USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Bristol > Our Yankee heritage: the making of Bristol > Part 20
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Wartime employment increased from 100 to 135. As did Wallace Barnes, New Departure and other Bristol concerns, J. H. Sessions and Son kept closely in touch with its 29 employees in the service. The Sen- tinel supplied them and other Bris- tol men with news of the plant and the city and helped keep up morale at home and abroad.
With peace, the concern went back to previous products, many of which were reengineered in the light of wartime experience. But even by 1952 more than forty per cent of production was devoted to materials required for the defense program,
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J. H. SESSIONS & SON ON RIVERSIDE AVENUE (McLaughlin Air Service, N. Y.)
INDUSTRY IN WAR AND PEACE
Movement is progress. Smooth fast movement means smooth indus- try. It means human well-being and true armed defense. Other great industrial centers produce power or motors or generators, others produce machines or autos or planes, but Bristol produces the means by which power flows smoothly, by which machines and vehicles operate smoothly. Wher- ever moving metal parts meet, Bris- tol provides the fluid action with a minimum of friction. It provides the springs, the fine moving parts of watches, chronometers, recorders, fuzes, guns. It provides special mechanisms for the smooth flow and precision use of electricity. It pro- vides half the ball bearings of the world without which few mecha- nisms can run for any length of time.
Ball bearings - by the hundreds of millions - tumble in a never- ending stream from the vast New Departure plant, Bristol's biggest industry, owned by General Motors. This is one of the country's most cru- cial plants for both defense and in- dustry. Germany did not begin to feel the pinch from American bom- bardment until American planes ferreted out the German ball bear- ing plants. None of those destroyed operated on so vast a scale as New Departure in Bristol.
The ball bearings go into autos, airplanes, into nearly every appara- tus that moves in the sea, on the
land or in the air; into the pumps that lift water and oil out of the ground, into the mining machinery that pulls out the ever-increasing number of strategic materials neces- sary for modern life.
In recent years higher speeds in all lines have called for better bear- ings; perfect ball bearings have made that speed possible. At the outset of World War II - in large part due to the use of tungsten car- bide as a cutting tool - lathes and grinders operated twenty-four hours a day at 35,000 revolutions a min- ute, some hand tools up to 75,000 a minute. This was possible only by perfect ball bearings such as those produced by New Departure. In 1939 one rayon manufacturing com- pany, thanks to engineering re- search by New Departure, was able to put in 300,000 new type bearings, permitting high speeds and around- the-clock operations never before possible.
To meet such requirements over the years, methods and techniques at New Departure have been per- fected through longer experience, a skilled working force, constant re- search, and the persistent study of efficiency in performance.
To carry heavy loads, to resist shock and high stresses, to assure long service, the high carbon chrome steel for the bearings must be the cleanest, most highly refined metal produced. Thus, thanks to
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NEW DEPARTURE
MODEL D
NEW DEPARTURE COASTER BRAKE - "THE BRAKE THAT BROUGHT THE BIKE BACK" (top)
NEW DEPARTURE BALL BEARINGS (bottom) (Permission New De- parture Div., GMC)
INDUSTRY IN WAR AND PEACE
the coal of West Virginia and Penn- sylvania, the iron ore of Mesabi Ridge in Minnesota, the oil from a dozen states, the finest steel comes into the New Departure plant to be heated, cut, rolled, tumbled, tem- pered, ground and lapped. Thus from the steel ingots, billets and blooms, from rods and wire, to the final high quality steel balls, the separators and the rings and 'races' in which they roll - to make this assembly known as a ball bearing - requires thousands of operations, hundreds of specialized costly ma- chines, skilled engineering, skilled conscientious workmanship, con- stant inspection and research. The use of most modern equipment, the adherence to most modern produc- tion methods, have been important factors in the New Departure suc- cess.
The end product today is a ball bearing with refined tolerances measured in millionths of an inch, tolerances that cannot be measured by the naked eye. A human hair is a thousand times grosser. Tem- pered with scientific accuracy, as- sembled in sealed-in, self-lubricat- ing units, they give tremendously finer performance and long life.
The tremendous wartime tasks of New Departure, as in World War I, fell squarely upon the shoulders of its management staff. Through their efforts, the basic analysis of
high carbon chrome steel was im- proved, the spheroidized annealing of steel developed, and life-lubri- cated, self-sealed bearings produced - bearings which have made all high speeds and precision instru- ments possible. These new sealed- in, self-lubricating bearings are practically indestructible. Formerly auto fan and water pumps were good for only about 3,000 miles, now the bearings last the life of the car, whatever the mileage.
