USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley, Connecticut, Volume I > Part 25
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The early census schedules were not consistently classified and some confusion exists as to former conditions, but it is clear that textile manufacturers were for a long time more important in this state than the brass industry. In 1900, however, the product of all the textile mills combined fell below that of 1880, while in 1890 brass manufacture became the leading industry in the state, and with its allied lines of manufacture had a gross product 25% larger than that of all the textiles. In 1905 the rolling mills alone had a product equal to that of the textile industry, while the addition of allied branches produced a product more than twice that of the textiles.
"From the first," says Lathrop, "Waterbury has been the recognized center in the country of the brass industry, and within the city itself this has of course been the leading industry." Although the census apparently confuses manufactured and unmanufactured brass or treats them differently at successive census periods, the returns showed in 1890 that Waterbury was making 31% of the brassware of the United States and 40% of the brassware of Connecticut. In 1900, 48% of the brassware of the country and 88% of the brassware of the state came from Waterbury. Account must be taken here, however, of a failure to distinguish a change which had taken place. Formerly practically all of the brass mills in the state both rolled brass and manufactured brassware. This con- dition prevailed in 1890 but a change was taking place. The foundry and rolling mills were a logical unit, the brassware mill another, and plants tended to specialize. Some important exceptions existed, however, of which the Scovill Manufacturing Company is an instance of a great concern which casts, rolls and remanufactures its brass. While the separation spoken of was taking place the product of some plants might be classed either as "brass and copper, rolled" or "brassware" according as to which constituted at the time the greater volume of business.
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WATERBURY AND THE NAUGATUCK VALLEY
These conditions resulted in some surprising vagaries in the census figures. For instance :
Brass and Copper, Rolled ( Entire Country).
1889
1899
Wage-earners
1879 5,082
2,698
8,459
ยท Value of Products
$14,329,871
$8.381,472
$44,309,829
Brass Castings ( Entire Country ).
1879
1889 1899
Wage-earners
6,237
10,943
9,154
Value of Products.
$10,808,742
$24,344,434 $23,891.348
Brassware.
1879
1889 1899
Wage-earners
1,142
7,157
8,770
Value of Products
$1,523,098
$13,615,172
$16,803.764
To accept these figures must be to suppose that from 1879 to 1889 brass casting operations more than doubled but brass rolling fell off nearly one-half, while the manufacture of brassware, largely out of sheet brass, increased nearly 900 per cent. The 1910 census volume on manufactures admits this inconsistency in the figures on brass rolling and ascribes it to "changes in the classification of reports of some establishment." From 1899 to 1909, it points out, there was greater uniformity in the method of classifying.
Obviously, estimates of the relative percentages of brass rolling, brass casting, etc., done by Waterbury, Naugatuck Valley, or Connecticut concerns cannot be accurately made from the census figures for these earlier periods and compari- sons extending back forty years are untrustworthy.
There has been a change in the classification, however, since 1899, bronze products and reclaimed brass being included in the 1904, 1909 and 1914 brass classification. This now includes the following subdivisions of the heading "Brass and Bronze Products :"
Brass: Ingot brass and shapes for remanufacture.
Brass and Copper, Rolled: Sheets, bars, rods, etc.
Brass Castings and Finishings: Brass foundry work and finishing as dis- tinguished from lighter brassware; car and engine brasses; refining brass; oiling devices ; safety steam appliances ; brass spigots ; hose couplings.
Brassware: Ornaments for furniture, stair plates and stair rods, fenders. screens, plates, novelties, metal spinning, brass tubing.
Bronze Products: It will be seen that the above list contains many articles that are not in Waterbury's line at all while on the other hand, "Foundry and Machine Shop Products" ( primarily iron and steel wares) contains the following subdivision in which some characteristic Waterbury and Naugatuck Valley prod- ucts will be recognized :
Hardware: Locks, brass draping chains, metal curtain rods; fancy uphol- stery nails, trunk trimmings; cabinet, car, carriage, casket, furniture, piano and organ hardware.
