A little history

Occasionally I Google Chipman Knitting Mills, South Bethlehem and I recently found this excerpt from a book titled "Moodys Manual of Railroads and Corporation Securities, Volume 1."  We already knew that our building was built as a satellite location for the larger Chipman Knitting Mills in Easton, but this tells us what was in our building.  According to this, it housed 188 knitting machines, 73 loopers and 19 sewing machines. 

Looks like the Chipmans were doing pretty well for themselves...those are some mighty large numbers on their balance sheet for 1920 and 21. 

 

This is a photo of a London hosiery mill c. 1914-17.  It's interesting because
it's around the same time Chipman was in operation and they're using
circular knitting machines which were used to make socks and stockings. 
I can only guess that these may be similar to the machines used in our building.
Note the support beams which are so similar to ours.   

This is a photo of a looper.  A looper attaches a toe portion to a sock, in case
you didn't know (I didn't!).  In this photo, eleven year old Nannie Colson can
be seen working as a looper at the Crescent Hosiery Mill
in Scotland Neck, North Carolina, 1914. 

Here's a photo, c. 1918, of one of the workers and a pile of the heavy wool
socks made for the government at Chipman Knitting Mills, Easton. 
I would assume these socks were issued to soldiers serving in WWI.