One important new product, stack bearings for airplane propel- lers, which must change pitch ac- cording to air pressure, consists of five to six sets of ring bearings, each infinitesimally different, each able to stand 250,000 pounds pressure, piled together like a steel layer cake with a hole in the center.
Such developments were achieved in spite of shortages of high-grade steel, tungsten and chromium. Whenever possible without lower- ing quality, substitutes were worked out. Aluminum, rubber, shellac, gloves, wiping cloths were hard to get. Bearings now went to the ends of the earth, to all climates and con- ditions, and had to be put into bet- ter containers at a time when paper and wooden boxes were almost im- possible to get.
Though building materials were hard to obtain, the division was able to build sizable additions in record time. It also reconditioned the old
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NEW DEPARTURE DIV., GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION - MAIN PLANT (top); FORGE SHOP (bottom) (Permission New Departure Div., GMC)
INDUSTRY IN WAR AND PEACE
wood-turning building at Ingra- hams with 126,000 square feet of floor space - this in several weeks - to take heavy machinery.
The foundations for one new giant forging machine weighing 385,000 pounds, required a whole carload of cement. A monster 87,- 000 foot crane had to be moved a mile through the Bristol streets to the huge new tank-bearing plant on Emmett Street. Seventy per cent of all the tank bearings used in the war were made there.
Peace time brought little slacken- ing of effort. In spite of rapid de- mobilization, all employees in the armed services so desiring were re- employed, and hundreds of new workers were taken on. The only stoppages have occurred several times because of metal shortages, a nation-wide General Motors strike, and the steel strike. Soon after the war ceased, a third New Departure plant was in full operation at San- dusky, Ohio.
Good housekeeping is necessary
at New Departure, especially in pre- cision departments. In all, 179 acres of plant floor have to be taken care of, and 40,000 acres have to be cleaned daily; two acres a week must be scrubbed. Windows have to be cleaned, and 361,561 square feet of glass have to be washed. New Departure uses 25.2 per cent of all the electricity used in Bristol, enough to light 8,000 homes. The water used would supply 3,600 homes. Twenty-nine million cubic feet of compressed air are consumed daily. New Departure is one of the chief bulwarks of Bristol prosperity.
Thus, just as Bristol mobilized its citizens to repel international ag- gression, at home and on the front line, so did it provide an ever in- creasing flow of industrial products without which the war could not have been carried through to vic- tory. After peace came, most plants were able to reconvert rapidly, im- prove their equipment and main- tain full employment and high out- put.
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LABORATORY - SUPERIOR ELECTRIC COMPANY (Permission Superior Electric Co.)
ยป 20
today AND tomorrow
THE electronic age demands more exacting techniques, mathe- matics and science than ever before in human history. Above all it has created a need in planes, ships, weapons, and all industries for deli- cate but durable and dependable control instruments able to with- stand extraordinary conditions of heat, speed, altitude, vibration.
Several instrument companies settled in Bristol shortly before World War II because here they found the requisite specialized tech- niques, products and workers skilled in small-parts assemblies.
The Hayden Manufacturing Com- pany, set up in 1937 to manufacture synchronous timing motors and electric controls, was called upon to provide Army and Navy timing de- vices, radio range keyers, aircraft coders, submarine and radar equip- ment, navigation clocks, X-ray equipment and DC motors. This has since been purchased by Gen- eral Time Corporation and moved to Torrington, Conn.
In June 1938 Alfred B. Nelson and
Thor L. Hannon went into partner- ship - the Superior Electric Com- pany - to design and manufacture variable autotransformers, trade- named POWERSTATS, that would deliver a continuous stable or ad- justable voltage from AC power- lines for control of light, heat, power and any electric or electronic gear. As with Gideon Roberts's clock- making, Manross's hairsprings and Terry-Fletcher glass cutters, and other industries that later grew to size and importance, the beginnings of Superior Electric were humble. The initial work was done at the homes of the partners, later in an Emmett Street garage. When ready to tool up for production that November, a vacant Harrison Street machine shop was rented. Actual manufacture began August 1, 1939 by the partners themselves. In 1942, grown to a shop with eighteen employees, Superior Electric needed more room and bought the Blakes- lee Novelty shop at 83 Laurel Street.
The war brought heavy demands.
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THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
In addition to commercial, labora- tory and industrial equipment, POWERSTATS were and are used in defense electronic equipment, for radar, sonar, any apparatus requir- ing adjustable voltages. New mecha- nisms were devised to meet new and special needs. Growing pro- duction made it necessary to buy land and increase floor space. A hundred men and women were be- ing utilized.
