Augustus D. Juilliard is best remembered as the millionaire music lover and philanthropist whose death in 1919 led to the founding of the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. But he was the son of immigrants, and in his 1930s, worked in the garment industry in NYC for a textile manufacturer with mills in Fulton, New York. When they went bankrupt in 1874, he bought what remained of the company, and started A.D. Juilliard & Co, making high-end woolens, as well as importing and distributing other textiles. Juilliard Woolen Mills expanded elsewhere in New York State during the panic of 1893, with the purchase of another bankrupt mill in Stottville. Juilliard Woolens did well through the first half of the 20th century. Their registered trademark was “Fine fabrics are the foundation of fashion”, and garments made with their fabrics were sold at high-end department stores including Bonwit Teller, Frederick & Nelson, Lord & Taylor, and J.W. Robinson. The fabrics were also available by the yard to home sewers. Juilliard Woolens went out of business in 1953, and the mills were shut down, at a time when the textile industry was foundering in the northeastern US.
Written by MagsRags Vintage
