JAMES SPENCER LOVE (1896-1962), American textile manufacturer and founder of Burlington Industries, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 6, 1896, the son of James Lee and Julia Spencer Love. His father, a native of Gastonia, North Carolina, was a professor of mathematics at Harvard University. His mother’s family had strong ties with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through his maternal grandparents, James Munroe Spencer, a professor, and Cornelia Phillips Spencer, a poet, social historian and journalist.
Spencer Love graduated from the Cambridge Latin School, received a B.A. at Harvard University in three years and studied for a year at the Harvard Business School. In 1917, he joined the United States Army, rose to the rank of major and served in the adjutant general’s office of his division before leaving the service at the conclusion of the First World War. He sought employment in Boston but, deciding that opportunities would be greater elsewhere, moved to Gastonia, where his paternal grandfather, Robert Calvin Grier Love, had pioneered in the cotton textile industry.
In 1919, young Spencer Love, with his father’s backing, borrowed money to purchase Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing Company, a cotton mill his grandfather and several other Gastonia pioneers had founded in 1888. The mill was in poor condition, its machinery antiquated by that time, and he was unable to turn it into a profitable operation. Three years later, in 1923, he sold the land and buildings and took the machinery to Burlington, North Carolina. There, supported by a $250,000 loan underwritten by the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, he opened a mill, known as Burlington Mills that produced cotton goods and originally employed two hundred people. Success was minimal, so several years later he decided to gamble on a new product, rayon, or artificial silk as it was also called.
Throughout his business career, Love continued to be bold, expanding frequently and seeking new products, even during the Great Depression years of the 1930s when the company’s financial resources were strained to the almost breaking point as it continued to expand and build other plants to capitalize on the popularity of rayon and other synthetic goods. By 1937, Burlington Mills was a member of the New York Stock Exchange and had expanded to 22 facilities with sales of $25 million.
Following the Second World War in 1945, the company began buying up dozens of family-owned mills who, after a period of great wartime prosperity, decided it was a good time to sell to larger, more diverse operators in a more competitive world. Burlington Mills eventually became Burlington Industries, headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the largest textile manufacturing company in the world. In 1961, Fortune listed it as the 48th largest corporation in the United States, with annual sales of $913 million in eighteen states and seven foreign countries, processing more than 34 manmade and natural fibers and employing 62,000 people.
Love was involved in a wide range of business, political and community activities. He was director of the Textile Clothing and Leather Bureau of the powerful War Production Board in Washington, D.C., during the Second World War. He also served as a director of the American Cotton Manufacturers Institute, North Carolina Cotton Manufacturers Association, North Carolina Research Triangle Foundation, North Carolina Textile Foundation, Economic Club of New York, National Safety Council, North Carolina National Bank, New York Trust Company and North Carolina Symphony Society. In addition, he was a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Palmer Memorial Institute of Greensboro and Committee on Economic Development, Washington, D.C. He served as president of the National Rayon Weavers Association and chairperson of the Davidson College Development Commission.
He received honorary degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Elon College, the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science and the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina. He also created the Burlington Industries Foundation and helped start the James Lee Love Educational Loan Fund. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro and maintained residences in Greensboro, New York and Palm Beach, Florida. He died of a heart attack while playing tennis at his home in Palm Beach on January 20, 1962, at age 65, and is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Greensboro. At his death, one-third of his estate went to the Martha and Spencer Love Foundation.
J. Spencer Love was married three times. His first wife was Sara Elizabeth Love who he married in 1922, the mother of his first four children, James S., Jr., Robert Lee, Richard and Julian. They were divorced in 1940. In 1941, he was married to Dorothy Ann Beattie, and they soon divorced. His third marriage was in 1944 to Martha Effie Eskridge of Shelby, North Carolina (1911-1980). They were the parents of four children, namely, Charles Eskridge, Martin Eskridge, Cornelia Spencer and Lela Porter.
Contributed by Robert Allison Ragan, a North Carolina textile historian, September 27, 2016.
Spencer Love graduated from the Cambridge Latin School, received a B.A. at Harvard University in three years and studied for a year at the Harvard Business School. In 1917, he joined the United States Army, rose to the rank of major and served in the adjutant general’s office of his division before leaving the service at the conclusion of the First World War. He sought employment in Boston but, deciding that opportunities would be greater elsewhere, moved to Gastonia, where his paternal grandfather, Robert Calvin Grier Love, had pioneered in the cotton textile industry.
In 1919, young Spencer Love, with his father’s backing, borrowed money to purchase Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing Company, a cotton mill his grandfather and several other Gastonia pioneers had founded in 1888. The mill was in poor condition, its machinery antiquated by that time, and he was unable to turn it into a profitable operation. Three years later, in 1923, he sold the land and buildings and took the machinery to Burlington, North Carolina. There, supported by a $250,000 loan underwritten by the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, he opened a mill, known as Burlington Mills that produced cotton goods and originally employed two hundred people. Success was minimal, so several years later he decided to gamble on a new product, rayon, or artificial silk as it was also called.
