Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Friend Paper and American Envelope Companies West Carrollton OH, through the lens of Noah Elwood Weaver


  
Noah Elwood Weaver, with his large format camera, around 1913-14 when he was first employed as a clerk at Friend Paper Company in West Carrollton.  This photo was improved and used in a book of the 1913 Flood in the Miami River Valley, also featuring photos by Andy Snow in 2013.


Here is a valley panorama taken by NEW around 1920 of the Friend Paper, American Envelope Complex.  With the prevailing winds from the west, I discern this is taken from the southeast looking northwest toward the city of West Carrollton.  By Noah Elwood Weaver.


CA 1915 Office Staff of Friend Paper Company on the front steps.  Noah Elwood Weaver is standing on the steps. 
 
CA 1914 photo labeled on the back "Morris Ellsworth first wife". I found that Harry Morris Ellsworth  in the 1910 Census lived with his parents on Main St in WC.  The 1914 city directory has him living at 505 N Main St WC and working as a clerk for NRC.    He was in the military in 1915 and married another woman Flora Sheen in Virginia in 1918.  

 Interior of West Carrollton Paper Company.


 Interior of Paper Company.  Notice the bare footed men working.  (OSHA approved footware? :-)
 Men sitting on vents on top of a paper mill building.
 The American Envelope Company building West Carrollton by NEW


Interior of American Envelope With Women working with machines invented in 1924 by the president of the company, Carlton W. Smith, according to a researcher Kellen Diamanti, who contacted me June 30, after finding this image doing a Google Search ---I found a tiff file that likely is a high enough resolution to go into a book about entitled, Stamp of the Century about the inverted Jenny,  
1 mistake
   100 stories about
       the Inverted Jenny





 Papermill series, construction in West Carrollton, written on back of photo.  No date, by NEW

Completed project, with paper slurry in the West Carrollton Paper Mill, photo by Noah Elwood Weaver

2 comments:

  1. Good morning sir, very interesting entry of yours as I grew up in West Carrollton and still live in the miami valley ( Xenia currently ) When I was a teen in the 80s my friends and I always walked the edge of the tracks to cross town fastest on foot. We were always intrigued by this super old building right next to the tracks and just inside Miami papers fence. Believe it or not the old Friend paper co office building still stands! I am a local social media contributor and have multiple platforms where I cover local area points of interest, local historic spots and exploration of forgotten sites. My format is that I am an FAA Certified UAV photographer/videographer( drone videos )and recently I did a small flight of the old office e building where I noticed the buildings name on the lentil of the front steps as "the Friend paper Co". Well a quick web search brought me to your post and loads of I formation that I think many of us locals were lost to!..mainly the old paper plants original name and much of its initial history and the families you detailed..thanks for this as it has further fueled my desire to shine a spotlight on this historic old building! In closing i just have a question, I wish to produce a video conveying some of the history you have shared and I wanted to about gaining your permission to do so with full credits to you and your post as source. I also wanted to ask if you were the owner of these images as I would like to also use a brief clip of a couple of them for historic context in my video..again with full contributing credit. My media pages and video channel are not monetized and i only produce my local content for eductional/editorial uses. As a content creator in today's world I feel its imperative,as well as required, to satisfy all permission requirements when it comes to posting information and possible copy written materials! Even though I'm a small guy that does it just for local history reasons, it is the real world out there and even us little guys need to take the proper steps. Again thanks and feel free to comment back or even reach out via email...dansab73@gmail.com..at your convenience, I'd love to share the awesome information, and if possible a couple images with the local area pertaining to the history of this great old budding and site!

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  2. I have one of your envelopes with a clasp. I have a document that it was placed in at about 1933. Still in good shape with a bit of crumbling around the edges but still recognizable and serving at it should. It contained an historic screenplay to refute Birth of a Nation. Sadly, it never made the screen but your envelope protected it for more than one hundred years. Thanks.

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