{"nrhp_refnum":"96000711","name":"Merit Underwear Company","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"43 E. Noble Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Shoemakersville","county":"Berks County","state":"PA","lat":40.50172276300003,"lon":-75.96808966399993,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1996-06-28","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Health/Medicine"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story brick former underwear manufacturing building with two additions on a corner lot at East Noble Avenue and Franklin Street in Shoemakersville Borough, Berks County, Pennsylvania. The original building was erected in 1916.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the building is significant for its industrial architecture, built and expanded specifically for garment manufacturing, and for its association with the Merit Underwear Company, which produced an internationally known line of ladies underwear called the Verna. The building is presented as representative of 20th century textile manufacturing in eastern Pennsylvania.","narrative":"A two-story brick factory on a corner lot in Shoemakersville, built in 1916 for underwear production by the Merit Underwear Company. Two additions followed, in 1921 and 1928, the first replacing an earlier stable and workshop. The original block is forty feet wide and one hundred feet long, with brick pilasters, arched rowlock lintels and wooden beams carried on wooden columns. Its open floors held knitting and sewing machines, and a freight elevator and loading docks served the finishing and shipping areas. The rear addition housed a boiler room and coal storage for a stoker heating system. The company grew from about 20 employees in the mid-1910s to 114 by 1927. It later made the Verna line of fine-gauge ladies underwear, which was widely marketed. The building is significant for its industrial character and its link to the town's textile trade. It was vacant after 1994.","period_of_significance":"1916-1946","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"No Style","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Vacant since 1994; in good condition apart from normal wear, with some broken or missing glazing.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:37.958945-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/96000711.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/96000711/fd4d981265-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/96000711/fd4d981265-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merit_Underwear_Shoemakersville_BerksCo_PA.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merit_Underwear_Shoemakersville_BerksCo_PA.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71998159","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Underwear_Company","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6819531"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/berks-county/merit-underwear-company-96000711/"}