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Today's Top 5
Archie and Veronica: 1940
Submitted by Dave on Thu, 01/03/2013 - 11:25am.
Tags:
November 1940. "Young workers at the Penomah Mills Inc., Taftville, Conn." Brown-bagger meets the lunchbox set. (Or, as a commenter on our Facebook page puts it: "I think that's Archie.") Photo by Jack Delano. View full size.
Why a tower
Submitted by wiggy on Tue, 01/08/2013 - 10:23am.
StefanJ has lots of good reasons. Here are a couple more:
Stairs were put in separate towers so they wouldn't act like chimneys in case of fire. Once you have a tower, the natural Victorian impulse is to make it a landmark.
Also, factory towers often held a water tank for sprinklers.
Dong Thing
Submitted by StefanJ on Fri, 01/04/2013 - 1:22pm.
Belltower on a factory? Any number of reasons. Supposed that there is a bell installed in the first place.
- Ringing off work hours and shifts? Not every worker had a watch at the time. Maybe not every factory operated a whistle, either.
- Fire alarm?
Otherwise:
- Architectural must-have at the time?
- Style?
- Pride of builder and owner in their building?
- Showing the community that the factory is there to stay?
Ding Dong
Submitted by Banderboy on Fri, 01/04/2013 - 12:22pm.
Why does a factory have a bell tower?
In the news
Submitted by duckpin on Thu, 01/03/2013 - 8:33pm.
Coincidentally, there is an article on the mill in the local newspaper the same day this picture was posted: Ponemah Mills renovation back on track. The Ponemah mills were purported to be the largest textile mills in the world. I drive by these every now and then and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. It is enormous.
Penomah, Denomah, Ponemah
Submitted by willc on Thu, 01/03/2013 - 2:57pm.
At least three dozen of Jack Delano's negatives from this series have been saved and scanned by the LOC. But, as can happen, they are indexed under at least two spellings, "Penomah" and "Denomah," neither of which are actually correct, apparently. The LOC's HABS photos and other online listings for this cotton and rayon mill, once the largest in the United States, can be found by searching for "Ponemah" Mills. But running this spelling in the search engine won't locate the Delano images, perhaps a good example to remind researchers to try alternate spellings as a matter of course. Here's an interior shot from the Delano photos, a negative filed under "Denomah."
The Brown-bagger
Submitted by D_Chadwick on Thu, 01/03/2013 - 2:46pm.
It looks like he's about to lose his milk money and his girl friend.
"Oh no you don't"
Submitted by HistoryBuffer on Thu, 01/03/2013 - 2:17pm.
Looks to me like the woman is the mother of the boy to the left and she's got that "see what will happen if you don't stay in school?" look
Oh-So-Casual
Submitted by PersonFromPorlock on Thu, 01/03/2013 - 1:53pm.
That lean! Those legs! It's the younger Gene Kelly and he's ready to dance!
Same corner today
Submitted by J W Wright on Thu, 01/03/2013 - 12:04pm.
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Today's Top 5