Drinking Fountain

Standing atop the dust collector, the factory breaks down into diverging patterns, processes.

The left wall is stacked high with wooden crates holding spools. Tags hang on machines describing the last batch of silk the mill ever produced.

I wonder when fluorescent lighting was added.

A simple porcelain fountain in the original brewhouse. The water fountain, no doubt, is not original.

The batch tag specifies some of the technical properties of the silk worked here.

Aluminum spools replaced their wooden counterparts, later in the factory’s history.

I really like the porcelain guides for the silk threads, probably used because they could be polished for perfect, persistent, smoothness.

A guard to keep sawdust from the water fountain.

This picture typifies the industrial ideal of the early 20th century. More metal than air. More efficiency than beauty. More profits than people.