However, there is no doubt that we are living in a brass state, valley and city. The leadership is plainly set forth by the census bureau which sets forth that in 1909 Connecticut made 44.6 per cent of the brass and bronze products
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WATERBURY AND THE NAUGATUCK VALLEY
of the United States, the two states next in order being New York with 14.8 per cent and Michigan with 9.3 per cent. As to the increase or decrease between censuses, the only figures exactly comparable are for 1904, 1909 and 1914, the 1899 figures being taken on a slightly different basis, and figures for previous census years being subject to vagaries. The comparison for these four manu- facturing censuses is as follows :
BRASS AND BRONZE PRODUCTS
United States
1914 $162,199,019
Connecticut
69,353,103
1909 $149,989,058 66,932,969 44.6 31,061,875
1904 $102,407,104 53,916,445 52.7 19,986,964
1899 $88,654,000 49,059,000
Per Cent of U. S ..
42.I
55.3
Waterbury
32,624,187
20,238,000
Per Cent of U. S ..
20.I
21.3
22,8
Ansonia
16,409,613
Per Cent of U. S .. .
10.7
II.O
19.5 16,297,91I 15.9 5,382,761
4,147,452
Per Cent of U. S .. .
4,445,658 3.0
5.2
The home of the brass industry is thus shown to be holding its own. The addition to the brass classification of articles in which we do not compete and the inclusion in other schedules of some of our typical brass products, vitiates exact comparisons with earlier census reports while emphasizing the general conclusions to be drawn from them.
The census bureau finds in the localization of the industry hereabouts one of the remarkable examples of industrial specialization worthy of emphasis in the special chapter devoted to the subject. There are four large industries in which Connecticut leads all other states : Brass and bronze, cutlery, firearms and plated ware. In three of the four Waterbury is interested and in one of them she is the leading manufacturing city.
There is another, smaller but still significant, industry in which both Connecti- cut and Waterbury lead. It is the classification of "needles, pins and hooks and eyes." All three of these articles are never made in the same plant. yet they are historically and technically closely associated, so perhaps the classification is not unnatural. Here are the figures :
PRODUCTION OF NEEDLES, PINS, HOOKS AND EYES
United States
Connecticut
1904 $4,755,589 3.062,193 64.5%
1909 $6,694,095 4,236,036 63.3%
1914 $7,890,879 5,108,556 64.7%
Waterbury, of course, produces an important part, perhaps the major part, of these pins and hooks and eyes, while Torrington similarly attends to the pro- duction of the needles, but the census reports do not go into too much detail because the number of plants engaged is so small that to do so would tend to disclose individual operations. The case is similar with clocks and watches made in Waterbury, which are listed under "all other products" so as not to disclose the operations of individual plants.
Bridgeport
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WATERBURY AND THE NAUGATUCK VALLEY
With these lines of manufacture lumped in the Waterbury manufacturing figures, the foundries and machine shops appear in the schedules as the second industry in size for which figures are separately given. The growth in this line from 1904 to 1909 has been especially significant :
1904
1909
Number of plants
13
23
Persons engaged
899
2,167
Capital engaged
$1,409,000
$3,985,000
Salaries and wages
628,000
1,563,000
Value of products
1,335,000
3,558,000
Such capacity for development in a highly competitive industry indicates that Waterbury's machine shops and foundries are serving distinct needs both of their district and elsewhere and are less dependent upon easy access to cheap coal, iron and steel than on the command of technical knowledge and skill in handicraft which are native among our people.
Waterbury, then, may feel secure of the future of its leading industry, which is localized also in the Naugatuck Valley and in Connecticut and has generations of stability behind it. Dr. Anderson expressed the belief that it was our poor soil which turned the energies of Waterbury's people to manufacturing. Brass having been chosen and the primacy secured, the skilled labor trained, and the inventive ability developed, capital accumulated in the hands of men born in the business, the exacting technique of the business tended to keep it centered here. It is shown in Lathrop's history that after the beginning of what came to be the Benedict & Burnham Manufacturing Company in 1823, there was not a single enterprise in existence in 1900 in Connecticut or outside of it, except the Manhattan Brass Company of New York City, which had been organized independently of the mills in the Naugatuck Valley. Of the five outside Con- necticut in 1895, one has since become a branch of the American Brass Company. Since that time two of comparatively recent origin have entered the trade, and one, the Chase Rolling Mill Company, has begun operations in Waterbury, but the growth of the local mills has apparently exceeded by far that of its outside competitors. The next census will probably show Waterbury's position in its basic industry to be more secure than ever.
