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Interstate Hosiery Mills, Bloomfield New Jersey

Date added: January 20, 2024 Categories:

Exterior at corner of N. Fulton St. and Llewellyn Ave (2006)

The Interstate Hosiery Mills, Inc. (Interstate) mill building, constructed in 1923, was a significant part of the industrial history of the Township of Bloomfield. First as Brilliant Silk Hosiery Company, then as Interstate Hosiery Mills, Inc., this enterprise was important to the economy and culture of the town of Bloomfield. Typically employing around 500 workers, it was one of Bloomfield's largest employers. After Interstate closed its doors in 1942, the building continued to house industrial operations until 1999.

Industrial History of Bloomfield, New Jersey

The Township of Bloomfield, Essex County, New Jersey, was settled in the last half of the 18^th Century. It was part of the City of Newark until 1812 when it was incorporated as an independent township. From its earliest days it was home to industry, spawned by several watercourses; the Second River, the Third River, and Toney's Brook; that traversed the township. The copious water supply fed numerous millponds, which powered numerous sawmills, gristmills, and later paper mills and tanneries. In addition to these early industries, the town experienced a major expansion of the textile industry following its incorporation, no doubt assisted by the embargo imposed on British textiles during the War of 1812.

In the first decade of the 19^th Century, the opening of a toll road through Bloomfield proved a boon to local businesses and industries. Bloomfield Avenue, as it is now known, introduced twenty miles of straight road from Newark over the Watchung Mountain range to the Caldwells. From there, the road connected with major transportation routes into western New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York State's Southern Tier. By mid-19^th Century, Bloomfield's situation was made even more advantageous by the opening of the Morris Canal and a new railroad line, which greatly increased the area's access to both suppliers and markets and enhanced its potential as an industrial center.

By 1918, Bloomfield enjoyed the reputation of being "most favorably suited for becoming an important industrial center" and was generally regarded as a pleasant, diverse community in which to live and work. The community's location close to urban centers enabled it to attract the labor force of skilled and unskilled workers necessary to support a healthy manufacturing economy.

Bloomfield worked hard to establish an environment friendly to manufacturing by offering new industries, among other things, financial incentives, financial assistance, and factory sites at very favorable prices. During the 1920s, The Independent Press, the local newspaper, added good public relations to the mix as it began to increase the amount of column-inches devoted to local industrial development. The opening of new companies, new plant construction, redevelopment of older plants, the development of new products from local industries, local business statistics and directories, etc.; all rated articles in the Independent Press during those years.

Bloomfield's industry-friendly climate, its proximity to nearby markets and its easy access to a variety of transportation modes attracted a significant number of nationally- and internationally-known companies. Among these were the Clark Thread Co., The Walter Kidde Company, Delco-Remy, Westinghouse, Mennen Company, Eskimo Pie Corporation, Consolidated Safety Pin Company, American Book Company, Bakelite Corporation, Charms Company, General Motors, and the General Electric Company. According to current research, Brilliant Silk Hosiery Company, later Interstate, was the only hosiery mill ever established in Bloomfield.

Bloomfield's successful efforts to build local industry were reflected in its business statistics. Between 1914 and 1929, the town rose from 17^th to 8^th place in the state among New Jersey cities in the value of goods produced. In 1920, the population of Bloomfield was around 20,000; by 1930, it had increased to 38,000, with 68 industries employing some 6,000 workers.

The Full-Fashioned Hosiery Industry

The hosiery industry in the United States relied on immigrant workers and their descendants since 1689, when German Mennonites founded the industry in the Philadelphia area. Hosiery remained a hand-knit item in the United States until 1822; in the first years of the Industrial Revolution in America; when stocking and lace weavers from Nottinghamshire, England, set up the first knitting machines in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

The industry remained, for the most part, a cottage industry until the second half of the 19^th Century, when technological changes greatly increased production. In 1849, the invention of the latch needle allowed speedier operation of knitting machines. In 1864, Englishman William Cotton invented a vertical moveable needle bar, which later became the standard frame for use in the full-fashioned hosiery industry. ("Full-fashioned" hosiery is made so that it conforms to the contours of the leg by dropping and adding stitches during the knitting process, in contrast to "seamless" hosiery, which is knitted in a cylindrical shape then pressed to form leg contours.)

The next two decades saw the invention of the seamless hosiery machine (1879) and the first semi-automatic knitter (1889). In spite of these technological advances, the industry remained largely decentralized through 1900.

The British Hosiery Company, an English manufacturer, started the first full-fashioned hosiery mill in the United States in Rhode Island in 1884, using skilled knitters who had emigrated from Britain. The second mill was started several years later in Philadelphia, again using skilled knitters from England. At the time, full-fashioned hosiery had been considered a "foreign product" that appealed only to a limited market among upper class women. By 1907, seamless hosiery began to feel real competition, with the number of American mills producing full-fashioned hosiery increasing steadily. In 1907, there were 33 full-fashioned mills; by 1917 that number had increased to 44 mills; and, by 1919 there were 92 mills reported.

