Russell Athletic - Fashion Company Profile

Company Profile

Current Russell Athletic products are at the brand website, linked above; the shop box covers Russell Athletic sold through Amazon and eBay. The company today is a brand inside Fruit of the Loom, Inc. - Berkshire Hathaway acquired Russell Corporation in August 2006, and the Russell brands joined the Fruit of the Loom family, where the athletic name continues on sweatshirts, team apparel and everyday performance wear rather than as the uniform contractor it once was (Majestic took over as Major League Baseball's exclusive uniform supplier after the 2004 season). The full dated record - the 1902 mill, the 1932 athletic turn, the wartime military contracts, the 1960s peak and the baseball deal - is kept on the history page.

Founder Benjamin Russell died on December 16, 1941, and was succeeded by his son Benjamin C. Russell. During World War II the Athletic division sold primarily to the military - shirts, drawers, T-shirts, athletic garments and special outer garments for the Army and Navy. Benjamin C. Russell died in 1945 and his brother Thomas D. Russell succeeded him. After the war the company expanded across its knitting, weaving, dyeing, finishing and cutting departments, and during the 1960s the Athletic division was the largest marketer and manufacturer of athletic apparel and uniforms in the country. Russell Mills, as the company was renamed in 1962, became Russell Corporation in 1973, expanding manufacturing across the Southern United States and to Latin America and Scotland.