Made in Minnesota: the Rise and Fall of an Apparel Industry
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Min Made in nesota The Rise and Fall of an Apparel Industry MARY CHRISTINE BADER 248 e set out to be a filmmaker Munsingwear would grow into the age of 16); 9 companies making in Los Angeles, but in the in a major Minnesota corporation, but fur garments, with 169 workers, 101 1970s Dennis Lang rewrote most of the state’s apparel companies of them female; and three knitting HHthe script. He came home to Minne- remained small, family-owned firms. firms, employing 192 workers, 156 sota to help run his family’s St. Paul Entrepreneurs established sewing of them female (two younger than business—the Energy Manufacturing operations in towns throughout the 16). By 1906 nearly 3 percent of the n Minn Company. The company, founded state, although the major activity was state’s wage earners worked in cloth- de i eso as it was on the leading edge of the in the Twin Cities. As the railroads ing factories, but their numbers a ta Great Depression, had a history im- and construction activity expanded, included more than 14 percent of the M bued with optimism. Dennis was heir small family companies like Simon state’s female wage earners.3 to that optimism. and Mogilner, Klinkerfues Brothers, Energy Manufacturing was a and Guiterman Brothers sprang proud part of one of Minnesota’s ear- up in St. Paul to manufacture work By World War I, the industry liest industries. Tracing its roots to clothes. And, as milling expanded was maturing and dominated by the 1870s, the apparel business had near the Falls of St. Anthony in Jewish immigrants from Eastern provided jobs for thousands of Min- Minneapolis, entrepreneurs em- Europe. They had sewing skills and nesotans and profitable investments ployed young women—sometimes could set up their own businesses for numerous others. Now, with in sweatshops—to sew flour bags with a relatively small investment in cheap coats and jackets arriving from and women’s shirtwaists for the machines and rented factory space. Asia, the Lang family’s outerwear company was about to face the most serious challenge in its history, and Minnesota’s formidable winters chilled one of the state’s oldest industries the bones of settlers, but they also ignited was about to become detritus of a early entrepreneurial instincts. new age of globalization. growing population.2 The Minne- One of them was Barney W. Harris, Minnesota’s formidable winters apolis industry also diversified into who launched the B. W. Harris Man- chilled the bones of settlers, but they the manufacture of intimate apparel, ufacturing Company in St. Paul in also ignited early entrepreneurial with firms such as Kickernick (linge- 1916 and quickly advanced from buy- instincts. Shortly after the Civil War, rie) and Strutwear (hosiery). ing fur pelts to manufacturing warm an apparel-manufacturing industry By the beginning of the twentieth jackets for St. Paul Winter Carnival began sprouting, serving the growing century, apparel manufacturing was marching bands and World War I population’s basic need to keep warm. a major source of jobs, especially for soldiers. B. W. Harris also produced In St. Paul, Gordon & Ferguson began women. In fact, from its infancy, the mackinaw coats and leather jackets turning buffalo hides into coats in industry was built on the labor of lined with sheepskin for the general 1871, eventually becoming one of the women. In 1901 St. Paul’s 10 clothing population. Then, in the 1920s, the largest manufacturers of fur goods in manufacturers employed a total of company capitalized on the raccoon- the country. Meanwhile, in Minneap- 1,193 people—1,104 of them female, coat craze among college boys and olis, the Northwest Knitting Company including eight workers under the also produced stylish fur coats for (later known as Munsing wear) in- age of 16. Another 13 companies women. On its way to becoming corporated in 1887 and soon began that made fur garments employed the leading outerwear manufac- producing its venerable union suit— 633 people, 357 of them female. neck-to-ankle wool underwear—that In Minneapolis there were 31 firms became a winter mainstay wherever employing a total of 1,189 workers, Mary Christine Bader is a writer who the cold winds blew.1 1,084 of them female (three under lives in Wayzata. Her article on St. Paul’s first union of garment workers appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of facing: “We Know It’s Cold”: Winter Carnival marching band modeling its uniforms Minnesota History. by B. W. Harris outside the company building in St. Paul’s Lowertown, about 1940 Fall 2011 249 a manager spelled out the firm’s sur- vival strategy: “We have cut the profit but not the quality, waiting for a better day.” By 1936 the company was again making money.7 Arnold Rubenstein, who later owned the