Workshop of the World

stories of industry in & around Philadelphia

Pasted Graphic
"James Long, Owner Quaker City Morocco Co., Less." (1892), Hexamer #2647.

James Long's Quaker City Mills
, 1867
1533-1541 North Second Street, Philadelphia PA 19122 (south side of Oxford Street, east to Palethorp Street)
also 1531-1535 Palethorp Street through to 1534 Hancock Street.

© Carmen A. Weber, Irving Kosmin, and Muriel Kirkpatrick, Workshop of the World (Oliver Evans Press, 1990).

Nothing remains of the main building for James Long's Weaving Establishment built in 1855 at the corner of Oxford and Second Streets, but it is possible that the dyehouses built in 1867 have survived. 1 They are two story brick and very dilapidated, supported by the taller factory next to them, which is probably a later replacement for the four story factory that had been there since 1866.
 
James Long is mentioned by Freedley as a producer of hand-loom weaving as early as 1859.
2 His mill was expanded with buildings in 1867 and 1871; in 1875 it was called the Quaker City Mills, operated by James Long, Bro., and Company. 3 The mill produced woven goods of both woolen and cotton, but Long was always associated with cotton. He was one of the few producers to survive the cotton shortages of the Civil War. 4 In 1883 Long was the sole cotton producer to pledge funds for the Philadelphia Textile School, but he never delivered, "which testifies to the financial trouble besetting that sector [cotton]." 5 In fact, by 1892 6 Long had leased his factory to the Quaker City Morocco Company and the dyehouses were converted to rooms for storage of skins. This company later had a leatherworks of the same name on Huntingdon Street in North Philadelphia. 7

1   Hexamer General Survey #27 (1866) "James Long's Weaving Establishment."
Hexamer General Survey # 865 (1875) "James Long, Bro. & Co., Quaker City Mills."
2   Edwin T. Freedley, Philadelphia and its Manufactures (Philadelphia, 1859), p. 253.
3   Hexamer General Survey # 865 (1875) "James Long, Bro. & Co., Quaker City Mills."
4   Philip Scranton, Proprietary Capitalism, p. 411.
5   Philip Scranton, Proprietary Capitalism, p. 409, Table 10.4; and p. 411.
6   Hexamer General Survey #2647 (1892), "James Long, Owner Quaker City Morocco Co., Less."
7   Bromley, 1910.


Update May 2007 (by Torben Jenk):
Demolished.