Description: Looping department on the second floor of Durham Silk Hosiery Mill.  The man in the picture is “Buck” Buchanan, a “fixer”—the person who maintained the machines. The loopers, who are pictured, received one stocking at a time rolled up in a long string. (If you ironed it out, it would be flat, since it had no seams yet.) The loopers put the stitches at the toe end on a round wheel of needles, and the machine knit the toe seam, joining it front to back. It then went to seamers to do a seam up the back. Stockings with a seam up the back were called “full-fashioned." The building was located at the corner of Corcoran and Ramseur streets on the former site of the Hotel Carrolina.

Subjects: Business enterprises -- North Carolina -- Durham

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Filename: P0697