Pacific Mills

Pacific Mills advertisement, Woman’s Home Companion, Nov. 1937. “Maid of Pacific” rayon twill.

I found a whole series of advertisements for clothing made with Pacific Mills fabrics in the Woman’s Home Companion, 1936 and 1937. (I have not examined other years — and only done these years partially.) I’m currently reading Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, by Elizabeth L. Cline, so finding an American fabric mill that proudly put its own hang-tag on garments made by various manufacturers was another reminder of the days when quality mattered to shoppers.

Pacific Mills “Maid of Pacific” rayon hangtag. WHC, Nov. 1937. “Crown Spun Rayon. . . laboratory-tested fabric construction, color fastness, and all wearing qualities.”

Pacific Mills also advertised in The Ladies’ Home Journal in the late 1930s. Full color ads for Pacific Mills fabrics — especially woolens — can be found online dating to the 1940’s and 1950’s as well. (Search for “Pacific Mills Ad”)

The Vintage Traveler recently showed a photo of a woman playing golf while wearing a playsuit under her open dress (click here to see it), and that reminded me of these playsuits shown in Pacific Mills ads:

Playsuits made from Pacific Mills fabrics, June and May, 1937. WHC.

Pacific Mills fabrics for cruise wear, April 1937. WHC.

The Vintage Traveler has described the rise and fall of many American textile mills (Mitchell Company, Lilly Mills, etc.) and I can’t hope to match her scholarship. A year ago, I couldn’t find anything about Pacific Mills online; now, I find that the company began in “1852 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where it manufactured prints and fancy cottons as well as worsted goods in its woolen mill operations.” [Click here for source.] Pacific Mills acquired more mills near Columbia, South Carolina in the 1900s, and expanded to Lyman, South Carolina, around 1924, where the town grew up around it. Some Pacific mills produced sheeting; I’m not sure which mill produced the printed fabrics in cotton and rayon which are featured in these 1930’s advertisements.

“All Set for Cruising,” Ad for Pacific Mills Sportswear Cottons, WHC; April 1937.

Pacific Mills Sportswear Cottons ad, April 1937: “Jauntaire, a linen-weave cotton; Pamico Crash, a rugged peasant-weave; Ker-Splash, a clever shantung-weave broadcloth; and Piqueway, an attractive printed pique.”

In the 1970’s, the mill at Lyman was producing “7,000,000 yards per week of woven fabrics from 36″ to 110″ in width, over a broad range of weight from very light to bottom weights, decorated by roller printing, screen printing, beck dyeing and continuous dyeing. End use was generally apparel and sheeting. . . .” according to the Textile History site. (Click here to read the article.)

Pacific Mills “Crinkle” cottons, Ad in Woman’s Home Companion, June 1937. Variations on seersucker, they needed no ironing.

Pacific Mills Crinkle cottons: “Idlease, a medium weight seersucker; for spectator sports, afternoon and evening, Blister Sheer, a very light weight.” June, 1937 ad.

“Not illustrated, but just as important, are these other Pacific Crinkles, Kwanta Crepe, Cris Crinkle, and Flock Crinkle. Look at these dresses of smart cottons and you’ll want them. . . . At smart stores everywhere … all identified by the Pacific hang-tag, your assurance not only of style-rightness but of unusual value.” — Ad in Woman’s Home Companion, June 1937.

Pacific Mills Tropical Prints ad, Woman’s Home Companion, May 1937.

Pacific Mills’ Tropical Prints ad, May 1937. “Cotton shops in smart stores everywhere are now featuring these Pacific Tropical Prints in a variety of amusing designs.”

“How diverting it will be to wear a playsuit of Sand’ Land pique in a frolicsome sea-horse print . . . a sports frock of Cris Crinkle crepe in a whimsical little airplane design  . . . plus-fours and shirt in Lingolyn, very nautically inclined with an all-over design of anchors and ropes.”

Pacific Mills also made fabrics from rayon and other synthetics.

Pacific Mills ad for synthetic fabric, “Gem-O-Sheer. WHC, May 1937.

Pacific Mills “Gem-O-Sheer” ad: “… new sheer synthetic by Pacific. It’s cool, washable, serviceable. Designs are smart and colorful, and the texture is soft and dainty.” May, 1937.

Pacific Mills ad, Ladies’ Home Journal, Oct. 1936.

Pacific Mills fabrics for lounging pajamas, housecoats, smocks, dresses. Ad, LHJ, Oct. 1936. ” Cris Crinkle, Smoc-Toc, and Notable Crepe hang-tags.

“Here are quaint Tyrolean prints . . . exquisite Chinese porcelain and carved ivory effects . . . Flemish and French Renaissance motifs . . . border designs from Persia and Mexico. Here, too, are pictorial prints of contemporary events:  the launching of the Queen Mary . . . the approaching election . . . the Chinese Fair in London.” For some fashions showing Chinese-influenced fabrics, click here.

“Cris Crinkle  is a permanently crinkled cotton that requires no ironing; Smoc-Toc, a peasant cotton; Notable Crepe, a cotton and rayon mixture. All are fast to washing.”

This dress is made of rayon:

Pacific Mills Crown Rayon fabric ad, WHC, Oct. 1937.

Maid of Pacific Crown Rayon, Pacific Mills Ad, Oct. 1937.

“This new twill-weave spun rayon does things for you. Soft dull texture, distinctive designs, rich colorings — all combine to bring out the best  in you and make the simplest frock distinguished.” “Look for the Maid of Pacific selvage-marking or hang tags and the Crown Tested insignia . . . your assurance of complete, lasting satisfaction.”

The Pacific Mills woolen fabrics which were produced in Massachusetts in the 19th century continued to be a mainstay.

