Mississippi Mills was a cotton and wool textile manufacturing complex that operated in Wesson, Mississippi, during the latter half of the 19th century. By 1892, Mississippi Mills was described as the largest industry of its kind in the South. [1]
Absentee management and financial difficulties contributed to the mills' decline. The complex closed in 1910 and was dismantled several years later.
In 1864, during the American Civil War, a textile mill in Bankston, Mississippi, was burned by Union forces because it supplied the Confederate Army. [2] In 1866, the Bankston mill owner, Colonel James Madison Wesson, relocated to Copiah County, Mississippi, and established a new textile mill, known as the Mississippi Manufacturing Company. [3] The town of Wesson developed around the mill.
Because of Reconstruction-era financial problems, Mississippi Manufacturing Co. was bankrupt by 1871. Captain William Oliver and John T. Hardy bought the mill from Col. Wesson, but it burned in 1873. Oliver convinced Mississippi's largest landowner and cotton producer, Edmund Richardson, to become a partner in building a more modern textile mill of brick, to reduce the fire hazard created by using wood-fired power in combination with flammable cotton fibers. [4] Richardson bought out Hardy and assumed a controlling interest in the enterprise, which became known as Mississippi Mills, with Edmund Richardson as president and William Oliver as general manager.
The textile complex consisted of four mills that were built over a period of 21 years, from 1873 to 1894. [5] By 1882, electric lights had been installed to illuminate the textile buildings. When all four mills were completed, they covered several city blocks, and one was five stories high.
Under the leadership of William Oliver, from 1873 to 1891, business at Mississippi Mills thrived because of his interest in the mill workers and community affairs. By the late 1880s, Mississippi Mills employed:
...1,200 workers to operate 25,000 cotton spindles, 26 sets of woolen machinery, and 800 looms in the production of 4,000,000 yards of cotton goods, 2,000,000 yards of woolen goods and 320,000 pounds of yarn and twine annually. [5]
Mississippi Mills produced a great variety of cotton and woolen products that included:
...cassimeres, jeans, doeskins, tweeds, linseys, flannels, wool and cotton knitting yarn, cotton rope, cotton warp, yarn, cottonades, flannelettes, gingham plaids, cheviots, checks, plaids, stripes, hickory, brown sheeting, shirting, drilling, eight ounce osnaburgs, ticking for feathers and mattresses, sewing thread, sewing twine for bags and awnings, wrapping twine, honey comb towels, awning, and balmoral skirts. [1]
Following the deaths of Edmund Richardson, in 1886, and William Oliver, in 1891, the fortunes of Mississippi Mills began to decline. John Richardson, who succeeded his father as president, brought in a general manager from the North, while he himself moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. Mississippi Mills was further handicapped by the Panic of 1893, increased transportation costs, a drop in cotton prices, and labor disputes. [5] In 1906, Mississippi Mills was forced into receivership and the facility closed in 1910. The buildings stood vacant until they were dismantled in 1920. [6]
A single building, the Mississippi Mills Packing and Shipping Rooms facility, was retained during dismantling of the textile complex. In 1996, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Copiah County, Mississippi. [7]
Wesson is a town in Copiah and Lincoln counties, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,925 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Flannel is a soft woven fabric, of varying fineness. Flannel was originally made from carded wool or worsted yarn, but is now often made from either wool, cotton, or synthetic fiber. Flannel is commonly used to make tartan clothing, blankets, bed sheets, sleepwear, and several other uses.
The spinning mule is a machine used to spin cotton and other fibres. They were used extensively from the late 18th to the early 20th century in the mills of Lancashire and elsewhere. Mules were worked in pairs by a minder, with the help of two boys: the little piecer and the big or side piecer. The carriage carried up to 1,320 spindles and could be 150 feet (46 m) long, and would move forward and back a distance of 5 feet (1.5 m) four times a minute.
Cotton-spinning machinery is machines which process prepared cotton roving into workable yarn or thread. Such machinery can be dated back centuries. During the 18th and 19th centuries, as part of the Industrial Revolution cotton-spinning machinery was developed to bring mass production to the cotton industry. Cotton spinning machinery was installed in large factories, commonly known as cotton mills.
The manufacture of textiles is one of the oldest of human technologies. To make textiles, the first requirement is a source of fiber from which a yarn can be made, primarily by spinning. The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving, which turns yarn into cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. For decoration, the process of colouring yarn or the finished material is dyeing. For more information of the various steps, see textile manufacturing.
Bankston is a ghost town in Choctaw County, Mississippi, United States. The nearest community is French Camp, located 8 mi (13 km) south-southwest.
