Have an idea for Bob Wilhelm’s Q&A or want to share your insights? Email Bob at Questions@AuburnHeights.org.
FASHION CYCLES
On May 18th the Friends of Auburn Heights hosts the inaugural Auburn Heights After Hours event of 2023. The May event raises the curtain on this year’s themed museum display – Stylized: The Road to Elegance. Before automobile design was influenced by fashion in the early 20th century, it was the bicycle that influenced fashion design in the 19th century! FAH joins Delaware State Parks recognizing May as National Bike Month and urges bike riders to visit Yorklyn Bridge Trail, Oversee Farm Trail or the Mason Dixon Trail during May (Auburn Valley Trail is currently inaccessible while bridge construction is in progress).
America’s fashion tastes, especially for women during the early 1800s, reflected the tastes and styles of the British Victorian Age that included tight, shape-forming corsets and frilly petticoats. With the coming of the bicycle as personal transportation, fashions were forced to change. Because of exposed moving parts such as chains and spokes, fashion designers were forced to remove excess pleats and frills lest the rider become entangled with the machine. By the later 1800s, the use of bicycles and tricycles, especially in America’s cities, had become a popular form of personal transportation bridging the gap between walking or riding a horse.
America’s dependence on bicycles is cited by some historians as spawning the development of a very controversial new article of clothing in the mid-1800s. What was this article of clothing? As a hint, the item was associated with a well-known woman’s rights activist of the era who made this manner of dress popular.
Answer
If one reflects on society in the 1800s, it was a man’s duty to earn a reputable living and provide for his family while women were expected to operate the household and raise children. The era held defined expectations for masculine and feminine appearances. Towards the end of the Victorian Age, bicycles offered women access to an independent personal transportation option since sidesaddle riding on a horse was not comfortable nor considered very lady-like. A major issue for women riding a bicycle or tricycle was the flowing fabric embellishments and restrictive nature of a female’s wardrobe.
In the 1850s, Elizabeth Smith Miller wore what was known as “Turkish Dress” to the home of Amelia Bloomer (pictured in the drawings). Instead of the acceptable floor-length skirt worn over layers of heavily starched petticoats resting on panniers or crinoline hoops, Miller wore a just-below-the-knee-length dress with a very baggy set of highly decorated pants underneath. Amelia Bloomer loved Miller’s fashion sense, and after adopting it for herself with modifications, described it in her temperance journal “The Lily”. Soon newspapers had picked up Bloomer’s description lamenting the virtues and practicality of a short skirt worn over pants.
Because Bloomer described how to make the frilly bloomer pant based off men’s pant designs, and accompany the pant with a cut-down dress, it was not difficult for American women to start making “bloomers” by recycling their old dresses where the hemline had deteriorated from dragging on the ground. Soon women wearing bloomers became all the rage to the vocal objection of many. With its development, the ‘bloomer’ article of clothing was about to play a central role in reshaping bicycle-riding America.
The wearing of short skirts with bloomers made bicycle riding, and even horseback riding using a regular saddle, a lot easier for women. The downside was the furor created at seeing women’s legs and bare ankles in public in the still Victorian-minded America of the later 1800s. Many feared the bloomer would incite the moral decay of America’s feminine population. “Bloomerism” in the mid-1800s was as big an issue in that era as discussions on gender identity and transgender lifestyles are today.
Wearing of bloomers not only signaled a woman’s increased independence, it became part of a grassroots effort that resulted in the addition of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution giving women the right to vote. Several American cities enacted laws making it illegal for anyone to dress in the wardrobe of the opposite sex while churches and other public institutions declined admittance to women wearing bloomer-like wardrobes.
As bloomers became socially acceptable in the later 1800s, they were adopted in varying stylings for hiking and other activities. Made of wool in the winter and cotton in the summer, bloomers could be plain looking and of simple design for around-the-house activities but made from silks and expensive fabrics adorned with lace, ruffles, and tassels for more formal occasions. Constructed of decorative fabrics for more luxurious activities and outings, the bloomer became a fashion icon of the era. It would not be until the 1920s and the marrying of fashion and automobile design that the bloomer transitioned to a pant design like menswear.
