Stockings, Cap Braids and Bomber Turrets: Wyomissing Industries Mobilizes for World War II

A seamstress stitches a cargo parachute at Reading Air Chutes.
From Canopies of the Sky (Reading Air Chutes, 1945). Permission of the Wyomissing Foundation

“Textile Machine Works suspends production of knitting machines for the duration.”
– The Yarn Carrier, October 1942

The Textile Machine Works was one of a handful of companies with common ownership that became known as Wyomissing Industries, located just west of Reading in Berks County, Pennsylvania. The 13,430th and last knitting machine, a “Reading” model, was the embodiment of 40 years of mechanical development powered by the demand for women’s stockings. As the Wyomissing Industries newsletter The Yarn Carrier explained, each “Reading” machine was the sum of 130,000 parts weighing 12 tons when assembled, with the “sole function . . . to guide unerringly and at high speed the path of a silken thread about two thousandths of an inch in diameter.” By 1941 the ability to make machines capable of that kind of precision had already been assessed by procurement officials from the U.S. Armed Forces.

As the world situation had grown ever darker during the late 1930s and early 1940s, the citizens of the United States debated whether the country should isolate itself or intervene. In Europe the government of Adolf Hitler had been expanding German territory, at first by diplomatic maneuvers and then, beginning with the September 1939 invasion of Poland, by military operations. By the end of May 1941 England, protected by its navy and air force, remained the only adversary Hitler had not conquered.

In Asia the situation was little better than in Europe. Japan had been on an expansionist course since 1931, when it invaded Manchuria. In 1937 the Japanese army marched into China and commenced a brutal occupation. After Germany’s 1940 invasion and occupation of the Netherlands and France, their Asian colonies became vulnerable to Japanese expansion.

As this series of events played out, the United States government, under the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, adopted policies to deal with the various threats to national security. The modernization of the Armed Forces was begun with designs for new ships and airplanes that would provide the initial defense if war could not be avoided. These preliminary orders also laid the groundwork for the expansion of heavy industry, which had been mired in years of economic depression, and the extensive rearmament that would be necessary to take the offensive and win a war in Europe or Asia or, as it appeared more likely, both at the same time.

In conjunction with the buildup of the Armed Forces, American industry was also producing armaments for England. The Roosevelt administration’s approach to the conflict in Europe was to maintain an uneasy balance of formal neutrality while openly supporting England as the first line of American defense. In a radio address on December 29, 1940, Roosevelt explained the danger to the United States posed by the European situation, while assuring the public that the best way for America to avoid involvement was to supply England with the arms needed to defeat Germany — to become “the great arsenal of democracy.”  Three months later, in March 1941, he took the policy a step further by establishing the Lend-Lease program to finance arms sales to England and China.

Ferdinand Thun, cofounder of Wyomissing Industries. PHMC

Running in parallel to the war in Europe, and in many ways a comparable situation, was Japan’s expansionist war with China; however, a major difference was the direct diplomatic and economic pressure exerted by the United States on Japan. This difference in strategy was made possible by Japan’s dependence upon imported raw materials to fuel its industry, a vulnerability that the Roosevelt administration used to bolster its diplomatic efforts. The tactic began in 1940 with the suspension of shipments of scrap steel and aviation fuel. By mid-1941 the administration increased the pressure by freezing Japan’s assets in the United States and effectively imposing an oil embargo. Japan was left with the unpalatable choice of acceding to American demands or risking war by taking the oil resources of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). To improve their odds for a favorable outcome in a war with the United States, the Japanese planned and executed the attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Although not completely successful, the attack did accomplish the temporary neutralization of the U.S. fleet and gave the Japanese forces the window of opportunity to seize Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and other territories. Four days after the Pearl Harbor attack, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, settling the question of neutrality in the war in Europe and demonstrating the need for full-scale mobilization of the American economy.