There was no slackening with peace. Employment soon rose 25 per cent above the war peak. In June, 1952, the Bristol Airport, 85 acres, was purchased as the site for a plant that will eventually house all facilities under a single roof.
"From the start," Superior Elec- tric declares, "it was realized that our employees, individually and as a group, are the heart of an enter- prise. The best working conditions and benefits possible with success- ful management are provided."
Superior Electric has now entered the highly specialized field of light- control. By its Lustrol system for large buildings and its Wallbox, used in place of an ordinary off-and- on switch, light can be changed to any strength to correspond to mood or needs.
The H. C. Thompson Clock Com- pany continued manufacturing of their various control mechanisms, pressure gauges and chart-carrying
movements. This company was one of the first to develop and make start-and-stop mechanisms for cook- ing by electricity and gas.
A timer largely used in industries and known as the KWIXSET, con- trols the timing period in the proc- essing of rubber, bakelite and hardening, as well as many other operations. The well-known Lelock is used as a timing device in labora- tories in operations where stop watches were formerly used. The Lelock is an electrically driven de- vice which times accurately to a fraction of a second. Both the KWIXSET and stop-timers are cov- ered by Thompson patents.
The Ingraham clock and watch company was called on for extraor- dinary service during the war. The British and French watch and clock industries had been destroyed by unfair German competition, due to heavy government subsidies, and by low cost Swiss labor. This had left both countries unable to manufac- ture time fuzes requiring clock and watch parts, and needed for anti- aircraft defense, so that both coun- tries were largely at the mercy of Nazi air attacks. By destroying rival clock production in most of Europe, the Hitler regime had a great part of the other countries at its mercy before a shot was fired. Even in the United States only a few thousand anti-aircraft fuzes were being made at Frankfort Ar-
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MODEL ROOM AND TESTING LABORATORY - E. INGRAHAM COMPANY (W. F. Miller and Co., Hartford, Conn.)
THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
senal, with no means for volume production. The situation was des- perate, and the heads of the com- pany were called to Washington, where they were told that at least 30,000 fuzes a day were urgently needed.
Only if drastic new processes could be devised, could this be ac- complished. The company sug- gested, among other things, that if subdied gears could be used in place of cut gears and laminated plates in place of solid plates, it would undertake to produce critical parts for 50,000 fuzes per day, but in any case it could not assemble them in Bristol because of labor shortage.
The authorities in Washington were so impressed that they ordered the express train on which the In- graham people were returning to Bristol halted at Philadelphia, and there turned over to them all secret blueprints and specifications. At its own expense the company carried through the necessary experimental engineering and production.
The gears proved so superior that the E. Ingraham Company was given a contract to produce all gears, plates and parts it could han- dle. Nine outside concerns started assembling fuzes from Ingraham parts, and production actually reached 66,000 sets per day.
This changed method of produc- tion saved labor, it saved the gov-
ernment many millions of dollars, and it saved hundreds of thousands of pounds of critical brass and cop- per. Firing accuracy, by the new type Ingraham fuze, was improved more than 20 per cent.
The company also designed and manufactured more than a million T48E1 anti-personnel fuzes, and millions of necessary parts were provided to other companies.
Total Ingraham production for the war exceeded 950,000,000 pieces. In 1953 Ingraham was still manufacturing vast quantities of fuzes in excess of two million parts per day. Special secret products were also being made, and some were flown directly to Korea.
With peace, every department had to be reorganized and new assembly lines set up. During this difficult period, employment dropped from 2,300 to 450. But in May, 1953 it was up to 2,800.
Many changes had occurred. War experience pointed to new pos- sibilities. Expensive machinery had to be purchased or developed. This has always been a policy of the company - to keep ahead of competitors with the latest and best equipment - as President Edward Ingraham expresses it - "You can't make money unless you spend it." He has been one of the most out- standing figures in the watch and clock industry of America, has writ-
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TODAY AND TOMORROW
ten about the history and tech- niques of clockmaking and has given many addresses on the prog- ress of the industry and public poli- cies. He is now establishing a clock museum in Bristol, which will help record the unique and impor- tant position this city holds in the long story of the development of timepieces.
The whole electronic revolution had avalanched upon the industry, and this, too, required costly engi- neering, research, experiment, and the development of new machinery, but here, also, Ingraham kept abreast of the latest scientific dis- coveries. Closer tolerances de- manded new types of electronic testing. The company has em- barked on a program of improve- ment, the finest, latest, often the costliest machinery, electric fur- naces, polishers, die-forgers, elec- tronic testers performing such deli- cate operations as poising balances, vibrating hairsprings and timing movements. Some of these latter- day tests accomplish instantane- ously what formerly required weeks.
