Sunday, September 24, 2023 on The Historians

Cudmore Print stories on the site this week

Amsterdam carpet mill tales

Memories of 1954 sesquicentennial

Tragedy at the laundry 

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Amsterdam carpet mill tales

   It was a rough Atlantic crossing for James Kindon, an English weaver who sailed for America in the 1890s.

   "On Sunday, we encountered a very heavy gale of wind and rain,” Kindon wrote in his journal.  “The rain was so strong that it blew the waves mountains high. Time after time the waves came, sweeping the deck clear.”

   Kindon had a fiddle for entertainment and “plenty of eatables” for the trip including ham, biscuits, jam, brandy and ginger ale.

   In America, Kindon found work at Burlington Carpet Mills in Mount Holly, New Jersey but left in 1892 to join the ranks of carpet workers in Amsterdam.

   Kindon faced hard times in 1893 but started weaving in 1894. He kept track of the lengths of carpet he wove each day and time spent servicing the loom.

   He translated the pay he received in dollars into English pounds. He kept a record of the girls he courted.

   The 1910 city directory listed James Kindon, weaver, and his wife Ada living at 12 Eagle Street in the East End. By that time, immigrants from Poland, Italy, Lithuania, Russia and elsewhere were flocking to Amsterdam.

   By the 1930s the Kindons were living at 55 Stewart Street.  James Kindon, still living on Stewart Street, retired from his duties as a weaver at Mohawk Carpet Mills in 1955, when he was 81.

   He had worked 62 years at the plant, founded by brothers from England named Shuttleworth.  Shortly before Kindon’s retirement, Amsterdam’s other major carpet factory, Bigelow Sanford, had announced it was leaving the city later that year. 

   Kindon’s son J. Artisan Kindon, who had become an assistant superintendent of Mohawk’s tapestry division, died in May of that year.  Father and son were active members of Masonic organizations.  The Kindons worshipped at Second Presbyterian Church.

   James Kindon died in April 1957 at age 83. His wife Ada lived into the 1960s and was last reported living at a nursing home in Penn Yan, New York.

WOMEN WORKED TOO

   Ann Peconie, executive director of the Walter Elwood Museum, said you can learn a lot from the dress, jewelry and demeanor of women photographed in the mills.

   Peconie said one of her favorite pictures shows a woman tending a machine, looking at the camera and sporting a bracelet and high heels, “I make jokes saying the woman seems to be saying she would rather be in another place at another time.”

   Women only could have certain factory jobs. Peconie said she never heard of a woman carpet weaver. Women often were creelers.  Creelers made sure the loom was tied into yarn spindles or bobbins.

   “My grandmother had a little knife around her finger to cut and then tie the yarn,” Peconie said.  Her grandmother added that weavers sometimes were mean men.

   “Women worked when they were sick, when they were pregnant,” Peconie said. “They tried to hide their conditions from the bosses. They only had stools to sit on, no backs.  If a woman was ill, other women would cover, letting the woman (who was sick) lie down on the factory floor on top of her coat. Camaraderie developed over time.”

   Amsterdam native Alberta Zierak Fondacaro said, “When I was a child my aunts would bring me yarn dolls that were made from scraps of wool.

   “They lied about their ages and started working in the factories when they were youngsters to help support the family.

   “I still have a discarded bolt of yarn. They even showed me how to determine a fine woolen rug from a poorly-weaved one. These women were pioneers who didn't complain of hardships.”

Monday, September 25, 2023-Story behind the story-Amsterdam Carpet Mill Tales

Tuesday, September 26, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Memories of 1954 sesquicentennial

Wednesday, September 27, 2023-From the Archives- Episode 99, February 21, 2016-David Fiske is author of “Solomon Northup’s Kindred: The Kidnapping of Free Citizens before the Civil War.”

Thursday, September 28, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Tragedy at the laundry 

Friday, September 29, 2023-Episode 494-Highlights edition #5-Christopher Gorham with the story of FDR aide Anna Rosenberg; Gregg Ficery tracing the origin of the National Football League; Scott Shane chronicling the life of Thomas Smallwood, an African American who named the Underground Railroad and interviews from the 2015 Fort Plan Museum conference on the American Revolution.

Episode 493-Scott Shane, author of Flee North- A forgotten hero and the fight for freedom in slavery’s borderland.  The book traces the life of Thomas Smallwood, an African American who named the Underground Railroad.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Sunday, September 24, 2023

54 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 5:43AM 

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