pm EST

  • Senate Bill 957


    This site is full of references to the Rivanna. The Rivanna River was the center of life for the Woolen Mills Village. For the millenium previous the river had been the center of life for the People of Virginia.

    For thousands of years the Monacans [...]
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    Posted: January 23, 2009, 8:43am EST

  • blessing in disguise


    Riverview Cemetery

    The fire of 1882 was a blessing in disguise. It enabled the company to install new, efficient machinery and to expand its facilities. The fire also opened the door to new sources of capital, and the mill received its share of the Northern money [...]
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    Posted: December 29, 2008, 11:19am EST

  • a sense of duty


    Lynchburg Coke and Staunton Coke c. 1900; Virginia Coke, November 16, 1915; Cordele, Georgia Coke, c. 1900, Blue Charlottesville Coke, patent November 16, 1915; Staunton Coke c. 1900; background, Burnett Cocaine bottle c. 1900-- bottles courtesy the Carr Collection

    In their concern for adequate living quarters, [...]
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    Posted: December 07, 2008, 10:34am EST

  • Lot 4, Woolen Mills Road


    photo courtesy of Schultz-Covert Collection

    This photo was found recently in the house at 1809 Woolen Mills Road, located on lot 4 of the 1887 subdivision of land north of Woolen Mills Road (Albemarle County DB 88 Page 260). In 1920, according to the US Census, [...]
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    Posted: August 23, 2008, 11:55am EDT

  • wages


    1809 Woolen Mills Road

    It is extremely hard even to estimate wage rates at the Charlottesville Woolen Mills. The annual payroll increased rather steadily over the years--from $15,700 in 1883 to $37,500 in 1896 and $52,400 in 1913. In 1881 an average annual wage of only [...]
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    Posted: August 07, 2008, 7:30am EDT

  • fifty families



    Since these people were nearly all from nearby communities, the mill apparently avoided the worries of unstable foreign labor which comprised most of the workers in the woolen industry. In many instances the mill employed several members of a single family--a further stabilizing factor. In 1892 [...]
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    Posted: August 05, 2008, 7:28am EDT

  • footnote


    In order that "his high ideals, abounding faith, and honesty of purpose may live after him as an inspiration to future generations," Marchant's second wife, Fanny Bragg Marchant, bequeathed the bulk of his estate to the University of Virginia on her death in 1926. This gift provided' [...]
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    Posted: August 03, 2008, 10:44am EDT

  • workforce size


    Only by chance can one find out how large the laboring class of the mill was during these years. There had been about seventy employed at the time of the fire, but larger facilities required more hands after 1882. By the early nineties the number had swelled [...]
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    Posted: July 30, 2008, 9:10am EDT

  • Aunt Louise


    Jean, Louise and Brenda Baltimore courtesy of the Baltimore-Pritchett Collection

    Life was not so dull as these attitudes might suggest. Newspaper items tell of occasional band concerts and annual Christmas parties in the new chapel. Now and then on a warm, pleasant evening, employees and their [...]
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    Posted: July 29, 2008, 8:24am EDT

  • marriage of morality and business


    detail, Union Chapel, 1930

    Naturally any person hoping for a supervisory job needed "exemplary character" as well as ability. "The management," a visiting reporter penned in 1892, "recognize [sic] the responsibility of his position in being placed over a large number of employees, many of whom" [...]
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    Posted: July 28, 2008, 9:29am EDT

  • persons of good character


    Rea Hudson, 1930, Courtesy of the Baltimore-Pritchett Collection

    These expenditures, never very large, reflected the sincere interest of the mill owners in the well-being of their laborers. It was as if the directors considered the company primarily responsible for the workers' conduct and attitudes. Led by' [...]
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    Posted: July 26, 2008, 11:07am EDT

  • a place to worship



    At the mill, employees were seized by the desire for a place to worship. They enlisted the aid of Marchant and sought money for a chapel. The company, despite a deficit of $6,500 in its assets, donated $150 and bought a plot of land for the [...]
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    Posted: July 19, 2008, 4:39pm EDT

  • a religious movement



    In 1886 a religious movement led by zealous Methodists created a stir among the people around the mill. A small building serving as a school house and religious center was constructed, probably with the aid of the company. Early in the following year an extraordinary revival [...]
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    Posted: July 18, 2008, 4:57am EDT

  • generations


    Nathaniel Leake with his daughter, grandson and great grand-daughter- Courtesy the Scruggs Collection

    The long shadow of passing years clouds the view of the daily laborer at the Charlottesville Woolen Mills. Yet, through the dimness one can occasionally glimpse the outlines of a paternalism fostered by [...]
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    Posted: July 17, 2008, 10:34am EDT

  • Staff


    In May and June of 2008 we received considerable correspondence regarding the re-enactment of the Timberlake-Branham Farm's 1993 historic overlay.

