The fabric used to bind Smoke is canvas, produced at Mohawk during the war. From 1941 to 1945, Mohawk and Bigelow Sanford, the city's other major carpet mill, converted production to the manufacture of canvas, tarpaulins and blankets.

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Smoke -- Carpet Mill Picture Book Awakens Wartime Memories

by Bob Cudmore

Two years after the boys came home from World War Two, Mohawk Carpet Mills in Amsterdam published a small but handsome picture book called Smoke: The Story of a Fight.

The idea of the unusual title was to link the smoke of hearth fires and factories on the home front, "the servant of man," with the smoke of warfare, "the master."

The book was dedicated to the 1200 men and women of Mohawk "who answered the call to duty" and "the thirty-three who will never return." Loy Baxter designed the book.

In a printed insert, Mohawk president Howard Shuttleworth expressed pride in company workers "who gave unselfishly of their time and who spent long hours at th machines that we might fulfill the demands of the War Department for our wartime products."

The fabric used to bind Smoke is canvas, produced at Mohawk during the war. From 1941 to 1945, Mohawk and Bigelow Sanford, the city's other major carpet mill, converted production to the manufacture of canvas, tarpaulins and blankets. Millions of yards of cotton duck were made in Amsterdam and used for tents, tarpaulins and gun and turret covers. Amsterdamians also produced more than five million blankets for the war effort.

"Men lived in blankets," wrote Mohawk executive Reginald Harris, the author of Smoke. "Men waited in blankets. Men fought in blankets. Men died in blankets."

The machine shop and foundry at the carpet mills also turned out war products -- a control stick support for the Navy Hellcat fighter, for example, and machinery used in radar, landing craft and tanks. Other local products made for wartime use included rayon for airplane tires, bulletproof gasoline tanks and torpedo turbine wheels.

Mohawk employed a record 5,500 workers during the war at its lower mill in the East End and upper mill on Lyons Street, the factory complex devastated by fires in 1992 and 1994.

In World War Two, as in all American wars of the past hundred years with the exception of the current war on terrorism, there was a definite distinction between the home front and the overseas war zones.

The home front in World War Two was marked by rationing, blackouts and salvage drives.

Amsterdam historian Hugh Donlon wrote that gasoline, meat and other commodities were rationed. Restaurants were exempt from meat rationing, according to Donlon, so that "the more affluent were eating out, enjoying meals of higher grade while saving (meat ration) stamps issued for home supply."

"It was a new discipline for the freedom-loving and many resented the irksome restrictions," Donlon wrote.

Blackouts were conducted at night with "full public compliance" never achieved, said Donlon, despite extensive efforts. Similarly, daytime air raid drills, announced by a siren atop the downtown bank building, had mixed results as people scooted from downtown doorways to check on air raid compliance.

"This laxity was condoned," Donlon said, "with explanation that there would probably be livelier response if real bombs were to fall."

In Smoke, Harris described local volunteer and salvage efforts during the war: "Mohawk people gave up their leisure hours to roll bandages, collect clothing for wartorn countries and raise thousands of dollars for reli

Harris also lauded blood, bond and salvage drives on the home front: "It got so you didn't dare put your evening paper down for fear of losing it to the salvage drive."

A native of England who came to America when he was 18 months old, Harris worked in personnel at the carpet company, was convention director and personal assistant to the company president.

Harris is best remembered as a choral director and musician; he had earned a music degree at Syracuse University. From 1940 until his unexpected death at age 55 in 1960, he directed vocal music groups sponsored by the carpet mill, most notably the Mohawk Mills Chorus, the predecessor of today's Mohawk Valley Chorus. He was also organist and choir director at St. Ann's Episcopal Church.

Material for this article was derived from Smoke: The Story of a Fight, by Reginald Harris and Amsterdam, New York: Annals of a Mill Town, by Hugh P. Donlon.

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

How to write historical fiction with Alyson Richman, co-author with Shaunna Edwards of The Thread Collectors, a Civil War historical novel.

1863: In a small Creole cottage in New Orleans, an ingenious young Black woman named Stella embroiders intricate maps on repurposed cloth to help enslaved men flee and join the Union Army. Bound to a man who would kill her if he knew of her clandestine activities, Stella has to hide not only her efforts but her love for William, a Black soldier and a brilliant musician.

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Vaudeville Days

Red haired Amsterdam native Inez Courtney was 15 when she performed a specialty dance act during a three day run in the vaudeville show at the Rialto Theater in Amsterdam in October 1923.  People referred to her as St. Vitus, Mosquito and Lightning.  Born into a large Irish-American family, Inez took up the stage after her father died.

Friday, February 24, 2022-Episode 463-In this first Highlights Edition of 2023 we revisit: Bill Buell’s Schenectady stories from the 1920s, NY State Historian Devin Lander, Jerry Snyder of Historic Amsterdam League, Jon Sorensen’s book When Mommy Was a Commie, Alan Maddaus on a jet bomber crash in New York’s Adirondack Mountains and Mark Dawidziak on Edgar Allan Poe. 

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, February 21, 2023

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