Wilde Yarn Mill
The third floor of the abandoned Wilde Yarn Mill in Manayunk, Pennsylvania
Updated July 24, 2019 | By Matthew Christopher
At the time of its closure in 2012, John Wilde & Brother, Inc. in Manayunk, Pennsylvania had the distinction of being the oldest continually operating yarn mill in the United States. When Thomas and John Wilde founded their carpet yarn business under the name John Wilde and Brother, Inc. (I can find no mention of why Thomas wasn't named or what his opinion of that was), Manayunk was home to dozens of dye houses and textile mills. The area had transitioned from cotton production to wool during the Civil War primarily to manufacture wool blankets for the Union Army, and the Wilde brothers were familiar with textile production from their jobs in an English mill in the 1850s. They began their business in rented space in 1880, and when construction was completed on their first stone mill building in 1884 they moved their operations there. Records indicate their endeavor was met with success, employing mostly English and Irish immigrants. There were 800 textile operations in the greater Philadelphia area, over 300 of which were dedicated to carpet yarn; by 1910 it would constitute 35% of the city's workforce.
John Wilde & Brother remained family owned and operated, adding a second mill building in 1932. The company's prosperity was directly at odds with the rest of the textile industries in the area. Unionization and labor turbulence led to the closure or relocation of many of the textile mills in the 1930s, but Wilde remained small enough that it dodged many of these difficulties. Between 1935 and 1940 their workforce tripled but in the 1950s business began slowing down. Synthetic fibers like nylon swiftly overtook wool in carpet production and competition from imports became more of a factor. While Wilde remained primarily in the business of carpet fiber, they were forced to diversify to niche markets among craftspeople. Stockings, dolls, and handmade Navajo rugs were some of the products created using the specialty wool from Wilde. The factory's production capacity was 750,000 pounds of wool yearly, but demand was waning and actual output to meet demand was much less.
One of the machinist shops in Wilde Yarn
When John Wilde & Brother, Inc. finally closed, it was a quiet affair with little mention despite its significance. It was quickly snapped up by a developer who planned to turn the old mill buildings into apartments, and much of the following media discussion centered around the impact on local traffic and parking.
The developer was kind enough to allow several photographers, myself included, to document the site before they began the process of scrapping the machinery within the mill. I had about a month. The site was astonishing: the machinery in some of the areas was over a century old, and the sensation of having found a perfectly preserved time capsule was intoxicating. Wilde was not as decayed as other places, partly because of the relatively short time it had been unused, but it was in essence a museum of yarn making technique from the late 1800s through the middle of the 1900s.
The second floor of Wilde Yarn was in relatively good condition
I don't fault the developer for wanting to move swiftly with the property. It's in a prime spot in a very trendy area and I suppose the business had run its course. I do wish that more acknowledgment of the importance of the John Wild & Brother, Inc. had been considered by the community around it, but maybe I blinked and missed it. I did notice that with the proliferation of images taken by the lucky handful who managed to capture the interior before it was gutted, the conversation shifted in tone somewhat to its historical context afterward. It has always been my hope that photographs can convey the magic and meaning of a place, and maybe in some way in Wilde's case they had.
Time waits for no man, or so I'm frequently told. I'm a sentimental sort in some ways and I would have liked to have seen Wilde remain untouched, but that's unrealistic. I'm grateful that I had a brief moment alone with it to discover all of the little secrets it had hidden away over the years before they were gone, and to be able to share them with others who I hope will see what made it wonderful too. That's the power of an image, I hope: finding the heart of a moment and laying it bare so that others can see it and love it too, even after the physical point in time has been lost forever.
Wilde Yarn is a chapter in my book, Abandoned America: Age of Consequences.
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