    June 2, 2008

    Dear Council, Planning Commission and B.A.R. members,

    I am writing as a former Virginian, and as a former UVa student. I' [...]
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    Posted: July 11, 2008, 11:02am EDT

  • protection


    In May and June of 2008 we received considerable correspondence regarding the re-enactment of the Timberlake-Branham Farm's 1993 historic overlay.

    May 28, 2008

    Dear Members of the City Council, the Planning Commission, and the B.A.R.,

    With all due respect, I am writing on' [...]
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    Posted: July 02, 2008, 9:44am EDT

  • Letter


    (left to right, dais) Van Yahres, Gilliam, Hendrix, Barbour, Wiley, Rinehart, Fife, (foreground) Ewert, Rush-- photo by Rip Payne ca. 1975

    Mayor Charles L. Barbour
    Charlottesville, Virginia 22902

    June 2, 2008

    Charlottesville City Council
    Charlottesville Planning Commission
    Board of Architectural Review
    P.O. Box 911
    [...]
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    Posted: June 25, 2008, 10:23am EDT

  • Preservation



    Letters are a valuable source of historic data. We hold out hope that we'll turn up a nineteenth century Woolen Mills Village letter writer or a diarist whose writings would provide a glimpse into the daily rhythm of life in this village.
    History doesn't stop. For [...]
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    Posted: June 24, 2008, 8:54am EDT

  • Stormy


    Robert Poore & Ida Payne Valentine center, Bessie Valentine Walker (rt) Virginia Seymour Walker (on lap) Mrs Robert Valentine (lt) Elizabeth Valentine (Garnett-on lap). Courtesy of the Elizabeth Valentine Meade Collection

    Valentine first appeared on the mill directory in 1890 and after the death of Hotopp [...]
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    Posted: June 22, 2008, 10:05am EDT

  • down to the river


    Woolies, 1909

    At their June 2nd meeting, Charlottesville City Council will vote on a resolution to consider restoring the Timberlake-Branham Farm's "protected property" designation.
    A move in that direction would be a win-win land use decision. The continued recognition of this special Woolen Mills place' [...]
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    Posted: May 30, 2008, 8:00am EDT

  • Robert P. Valentine


    Robert Poore Valentine courtesy of the Elizabeth Valentine Meade Collection

    After Marchant's death his responsibilities were divided. A son, Hampton S. Merchant, who had entered the company about five years before became superintendent of the manufacturing operations. Robert P. Valentine, the vice-president, was moved up to' [...]
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    Posted: May 22, 2008, 12:42pm EDT

  • community


    courtesy of the Elizabeth Valentine Meade Collection

    In the years after 1882 Marchant continued his firm control over the multitude of operations at the mill. His associates willingly permitted him to carry the burden of the company on his shoulders. At the same time, he expanded [...]
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    Posted: May 21, 2008, 8:03am EDT

  • local investors


    photo by Holsinger, courtesy of the Elizabeth Valentine Meade Collection. Robert Poore Valentine (lt), Henry Clay Marchant (rt)

    While the new sources of capital drained profits from the community, it can be seen that the old local group of investors continued to hold the reins. An [...]
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    Posted: May 19, 2008, 10:08am EDT

  • Carpetbaggers?


    editorial note... How I wish that there was an analytic, non-celebratory History of Charlottesville. Who might take this on? The University? I'd like to read critical history, ongoing analysis/argument about the Central Virginia region. The post-bellum period, who picked up the pieces? Why? Below, Poindexter mentions the [...]
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    Posted: May 18, 2008, 12:00pm EDT

  • investors


    Worsted loom, image courtesy of the University of Arizona

    The Philadelphian was probably the son of Merrill E. Furbush who from 1849 to 1859 in partnership with George Crompton manufactured the latter's famous looms. Just before the outbreak of the War of Secession the two had [...]
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    Posted: May 17, 2008, 10:31am EDT

  • New names


    Jean, Brenda and Annie Baltimore, 1707 Woolen Mills Road

    The arrival of Northern investors was the only major change in the management of the mill before 1910. As noted above, these men entered the company by accepting stock in payment for machinery. Such a move was [...]
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    Posted: May 15, 2008, 2:35pm EDT

