Mod City: Texas Businesses

John Rogers was often hired by businesses around Texas to photograph their buildings, workspaces, and employees. These photographs could be used for promotional materials and were an excellent way of documenting a business and employees at a specific time. Some of the major businesses represented in John Rogers’ work that are not featured here include Vinson Supply Company, Padgett Printing, Texas Instruments, and Dallas County Community Colleges to name a few.

Braniff Airways

In 1930 Paul and Thomas Braniff founded Braniff Airways, Inc., a small airline based out of Dallas. The two petitioned the US Postal Service for a Chicago-Dallas airmail route in 1935, making Braniff Airways the first company to hold that route, and allowing them to eventually grow into a major airline company. Braniff assisted in World War II, grew their passenger business, bought out other airline companies, grew their fleet, and expanded their routes across North, Central, and South America. In 1958, at the height of business, Braniff Airways moved built a new terminal and facilities at Dallas Love Field called the Braniff Operations and Maintenance Base. These photographs show the mid-century modern design of the new facilities, with the butterfly roof. In 1958, Braniff also moved headquarters to a new building at Exchange Park, which Rogers also photographed.

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Black and white photo of a low, wide building, taken from a corner. The front of the building has a solid white front with the sign BRANIFF on one side.

Black and white photograph of the interior of an office entrance. A desk sits to the right with a woman on the phone. Multiple couches and small tables sit around the room, and an open staircase is visible at the back of the room.

Black and white photograph taken from a low angle showing a man standing in a large open, empty warehouse. The man stands close to the camera and looks back.

Black and white photograph of a large warehouse with many tables, machines, and workers stretching back into the distance. In the foreground a man is working on a large metal form sitting on a table. He wears coveralls, and has a metal tool box on the table.

Black and white photo of a large warehouse filled with machinery and metal parts, stretching into the distance. Men can be seen working on items and walking around the space.

Lipton Tea Plant

The Lipton tea company was established by Sir Thomas Lipton, a wealthy businessman from Glasgow, Scotland, around 1890. Lipton was the earliest adopter of selling pre-portioned tea and tea bags to shops and customers, and at very low prices, making his tea company a quick success. In the 1930s Unileaver purchased the Lipton tea company, and began to expand. This Lipton tea plant in Galveston, TX opened in 1951 and became a major employer for the city until it closed in 1990. Raw tea was delivered to the plant from around the world, to be processed for sale.

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Black and white photo of a white woman sitting at a table holding a white bag. Small paper boxes, reading Lipton Tea Bags, sit open on the table. The woman wears a white uniform dress, and a large machine sits at the far end of the table.

Black and white phot of a metal spiral chute leading to a conveyor belt that leads away from the camera. Other conveyor belts are visible in the background.

Black and white photo of two women standing in front of a row of three large machines. The women are stacking flat items into the machines. They wear white dress uniforms.

Black and white photo of rows of long machines producing what looks like paper items. Woman in white dress uniforms work around the machines, with stacks of large cardboard boxes sitting at the end of each machine.

Black and white photo of women working around large machines in a warehouse. The women wear white uniform dresses, and are seen packing sets of smaller boxes of tea into larger cardboard boxes.

W.D. Felder Company

W.D. Felder and Company is a cotton processing and trading company that was established around 1904, in Lubbock, TX. Cotton has been a major industry in Texas since the early to mid-1800s, with Texas producing the largest percentage of cotton of any state in the more recent past. Texas has been a major innovator in cotton farming and processing, with companies like W.D. Felder and Company working hard to provide cotton to the world. These images show the various testing and processing that was done at W.D. Felder and Company.

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Black and white photo of four workers in white lab coats sitting around a rectangular table. Piles of cotton are in containers around the table and cotton is on the table. Each person has a machine in front of them that they are working with.

Black and white photo of a room with floor to ceiling shelves on either side, filled with rolls of materials. In the center is a long table covered in cotton, with three workers wearing white lab coats working at the table.

Black and white photograph of a white man standing behind a table looking at a large clump of cotton which he's holding. Behind him is a wall of shelves filled with large rolls of paper covered cotton.

Black and white photo of a woman wearing a white lab coat sitting at a table that runs along the wall. A small machine with some sort of gauge on the face sits on the table in front of her. She holds two small devices in her hands with a piece of cotton sandwiched between. On the shelf in front of her, four large clumps of cotton sit with paper labels sticking out of their tops.

Black and white photo of a man standing next to a large metal machine, that looks like it has two rollers at top, and a door on its front. The man wears a white lab coat and feeds cotton into the top of the machine.

Continental Emsco Company

Continental Emsco Company was a manufacturing company that provided equipment to oil, gas, and coal companies. It was established in 1935 and had plants across the US which produced oil rigs and drilling equipment for energy companies to purchase. The Continental Emsco Company plant Rogers photographed was in Dallas, and the photos were taken around 1959.

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