| Life Story |
Arthur Stephenson Howatt was born in Eureka, California (one record cites Yreka, California, but this seems to be an error) on November 26, 1906 to sawyer James G. Howatt and his wife Ada. His father died when he was very young, by the age of 13, he had moved to Portland where his mother supported the family working as a nurse for private patients.
Howatt worked in a large number of textile mills all around the western United States. He gifted a collection of textile books to the Willamette Heritage Center. In them, he wrote where he was working when he acquired the book and we can trace a sort of resume between the books and other source materials (see timeline below).
After working at the Thomas Kay Woolen Mills in Salem, he got accepted to a textile college program in Lowell, Massachusetts. He was given a blanket as a parting gift from other employees at the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill. The blanket is now in the WHC’s collections.
TIMELINE BASED OFF OF BOOK INSCRIPTIONS
1924 – Kirkland Woolen Mills, Kirkland, Washington
1927 – Long Beach California
1927-28 – Santa Anna Woolen Mills, Santa Ana California
1930 – Oregon City Woolen Mills
1932-34 – Thomas Kay Woolen Mills, Salem
1934-38 – Textile Program in Lowell, Massachusetts
1938-1939 – Washougal, Washington (Printed in the Columbian 09 Sept 1938 – Arthur S. Howatt, woolen mill worker and manager of a small handweaving business developed in Washougal, announced he would go on the road to sell his products in Oregon and Washington).
1940- Wyoming State Penitentiary Woolen Mill
1941—West Texas Woolen Mills, Eldorado, Schleicher County, Texas
1942 – Santa Ana, California
1946 – New Brunfields, Texas
1950-51 – General Manager of the Harrisburg Woolen Mills (Linn County, Oregon)
In researching Howatt’s life, we came across a beautifully written biographical article in Handwoven Magazine written by Constance LaLena for the May/June 1988 (pp 32-35 — Copy can be found in scrapbook in WHC Collections MMMA.200.0006 pg 120) It is excerpted here:
The was a time when small textile mills dotted the West. From Washington to Texas and from California to Utah, mills provided a ready market for locally grown fiber and products such as rugs, draperies, blankets, and fabrics….Art Howatt has lived the history of weaving in the West –he has seen it all. From the turn-of-the-century mills to a home industry, he has been a part of much of it. As a child he was interested in “everything”, and his interest was nurtured in the public library, where he had his first exposure to weaving books via a book about coverlets. A fourth-generation Californian, he is now well past 80 years old, but he was still in knee pants when he left home and won a job at the Oregon City Woolen Mills in Oregon City, Oregon. There were two weave rooms at that water-powered mill: the main weave room with 100 looms, and a smaller weave room with seven looms which had come by sailing ship around Cape Horn right after the Civil War. This was the training room – it was called “Jacob’s College” — where youngsters were trained before being sent to the main weave room. They wove Hudson’s Bay-type blankets and Phoenix blankets (made of shoddy yarn, a woolen yarn made form combining shredded wool rags and some new wool).
Howatt later migrated farther north to the Kirkland Woolen Mills in Washington, but that job ended when the mill burned about the same time his mother died in California. Art was now the sole support of his two sisters. He sent for them and found work at the Portland Woolen Mill in Portland, Oregon; but soon found that being “head of the family” on his measly pay was impossible. He heard that weavers were being hired in Eureka, California. He had some family members there, too, so he traveled what is now known as the Redwood Highway from Grants Pass, Oregon, to Eureka, California….An uncle brought Art’s sisters to join him in Eureka, but the job in the mill there was short-lived. Art was not yet 18. When the mill superintendent found out his real age, Art was fired, because 18 was the minimum age for working with mill machinery.
So it was back to Portland to work, where no one asked about his age. There followed a succession of jobs during the next several years—weaving when he could and supplementing income with other work when there were no weaving jobs. He worked fishing boats in Alaska, ranches in Texas, and logging camps and sawmills in northern California. The list of textile mills is fascinating, because it tells of regional diversity that no longer exists. Howatt worked in mills in Salem, Oregon; Kirkland, Washington; Stanton, Eureka, Long Beach, Downieville, Santa Ana and Oakland, California; and Provo, Utah. In a cotton mill in Oakland, he worked for the first time on a Jacquard loom. Art was always interested in the entire process of textile production and was eager to learn. During those years, he worked at the Thomas Kay mill three or four times at different intervals and eventually was promoted to night superintendent.