The knitting machines used to produce full-fashioned hosiery were more complex than those used for seamless hose. They worked finer threads at a much finer gauge than did the machines used for seamless hosiery, which was often made of thicker cotton threads. As a result, the full-fashioned industry required highly skilled workers with good eyesight, i.e., young workers intelligent and agile enough to operate complex knitting machines. And, because machine maintenance and repair of the weaving machines were vital to production, it was important to locate hosiery mills relatively near machinery shops that could service them, such as those found in great numbers in the nearby cities of Newark and Paterson.

These two requirements; skilled workers and accessible machine shops; limited the spread of the industry across the United States to a few areas. This helped determine the nature of the industry's related trade union movement. By 1919, about 45% of the hosiery mills were located in Pennsylvania and 18% in the Southern states. The Midwest and New York had 8% each and New Jersey had 6.5% of the mills. The remaining 12% were found elsewhere in the U.S.A.

1919 is generally regarded as the year during which full-fashioned hosiery began to dominate the industry. This new prominence was the result of a number of factors: 1) fancy and novelty yarns had been introduced and lightweight and sheer hose became popular; 2) Women's apparel shifted to comfortable work dresses from the bulky long skirts and tight bodices of the previous fashion era, as more women entered the workplace due to labor shortages during World War I; 3) the trend to shorter skirts was hastened by high fabric prices in the years following the war; and 4) young women, now with a disposable income of their own, were eager to exhibit their newly liberated status with a change in fashion. The passage of the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, which granted women equal voting rights with men, gave additional impetus to women's spirit of independence and the loosening of past constraints on women's fashion. The result was a new focus on a fashionable leg.

Production of the new style silk hosiery increased by 500% during this period, while the production of seamless hosiery remained unchanged. Fortune magazine observed that in 1925, hosiery sales; one of the great post-War booms; "suddenly roared up like a rocket into the industrial heavens." "This whole boom, which determined the fortune of thousands of workers," Fortune went on to say, "was based on the distinction between seamless (mainly cotton) and full-fashioned (mainly silk) hosiery."

In 1925, full-fashioned hosiery accounted for approximately 75% of all stockings sold. Over 12 million dozen pairs were produced that year, a number that grew to almost 27 million dozen pairs by 1929. Shorter skirts and smart new shoe styles enticed young women to buy the best stockings they could afford, the Wharton School of Finance attributed short skirts alone with adding $43 Million per year to hosiery production. Sales were also boosted by the rise in popularity of colored stockings; a color chart with 12 tempting shades was introduced in 1925.

Between the years 1919 and 1929, with the exception of a temporary slowdown during the recession of 1923-1924, the number of full-fashioned hosiery mills in the United States increased from 92 to 263. In the year between 1925 and 1926, the number of knitting machines in operation grew from 7,080 to 9,214; and in just two more years there were 12,565 machines in operation.

It is reported that production was increasing at such a dizzying rate that:

"... Anyone could make money in the industry, so far had demand outstripped supply. There are tales of the Chambers of Commerce in such Pennsylvania towns as Stroudsburg, Montgomery, Pottstown, or Lebanon, offering to build a mill free of charge for a budding full-fashioned manufacturer. New hosiery mills sprang up in the South and out in the Middle West. This ferment bred two insistent demands: for machines and for knitters to work them. So frenzied was the demand for machines that Reading Textile Machine Works ... then as now the only sizeable U.S. maker of full fashioned machines, had to allot its production as far as two years ahead. The full-fashioned machine ... is also so much more complex that skilled knitters are required to work it.... Wages soared to fabulous heights, until knitters were getting $75 and more a week, were the highest paid skilled mill labor in the country ... but the manufacturers apparently cared little what wages they paid, providing they got production. In the last year of the boom (1929) the industry's productive capacity actually increased 25 percent. Which, as we shall see, was 25 percent too much." Fortune

In 1929, 55.9% of the over 12,000 full-fashioned hosiery machines in operation were located in Pennsylvania; the South had 15.6%; New Jersey, New York, and New England, 12%; and the Midwest, 14%.

During those boom years of the 1920s, the hosiery industry became overbuilt. Production began to exceed demand by as much as 25-30%, a trend exacerbated by a drop in women's hemlines. This caused a dramatic drop in consumer prices for hosiery. Factory owners launched a barrage of efforts to protect profits. They lowered wages; they maintained "open" (non-union) shops where union workers competed against cheaper non-union workers; they increased worker hours; and they began to require workers to "double-up" on machines, i.e., requiring one skilled worker to operate two machines instead of one.

Among the most worrisome trend for the Federation in the late 1920s was the increasing strength of open or non-union shops in such places as Reading, Pennsylvania, a center of anti-unionism, and mills in the southern United States, where wages typically ranged between 35 - 65% of the wages paid for the same work in the Northeast. Thus, union membership in the full-fashioned hosiery industry during the boom fell from over 75% to under 30%. In 1926, new union leadership made increasing union membership a priority, so that it would have greater leverage in its fight for a uniform wage scale and better working conditions.

The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 dealt the hosiery industry yet another blow. During the term of President Herbert Hoover, the national economy staggered under heretofore unseen poverty. Hosiery industry strikes raged across the Northeast during 1930 - 1931, as the union fought the increasing trend to open shops, and the corresponding loss of leverage in wage scale negotiations.

The inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in March 1933 brought with it drastic recovery measures aimed at producing immediate results. Among the first pieces of legislation enacted was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which brought with it both hope for better times and increased trade union activity.

Under the NIRA, trade associations and business groups were permitted to draw up "codes of fair competition," which would include sweeping price agreements, firm production quotas, and wage scales sufficient to improve significantly the condition of the most poorly paid workers. The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was formed to administer the codes, and cooperating businesses displayed a placard with a Blue Eagle in hopes of creating public pressure against non-compliance. Corporations grew increasingly unhappy with the constraints that operated against their ability to adjust to market conditions. In 1935, the U. S. Supreme Court declared the first NRA to be unconstitutional.

The period from 1935-1941 saw a modest expansion in the silk hosiery industry, albeit at a much slower rate than in the 1920s, and a gradual reduction in labor costs.

With the onset of World War II, however, the industry faced new challenges. On July 26^th, 1941, all Japanese assets in the United States were frozen, and the full-fashioned hosiery industry was completely cut off from the major source of its raw material.

On August 2^nd, 1941, all processing of silk in the United States was prohibited. Nylon stockings, the synthetic alternative, were available from their first introduction in 1940 through 1942, but even they were barred from civilian use in February of that year. Only rayon and cotton were remained for use in hosiery manufacture during the war years. Factories unable to make the transition to alternative fibers were forced to shut down. In the years following the war, nylon eventually replaced silk entirely in the fashion hosiery industry.

Trade Unionism in the Hosiery Industry (1800 - 1935)

The American hosiery industry has a long legacy of militant trade union activity. As early as the 18^th Century, hosiery knitters had helped establish the Philadelphia Union of Framework Knitters. The first American union, composed exclusively of hosiery workers, was founded in 1844. The workers hired for the first full-fashioned hosiery mill in 1884 had emigrated from Nottinghamshire, England where, in the early 19^th Century, the infamous "Luddite Riots" took place in which workers destroyed the technologically advanced knitting machines they saw as the cause of their low wages and wide-spread unemployment.

Although the early unions failed to survive the panics and recessions of 19^th Century, unionization efforts continued throughout the 19^th and into the 20^th Century. Among hosiery workers' labor activities were the organization of the Knights of Labor and the wage strikes of 1899 and 1901. Hosiery workers became active members of the United Textile Workers (UTW) and formed Local 706, which later became the Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers' Union of Philadelphia and Vicinity, the area with the greatest concentration of hosiery mills in the United States. Under the UTW, hosiery Locals formed in large cities such as New York and Milwaukee, as well as in mid-sized industrial cities such as Paterson, Newark, and Boonton, New Jersey, among others. In 1913, delegates from hosiery Locals in the Philadelphia area formed the International Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers. The name was soon changed to the American Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers (Federation), which became the premier voice for workers in the American hosiery industry during the first half of the 20^th Century.

Hosiery workers, particularly those in the northeast United States, faced very challenging working conditions during the mid-1920s. By then, the overbuilt industry struggled under excess production. Manufacturers tried to support profits by reducing wages and increasing hours. The Federation stepped up its efforts to educate hosiery workers about the market conditions that affected their industry and the benefits of a strong union that would fight on their behalf.

In spite of the Federation's enormous organizational and educational efforts, the mills around Reading, Pennsylvania, remained open shops, i.e., both union and non-union workers were hired, which put that region at the epicenter of future labor unrest. Factory owners engaged in a number of union-breaking tactics, such as requiring workers to sign a "yellow dog" contract (the worker promises to not join a union under penalty of losing his/her job); obtaining sweeping court injunctions against job actions and union organizing; attempting to bribe union officials; and hiring labor spies and professional strike breakers. Pressure mounted in favor of moving mills to the southern U.S., where non-union workers were willing to work longer hours for lower wages.

In 1926, the Federation's new leadership undertook both offensive and defensive steps that established the union as the "white hope of stabilization in a chaotic industry" and almost "unique in the annals of American labor." Federation leaders focused on understanding the economic conditions and market forces that shaped the hosiery industry. They presented papers at Federation conferences to educate the local unions in how these conditions could be altered for the better. They emphasized that the key to survival was "stabilization through unionization," rather than the never-ending mill-by-mill battle for better wages and hours. They worked for union-management cooperation for the sake of the industry:

"Recognizing the need of elimination of waste in industry and better efficiency all around, the union, under the leadership of Gustave Geiges, is engaged in a campaign of education to convince its entire membership that the worker is advantaged as much as the manufacturer in making the finest quality of work with the least possible waste." J. C. Mitten, President, Mitten Management, Inc., Letter to Gustave Geiges President, American Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers, dated 29 February 1928. In American Federation of hosiery Workers, Ephemera 1928-1929. Microform Collections, Butler Library, Columbia University, New York

In addition to raising workers' understanding of the industry, the Federation forged an alliance with manufacturers. In August 1929, the Federation negotiated an unprecedented contract with 52 hosiery manufacturers that, while it made certain concessions to management, also fostered the ultimate union goals of industry-wide unionization and the eradication of open shops. Under that agreement, the Federation accepted a 15% wage cut and limited doubling up on machines in recognition of the plight of owners that employed the more highly paid union workers so that they could maintain a competitive edge against open shops. In return, the owners agreed that all workers in certain classes would be union members.

