Draper Company

The Draper Corporation, based in Hopedale, Massachusetts, was incorporated in 1916, but predecessor companies had been manufacturing loom parts and other textile items, including temples and spindles, in Hopedale since the early 1800s. Draper had been a worldwide textile machinery technology leader from the development of ring spinning in the 1870s and 1880s through the development of automatic looms at the turn of the century and high-speed looms in the 1930s. It was a near monopoly producer of single-shuttle looms in its home market from the 1930s to the 1960s. In the 1960s, the Draper Corporation was the largest textile machine manufacturer in the United States. In 1967, the Draper Corporation was sold to Rockwell International.