United Knitting Mills

1898 – absorbed

Founded: Incorporated September 1898, Fort Wayne. The contemporaneous Fort Wayne City Directory for 1900 (R. L. Polk & Co.) lists the firm with its incorporation stated in the listing itself: "United Knitting Mills, Cleveland and L E & W R R. Incorporated September, 1898. Capital, $50,000." A directory printed within two years of the event, giving month, capital and officers, is the strongest founding evidence for a firm of this size; the incorporation record itself was not sighted. The Immigrant Entrepreneurship biography of Theodore F. Thieme (German Historical Institute, based on Thieme's papers and Lockridge's 1942 biography) agrees on 1898: that year Thieme decided to venture into children's hosiery and his brother Frederick undertook the organisation of United Knitting Mills as a separate company.

Founders / officers: Organised by Frederick Thieme — Theodore's younger brother (born 1864; a third brother who had worked for a Philadelphia wholesale cloth house) — as a family partnership venture of Theodore F. Thieme (entry 29) — (biography). The 1900 directory's officers are W E Mossman, Pres; F J Thieme, Vice Pres; F L Hunting, Sec and Treas — carried exactly as printed; the initials are not expanded here, and whether the directory's "F J Thieme" is the organising brother Frederick (a Frederick Jr. named for his father Frederick John) is not established on the sources in hand and is not asserted.

What it did: Manufactured children's full-fashioned hosiery for Wayne Knitting Mills, sold under the trademark "Pony Stockings" (biography). Few makers attempted full-fashioned children's socks — they cost more than seamless ones and children wore them out fast — which was precisely the niche the firm took. The plant stood at Cleveland and the L.E.&W. Railroad (1900 directory) — a separate site from the Wayne Knitting Mills plant at Main and Growth, not a room in it.

Course: The Pony brand was in national advertising by October 1901 — : a Wayne Knitting Mills Shetland-pony guessing contest for buyers of "Wayne knit Pony stockings" ran in the New Philadelphia (Ohio) Democrat and Times of 10 October 1901 and in the Portland Morning Oregonian of October 1901, both contemporary advertisements. A near-contemporary trade account quoted in Slocum & Robertson's History of the Maumee River Basin (1905), from Textile World (February 1904), dates the issuing of the children's stockings under the new trademark to 1901 — carried here as the brand's launch year, which sits after the 1898 incorporation without contradicting it (the firm made children's hosiery from 1898; the trademark is dated 1901 by the trade account). Wayne Knit boasted Pony was "the best advertised brand of children's hose in America" — a company boast, carried as a claim, as a claim only (biography).

Fate: Absorbed into Wayne Knitting Mills — the purchase is documented, its date is not established. The biography states that Theodore Thieme later purchased his brother's mill and hired Frederick as superintendent of Wayne Knitting Mills; no year is given in any source in hand, and none is printed here. The Pony Stockings brand outlived the separate company: Fort Wayne accounts of the 1920s still describe Wayne Knitting Mills turning out pony socks for boys and girls (History Center / Hoch Associates accounts carried on ACGSI), so the brand's continuation is Wayne Knitting's course (entry 29), not evidence United survived as a separate firm. No later independent course, listing or closure notice for United Knitting Mills was found; directory work at ACPL for 1901–1915 is the route to settle it to a purchase date.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne, Indiana, city directory, 1900 (R. L. Polk & Co.), incorporated-companies listing (United Knitting Mills, Cleveland and L.E.&W. R.R.; incorporated September 1898; capital $50,000; Mossman / F. J. Thieme / Hunting officers) — https://ldsgenealogy.com/IN/books/Fort-Wayne-Indiana-city-directory-1900-part-4.htm
2. Immigrant Entrepreneurship (German Historical Institute), "Theodore Frederick Thieme" (1898 venture into children's hosiery; Frederick organised United Knitting Mills to manufacture children's hosiery for Wayne Knitting Mills; "Pony Stockings" trademark; "best advertised brand" boast; Theodore's later purchase of his brother's mill and Frederick's appointment as Wayne Knitting superintendent) — https://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entries/theodore-frederick-thieme/
3. New Philadelphia Ohio Democrat and Times, 10 Oct 1901 (contemporary advertisement: Wayne Knitting Mills' Pony stockings Shetland-pony guessing contest) — https://newspaperarchive.com/new-philadelphia-ohio-democrat-and-times-oct-10-1901-p-1/
4. Morning Oregonian (Portland), October 1901 (contemporary Pony Stocking guessing-contest advertisement, "Wayne-knit Pony Stockings") — https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83025138/1901-10-09/ed-1/seq-12/ocr.txt
5. Slocum & Robertson, History of the Maumee River Basin (1905), Part 12, quoting Textile World, February 1904 (children's stockings issued under a new trademark in 1901) — https://ldsgenealogy.com/IN/books/History-of-the-Maumee-River-basin-Allen-County-Indiana-part-12.htm