Nearly all of the other industries of the city are affiliated with brassmaking in either supplying its needs or using its product. The machine shops are here to devise and build the machinery which make the product and form it into articles of utility, the brassware factories (or "cutting-up shops," as the workmen say) taking the sheets and wire and fashioning them for consumption. In this class finally belong the clock, watch and pin industries, which grew out of the parent brass mills. They could have originated in any locality and brass sheets or wire would have been shipped to them, but the brass lore was here, with the knowledge of handling our peculiar metal and the native ingenuity required to make tools and machinery and devise methods to turn out small parts and articles economically and rapidly.
It must be remembered that the strategic basis of our closely interlocked industries is the brass casting shop and the brass rolling mill, usually operating together, and that successful operation of these call for technical knowledge and skill which are not widespread and in this country are generally acquired in this district. The brassware manufacturers tend to group near their source of supply, which is the rolling mill. In 1904, Connecticut was able to report that more than four-fifths of the brass and copper was rolled within the state and that more than one-half of the brassware was made within her borders.
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WATERBURY AND THE NAUGATUCK VALLEY
The great extensions that have been made by the brass companies since 1914 have brought up the question whether there will be business enough to keep them going after the war. Undoubtedly a period of readjustment must come, but for some years after the war there must be a continued demand for replace- ment which has been neglected during the period of hostilities and for the enormous and inevitable work of reconstruction necessitated by war devastation. Many observers foresee five years of active demand for Waterbury's goods and that is as far as foresight will go in most human affairs. By that time, the expansion of the country's business and the great possibilities of permanent export trade may have enabled the peace demand to overtake the facilities created for war purposes. It was stated by John H. Goss in 1916 at a conference between manufacturers and railroad operating officials that the Scovill Manu- facturing Company had not built and would not build any factory construction that it did not expect to occupy permanently after the war.
Some large local concerns have already made inquiries as to new methods of marketing and advertising products which can be manufactured in their plants. Such a method of taking up a temporary slack after the war would be a departure from local practice. The tradition has been that Waterbury's energies are best devoted to improving productive methods, leaving the marketing to others. The city produced goods which were largely materials for other manu- facturers. When the sheets or wire were re-manufactured in Waterbury, it was generally on order. The principal marketing successes were made over outside trademarks. Probably the time has come to enter these wider fields, but it can be pointed out that so far the accustomed policies have served the city very well.
The fact that Waterbury contributes to the common stock of goods so many thousands of articles of such varied uses, and so many sizes and shapes, but invariably articles of use rather than luxury, has stabilized the manufacturing business to a degree which might not have been attained if the product had been a comparatively few specialized lines with a varying demand. It is literally true and has been for years that it is almost impossible to make anything from an umbrella to a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes, from a small electric motor to a locomotive or a battleship, from a trunk or handbag to a great office building or hotel, without creating a demand for something made of brass or copper and sending to Waterbury.
Waterbury is known as the "Brass City" and it has been entitled to this significant name since 1858, when it had twenty-five corporations in that industry. In 1873 there were twenty-seven companies in the brass business, and in 1896 thirty-nine were in the brass or kindred industries. The combinations that have since been made have greatly reduced this number, but vastly increased plants and outputs. For 1900 Waterbury produced 48 per cent of the brassware of the country ; in 1904 the figure was 42.2 per cent; in 1909 it was 21 per cent of all the brass and bronze produced in the country. The census of manufactures for 1914 makes this figure 20.1 per cent.
The census of manufactures for 1914 gives the total of brass, bronze and copper products as $162,199,019, and credits Connecticut with $69,353,103, 42.1 per cent of the United States' total. Of this Connecticut total the Waterbury output is given by the census as $32,624,187, or 20.1 per cent of the United States' total.
With this percentage in mind, that Waterbury's output was approximately one-half of the state output, the following figures can be easily reduced to give fairly exact estimates for Waterbury's 1914 record :
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WATERBURY AND THE NAUGATUCK VALLEY
The number of establishments in the brass, bronze and copper industries in Connecticut for 1914 were 67; the average number of wage earners, 16,781 ; primary horse power, 57,033; capital, $51,886,000; wages, $9,846,000; cost of materials, $53,886,000; value of products, $69,353,103.
