Successful Silk Production in Paterson,
N.J.- Grimshaw Brothers- Part 2
The number of hands employed in this extensive establishment is 700; number of pounds of thrown silk produced weekly, 1,400 besides which a considerable quantity is supplied to the firm by outside throwsters; total value of finished production, $1,000,000 per annum; number of looms running, 300, all with Jacquard attachments. The product is of great range, comprising all the leading novelties in damasse and fancy silks, the silks for ladies’ and gentlemen’s wear, linings, etc. Their handkerchief production is immense, including every conceivable design, color and shade of color. In this department the brothers Grimshaw claim to be pioneers in developing a taste for finer and more elegant class of goods, and the handkerchiefs from their looms are early attained, and have since held, a high reputation in the market. The Grimshaw handkerchief has become as familiar as a household word, and if it is not “in everybody’s mouth” it is at least on everybody’s face. Next in importance to handkerchiefs, the largest production of this firm hitherto has been dress silks and grenadines, the latter both for ladies’ and gentlemen’s wear, in blacks, colors, checks and fancy patterns. Their figured silks, satin damasse to very fancy and costly goods in plain and Jardiniere stripes, have attained an excellence which renders them indistinguishable from the productions of the best foreign looms. The firm has also become famous for their production of silk plushes, for millinery and kindred uses, and a finer grade of this class of goods, in excellent imitation of sealskin, is attracting more and more attention and promises to supersede the foreign article, long thought unapproachable, in the not distant future.
But the irrepressible energy and well-directed skill of this comparatively young firm refuses to be confined even within the ample limits outlined in the foregoing; they seek “other worlds to conquer.” The production of silk velvets in this country has been regarded by foreigners as a department of the silk industry not likely soon to be invaded by our home manufacturers, even though abundant proof of their temerity and genius has already been given. In this branch at least the European manufacturers hoped to retain their hitherto monopoly. The successful production of fine velvets involves as requisites the most accurate judgment in the selection of material, the use of machinery very intricate in character, and also more delicate in adjustment than for any other silk product, and withal – and this is indispensable – a superior class of skilled operatives. An essay of this nature, for the production of a domestic silk velvet, which was made about 1866, has been described in a foregoing chapter of this work; also its disastrous termination. For generations these goods have been produced only by a comparatively few manufacturers abroad, at Lyons , France , and elsewhere, but the success of the Grimshaws in their experimental operations have encouraged others to enter the field and the year 1881 closed with every prospect of success for this daring enterprise. They are manufacturing velvets of the finest quality and most exquisite finish, using machinery in their production that is pronounced as perfect and effective as any in the world. The ample means of the firm, and their experience of may years in the business, are factors which, brought to bear in the purchase of materials in manufacturing, give abundant promise that their new ventures in the department of textile art-industry will be successful, and perhaps more so, than even those of the past."