  • Kalamazoo


    According to oral history, Thomas Jefferson Baltimore, born September 13, 1911, was the first Woolen Mills Road child to arrive in the world in hospital rather than home. Obstetrics bill from 1949 underlines continuing escalation in the cost of medical treatment

    For many years, however, a [...]
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    Posted: May 14, 2008, 11:21am EDT

  • traveling salesmen


    the youngster in the photo is possibly Roy Jackson Baltimore

    To insure continued high quality the mill performed every operation in its own plant under rigid controls. Its efforts were well rewarded. By 1909 sales had gone well over $300,000 and hovered at that peak until [...]
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    Posted: May 13, 2008, 11:47am EDT

  • never lose sight of Charlottesville


    C.B. Holloway with his nephews, Charles and Jimmie, 1943

    Uniform fabrics monopolized the company's output until about 1948. Military schools took up much of the output. As early as 1892 every important military institution in the South and, with few exceptions, all major ones in states [...]
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    Posted: May 12, 2008, 12:36pm EDT

  • West Point


    Nellie Melton, George Marion at the end of Woolen Mills Road, this area referred to as "under the hill" by residents of the Woolen Mills Village

    The United States government was a large purchaser from 1884 on. Large amounts went to disabled soldiers' homes. From 1899 [...]
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    Posted: May 08, 2008, 8:14am EDT

  • uniforms for the letter carriers


    Marion House

    Beginning in 1887, the mill won in competition with all the mills in the country a large contract to supply 1000 uniforms for the letter carriers of Philadelphia. Two years later, a postoffice circular calling for bids on these uniforms set as the standard [...]
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    Posted: May 07, 2008, 8:32am EDT

  • gold medals for uniform cloth


    Drayman's House, VADHR 002-1260-0080

    The problems of the Charlottesville Woolen Mills, then, were twofold: to gain a reputation for high quality; to create a market.
    The mill quickly earned a national acclaim for the quality of its cloth. Fine kerseys, Venetian overcoatings, doeskins, and meltons of [...]
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    Posted: May 06, 2008, 9:04am EDT

  • uniform cloth


    Damage to Harlow's wall is done by vehicles large and small

    In the years between the War of Secession and the first World War, Americans voiced a preference for light weight clothing more in line with new modes of heating, transportation, and styles. It was [...]
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    Posted: May 05, 2008, 9:00am EDT

  • cause for survival


    Union Chapel Sunday School minutes

    The Charlottesville Woolen Mills not only escaped the fate of many of its Southern counterparts but managed to avoid the extremes of prosperity and depression which frequently rocked the industry in the North. Before 1882 the company had developed in a [...]
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    Posted: May 04, 2008, 10:27am EDT

  • Rubber v stone


    Damaged resource. Cel Harlow's stone wall shows damage secondary to commercial traffic short cutting through this residential neighborhood.

    It will be noted that the Central Atlantic region held its own. New England's increasing percentage came from two factors: the rise of new mills there and the [...]
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    Posted: May 03, 2008, 10:17am EDT

  • Woolen Mills Village


    Union Chapel and millhouses foreground, Mill and Monticello, background

    Shrinking profit margins put a premium on plant location. With raw material and product markets primarily oriented at Boston, the industry shoved a strong tendency to concentrate in New England. The following table showing the changing distribution [...]
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    Posted: May 01, 2008, 10:50am EDT

  • ninety employees


    Ryalls House porch detail

    Competition from worsteds and foreign cloth, fluctuating raw materials costs, style changes, and slowly rising wage rates, all combined to force the woolen industry "to do an increasing volume of business under conditions which make it constantly more difficult to prevent a [...]
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    Posted: April 30, 2008, 10:03am EDT

  • worsteds rise


    Nathaniel Leake House

    Woolen mills throughout the period either had to combat this new cloth or go to the expense of installing machinery for making it. The result was that from 1889 to 1909 the trend in wool manufacturing was downward while in worsteds it was [...]
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    Posted: April 29, 2008, 10:09am EDT

  • Woolen Mills Office


    12/17/05 [...]
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    Posted: April 23, 2008, 12:10am EDT

  • Charlottesville Woolen Mill

    [...]
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    Posted: April 22, 2008, 7:01am EDT

  • worsted


    1901 Woolen Mills Road

    As if such problems were not enough, the woolen industry was confronted by a strong rival: worsted cloth. This material, although woolen, was smoother than ordinary woolen cloth. Made from a different type fibre, worsteds required machinery especially designed for their production. [...]
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    Posted: April 18, 2008, 7:32am EDT

