"When one door closes, another door opens." The loss of the Farr Alpaca Company, with its thousands of employees and significant mill space, provided start-up opportunities for other businesses. One of these new concerns was the Holyoke Fabrics Company.
Robert E. Anderson had extensive experience in the textile field. He worked for Farr Alpaca Co. for 32 years and rose to the position of operations overseer. He would be the President and production manager of Holyoke Fabrics.
Felix Brawer was the Vice-President and Treasurer of Holyoke Mills, Incorporated, and Treasurer of Granite Weaving Company of Patterson, New Jersey. He was 30 years old in 1941 when Holyoke Fabrics was started. He started out in business in 1928, working for his father. In 1930, he worked for a concern in Fayetteville, North Carolina. At the age of 24, he founded the Granite Weaving Company, which employed 190 workers.
Two outside influencers, without whom the business would have had a more challenging start, were Albert N. Kahn and Edward A Vanesse.
Mr. Kahn was the President of Consolidated Products Incorporated, which owned the extensive former Farr Alpace properties. The new company needed to lease space and equipment, and Mr. Kahn secured and leased the most modern former Farr Alpaca machinery for the fledgling Holyoke Fabrics Company. This included 150 weaving looms, 30 spinning frames, 3 sets of drawings, and warping and winding equipment. This was a win-win for both parties.
Mr. Vanasse, a local textile union leader, facilitated the company workers becoming affiliated with the Holyoke Silk and Rayon Workers Union, an AFL affiliate.
The company leased the entire first 2 floors of the former Farr's D Shed at the corner of Cabot and Bigelow streets. This consisted of 66,000 square feet of mill space. The third floor was occupied by Mr. Brawer's Holyoke Mills Incorporated.
In February 1941, the plant began with 50 workers and hoped to increase to 300 within a month. The company started with a government contract to produce 1.5 million yards of silk cloth for military powder bags.
The company's primary production would focus on tropical worsteds, underlinings, and sales yarns. As World War II was in progress, the company would bid on government defense contracts.
By October 1941, the company had 250 workers. In February 1942, the company's production of duck cloth for the military had doubled. There was talk of bringing weavers from North Adams, Massachusetts, which struggled with an industrial slowdown.
The plant was not affected by the mohair shortage for Angora sweater production, as it had stockpiles on hand due to decreased demand for use in upholstering.
In 1944, the company received an order for 365,000 pounds of yarn for military sweaters. 70% of the factory's output was for military orders.
In 1945, the company installed two new semi-automatic winders, which tripled the speed of its current units. 50% of its wartime orders were cancelled, but were replaced by civilian orders for sock yarns, and no layoffs were anticipated.
The next chapter takes us into the company's post-war years.
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican; publication dates and pages are shown.
Ancestry.com (paid subscription): Price & Lee Holyoke, Massachusetts, City Directories
Hampden County Registry of Deeds, Springfield, Massachusetts
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