Browse Items (25 total)

The reverse side of this photograph is confusing: it says that it was "taken before 1900," but also "Mill No. V built in 1893." Since Mill #5 wasn't constructed until 1909, this can't be accurate. The photograph does appear to be quite hold, however,…

This early photograph of the Perry Knitting Co. is roughly contemporary to another OpenValley document, although here the absence of tree leaves allows for clearer viewing of Mill #1. In the foreground are the PKC's dam and water wheel. The…

The Perry Knitting Co. provided clothing and under for the US military during World Wars I and II. Those contributions had earned the factory special exemptions (on electricity rationing, for example) and draft deferments for many employees due to…

The four photographs here partially document a tense confrontation, during 1937, between the Perry Knitting Co. management and the Textile Workers Organizing Committee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Like any other factory, worker…

This appears to be a notarized copy of a letter by Perry Knitting Co. President George M. Trabor,Sr. on behalf of an employee named Albert Torrey. Torrey is identified as the chief engineer and electrician of the plant, and Trabor is arguing for a…

An inscription on the front identifies a location for this murky photograph; a somewhat later annotation on the reverse draws attention to "knitting machines" instead.

According to a typed label on its reverse side, this photograph shows an event celebrating the departure or retirement of Vern E. Reichard (a Perry Knitting Co. manager) and Mark Stowell (a superintendent). An overlay on the reverse identifies all…

This striking photograph captures a moment in time when cutting textile patterns was in transformation from a skilled to a semi-skilled operation. Given all of machinery at the Perry Knitting Co., perhaps there's a statement being made via the pile…

Probably circulated during an unsuccessful unionizing drive at the Perry Knitting Co. in 1937, this flyer is addressed not only to employees but the larger Perry community. The Textile Workers Organizing Committee ask, rhetorically, why the Perry…

This single-side document probably dates to a 1937 effort to unionize the Perry Knitting Co. employees. The Textile Workers Organizing Committee met considerable resistance from company management and some employees, who staged a "Loyalty Parade"…