In 1832,
Samuel Whitmarsh planted of
mulberry trees in
Florence, Massachusetts in order to raise
silkworms. Whitmarsh opened a silk mill in nearby
Leeds, Massachusetts and it was briefly run as a communal project by the
Northampton Association of Education and Industry, a
utopian community of
abolitionists who believed that the rights of all should be "equal without distinction of sex, color or condition, sect or religion".
Sojourner Truth, a former slave who became a nationally known advocate for equality and justice, was a member of this community (she had moved to Florence in 1843). After the community dissolved in 1846, she bought a house on Park Street, where she lived until 1857. A memorial statue was erected in her honor in Florence in 2002. The business was Northampton's largest employer for decades. in Boston, Massachusetts September-October 1881 In 1855,
Samuel L. Hill, the spiritual leader of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, invented a machine that could spin silk smooth enough to be used in
sewing machines. After the commune dissolved, Hill took over the factory and ran it as the Nonotuck Silk Company. Hill's home at 31-35 Maple Street in Florence served as a stop for the
Underground Railway. The company changed its name again and as the Corticelli Silk Company grew to be one of the world's largest producers of silk thread. The thread was made with raw silk imported from
Japan. In
New York City, the Corticelli logo—a kitten playing with a spool of thread—loomed over Broadway from a huge electrical sign at 42nd Street between 1910 and 1913. In 1922, the Nonotuck Silk Company and the Brainerd and Armstrong Company merged and ten years later the Corticelli Silk Company merged with the Belding-Hemingway Company. The company went out of business in 1930.
Grove Hill Mansion was built in 1880 for one of the company's directors. The
Smithsonian Museum of American History has a collection of their trade catalogs. ==Gallery==