To demonstrate the new spirit of cooperation with owners who signed the agreement, the Federation published and widely distributed its "White List', pamphlets that promoted buying products from union employers who engaged in fair practices. This is perhaps the first time in American labor history that a Federation launched an all-out public relations campaign that asked consumers to "look for the Union label", a phrase later made famous in the song by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

October 1929 marked the onset of the Great Depression. The Federation strategy, at least in the early years of the Depression, was a combination of carrots and sticks. In January 1930, the Federation successfully negotiated a national agreement with the association of employers to conduct a "cooperative study" that would provide a "scientific basis rule for the adjustment and standardization of wages." In the face of continuing wage cuts, the Federation also called for immediate regulation of hours through trade union organization.

It also called for a series of strikes during 1930 and 1931 to force the unionization of remaining open shops and the adoption of a national agreement on wage scales. These strikes took place primarily in and around the cities of Philadelphia and Reading. In February 1930, union workers at the H. C. Aberle Company Hosiery Mill in Philadelphia began to demonstrate against non-union workers. Things escalated after mill owners rejected Philadelphia Mayor Mackey's offer of arbitration in the dispute.

On March 6^th, Carl Mackley, a union worker, was shot and killed during an afternoon of demonstrations against non-union workers. Three other union workers were wounded in the action. Four non-unionists were charged with the slaying. Mackley's funeral was attended by some 25,000 people. Edward F. McGrady, legislative representative of the American Federation of Labor, fanning the flames of union fervor, asked the crowd to repeat the following pledge:

I hereby solemnly promise that I will continue the struggle against low wages, poverty and oppression, and that I will not falter not be intimidated by hired assassins, nor discouraged by a subservient and oft-times tyrannical judiciary. That if necessary, we too, will lay down our lives in order that all those who toil may be delivered from industrial enslavement by the un-American, avaricious industrial despots. To all of which I, at the grave of our martyred brother, Cari Mackley, do pledge my most sacred word of honor."

Labor strikes, civil unrest, and violence persisted through the next two years. In November 1930, some 12,000 union workers walked off the job in Berks County; in February 1931, Philadelphia union hosiery workers in 30 open-shop mills along with some of their non-union colleagues called a strike resulting from repeated wage cuts and "other unsound attempts to meet the depressed conditions of the industry" in an area where approximately 80 hosiery mills produced 30% of the nation's stockings. In Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, two men guarding a house against strikers killed a young woman union worker picketing; and in March 1931, job actions at the Strahn Hosiery Company in Philadelphia also resulted in civil disorder.

By September 1931, the Federation called for a retreat in the face of the deepening economic depression. The price of hosiery had plummeted since October 1929, a result of continued oversupply and reduced consumer income. One wage cut followed another in non-union shops, as mill operators desperately tried to maintain profitability. Union mills, locked into the higher union wage, could not compete with non-union shops; some, particularly in the Northeast, were forced to close their doors.

Rather than lose union jobs and, not incidentally, its industry-wide influence, the Federation made an unprecedented move. When its annual agreement with the Hosiery Manufactures Association (Association) expired on September 1^st, 1931, the Federation took what the New York Times described as "... one of the most drastic steps planned by a labor organization in recent years..." by agreeing to drastic wage cuts that ranged from 30-50% of current union wages. In return, the manufacturer's Association agreed: 1) to complete unionization of their plants; 2) a check-off system for collecting union dues directly from wages; 3) to reinstate one worker per machine, which had been doubled up under the 1929 agreement; and 4) to revise wage rates upwards if profits averaged above 6%.

By proposing such drastic wage cuts, the Federation risked the support of some of its faithful rank-and-file members for a greater goal, increased union membership. The theory behind the move was that, if employers attempted to lower non-union wage scales even below the new low union levels, a widespread revolt among non-union workers would result in a call for a general strike in all sections of the country and a general upsurge in union membership. Emil Rieve, international president of the union, noted that the purpose of the action was "... to bring about standardized costs throughout the industry, with regulation of hours in accordance with the needs of the market, as determined by a committee of experts appointed by manufacturers and employes [sic]."

At first, it appeared that the Federation had miscalculated. Just two days after the announcement of the wage cut agreement, union workers in Paterson and Dover lead the northern New Jersey hosiery Locals into a rebellion against it. In the Philadelphia area, some 3,000 members of hosiery Locals representing some 29% of the workers affected by the agreement also revolted against it, although the Philadelphia Local, the largest in the union, approved it. These were soon followed by Locals in Long Island and Massachusetts, where some 7,000 members of individual shops went out on strikes against the wishes of the national leaders; some threatened to secede from the Federation altogether.

On September 25^th, 1931, 2,800 striking hosiery workers from the Northeast converged on the Berkshire Mills plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, a powerful non-union stronghold located very near Interstate's Lansdale plant, in an attempt to convince Berkshire's non-union workers to strike. In October, the rebellion spread to Lawrence, Massachusetts, where insurgents at two plants went on strike against the wage cuts. Management immediately closed the mills to prevent any damage to the intricate knitting machinery, thereby throwing 8,000 hosiery workers out of work.

