The Klotz Throwing Mill Company in Lonaconing: Opening Tut's Tomb

 

by

Rebecca Trussell

 

Like Tut's tomb, Lonaconing is a many-chambered discovery.  Correspondence is stacked in drawers, tacked to beams, and wedged between things: with soaking formulae, production notes, or just repairs chedules.  A calendar-sized board nailed to a beam has tiny skeins hung all over the surface; the gloss of rayon or the pearl of silk shine through fifty years of soot.  The machine shop lathe reads "1861."  Accessories read "1880."  In 1907, New York throwster George Klots took advantage of cheap labor and cheap fuel and opened a mill in this Western Maryland town above the coal fields.  Beginning with a crew of mostly youngsters-- as young as seven-- the mill became part of an American silk throwing dynasty with 14 mills, 6,000 workers, and $50 million dollars in annual sales.  In the 30s, the company added rayon to its products.  With the forties came wartime silk shortages and the rise of synthetic fibers. The dynasty collapsed several years before the last production run in 1957, when reelers, coners, and testers walked away from what was now General Textile Mills--and never returned. The doors closed and time froze; just as the Valley of the Kings obscured Tut's tomb, the Alleghenies sheltered the Mill at Lonaconing. This field report describes early twentieth century silk yarn production in situ, supported by documentation in over fifty linear feet of Mill records, and workers' oral histories.  Can we see something in the deep shadows of long ago silk production?  "Yes, wonderful things. . ."

 

Rebecca Trussell is completing graduate studies in the Masters Program in the History of Decorative Arts at the Smithsonian Associates, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., in collaboration with Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and Parsons School of Design of New School University.  Both weaver and textile educator, she has also worked as a costume conservator and curator.  Since April, 2000, she has provided historical background and interpretive guidance in efforts to preserve the mill that housed the former Klots Silk Throwing Company and General Textile Mills, Inc., in Lonaconing, Maryland.  Her research at the mill is the subject of Ms. Trussell's proposed master's thesis.