10 Keys to the City - Julius Forstmann Traditional Cache

10 Keys to the City - Julius Forstmann

In 1904 Julius Forstmann arrived in the United States from Germany with plans to set up a woolen mill. The 33-year old German established the Forstmann-Huffmann Woolen Mills of Passaic, New Jersey and before long was one of the leading figures in the industry. And one of the wealthiest.

Problems came as war clouds formed over Europe. Forstmann supplied woolen goods to Germany, which ended up in the construction of German Army uniforms. With the U.S. entry into the war in 1917, Forstmann’s plant was seized by the Alien Property Custodian and he was subpoenaed to appear before Deputy Attorney General Alfred L. Becker on April 2, 1918.

In his strong German accent, Forstmann declared himself “a loyal citizen of the United States” and denied any “German taint.”

Julius Forstmann was cleared of any suspicion of anti-American conduct and eventually regained control of his mills.

With the end of the war, things settled back to normal for Forstmann, whose fortune was growing daily. In 1922 he commissioned the famed mansion architect Charles P. H. Gilbert to design an imposing townhouse at 22 East 71st Street where millionaires like Robert Chesebrough (the inventor of Vaseline) had already settled.

The Passaic Textile Strike of 1926, remembered as one of the seminal events in American labor history in the decade of the 1920s, affected all the giant mills. The historical memory of the event has been enhanced due to its immortalization in film. Five of the seven reels of the film The Passaic Textile Strike have survived, with reels 5 and 7 missing.

Reel 5, which highlights the plight of the workers' children was missing from the negative acquired by The Library of Congress and was recently uncovered in a print acquired by New York University.

In 1928, Mr. Forstmann had amassed a fortune estimated at $50 million. In 1929, Forstmann had a custom yacht, the 333-foot Orion, constructed in the Kiel shipyards of Krupp. The ship arrived in September and, after seven weeks, the Forstmann family cruised around the world for seven months with a crew of over 50 while radioing orders back to his factory, business office in Manhattan, and his customers.

In 1938, Julius Forstmann became ill and died unexpectedly Oct. 27, 1939. His son, Curt E., assumed the presidency and carried the business forward.... Following the Second World War, business as usual resumed for these mills. In 1957, Forstmann Woolens became a part of J.P. Stevens & Co.

Today at this location, 195 Gregory Ave, the Passaic Public Library bears the name Julius Forstmann Library and stands as a monument to philanthropy.

http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2011/08/1923-julius-forstmann-mansion-no-22.html

http://www.textilehistory.org/JuliusForstmann.html

"The Passaic Textile Strike", Library of Congress online.