The rank-and-file rebellion was ultimately unsuccessful. Little appears to have been reported about the labor unrest in the hosiery industry during 1932, however, given research to date. The insurgent Locals faded from the pages of the national press and trade press, the members perhaps having come to grips with the very real need to feed their families. In the place of labor troubles, new articles began to tout a new boom in mesh (non-run) hosiery and a growing popularity of rayon hosiery, both of which represented threats to the silk hosiery industry.

With the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Federation enjoyed new prominence. Under Roosevelt's NRA, the Federation took an active role in devising codes for the hosiery industry, thus making it reportedly one of only 23 code authorities among some 600 to represent unions. By the end of July 1933, the NRA had temporary codes for the industry in place, pending agreement on a permanent code. These codes gave union and non-union workers alike certain protection under standardized minimum wages and hours provisions. The Federation reported that, as a result of its vigilance, it successfully prevented the insertion of a clause that would have given the manufacturers the right to bargain individually or collectively, which would have subverted the Federation goals for industry-wide unionization.

In spite of the approval of the temporary hosiery code, the Federation kept up the pressure on manufacturers. Even as the codes were working their way toward approval, labor unrest besieged mills in High Point, North Carolina, where 6000 workers went on strike. In Lansdale, Pennsylvania, tear gas was used to break up striking employees. In Reading, Pennsylvania, unrest closed the Berkshire Knitting Mills, resulting in the dismissal of some 3000 striking employees and the outbreak of several sympathy strikes among of other mills in Berks County. And in Philadelphia, strikers stoned the NRA "Blue Eagle" placards and strikebreakers, and fought with riot police.

On August 28^th, 1933, Roosevelt signed the permanent hosiery industry code, anticipating an end to the labor unrest in the industry. Five days later, two strikers were killed in a riot in Cambria Mills, Philadelphia. By mid-September, the Federation had brought the issue of collective bargaining to the National Labor Board reportedly the first matter considered by that body. The resulting decision concerning the election of shop representatives became known as the "Reading Plan," which served as an important precedent for the 1935 National Labor Relations Board, which succeeded the NLB.

Again and again, during 1934, the Federation brought employer non-compliance complaints to the National Labor Board. Striking workers were killed in Philadelphia and Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania; strikers were bayoneted during labor actions in High Point, North Carolina. In Harriman, Tennessee, Federation Vice-President F. G. Held was kidnapped, after a mill's closing for failure to comply with NRA codes. The Federation helped coordinate strikes at hosiery mills in several locations, among them Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania.

Despite its ultimately being found unconstitutional in 1935, the NRA accomplished a number of goals advanced by the trade unions, especially those related to the hosiery and textile industries. Among the reforms were the establishment of the principle of maximum hours and minimum wages on a national basis and the support of collective bargaining as a national policy, both primary goals of the Federation and for which it had fought for so many years.

The American Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers, particularly during the tumultuous period from 1915 to 1935, was recognized as a masterful and innovative leader in the American labor history during this period in terms of its efforts to understand the market forces that drove its industry, in the development of union organization and bargaining strategies, and its unflagging dedication to "stabilization through unionization."

Brilliant Silk Hosiery Company, later Interstate Hosiery Mills, Inc. (1921-1942)

Early History - Brilliant Silk Hosiery (Ca. 1921-1929)

The Brilliant Silk Hosiery Company (Brilliant Silk) purchased the site at the corner of North Fulton Street and Llewellyn Avenue for its Bloomfield plant in 1921, early in the boom years of the full-fashioned hosiery industry. Although a number of full-fashioned hosiery mills were later located in northern New Jersey, Paterson, Clifton, Hackettstown, Dover, and Boonton, for example, Brilliant Silk was the only such mill located in Bloomfield. The site's purchase and the construction of the plant preceded the 1923 adoption of the first zoning map and ordinance by the township, which placed the site just outside the area defined as a manufacturing district. The mill thus became a pre-existing, non-conforming use under the new zoning.

Brilliant Silk prospered during its early years. In August 1922, six months after purchasing its first parcel at the corner, the company purchased an additional five adjacent parcels along North Fulton Street. By 1923, it was operating at the modest two-story building at 82 Llewellyn Avenue. A year or two later, it had constructed an impressive four-story masonry and concrete addition to the plant on North Fulton Street.

By 1928, Brilliant Silk and its employees were an integral part of the community of Bloomfield, which boasted some 45 industries at the time. The Independent Press reported on the activities of Brilliant Silk's employees in its column "Bloomfield Industries," which offers some insight into the composition of company's workforce. One column reported that two employees were planning a visit to Germany, one to visit the "land of his ancestors," the other to bring his wife to the United States. That same column reported that the "girls of Brilliant Silk Hosiery were delighted' to learn of the wedding of a female co-worker Helen Goette to a Bloomfield resident. And, as a sign of its willingness to be part of the community, Brilliant Silk was an advertiser in Bloomfield's Chamber of Commerce directory.

