"James Long, Owner Quaker City Morocco Co., Less." (1892), Hexamer #2647.
James Long's Quaker City Mills, 1867
1533-1541 North Second Street, Philadelphia PA 19122 (south side of Oxford Street, east to Palethorp Street)
also 1531-1535 Palethorp Street through to 1534 Hancock Street.
© Carmen A. Weber, Irving
Kosmin, and Muriel Kirkpatrick, Workshop of the World (Oliver
Evans Press, 1990).
Nothing remains of the main
building for James Long's Weaving Establishment built in
1855 at the corner of Oxford and Second Streets, but it
is possible that the dyehouses built in 1867 have
survived. 1
They are two
story brick and very dilapidated, supported by the taller
factory next to them, which is probably a later
replacement for the four story factory that had been
there since 1866.
James Long is mentioned by Freedley as a producer of
hand-loom weaving as early as 1859. 2
His mill was
expanded with buildings in 1867 and 1871; in 1875 it was
called the Quaker City Mills, operated by James Long,
Bro., and Company. 3
The mill produced
woven goods of both woolen and cotton, but Long was
always associated with cotton. He was one of the few
producers to survive the cotton shortages of the Civil
War. 4
In 1883 Long was
the sole cotton producer to pledge funds for the
Philadelphia Textile School, but he never delivered,
"which testifies to the financial trouble besetting that
sector [cotton]." 5
In fact, by
1892 6
Long had leased
his factory to the Quaker City Morocco Company and the
dyehouses were converted to rooms for storage of skins.
This company later had a leatherworks of the same name on
Huntingdon Street in North Philadelphia.
7
1 Hexamer General Survey #27 (1866) "James
Long's Weaving Establishment."
Hexamer General Survey # 865 (1875) "James
Long, Bro. & Co., Quaker City
Mills."
2 Edwin T.
Freedley, Philadelphia
and its Manufactures (Philadelphia, 1859), p.
253.
3 Hexamer General Survey # 865 (1875) "James
Long, Bro. & Co., Quaker City
Mills."
4 Philip
Scranton, Proprietary
Capitalism, p. 411.
5 Philip
Scranton, Proprietary
Capitalism, p. 409, Table 10.4; and p.
411.
6 Hexamer General Survey #2647 (1892), "James
Long, Owner Quaker City Morocco Co.,
Less."
7 Bromley, 1910.
Update May
2007 (by
Torben Jenk):
Demolished.