My great aunt, Agnes Reilly Cassidy, worked at Tweedy's Silk Mill for many years (believe she made hat bands). She went to work there in the early 1920's after her stevadore husband, Bernie Cassidy, died in a work-related accident unloading a train in New York. Never heard her speak a bad word about it. Must have been a union shop, because her father (John H. Reilly) was a rabid member of the Connecticut Federation of Labor. I believe other Fairfield County family members also worked at Tweedy's. They stopped "hatting" - when people stopped buying. Despite the hatter's reputation, I don't remember any of the old folks "shaking" when I was a kid.