Consolidation as Interstate Hosiery Mills (1928-1929)

In 1929, Brilliant Silk merged with two other companies; Lansdale Silk Hosiery Company (Lansdale Silk) of Lansdale, Pennsylvania, and Finery Silk Hosiery Company, Inc. (Finery), Clifton, New Jersey; to form Interstate Hosiery Mills, Inc. (Interstate), a Delaware corporation. A major mover in the merger was Ivan Selig, former director and sales manager of the Gotham Silk Hosiery Company; one of the largest silk hosiery mills in the United States. Mr. Selig became the first President of the new company; Harold and Lawrence Greenwald, who were former executives of Finery, became, respectively, Vice President and Secretary of Interstate. Herman Voss, former president of Lansdale Silk, became a director, along with representatives of the corporation's bankers Ermst & Co. and Strupp & Co., which together held over 70% of the outstanding shares. The news reports did not mention any role Brilliant Silk's executives might have assumed in the new company.

Interstate established its main corporate offices in Lansdale, which was located west of Philadelphia in the heart of the U.S. hosiery industry. Company earnings for the first quarter of 1929 were reported to be over $1.27 million, as compared with $908,278 for the first quarter of 1928; a gain of approximately 40% in one year. Only a few months later, however, saw the onset of the Great Depression.

Early Depression Years - Bold Union Steps and the Insurgent Movement (1931-1933)

Interstate's Bloomfield mill was not immune to the tumult in the hosiery industry during the period 1931-1933, since its workers were members of a local chapter (Local) of the American Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers.

In the fall of 1931; not long after the Federation and the Manufacturer's Association agreed on 30-50% wage cuts across the board; Interstate's management proposed a new employee contract that included a 40% cut in wages, along with an additional 10% wage cut if profits did not improve within 90 days.

Although Interstate's cuts may have been in synch with the rate of wage reductions under the Federation-Association agreement, Interstate had never signed on to it; most importantly, it had not agreed to its unionization provisions. The joint agreement stipulated that, if one mill signed the agreement, all mills controlled by the same corporation were to be unionized as well. However, Interstate's Lansdale plant remained a non-union shop, like many in the Reading area. Interstate hoped to impose heavy wage cuts on its union workers without conceding any unionization benefits, i.e., it wanted the "quid" without the "quo."

The Bloomfield Local refused to accept the new wage scale. Management insisted that it was the appropriate local scale, since some mills in Paterson and Passaic were already working at the lower rates. In any event, management said, it couldn't afford a higher scale. When the talks failed to bring about an agreement, Interstate shut down the Llewellyn Avenue mill immediately and locked out the employees.

The troubles at Interstate garnered front-page headlines in the local press. Clearly the fate of the Bloomfield mill, with its workforce of some 500 men and women, was important to the community. Interstate was recognized as one of Bloomfield's 52 principal industries, along with General Electric Company, Bakelite Corporation, Clark Thread Company, and the Peerless Tube Company. Although other industries in the area had their share of strikes during the same period, none of those are known to date as having resulted in the involvement of the Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce, the Mayor of Bloomfield, and the U.S. Department of Labor; all of which tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to arbitrate the strike.

The intense local negotiations were perhaps spurred on by the desire to attract sympathy demonstrations by insurgent hosiery union Locals in nearby northern New Jersey cities, where thousands of union workers were rebelling against the new wage agreement and had walked off the job. Hosiery workers staging wildcat strikes in Paterson, Dover, Boonton, Hackettstown, Clifton, and Washington were later joined by workers in the mills of Hawthorne, Midland Park, Plainfield, and other cities in the northern part of the state. The number of insurgents reportedly grew to 11,000 workers nationwide as New York and New England; also union shops; joined the New Jersey workers against the Philadelphia-based district leaders, where non-union shops predominated. On September 25^th, a mile-long caravan of some 2,500 full-fashioned hosiery workers descended on Reading, Pennsylvania, to picket the mills there in protest of the wage cuts. It is interesting to note, however, that workers at the Llewellyn Avenue mill were never mentioned in news reports concerning the insurgents.

In fact, the union workers in Interstate's Bloomfield mill were in a rather unique position, since Interstate operated both union and non-union shops under its corporate umbrella. Fundamentally, the Bloomfield Local opposed the wage cuts - something that should have made them allies of the insurgent union members in the surrounding communities. However, rather than taking a stand in opposition to the Federation, the union Local determined that it could nonetheless oppose wage cuts for reasons consistent with the goals of Federation leaders, while gaining leverage at the bargaining table from the labor unrest fomented by the insurgents.

The Local finally agreed to accept the wage cuts, but only on the condition that Interstate's Lansdale plant was unionized. In using this "straddle position," the Local maintained strong links to the substantial resources of the national organization, while appearing to ally itself with the wildcat strikers in nearby cities.

It was a brilliant strategy, but, like wildcat strikes, it was ultimately unsuccessful. Neither was the proposed wage scale increased, nor was the Lansdale plant unionized. Interstate's management cited an agreement with the surrounding mills in Pennsylvania to maintain an open shop. Following the efforts of the Mayor and John A. Moffitt, a conciliator for the U. S. Department of Labor, Interstate promised it would "use its influence to remove obstacles [to unionizing the Lansdale plant] as soon as possible." This was not good enough for the Local, which held firm; the union unanimously rejected the report and voted to remain on strike.

