Amoskeag Company

Invisible Walls: The Amoskeag Company legacy

Invisible Walls: The Amoskeag Company legacy

Company town, planned city, manufacturing utopia — these are some of the buzzwords that come up when reading about Manchester under the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, the mammoth textile producer that reigned over Manchester until the company’s collapse in 1935. That lofty language reflects the company founders’ sky-high aspirations — driven, as one historian has written, by a desire to improve upon “the grimy industrial cities of Europe, where a permanent underclass toiled in the mills” — and hints at the reach of the company’s power.