Henry Janssen, cofounder of Wyomissing Industries. PHMC

If there was irony in the mobilization of Wyomissing Industries into the war effort, it could be traced to Germany, the homeland of the company’s founders, Heinrich Janssen (pronounced “Yohnsen”) and Ferdinand Thun (pronounced “Toon”), who were born in 1866 on February 8 and 14 respectively in Barmen. Despite this common nativity, they did not meet until they had both immigrated to the United States and were introduced in Brooklyn, New York, in 1889 by a mutual acquaintance. Janssen had apprenticed as a machinist in Barmen, the center of the German braiding industry, and had experience working on textile machinery. Thun had trained as a bookkeeper and had worked in the woolen mill of a family friend near Reading. While there he met his future wife, whose father was a partner in the business. A friendship developed between Janssen and Thun over the next several years and from that grew a business partnership based on their mutual background in the textile industry and their complementary, although contrasting, personalities and skills.

At the time, every braiding machine in use in the United States had been imported from Germany. With their mutual knowledge of the business, the partners saw an economic opportunity in producing braiding machines domestically. In 1892 they established the Textile Machine Works (called Textile hereafter) in a rented building at 222 Cedar Street in Reading. The choice of the location may have been driven by Thun’s personal interest in returning to the area, but there were other advantages as well. The city had the infrastructure and the workforce for a potentially expanding business, with a population of about 60,000 people, many of them either recent emigrants from Germany, progeny of a wave of 19th-century German immigrants, or Pennsylvania Dutch, the descendants of German-speaking European immigrants who arrived in the 18th century. The German language, especially its American cousin the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect, was widely used in the area. The local economy ranged from heavy industry to textile manufacturing. Railroad transportation was readily available to connect with other markets.

Braiding machines produced components for various industries and uses. In fashion, they yielded shoelaces, decorative trimming and brush braiding. The latter was an ornate but protective edging that was sewn onto the bottom of the floor-length dresses that women wore. It was the more dense and durable braiding that brushed the floor rather than the dress material, hence the name. For industry, braiding machines wove tubular cloth insulation for electrical wiring.

Aerial view of the Wyomissing Industries complex in the late 1940s. Permission of the Wyomissing Foundation

By 1896 the business had outgrown the rented workshop, so the partners built their own facility on what was then rural land being developed on the west side of the Schuylkill River. The development was named Wyomissing after the creek that coursed through the area on its way to the river. The partners minimized their cost to $1 by accepting land along the Lebanon Valley railroad that was better suited to industrial rather than residential use.

A new opportunity arose in 1899, when a fire at a local knitting mill damaged the German-made knitting machines inside. The mill produced the “full-fashioned” stockings that were becoming the popular form of women’s hosiery. Full-fashioned stockings were made to fit the contours of the leg, but as the product of a flat-bed knitting machine they required a seam on the back. Textile was contracted to salvage and repair the fire-damaged machines. During this process, Janssen developed improved designs for full-fashioned knitting machines. As they had previously done with braiding machines, the partners now began producing full-fashioned knitting machines for the American market.

The business grew not only by adding a new product line, but also by selling the end products that the textile machines made. The Narrow Fabric Co. was incorporated at the beginning of 1900 to market the products of the braiding machines. Textile was formally incorporated later that year. Following this same pattern of success, the partners started the Berkshire Knitting Mills in 1906 to produce and market stockings made with Textile machines. The three companies, known collectively as the Wyomissing Industries, were perfectly positioned to ride the popular wave of full-fashioned hosiery.

By 1914, aside from the demands and opportunities of women’s fashions, the partners and their companies had to contend with the political and economic changes of world events. The British blockade of German commerce during World War I eliminated that source of competition. The American entry into the war in 1917 brought additional business in the form of contracts for war materiel, but along with it came a change in public opinion toward anything of Germanic origin. A prime example of this was the renaming of “sauerkraut” to “liberty cabbage.” The partners had become naturalized citizens in the 1890s and were therefore exempt from the government registration requirements for German-born residents who were now considered “enemy aliens.” Numerous Wyomissing Industries employees, however, fell into this category, and the government kept a watchful eye for possible enemy sympathizers. For Henry Janssen, the great tragedy of the war came when his son, Harry, died from the Spanish flu epidemic while serving in the U.S. Army.