By December 1931, Interstate's management had reopened the Bloomfield plant using non-union help. Forty non-union workers crossed picket lines to operate the factory that once employed 500 workers. About 300 striking union workers set up picketing at the plant. Police patrolled the area to quell any violence that might break out. Members of the Local were incensed by the discovery that Interstate was attempting to break Local's hold by advertising work to non-union employees at a 10% increase over the union wage scale. Local reports noted that two days after the mill opened with non-union labor, an unknown assailant killed the daughter of John Moffitt, the Department of Labor negotiator in Interstate's Bloomfield troubles, in her home with a rifle bullet fired from an empty lot at the rear of her house. No connection with the labor unrest was firmly established, although such violence against the family of one of the major players in the bargaining process must have been unnerving, nonetheless.

An injunction against the Local eventually brought the 1931 strike to an end, although tensions continued to fester into 1932. In July 1933, while the NRA hosiery industry codes were being hammered out, widespread strikes erupted again as open shops worked to unionize, including the Lansdale mill where police were called in to break up picket lines. The Bloomfield Local threatened a sympathy strike on behalf of the Lansdale workers, but the plant officials reminded the Local that it was restricted by the terms of the previous court order, which enjoined them from such an action. Pennsylvania workers then threatened to picket the Llewellyn Avenue plant in sympathy with the Local, but it was called off when owners agreed to meet in Reading. That did not stop some Pennsylvania workers from parading in front of the Llewellyn Avenue plant. News reports once again noted that "in the interests of the workers, the mill was shut down." At the end of July 1933, Lansdale workers were granted a 25% increase and returned to work, thus ending the unrest temporarily.

Manufacturers did not regard the NRA industry codes as particularly helpful to their economic vitality, given the set wage scale, the limitations on hours, and the increased status of unions. In Bloomfield, Interstate delivered a veiled threat to the Local by noting that if its weekly shifts of 49-1/2 hours were reduced to 40 hours, it would be required to increase the number of workers, install more machines, or divert work to its non-union Lansdale plant, even though that mill was "tied up with labor trouble."

The summer of 1933 continued to be punctuated by incidents of labor unrest. The new hosiery industry code failed to bring about the hoped-for peace after it was signed into effect in August. On September 1^st, Interstate's Llewellyn Avenue mill was once again embroiled in labor unrest when workers walked out after a call for a general strike by the Federation; this time for a 35-hour work-week and a 20% increase in pay; that resulted from the refusal by the manufacturer's Association to comply with the Federation's new demands. The news article noted that the Llewellyn Avenue mill had been the scene of labor difficulties for the past two years "due to the efforts of the Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers to force the Pennsylvania mill of the same company to organize...."

As economic conditions gradually improved during the mid-1930s, labor troubles at the Bloomfield plant died down, as they did nationwide. The Interstate resumed its place as one of Bloomfield's most prominent businesses. By 1939, it was described as "one of the largest and busiest factories in Bloomfield." It employed over 500 men and women who worked in two shifts per day; the daily output was approximately 1,500 dozen pairs of hosiery.

Interstate closed the doors of the Bloomfield mill in 1941, at the onset of World War II. Perhaps, like many other hosiery mills, the closure was caused by the lost access to supplies of silk and nylon thread, although the true reason has not yet been confirmed by research to date. In any event, after selling off most of its equipment, Interstate leased some or all of the Llewellyn Avenue premises to Johnson & Johnson, beginning in April 1942. In December of that year, the corporation sold the plant to a group of individual investors, subject to the Johnson & Johnson lease.

The Post-War Years

The next major tenant of 82-88 Llewellyn Avenue was the Champlain Co., Inc., a manufacturer of printing presses, which occupied all or part of the building from 1947 until 1961. That year Danco Manufacturing Co., a division of Annin & Co. (Annin), the world's oldest and largest flag manufacturer, leased the first floor of the premises. Two other tenants occupied other floors, i.e., Ampex Audio Co., a California company (3 floor) and United Stereo Tapes, a subsidiary of Ampex (2 floor). A year later, Annin expanded its operations to include the entire fourth floor, and in 1963, it purchased the entire plant.

Annin remained at the Llewellyn Avenue site for approximately 50 productive years, where it manufactured American flags and other smaller goods. Although it prospered during the upsurge of patriotism in the late 1980s, the fact that its flag machines had a repertoire limited to American flags was the eventual cause of its closure. After Annin acquired the Dettra Flag Company in Oaks, Pennsylvania; a company whose streamlined shop could produce a wide variety of flags; the Bloomfield plant became obsolete. It finally shut down operations in November 1998.

The nation's manufacturing sector, in decline since the 1970s, reduced demand for factory space, especially in towns like Bloomfield, whose economies were heavily invested in the sector. When Annin sold the property in 1999, it sold it not to another manufacturing company, but to Llewellyn Avenue Associates, LLC, a company that planned to create market rate apartments in the building to meet the high demand for housing in the region.

In April 2001, that company sold the property to 88 Llewellyn Associates, LLC, the current owner, which executed the plan to convert the mill building to housing units. Beginning in 2003 and continuing through 2006, the owner worked with the NJHPO and the National Park Service to sensitively rehabilitate the property as it was converted to a new use.

