This painting depicts the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company on the Merrimack River, once the largest cotton textile plant in the world. At its peak—half a century before Charles Sheeler’s arrival in Manchester, New Hampshire—the company employed some 17,000 textile mill workers and occupied 30 buildings. Newer technologies such as automatic looms and electricity ultimately led Amoskeag to file for bankruptcy in 1935. Sheeler’s representation of the site seems far removed from its previous success, imbuing the abandoned complex with a ghostly emptiness. The image is softened by semi-transparent shadows that overlap hard edges, revealing the impact of Sheeler’s experiments in photomontage, a process of producing a single photographic print from two or three negatives sandwiched together in an enlarger.