From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   James Spencer Love (1896–1962), by Thomas E. Terrill, 1991   
   James Spencer Love, textile manufacturer and founder, president, and chairman   
   of the board of Burlington Industries, was born in Cambridge, Mass., the son   
   of James Lee and June Spencer Love. His father, a native of Gastonia NC, was   
   asst prof of    
   mathematics, sec'y of the Lawrence School of Science, and director of the   
   summer school at Harvard before he joined his son in business. His mother's   
   family had strong ties with UNC; his maternal grandfather was Prof. James   
   Munroe Spencer, and his    
   maternal grandmother was Cornelia Phillips Spencer.   
      
   Love was graduated from the Cambridge Latin School, received a B.A. at Harvard   
   in 3 years, and studied for a year at the Harvard Business School. Joining the   
   U.S. Army in 1917, he rose to the rank of major and served in the adjutant   
   general's office of    
   his division before leaving the service in 1919. He sought employment in   
   Boston but, deciding opportunities would be greater elsewhere, moved to   
   Gastonia, where his paternal grandfather, Robert Calvin Grier Love, and an   
   uncle had pioneered in the textile    
   industry. Love borrowed money to purchase the Gastonia Cotton Manufacturing   
   Company in 1919. Three years later, he sold the land and the building and took   
   the machinery to Burlington. There, supported by a $250,000 loan underwritten   
   by the Burlington    
   Chamber of Commerce, he opened a mill that originally employed two hundred   
   people. Shortly afterwards, he decided to gamble on a new product, rayon.   
   Throughout his business career, Love continued to be bold, expanding   
   frequently and seeking new products    
   even in the hard times of the 1930s.   
      
   Burlington Mills eventually became Burlington Industries, the largest textile   
   manufacturing company in the world; in 1961 Fortune listed it as the 48th   
   largest corporation in the USA in sales ($913 million). The company then had   
   assets of nearly $607    
   million and plants in 18 states and 7 foreign countries, processing over 34   
   man-made and natural fibers and employing 62,000 people.   
      
   Love, a Democrat, engaged in a wide range of business, political, and   
   community activities. He was the director of the Textile Clothing and Leather   
   Board of the War Production Board during WWII. He also was a director of the   
   Carolina Cotton Manufacturers    
   Assn, Economic Club of New York, NC Textile Foundation, National Safety   
   Council, NC Research Triangle Foundation, NC National Bank, American Cotton   
   Mfg. Inst., and NC Symphony Society, Inc. In addition, he was a member of the   
   Anglo-American Productivity    
   Council, Business Advisory Council of the U.S. Dept of Commerce, Advisory   
   Committee on Labor-Management Policy, Federal City Council of Washington, Ad   
   Hoc Textile Research Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, National   
   Research Council, and    
   Visiting Committee of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Admin. He was a   
   trustee of the Palmer Memorial Inst. of Greensboro, the New York Trust Co.,   
   UNC, and the Committee on Economic Development. He was president of the   
   National Rayon Weavers Assn,    
   chairman of the Davidson College Development Commission, and NC state chairman   
   of the Christmas Seal sale in 1956.   
      
   Although known for his opposition to labor unions, Love persistently supported   
   the federal minimum wage, which upset other textile manufacturers. He also   
   asked Governor Terry Sanford to grant clemency to one of those convicted of   
   conspiracy in connection    
   with a textile strike in Henderson.   
      
   Love received honorary degrees from UNC, Elon College, the Philadelphia   
   College of Textiles and Science, and NC A&T. He was a member of the First   
   Presbyterian Church in Greensboro and maintained residences in Greensboro, New   
   York, and Palm Springs, Calif.   
      
   James S., Jr., Robert Lee, Richard, and Julian were the children of Love's   
   first marriage, to Sara Elizabeth Love on 22 Jan. 1922; they were divorced in   
   1940. Charles Eskridge, Martin Eskridge, Cornelia Spencer, and Lela Porter   
   Love were the children of    
   his second marriage, to Martha Eskridge on 23 July 1944. Love created the   
   Burlington Industries Foundation and helped start the James Lee Love   
   Educational Loan Fund. At his death, one-third of his estate went to the   
   Martha and Spencer Love Foundation, a    
   general philanthropic institution. He was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery,   
   Greensboro.   
      
   https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/love-james-spencer   
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