The Narrow Fabric Company made cordedge braids like the black and gold one on this officer’s garrison cap.
The State Museum of Pennsylvania/Photo by Don Giles

After the end of World War I and a brief economic recession during the early 1920s, the rising hemlines of women’s fashions and return of prosperity set the conditions for Wyomissing Industries’ greatest period of growth. The company that had been gradually expanding since its start in a single machine shop on the $1 piece of land would now evolve into an industrial complex covering 65 acres.

The 1920s was also the apogee for the cultural and economic trend known as industrial paternalism. As the founders and principal owners of their businesses, the partners would use their profits to improve the lives of their workers and the community in general. They had taken an active role in the development of Wyomissing since relocating there. Among the major projects that they brought to fruition were the relocation and expansion of the Reading Hospital to an area bordering the boroughs of West Reading and Wyomissing; the relocation of the Reading Public Museum to a new building in a scenic park along the Wyomissing Creek; and joining with Berks County and the Common- wealth of Pennsylvania to fund the construction of the Buttonwood Street Bridge crossing the Schuylkill River, providing a more direct route for many of the Wyomissing Industries employees who lived in Reading and alleviating traffic congestion on the city streets.

The expansion of the Textile apprentice program into a formal trade school began in the 1920s and continued during the 1930s, becoming the Wyomissing Polytechnic Institute. As the institution grew, its admission policies expanded, first to employees of other local industries and finally to male members of the public. The curricula also developed from teaching the mechanical trades to include courses such as mathematics for engineering. English language classes at various levels from beginners to higher levels were also offered.

The companies survived the Great Depression because of their size and the frugality of their management. As would be expected, sales of stockings dropped during the overall economic decline. Berkshire sales suffered, in part, due to wholesalers turning to less expensive stockings from mills in the South. Although it took time, Berkshire recovered by eliminating the wholesalers and marketing directly to retailers.

The last vestige of normal business, knitting machine No. 13430 undergoes final adjustments before shipment in October 1942. For the next three years its maker, the Textile Machine Works of Wyomissing, committed its manufacturing capacity to war production. From The Yarn Carrier, June 1942. Permission of the Wyomissing Foundation

Like other companies across the manufacturing spectrum, the Wyomissing Industries successfully replaced the male workers sent into military service with women.
From The Yarn Carrier, October 1942. Permission of the Wyomissing Foundation

The partners had tried to minimize the effect of the business downturn on the labor force by reducing working hours rather than terminating employees. A union-organizing effort outside the Berkshire mill on October 1, 1936, resulted in 40 injuries and one death and instituted a protracted strike over several weeks. It was unclear, however, how many of the actual employees were participants, because hundreds and eventually thousands continued to report for work. Berkshire was the only mill in the Reading area that avoided unionization of its workforce during the Depression.

Similarly, Textile weathered the economic storm because of its size and dominance of the market. The “Reading” knitting machines could operate with silk or the synthetic rayon. Tests run after the invention of nylon in 1938 demonstrated that it was also compatible with the machines. Initial production and sales of nylon stockings seemed to promise a return to prosperity for the industry. The timing of the development was also ideal as the deteriorating relations between the United States and Japan cut off silk imports from the Asian nation in 1941. A full transition to the new material would take time, and that transition was overtaken by the course of events.