With the development of the motorcarriage at the start of the 1900s, fashion tastes adapted again to the needs of personal transportation. At the start of the 20th century the autocarriage in its various forms had begun to replace both the bicycle and horse for independent personal transportation. The term autocarriage was coined because these vehicles resembled horse-drawn carriages but were moved with steam, electric, or internal combustion power sources. By the dawn of the Roaring 1920s, the automobile had clearly established itself as the replacement for the bicycle and horse. As a result, the automobile sales market had become stagnant as those who needed an automobile, already owned one. If the family vehicle was paid off, the owner was unlikely to obtain a replacement as long as it remained functional.
In the late 19-teens the American automobile had become so well defined that individuals had devised kits to repurpose the vehicles with tracks and skis for winter use, to power a temporary saw mill, and to do other tasks besides transporting a family. The automobile, upon reaching ‘adulthood’ in the 19-teens, had transitioned from a novelty idea to a cookie-cutter standard product that could be accessorized in nearly infinite ways.
A visit to the Marshall Steam Museum reveals that not much changed in automotive artistic design between the 1918 Model 735 and the 1924 Model 750. Looking at Stanley Motor Carriage Company’s competition, we find that Buick, Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford, Lincoln, Nash, Packard, Oldsmobile, Plymouth, and others relied on fenders, axles, lighting, and wheels all of which were largely catalog purchases from mass producing manufacturers. Only expensive custom design cars had these items custom designed where the added cost added to the vehicle’s price tag was acceptable. It was engine development and the body and interiors from coach and carriage makers that made lesser, cookie-cutter identical, low-cost vehicles distinctive as well as widely available to middle-class America.
Facing a slowing sales forecast towards the end of the Roaring 20’s for automobiles, manufacturers looked for a means to stimulate sales. In September 1927, General Motors president Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. wrote to Fisher Body president William Fisher that “I think that the future of General Motors will be measured by the attractiveness that we put in the bodies from the standpoint of luxury of appointment, the degree to which they please the eye, both in contour and in color scheme, also the degree to which we are able to make them different from our competition.” The end of volume-production at the lowest cost, and “any color you want as long as its black”, days were numbered.
The result was the stitching together of the fashion world with automotive design. Cars would now complement fashion and fashion would complement cars. GM tapped Harley Jarvis Earl (pictured with his designers – 1893-1969) to integrate ‘fashion’ with automobile design. Earl revolutionized automotive design giving rise to features like tail fins, wrap-around windshields, and iconic sweeping lines on body panels. Earl designed vehicles were often referenced as artistic sculptures on motion.
Earl insured that female fashion designers had input into his automotive designs. Make-up mirrors, glove compartments, toy compartments built into the backs of front seats for kids riding in the back seat, and other offerings became standard offerings. Magazines such as Vogue and others featured women’s fashions displayed alongside the advertised automobiles. The design revolution that Earl started resulted in the family flivver being seen as passe’ within a few years and needing to be replaced by the newest model loaded with amenities.
The FAH’s Marshall Steam Museum featured display this summer explores the influences of fashion and automotive styling. Explore the display to learn how over a short period of time, Americans were encouraged to replace their automobiles and wardrobes regularly; not because they had worn out, but because the look had aged and become dowdy or frumpy. Soon the used vehicle market was born and what folks witnessed in their magazines and in talking pictures on silver-screens, influenced what they purchased in fashion, automobiles, appliances, and so much more. We invite you to visit Auburn Valley State Park this summer during a Steamin’ Day, Auburn Heights After Hours, or an open house day to experience Stylized: The Road to Elegance.
IN THE HOUSE
Over our years of writing weekly Q&A articles we have highlighted Garrett Snuff, National Vulcanized Fiber, Spatz Fiberglas dune buggies, and Spitz planetariums. One of several threads common to these Yorklyn corporations is they became world-known for their industry-leading products. Each company served as a bellwether within their business segment. There is another company calling Yorklyn its home, that while small in footprint perhaps, this company enjoys a global reach to the point of their product being consumed by perhaps more of the world’s population than the rest of Yorklyn’s past businesses combined. What does this company produce?
