The Ahlfield Women & their Famous Pants

A block-long, three-story brick complex stands between South and Water Streets in Mayfield, Kentucky [8].  Flat brick pilasters break up the great expanses of wall, and an arched entranceway once welcomed hundreds of employees into one of the largest clothing factories in the nation [3, 8].  The Merit Pant Company (also called the Mayfield Pants Company) opened its doors on October 1, 1899 [8,9].  Within a year, the company moved from an upper story workroom to the large brick factory, emblazoned with the company’s logo, now faded to near invisibility [8].  A stone plaque above the entry identified D.R. Merritt as the president, and Z.T. Long and the vice-president [8].

The Merit Clothing Company, as it would eventually come to be known, produced men’s suits and pants under the brand name Style-Mart.  By 1923, an estimated 7,500 merchants sold Style-Mart suits, and over a million men wore them [8].  The legendary actress, Joan Crawford, named one of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema, was selected to serve as a spokeswoman for Style-Mart suits, appearing in print advertisements across the country [1,14].

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A 1948 Style-Mart advertisement featuring Joan Crawford in Esquire magazine.

 

By 1938, Merit and its sister company, Curlee, employed over 1,800 men and women in the Mayfield area, including many of our family members[5].  Ahlfield sisters Golda Jane, Ella Augusta, and Minnie Maye were proud employees of Merit Clothing Company for many years [2,4,6,7,10].  Golda’s daughter, Lola Jane Bateman (née Rogers), explains that Merit was “just a close place to work, and a good place.”  Golda had started work at the Andover Clothing Company off Highway 45, between Paducah and Mayfield, but transferred to the coat department at Merit out of convenience.  Ella and Maye both worked in the pant department, where Maye was eventually promoted to “floor lady”, overseeing the whole shop [10].  Maye would stay involved with the company even after her retirement, serving as the president of the Style-Mart Retirement Club [7].  Lola began work at Merit when she was twenty, after brief stints as a cashier at Kroger and a nurse’s aide.  As the mother of two young children, she happily took advantage of the company’s club house – a free day care service for the children of employees.  Lola worked as a utility person in the coat department with her mother, doing a little bit of everything.  She would also work in payroll and the advertising department [10].  Lola’s father, Lowell Ralph Rogers, Sr., even worked as a machinist for the company for a while in the late 1940s [13].

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An advertisement for Style-Mart suits from The Miami News of Miami, Florida from 1954.

 

Other than providing decidedly progressive childcare services, Merit Clothing Company threw regular parties for employees and their families.  Lola recounts a particularly enjoyable Halloween party where she dressed as a witch, waking up early and having her husband paint her face before work.  She won the costume contest that year!  The president of the company at the time, Willie Foster, also threw Christmas and Fourth of July parties at his barn [10].  The Ahlfield sisters would often save leftover scraps of suit material, sewing them into quilts on large frames built by Golda’s husband.  The women would often create five or six quilts by hand over the course of a single winter! [2]

Minnie Maye Clark (née Ahlfield), third from the left, retired from the Merit Clothing Company in spring 1975 after working for many years as a floor lady.
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Golda Jane Rogers (née Ahlfield), left, retired from the Merit Clothing Company in the spring of 1975 after working for nearly forty years as a seamstress in the pant department.