Minneapolis menswear manufacturer Robitshek-Schneider, began his career during the early depression as an outerwear salesman traveling what seemed like endless deso- late roadways between the small towns of the upper Northwest. left: Barney W. Harris (1886–1933) right: Soul Lang, founder of . The typical men’s and boy’s Energy Manufacturing Company Winter outerwear line in those days, and, in fact, right through turer in the Twin Cities and a brand and later renamed Minnesota Ap- the mid 1940s, consisted primar- with national name recognition, parel Industries. Half a century later, ily of leather and suede coats and B. W. Harris announced its pres- Soul Lang’s son Siegfried “Sig” Lang jackets with either sheepskin ence in giant letters on the building led the association and wrote about or heavy pile lining. Moleskin known today as Park Square Court, the depression years: “Little did we (heavy cotton twill) was a widely which faces Mears Park in St. Paul’s realize then . that the very fabric used fabric, also trimmed and Lowertown.4 of our prosperity and foundation lined in sheepskin. The em- Also among the new entrepre- of our optimism would evaporate phasis throughout the line was neurs were Austrian immigrant with such terrible suddenness in the on “heavy,” and, believe me, the Harry Lang and his younger brother, fall of 1929.” The new organization salesman of that time had to be in Soul—Dennis Lang’s grandfather. was a public-relations vehicle that shape to lug these garments from Soul worked for Harry’s Lang promoted local companies through town to town. The merchandise Manufacturing Company in St. Paul fashion shows. It also provided labor was basic and utilitarian in all through the 1920s, until a bitter negotiations for member firms dur- respects, possessing very little strike by union workers led Harry ing a prolonged period of turbulence fashion sense.8 to move his company to River Falls, and union organizing in the 1920s Wisconsin. A few weeks later the St. and 1930s.6 It was, after all, a depression. Paul Daily News reported that Soul Like most businesses, Energy With almost a quarter of the U.S. Lang had opened Energy Manufac- Manufacturing struggled during workforce unemployed during the turing Company at Sixth Street and the depression years. But it man- depression years, the demand for the Broadway in St. Paul, with 25 power aged to survive. Others were not so apparel industry’s products naturally sewing machines and more than 20 fortunate. Guiterman Brothers of St. fell. B. W. Harris, however, was still employees to manufacture “overalls, Paul was sold to Gordon & Ferguson marketing its line of luxurious fur blanket-lined jackets and kindred in 1929, but two years later Gordon coats for women and men in 1934, articles.” It was 1930. As Soul was & Ferguson itself filed for reorga- an indication that not all segments embarking on his new venture, the nization, wiping out $1 million in of the country’s population were on entire country was embarking on the shareholder value. In a 1933 message austerity budgets.9 Great Depression.5 to the Guiterman subsidiary’s trav- Widespread labor turmoil in the Energy Manufacturing Company eling salesmen about to go forth to 1930s also affected the industry, soon joined the Twin City Apparel meet their customers in small retail particularly in Minneapolis. After Association, founded in the 1920s operations throughout the Midwest, several years of unrest, for example, 250 Minnesota History in 1936 Kickernick moved much of projects. Yet when such contracts mackinaw-type coats and field its staple lingerie production (items materialized for companies— jackets for the army, and it also de- such as bras and panties with rarely and their mostly female workers— veloped a multilayer parka for the changing styles) to the American they were short lived.11 Not until the air force. Energy Manufacturing also South but kept its fashion-goods end of the decade did the industry’s made parkas for the military and plant in Minneapolis.10 prospects began to change, and that continued doing so after the war. was because the United States was The production of these uniforms preparing for war. The military not was a lifeline for apparel companies, Among the bright spots of the only needed ammunition, it needed because government-imposed ration- 1930s were the Twin Cities com- uniforms for the troops. ing during the war made it difficult panies that benefited from the Beginning with the build-up to to get material for civilian apparel. Roosevelt administration’s Civilian World War II, Minnesota apparel For example, Munsingwear, which Conservation Corps program, which companies began receiving military manufactured, among other things, ordered work clothes for the three contracts. Outerwear manufacturer girdles, had to contend with restric- million men employed to labor in B.