Gabriel 150 years - Flipbook - Page 18
called primarily for the dyeing, fulling and addition of dressing to frieze made in the country. From the beginning, Kjærs Mølle competed
with the A.P. Wibroe dye-works and fulling mill
in obtaining the cloth known as frieze for dyeing and fulling.
In ±π∂±, Wibroe had protested granting
Kjærs Mølle permission to dye the cloth made
by others – with good cause, as it turned out.
In the beginning, Wibroe was clearly in the
lead, and in ±π∂µ, his business finished more
than ≤≥,∞∞∞ meters of cloth compared to the
≥,∞∞∞ meters finished by Kjærs Mølle. But by
the end of the ±π∂∞s, the tables had turned,
and Kjærs Mølle had taken the lead.
The two companies conducted their competition in the local newspaper, Aalborg Stiftstidende, and it culminated in ±π∏≤ when Wibroe
offered to dye a length of cloth at less than half
Distinguished gentlemen keep track of figures and
the price charged by Kjærs Mølle. Even this
agreements. They wrote with pen and ink but also
was to no avail, and in ±π∏≥ Wibroe finished
used the typewriter in the foreground. The type-
only ∫,µ∞∞ meters of cloth, compared to the
writer had its breakthrough in the last decades of
≥≤,∑∞∞ meters finished by Kjærs Mølle. At the
the ±∫th century. Photograph from ±∫∞±.
end of the ±π∏∞s, Wibroe gave up and established instead a large cotton-spinning mill.
“... almost solely of Kersey and cloth of various
qualities, mixed-blue woollen or piece-dyed.
Customers who wanted to have their frieze fin-
The goods maintained this distinction for quite
ished delivered the goods to Kjærs Mølle’s
some time. As late as around ±π∏∞, these textiles
shop at Bispensgade ≤. From ±ππ≤, Kjærs Mølle
were used almost solely by farmers and the
rented out the shop, but the tenant was not
more common townspeople ...”
permitted to sell clothing and clothing fabric
As late as around ±∫∞∞, quantities of kersey
in competition with Kjærs Mølle’s own pro-
were still made, especially for uniforms, but the
ducts. This meant that while the only Danish
variety of patterns, colours and qualities in-
textiles sold were made by Kjærs Mølle’s, for-
creased steadily as the ±∫th century drew to a
eign-made goods were also available in the
close. This was due, in part, to improved equip-
shop. Only simple clothes could be sold, and
ment and also to progress within the dyeing in-
neither fashionable clothing nor bed linens
dustry. Until ±π∑∞, only vegetable colours
were stocked. From about ±π∫∂, townspeople
could be used, but as mineral-based colours
could also buy the factory’s own textiles in the
became available, countless new colour combi-
shop, Kjærs Mølles Udsalg, at Nytorv.
nations were possible.
In the anniversary volume published in ±∫∞±, a
As the finishing of home made frieze gradually
description of the goods manufactured in the
lost its importance, Kjærs Mølle’s own produc-
company’s first decades tells us they consisted
tion of woollen textiles became the life nerve of
1855-1898
19
