Employment in Manufacturing—Excluding military personnel from the total government group, employees engaged in manufacturing rank first in number. However, when civilian government and military personnel are combined, government employment surpasses manufacturing employment. Approximately 20% of the total work force is engaged in manufacturing. During the decade of the 1940's manufacturing in Virginia surpassed agriculture for the first time, and the growth of manufacturing continued progressively through the decade of the 1950's. Manufacturing as a whole is diversified.
Expenditure for new manufacturing plant and equipment exceeded one billion dollars in one recent seven-year period. Additional millions of dollars have been spent recently for expanding existing facilities. Fabricated metals (example, swimming-pool type atomic reactors) and machinery and electrical equipment (examples, motors, calculators) groups of industries have grown substantially within the past few years. The four manufacturing industries having the largest number of employees are textile, chemical and chemical products, food and kindred products, and lumber and wood products. The employees in these four industries constitute nearly 50% of all workers engaged in manufacturing.
Textile employment leads all other manufacturing employment. The textile industry in Virginia includes the spinning and processing of yarn and the weaving and finishing of material. Cotton and rayon broad-woven fabrics are the major ones. Approximately 60% of Virginia's textile employment is found in this category. The cities of Danville, Fieldale and Roanoke are especially noted for their textiles. Knitting mills constitute the second type of textile activity, and approximately two-thirds of employment in the knitting mills is engaged in making full-fashioned and seamless hosiery. Lynchburg is a key center of knitting mills for men's and ladies' hosiery.
The second largest employer of workers engaged in manufacturing in Virginia is the chemical industry. Approximately two-thirds of such chemical employees are found in the synthetic fiber field. In 1917, the first large rayon plant was established. This industry has developed rapidly, and Virginia now plays an important part nationally in this production. Virginia now has approximately 30% of the total employees in the United States engaged in synthetic fibers. There are at present large synthetic fiber plants in Richmond, Martinsville, Roanoke, Waynesboro, Narrows and Front Royal. Virginia has been regarded as the geographical center of this industry in the United States. Another type of chemical production involves industrial inorganic chemicals including alkalies—soda ash, bicarbonate of soda, caustic soda—and chlorine (Saltville and Hopewell), sulfuric acid (Norfolk and Richmond) and ammonia (Hopewell). The manufacturing of fertilizer is also important in the state because of the agricultural need for it in the South and because Virginia is conveniently located with respect to the raw materials necessary for making fertilizer (namely, potash, nitrogen and phosphate rock). Hopewell and Norfolk are two cities which have large plants for the manufacture of fertilizers. Both Fredericksburg and Richmond have a large cellophane company and certain medicinal drugs such as streptomycin and thiamine hydrochloride are manufactured at Elkton. In addition, dyes, wood turpentine, dry ice and various insecticides are produced in Virginia.
The third largest employer of workers engaged in manufacturing is the food and kindred products industry. This industry may be conveniently divided into two groups based upon the factors which determine their location:
1) those food industries whose products originate and are marketed in a population center—for example, bakery products (Richmond, Norfolk and Roanoke), beverages (Norfolk and Richmond), meat products (Richmond and Smithfield), dairy products (Richmond, Roanoke, Alexandria and Fredericksburg) and manufactured ice (Richmond and Alexandria);
2) those food industries which find it desirable to locate close to the source of supply—usually a perishable commodity—for example, seafood canneries (Norfolk, Hampton and Reedville), vegetable canneries (Walkerton and Urbanna), poultry dressing plants (Broadway, Harrisonburg and Winchester), fruit processing plants (Berryville, Mount Jackson, Winchester and Front Royal), confectionery plants (Suffolk and Norfolk), meatpacking companies (Suffolk and Smithfield) and frozen foods (seafood—Norfolk; poultry—Broadway; fruits and vegetables—Exmore).
The fourth largest employer of workers engaged in manufacturing is the lumber and lumber products industry. In the latter part of the Nineteenth Century and the early Twentieth Century, this industry had the greatest number of employees in the manufacturing field. Gradually its importance declined until the 1930's when it increased rapidly as the demand for lumber production increased until, at present, it has reached fourth place. Approximately 77% of Virginia's total lumber industry employees is found in the sawmills and planing mills, especially in mills located in Franklin, Petersburg, Norfolk and Richmond. Whereas the synthetic fibers mentioned previously are manufactured primarily in seven large plants with numerous employees per plant, the lumber industry in Virginia consists of approximately 1700 establishments—only approximately 200 of which employ at least twenty employees. Veneer mills, excelsior mills, mill-work plants, plywood plants and companies which make fruit and vegetable baskets, boxes and crates also furnish diverse types of wood products for the Virginia lumber industry.
The fifth largest employer of workers engaged in manufacturing is the apparel industry. Approximately one-half of all such employees are engaged in making men's and boys' clothing: suits, coats and overcoats are made in large quantities in Richmond, Staunton and Norfolk; shirts, pajamas and underwear at Danville, Radford, Lynchburg and Marion; trousers, overalls and sports jackets at Martinsville, Richmond and Staunton. Women's and misses' dresses are manufactured at Roanoke, maids' and nurses' uniforms and sports jackets at Lynchburg, lingerie at Staunton and Roanoke, gloves at Lynchburg, children's and infants' dresses and play clothes at Newport News and Shenandoah. Supplementary textile products include sheets and pillow cases (Danville), towels (Fieldale), hassocks, canvas awnings and automobile seat covers (Richmond).