Throughout his business career, Love continued to be bold, expanding frequently and seeking new products, even during the Great Depression years of the 1930s when the company’s financial resources were strained to the almost breaking point as it continued to expand and build other plants to capitalize on the popularity of rayon and other synthetic goods. By 1937, Burlington Mills was a member of the New York Stock Exchange and had expanded to 22 facilities with sales of $25 million.
Following the Second World War in 1945, the company began buying up dozens of family-owned mills who, after a period of great wartime prosperity, decided it was a good time to sell to larger, more diverse operators in a more competitive world. Burlington Mills eventually became Burlington Industries, headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the largest textile manufacturing company in the world. In 1961, Fortune listed it as the 48th largest corporation in the United States, with annual sales of $913 million in eighteen states and seven foreign countries, processing more than 34 manmade and natural fibers and employing 62,000 people.
Love was involved in a wide range of business, political and community activities. He was director of the Textile Clothing and Leather Bureau of the powerful War Production Board in Washington, D.C., during the Second World War. He also served as a director of the American Cotton Manufacturers Institute, North Carolina Cotton Manufacturers Association, North Carolina Research Triangle Foundation, North Carolina Textile Foundation, Economic Club of New York, National Safety Council, North Carolina National Bank, New York Trust Company and North Carolina Symphony Society. In addition, he was a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Palmer Memorial Institute of Greensboro and Committee on Economic Development, Washington, D.C. He served as president of the National Rayon Weavers Association and chairperson of the Davidson College Development Commission.
He received honorary degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Elon College, the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science and the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina. He also created the Burlington Industries Foundation and helped start the James Lee Love Educational Loan Fund. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro and maintained residences in Greensboro, New York and Palm Beach, Florida. He died of a heart attack while playing tennis at his home in Palm Beach on January 20, 1962, at age 65, and is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Greensboro. At his death, one-third of his estate went to the Martha and Spencer Love Foundation.
J. Spencer Love was married three times. His first wife was Sara Elizabeth Love who he married in 1922, the mother of his first four children, James S., Jr., Robert Lee, Richard and Julian. They were divorced in 1940. In 1941, he was married to Dorothy Ann Beattie, and they soon divorced. His third marriage was in 1944 to Martha Effie Eskridge of Shelby, North Carolina (1911-1980). They were the parents of four children, namely, Charles Eskridge, Martin Eskridge, Cornelia Spencer and Lela Porter.
Contributed by Robert Allison Ragan, a North Carolina textile historian, September 27, 2016.
JAMES SPENCER LOVE (1896-1962), American textile manufacturer and founder of Burlington Industries, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 6, 1896, the son of James Lee and Julia Spencer Love. His father, a native of Gastonia, North Carolina, was a professor of mathematics at Harvard University. His mother’s family had strong ties with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through his maternal grandparents, James Munroe Spencer, a professor, and Cornelia Phillips Spencer, a poet, social historian and journalist.
Spencer Love graduated from the Cambridge Latin School, received a B.A. at Harvard University in three years and studied for a year at the Harvard Business School. In 1917, he joined the United States Army, rose to the rank of major and served in the adjutant general’s office of his division before leaving the service at the conclusion of the First World War. He sought employment in Boston but, deciding that opportunities would be greater elsewhere, moved to Gastonia, where his paternal grandfather, Robert Calvin Grier Love, had pioneered in the cotton textile industry.
In 1919, young Spencer Love, with his father’s backing, borrowed money to purchase Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing Company, a cotton mill his grandfather and several other Gastonia pioneers had founded in 1888. The mill was in poor condition, its machinery antiquated by that time, and he was unable to turn it into a profitable operation. Three years later, in 1923, he sold the land and buildings and took the machinery to Burlington, North Carolina. There, supported by a $250,000 loan underwritten by the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, he opened a mill, known as Burlington Mills that produced cotton goods and originally employed two hundred people. Success was minimal, so several years later he decided to gamble on a new product, rayon, or artificial silk as it was also called.
Throughout his business career, Love continued to be bold, expanding frequently and seeking new products, even during the Great Depression years of the 1930s when the company’s financial resources were strained to the almost breaking point as it continued to expand and build other plants to capitalize on the popularity of rayon and other synthetic goods. By 1937, Burlington Mills was a member of the New York Stock Exchange and had expanded to 22 facilities with sales of $25 million.
Following the Second World War in 1945, the company began buying up dozens of family-owned mills who, after a period of great wartime prosperity, decided it was a good time to sell to larger, more diverse operators in a more competitive world. Burlington Mills eventually became Burlington Industries, headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the largest textile manufacturing company in the world. In 1961, Fortune listed it as the 48th largest corporation in the United States, with annual sales of $913 million in eighteen states and seven foreign countries, processing more than 34 manmade and natural fibers and employing 62,000 people.
