page_title: Allentown, Pennsylvania
section_title: Industrialization
hierarchical_section_title: Allentown, Pennsylvania / History / Industrialization
caption_attribution_description: English: Postcard of Adelaide Silk Mill - 1910 Later known as Phoenix Clothing, the Adelaide Silk Mill became one of the largest producers of silk products in the United States. By 1900, there were twenty-three silk establishments in Allentown, making Pennsylvania second only to New Jersey in silk production. The silk industry in Pennsylvania and the United States peaked in the late 1920s. After that the Great Depression, increasing labor unrest, and competition from rayon began to affect the industry locally and nationally. During World War II the supply of silk disappeared because nearly all of it had been imported from Japan. After the war, new synthetic fibers, especially nylon, replaced silk in many garments and the plant began to produce clothing for major retailers such as Sears, Montgomery Ward, J. C. Penny and other brands. Phoenix Clothing remained in production until about 1985 until declaring bankruptcy citing foreign competition and lower manufacturing costs overseas. After closing, the building became a large storage facility. Current plans for the empty mill is for it to be totally renovated into a apartments
context_page_description: Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city and the 233rd largest city in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and it is currently the fastest growing major city in Pennsylvania with an estimated 121,442 residents according to the 2019 census estimate. It is the largest city in the metropolitan area known as the Lehigh Valley, which had a population of 821,623 residents as of 2010. Allentown is the county seat of Lehigh County. In 2012, the city celebrated the 250th anniversary of its founding in 1762.
  Located on the Lehigh River, Allentown is the largest of three adjacent cities in Northampton and Lehigh counties that make up a region of eastern Pennsylvania known as the Lehigh Valley; the other two cities being Bethlehem, and Easton. Allentown is approximately 60 miles north-northwest of Philadelphia, the sixth most populous city in the United States, 60 miles south-southeast of Scranton and the Wyoming Valley, 80 miles east-northeast of Harrisburg, the state capital, and 75 miles west of New York City, the nation's largest city.
context_section_description: The opening of the Lehigh Canal caused a fundamental change in the nature of Allentown and the Lehigh Valley, as it transformed both from a rural agricultural area dominated by German-speaking people into an urbanized industrialized area. It expanded the city's commercial and industrial capacity greatly. With this, the town underwent significant industrialization, ultimately becoming a major center for heavy industry and manufacturing.
  The actual foundation for the city's industrial development was brought about by necessity.  David Deshler, the city's first shopkeeper, opened a saw mill in 1782. By 1814 the list of industrial plants in the city included flour mills, saw mills, two saddle makers, a tannery and tan yard, a woolen mill, a card weaving ·plant, two gunsmiths, two tobacconists, two clock-makers, and two printers.  In 1855, the first railroads reached Allentown.  These were in direct competition for moving coal with the Lehigh Canal.  The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad ordered four locomotives and stations were erected at Easton, Allentown and Mauch Chunk. The railroad was placed in operation in September of that year.  Connections for New York City were made via the Central Railroad of New Jersey and later connections with Philadelphia were made via the Perkiomen railroad which operated between Norristown and Freemansburg.
  It was Henry Leh who began the true industrialization of Allentown in 1861. The Union Army needed boots. Since Simon Cameron, the secretary of war, was from Pennsylvania, many government contracts flowed to the Keystone state. Leh had opened his shoe and ready-to-wear clothing store in Allentown in 1850.  If the Union Army needed boots and shoes, he'd make them. In addition to Leh's boot and shoe industry, during the Civil War, eight brick yards, a saw mill, the Allentown Paint factory, two shoe factories, a piano factory, flour mills, breweries and distilleries had opened in the city.
  Beds of iron ore had been discovered in the hills around Allentown in the 1840s, and a furnace was constructed in 1846 for the production of pig iron by the Allentown Iron Company. The furnace was opened in 1847 under the supervision of Samuel Lewis, an expert in iron production, and this led to the opening of plants for a wide variety of metal products.  The Allentown Rolling Mill Company was a merger of several small companies in 1860 and became the most significant iron company in the city. It employed many people and turned out more iron products than any other.  Although not as large as the iron and steel industry in neighboring Bethlehem, in the latter half of the 19th Century, Allentown became a major iron-producing center.
  The Allentown Boiler Works was founded in 1883 by Charles Collum. He and his partner, John D. Knouse, built a large facility at Third and Gordon Streets in the First Ward, near the Lehigh Valley Railroad yard to the east near Jeter's (later Kline's) Island. The business manufactured iron products of many types, being used in the White House and at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. Its boilers and kilns were used across the United States, and also in Canada, Cuba and the Philippines.
  In addition to the iron and railroad industries, Allentown also had a strong tradition in the brewing of beer and was home to several notable breweries, including the Horlacher Brewery (founded 1897, closed 1978), the Neuweiler Brewery (founded 1875, closed 1968) and Schaefer Beer, whose brewery was later owned by Pabst Brewing Company and Guinness but is now owned by the Boston Beer Company, maker of Samuel Adams.
  Brick making flourished in the city until after World War I, the clay unearthed in various sections of the community proving highly suitable for the manufacture of building brick as well as fire brick.  Bricks were the first products shipped outside of the Allentown area by rail and were sold nationwide.  Food processing started with the early bakers, who came into the city with the first settlers. In 1887, Wilson Arbogast and Morris C. Bastian formed Arbogast and Bastian,
caption: The Adelaide Silk Mill, shown in 1910.
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