In The Cradle of Industry and Liberty

the Philadelphia Phillies. Located on the 1700
block of Tulip Street in Fishtown, A. J. Reach
was one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of
baseballs and sporting goods in the early twentieth
century. Reach sold the company in 1934
to the A. G. Spaulding sporting goods firm,
which closed the Philadelphia plant soon after.
SIGNS OF DECLINE
Following a period of intense industrial
activity through World War I, the beginnings
of a decline in certain sectors of Philadelphia
manufacturing could be seen starting in the
1920s. Even before the onset of the Great
Depression of the 1930s, several major
Philadelphia industrial firms had either moved
out of the city, scaled back operations, or
gone out of business entirely. The reasons
were many: a changing business climate with
increased competition from other parts of
the nation and world; a growing public
preference for cheaper mass-produced goods
rather than finely crafted items, which made it
difficult for Philadelphia’s renowned specialty
companies to compete; and longstanding
labor issues that had grown increasingly divisive
and costly. While many local companies
were able to weather these challenges and
survive into the post-World War II period,
the beginning of the end of Philadelphia as
Workshop of the World can be traced to the 1920s.
The first major blow was the gradual departure,
starting in 1906, of the city’s largest
employer, Baldwin Locomotive, to bigger
quarters in Eddystone, Delaware County, just
south of the city. The relocation was completed
by the late 1920s, but by the mid-1930s
Baldwin was in bankruptcy due to changing
market conditions and other problems,
including its initial reluctance to transition
from steam power to the new diesel locomotive
technology. The Cramp family also struggled
at this time with the introduction of new
technologies into shipbuilding, such as electricity,
radio communication, and refrigeration.
Following Charles Cramp’s death in 1913 the
family sold the business in 1915. The new
owners soon suffered from the loss of the
company’s lucrative U.S. Navy business after the
end of World War I and closed the shipyard
in 1927. On another front, Prohibition took
effect in January 1920 and proved a crushing
blow to Philadelphia’s numerous brewers,
many of which simply went out of business
(others survived by bootlegging or making
“near beer,” a legally allowed brew with very
low alcohol content). Of course, the Great
Depression of the 1930s was devastating to
Philadelphia industries across the board. Quite
a number of manufacturing firms curtailed or
ceased operations altogether as a result of the
worldwide economic disruption at this time.
WAR- TIME
REVIVAL
For those manufacturers that did survive,
the ramping up of industrial production that
accompanied the United States’ 1941 entry
into World War II proved a great boon,
especially to the companies that were able to
adapt their processes for military purposes.
Midvale made bombshell casings, Disston
made armor plate, Stetson made parachutes,
and a host of other local manufacturers
profited from war-time contracts. The Navy
Yard and Frankford and Schuylkill Arsenals
were exceptionally busy producing vessels
and materials for the war effort. The
Frankford Arsenal employed a workforce of
some 22,000 and the Navy Yard some 40,000.
The latter built fifty-three new ships and
repaired over 500 others during the War. One
such vessel, the famed battleship New Jersey,
was launched from the Navy Yard in 1942 and
went on to become one of the most decorated
ships in U.S. naval history. It is now a floating
museum across the river from Philadelphia in
Camden, New Jersey. Even Cramp’s shipyard,
shuttered since 1927, re-opened in 1941 and
built some forty military vessels before closing
permanently immediately after the War.
The boom years lasted into the early 1950s,
after which the bottom began to fall out of
Philadelphia manufacturing in a big way.
@
The USS New Jersey docked on the
Delaware River at Camden, New Jersey,
where it serves as a floating museum.
Launched from the Philadelphia Navy Yard
in 1942, the New Jersey is one of the most
decorated battleships in U.S. Naval history.
It was decommissioned in 1991.
PHOTO BY VLADSINGER, 2008, WIKIPEDIA COMMONS.
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