Love was involved in a wide range of business, political and community activities. He was director of the Textile Clothing and Leather Bureau of the powerful War Production Board in Washington, D.C., during the Second World War. He also served as a director of the American Cotton Manufacturers Institute, North Carolina Cotton Manufacturers Association, North Carolina Research Triangle Foundation, North Carolina Textile Foundation, Economic Club of New York, National Safety Council, North Carolina National Bank, New York Trust Company and North Carolina Symphony Society. In addition, he was a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Palmer Memorial Institute of Greensboro and Committee on Economic Development, Washington, D.C. He served as president of the National Rayon Weavers Association and chairperson of the Davidson College Development Commission.
He received honorary degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Elon College, the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science and the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina. He also created the Burlington Industries Foundation and helped start the James Lee Love Educational Loan Fund. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro and maintained residences in Greensboro, New York and Palm Beach, Florida. He died of a heart attack while playing tennis at his home in Palm Beach on January 20, 1962, at age 65, and is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Greensboro. At his death, one-third of his estate went to the Martha and Spencer Love Foundation.
J. Spencer Love was married three times. His first wife was Sara Elizabeth Love who he married in 1922, the mother of his first four children, James S., Jr., Robert Lee, Richard and Julian. They were divorced in 1940. In 1941, he was married to Dorothy Ann Beattie, and they soon divorced. His third marriage was in 1944 to Martha Effie Eskridge of Shelby, North Carolina (1911-1980). They were the parents of four children, namely, Charles Eskridge, Martin Eskridge, Cornelia Spencer and Lela Porter.
Contributed by Robert Allison Ragan, a North Carolina textile historian, September 27, 2016.
Spencer Love graduated from the Cambridge Latin School, received a B.A. at Harvard University in three years and studied for a year at the Harvard Business School. In 1917, he joined the United States Army, rose to the rank of major and served in the adjutant general’s office of his division before leaving the service at the conclusion of the First World War. He sought employment in Boston but, deciding that opportunities would be greater elsewhere, moved to Gastonia, where his paternal grandfather, Robert Calvin Grier Love, had pioneered in the cotton textile industry.
In 1919, young Spencer Love, with his father’s backing, borrowed money to purchase Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing Company, a cotton mill his grandfather and several other Gastonia pioneers had founded in 1888. The mill was in poor condition, its machinery antiquated by that time, and he was unable to turn it into a profitable operation. Three years later, in 1923, he sold the land and buildings and took the machinery to Burlington, North Carolina. There, supported by a $250,000 loan underwritten by the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, he opened a mill, known as Burlington Mills that produced cotton goods and originally employed two hundred people. Success was minimal, so several years later he decided to gamble on a new product, rayon, or artificial silk as it was also called.
Throughout his business career, Love continued to be bold, expanding frequently and seeking new products, even during the Great Depression years of the 1930s when the company’s financial resources were strained to the almost breaking point as it continued to expand and build other plants to capitalize on the popularity of rayon and other synthetic goods. By 1937, Burlington Mills was a member of the New York Stock Exchange and had expanded to 22 facilities with sales of $25 million.
Following the Second World War in 1945, the company began buying up dozens of family-owned mills who, after a period of great wartime prosperity, decided it was a good time to sell to larger, more diverse operators in a more competitive world. Burlington Mills eventually became Burlington Industries, headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the largest textile manufacturing company in the world. In 1961, Fortune listed it as the 48th largest corporation in the United States, with annual sales of $913 million in eighteen states and seven foreign countries, processing more than 34 manmade and natural fibers and employing 62,000 people.
Love was involved in a wide range of business, political and community activities. He was director of the Textile Clothing and Leather Bureau of the powerful War Production Board in Washington, D.C., during the Second World War. He also served as a director of the American Cotton Manufacturers Institute, North Carolina Cotton Manufacturers Association, North Carolina Research Triangle Foundation, North Carolina Textile Foundation, Economic Club of New York, National Safety Council, North Carolina National Bank, New York Trust Company and North Carolina Symphony Society. In addition, he was a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Palmer Memorial Institute of Greensboro and Committee on Economic Development, Washington, D.C. He served as president of the National Rayon Weavers Association and chairperson of the Davidson College Development Commission.
He received honorary degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Elon College, the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science and the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina. He also created the Burlington Industries Foundation and helped start the James Lee Love Educational Loan Fund. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro and maintained residences in Greensboro, New York and Palm Beach, Florida. He died of a heart attack while playing tennis at his home in Palm Beach on January 20, 1962, at age 65, and is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Greensboro. At his death, one-third of his estate went to the Martha and Spencer Love Foundation.
J. Spencer Love was married three times. His first wife was Sara Elizabeth Love who he married in 1922, the mother of his first four children, James S., Jr., Robert Lee, Richard and Julian. They were divorced in 1940. In 1941, he was married to Dorothy Ann Beattie, and they soon divorced. His third marriage was in 1944 to Martha Effie Eskridge of Shelby, North Carolina (1911-1980). They were the parents of four children, namely, Charles Eskridge, Martin Eskridge, Cornelia Spencer and Lela Porter.
Contributed by Robert Allison Ragan, a North Carolina textile historian, September 27, 2016.
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