The first of many “Textilettes,” Wanda Rzymski broke the gender barrier of the Textile machine shop in 1942.
From The Yarn Carrier, October 1942. Permission of the Wyomissing Foundation

By June 1941 The Yarn Carrier reported that Textile had already joined the national defense establishment with more than half of its industrial capacity being used to make machine tools and braiding machines that wove wire for cables and hose covers for the Navy. Meanwhile, Narrow Fabric was using its braiding machines to make cord-edge braids for service caps. Narrow was also producing braided cording used for the lines on parachutes for both the Army and Navy. In this preliminary stage, Berkshire was not yet involved with military contracts as its machines were only designed to make one product, women’s stockings.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the pace of war-induced change accelerated. In March 1942 Textile received a contract from the Army to manufacture M-5 gun directors. This required the cessation of knitting machine production and the retooling of the plant. A significant cultural change also took place as the all-male ranks of “Textilians,” as The Yarn Carrier called the machine works labor force, were depleted by the call to military service and “Textilettes” took their place. Although “Berkshirettes” were nothing new at Berkshire, at Narrow Fabric women braiders also joined male counterparts as machine operators, but neither gender got a special nickname in the newsletter.

The first M-5 director was delivered to the Army in November 1942. The unit was an electromechanical controller designed to give an antiaircraft gun the proper lead to hit its target. Its appearance was that of a box on a tripod with small telescope sights and hand-cranked wheels on two sides. Two operators tracked the enemy aircraft through the sights by turning the cranks to adjust elevation and traverse, while a third operator at the rear estimated and entered the distance to the target. The director used electric motors to turn and elevate the gun to fire the shells, not at the plane’s present position but at its future location, so that the shells and aircraft arrived at the same place at the same time.

Members of a gun crew operate the M-5 gun director. The soldiers on either side of the box track the target through the telescopes while the corporal on the right estimates and enters the range.
From The Yarn Carrier, August 1943. Permission of the Wyomissing Foundation

At peak production, Textile was producing 350 M-5 units per month. The Army cancelled the contract in February 1944 in favor of a more important project. Similar in principal to the M-5 but of far greater technical complexity was the defensive gun turret system for the B-29 Superfortress, the Army-Air Force’s new heavy bomber.

The B-29 was designed to be the ultimate means of carrying out the strategy of daylight precision bombing of vital enemy targets. It could fly higher, faster and with a bigger payload than any other bomber in the U.S. inventory. Among the innovations that enabled the superior performance were closed and pressurized crew compartments. A system of remotely controlled gun turrets was developed for the plane’s defense to avoid the old practice of gunners firing out of open windows.

Designed by General Electric, the system placed the gunners in plexiglass bubbles on the top and sides of the fuselage. Each gunner had a sight for tracking enemy aircraft that fed information into a computer system. The computer adjusted for its own aircraft speed, target speed, range and distance between the sight and the guns. The master gunner could also manually delegate system control to an individual gunner, giving him multiple turrets to respond to a threat.

“The worst-kept secret of the war,” according to Army-Air Force general Curtis LeMay, was the B-29 project. The Army relaxed security measures and demonstrated the bomber’s complex gun turret system to Textile workers in early 1945.
From The Yarn Carrier, February 1945. Permission of the Wyomissing Foundation

By July 1944 Textile had retooled and was in production. The job required not only precision in the manufacturing process, but extensive testing and examination of the parts afterward. All aluminum parts were X-rayed, while steel parts underwent a magnetic inspection. All components were temperature tested in a Fahrenheit degree range from 70 below zero to 150 above.

Waiving the usual wartime security procedures, the Army-Air Force publicized the B-29 and its capabilities to inspire the workforce and help smooth out the kinks in the complex production network. On January 4, 1945, during six presentations throughout the day, General Electric and Army-Air Force officials demonstrated the gun turret system to more than 3,000 Textile employees. More inspiration came in the form of a Yarn Carrier cover story that featured former Textile employee and current B-29 navigator Lt. Harold Griesemer conveying the thanks of his crew to his former coworkers for their efforts in producing their defensive system.

The Wyomissing Industries newsletter, The Yarn Carrier, reported the wartime achievements of the companies and news from former employees who were in the Armed Forces. The May 1945 edition featured an article on Textilian-turned-lieutenant Harold Griesemer and a cover photo of his B-29.
Permission of the Wyomissing Foundation

While all of this was happening on the home front, Army-Air Force commanders recognized that the high-altitude strategic bombing concept was not producing the necessary results and a change in tactics would be necessary. Damaged Japanese industries often decentralized to production in workers’ homes whenever possible. Many private homes in Japanese cities were wooden, so the B-29s went in lower, at night, and with loads of incendiary bombs to simply burn Japan’s cities to the ground. Defensive gunners weren’t needed for these raids and were usually left behind.

