Artifacts: Images from "Down Through the Needle's Eye"

 Baltimore Garment Industry Artifacts courtesy of Cathy Wolfson, Jack Schwartz, and Teddy Johnson

 

Display of thread lent from Atlantic Thread & Supply Company Inc

 Shears used by Baltimore Garment worker  Nicholas Orlando Beal, lent by his daughter Cathy Wolfson.

 Baltimore Garment Industry Artifacts courtesy of  Jack Schwartz (sewing machine), and Teddy Johnson (ties)

Thanks to All Who Attended "Down Through The Needle's Eye"

August 10: "Down Through The Needle's Eye" Closing Reception and Panel

 Down Through the Needle’s Eye is an exhibition consisting of 20 contributors exploring themes related to Baltimore’s historic former Garment District. 

 The Show is conceived and curated by the Rotating History Project (Teddy Johnson and Heather Rounds) in cooperation with EMP Collective.

August 10

Closing Reception 6-10 

Panel Discussion 7-8

Performances 6-7 and 8-10.

Panel

Explorations of Baltimore’s Historic Garment District:  

First hands accounts and reflections from industry workers, scholars, and artists.

Joe Beal, Former Baltimore city garment worker

Michael Masatsugu, Department of History, Towson University

Matt Mettler, Department of History, Towson University

Valeska Populoh, Fiber Department, MICA, Contributing artist

Andrew Shenker, Contributing artist

Phil Spector, Owner, Fashions Unlimited, Baltimore

Artists  who have contributed to the 5 week show.

Andrew Shenker
Annie Farrar
Charlotte Keniston
Chris Fitzwater
Christine Stiver
Daniel Van Allen
Dominic Terlizzi
Dominique Zeltzman
Grant Whipple
Hannah Brancato
Hannah Mandel
Joseph Young
Kaitlin Murphy
Laure Drogoul
Max Bent
Melissa Webb
Michael Masatsugu
Minas Konsolas
Rachel Wolfson Smith
Valeska Populoh 

An area of the city loosely falling between Fayette Street, Greene Street, Pratt Street and Hanover Street, it was in the Garment District where umbrellas were first manufactured in the US and the second largest men’s clothing factories in the world once operated. The city’s labor movement and many of its early union struggles happened here as well.

         The rise and decline of the Garment District as a flourishing industrial center for Baltimore’s manufactured products, as well as the people who worked and struggled to maintain their livelihoods through the decades, speak to events and societal practices that are not alien to our own time and highlight the finite nature of our society’s industries in general.

          The site of the exhibition, EMP, sits in the Faust Building. Located in the heart of the Garment District, the building was once a wholesale boot and shoe business, and through time leased space to clothing firms, dry goods wholesalers, and merchants of men’s furnishings.


ABOUT EMP COLLECTIVE

         Founded in 2010, EMP Collective is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and producing multi-media events by collaborating with artists from all backgrounds, across disciplines. EMP Collective hopes to nourish emerging artists with its new incubator space (creatively named EMP) at 306 W Redwood Street, in the forgotten Loft District of Baltimore. This multi-use arts venue is comprised of a rotating art gallery for developing artists that doubles as a rehearsal / performance space for theatrical and musical events, experimental collaboration, workshops, and film screenings. Around the corner from the Hippodrome, right off of the Baltimore St/University Center Light Rail stop, EMP hopes to be part of the revitalization of a neighborhood just blocks away from the Inner Harbor and Mount Vernon.
EMP Gallery Hours: Thurs-Sat, 2-7PM 

http://empcollective.org/
 

"Down Through the Needle's Eye" has been highlighted in Urbanite as a choice Artscape satellite exhibit!

http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/baltimore/satellite-images/Content?oid=1474929

PARTICIPATE:

JULY 13 - AUG 10 E.M.P. Collective

Participate in "Cut Pieces," a textile performance by Hannah Brancato and Charlotte Keniston, and reduce textile waste in the process. Please bring clothing you no longer use to swap with other gallery visitors. Any clothing that is stained or otherwise un-wearable will be used in the creation of quilts. These quilts will hold the story of your piece of clothing within pockets placed throughout the quilt itself.

Down Through The Needle's Eye

Conceived and curated by the Rotating History Project (Teddy Johnson and Heather Rounds) and in cooperation with EMP Collective, Down Through the Needle’s Eye is an exhibition consisting of 20 contributors exploring themes related to Baltimore’s historic former Garment District.

An area of the city loosely falling between Fayette Street, Greene Street, Pratt Street and Hanover Street, it was in the Garment District where umbrellas were first manufactured in the US and the second largest men’s clothing factories in the world once operated. The city’s labor movement and many of its early union struggles happened here as well. 

