It was a humiliating experience. Newspaper headlines across the country were screaming out that 153 American companies had become complete failures in 1886.

“Among those reported embarrassed were the Turkey Red Dyeing Company in Providence,” one newspaper helpfully added.

The Turkey Red Dyeing Company, with an office located in room 10 of the Board of Trade Building on Market Square in Providence, offered the only genuine turkey red-dyed cloth in the country. This meant that the brilliant reds, pinks, purples, oranges and lavenders were guaranteed to hold their color, even with bleaching.

AMERICAN DREAM: This newspaper clipping advertises the Turkey Red Dyeing Company in Providence, in which brothers Henry and John Ashworth were …

The Turkey Red Dyeing Company was incorporated by Henry Ashworth and six other men in the summer of 1876. The company would provide the finishing of cotton yarns and textile goods through bleaching, dying and printing.

Henry had come to America from Lancashire, England, arriving in Boston in August of 1874. His brother John, who was two years older, also made the trip and joined Henry in the business of producing colorful table cloths, napkins and other decorative linens.

The brothers, who were the sons of James Ashworth and Grace Morley, settled in Cranston. Henry married Sarah Rawlinson and fathered several children. John married Sarah Crawshaw and also had a large family.

Henry died at the age of 39, just months after his business had been publicly declared a failure. The following year, on Aug. 1, John was committed to the Rhode Island State Insane Hospital. It was said that the collapse of the Turkey Red Dyeing Company had caused John to plummet into the depths of insanity.

The brothers had enjoyed early success when the company was founded, but its sudden demise, followed by Henry’s death, brought about a state of hopelessness in 41-year-old John, and all efforts to pull the sinking business out of its plight were quickly abandoned.

John remained at the insane hospital for over a decade. In 1907, he came down with pulmonary tuberculosis. Coupled with chronic delusional insanity, it brought about the end of his life on Oct. 10.

Whatever dreams the Ashworth brothers had in their heads as they sailed across the ocean toward America were quick-lived and harshly lost.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.