Perhaps the image below will provide a clue!
Answer
When we look at the 250-plus year history of the Auburn-Yorklyn Valley, we find paper made by Horatio Gates Garrett at the start of the 1800s. At the end of the 1890s, paper manufacture returned to Yorklyn with the Marshall family, where a specialty rag paper was converted to vulcanized fibre, making fiber the first manmade plastic and world’s first manmade laminated product. Today House Industries carries on the tradition as a premier producer of digital typefaces and fonts that find a use on paper packaging and on all forms of printed matter. House typefaces appear on movie screens, televisions, and computer and mobile device displays the world over.
Known throughout the world as a premier type foundry, this Yorklyn business has made a considerable impact on typeface and font design. Their fonts scream from billboards and websites, wish happy whatever from greeting cards, serve as the basis for consumer product logos. The company’s typefaces and added graphic elements of style, adorn a wide range of mainstream media applications. What ultimately shines in the House Industries oeuvre is what always conquers mediocrity: a genuine love for their subject matter – letters, numerals, glyphs, and ligatures.
House Industries’ artists have mastered a large cross-section of design disciplines to produce a product inspiring the subconscious while exciting our emotions. Their typography deftly melds cultural, musical, and graphic elements. Their product transcends graphic conventions and reaches out to broad audiences. This description, adopted from the FontStand.com page devoted to House Industries of Yorklyn, DE, deftly defines the company.
Founded in 1993 by Andy Cruz and Richard Roat, House Industries is a digital typeface foundry. Long gone are the days of foundries casting metal letters and distributing those letter sets for use in hand typesetting. With the advent of the computer age came the need to create digital typefaces. The first computer fonts, called bitmap or raster fonts, were letters composed of square boxes arranged to look like a specific letter.
In 1968 the first digital font was created – DigiGrotesk. By 1970 the first Optical Character Recognition (OCR) font was developed, which allowed computers to “read” printed pages characters on objects like checks. Adobe, formed in 1982, developed the PostScript typography based on mathematical constructs that describe an alphanumeric character.
Next developed was TrueType fonts, which reduced the mathematical constructs to tabular form. With the increased power of computing processors artists, industrial designers, and others began the development of the vast number of font libraries we see today. House Industries took typefaces to a whole new level by making each letter and numeral its own distinctive artworks as a collection of characters fits together into words. Those words form phrases and sentences conveying vision, inspiration, emotion, curiosity, intrigue, and so much more than had the author or graphic designer simply selected Arial, Times New Roman, or Helvetica font families.
One of House Industries’ earliest clients was Warner Brothers Records. The company’s Neutraface soon became a widely recognized and used typeface. If you have ever seen a Shake Shack you have looked upon Neutraface! House’s various typefaces appear in many of J.J Abrams movies, The New Yorker magazine, Target, and on the Jimmy Kimmel show. In 2017 the Henry Ford Museum highlighted House Industries’ creative process from inspiration to reality in a custom exhibit titled A Type of Learning. Delawareans drive past House Industries’ light green building not knowing that movie titles, magazine covers and billboards, video games, album covers, and mind-boggling numbers of product packages and advertising, rely on the creative and award-winning typefaces designed at House Industries where their motto is “The Process Is the Inspiration.”
Watch this segment from “The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation” to see more examples of House Industries’ craftsmanship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odp-d_TyHug
SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 28
This month’s Question & Answer is supplied by FAH volunteer Elliott Warburton. Elliott is a student at A.I. DuPont High School with an interest in local area history.
Driving through the Red Clay Valley, we often find ourselves driving along roads that reflect the people and industries that once inhabited the area, such as Snuff Mill, Center Mill, Sharpless, and Yorklyn roads. This is true for many places throughout the United States and for the world as well. But more often than not, the original meaning of some road names are often lost when these namesakes either move, close, or are outright abandoned. In the Red Clay Valley especially, where once rural outposts are now becoming suburban havens, people often approach us at Auburn Heights with questions about the origin of some names in particular. Which Red Clay Valley road was named for a fundamental part of rural community life that has long since been abandoned?
