The Gilbert & Bennett Wire Mill manufactured goods from the late 1880s until it was abandoned in 1986. People worked in the factory for over 150 years. These photographs capture the factory’s present life, its life after life.
Elyse Shapiro’s “Gilbert & Bennett Wire Mill” photography book is available for purchase at the Granite Church and through the link below.
Bring home this time capsule of a pre-civil war wire mill factory in Georgetown, CT – before and after it was abandoned in 1989.
I first photographed the Gilbert & Bennet Wire Mill factory in 1982 as a journalist would, using a film camera, recording the motion of men and machines at work.
Some 20 years later, I returned to a vacant building, absent of workers, with only shadows and sunlight streaming through broken windows, and dust and rust, and still the faint smell of oil in water. The sounds of wind replaced the whirring of wire spools. The objects left behind formed a new relationship with their surroundings.
These photographs have historical significance to the community, as they document a small slice of life once thriving here, now gone. I took both a photojournalistic and artistic approach to capture a working factory, and later, the remnants of one. I hope this project serves to help bring new life to the site.
Click on any image to explore this gallery.
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