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Images of America: Naugatuck Valley Textile Industry (CT) (Book/ Paperback)

Product Overview

The textile industry found its roots in Connecticut along the banks of the Housatonic and Naugatuck Rivers between Waterbury and Bridgeport. From the early 1800s, when David Humphries, former aide-de-camp to Gen. George Washington, brought the woolen industry to America, to the 1950s, when the vast Sidney Blumenthal Mills moved to the South, the textile industry shaped life in the Naugatuck Valley. The industry witnessed labor actions, inspired cultural expression, and experienced the growth of shipping by road, water, and rail. Workers produced felted wool, cotton, and silk fabrics, velvet, fake fur, wool hosiery, buttons, ribbons, and various other goods, laying the foundation for the prosperity enjoyed by the valley today.

About the Author(s)

Mary Ruth Shields, MFA, is Chair of the Fashion Merchandising and Marketing Department at Lincoln College of New England and has worked in the fashion industry and taught fashion for over 20 years. She has earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in crafts and a Masters degree in Textiles. Her MFA in Interdisciplinary Art included studies in fashion design, consumer self image and consumption. Shields also owns and manages a workroom, White Horse Fashion, which manufactures the apparel and home soft goods she designs and the products of other Connecticut designers whom she mentors in business topics. She is the Outreach Coordinator and a Board Member of the Valley Center for the Arts in Derby, CT and coordinates the Textile Arts program there.