American Silk, 1830-1930: Entrepreneurs and ArtifactsAt one time America's silk industry was the largest in the world. Silk was late to be industrialized, well after cotton and wool. Nonetheless, nineteenth-century American entrepreneurs rapidly built a silk industry with levels of production once unimaginable. American Silk, 1830-1930 traces the evolution of the American silk industry through three compelling and very different case studies: the Nonotuck Silk Company of Northampton, Massachusetts; the Haskell Silk Company of Westbrook, Maine; and the Mallinson Silk Company of New York and Pennsylvania. The mills specialized in different products, from sewing-machine twist and embroidery threads to mass-produced plain silks and high fashion fabrics. The case studies span the development of the U.S. silk industry from its beginnings in the 1830s to its decline in the 1930s. Starting in the 1920s with the growth of rayon, the first of the synthetic imitators, the market share for silk shrank, and silk gradually returned to being a luxury at the top of the hierarchy of fabrics. But, for a time, American technological innovations and entrepreneurs succeeded in bringing the pleasure and aesthetic of silk within the reach of more people than ever before. |
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American Silk Industry American Silk Journal Blue Book Book of Silks Brockett cloth cocoonery cocoons colors company's Conant cotton Courtesy crepe designs dollars early Express and Advertiser factory fashion fibers garment H. R. Mallinson Haskell Silk Company Haskell's Ibid Industry in America jacquard looms M. C. Migel machine twist machinery Mallinson & Company Mallinson fabrics Mallinson Silks Massachusetts mulberry mulberry trees Museum Newark Museum Nonotuck Silk Company Northampton Northampton Association novelty operated organzine pany Paterson Peter Haskell Portland Maine pounds production Pussy Willow raw silk rayon ready-to-wear reeling reported retail RISD Saccarappa Samuel Whitmarsh satin sericin sericulture sewing machine sewing silk Silk and Rayon Silk Association Silk Company Collection silk growers silk mill Silk Question Settled silk thread Silks de Luxe silkworms skeins spool staple taffeta tariff textile tion trade names velvet warp weave Westbrook workers worms woven yarns York