If you enjoy a beautiful Thanksgiving table, expect a white wedding, christening, or simply appreciate the beauty of lace drapes and bedding, you may owe Quaker Lace Company more than you think.
The Quaker Lace Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1889 and began as the Bromley Manufacturing Company, founded by the three sons of John Bromley. Mr. Bromley was an English rug weaver who emigrated to Philadelphia in the 1840s and later became the patriarch of one of the city’s largest textile companies. To produce lace on a large scale for the United States, the Bromleys drew on the profits they had made from their rug business in England. This allowed them to import not only expensive lace looms, but also the skilled weavers to produce them from Nottingham, England. In 1894, they changed the company name to The Lehigh Manufacturing Company and moved into an impressive manufacturing complex at the corner of 4th Street and Lehigh Avenue in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. Later, they opened another factory at 22nd and Lehigh, which is said to be the largest in the world.
Finally incorporated as the Quaker Lace Company in 1911, the company quickly gained national attention as the leader of the country’s lace industry. QL’s ability to successfully market machine-made lace as an elegant lifestyle for middle-class homes and women’s fashion, made him a household name. In the early 1900s, Quaker Lace came close to surpassing the royal location of Nottingham, the place from which they sourced their looms, weavers, and designers. One of his most popular pamphlets proclaimed: “America has taste and individuality which should find expression in an American lace industry. Why not try to develop more perfect lace here than that produced in Nottingham and Calais, the lace markets of the world?”
QL’s success was largely due to its ability to adopt lace that was both luxurious and durable to satisfy the desires of its middle-class customers. QL was a success, as the mechanization of lace-making offered average Americans the unique opportunity to dress and decorate their homes with what was once a luxury item. Another very successful brochure called for the use of lace in fashion, “…no part of a woman’s wardrobe that cannot be embellished by the use of Quaker Laces”, citing the “originality, authority and topicality” of her designs.
One of their most admired designers who stepped away from the English and European industries was designer Frederick Vessey. Recognizing the public’s desire for beauty and durability, the company released one of its most successful brochures to date, one that emphasized the technical features of Quaker Lace netting that enabled its drapes to resist pulling, stretching, and distortion after washing. without losing that essential quality of transparency.
During World War II, purchasing power and public interest declined. This was one of many changes in the textile industry. As the market for lace curtains continued to decline, the company turned to producing practical products such as mosquito netting or camouflage mosquito netting for the army. In 1932, he began his first production of lace tablecloths, a favorite postwar item that would always be associated with Quaker Lace.
Quaker Lace was not protected from changes in the textile industry, and by the late 1980s, the Nottingham looms at the 4th and Lehigh factory fell silent as manufacturing moved to plants in Lionville, Pennsylvania ( Chester County) and Winthrop, Maine.
The Philadelphia Mill continued to operate bleaching, dyeing, cutting, and packaging the famous Quaker Lace tablecloths and drapes. The Mill remained open in large part due to its innovative chemical process that allowed its tablecloths and drapes to withstand dozens of washings without losing their shape.
It was the closure of a substantial number of the department stores that retailed Quaker Lace products that ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the company in 1992.
The rights, name, and patterns to Quaker Lace were acquired by Lorraine Linens, which marketed its unique tablecloths and drapes until its own bankruptcy in 2007. The original Lehigh Avenue manufacturing plant in Philadelphia was abandoned after the bankruptcy and eventually , was destroyed by a devastating fire on September 19, 1994.
In 2003, the Julia de Burgos Secondary School was built on the site.