The rise and decline of the Garment District as a flourishing industrial center for Baltimore’s manufactured products, as well as the people who worked and struggled to maintain their livelihoods through the decades, speak to events and societal practices that are not alien to our own time and highlight the finite nature of our society’s industries in general.

The site of the exhibition, EMP, sits in the Faust Building. Located in the heart of the Garment District, the building was once a wholesale boot and shoe business, and through time leased space to clothing firms, dry goods wholesalers, and merchants of men’s furnishings.

The show is part of a larger group of happenings called the Rotating History Project.

ABOUT EMP COLLECTIVE
Founded in 2010, EMP Collective is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and producing multi-media events by collaborating with artists from all backgrounds, across disciplines. EMP Collective hopes to nourish emerging artists with its new incubator space (creatively named EMP) at 306 W Redwood Street, in the forgotten Loft District of Baltimore. This multi-use arts venue is comprised of a rotating art gallery for developing artists that doubles as a rehearsal / performance space for theatrical and musical events, experimental collaboration, workshops, and film screenings. Around the corner from the Hippodrome, right off of the Baltimore St/University Center Light Rail stop, EMP hopes to be part of the revitalization of a neighborhood just blocks away from the Inner Harbor and Mount Vernon.

What I May Have Seen on Routes 70 & 340

A New show of paintings by Rotating History Project co-founder Teddy Johnson.

The paintings making up the series What I May Have seen on Routes 70 and 340 are meditations on highway 70 and 340, specifically the section of these two highways running west from Baltimore, through West Virginia, into northwest Virginia.

The paintings feature personal interpretations I have made of the landscape based on traveling along these highways, juxtaposed with reinterpretations of figure drawings by 19^th century Harper's  illustrator, writer, and journalist, David Hunter Strother, better known by his pen name Porte Crayon.   Extracted out of their original and sometimes problematic contexts more than 150 years later, many of the figures represented in these works are within an hour's drive of where they were originally drawn.

    The time in which Strother worked was a time of significant upheaval in America. The 10 years before the Civil War were the peak of Strother's career as an artist.  He later was a Union Officer in the Shenandoah Valley and, given his muddy political views and his alliance to the Union over his state of Virginia, was on both sides of the conflict. His work for Harper's and archived, sketchbooks, many of which are dated with location, document hundreds of people throughout the region of all classes and races at a time before convenient and widespread photography. Though his body of work is a detailed attempt to document the people of the area it is also a product of it's time and place.

    This show is meant to share a conversation I’ve had with myself over a number of years about the complex history these highways pass through and the ongoing development of Western Maryland, Northwest Virginia and West Virginia around 70 and 340, as Washington DC continues to stretch its circle further outwards the farmland and landscape of the past is becoming housing developments. I sought to interpret figures that I felt offer a glimpse of humanity, at once trying to see if I could envision these documented people in the landscape that once existed, simultaneously wondering how they might react to see this same landscape today.

The Smoothie Tie

These are two Smoothie Button Down Ties we found in a thrift store. These ties where produced in Baltimore.

A Oct 4, 1937 Life Magazine ad for the Smoothie Tie promised " THE NEWEST WRINKLE IN TIES IS NO WRINKLES AT ALL!"

By March 31, 1958 the patent for the Smoothie Button Down Tie was celebrated in a Life Magazine ad. The ad stated: "It's the Smart, Modern Way to keep your tie in place."

DOWN THROUGH THE NEEDLE'S EYE: CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The Rotating History Project, in cooperation with the EMP Collective, is taking proposals for its forthcoming exhibition, Down Through the Needle’s Eye. The 6-week show is scheduled to open on July 13th 2012, at the EMP Collective Space, located at 306 West Redwood Street, Baltimore MD.

This multimedia exhibition will serve as a case study of Baltimore’s Garment District, now commonly known as the Loft District—an area loosely falling between Fayette Street, Greene Street, Pratt Street and Hanover Street. Following the Civil War, needle industries—largely centered in the Garment District—became the largest generators of capital in Baltimore. It was here that umbrellas were first manufactured in the US and the largest and second largest men’s clothing factories in the world once operated. The city’s labor movement and many of its early union struggles happened here as well.

The rise and decline of the Garment District as a flourishing industrial center for Baltimore’s manufactured products, as well as the people who worked and struggled to maintain their livelihoods through the decades, speak to events and societal practices that are not alien to our own time and highlight the finite nature of our society’s industries in general.

