Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Work, Economy and Organizations

Western Kentucky University

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations

Fulling Around: The Shaker Fulling Mill At South Union, Kentucky, Donna C. Parker, Jonathan J. Jeffrey Jan 1999

Fulling Around: The Shaker Fulling Mill At South Union, Kentucky, Donna C. Parker, Jonathan J. Jeffrey

SCL Faculty and Staff Publications

The fulling mill was an essential component of any successful early-19th century woolen industry. Fullers applied finishing techniques to cloth in order to create a stronger, more attractive, and more useful fabric. In 1813 the Shakers at Kentucky’s South Union community constructed a fulling mill that serviced their own demands for textile finishing processes as well as those of area residents. The fulling mill, aided by the Shakers’ three-year-old carding mill, developed by the 1860s into a full-fledged woolen factory.


“We Have Raffeled For The Elephant & Won!”: The Wool Industry At South Union, Kentucky, Donna C. Parker, Jonathan J. Jeffrey Jan 1997

“We Have Raffeled For The Elephant & Won!”: The Wool Industry At South Union, Kentucky, Donna C. Parker, Jonathan J. Jeffrey

SCL Faculty and Staff Publications

Wool, next to cotton, is perhaps the most important of all textile fibers. Like most of their contemporaries, the Shakers of South Union, Kentucky, recognized the ease with which wool fibers were spun into yarn and the advantages of sturdy wool clothing. South Union’s textile industry grew from a simple carding mill to a full-fledged woolen factory with a 240-spindle spinning jack and 4 power looms. From its genesis in 1815 to its abrupt demised in 1868, the sect’s woolen industry provides a paradigm for the study of the United States’ textile industrialization.