But still Art wanted to learn more, so he decided to go to college, a rather ambitious goal for one who hardly had been to high school. In 1933, he applied to Lowell Textile College in Lowell, Massachusetts. The school had been founded by a Quaker in the mid-1800s. In those Depression years of the 1930s, there weren’t many students, and the school was willing to accept him without high-school credentials. He arrived in Lowell with just enough money to get started and promptly spent the money on a bicycle. During the school term and summers, he found plenty of work in the mills in Lowell, for he could weave samples, a specialized and sought-after skill. Because of his prior work experience in textile mills, he was able to complete two years’ study in one. Two years after that, in 1936, Art had earned a degree in textile engineering. He left Lowell with a Cord automobile and $1000 he had saved. Now, instead of working in the mills he began to build them. One of the first he built after becoming an engineer was at the Wyoming State Penitentiary, and others followed in Texas and in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. But Art had always wanted to start his own mill. He had started his first weaving business in 1931, when he bought three surplus looms. Later he was a partner in a small mill in Texas but sold his interest when World War II began. In 1946, fresh out of the Marines, he moved to Los Angeles. He built a mill in Hermosa Beach but was more determined than ever to have one of his own…..This time, Art’s thoughts turned toward the really tiny. The couple bought a lemon grove in Whittier, a once-Quaker settlement east of Los Angeles, and Art began to build a small building to house his weaving business. Though that property was a lemon grove, it had been zoned industrial by the city of Whittier; however, before Art could finish his building, the city rezoned the land to agricultural. But he continued to build and completed the facility for his “home weave shop” amid complaints and official visits from zoning enforcers. Eventually, Art was able to convince them that his intent pre-dated the zoning, and that his shop constituted a legal non-conforming use. The tongue-in-cheek sign he posted on the outside wall of his shop may have helped:
THIS FACTORY is legally located and operated by Arthur S. Howatt, textile engineer. It operates Day and Night with considerable noise.
The shop (art sill calls it a “mill”) that the Howatts built was a cottage industry in the classic sense of the word. Small and unobtrusive in the rural surroundings, there was just room for the warping equipment and four looms. The looms Art chose were Compton-Knowles 4×4 pick and pick, intermediate head power looms. They were built between 1895 and 1910 and relate more to hand looms of the last century than to the high-speed electronic looms of today. One loom was wide enough to weave coverlets in a single width, and other narrower looms were used for tablecloths, place mats, skirt lengths, and dishtowels.
Once the business was established the Howatts found their markets where they could. The great southern California growth boom after World War II provided ready markets for their goods, which were sold directly from a sales room near the shop. They also wholesaled some goods, but decided that some wholesale situations were to be avoided, after a major department store bought just enough of their items to send to Hong Kong to be copied. Art began weaving overshot first as borders on skirt lengths. Later he wove tablecloths and coverlets entirely of overshot. They advertised the coverlets in several magazines catering to early American homes and lifestyles and built a respectable mail-order business as Viola Howatt’s Home Weave Shop.
In addition to selling the woven goods, Viola also sold yarn to handweavers, especially to the college students from nearby Costa Mesa. And for two years during the 1950s, Viola ran a handweaving shop at Knott’s Berry Farm; in fact she has always held some sort of outside job in addition to handling the business end of the weaving shop and hand-hemming all the tablecloths and coverlets that were produced.
Although Viola and Art have always been scrupulous about never calling their textiles handwoven (they refer to them as homewoven), one wonders why it should matter at all. To Art it truly doesn’t — his fabrics are woven using exactly the same methods as “handweaving” and of the same materials. The textile engineer is quick to tell anyone who asks that there’s no difference at all in their structure…. |
| WHC Materials |
BlanketM3 1985-003-0009 given to Arthur Howatt in 1934 when he left the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill to go to college in Lowell, Massachusetts, by Thomas Kay Woolen Mill Employees.
Newspaper Clipping M3 2007-001-0005. Includes image of Howatt demonstrating the operation of a loom at the West Texas Woolen Mills, Eldorado, Schleicher County, Texas.
