The Cleveland Worsted Mills Company was founded as the Turner Worsted Mill in 1878 by Joseph Turner and, after a period of restructuring beginning in 1893 led by Kaufman Hays (1835-1916), became the Cleveland Worsted Mills in 1902. Hays's son-in-law, Martin Marks (1853-1916), served as director from 1902 to 1916. The mill produced different types of woolen cloth. The Cleveland Worsted Mills Company, located at 6114 Broadway in cleveland, Ohio, could handle every step of the production process for many types of cloth at its Cleveland facility. The firm also operated eleven plants in Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. A plant in Ravenna, Ohio, specialized in dyeing and finishing.
The company employed many immigrants, especially Czechs, Poles, and Lithuanians. During the Great Depression, the workers became dissatisfied due to pay cuts and after an appeal to the National Labor Relations Board organized as part of the United Textile Workers. Two strikes in the 1930s were unsuccessful, but the workers remained as part of the Textile Workers Organizing Committee in the late thirties. During World War II, the company did not cooperate with the federal government in producing cloth for uniforms until the government shut the company down. Cleveland Worsted Mills reopened when the company agreed to produce more cloth for uniforms than for civilian fabrics. In the 1950s, despite increases in efficiency from new technology, woolen products produced by the company could not compete with synthetic fibers, and after another strike in 1955, President Louis O. Poss closed the company in 1956. In 1993, the empty building was destroyed by arson.
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From the guide to the Cleveland Worsted Mills Company Records, 1890-1946, (Western Reserve Historical Society)
