In The Cradle of Industry and Liberty

through exploitation of their workers. This
may have been true in some cases, but it is
also true that owners such as Henry Disston
and John Stetson genuinely cared about
their workers and took a benevolent, if
paternalistic, approach in providing for
them.) Taken together, the stories of these
companies trace the industrial growth of
Philadelphia in its manufacturing heyday,
the pivotal late-nineteenth/early-twentieth
century Workshop of the World period.
DISSTON, CRAMP,
AND BALDWIN
Brief profiles of Disston Saw, Cramp
Shipyard, and Baldwin Locomotive have
already been presented. Each had grown
very large by the early twentieth century.
Cramp, benefiting from government and
private contracts and employing at times
over 6,000 workers, had made some 530 ships
by the mid-1920s, ranging from massive
ocean liners and battleships to tugboats
and barges. Baldwin’s workforce exceeded
18,000 in the early twentieth century and
it was producing over 2,500 locomotives a
year (although it began moving out of
Philadelphia at this time). Disston began
making the first crucible steel saws in the
United States in 1855 and in the 1870s
the growing company began moving from
Northern Liberties to a sprawling complex
on the Delaware River in Tacony. By the early
1910s Disston employed some 4,000 workers
who were turning out nine million saws
and 360,000 files annually.
@
Above: Detail from Philadelphia and
Notable Philadelphians by Moses King,
1902, with profiles of three of the city’s leading
industrialists: Matthias Baldwin, William
Cramp, and Henry Disston (1819-1878).
Below: Working on circular saw blades at
Disston Saw Works, undated early twentieth
century photo.
DISSTON FACTORY PHOTO ALBUM, HISTORICAL SOCIETY
OF TACONY.
CHAPTER FOUR
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