BOOKS
Woolen and Worsted Spinning, 1909 M3 1985-003-0008. Book belonging to Arthur S. Howatt (356 N. Capitol ST Salem). Gifted to him in 1933 from McGregor, formerly superintendent of Thomas Kay Woolen Mills in Salem. Note from Howatt inscribed in book: “I worked under McGregor at the Santa Anna Woolen Mills in Santa Ana California in 1927-28.
The Finishing of Textile Fabrics, 1909 M3 1985-003-0007. Inscribed “Property of Arthur S. Howatt 113 Daisy Ave, Long Beach, California August 1927.
Wool, 1924 M3 1985-003-0006 . Book belonged to Arthur S. Howatt (embossed with his name).
Calculations for Textile Work, 1936 M3 1985-003-0002. Inscribed “Property of Arthur S. Howatt. Wyoming State Penitentiary Woolen Mill April 1940. I was employed by the State of Wyoming to install machinery and operate the mill.”
Management of Textile Business, 1938 M3 1985-015-0010 . Inscribed “Arthur S. Howatt, Washougal, Washington, December 1939.”
Textile Costing: An Aid to Management, 1938 M3 1985-015-0009. Inscribed “Arthur S. Howatt, Washougal, Washington, December 1939”
Classing the Clip, 1931 M3 1985-015-0007. Inscription: “Property of Arthur S. Howatt, Gift of 1939 from Herbert Seymour, Superintendent of the Ipswich Woolen Mills, Ipswich, Queensland, Australia.”
Textile Industries: An Economic Analysis, 1938 M3 1985-015-0011. “Inscribed property of Arthur S. Howatt, Washougal Washington, December 1939”
The Marketing of Textiles, 1938 M3 1985-015-0012. Inscription on inside of front cover reads: “Property of Arthur S. Howatt, Washougal, Wahsington December 1939.”
International Library of Technology Textile Designing, 1949 M3 1985-015-0005. Inscription “Property of Arthur S. Howatt 11527 Stamy Road, La Mirada, California. Acquired during my stay in Rawlins, Wyoming.”
American Wool Handbook, 1938 M3 1985-015-0008
A Guide to Textiles, 1939 M3 1985-003-001
International Library of Technology Woolen Yarn and Warp Preparation, 1931 M3 1985-003-0003. Inscription reads: “Property of Arthur S. Howatt, New Brunfeilds, Texas, January 1946. Gift of Bob Pint
International Library of Technology: Yarns, Cloth Rooms and Mill Engineering, 1906 M3 1985-003-0004 . Inscription reads: Arthur S. Howatt, Kirkland, Washington, May 1924
Woolen and Worsted Finishing, 1909 M3 1985-003-0005. Inscription reads property of Arthur S. Howatt 356 N. Capitol St, Salem, Oregon. 1933. Gift of McGregor, formerly supt. of Thos Kay Woolen Mills in Salem. I worked under McGregor at the Santa Ana Woolen Mills In Santa Ana, California in 1927-28.
Tools
M3 1991-024-0001. Wood handle with metal blade much wider than handle. Slightly curved – looks like blunt wood-chisel. used for tapping card clothing into position when re-clothing set of cards. Used by Arthur Howatt, who once worked at T. Kay Mill.
M3 1991-024-0002 . Handmade using slices of leather for handle, bolt and nut, gate hook. Called spool stripper – for stripping extra roving off card spools after removing from the spinning mule. Used by Arthur Howatt, who once worked at T. Kay Mill.
M3 1991-024-0003. Wood handle with incised ring, 1 rivet, metal ring clamping handle to hook. Hook is rounded metal, flattened after arch. No cutting edge. Called card clothing wire stripper for feathering card cloth at edges of cylinders, workers, and strippers. Used by Arthur Howatt, who once worked at T. Kay Mill.
Tack Hammer M3 1991-024-0004. For tacking card clothing to edges of cylinders, workers, strippers on card. Used by Arthur Howatt, who once worked at T. Kay Mill.
M3 1991-024-0005. Homemade – loop of wire set into bolt – handle of slices of leather. Splicer for hollow spindle band for mules. It makes a knotter’s joining. Used by Arthur Howatt, who once worked at T. Kay Mill.
Biographical Article. MMMA.200.0006 (In Scrapbook). |
