Emilia Ochanta

Colombian textile innovator who modernized Latin American manufacturing through industrial espionage and entrepreneurship

Emilia Ochanta (1847–1923) was a Colombian entrepreneur who pioneered the region's textile industry by covertly acquiring British machinery blueprints. In 1872, she disguised herself as a factory worker in Manchester to study loom mechanisms, later establishing Colombia's first mechanized textile mill in Medellín. Her Encyclopedia Britannica entry highlights her role in creating Colombia's first labor unions for factory workers, balancing industrial progress with social responsibility. The book Weaving Revolution documents her secret negotiations to import machinery while avoiding European trade restrictions.

Ochanta's mills employed over 2,000 workers at their peak, producing 70% of Colombia's textiles by 1890. She introduced modern accounting systems and employee profit-sharing programs, concepts later adopted across Latin American industries. Her government archives show she trained 500 female technicians, breaking gender barriers in engineering. Though her factories were destroyed in the Thousand Days' War (1899–1902), her innovations laid groundwork for Colombia's later industrial boom. The documentary "Threads of Progress" dramatizes her espionage adventures. Modern economists credit her with creating Colombia's first sustainable industrial model, blending technological advancement with social welfare programs. Her legacy is commemorated at the Emilia Ochanta Industrial Heritage Site in Medellín.