Max Gitman relocated his family and shirtmaking business from Brooklyn to the coal-mining town of Ashland, Pennsylvania in 1932, founding it as the Ashland Shirt & Pajama Company, a contract shop producing private-label shirts for other haberdashers rather than selling under its own name. His twin sons Alfie and Shelly joined in 1950, and it wasn't until 1978, on a salesman's suggestion, that the factory started selling shirts as Gitman Bros. for the first time. It remains one of the few American shirtmakers still producing entirely in the US, still run by the Gitman family.