The EMP Collective Space, located in the Faust Building, in the heart of the Garment District, was once a wholesale boot and shoe business, and through time leased space to clothing firms, dry goods wholesalers, and merchants of men’s furnishings.

The goal of the exhibition is to invite artists to create site/theme specific works that draw on any relevant themes or ideas that may resonate and inspire art. All mediums are welcomed, including 2D and 3D, film, music, installation, performances, lectures and all other forms of writing/dialogue, such as oral histories.

The show is part of a larger group of happenings called the Rotating History Project. Through a variety of artistic mediums, the Rotating History Project aims to draw attention to the threads running through our history, culture and environment, which remain relevant to our ever-evolving society today.

Proposals should be sent via email and include a description of the intended project in 250 words or less. Please include the proposal description in the body of the email, rather than as an attachment. Sending a resume is optional. Preference will be given to proposed artwork and projects that best contribute to the overall vision of the theme.

Artists may choose to include attachments of jpeg or PDF images of proposed work OR jpegs/PDFs of up to 5 previous work. Images should be under 2 megabits in size. For proposed projects based in the written medium, please submit a writing sample of up to five pages in a Word Doc or in the body of an email. Art related to performance or video may be submitted via mail on a DVD.

All proposals and jpeg/PDFs should be emailed to rotatinghistoryartproject@gmail.com by Thursday March 1, 2012.

All DVDs must be postmarked by Monday February 27th and mailed to Attn: Teddy Johnson/Heather Rounds, 717 Homestead St, Baltimore, MD 21218.

The Baltimore Garment District: some years and some facts, but far from all...

The Garment District between1860 to 1920: It’s heyday era. Workers produced three to eight times the value of Baltimore’s next most important industry: canning.

1861: The Civil War. Banks tightened credit, trade between the north and south halted, manufacturing dipped and jobs were lost. Merchants began regaining their strength around 1863.

Baltimore was the undisputed center of the umbrella and straw hat industries, following the Civil War.

1870s: Growth, expansion and the innovation of new trades—shoes, shirts, woman’s garments and umbrellas. Factories opened and the population increased.

Gans Brothers umbrellas and parasols were popular throughout the United States, Canada and West Indies. The company slogan: “Born in Baltimore—Raised Everywhere”

750 workers a day made 3000 umbrellas and parasols a day.

Umbrellas were commonly referred to as bumbershoots.

As early as 1894, Baltimore’s Young Men’s Progressive Club, consisting largely of Jewish intellectuals, socialists, Zionists, and anarchists, pushed to unionize. The push spiked after the Russian Revolution of 1905.

1904: 10,000 men’s clothing workers were employed in the district. That year, the Great Baltimore Fire was accidently ignited in storage areas of the John E. Hurst Co. The fire swept east through the business district and the north harbor area, destroying 1,500 buildings for a loss of $200 million. The ruined buildings included many of the downtown clothing manufacturers.

Sweatshops— 357 shops were found in violation of city labor laws and 45 were arrested.

By 1906: Most men in the United States could say that they, at one point in their life, had worn shirts or underwear made in Baltimore.

Factories, where sewed products were assembled, could be found in lofts, alleys, garages or any where there was space.

Overalls: Baltimore dry goods houses distributed them by the ton.

Erlanger Brothers Clothing manufactured their best-known product, BVD underwear, which did not stand for, as many thought: Baltimore Ventilated Drawers

1909: Baltimore’s local number 4 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union called an unsuccessful 26 week-long strike. Total membership in the union went from 2000 to 67,000.

End of WWI: 60% of the needle workers in Baltimore were organized. 15% of the laboring class as a whole was organized.

In 1916 the Amalgamated clothing workers of America became active in Baltimore

and attempted, unsuccessfully, to organize against Geif and Brothers. They did, however, reach an agreement with Henry Sonneborn Company.

“Battle of the Scissors”: Union clashing on the cutter floors of the Sonnenborn factory in August 1916, included men snapping at each other with cutting shears. Many were hospitalized, some were arrested.

“The cutter,” who guided the cutting machine along the lines of a pattern, was a job traditionally limited to men.

By 1917 most large clothing manufactures, except J. Sheenmen, where organized.

The oldest tie manufacturer in America, Schreter Neckwear, moved to Baltimore in 1919.

The Regatta Manufacturing Company and the Consolidated Gas and Electric Light and Power Company of Baltimore developed a blue daylight lamp enabling pressers to work effectively during the hours of diminishing daylight. The light made it easier to detect scorches on fabric that occurred during pressing.

Pressers had what was commonly considered the most exacting of all the jobs. An Electric iron weighed as much as six to twelve pounds. An iron was lifted from 35-75 times for each dress. A busy day meant up to 100 dresses per presser.

