Buster Brown cardboard display, undated (CHC-1996-066-019). United Hosiery Mills records. Courtesy of the Chattanooga Public Library and UTC Special Collections.
A new state grant is helping the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library’s Special Collections make the story of United Hosiery Mills—a Chattanooga textile powerhouse for nearly a century—accessible to the public, with the assistance of student research.
Special Collections received a $1,900 State Board Programming Regrant from the Tennessee Historical Records Advisory Board to digitize materials from the United Hosiery Mills records. These funds are made available by the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.
United Hosiery Mills began in 1904, when brothers Frank L. Miller and G.H. Miller moved from running a local store to textile manufacturing as the industry expanded. The company was one of the first to purchase the rights to the then-familiar Buster Brown character, created by comic artist Richard Outcault.
They used Buster Brown to sell clothing directly to children.
“The Miller brothers went to the World’s Fair where Outcault was selling the trademark. They were some of the first to buy it,” said junior Trinity Anthony, a Brock Scholar in UTC’s Honors College. “Frank L. Miller Jr. realized the baby boom was happening, so they completely redid their whole brand and just made children’s clothing. And that was revolutionary for the company.”
Anthony, an art history major from Knoxville, Tennessee, joined the project through the UTC Library’s Honors Specialist program, which gives undergraduate students research experience in the library. In her months of sorting through the material, she has learned the history of United Hosiery Mills inside and out.
“For a year I went through the metadata,” Anthony said. “I looked through over 500 items in the collection and created a draft for a finding aid. And then I did a presentation for the (Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavor) conference.”
Anthony said the company provided jobs for decades and fueled the Chattanooga economy, including churches and sports leagues. The operations, however, left a lasting impact on the environment, as documented in the photographs and records in the collection.
“It had a huge impact environmentally, a negative impact,” she said. “I think it’s important to show because we have photos and materials that show the pollution coming from the mills.”
As she dug through the collection, she was surprised by just how early the company figured out how to market directly to children by using Buster Brown comics.
“Buster Brown comics would have these little blocks saying, ‘the best boys, the best girls wear…,’ and then you’d go to your local store and see that exact hat or jacket,” Anthony said. “I wouldn’t have thought advertising directly to kids started in 1904, but they advertised to kids with the comics.”
Guiding the project are Carolyn Runyon, director of Special Collections; Molly Copeland, the library’s manuscripts archivist; and Dr. Lisa Piazza, executive director of the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavor (URaCE).
Runyon said Anthony’s early research made the funding proposal possible.
“Trinity did all the pre-work. She inventoried the collection and helped communicate the historical significance of the materials for the grant proposal,” Runyon said. “Her background research made the application successful.”
She added that the project builds on work Special Collections has been doing for years.
“In the past, we’ve really been trying to focus on Chattanooga’s labor and industrial history, and this project is a continuation of that work,” she said. “It’s increasingly important because folks are redeveloping all these mill sites. This collection offers historic insight about Chattanooga’s built environment and part the use of Buster Brown to sell directly to children, which is so fascinating.”
Runyon emphasized that the help of students in leading and shaping this work is what makes it meaningful.
“Everything we do in Special Collections is collaborative, featuring many partners and players,” Runyon said.
Once digitized, the United Hosiery Mills records will be added to UTC Special Collections’ digital collections, where they will be available to anyone interested in exploring Chattanooga’s industrial past.
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