For a good part of the 20th century, if you bought a piece of American-made knitwear from Saks or Sears -- regardless of the label, whether it was Van Heusen, Pendleton, Jatzen or someone else -- chances are pretty good it was woven in Cleveland's Ohio Knitting Mills, a block-wide, 700-worker-strong factory that was the beating heart of the town's thriving garment trade.

Over the years, a couple of samples of each garment were plucked off the line and put in cold storage; after the Mills closed (in 2003), a chance meeting between sculptor Steven Tatar and the factory owner's son led to Tatar's discovery of this bonanza of virgin vintage knitwear. He bought the entire archive, thousands and thousands of pieces, and he's selling them online and in his Brooklyn, N.Y. storefront.