Some of the employees that lined the Baltimore and Howard Street picket lines in

1930 reportedly carried pistols and blackjacks. That year the International Ladies Garment Workers Union argued that the city had lower wages and poorer working conditions than competing, more organized cities. A general strike lasted 7 days.

Men commonly purchased straw hats annually—May 15 being a traditional day of purchase—until their decline in popularity. John F Kennedy was largely blamed for the decline.

Trends and what made for trends in men’s clothes in the 1930s: Times of war—military suit cuts; The Depression—quieter shades, two-pants suits and less linen summer suits; Times of high moral among sports fans—suits allowing for more room to move, with more material around the shoulders.

The Golf Bow Tie was inspired by President Harding’s golfing bow tie. The Smoothie Tie buttoned to the shirt and was named after the song “You’re an old Smoothie,” sung by Ella Fitzgerald. Shir-o-Shakker, a washable tie, was popular among steel workers at Sparrows Point, who wore it on the job.

Designers concluded that women began wearing head kerchiefs due to increased exposure to photographs of women living in poverty.

Prices following WWII for a men’s suit: 50 dollars, rising to 75 dollars, rising to 100 dollars—thought of by some to be the beginning of the end.

In the 1950s, companies Misty Harbor and Gleneagles were responsible for 80% of America’s rain wear.

For a coat to receive the London Fog label, it had to pass 32 inspections.

1966: 641,000 employees worked in women’s apparel.

In 1974, Robert Redford, playing Gatsby in the classic movie The Great Gatsby, wore a trend setting pastel suit made in Baltimore.

In 1976: 560,000 employees worked in women’s apparel.

1976: a Korean importer paid its labor 27 cents an hour. In Baltimore the average was 3 dollars an hour.

Some Baltimore based garment related manufacturing companies, most of which are no longer in business:

UMBRELLA MANUFACTURERS

Gans Brothers: Umbrellas and Parasols

Polan Katz + Co

Beechler (First Manufacturer of Umbrellas in US)

TIES

Resisto Ties: Created Ties called “Smoothies” and “Culture of Man”

L. Meyers Tie Company (Fells Point)

TV. Ties (Located in Fells Point, current company developed by Baltimore sports celebrity Rick Dempsey)

CLOTHING

Henry Sonneborn Co. (once the largest men’s clothing factory in the world)

L. Grief (once second Largest Men’s clothing factory in the Country)

Erlanger Brothers Clothing: Underwear

Katzenberg Brothers’: Athletic Wear (TV Hill, Relocated to Georgia in 1998)

JoS. A. Bank Clothiers: Suits, Casual Cloths (now outsources its merchandise production and focuses on retail)

J. Schoeneman: Coats, Vest, Trousers, Topcoats and Overcoats for Men, Youth and Boys

HATS

M.S Levy and Sons: Panama Hats (originally at Sharp and Lombard then Paca and Lombard)

Townsend and Grace: Paca Lombard Street Neighborhood

Brigham-Hopkins Co.: Located at Redwood and Paca Streets

RAINCOATS

London Fog: (Meadow Mills)

Harbor Master

Misty Harbor

Gleneagles

SHOES

Faust Brothers (Original Owners of building in which EMP collective is located.)

Hess Shoes: Closed in 1999 after 127 years, 409 West Baltimore Street. Later focused on retail)

WHOLESALE AND SUPPLIERS

Morton Schenk & Co.: 1927- original building at 412 W. Baltimore Street collapsed in 1998. Supplied buttons, zippers, thread, fabrics and other sewing supplies to clothing manufacturers, tailors and household seamstresses.

(Compiled from findings published in The Sun, 1938 & 1955; Baltimore Magazine, 1975; Warfield’s, 1989; The Evening Sun, 1955; City Paper, 1998)

RESOURCES:

Brennen Jensen “Pins and Needles,” City Paper, 1998

Jo Ann E. Argersinger, “The City that Tries to Suit Everybody: Baltimore’s Clothing

Industry The Baltimore Book, Temple University Press, 1991

Philip Kahn Jr., A Stitch in Time: The Four Seasons of Baltimore's Needle Trades, Mary-

land Historical Society, 1989

Joann Harris Gabler, “Made in Baltimore,” Baltimore Magazine, 1975

Purchase the Same River Twice Catalog from Atomic Books!

Atomic Books: Same River Twice :

Edited by Joe Young. Layout by Heather Rounds, Art Curation by Teddy Johnosn and Heather Rounds.

www.atomicbooks.com