Bruno J. Falanga Papers

Bruno J. Falanga born in Lawrence on June 11, 1919, son of the late Frank and Christina Maria (Zappala) Falanga. Bruno attended Lawrence Public Schools and was a graduate of Lawrence High School, Class of 1938, a graduate of Merrimack College in 1955 where he served on the President's Council, Northeastern University, Emory University and Wentworth Institute of Technology. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and had assignments at various locations in the United States and overseas. His final assignment was with the 18th Medical General Laboratory with headquarters in Hawaii holding the rank of Staff Sergeant. He participated in the invasion of Leyte and was awarded the Philippine invasion ribbon with three battle stars. He was honorably discharged in 1946 and returned to Lawrence. Following the service, he supervised a clinical laboratory at Harvard Research Center on Longwood Avenue, Boston. Later, he was offered a position as a chemist at the Corporate Laboratory of the American Woolen Company, One Mill Street, Lawrence. Western Electric Co., Merrimack Valley Works offered him a position in the Engineering Development Department and later was promoted to Senior Engineer. Bruno was assigned to the Bell Laboratories in North Andover because of his strong background and experience in process development and materials. Bruno was a nominee for Engineering Excellence Program at Western Electric, Merrimack Valley Works in January 1971. During his active years, he was awarded six patents and authored and co-authored many technical papers. He retired in 1983 from Alcatel-Lucent after the divesture of the Bell System.

The American Woolen Company was established in 1899 under the leadership of William M. Wood and his father-in-law Frederick Ayer through the consolidation of eight financially troubled New England woolen mills. At the company's height in the 1920s, it owned and operated 60 woolen mills across New England. It is most known for its role in the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912.

The American Woolen Company was the product of the era of trusts. Overproduction, competition and poor management had brought the New England textile industry to its knees by the 1890s. In particular, family trusts, the main shareholders of many of the mills, insisted on receiving high dividends instead of making necessary capital improvements. Frederick Ayer, successful Lowell merchant, purchased the Washington Mills in Lawrence, MA, and hired his son-in-law, William M. Wood to run it. Wood had already successfully turned around a bankrupt mill in Fall River. With Ayer's financial backing, Wood brought together various under-performing mills in the aim of reducing competition and increasing prices. He convinced investors to permit profits to be reinvested into new plants and machinery.

In 1901, the company purchased the failing Burlington Mills in Winooski, VT, and restored their profitability. These mills closed in 1954.

In 1905, the American Woolen Company built the largest mill in the world, the Wood Mill in Lawrence, followed by the neighboring Ayer Mill in 1909. The Ayer mill's 22 foot diameter 4-sided clocktower is only a foot smaller than Big Ben and purportedly only second to it in size in the world (among chiming 4-sided clocktowers).

Following the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike, the AWC was forced to increase wages. The company reached its apogee in the 1920s, when it controlled 20%25 of the country's woolen production. Most of these mill operations had started as 100%25 water-powered, but added coal-fueled steampower in the late 1800s as demand exceeded what could be provided by water alone. However, even though technology was continually updated, these unionized New England mills were unable to compete with non-unionized Southern mills able to produce staple woolen products, such as blankets, more cheaply. Additionally, fashions changed with the introduction of polyester and rayon, and demand for worsted wool plummeted by the mid-1920s. The two world wars were a boon to the AWC, keeping the company prosperous into 1945. American Woolen Company ranked 51st among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.