BEACON STYLE

So it seems that lately,the southwest,navajo,pendleton, beacon,trade blanket style ,has been all the rage.So i've decided to do a small post about it .......enjoy 

The Beacon Manufacturing Company was located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and originally they made reprocessed yarn. In 1904, the company was bought by the Owen family, who really began the blanket manufacturing business. In 1923 while searching for a location for their spinning operation,they decided to settled in Swannanoa, a farming community about ten miles east of Asheville, North Carolina. Ten years later they began the move to take the entire operation to North Carolina. At that time Beacon was the largest blanket maker in the world.

So you'd ask,"why did Beacon leave Massachusetts for the South?" The simple answer is that it was cheaper to do business than in the North.First,they'd be closer to the source of their raw material  [cotton], so they'll save on transportation costs,but mostly because wages were much lower in the South. Labor unions were almost unheard of and jobs were so hard to come by,that workers developed a strong loyalty to the company its owners. This was not just true at Beacon but to any "mill towns" all over the South.That's why,in the early 20th century many Northern entrepreneurs moved their company south........

Prior to 1932 Beacon was using images of American Indians weaving blankets in their advertising,until the Federal Trade Commission and the Navajo Indian tribe filed a complaint saying:"the advertising was misleading and injurious to real Indian weavers".  The company was ordered to stop using Indian images, and they had to make clear that the blankets were not woven/created by Native Americans.

During WWII like many other companies, Beacon switched it's prod to wool/cotton blend blankets for the war effort.As many of the workers left to join the military, their jobs were filled by women of the community.......

After the war Beacon went back to cotton only blankets.In the 1950s, however, the company began adding rayon to the cotton.  At the same time, the ombre weaves were discontinued, as they could not be woven on newly installed machinery.  By the time the  plant closed in 2002, they were making blankets out of acrylic.......

SOON ON RIVETED....

RESCUED.....WW2 PARATROOPER JUMP BOOTS

What we have here today,is a pair of newly rescued ww2 CORCORAN jump boots.I found them at a yard sale,last week, for such a ridiculous price that i couldn't pass.Real ww2 paratrooper boots are getting so hard to find nowadays that it was worth the effort.Kinda like their patina now ....

The paratrooper boots were ,of course ,designed for a purpose and not fashion.their fonction ,was to give extra ankle support for rough parachute landings It's around 1941 ,that  Lieutenant Colonel Yarborough created them for the 501st Parachute Test Battalion.He's also credited for designing the actual Parachutists Jump Wings, the M-1942 Jump uniform and also various other airborne equipments......

The boots were unique at the time in the US armed forces ,in the sense that they were calf length and completely leather. The reason why this was so unique was that up until this point, American soldiers were issued low-quarter or ankle boots with canvas leggings as a protection against mud /water and so on ..... 

The jump boots became a symbol of the airborne soldiers and were highly sought after by other non-airborne soldiers.Even if they were manufactured by several other companies during the war, it seems that the COCORAN boots won the "ribbon"among troopers and nowadays military collectors.They were so desired that during the war, non-airborne soldiers,would just about trade anything to get a hold on them. This would also cause some fights between real troopers and those who would wear them on leave...... 

CORCORAN Boots was once privately owned and had facilities in Stoughton Massachusetts.The company became well-known for making military combat and jump boots used in World War II and thereafter. At some point in its history,the Corcoran Shoe Company was purchased by Acme Boot of Clarksville,Tennessee.In 1992 Acme sold Corcoran to the Cove Shoe Company of Martinsburg, Pennsylvania. Cove Shoe is a division of H.H. Brown Company. Cove being a manufacturer of private labels and branded footwear.....

In 1944, around the time of Operation Market Garden in Holland, the boots were replaced by the “Double Buckle” M-1943 Combat Boots. Many paratroopers retained their jump boots and continued to wear them until the end of the war and during the early years of Germany and Japan’s occupation. Although the American military had converted to the buckle boots at the end of the war, the popularity and durability of the Jump Boots was hard to ignore and eventually an adapted version, without slanted heels,among other mods, were issued to all soldiers in the Korean War....