From Rubber Works To Pajama Factory

The Lycoming Rubber Company, today the Pajama Factory

Located at  Rose Street and Erie (now Memorial) Avenue in Williamsport Pa.

January 1887

Inside an office in the Rubber Works, about 1909. 

Lycoming Rubber Works was founded in 1882.  It made its first pair of shoes in 1883. 

In 1885 the Altoona Tribune reported that the Lycoming Rubber Works was making 4,000 pairs of rubber boots and shoes a day.

The Factory made its first pair of shoes in 1883.     As early as 1910, Lycoming Rubber’s parent company, U.S. Rubber, invented Keds sneakers. For a time, the  Williamsport plant was the largest Keds manufacturer in the country.  They manufactured tennis shoes, Keds sneakers, gym and yachting shoes and other footwear meant for summer use.  (see the early models with the Williamsport stamp on display at the Taber Museum in Williamsport)

On November 2 1901, a brother and sister, Frederick Wetter and Ida Ulmshnieder, who were each adopted out to other families were reunited at the Lycoming Rubber Works.

Byron S. Ames working at a cutting machine at the Lycoming Rubber Works.

Fire in January 1909

In December of 1909 the Rubber Works closed down for an indefinite period, "owing to a large stock of manufacturing goods on hand"

The shoemaking room at Lycoming Rubber works, 1916.

A story told to the new owners of the Pajama Factory:

"Carl Stotz, the founder of Little League, wanted to have baseball cleats that were safer for his players, so he came here to the factory and spoke to its then owner, US Rubber, about manufacturing them. Not only did the agree to make the cleats, they became a well-backed sponsor, helping Little League become what it is today."

I couldn't find anything to either prove, nor disprove that story.  I did find one mention, in another Little League history, that states that by 1948 "the thing the thing had definitely become too big for Stotz and friends to handle all by themselves on a spare-time basis. Stotz decided that the resources of some big outside organization was needed. He went to the United States Rubber Company, which was already interested to the extent of developing a special line of baseball sneakers..... Anyway, the upshot was that United States Rubber backed an expanded national tournament in 1948. The company paid the traveling expenses of the teams, put them up in Williamsport's leading hotel, and awarded prizes-gold medals and statuettes for every boy on the winning team, silver medals to the runners-up, and bronze medals to the also-rans."

In 1917, an article about the Rubber Works mentions the "new five story building on Rose Street."  The first floor was to be used as a stock room, the second floor as a packing department, and the third and fourth floors would be where the "manufacturing of shoes" would take place.  The fifth floor was to house stitching machines.  "Of course it is to be remembered that all the other departments of the plant located in the old buildings will be operated just as heretofore, the new building merely permitting of a greater expansion and greater elasticity of operation."

At its peak, records show, the company employed nearly 3,000.  

Members of the Keds team of the Lycoming Rubber Company, with Bernard L. Sullivan as foreman and George Felix assistant foreman.  The rubber soled shoes were made using a process called vulcanization, using heat to meld rubber and cloth together.  In 1929 the company had a record production of 19,000 pairs of shoes per a day, or 40 pairs per a minute.

When the company closed in 1932, 2,500 people were left unemployed.  With many of the workers unskilled, Dr. Parkes created "The Williamsport Plan" - a retraining school that for a time, greatly reduced Williamsport's unemployment crisis.  The plan was touted nation wide, with Dr Parkes going as far as Panama to speak on how it worked.  Read more here: https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-williamsport-plan-williamsport.html

The Franklin Hosiery Mill, located on the 3rd Floor of the Factory

In the above photo - "Girls learn hosiery weaving at the Franklin Hosiery Mill....The special class was conducted by the Williamsport School District in conjunction with the employment committee of the local chamber of commerce. More than 40 young women were enrolled in the class; 25 were later hired as employees of Franklin." - From the James V. Brown Digital Archives

The Franklin Hosiery Mill was located in Philadelphia in the 1930s, with the mill moving to Reading, and later to Williamsport at the former Weldon's Building.  By the time the company moved to Williamsport, the stockings were no longer made of silk, but rather from nylon.  Years later, the mill moved to Oliver Street in Jersey Shore, before closing permanently.