In 1942, the Merit Clothing Company appeared in a disparaging article in The Typographical Journal.  Between advertisements for defense bonds and stamps – “The purchase of Defense Bonds and Stamps is the patriotic duty of every loyal American.  Buy ‘em.” – the author stated that the company was “adamant in their refusal to bargain collectively with employes [sic].  “Style Mart” and “Curlee Clothes” are the respective brand names that unionists should refuse to look for when purchasing.” [12]  This refusal to work with unions would be the ultimate downfall of Merit and Curlee.  Lola recalls that the company repeatedly voted against “going union.”  Merit eventually shuttered its doors in the late 1970s and moved to the Dominican Republic [8,10].  Once the big factories closed, Lola and other newly-unemployed Merit seamstresses got jobs at a blue jeans company nearby, but the great brick factory still stands in downtown Mayfield [8,10].  In 2012, Mayor Teresa Cantrell commissioned a mural to pay tribute to Mayfield’s once-booming garment industry.  A 1967 graduate of Mayfield High School, Rudy Holmes, designed a 35-by-17-foot homage to the Merit and Curlee companies that once employed so many of the town’s citizens 11].  While Mayfield is no longer nationally known for its clothing industry, countless residents maintain fond memories of their town’s bygone claim to fame.

A mural created by Rudy Holmes paying tribute to the Merit, Curlee, and Andover clothing companies that helped make Mayfield, Kentucky, a clothing capital of the United States in the early 20th century. The mural was installed on the former Merit Clothing Company building in downtown Mayfield in 2012.

How Are We Related?

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Family Tree Maker ® Relationship Calculator for my paternal grandmother, Golda Jane Ahlfield, and me.  I have blurred out the information of living individuals, as well as my own personal information.  Golda’s sisters, Ella and Maye, also mentioned in this post, are my great aunts.

Sources

  1. “Joan Crawford.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Dec. 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Crawford.
  2. Barbara E. Rogers. Oral interview, 10 December 2017, by Elizabeth J. Rogers. Partial transcription in the possession of Elizabeth J. Rogers, Anchorage, Alaska.
  3. City of Mayfield Activity Book: The History of Mayfield. City of Mayfield, 2012, http://www.mayfieldky.gov/pdf/Mayfield-Kids-Activity-Book_History.pdf.
  4. Ella Blake obituary, Weakley, Tennessee, The Weakley County Press, 23 October 2007.
  5. Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Projects Administration for the State of Kentucky. “The WPA Guide to Kentucky.” The WPA Guide to Kentucky, edited by F. Kevin Simon, University Press of Kentucky, 1996, p. 323.
  6. Find A Grave <www.findagrave.com>, Record of Golda Jane “Goldie” Ahlfield Rogers, created by: Ms Betty, record added: Jan 05, 2012, Find A Grave Memorial #83016890. [Birth: 1913; Death: 1998; Burial: Mayfield Memory Gardens, Mayfield, Graves County, Kentucky, USA]
  7. Find A Grave <www.findagrave.com>, Record of Minnie Maye Ahlfield Clark, created by: Craig Thweatt, record added: Oct 12, 2010, Find A Grave Memorial #60030094. [Birth: 1907; Death: 2002; Burial: Mayfield Memory Gardens, Mayfield, Graves County, Kentucky, USA]
  8. Holland, Richard. “Mayfield Downtown Commercial District.” National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination Form. Paducah-McCracken County Growth, Inc., Paducah, Kentucky, August 16, 1984.
  9. Kleber, John E. “Graves County.” The Kentucky Encyclopedia, University of Kentucky Press, 1992, p. 384.
  10. Lola J. Bateman. Oral interview, 10 December 2017, by Elizabeth J. Rogers. Partial transcription in the possession of Elizabeth J. Rogers, Anchorage, Alaska.
  11. Office of Mayor Cantrell. “Mayfield’s Newest Mural a Tribute to Garment Industry.” West Kentucky Journal, 15 June 2012, westkyjournal.com/news.php?viewStory=4508.
  12. Randolph, Woodruff, editor. “Organize!” The Typographical Journal, C, no. 2, 5 Feb. 1942, p. 169., books.google.com.
  13. Record of Birth for Lowell Ralph Rogers, 19 Apr 1949, File No. 22171, Commonwealth of Kentucky, Bureau of Vital Statistics, copy in the possession of editor.
  14. Skyvue. (2009, February 26). Style-Mart, anyone? [Online Forum Comment]. Messages posted to http://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/style-mart-anyone.26319/

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