Answer
Many people who drive along the Ashland-Clinton School Road are impressed by one of the older roads in the area. With wide shoulders and narrow roadway, the road is believed to have been at one time an original nine-foot road, likely constructed to make the Ashland grist mills more accessible to those traveling along the Old Kennett Road. This explains the “Ashland” portion of the road’s name. However, the “Clinton School” portion remains a mystery to many, especially since there is little evidence that there was ever a school in the Ashland area.
Interestingly, this “Clinton School”, which did in fact exist over a century ago, began its life in an entirely different area! While the road would come to bear the name of the school, the original school, formally known as Schoolhouse No. 28, was located along Snuff Mill Road, about two hundred feet west of the parking lot for the Oversee Farm Trail. Its ruins can still be seen with a watchful eye when driving by.
Initially looking at the area, one may be puzzled by the lack of a defined population center and why anyone would build a schoolhouse in the area. But during the late-18th and 19th centuries, the Ebenezer Baptist Church once stood across from the school along Snuff Mill Road, providing another vital service to a rural population of farmers, especially to the few who were not members of the Quaker society that dominated the Mill Creek and Christiana Hundreds. Because local meetings were often responsible for the opening and operation of the earliest schoolhouses of the area, it seems likely that the Ebenezer Baptist Church was responsible for the construction of the original schoolhouse sometime in the late 1700s or early 1800s. When Delaware passed the Free School Act in 1829, it was officially recognized thereafter as Public Schoolhouse No. 28. The map shows the boundary for the schoolhouse in 1849.
District No. 28, the state recognized area that the No. 28 school served, became the main district for Yorklyn children. Before the Auburn/Yorklyn Schoolhouse was built in 1869, students either relied on the Hockessin Schoolhouse (Public School No. 29), or the No. 28 School. As outlined on the 1849 Rea & Price Map of New Castle County, children who lived around the future Marshall paper mill area had to attend the Hockessin School, which was at the time across from the nearby Hockessin Meeting House. However, nearly every other area in Yorklyn, including the Garrett Snuff Mills, were under District No. 28. As a result, most children seeking public education in Yorklyn during the early 1800s would find themselves attending School No. 28.
In an era when most children walked to school, the mile distance between downtown Yorklyn and the schoolhouse may have been difficult at times. However, the Red Clay Creek proved to be a natural boundary that isolated the community from the Hockessin area, restricting children from education opportunities elsewhere. But following the construction of Yorklyn Road and the Yorklyn Covered Bridge in 1863, the Garrett Snuff Mills were no longer as isolated. And, along with the idea of increasing the accessibility of community resources to Yorklyn, in September of 1868, the Delaware Legislature approved the creation of Auburn District No. 91. In about a year’s time, Yorklyn’s own Public School No. 91 began serving the community.
But what about Schoolhouse No. 28? Thankfully for the Ebenezer Literary Society (the organization maintaining the schoolhouse at the time), what was left in District No. 28 still included the Garrett Snuff Mill population. District No. 91’s creation, in theory, would have little impact on Schoolhouse No. 28. But the appealing new schoolhouse in Yorklyn, as well as a declining congregation at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, would ultimately bring the fall of the original schoolhouse. After the election of Willis Passmore to the role of District No. 28 Superintendent in 1870, the decision was made to build a new schoolhouse in a place more accessible to the growing populations around the rural Ashland population. This final location would be along the old Ashland Road, south of its intersection with Center Mill Road, and would be called the new Clinton School.
How exactly the name “Clinton” was decided remains lost, but was likely the name of an early teacher, or possibly a minister at the Church (they may have even been the same person in that case). But because no property owner in the area was named “Clinton”, the moniker remains of uncertain origins. Nevertheless, the “Clinton” hallmark caught on quite fast, with District No. 28 becoming known as the “Clinton District”, and at some point, the adoption of the name Ashland-Clinton School Road for the road the schoolhouse lay upon. So, whoever this “Clinton” was, they surely left an impact on the area, even if they may have never even been a local resident!
