Having grown up when there was still a lot of manufacturing going on in New England, I'm a pure sucker for stories about manufacturing that's still going on in here.
When I was a kid, my hometown of Worcester was a manufacturing hub. Having come up through the ranks on the shop floor, my father was a salesman for the Thompson Wire Company, which made wire for the automotive and other heavy duty industries. The factory was not far from where we lived, and quite close to Hadwen Park where we went blueberrying in the summer. We'd walk by the factory on the way home, looking in through the windows watching the men at work on the bottom floor coiling the big rolls of wire for shipment. I can still remember the hum of the machines, the faint vibrations we could feel through the soles of our sneakers.
Worcester had a lot of heavy industry: abrasives, boilers, steel, aircraft engine parts, rifles. (A lot of the M16's that "our boys" used in Vietnam were made in Worcester.) Space suits were manufactured in Worcester. Consumer goods, too: pocketbooks, plastic toys, shoes. (I worked one summer in a shoe factory.) Winchendon and Gardner, towns in Worcester County, were full of furniture factories.
Once a year, my family took a tee-shirt buying trip to a mill outlet store in Ware, Massachusetts or Fall River.
And everyone knew that jewelry was made in the factories of Attleboro, Massachusetts. And in Rhode Island.
By the 1970s, the state produced 80 percent of the fashion jewelry made in America. Nearly 900 jewelry firms employed almost 25,000 Rhode Islanders at the time, mostly in Providence and its surrounding suburbs, churning out products such as earrings, rings, cuff links, tie tacks, pendants, and bracelets. (Source: Boston Globe)
Somewhere along the line, most costumer jewelry wearers who shopped at department stores like Filene's and Jordan Marsh owned something from Monet or Trifari, which used to be produced in Rhode Island. My mother was a big Monet fan. Should have hung on to some of her treasures. Apparently they're now a big vintage find.
The jewelry industry still has a toehold in the Ocean State. Alex and Ani, a "billion-dollar jewelry empire" which had a real moment a few years ago is located there. The founder of that company, Carolyn Rafaelian, is a second-generation jewelry maker.
Her late father Ralph Rafaelian had owned Cinerama Jewelry. And thanks to his granddaughter Rachel Ajaj and her husband Omar, jewelry is still being produced in the Cinerama factory.
For a while, Alex and Ani was occupying the space, but when they expanded and needed a larger facilities, the Ajas took the shop over.
Rachel has been at the jewelry game for most of her still young life. She began hanging around her grandfather's factory as a youngster, and began noodling around with jewelry design. While still in her early teens,
...in the late 1990s, [she would be in the factory] hunched over a long table like her grandfather had been, looking over vintage finds, chains, and bundles of rhinestones. She learned how to solder different materials together, coming up with her own color combinations to make unique pieces, and ended up helping her grandfather with private label designs for clients such as fashion retailers Express and Bebe.
And now, with her husband, she's got her own going/growing concern:
Air & Anchor opened right as the pandemic hit Rhode Island’s shores, but has quickly turned into a local lifestyle and jewelry brand. Their mission is to remind people to make time for the small moments, so wearable products have symbols and sayings on them that represent daily reminders to “enjoy the life in between.”
So far, Air & Anchor are still in startup mode. The shop floor is mostly empty. There are only 8 employees (full- and part-time).
Her grandfather was determined to keep production local, and Ajaj does the same, collaborating with local vendors and artisans and using recycled materials whenever possible, including in their packaging.
And, oh yeah, Rachel and Omar bring there kids into the factory.
The New England economy hasn't been manufacturing based in a long time. And we're never again going to be the shoe, tee-shirt, furniture, or fine industrial wire capital of the world. But manufacturing is important. Most of that manufacturing will be technology-driven. (Massachusetts is big in robotics, by the way.) But it's still nice to see a story about an outfit like Air & Anchor.
It's 60 years old now. Wowie.
Some of the charms make sense to me: the zodiac charm, the tiny doctor (I had a big crush on Dr. Kildare), the see-hear-speak no evil monkeys (I've always been drawn to primates for some reason).
The little piggy bank? What did that mean to me? And why the umbrella? I probably liked the scissors because it actually (or at least theoretically) did something. The tambourine? I was a bit of a folky, even in junior high. And, like the scissors, it was actually (at least theoretically) usable. The little spinning disk has I L V Y U on one side, O E O n the other. If you spin it fast enough, it spells out I LOVE YOU. For some reason, I think this was a Christmas gift from my Uncle Jack. I'll have to check with the other near-aged nieces (Kath? Ellen? Mary Pat?) to see if that was the gift of the year in the early 1960's.
Anyway, good luck to Air & Anchor. And to Alex and Ani, for that matter. Good to see that jewelry making is still a thing in Rhode Island.
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