While Textile was busy producing military hardware, the other Wyomissing Industries companies were doing their part as well. Even Berkshire with its specialized equipment found a niche. The U.S. Army awarded a contract to Berkshire for 500,000 pairs of stockings to be government issued to the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs). The mill also made stockings to Navy specifications for purchase by the Women Assigned to Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES). The stockings were made of rayon and cotton because silk was unavailable and nylon was reserved for priority uses.

Narrow Fabric, managed by Samuel Fry, a member of the extended family ownership, continued making its braided products, especially parachute cord, throughout the war. In 1941 Fry also established Reading Air Chutes, which made cargo parachutes. At the end of the war, the company published a documentary and celebratory book entitled Canopies of the Sky (a copy is in the collection of The State Museum of Pennsylvania).

The Rigging Department of Reading Air Chutes where the shroud lines were laid out, cut and attached. The service banner in the background indicates that 25 former employees were serving in the Armed Forces.
From Canopies of the Sky (Reading Air Chutes, 1945). Permission of the Wyomissing Foundation

Demobilization began soon after the Japanese surrendered in September 1945. Throughout the war The Yarn Carrier had reported on the status and activities of the 2,197 Wyomissing Industries employees who had joined the military services, including the fate of 57 who would not be coming back. It now proudly reported the numbers of employees returning and resuming their former occupations.

The postwar years brought many changes for Wyomissing Industries, including the deaths of the founding partners. The properties of nylon allowed circular knitting machines to produce stockings without the bothersome seams. The companies were slow to adapt to these and other changes. In time the heirs of the founders sold the businesses, and the buildings were adapted to other uses. Nevertheless, the contributions of the Wyomissing Industries companies to the nation during two world wars and the continuing benefits of the community institutions that grew from their founders’ efforts secured an enduring legacy for the immigrant partners from Barmen.

Unbridled Wartime Adaptation

Adaptation is one of the common themes that runs through stories about the home front during World War II, whether it is individuals adapting to the constraints of the conflict or companies adapting their businesses to meet the opportunities of government contracts.

One Pennsylvania company, Union Switch & Signal (US&S), operating in the Pittsburgh suburb of Swissvale, was a Westinghouse subsidiary that made railroad equipment. During the war, US&S supplied a variety of ordnance-related products for the government, but of particular interest is its run of M1911A1 sidearms. Between April 1942 and November 1943, the company made 55,000 of the famous “.45 Automatic” pistols. Two examples can be found today in the collection of The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, Dauphin County.

Electrical Machine & Equipment Co. (Emeco), based in Hanover, York County, teamed with the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), headquartered in Pittsburgh, to manufacture chairs for Navy submarines. Fabricating the chairs from recycled aluminum, Emeco used a special process to make the metal light in weight but with great structural strength. After the war, the product line evolved as other models with armrests and padded backs and seats were added to the practical design for greater comfort. The furniture continued to be popular, particularly with governmental institutions. Several examples are still in use in The State Museum.

Philco, the Philadelphia-based radio manufacturer, remained in familiar territory producing radios for military communication, but it also adapted and expanded into the related application of radar technology. The company made targeting radar units for aircraft and miniaturized radar transponders for artillery proximity fuzes. Particularly useful on antiaircraft shells, these fuzes eliminated the need to estimate altitude by ensuring that the shell would be detonated if it passed close to an aircraft. USS Pennsylvania gun pointer Charles Schettler donated the nose cap for a proximity fuze to The State Museum’s collection.

Robert D. Hill joined PHMC in 1998 as a curator in the Military and Industrial History section of The State Museum of Pennsylvania. His article “Keystone Flagship: USS Pennsylvania Leading the Navy through Two World Wars” appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of  Pennsylvania Heritage.