As milling operations in the district slowly ceased by 1900, the school began to cater to the children of area farmers instead of the children of millworkers. Along with the No. 26 Mount Airy Public School in Centreville, which the school maintained a close relationship with, it remained one of the northernmost rural schools in Delaware. It seems notable that, in many contemporary accounts, people like superintendent Passmore maintained a high standard of education for the school regardless of the changing demographic shift towards Centreville and Yorklyn. Finally, when word came that a new, modern school was to be built in Yorklyn in 1932, it came time for the Clinton School to close its doors. On August 7th, 1931, District No. 28 was officially absorbed by District No. 91, with all students going to the old Yorklyn School until the beginning of the 1932 school years, when the new Yorklyn School hosted all students in modern facilities. School District No. 91 would remain a functioning district until April 6th, 1962, when parents voted to join the Alexis I. DuPont Special School District and convert the Yorklyn facility into an elementary school.
With the original schoolhouse in ruins, and the second Clinton School a private residence (pictured in 2023, below), it’s hard to tell exactly what gave the Ashland-Clinton School Road its name. But with a watchful eye, the evidence will produce itself!
EARLY YORKLYN PAPER
Ten years after the American Revolution, two New Castle County grist milling families found they could not compete with the larger milling operations of the immediate area. Joshua and Thomas Gilpin in 1787 converted their family grist mill on the Brandywine to the manufacture of paper. The Gilpins would go on to revolutionize the papermaking industry by designing, constructing, and patenting the first machine to automatically make paper in America in 1817. In a short period of time, America dethroned England as the world’s papermaker when American production outpaced England’s.
The other papermaking family was a resident of then Auburn, now Yorklyn. In 1789 this family converted their grist mill to the manufacture of paper. What was their name? Hint: If you are thinking it is the Marshall family, the Marshalls didn’t construct their first grist mill in Pennsylvania until 1770, just before the American Revolution. Paper would not be made in the Marshall Homestead Mill until 1856.
Answer
Buying land in Leticia Manor in 1726, John (1) Garrett and his family settled along the both banks of Red Clay Creek to farm the rich soil and study the characteristics of the creek. In 1730 John (1) entered into partnership with four neighbors building a grist mill (mill #1) on 10 acres of his land on the west side of the creek in Mill Creek Hundred. Operational in 1731, the mill was making the partners a nice profit ten years later. John (1) withdrew from the partnership and continued farming the land he owned adjacent to #1 grist mill. Eventually, #1 grist mill and the 10 acres of land surrounding the mill, were sold by the partners.
John (1) constructed another grist mill (#2), perhaps larger, downstream of the original #1 mill but on the eastern banks of the Red Clay Creek in Christiana Hundred. John’s (1) two sons, Thomas (by his first wife) and John (2) (by his second wife) inherited the land and #2 grist mill upon John (1) passing in 1757.
Thomas Garrett moved to Prince William County Virginia in the early 1760s having inherited 620 acres from his father John (1). John’s (1) son John (2) remained in Delaware having inherited the family farm, home, and #2 grist m
ill to continue milling operations. Within a short time, John (2) repurchases the original 10-acre milling site and #1 mill that his father had constructed forty years prior. After serving as an officer during the Revolution, John (2) returns to farming and milling. In 1782 John (2) constructs another mill on the Red Clay and begins milling tobacco. By 1789, John (2) Garrett reaches the conclusion that his grist milling operations can’t compete with Lea family’s mills on the Brandywine and decides to focus on snuff manufacture. John (2) attempts a sale of the grist milling operations. When no buyers surface, he decides the #1 mill shall be converted to papermaking while the #2 mill will now produce snuff.
Local Garrett interest in papermaking started with both John (2), and his sons John (3), and Horatio Gates Garrett. Journals of the Nathan Sellers Company of Philadelphia indicate John (2) Garrett purchased the first watermarks for papermaking screens held within a handheld deckle in 1797. There are examples of Garrett watermarked paper, made at Yorklyn (see photos), in or around 1795. Additional watermarks for Yorklyn were purchased in 1799 and 1800.
