Baltimore Branch Clothing House

from the Baltimore-Pritchett collection

In the absence of any record showing the extent of the business of the company for the fifties, it is impossible to estimate its financial condition. The decade saw a steady stream of clothing goods appear from the North, especially Baltimore, which undoubtedly exerted considerable pressure on the local wool manufacture. Several stores sold these clothes during the period, one of them styling itself the "Baltimore Branch Clothing House in Charlottesville, Virginia". Railway connections between Charlottesville and Alexandria to the north and with Richmond on the east were factors in providing this competition for the Charlottesville Factory. --Harry Poindexter