Building Description

The property is located at 110 North Fulton Street (formerly 82-88 Llewellyn Avenue), in the Township of Bloomfield, Essex County, New Jersey. It is listed on the Township Tax Map as Block 197, Lot 8, a parcel of 0.96 acres. The building under consideration here occupies .44 acres on the eastern half of the property. The neighborhood today remains largely unchanged from its appearance in 1924, when the mill was completed. Just a few years prior to that, it was an open meadow near a tributary of the Second River. Today it remains a mixed-use area of modest housing and multi-unit residential. For many years, the Township of Bloomfield's maintenance facility was located immediately west of the property, but was replaced in 1975 by the nine-story Felicity Tower Apartments, a senior housing facility (in background).

The building occupies 0.44 acres of the total parcel and has a total square footage of 58,636 sf. It was first constructed as a 2-story silk hosiery knitting mill in 1923, with a 4-story addition ca. 1924. It housed manufacturing uses from its beginnings until the late 1990s, when the current owner acquired the property. It had been vacant for some time prior to breaking ground for the building's rehabilitation in 2003. The rehabilitation continued from 2003- 2006, during which it was adapted for use as market-rate rental units. The property is now known as "Silk Mill Lofts."

The building consists of three sections, all with brick masonry perimeter walls: 1) a 2-story section with wood structural and flooring systems; 2) a 5-story section, consisting of the historic 4-story building with concrete structural and flooring systems and a frame addition at the fifth-floor level; and 3) a 1-story section that formerly housed the boiler plant along the western wall of the 2-story section. The walls of the remaining 1-story section on Llewellyn Avenue were retained, but the roof of the structure was removed and the height of the walls somewhat reduced during the rehabilitation when the structure became the enclosure for exterior space serving several of the first floor apartments. A 1951 1-story concrete block structure at the rear of the 4-story section was demolished as part of the rehabilitation.

The two main sections of the building (the 2- and 4-story sections) were constructed at different times. The documentary and physical evidence indicate that the 2-story portion was built first, on the parcel acquired by Brilliant Silk Hosiery Co., Inc. (Brilliant Silk) in December 1921. The 4-story section was constructed ca. 1924 on land the corporation had not acquired until August 1922.

On the west side of the parcel is a paved surface parking area, adjacent to the rear entrance of the building. Another surface parking lot is located on the north side of Llewellyn Avenue, directly across the street from the building.

The original window system in both the 2- and 4-story sections was made of steel and included windows with various configurations of horizontally pivoting sashes and several units with double-hung metal sash. Much of the glazing in the original sashes was "wire glass," a typical safety glass used in factories during the period. The original windows had deteriorated and, as part of the rehabilitation, they were replaced with new aluminum window units. The replacement windows typically have awning, rather than pivoting, sashes.

Many of the historic door openings were retained during the rehabilitation, although they are no longer functional. In particular, the historic door openings on Llewellyn Avenue; originally the main entrances to the building; retain substantially the same appearance as when the building was acquired by the current owners. The second-floor emergency door, an important historic feature of the North Fulton Street facade, was also retained, although no longer functional. Also retained and rehabilitated were the double metal doors on the second and third levels of the rear facade of the 4-story section. The former inset entry to the 1-story former boiler plant on Llewellyn Avenue is today marked by a shallow reveal in the brickwork, as were other door openings that could not be retained, such as the emergency exit doors on the south facade of the 4-story section. A new main entrance to the lobby was created on the North Fulton Street facade, inset from the building plane, at the site of a former loading platform and a modest metal canopy was installed. The rear entrance from the parking area was relocated from the former loading dock area (demolished) to the northernmost bay in the 4-story section, forming an interior axis with the front entry.

When the current owners acquired the property, both the 2- and 4-story sections were open floors, except for several second-floor offices arranged along the length of the Llewellyn Avenue side. After its rehabilitation and conversion to the new use, the building now includes 48 dwelling units, including four units in the fifth-floor addition to the 4-story section, as well as common areas such as the main lobby, exercise room, and storage area, etc. Circulation between the two sections after rehabilitation is via hallways at the first and second floor levels.

The structural systems of the two sections differ from one another, a fact that is consistent with research showing a dramatic increase in the profitability of the hosiery industry during the 1920s. In the 2-story building, the structural system consists of built-up wood posts that support a system of longitudinal and transverse wood beams. The ground floor was concrete; the second level flooring was wood planking. The wood structure system remains intact under drywall enclosures, although it is no longer visible. The structural system in the 4-story section consists of reinforced concrete posts that supported a flooring system of concrete beams and slabs. These posts and beams remain exposed as historic features in both the common areas and inside the apartments as well.

The brick masonry piers between the two sections provide additional evidence that the two buildings were constructed at different times. The piers appear to have been originally part of a masonry wall that was cut through after original construction, rather than having been purposefully laid up as freestanding structures. The brick piers remain as historic features along the north wall of the lobby of the building after its conversion. Rolling fire doors formerly located at the interior openings to the boiler plant were salvaged, refinished, and reinstalled along the lobby wall near their original location.

The ceilings in the 2-story section are finished with fire-rated materials, although in the 4-story section concrete beams and posts remain exposed except where utilities and ductwork were needed.

As part of the rehabilitation, a 1942 elevator on the North Fulton Street side of the 2-story building was removed and a new elevator was installed in the 4-story section off the main lobby. The former elevator stack was retained and converted to residential use through the insertion of new floors at each level.