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- Freeze Frame
- Texas Flyer wanted
- Just a Year Too Soon
- WWII -- Replacing men with women at the railroad crossing.
- Yes, Icing
- You kids drive me nuts!
- NOT An Easy Job
- I wonder
- Just add window boxes
- Icing Platform?
- Indiana Harbor Belt abides
- Freezing haze
- Corrections (for those who care)
- C&NW at Nelson
- Fallen Flags
- A dangerous job made worse
- Water Stop
- Passenger trains have right of way over freights?
- Coal
- Never ceases to amaze me.
- Still chuggin' (in model form)
- Great shot
- Westerly Breeze
- For the men, a trapeze
- Tickled
- Sense of loneliness ...
- 2 cents
- Charm City
- What an Outrage
- Brighton Park
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Thread Mill Girls: 1916
June 19, 1916. Fall River, Mass. "Kerr Thread Mill. All over 16. Having fun with camera man. Good conditions in this mill. Caps to protect hair from dust and keep hair from getting tangled in machinery. These girls worked in an operating room, not the cloth room." Photo and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.
Hair today ...
A friend's grandmother worked in a munitions factory in England during WWII and there were rules about the women wearing their hair up and under caps to prevent their hair being caught in machinery. One girl who was the "pet" of the floor boss used to keep her hair down because the fellow liked to play with her hair when he walked by.
One day, a bit of her long, beautiful hair got caught in the machine behind her and in less than a second she was scalped. It was something my friend's grandmother cried about 50 years later when she related the story to me.
Kerr's Thread
Found a spool of Kerr's "Lustre Twist" Thread in my mom's old sewing cabinet. has turned from white in places to slightly sepia from age, still has tag and was purchased from Taft & Pennoyer. Found info on this site most interesting about the company. Thank you.
Kerr Thread Mill ruins
Ruins of Kerr Thread Mill on Flickr:
Lizzie Borden
Just before shipping out of Boston in WW2 I went to see the Lizzie Borden home in Fall River. It was a rooming house at this time and I thought who would want to sleep in that?
Did some research a year ago and the Borden house was a bed & breakfast.
1987 Fire
The Kerr Thread Mill (owned by American Thread) burned down in 1987. Now it's the Advanced Technology and Manufacturing Center, U-Mass Dartmouth.
Lizzie Borden
That's who I always think of when I hear anything about Fall River, Massachusetts. Ax murders are probably not relevant to Shorpy, but anyway. These ladies must have known the rhyme.
Working conditions
Even without the photographer's note about the good conditions in the mill, you can tell it was true. The smiles on these ladies' faces seem to come very easily, which wouldn't be true if their working conditions were other than good.
That's what HE said
"All over 16. Having fun with camera man."
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