magnifier
Image
magbottom
 
Bridesburg Machine Works. Alfred Jenks and Son, manufacturers of cotton and wool carding spinning and weaving machinery, shafting and millgearing, Philadelphia, 1856.
Close Window

Advertisement showing the busy industrial complex established circa 1819 by Alfred Jenks and enlarged in 1853 on the east side of Richmond Street between Franklin & Locust streets in Bridesburg. A horse-drawn flatbed truck enters the courtyard of the U-shaped complex containing several buildings that are surrounded by wood fencing. Within the yard, clusters of workers transport boxes and planks of wood by hand near an unhitched wagon surrounded by crates. A carriage with driver waits near a smaller building, landscaped with trees and attached to one of the large workshops. Outside the complex, a driver handles a four-horse team plodding to pull a truck loaded with two large machines as other factory workers transport planks, carry crates, mill about with their tools, drive a dray, and stand at a shed facing the street. Also shows two gentlemen talking to a worker in the middle of the roadway, a worker carrying a box near abandoned carts in an adjacent courtyard, and several working smokestacks on the roofs of the works. Six vignettes of different types of textile machinery illustrate the side borders. Includes a single breaker card, loom, cotton card, railway drawing head, and ring frame thostle.

Credit: Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia

Bridesburg Machine Works. Alfred Jenks and Son, manufacturers of cotton and wool carding spinning and weaving machinery, shafting and millgearing, Philadelphia, 1856.

Back to Top