labor force

Cutie Harlow, Athalia Shisler

In 1868, just prior to the organization of the mill as a stock company, Marchant?s labor force totaled nearly twenty. This figure can be compared with a national average of about twenty-eight employees per mill. By 1882 the Charlottesville Woolen Mills was using sixty workers, and had climbed considerably ahead of the national average which did not reach that figure until 1889. While the size of the Charlottesville company reflected the typical unit of production in the American wool manufacture, one must remember that the large New England mills often employed hundreds.--Harry Poindexter