The North Star Woolen Mill, now the North Star Lofts, is a building in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The building, located in the St. Anthony Falls Historic District, was originally a textile mill for the North Star Woolen Company. The mill was built in 1864 by W.W. Eastman and Paris Gibson on the west side of the west side canal. High quality wool blankets, scarves, flannels, and yarns were manufactured at the facility and it became the nation's largest manufacturer of wool blankets by 1925.
The Bernat Mill, also known as Capron Mill, and later Bachman Uxbridge Worsted Company, was an American yarn mill in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, that was for the most part destroyed by fire on July 21, 2007.
Rocky Mount Mills, located in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, was the second cotton mill constructed in the state of North Carolina, dating back to 1816. Capitol Broadcasting Company bought the 150-acre (61 ha) mills in the 2007 and has since redeveloped it into a mixed-use campus of breweries, restaurants, lofts, office, and event space.
Bagley & Wright was a spinning, doubling and weaving company based in Oldham, Lancashire, England. The business, which was active from 1867 until 1924, 'caught the wave' of the cotton-boom that existed following the end of the American Civil War in 1865 and experienced rapid growth in the United Kingdom and abroad.
The Hat and Fragrance Textile Gallery is an exhibit space at Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont which houses quilts, hatboxes, and various other textiles. The name "Hat and Fragrance" refers both to Electra Havemeyer Webb's collection of hatboxes and to the fragrant, herbal sachets used to preserve textiles. In 1954, Shelburne Museum was the first museum to exhibit quilts as works of art; prior to this exhibition quilts were only shown as accessories in historic houses.
Satinet is a finely woven fabric with a finish resembling satin, but made partly or wholly from cotton or synthetic fiber. The fibers may be natural or synthetic.
The Troy Cotton & Woolen Manufactory was a textile manufacturing company located Fall River, Massachusetts. Founded in 1813 by Oliver Chace, it was the second textile mill to be built over the Quequechan River, after the Fall River Manufactory. It was located at what is now Troy Street between Pleasant and Bedford Streets.
Kitson Woolen Mill, also known as the Holland Thread Company building, is a historic woolen mill complex located at Stroudsburg, Monroe County, Pennsylvania. The complex consists of four brick buildings built between 1893 and 1904. They are arranged in a "U"-shape and consist of the "East Wing," "West Wing," boiler house, and office. The Kitson Woolen Mill was in operation until 1928, after which the mill was occupied by the Holland Thread Company until 1978.
The Mississippi Mills Packing and Shipping Rooms building in Wesson, Mississippi was constructed ca. 1875. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. According to the NRHP nomination, the building "is locally significant in the area of industry..., representing the importance of the cotton and woolen mills industry to the history and development of Wesson and the surrounding area." The building was part of a textile mill complex known as Mississippi Mills which operated from ca. 1873 to 1910. The packing and shipping room facility is the only remaining building from the Mississippi Mills era.
The Hilgen and Wittenberg Woolen Mill is a former textile factory in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Built in 1864, the mill was one of many wool- and flax-processing factories that opened during the American Civil War, due to a shortage of cotton textiles formerly supplied by southern states. The mill produced yarns, blankets, and flannels, and was the largest woolen mill west of Philadelphia in the 19th century. The mill closed in 1968 and has since become a commercial complex called the "Cedar Creek Settlement," containing restaurants and stores.
The Fries Cotton Mill was a cotton mill in Salem, North Carolina, first erected in 1840. During the Civil War, the Fries Cotton Mill was an important supplier of wool and cotton goods to the Confederate Army.
Wet Processing Engineering is one of the major streams in Textile Engineering or Textile manufacturing which refers to the engineering of textile chemical processes and associated applied science. The other three streams in textile engineering are yarn engineering, fabric engineering, and apparel engineering. The processes of this stream are involved or carried out in an aqueous stage. Hence, it is called a wet process which usually covers pre-treatment, dyeing, printing, and finishing.
The textile industry is the largest manufacturing industry in Pakistan and nearly 25 million people work in this industry. Pakistan is the eighth largest exporter of textile commodities in Asia. Textile sector contributes 8.5% to the GDP of Pakistan.
Scouring is a preparatory treatment of certain textile materials. Scouring removes soluble and insoluble impurities found in textiles as natural, added and adventitious impurities, for example, oils, waxes, fats, vegetable matter, as well as dirt. Removing these contaminants through scouring prepares the textiles for subsequent processes such as bleaching and dyeing. Though a general term, "scouring" is most often used for wool. In cotton, it is synonymously called "boiling out", and in silk, and "boiling off".