In The Cradle of Industry and Liberty

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@ Above: Finishing soft hats at the Stetson Hat factory in Kensington, c. 1910. JOHN B. STETSON COMPANY POSTCARDS, LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA. Below: Stetson employee Anne Alexander wears the company’s famous ten-gallon “Boss of the Plains” cowboy hat and shows off other model Stetson hats in 1940. Stetson made a variety of hats, but was especially famous for its signature cowboy hat. PHILADELPHIA RECORD PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION, HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. STETSON HAT John B. Stetson (1830-1906) was born into a family of hatmakers in New Jersey. During a youthful sojourn in the American West, he noticed the poor quality of the coonskin caps and other headwear in use there and thought that a well-made felt hat might be better suited for the environment. Upon returning home, he rented a room and in 1865 started a small hat making operation in Philadelphia, focusing eventually on making fine-quality felt hats for the western market. The business prospered and in the early 1870s Stetson moved to Fourth Street and Montgomery Avenue in Kensington, where he built a factory that grew into a huge twenty-five building complex. Stetson employed as many as 5,400 workers at a time and became the largest hat maker in the world. Stetson made all kinds of hats—straw boaters, derbies, military headwear—but was particularly famous for the quintessential cowboy hat that John Stetson himself invented. Known as the “Boss of the Plains,” the hat was worn throughout the American West and seen in countless cowboy movies. Stetson was in business in Philadelphia for over ninety years before leaving the city in 1971. MIDVALE STEEL Midvale Steel was founded by William Butcher, an Englishman from Britain’s famed Sheffield steel district, who came to Philadelphia in the mid-1860s to set up a company to manufacture steel wheels and tracks for railroads. With support from local investors, he established the William Butcher Steel Works in 1867 in North Philadelphia’s Nicetown neighborhood. The company had IN THE CRADLE OF INDUSTRY AND LIBERTY 68
@ Left: Yard locomotives at Midvale Steel, c. 1900. The locomotives were purchased from Baldwin. MIDVALE COLLECTION, HISTORICAL AND INTERPRETIVE COLLECTIONS OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE, PHILADELPHIA. difficulties early on and in 1872 was acquired by William Sellers, who renamed it Midvale Steel (supposedly because it was situated midway between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers). Midvale went through a number of owners and company reorganizations over the years, but its Nicetown plant operated continuously until closing in 1976. At its height in the late 1910s Midvale employed over 7,300 workers. While Midvale made steel for many applications, military contracts were a big part of its business. The company made armaments for both the Army and the Navy for most of its history, with great peaks of activity during World Wars I and II, during which periods it was one of the nation’s largest military contractors. Midvale made some four million rifle barrels for the War Department during World War I, for example. Between the wars, Midvale developed a specialty in making body parts for the growing automobile industry. Midvale is also significant for two other reasons: employing African Americans and women in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century when few other major Philadelphia manufacturers were doing so and being the company where Frederick Winslow Taylor developed “scientific management” in the 1880s. Taylor was a Midvale employee who worked his way up through the ranks while focusing particularly on improving efficiency in manufacturing processes. His time and motion studies of worker tasks became well-known and his efficiency methods adopted by industries nationwide, much to the consternation of workers and their unions, who detested them. Below: African American workers at the Midvale plant, c. 1900. Midvale was one of the very few large Philadelphia manufacturing firms to employ blacks in the early twentieth century. MIDVALE COLLECTION, HISTORICAL AND INTERPRETIVE COLLECTIONS OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE, PHILADELPHIA. CHAPTER FOUR 69
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IN THE CRADLE OF INDUSTRY AND LIBER
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IN THE CRADLE OF INDUSTRY AND LIBER
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CONTENTS 4 FOREWORD 6 ACKNOWLEDGEME
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@ Michael A. Nutter, Former Mayor,
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For the historical images that enli
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This is a history of manufacturing
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While other manufacturing centers w
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@ Above: Workers at Midvale Steel p
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aircraft that dates to the earliest
Page 19 and 20: would hold into the early nineteent
Page 21 and 22: technology, transportation, and com
Page 23 and 24: age had joined the Religious Societ
Page 25 and 26: Philadelphians lived in the city’
Page 27 and 28: “and many boats, which are useful
Page 29 and 30: Quaker merchant Thomas Masters purc
Page 31 and 32: INDUSTRY INVENTORS Manufacturers in
Page 33 and 34: Quaker upbringing. Known as the “
Page 35 and 36: MAKING A CASE FOR AMERICAN MANUFACT
Page 37 and 38: up cotton manufacturing operations
Page 39 and 40: After receiving a patent for the en
Page 41 and 42: The Globe Mill on the Cohocksink Cr
Page 43 and 44: @ Opposite: Detail from 1849 map sh
Page 45 and 46: of the town’s total population. S
Page 47 and 48: On a positive note, a group of Fran
Page 49 and 50: factories with a powerful energy so
Page 51 and 52: and flagship for Commodore Matthew
Page 53 and 54: @ Left: Penn Steam Engine & Boiler
Page 55 and 56: Garrett & Eastwick Locomotive Works
Page 57 and 58: seen. The episode brought Hagner co
Page 59 and 60: United States, the nation’s de-fa
Page 61 and 62: The turn of the twentieth century p
Page 63 and 64: in various categories at the Centen
Page 65 and 66: makers, 20 stove manufacturers, 12
Page 67 and 68: and lace, in which Kensington manuf
Page 69: through exploitation of their worke
Page 73 and 74: among the largest in the world at t
Page 75 and 76: factory nearby. This became the lar
Page 77 and 78: she writes of the sad circumstances
Page 79 and 80: @ Clockwise, starting from the top:
Page 81 and 82: BEER AND TOBACCO Beer making contin
Page 83 and 84: MILK AND ICE CREAM Like any major c
Page 85 and 86: the Philadelphia Phillies. Located
Page 87 and 88: and a half later from a city of man
Page 89 and 90: After major cutbacks in the auto in
Page 91 and 92: into countless lunchboxes throughou
Page 93 and 94: hangar space in 1980 at Northeast P
Page 95 and 96: is the nation’s largest manufactu
Page 97 and 98: fuel for local industries, current
Page 99 and 100: centralize operations in the buildi
Page 101 and 102: BOOKS AND ARTICLES Bridenbaugh, Car
Page 103 and 104: Sutcliffe, Andrea J. Steam: The Unt
Page 105 and 106: Penrose, Bartholomew & Thomas shipy
Page 107 and 108: PARTNERS IN BUILDING PHILADELPHIA H
Page 109 and 110: @ Left: An early Kingsbury advertis
Page 111 and 112: PARTNERS IN BUILDING PHILADELPHIA 1
Page 113 and 114: Aerodynamics. The name DeVal was a
Page 115 and 116: packaging and shipping; and nondest
Page 117 and 118: Another step in product advancement
Page 119 and 120: PHILLY CASE From the basement of a
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Under Yost’s direction, The Rowla
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The story of Tioga Pipe is a classi
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neighborhood. The increased product
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Humphrys is one of the oldest manuf
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The Doherty brothers realized, to s
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Centrally located off the Pennsylva
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Jersey and Delaware. Outgrowing the
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Philadelphia is famous for its appr
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injection molded plastic to enter t
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had expanded from smaller pieces fo
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for many years and they know the fi
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furnace as well as a custom flame h
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and Salmon Streets. The company wou
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The company capitalized on the stra
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discharges. The supercapacitors are
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products that are custom designed t
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Today manufacturing matters, now mo
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LEADERSHIP SPONSORS Historical Publ
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