Stanfields - Great Canadian Companies

I grew up in the town of Truro Nova Scotia until I was about 13 years old. I remember my grandmother and her sisters worked at Stanfields, as many did in those days. She used to bring home odds and end cuts of fabric to mend into all kinds of clothes and stuffed toys that she would pass on to her poor grandchildren. Boy, some of the outfits we had to wear to school! 

I got to thinking about my grandmother and the things she used to make for us during Christmas of 2021. My favourite, was this little stuffed mouse. It was small and red, with a white sequenced cloth belly. Like the cloth you would see on pj's that came out of the Stanfields factory in the day. I would carry that thing everywhere. Then, the Tweety Bird costume she made for me for Halloween. A great big yellow head stuffed with news paper, yellow feet, the fat body made of more left over cloth from Stanfields and stuffed with news paper. I still remember the local teens jumping out from behind the gravestones in a graveyard that we had to pass, to get into the candy rich part of town, and chasing us down the road in pursuit of our treasure. I ran like a slow noisy wind, the news paper rattling inside the over built, saggy cloth body. Couldn't see anything through the shifting news paper and tiny eye holes, the awkward large paper filled body wouldn't help for a speedy get away either... I was knocked to the ground, my Tweety head was ripped away, spilling the news paper out... As the wind blew the paper down the road, with the teens laughing so hard, I managed to squirm away with my sweet booty.

Ahh, those were the days.

The Canadian Underwear Brand That Survived 170 Years

The history of Stanfields runs deep in Canada. It has been running as a Canadian company since 1856. To my knowledge, that is the longest any company has ever persisted here. Remaining entirely Canadian where so many have failed.  95% of their product is made in Canada! That has to be impressive.

The origins of the Stanfields company began with Charles Edward Stanfield working in Bradford England at his uncles woollen mill, Stanfield. Bradford England, was known as the center of the woollen industry at the time. This is where Charles would apprentice under his uncle. His uncle often saying “We want to make them just as well as we know how, and we want to learn all we can, so that no one can possibly make them any better. And if they last a lifetime, why there is always another generation to sell.”. He would gain extensive knowledge and hone his appreciation for what hard work and quality mean. Charles was a lad eager to learn, interested and confident in the future of the industry. He would go on to be the master of his own woollen mill, taking an honest pride in what the mill produced. Charles kept pride in that, his product was not churning out as much as other mills, but there was an undeniable quality coming from his establishment. Charles built a company on real worth.

Charles loved the business of it, he had a restless spirit and wanted to bring his ideals to other places. He discussed it with his uncle, who was getting on in years and had no interest in expanding his own. Charles would set his eye on Canada. Realizing that Canada was a "new" growing country, there was great opportunity there. His uncle would agree after much discussion, gave his blessing and would financially back his nephews endeavour. Charles set across the Atlantic to Tyron Prince Edward Island, bringing with him all his skill and pride.

In Tyron he would meet Samuel E. Dawson through his sister. They went on to found Tyron Woollen Mills. The mill would produce products of impeccable quality. There was no "marketing" that could be done in those days. Everything was word of mouth. So, your product had to be of the best of the best if it was going to succeed. Which they had.

Charles was getting beyond his adventuring years after some twenty years in Tyron. He was looking to build something for his growing family. Business in Tyron was successful enough, but lacked the ability to grow much further. He set his eyes on Truro Nova Scotia. Driven by the idea of success and the fact that Truro, being a mostly flat fertile agricultural mecca at the time. Quickly realized he found a place where his business ideals could grow. Truro was, as is now, the transport hub of the province. All roads and rail go through this "shire" of the province. His eyes were set on Truro, Nova Scotia.

Charles sold his interest in the mill to his brother in-law Samuel, crossing the Northumberland Straight to further his dream.

Arriving in Truro he seen the possibilities as they unfolded in his mind. There was all the amenities for success. Agriculture to supply his factory with what they needed, water access and a new railway that passed right through the town, a major shipping hub, Halifax a stones throw away. That would give him a way to distribute products to the entire country. Indeed, to the entire world. And, there was himself. How could he not succeed?

The first factory was completed in 1870, across the road from the railway station. Charles would also become involved with another woollen manufacture by the name of Alexander Dunbar in Saint Croix. He would invest in Alexanders, St. Croix Woollen Mill. Some two years later Charles found a perfect home for his dream. Salmon River, just two miles out of Truro. He was now thinking he could expand in a proper manner. He sold his interest in the St. Croix Woollen Mills to Alexander in 1872. Charles now had the means to build the factory and expand his brand. He went to work planing the Stanfields factory that stands on the bank of Salmon River to this day. That factory was completed in 1882. Now, there was the ability to mass-produce.

Now Charles had everything he needed. The railway right there, Halifax close enough for shipping, and a factory on the Salmon River that could actually keep up with demand. What came next would turn a good woollen mill into something Canadians would still be talking about 140 years later.

The Problem With Wool

Here's the thing about woollen underwear in the late 1800s. It shrank. You'd buy a fine pair of long johns, wash them once in the winter, and suddenly they fit your youngest child instead of you. Every manufacturer had the same problem and most of them just lived with it. Charles and his sons Frank and John didn't.

After years of working at it, experimenting with how the fibre was prepared, how the knitting tension was set, how the fabric was finished, they figured it out. They patented a shrink-resistant process and called it, simply enough, Unshrinkable. That word became the trademark. The red long underwear that came out of that process became something else entirely. A Canadian institution.

The Stanfield's Unshrinkable union suit spread the way all truly useful things do. One farmer told another. A fisherman on the wharf swore by them. A railway man bought a pair and never went back to anything else. The red colour wasn't chosen by accident either. It was bright enough to find on a crowded store shelf and sturdy enough that you knew, just looking at it, that somebody had put some thought into what they were making.

When the Wars Came

When Canada went to war in 1914, the military needed warm undergarments, and a lot of them. The Truro factory was ready. Stanfields scaled up and supplied wool underwear to Canadian troops heading overseas. The same thing happened when the Second World War came around. The factory ramped up again.

Those contracts were no small thing. They proved the factory could produce at a scale Charles had only dreamed about when he was standing on the banks of the Salmon River plotting out the original building. And when the soldiers came home, they brought the brand back with them. Hard to overstate what that meant for a company that had always grown by word of mouth.

More Than Just Underwear

At some point, and it's hard to say exactly when, Stanfields stopped being just a product and became part of the furniture of Canadian life. The red long underwear showed up in advertisements, in films, in jokes that crossed every province. Ask any Canadian of a certain age what "long johns" meant and they'd picture the same thing: that red garment from Truro, Nova Scotia.

The company did eventually add to the line. T-shirts, socks, thermal wear. But the red underwear stayed at the centre of it all. And the advertising, when they ran it, never tried to be anything clever. They had the Unshrinkable name and they leaned on it. Why wouldn't you?

Still There

The factory on the Salmon River that Charles finished in 1882 is still standing. Truro still knows the Stanfield name the way you know the name of the family that built your town. My grandmother knew it. Her sisters knew it. My aunts knew it. My neighbours knew it. They all brought scraps home and made all sorts of clothing, costumes and tiny gifts filled with love. Perhaps the same love that Stanfields has for Canada.

That 95% Canadian-made figure is still true today, and it isn't there because of a marketing strategy. It's there because it was never not there. Charles Stanfield crossed an ocean with his uncle's blessing and a head full of ideas about what quality actually meant. The factory on the Salmon River has been making the same argument ever since.

Some Canadian stories are about speed and ambition. The Stanfields story is about what happens when you simply refuse to stop.