Alexander R., Anderson, manager and treasurer of the Racine Hosiery Company, has back of him twenty years’ experience in all departments of the mill and is therefore most competent to control the enlarging and developing interests of this concern. The work is thoroughly systematized and everything done in a most methodical manner, so that there is no useless expenditure of time, labor or material. It is a well recognized fact that this economy of forces is the basis of all modern business success.
Mr. Anderson was born in Lewiston, Maine, April 16, 1878, a son of Walter R. and Margaret (Murray) Anderson, both of whom are natives of Scotland, and on leaving the land of hills and heather came to the United States in the spring of 1867. The father has always been engaged in the knitting business save for a period of five years, which he spent in the manufacture of blankets. In 1894 he became a resident of Kenosha, Wisconsin, and has been with the Chicago-Kenosha Hosiery Company for the past twenty-two years, occupying a position of large responsibility, in charge of the finishing and dyeing department. Through the steps of an orderly progression he has worked his way up in business circles and is now a leading figure in the manufacturing interests of Kenosha. Both he and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church and in the public life of the community he has taken an active and helpful part, serving as alderman of the city and exerting considerable influence over public affairs.
Alexander R. Anderson was a youth of sixteen years at the time of the removal of the family to Kenosha and his education, begun in the schools of the east, was continued in that city. After pursuing a course in the high school he spent two years in the Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois, devoting his attention to chemistry. His attention was naturally directed into the field in which his father had been so long active and he resolved to qualify for important work of that character by thorough scientific training. He became connected with the Chicago-Kenosha Hosiery Company, with which he continued until 1905, working his way upward through all departments in the mill save the knitting department. In that year he removed to Mankato, Minnesota, where for five years he was in charge of the dyeing and finishing department of the Mankato Mills Company. In 1910 he came to Racine and since the organization of the Racine Hosiery Company, which began operations on the 3rd of September, 1912, he has been the manager and treasurer of the company. From the beginning the new enterprise has prospered. It adopted as its policy that of giving full value and the product of the mills has found a ready sale, owing to the wise management and careful direction of its officers and owners, Mr. Anderson’s father being president of the company, with forty years’ experience back of him to contribute to its success.
On the 16th of June, 1906, Mr. Anderson was united in marriage to Miss Elsie Margaret Fuller, of Kenosha, her father being William W. Fuller, who is deceased. They now have three children: Elsie Margaret, Walter Willard and Edith Elizabeth. Fraternally Mr. Anderson is identified with the Masons, while his political allegiance is given to the Republican Party. He has comparatively little time for outside interests, yet he is never neglectful of his duties of citizenship or of his obligations in other connections and is appreciative of the social amenities of life. He has won a large circle of warm friends in Racine, as he did in Kenosha and in the other localities where he has lived, and while all appreciate his geniality and unfeigned cordiality, business men also speak of him in terms of the highest regard because of his straightforward methods, which conform in the highest degree to modern ethical, commercial standards.