  • vicious financing system


    Hudson House, home of Woolen Mills transportation supervisor

    These same buyers kept the cloth makers on the ropes by means of a vicious financing system. According to one spokesman, "the manufacturer, in most instances, actually begins his production for the year to come before he has [...]
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    Posted: April 15, 2008, 9:12am EDT

  • supply of raw wool inflexible


    1709 Woolen Mills Road

    Aside from fluctuations in the national economy, woolen mills faced several internal problems. Since there was no wool exchange and with the supply of raw wool inflexible in the short-run, the industry continued to be harassed by wide variations in costs. Moreover, [...]
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    Posted: April 12, 2008, 9:59am EDT

  • the woolen machinery was idle


    Harlow, Starkes, Gianniny Houses (Monticello in the background)

    Perhaps there were grounds for this attitude toward the tariff. Recovery in the woolen industry began about 1897--the year the Dingley bill restored protection to the 1890 level--and lasted for a decade. Even the 1907 panic, weathered behind [...]
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    Posted: April 11, 2008, 12:10am EDT

  • effects of the 1893 crash


    Hudson-Baltimore-Pritchett-Starkes Houses

    The effects of the 1893 crash were severe and lingering. The depression was complicated by the tariff of 1894 which lowered the amount of protection. Changes in machinery and in types of product seemed obligatory in the face of new foreign competition. Samuel N. [...]
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    Posted: April 10, 2008, 10:33am EDT

  • violent swings of the business cycle


    C.E. Mallory House, for sale...

    During the three decades after 1880 the American woolen industry experienced the violent swings of the business cycle which were more and more becoming a characteristic of the national economy. Since the tariffs of 1883 and 1890 generally raised rates [...]
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    Posted: April 02, 2008, 11:20am EDT

  • new source of energy



    The effective use of electricity had already been demonstrated locally when in 1894 the city street railway line adopted it. As these cars rattled about the town, the woolen mills directory pondered the possibilities of the dynamo for their own use. In 1899 the mill began [...]
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    Posted: March 29, 2008, 10:34am EDT

  • early user of electricity


    photo courtesy the Pritchett collection, subject unknown

    In the decade following the 1893 panic, hydroelectric power was first developed in this country for factory use. American woolen mills slowly adopted the new source of energy, but at the turn of the century only a small portion [...]
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    Posted: March 28, 2008, 9:53am EDT

  • road not taken


    Bettie Baltimore, courtesy of the Drumheller Collection

    In the seventies the Charlottesville mill had continually made improvements and additions to its property in bad times as well as good. The period under study witnessed a continuation of this policy in two directions. One was toward expanded [...]
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    Posted: March 27, 2008, 10:45am EDT

  • no funded debt


    Monticello viewshed (Jefferson's house on the ridgeline)

    As early as the fall of 1893, the board of directors were looking for profitable investments in which to use the rapidly accumulating surplus. By the end of the year, $30,000 had gone into municipal and state bonds. This [...]
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    Posted: March 26, 2008, 12:04pm EDT

  • Returns on common stock


    Monticello view-shed being reworked by C.W. Hurt Contractors, L.L.C. (Thomas Jefferson's home is located on the distant ridge line, right hand side of photo beneath the bare poplar limbs)

    Returns on common stock reflected this trend after the early heavy losses were made up. From [...]
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    Posted: March 25, 2008, 11:57am EDT

  • floated to the top


    Amiss House gets a new coat of paint

    Beginning in 1886, the woolen mill floated to the top of the same wave of prosperity. By 1889 the deficit disappeared and earnings rose constantly until the 1893 panic. The lowly $8,000 profit of 1887 was tripled in [...]
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    Posted: March 21, 2008, 9:28am EDT

  • prosperity


    Present day view from Riverview Cemetery looking southeast 3.25 miles to the radio towers atop Carter's Mountain

    While the company struggled to get back on its feet, a wave of prosperity swept over the country and seeped into the South. Cotton mills grew by leaps and [...]
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    Posted: March 19, 2008, 11:32am EDT

  • drought and high water


    Woolen Mills baseball team, courtesy of the Baltimore-Marion collection.

