The Allied Textile Printing Site is a 7.5 acre part of the Great Falls of Paterson/S.U.M. Historic District. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the newly established United States sought greater economic and political independence from Europe, and in 1791 Alexander Hamilton and other influential men chartered the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, or S.U.M., to help achieve that goal. By harnessing the natural power of the Great Falls for manufacturing, the S.U.M. created the nation’s first planned industrial development on the banks of the Passaic River. Water from above the falls was carried by a canal and raceways to mills below, and as more mills were built, the system expanded into a complex network of waterways. At the south end of the site, a terrace allowed water to return to the river and is thought to have been the location of an early sawmill and the miller’s house, small buildings connected by a rough road of stone and logs. The riverbank later became home to Todd and Raftery’s Machine Company, whose larger works, later called Todd Mill, included a foundry, blacksmith shops, and support buildings and supplied textile machinery, steam engines, and other manufacturing machinery to Paterson’s mills and to factories across America and the world until the business closed in the mid-1890s. In 1836 Samuel Colt’s Patent Arms Manufacturing Company built the five story stone Colt Gun Mill to produce newly invented revolving firearms, and the building also housed Christopher Colt, the first man in Paterson to make silk. Gun production ended in 1842, after which cotton and silk manufacturers, including John Ryle, later known as the father of Paterson’s silk industry, occupied the former Gun Mill. Silk manufacturing, dyeing, and finishing spread through the city, including neighboring Waverly and Mallory Mills, and by 1880 nearly one-third of American silk workers were employed in Paterson, most of them immigrants and many of them women. During the 20th century, silk weaving and the dyeing and finishing of fabric were Paterson’s primary industries. In 1938 Allied Textile Printers, Inc. was formed through the merger of several small to mid-sized textile interests in Paterson, and in the 1960s the Standard Dyeing and Finishing Company was created from ATP assets and occupied the large dye houses at the south end of the complex. Financial problems ended all operations in 1982, and fire, time, and the elements have reduced the once thriving industrial complex to its current state. On April 1, 2009, President Obama signed the Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park Act into law, creating a new unit of the National Park Service to be managed in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, in collaboration with the City of Paterson and other local interests, and the designation, together with long-term restoration and development plans, helped set the stage for private investment aimed at revitalizing Paterson.