“Whittall Mills Advertisement” (ca. 1910)

“Whittall Mills Advertisement” (ca. 1910)
artist unknown
15 x 22 in., ink and wash on paper

A stunningly detailed advertising piece.
Textiles and leather were economic cornerstones in New England’s industrialization. Worcester, Massachusetts, was a center of carpet manufacturing. The Crompton Rug Company built a small complex of structures, opening in 1870. Crompton went under in the 1879 Depression, and the space was leased and later re-opened in 1893 as the Worcester Carpet Company. Matthew Whittall, a British immigrant who had been a supervisor for Crompton, had opened his own factory in 1874. He returned to England, bought eight Crossley carpet looms, and brought them back to Worcester, along with a cousin and a group of Kidderminster carpet weavers, and established the Whittall Mills company in 1880. He grew his business and, by 1901, he was the philanthropic “lord of manor” in Worcester.

By WWI, the Whittall Mills had expanded to 500,000 square feet of space, containing 350 looms and employing 1500 skilled workers. The products Whittall produced were purchased by the federal government for use in its buildings and were selected by President William McKinley for use in the White House.

The Whittall Company continued to manufacture carpets at this located until the company was sold in 1950.

The original art featured here was a blank shell of an advertisement whose text could be customized to the magazine in question. I have not located any information about the artist or exact date of this particular ad campaign.