In 1917 the number of factory employees in the brass industry in Waterbury is approximately 25,000. This is a conservative figure. The wages are nearly $18,000,000, and the value of products for the state will be nearly, if not over, $140,000,000.
Manufacturing in Waterbury has taken a remarkable step forward since 1915, the beginning of the period of large munition orders from abroad. This trade flowed to a greater or less degree into almost every plant in the city. The totals for the last two years, giving value of products and number and wages of employees, would show, judging from the experience of individual plants, much more than double those of 1914, the last Government statistics now available. As an illustration : At that date the number of employes at the Scovill Manu- facturing Company plant was 7,500. Today it is 13,500. Wages have increased on the average from twenty to thirty per cent, so that it is evident that the figures given here for 1914 must be much more than doubled to get at even a fair estimate for 1917. In the value of output, it is clear that the doubling and even quadrupling of plants, means a tremendous increase over the 1914 figures. While the actual tonnage has more than doubled, its value can only be estimated by taking into consideration also the increase in prices of raw and finished products. Thus on October 28, 1914, both Lake and electrolytic copper were quoted at 11.50; spelter at St. Louis was 4.95. On October 26, 1916, both Lake and electrolytic copper were quoted at 28.50, and spelter was at 9.30. Other materials used in the industries in Waterbury had the same phenomenal rise.
With this clearly in mind, the census figures form a basis for 1917 estimates.
WAGE EARNERS IN WATERBURY (CENSUS FIGURES)
Number
1899
13,225
Wages $ 6,691,000
1904
15,406
8,016,000
1909
20,170
11,244,000
1914
20,189
11,503,000
1917 (est.)
35,000
25,000,000
VALUE OF WATERBURY'S PRODUCTS (CENSUS FIGURES)
Value
No. of Plants
Capital
1899
$30,330,300
124
$21,967,000
1904
32,367,359
I43
32,950,000
1909
50,349,816
169
44,653,000
1914
50,659,000
190
50,288,000
The figures given in the census for 1914 on fuel used for power are interesting. Thus Waterbury's industries in 1914 used 76,210 gross tons of anthracite coal, I43,848 net tons of bituminous coal, 3.157 net tons of coke, 84.943 barrels of oil. 28.748,000 cubic feet of gas.
A GENERAL REVIEW
By specializing and by devoting brains and tenacity to its business, Waterbury has developed the manufacture and multiplied the uses of brass, copper and
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WATERBURY AND THE NAUGATUCK VALLEY
German silver until they have created markets that are world-wide. They now practically control these trades in the United States.
Waterbury is credited with having a larger number of skilled artisans than any other city of equal size in the world. The products of Waterbury can be found in every quarter of the civilized world. The Ingersoll watch at the Waterbury Clock Company's immense factory, long ago reached the guaranteed output of more than 12,000 daily. The Waterbury-Ingersoll, made at the Ingersoll plant in Waterbury, has reached nearly 2,000 daily.
No city in the world has such a reputation for buttons of all kinds. The button industry dates back to 1760, at least, when Joseph Hopkins made them of sterling silver, and to last forever. The products of Waterbury button fac- tories today reach every country on the face of the earth.
Waterbury has made lamps and lamp trimmings for nearly fifty years, and for over thirty years this industry has been a great factor in the growth of the city. Every factory in the city, accustomed to lead in the small brass goods, makes some sort of lamp trimming. In addition to the regular lamp burners for house- hold use, there is the lantern,-the original Deitz and its imitations and several others in whole or part, and perhaps as great an industry as any of this character, the mantel gas burners of several varieties. Against all odds the manufacturers have obtained and maintained their royal share of the burner business so sub- stantially begun more than fifty years ago by such men as L. J. Atwood, John C. Booth, Israel Holmes, and others, who were aided materially in their endeavors by the best mechanical skill in New England.
One of the greatest of Waterbury's industries is the making of pins of all kinds. Though the city has won signal honors in the ornamental pin, the hat pin and the safety pin, she has by no means stopped in her triumphs at the ordinary brass and iron pin industry. Her pins are used everywhere. Waterbury makes nearly seventy-five per cent of the world's output.
CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
The census figures show that the prevailing hours of labor in the brass and bronze business were 54 to 60 hours a week in 1910, the condition obtaining in Waterbury. The average salaries and wages paid here have been shown to be considerably higher than for the average manufacturing industry. Not until the relatively unimportant manufactures of the Mountain States and the far West are reached does a higher wage scale prevail. The higher wages paid in a few large cities to balance higher living expenses, and the competition of new indus- tries, like the automobile manufacture, tend to draw mechanics away from Water- bury, but many of them find conditions outside less to their liking and sooner or later return. And there is a constant gravitation of ambitious youths here to participate in the benefits of learning machine and metal trades in one of the best training schools in the world. Obviously the inflow is greater than the outflow.
The better organization of manufacturers' employment offices has been a development of the last few years, and particularly of the busy war period. The opening in 1917 of a manufacturers' employment bureau with offices in Apothe- caries' Hall Building is a still further refinement of the old haphazard methods of "hiring and firing," and is expected to reduce the waste involved in the frequent turn-over of labor.
The State Free Employment Bureau has been in operation sixteen years. During the greater part of that period, the Waterbury office has been extending
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WATERBURY AND THE NAUGATUCK VALLEY
its usefulness, which extends only in part to securing employment in factories. In 1915 situations were secured for 1,568 people; in 1916 work was found for 1,409. Of these 910 were females, 652 males, in 1915, and in 1916, 842 were females and 567 were males.
SEX OF WAGE EARNERS
In manufacturing industries requiring physical strength and a high degree of skill males are the largest proportion of workers, while the proportion of women and children is largest in the industries requiring dexterity rather than strength. There is enough of the lighter forms of employment in Waterbury factories to furnish suitable employment for thousands of women. For all manufacturing industries in the United States in 1910 the proportion of workers was as follows : Males of 16 years or over, 78 per cent ; females 16 years or over, 19.5 per cent ; children under 16, 2.5 per cent.
For Waterbury's 20,170 workers the proportions were: Males, 15,088, or 74.8 per cent ; females, 4,648, or 23 per cent ; children, 434, or 2.2 per cent. The proportion of females was slightly larger and the proportion of children slightly lower than the general manufacturing average. This has been the general condi- tion for many years and still obtained in 1914.
The employment of women in the munition trade in Waterbury has grown during the past three years until now it is estimated at as high as 35 or 40 per cent in some establishments.
In 1914-15, in addition to the regular munition factories in the state, others which had been working in metal products turned to the manufacture of firearms, ammunition and parts thereof. Apparently scores sprung up over night to enter an industry which seemed to offer the most abundant and quick returns. The swift and nimble fingers and adaptability of women caused them to be employed in great numbers. The high wages offered and the general search for labor led to the diversion of young women from other occupations, particularly domestic service. In much of the work, no special qualifications beyond skill in manipula- tion was required, the skilled men being placed where tools were made and the more delicate mechanism was constructed, the unskilled filling the benches. Hun- dreds of foreign born women who had never been employed in any such labor were soon made passably efficient through instruction. Many other industries lost their workers. It was difficult to obtain women to do work which a few months before they were clamoring to obtain.
The State Bureau of Labor in its report for 1916 says of this development :
"A visit to the various munition factories shows the responsible positions are filled by women who have been there some time, by newcomers who have superior intelligence, and by those who are being constantly promoted from the lower grades of the work. An unceasing vigilance is exercised over the choice of the proper sort of workers for the task upon which they are to be engaged, as the least mistake in this way would be productive of far-reaching disaster. In the less unskilled and almost perfunctory routine work there are fully fifty-seven varieties of foreigners, nationalities that are not found to any great extent in other industries being represented here: Russniak (Ruthenian), Bohemian, Moravian, Albanian, Finnish, Magyar, Slovak, Bulgarian, Servian, Spanish, Montenegrin, Croatian and Slavonian. The Lithuanians and Roumanians have been present in large numbers for some time."
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WATERBURY AND THE NAUGATUCK VALLEY
THE WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION LAW
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