"I use to watch my dad at work running 2 of these long machines, side stepping all day long threading the bobbins and making dozens of pair at a time. The machine must have been 60 feet long. His hands moved in a blur because he was so fast, a real master of his trade"  - From Remembering The Good Old Days (a blog that no longer exists)

March 1954

The Weldon Pajama Factory leased space in the former rubber company building, as early as 1934. 

Jean Ressler, in an interview for the "Stitch In Time" project to record the textile industry history in Williamsport, said she was just 14 when she began working at the Weldon Pajama Factory in 1941.  Her mother, both grandmothers, and a great aunt already worked at the factory.  Legally, she was too young to begin factory work, but the bosses “looked the other way” and she was hired. “I was just the family member next in line,” Ressler said. “I took  the place of an aunt who was leaving because she was pregnant.”

 In 1951, they purchased the complex for $350,000, and went through a massive renovation of the factory.   The Weldon factory became the largest Pajama Factory in the world.  

In January of 1962, Weldon Manufacturing Co, including the pajama factory in Williamsport, was acquired by Harwood Manufacturing Co.

Both the Broadway musical, and later the movie, The Pajama Game, used the Williamsport factory as their model for their sets.  The movie was not filmed in Williamsport, as many believe, but scouts visited to see the layout and operations, before building the sets for filming in California.

 The film portrayed a breakdown in labor relations when workers in a pajama factory wanted raises.

The pajamas worn in the movie were made at Weldon's, and the company supplied some of the sewing machines used in the film version of the play, which starred Doris Day.

The Pajama Game is a musical based on the 1953 novel 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell.The original Broadway production opened on May 13, 1954, at the St. James Theatre, and ran for 1,063 performances, with a brief stop at the Shubert Theatre at the end of the run. It was revived in 1973, and again in 2006 by The Roundabout Theatre Company.

Lana Corson and Bob Callenberger were two of the leads in the local production of  The Pajama Game, held at Klump Auditorium at then Williamsport Area Community College.  The Williamsport Players later became the Community Theater League

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The Pajama Factory closed it's doors in Williamsport on November 2 1979.  Weldon's continued to operate a factory outles store for a number of years, along with Cobblers Shoe Factory, which also operated an outlet store through the early 1990s.

Next the complex, purchased by Ray Smith, became known as Raytown.  It housed restaurants, a nightclub, a line dancing studio, and the Equinox Co, which manufactured fleece related products and clothing.

 In 2008, Mark and Suzanne Winkelman purchased the former Lycoming Rubber/Pajama Factory complex, renamed it the Pajama Factory, and formed PJ Holdings LLC, with the goal of establishing a vibrant, diverse, and creative artist community.

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On October 27th 1904, Michael Jenning was terribly injured while operating a large steam washer in the black mill room of the Lycoming Rubber Works.  "His right leg became caught between two large cog wheels and was terribly crushed, becoming completely severed just below the knee."

 Franklin Hosiery Mills, Faxon Fabrics, W.S. Green Shoe Company, Lucille Footwear, Wundies, Inc., and the Weldon Manufacturing Company all occupied space in the factory over the years.

May 1917 - 

Safety Features Added To Facility

Samuel Norris Williams was born in the house now standing on Fourth Street facing Cemetery Street in Williamsport Pennsylvania and is the youngest son of John Norris Williams. He received his education if the public schools, and later attended private school and Dickinson Seminary. He closed his schooling by taking a business course at Bryant, Stratton and Bannister's College in Philadelphia. On returning he kept books for two years and then became interested in the lumber business with Charles Runstead. He then became a member of Finney, Williams & Company, later Williams & Foresman. He is one of the original stockholders in the Lycoming Rubber Company, and a director of the First national Bank. He is one of the representative business men of the city as well as a gentleman of commendable enterprise and public spirit. He is an ardent Republican and represents the 6th Ward on city council. Mr. Williams served with the Emergency Men during Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania. He was married on Nov 21 1866 to Mary Alice, daughter of D Watson and Margaret ( McCormick ) Foresman.