Star Mills: Architecture & History

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The history of the Star Mill and Middleborough’s woolen industry is a history of ironies. Though during the decades following the Civil War the Star Mill was Middleborough’s largest employer and its heaviest taxpayer, the town was better known industrially for its manufacture of boots and shoes. The Star Mill was a relatively paternalistic employer providing for the safety and accommodation of its workers, but its wages were among the lowest in the state and its successor, the Nemasket Worsted Company, collapsed partially as a result of a protracted labor strike. And while retrospectively the local manufacture of woolen cloth was considered to have been a successful enterprise during the period in which it was carried out in Middleborough (1864-1924), the industry was plagued by periods of inactivity when the sagging fortunes of the woolen market forced periods of idleness upon the local mill. Today, though textiles are no longer produced in Middleborough, the Star Mill remains. As the oldest surviving woolen mill complex in southeastern Massachusetts and with important associations with regional and national architects of note, the Star Mill reflects an era when Middleborough was evolving rapidly from Plymouth County’s leading agricultural town into an important center of manufacturing. Star Mill: History & Architecture documents the previously untold story of Middleborough’s woolen industry, the building that housed it and the people who lived it.

$19.99
138 pages,  25 black and white illustrations, plan
6 x 9
Paperback
ISBN 978-0-615-66874-1
Michael J. Maddigan/Recollecting Nemasket
Published August 2012