Historians believe Garrett began to produce cotton rag paper in the early 1790’s. A paper mold watermarked “J G SON & CO” was ordered on December 10, 1799 from Sellers. The quality must have been excellent as another with the same watermark was ordered on January 20, 1800. The watermark “J & H G CO” along with an eagle figure have been identified on letters dated 1801, indicating Horatio and his brother John (3) had joined the firm. In 1804 Horatio took over full control of the papermaking operation after John (3) moves to Ohio. John (2) was in declining health and would pass away a few years later.
Horatio ordered additional papermaking molds from Sellers in October 1805. A papermaking mold watermarked ”H G G” was ordered on May 5, 1810. Horatio eventually faced severe financial problems with the mill and finally advertised it for sale beginning in January 1812. The mill was sold under court order in March 1813. Horatio moved to Steubenville, Ohio, where he managed another paper mill. He died in 1832.
NINE FEET
A while back we were traveling to New Process Fiber in Greenwood DE researching the vulcanized fibre industry in Delaware. New Process originally made their own fibre and later moved to purchasing vulcanized fibre from NVF until the great flood of 2003 when New Fiber started purchasing fibre from Japan. New Process and Wilmington Fibre are two businesses that remain in DE converting large sheets of raw vulcanized fibre into all sorts of finished products such as bushings, washers, and electrical insulating materials. As we traveled south of Harrington on Route 13 to Greenwood to visit New Process Fiber, we passed the intersection for Nine Foot Road.
It turns out this is the only remaining, officially named, ‘Nine Foot Road’ in Delaware, although a former Nine-Foot Road is now a trail in White Clay State Park. Delaware had a number of roads referred to as ‘nine-foot road’ at the dawn of the automotive age. What is the significance of the or a ‘Nine-Foot Road”? (Hint: it is both a name and a construction.)
Answer
Before the arrival of the Europeans to begin settling North America, the Native Indians relied on foot and horse paths and trails between locations. As settlers arrived and constructed wagons, these trails became enlarged to form the start of a primitive roadway system in the New World. In time, Delaware was crisscrossed with dirt roads suited for wagon and carriage. Some of the heavier traveled ones were covered with crushed stone so a not to become so muddy in wet weather. With the development of the motorcarriage in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, the country recognized the paving of these often-muddy roads was a necessity. In 1915 Delaware began to pave the most heavily traveled dirt roads. Paving was not only needed to make automobile travel more pleasant, other benefits existed. A truck might only haul 1-ton on a dirt road whereas 2.5 to 3 tons could be hauled by the same truck on a paved road.
A road described as ‘paved’ was generally constructed of bricks. A sand base was laid followed by crushed stone upon which the large bricks were placed. The construction of the Dixie Highway, a nine-foot road constructed in 1918 between Chicago and Miami, was largely constructed of brick. The Lincoln Highway that crossed North America is another example of a nine-foot road with sections originally constructed of brick.
Unfortunately, paved roads, either of brick or later macadam (asphalt or blacktop) or concrete did not hold up to steel tires on wooden wagon wheels. Horses and mules often had problems with their horseshoes getting traction on a paved surface. The rivets holding steel tires to wooden wagon wheels, and horseshoe cleats formed on the underside of horseshoes both were ground down exceptionally fast on a paved road not to mention further damage that they created with a paved road’s surface by chipping away at it.
Delaware, along with many states employed the ‘Nine Foot Road’ as the solution! In reality these roads were 18’ feet wide with 9’ of width paved and the adjacent 9’ of width left as a dirt road. Rubber tired vehicles could travel the paved section of the road while farmers and others still relying on pure horsepower with a wagon could use the dirt portion of the road. Because traffic was light and still slow moving back at the start of the 1900s, when drivers going in opposing directions met, they simply moved to the right or left as appropriate to pass each other.
Pictured below are two sections of the restored Nine Foot Road located within White Clay Creek State Park taken by Matthew Aungst. Next time you’re using Google, Bing, or another internet search product, search for ‘nine-foot road’ and you’ll find more of them in North Carolina, New York, and other states.
