| Abstract: |
The Charles L. Wagandt II Collection consists of archival documentation pertaining
to the history of the Oella Mill and Oella Company, Inc., including photographs, manuscript
materials, audio-visual materials, and objects. Subjects include Oella Company Scrapbooks,
documentation of the Oella Festival, Community Calendars, Oella Cemetery Company Ledgers,
documentation of the George Ellicott House Restoration, oral histories from the Goucher
College Historic Preservation Class, and documentation of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. Founded as the Union Manufacturing Company in 1808, the Oella Mill was the
first textile company chartered by the State of Maryland. In 1887, William J. Dickey
bought the property and shifted production to woolens. The mill burned down in 1918
and was rebuilt, becoming America's foremost producer of fancy menswear woolens. The
demand for these fabrics dropped with the introduction of synthetics and double knits
and the trend to casual dress and in 1972 the mill closed. The company sold the mill
village, exclusive of the mill, to Charles Lewis Wagandt II (1925-2020), who formed
Oella Company, a firm dedicated to the preservation and restoration of the historic
mill village of Oella, MD. Born and raised in Baltimore, Wagandt served as lieutenant
in the US Marine Corps during World War II, and received an AB from Princeton and
an MA in textile science from University of Pennsylvania. He was great-grandson of
William James Dickey, whose family operated textile mills in Oella and in Dickeyville
in Baltimore City, and worked for the family business, W.J. Dickey & Sons Inc. until
the plants were sold in 1971 and 1972. For over 40 years, Wagandt led efforts to refurbish
76 acres and 245 housing units in Oella, bringing sewage and electricity to the area
in the early 1980s. His interest also included politics, civil rights, and city planning;
his public service included numerous roles on the Baltimore Urban Renewal and Housing
Commission, the Maryland Historical Trust, the Maryland Heritage Committee, and the
State House Trust. He helped create the Benjamin Banneker Museum and Park and was
founder and chair of the George Ellicott House Committee. Among his many awards, he
received the Preservation Maryland President’s Award in 2007, the Maryland Historical
Trust Calvert Award in 2008, and was given Howard County’s Senator James Clark Lifetime
Achievement Award. Textual and audiovisual materials (1854-2019) exclusively from
the Oella Company vault that was accompanied by 68 individual finding aids (63.5 linear
ft). Accessions include images, mill records, research materials, newspaper clippings,
scrapbooks, oral histories and their transcripts,objects, project planning records,
mill samples, correspondence.
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