MANCHESTER HISTORICAL SOCIETY

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Historic Places
Susan Barlow

The Cheney Silk Mills

THE CHENEY SILK MILLS By Susan Barlow, Manchester Historical Society Beginning in 1838, Cheney Brothers built the silk mills that made Manchester famous and drew workers from throughout the United States and Europe. During the second Industrial Revolution (1860-1890), the Cheney business prospered, and eventually became the largest silk manufacturer

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Historic People
Susan Barlow

Gladys Adams, Historian (1910-2001)

This article about Gladys Adams appeared July 23, 1992 in The Manchester Extra, a weekly insert in The Hartford Courant after the closing of The Manchester Herald in 1991. Gladys’s obituary says, “She retired as a statistical typist in 1971, working for Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturer, Manchester, and Pratt &

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Historic Places
Susan Barlow

Bon Ami – “Hasn’t Scratched Yet”

Compiled by Jim Hall from various sources noted below Excerpted from: “The History of Manchester, Connecticut” by Mathias Spiess and Percy Bidwell, 1924 The Orford Soap Company. The most widely known of Manchester’s products, with the exception of the Cheney silks, is Bon Ami (“Good Friend”), the cleanser manufactured by

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