Pacific Mills wool flannel for the college campus — ad from Woman’s Home Companion, Sept. 1936.

Ad for Pacific Mills wool flannel, WHC, Dec. 1936.

Pacific Flannel “100% wool” hang-tag in ad from WHC, Dec. 1936.

Pacific Mills continued to produce (and advertise) wool fabrics for men’s and women’s suits in the nineteen fifties and sixties. (Click here for a typical ad.) A search for “pacific mills ad” images brings up many lovely, full-color examples.

It’s a little surprising that there was no “product-tie-in” in these ads, naming the companies that used Pacific Mills textiles — or sharing the cost of the advertising!

The mill itself, in Lawrence, MA, is now renovated and rents commercial space to many businesses. (Click here.) The gallery has images of mill workers – mostly female — from the turn of the century and the 1920s. (Click here.)

The mill in Lyman, South Carolina, once the heart of the community, where Pacific Mills had built 325 homes, a community center, a twelve room schoolhouse, churches, a public swimming pool, and services for senior citizens, was sold to Burlington in 1954 and again to M. Lowenstein & Sons. (Click here.) It was sold again, and the Lyman mill was demolished in 2012. Click here for an article about its destruction.

I still have no idea why a textile mill in Massachusetts — and South Carolina — was called “Pacific” Mills.

 

Vintage Mail Order Patterns: One Big Family?

Four Vintage Mail Order Pattern Envelopes; different names, but similar style.

I’m a relative novice to vintage patterns, but I’ve had enough pass through my hands to recognize the typeface and visual style of the “Progressive Farmer” pattern (see below), which American Age Fashion wrote about recently as “Becky Stott’s pattern.” Read the blog  here.

Becky Stott’s “Progressive Farmer” Pattern. Photo courtesy of AmericanAgeFashion.com

 

Photo of mailing envelope, courtesy of AmericanAgeFashion.com

Doesn’t it seem a little odd that The Progressive Farmer has a “pattern department” in New York City? 

Visually, the appearance of that “Progressive Farmer” pattern is a very close relative of these:

Marian Martin mail order pattern courtesy of rememberedsummers on Ebay.

Marian Martin mail order pattern, courtesy of rememberedsummers, Ebay.

Anne Adams half-size mail order pattern, courtesy of rememberedsummers, Ebay.

Anne Adams mail order pattern for a wrap dress or apron, from rememberedsummers on Ebay.

Those patterns only seem to come from different companies. I’ve noticed that there was at least one pattern company in New York that specialized in making patterns that would be sold through regional newspapers. Sometimes they bore the name of a pattern company like “Marian Martin” or “Anne Adams,” which were possibly the names of individual designers. But the illustration style, the lettering, and the instruction sheets’ layout and typeface are nearly identical, and, although they were mailed in envelopes with different (but stylistically similar) designs on them, the return address was almost the same for many companies.

Return Address for Marian Martin and Anne Adams Patterns.

RoseButtons wrote about this 2009, but sadly, the site is no longer active.

Rose Buttons quoted Barbara Brackman’s book Women of Design:

Quilt Historian Wilene Smith has determined that Nathan Kogan, Max Levine and Anne Bourne formed a business called Needlecraft Service, Inc. in 1932. As yet pattern historians know nothing about the actual designers who created the innovative patterns and drawings. To add to confusion about company history, Smith found that Needlecraft Service set up two competing branches to make the most of cities with competing newspapers. Laura Wheeler might offer patterns in one newspaper and Alice Brooks in another. Each “designer” had a different New York city address, which Smith thinks were mail drops to distinguish the bylines. The company also used regional names such as Carol Curtis in the Midwest and Mary Cullen in the Northwest. Marian Martin and Ann Adams [sic] were additional bylines, [primarily] for clothing patterns.

Apparently, some newspapers would sell such sewing patterns under their own names, e.g. “The Progressive Farmer.”

“Own Name” pattern for a Dance Set, courtesy of rememberedsummers on Ebay.

This pattern from the 1930s was listed on Ebay; it says “Own Name” at the bottom:

“Own Name” on bottom of pattern; courtesy of rememberedsummers on Ebay.

It took me a long time to realize that it was a sample — meant to be sent to a newspaper, which would have its “own name” printed on the patterns it chose to feature! [At least, that’s my guess.]

photo courtesy of AmericanAgeFashion.com

The Vintage Traveler  confirmed in a comment  on americanagefashion.com that The Progressive Farmer was a regional newspaper. It’s possible that Becky Stott’s Progressive Farmer pattern was also sold under other newspapers’ names. The mailing address, Old Chelsea Station, NY, is the same as that on an “Alice Brooks” pattern that was listed on Ebay, and on “Needlecraft “patterns, like this transfer pattern for an embroidered quilt. Only the box numbers — 147, 162, 163 — are different.

Alice Brooks Designs mail order pattern, courtesy of rememberedsummers.

 

Needlecraft mail order pattern from Reader Mail, Inc. courtesy of rememberedsummers.

When I checked the locations of all these addresses (for Alice Brooks, Anne Adams, Marian Martin, Needlecraft, and the Progressive Farmer pattern) on a map of New York City, I found that 243 W. 17^th Street (Anne Adams) and 232 West 18^th Street (Marian Martin) were on the same block and may have been two entrances to the same building. The Old Chelsea Station Post Office (Needlecraft, Alice Brooks, & Progressive Farmer) was right across the street, at 217 West 18^th.

I think Wilene Smith was right – all these addresses were mail drops for one company, Needlecraft Service, Inc. The separate mailing addresses just made it easier to sort the pattern orders received from all over the country. Of course, this is a theory; I would welcome comments, additions, and corrections from people with more expertise.