Antique & Vintage Postcards

Brilliant turquoise canal water reflects the massive brick facade of the Wood Worsted Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts — claimed at the time of its construction to be the largest worsted wool mill in the entire world, and rendered here in vivid linen-era color lithography that makes the industrial colossus look almost like a palace. The card's bold caption boasts the staggering statistics printed right on the image: 1,300,000 sq. ft. of floor space, cost $3,500,000, and 5,000 employees — a monument to the American Wool Trust and the ambitions of William Wood, who built it between 1905 and 1906 along the canal system that powered Lawrence's mills. Published by the American Art Post Card Co. of Boston in their "C.T. American Art Colored" linen process, this unused example retains vivid color, a striking artifact of a mill city at its industrial peak before the textile industry's long decline.