Burlington Industries

Burlington Industries is a diversified American fabric maker based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Founded by J. Spencer Love in Burlington, North Carolina in 1923,[1] the company has operations in the United States, Mexico, and India and a global manufacturing and product development network based in Hong Kong with over 8000 employees on several sites in USA, Canada and worldwide.

A Burlington Sock (in the mid-1990s)

The company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2001. Its assets were acquired by International Textile Group (ITG) out of bankruptcy in late 2003.[2] The Lees Carpet division was sold to Mohawk Industries as part of the deal. With only 500 employees remaining, the company moved out of its headquarters building on Friendly Avenue in October 2004. ITG continues to operate the companies Burlington WorldWide Apparel and Burlington House Interior Fabrics.

ITG continues to protect with full force of law the brand name Burlington, which it owns. This has, on occasion, caused conflicts with Burlington Coat Factory, which was found in contempt of court for misusing the Burlington trademark and had disclaimed in its advertising that it is not affiliated with Burlington Industries.

For its American home market, the brand name Burlington Socks is licensed to Kayser-Roth, Inc. of Greensboro, North Carolina (an affiliate of the Italian Golden Lady Group since 1999).[3][4][5] For the various European countries' markets and "certain other territories", the brand name Burlington (apparel, accessories, jewelry) is licensed to Falke Group of Germany.[6]

Legacy

In 1955, Burlington industries helped to fund the North Carolina State University reactor program. This was the first fission reactor built only to apply nuclear fission in peacetime for educational purposes. Because of their funding, the building is named Burlington Engineering Laboratories in honor of the company.[7]

In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled in Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth that employers were responsible if a supervisor creates a hostile work environment for an employee.[8]

Sources
  1. "Burlington". ITG. Archived from the original on July 3, 2017. Retrieved July 19, 2017.
  2. "Burlington, Cone become International Textile Group." Archived March 31, 2012, at the Wayback Machine BedTimes Magazine. March 19, 2004. Retrieved 2011-8-29.
  3. Burlington Socks web site
  4. About Kayser-Roth Archived 2008-07-05 at the Wayback Machine, hosiery-usa.com, retrieved August 27, 2010
  5. Kayser-Roth Purchased by Golden Lady, PR Newswire, 29 December 1998
  6. ITG’s Burlington WorldWide and FALKE Announce Agreement Concerning Burlington Brand Name Archived October 31, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, itg-global.com, 8 April 2008
  7. "Burlington Engineering Laboratories". projects.ncsu.edu. Retrieved 2019-12-14.
  8. Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742 (1998).


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