    Moving from the crippled conditions of 1883 to vigorous health in 1914 was not an easy matter. Nor did recovery come immediately on the heels of the new injection of capital. Until 1886 the mill ended each [...]
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    Posted: March 12, 2008, 10:54am EDT

  • 1890's


    House on the left ( 1604 Woolen Mills Road. 002-1260-0030 ) built by Virginia (41 y.o.) and James Starkes (55 y.o.) in 1890.
    Brick house on right residence of Cel and Bettie Harlow. John Baltimore, mason, Bettie Baltimore Harlow's brother, laid the brick.
    The Starkes acquired their [...]
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    Posted: March 10, 2008, 3:18pm EDT

  • Alkem Scale Models


    Model based on the 1882 Woolen Mill building by Alkem Scale Models

    Old stockholders debated the wisdom of the move. Some argued that the value of the old stock would surely suffer. Others pointed out that only a four percent profit on the total capitalization [...]
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    Posted: March 04, 2008, 3:48pm EST

  • profit


    Within a year, the company?s stock and mortgage liabilities settled down to a total capitalization of about $101,000 in common stock, $56,000 in preferred stock, and $52,000 in mortgage bonds. Except for the gradual retirement of the mortgage, which was accomplished by 1903, these figures remained relatively [...]
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    Posted: March 03, 2008, 9:19am EST

  • thoroughly honest goods


    When the stockholders approved the board's recommendations on January 8, 1884, the company reluctantly took a step it had long avoided. A preferred stock issue with a guaranteed seven percent return was launched in an attempt to entice the needed $100,000. To make these shares more attractive [...]
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    Posted: March 02, 2008, 2:43pm EST

  • Damocles


    C.E. Mallory purchased two one-acre lots on the north side of Woolen Mills Road (East Market Street) in 1890 (ACDB 94 233). Tax records show that this house was built the next year. It faces east, toward the river and the Woolen Mills. Mallory lived on the [...]
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    Posted: February 22, 2008, 10:07am EST

  • 38 52.351 N 77 04.133 W





    [...]
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    Posted: February 21, 2008, 11:40am EST

  • 7396 miles 63 years


    Battle for Iwo Jima- Between February 19 and March 26, 1945, four thousand, five hundred and fifty four Marines were killed in action. Both of James and Bannie Branham's sons served their country during World War II.
    James Leake Branham Jr., USN, died July 7, 1991.
    Thomas [...]
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    Posted: February 20, 2008, 12:04pm EST

  • new ballast


    Thomas Jefferson Baltimore (9/13/1911-12/27/1971) on the south-side of his grand-parents house, 1604 Woolen Mills Road. Baltimore's grandfather, James Starkes, began working at the mill in the 1860's. Baltimore's son-in-law, William A. Strauss Jr., died February 13, 2008, in Richmond, Virginia.

    Steps were quickly taken [...]
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    Posted: February 18, 2008, 11:04am EST

  • So much for conjectural estimates


    Union Chapel Sunday School Minutes, February 1899-Courtesy of Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society

    Viewed as a whole, the next thirty years were indeed an era of prosperity and expansion for the Charlottesville company, but for a time it seemed as if the storms of the [...]
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    Posted: February 17, 2008, 1:32pm EST

  • fifty-inch turbine wheel



    In January, 1883, the final touches were added, machinery was tested, and supplies were laid in for resuming production about February 1st. A brief examination of the new machinery provides a clue to the extent to which Northern equipment manufacturers secured an interest in the Charlottesville [...]
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    Posted: February 14, 2008, 10:08am EST

  • George W. Spooner, architect


    detail from photo by Holsinger

    Construction began as soon as plans were laid. The four-story building which slowly rose under the watchful eye of George W. Spooner, a local architect, was indeed impressive. Nearly 120 feet long and a half again as wide, it sat on [...]
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    Posted: February 11, 2008, 12:08pm EST

  • A new six-set mill


    University of Virginia School of Architecture, ARCH 701, Fall 2007, Rivanna River Museum

    Payment for the three additional sets of machinery depended upon the sale of new stock, and Marchant hurried north late in January to see what arrangements he could make. The results of this [...]
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    Posted: February 08, 2008, 11:19am EST

  • plans were laid


    W.H. "Lee" Scruggs purchased his lot (current day 1804 Chesapeake Street) February 23, 1888. Albemarle County deed book 92, Page 106. He worked for the Woolen Mill in the spinning department.

