In The Cradle of Industry and Liberty

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CHAPTER FIVE FROM MANUFACTURING POWERHOUSE TO POST INDUSTRIAL CITY: THE MID-TWENTIETH TO EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY @ Aerial view of Midvale Steel plant, 1927. Located in Nicetown since its founding in 1867, there were unsuccessful efforts to revive the plant following its closing in 1976. In the foreground is the tower of another major twentieth-century Nicetown manufacturer, the Budd Company. DALLIN AERIAL SURVEY COLLECTION, HAGLEY MUSEUM AND LIBRARY. On February 12, 1978, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an interview with Philadelphia City Representative and Director of Commerce Joseph LaSala. The interview was a follow-up to a talk LaSala had recently given to the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. In both forums LaSala urged city leaders not to invest in major efforts to save Philadelphia’s rapidly disappearing manufacturing jobs and to accept the fact that the city’s future lay in a service-based economy, not an industrial one. “We are wasting a lot of energy and dollars on something that won’t happen. The great days of industry are gone,” he said. At the time, government and business leaders were exploring possibilities for re-opening the Midvale Steel plant, which had recently closed, resulting in the loss of 1,300 jobs. “A great commercial center does not need a steel plant,” LaSala noted, “We must free ourselves…from the way we did things in the past. The ways of the past are not the ways of the future.” Philadelphia’s future, according to LaSala, lay in fields such as healthcare, science, medicine, insurance, and cultural activities. While some would disagree with LaSala on the role of manufacturing in Philadelphia, there is no denying that he was right on target about the transformation of the city’s economy. Philadelphia in the 1970s was in the midst of a sea change, a fundamental shift from an industrial to a service economy. Just as the city had evolved in the early nineteenth century from a city of merchants and financiers to one of industrialists and manufacturers, it was transforming itself once again a century IN THE CRADLE OF INDUSTRY AND LIBERTY 84
and a half later from a city of manufacturers to one of service providers. Between 1953 and 2014 Philadelphia went from 365,600 workers engaged in manufacturing, over 45 percent of its private sector workforce, to 23,000 workers in manufacturing, just over 4 percent of total private sector employment—a staggering reduction of over 90 percent. While it is understandable that city leaders of the 1970s, witnessing the loss of one major industry after another (100,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the 1970s alone), would want to do everything possible to stem the tide, such efforts were bound to be futile. Larger economic and societal changes were underway at this time that would make the transformation of Philadelphia’s economy all but inevitable. The reasons were many. In general, manufacturing in post-World War II America was leaving the industrial cities of the Northeast and Midwest for the South or abroad, where labor and other costs were lower. Manufacturers that did stay local often moved to the suburbs where they could build new open-floor facilities that were better suited to modern industrial processes than the older multi-story factories of the city. The biggest factor for Philadelphia, however, was a fundamental change in consumer tastes and patterns of consumption in the post-World War II era that directly impacted the city’s signature manufacturers. Stetson declined when men stopped wearing hats, for example, while the city’s extensive tapestry rug industry suffered from the growing popularity of wall-to-wall carpeting. In particular, the emerging demand for cheaper, mass-produced standardized goods worked against the many Philadelphia specialty manufacturers that made high-quality products. Disston’s finely crafted saws could not compete in price with the cheaper mass-produced tools sold by Sears & Roebuck and other retailers, a scenario that played out across many Philadelphia industries in the late twentieth century. Labor issues were a major factor as well. Unions had become quite powerful in Philadelphia by the mid-twentieth century and confrontations with management were increasingly common. There were long, bitter strikes in the city’s manufacturing sector that proved costly to both workers and employers. Some companies opted to close or relocate rather than cede to union demands. At the same time, significant increases in automation and industrial efficiencies in the late twentieth century meant that it took far fewer workers to achieve the same levels of production as in earlier periods. Combined, these multiple forces would have a profound impact on American industry overall and on Philadelphia manufacturing in particular. A LONG, SLOW TRANSFORMATION As noted in the previous chapter, the first signs of decline in Philadelphia manufacturing began to appear in the 1920s and then intensified in the depression years of the 1930s. World War II brought a revival in manufacturing, but it was temporary. One by one in the post-war period, Philadelphia’s great manufacturers fell silent. Some closed or moved out of the city soon after the War, others lasted into the 1970s and 1980s, and a few made it into the 1990s or early 2000s. But eventually, they all were gone (with the exception of Disston, which continued to @ Top, left: Demolition of the Stetson Hat factory at Fifth Street and Montgomery Avenue in Kensington in 1979. Stetson made hats at this location for almost 100 years before it closed the factory in 1971 and moved out of the city. The company is still in business, now in Texas. PHILADELPHIA EVENING BULLETIN COLLECTION, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER. Top, right: Demolition of the Baldwin Locomotive plant at Broad and Spring Garden Streets, 1937. Baldwin was among the first of Philadelphia’s major manufacturers to leave the city, moving to nearby Eddystone, Delaware County, beginning in 1906. The move was complete by the late 1920s and the Philadelphia plant was demolished a decade later. PHILADELPHIA RECORD COLLECTION, HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. CHAPTER FIVE 85
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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
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would hold into the early nineteent
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technology, transportation, and com
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age had joined the Religious Societ
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Philadelphians lived in the city’
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“and many boats, which are useful
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Quaker merchant Thomas Masters purc
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INDUSTRY INVENTORS Manufacturers in
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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 and 70: through exploitation of their worke
Page 71 and 72: @ Left: Yard locomotives at Midvale
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: the Philadelphia Phillies. Located
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
Page 121 and 122: Under Yost’s direction, The Rowla
Page 123 and 124: The story of Tioga Pipe is a classi
Page 125 and 126: neighborhood. The increased product
Page 127 and 128: Humphrys is one of the oldest manuf
Page 129 and 130: The Doherty brothers realized, to s
Page 131 and 132: Centrally located off the Pennsylva
Page 133 and 134: Jersey and Delaware. Outgrowing the
Page 135 and 136: 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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