    Five days after the fire, the stockholders met to plot a course. An inventory with [...]
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    Posted: February 06, 2008, 10:34am EST

  • a larger mill


    The stockholders, suddenly jarred from the quiet enjoyment of profits, faced a difficult decision. Should the company use the insurance money to liquidate its debts, then divide remaining assets among the stock owners and disband? A few pessimists seemed to favor this course. They could point to [...]
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    Posted: February 05, 2008, 10:58am EST

  • Piling Pelion on Ossa


    Property damage was extremely heavy but the company had been well insured--insured for everything except the loss of customers who would immediately look elsewhere for their fabrics.
    To a local editor the fire was the final touch in an incredible series of misfortunes which had struck the [...]
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    Posted: January 31, 2008, 9:59am EST

  • Fire!



    CHAPTER III
    THE CHARLOTTESVILLE WOOLEN MILLS IN THE NEW SOUTH
    1882-1914

    The outlook was bright for the stockholders of the Charlottesville Woolen Mills as they strolled from their annual meeting on the afternoon of January 10, 1882. The troubles of the last ten years seemed [...]
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    Posted: January 30, 2008, 7:35am EST

  • active local support



    The period from 1865 to 1881 brought the Charlottesville Woolen Mills to maturity. This coming of age was achieved first in the adoption of an efficient corporate structure, later through the production of fabrics of sound quality, and finally in the successful quest for a wide-spread [...]
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    Posted: January 29, 2008, 10:48am EST

  • Welfare Capitalism


    pond frozen, January 21, 2007

    It can readily be seen that the administration of the Charlottesville Woolen Mills appreciated the benefits to be derived from promoting the welfare of its employees. A mill community existed, but no attempt was made to exploit the situation by tight [...]
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    Posted: January 24, 2008, 7:31am EST

  • home feeling


    pond found, August 26, 2007

    The administration was motivated in its housing program by both humanitarian and economic considerations. Upon finding evidences of crowding and unsatisfactory quarters, a committee of the stockholders revealed the mixture of these motives in a report dated February 12, 1881:
    The [...]
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    Posted: January 23, 2008, 6:25am EST

  • affordable housing, 1881


    August 24, 2007, based on old photos, looking for the pond

    Most discernible was the provision for inexpensive living quarters for laborers and their families. As we have noted previously, as early as 1850 there had been a start in that direction. Between 1869 and 1873 [...]
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    Posted: January 22, 2008, 8:22am EST

  • the status of labor


    Mabel Pritchett Marrs with unidentified children c. 1955. The fishpond has been filled in.

    In judging these extremely low payments, however, correspondingly small salaries of the management must be considered. In 1876, for example, the treasurer received only $1,000, out of which he had to [...]
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    Posted: January 21, 2008, 10:25am EST

  • fish pond


    Woodie Pritchett and Louise Baltimore c. 1930, in the backyard of 1604 Woolen Mills Road. Louise met Woodie at their workplace, the Charlottesville Woolen Mills. They married, October 21, 1933.

    This writer has been unable to find statistics to indicate prevailing wage scales at the mill. [...]
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    Posted: January 20, 2008, 9:32am EST

  • labor force


    Cutie Harlow, Athalia Shisler
    In 1868, just prior to the organization of the mill as a stock company, Marchant?s labor force totaled nearly twenty. This figure can be compared with a national average of about twenty-eight employees per mill. By 1882 the Charlottesville Woolen Mills was using [...]
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    Posted: January 19, 2008, 10:47am EST

  • the laboring element, the heart of the village


    Hezekiah Harlow, courtesy the Drumheller family

    It is easy in studying the history of a business enterprise to become so involved with financial aspects that one neglects to examine the status of the laboring element. In the case of Southern textile mills such an omission is [...]
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    Posted: January 18, 2008, 8:53am EST

  • quality was the forte of the mill


    Hezekiah Harlow, courtesy of the Drumheller family

    Newspaper comments during the decade always emphasized the superior quality of Charlottesville Woolen Mills fabrics and the need to encourage home industries. Quality rather than a favorable price differential was evidently the forte of the mill. One must infer [...]
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    Posted: January 17, 2008, 9:14am EST
    by emory

  • cost per yard


    A hand written note on the back of the photograph identifies this as the bridge-span over the Rivanna River at the foot of Monticello (.42 miles east of the Mill, .47 miles north of the House). It's a safe assumption that this was a gathering celebrating [...]
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    Posted: January 15, 2008, 10:03am EST
    by emory

  • Moses Kaufman used the cloth in his trade


    Locally, the mill marketed its goods in a manner very different from that described above. A monopolistic policy of restricting sales to certain Charlottesville merchants continued throughout the decade. Patterson, now in partnership with another stockholder in the mill, John L. Cochran, handled the fabrics for local [...]
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    Posted: January 14, 2008, 10:14am EST
    by emory
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