Industrial timers have become in- creasingly important to the com- pany. Its engineering department developed the first interval timer for the original Bendix washing ma- chine and is making practically all timers used today in washing ma- chines, dish washers and dryers. It
has also produced interval timers for heat controls, recording devices, and time switches of various kinds, all requiring fine engineering.
Over the decades, Ingrahams has often taken the lead in introducing changes benefiting its workers. Formerly, wages were paid only once a year, later this was reduced to once every two months, then a monthly payment and eventually a weekly payroll was adopted.
About the turn of the century em- ployees organized 'The Ingraham Mutual Aid Association' to provide sick benefits and in 1940 the com- pany helped set up an employees' Federal Credit Union. The first year it made cumulative loans of over $15,000. By 1951 it had more than $850,000 in assets. In twelve years it has loaned its members ap- proximately $3,300,000.
On the company wage policy, Dudley S. Ingraham states, "The E. Ingraham Company has as good, and possibly the best, record of steady employment as any of the larger industries of Bristol." It has thereby "contributed outstandingly to the steady and satisfactory in- come of Bristol citizens who have worked here. . .. It pays . .. the
highest wages . . in the entire in- dustry. ... This, of course, means in the entire world. It has never experienced a strike nor a threat of a strike."
This record depends on the con-
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THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
tinued ability to maintain produc- tion at high levels on an efficient basis. During the war the com- pany quit making clocks and watches and lost every customer. Swiss exports to the United States increased during that period more than 1,000 per cent, and low Euro- pean labor costs, compared to high Ingraham wages, means that the lost markets can be recovered and held only by alert management, greater efficiency, technical prog- ress and better products.
The company already has some seventy patents in portfolio, and its engineering, research and develop- ment departments now have new products and methods in process that they hope will enable them to recover most of the business lost to low-paid European labor. This is in line with Ingraham's continuous pioneering in inventions in the field of both timepiece mechanisms and manufacturing equipment, in pack- aging, and production methods. The E. Ingraham Company has been the Ford of the industry, with mass production and low prices; and at the same time has maintained fourteen different timepiece mecha- nisms in production as compared to from two to five carried by other producers. Of the many hundreds of concerns producing timepieces, Ingraham's, in number of units, is the second largest producer in the world.
The Sessions Clock Company of Forestville, headed by William K. Sessions, had to make a radical change-over for war work. Clock- making had to be put aside entirely and the government asked it to build up the wood line. An enor- mous schedule of making wooden chests, cases, boxes and cabinets was launched-containers for Gar- and rifles, dynamite caps, Navy gear, field radios, barometers, card files, gun stocks, and numerous pre- cision parts. Parachute handles and rip cord assemblies were turned out, also small parts for field radios, machine gun and bullet cases, disks for motor oil filters and airplane en- gine manifolds.
In 1945 at the conclusion of the war, Sessions turned back to mak- ing clocks. William K. Sessions, Jr., the third generation of the family connected with the com- pany, was made secretary and gen- eral manager. An enlarged labora- tory for research and development was installed, and a long-range program of product diversification was undertaken. As a result Ses- sions entered many new fields, and the number of employees increased from 200 in that year to a peak of nearly 1,000 in 1953. Sales have been tremendously increased. To- day, though the production of clocks has been greatly expanded, they comprise approximately only one-third of the total sales.
260
TODAY AND TOMORROW
The first new field entered was the manufacture of clock radio timers. At present Sessions makes nearly 40 per cent of all such timers manufactured in the United States.
Another new division was set up to manufacture snap-action switches. These are patented 15 ampere volt 'Tyniswitches,' the smallest on the market approved by the Underwriter Laboratories. They go into Sessions timers and are widely used wherever positive miniature switches are required.
More recently, Sessions has en- tered the industrial timer field, manufacturing motors and gear units for a wide variety of appli- cations such as refrigerator de- frosters, washing machines, electric dryers, door chimes, oil burner con- trols, thermostats, air conditioners, X-ray and poultry-house timers.
The Sessions Clock Company has also been active in Government Ordnance manufacture. Com- mencing even before Korea, it has fulfilled several prime contracts and is currently producing bomb fuses, percussion primers and rifle sights.
To keep pace with the phenome- nal growth of the company, the entire Sessions plant has been streamlined and mechanized to ex- pedite efficient production. Large sums have been invested in new modern equipment and expansion of inventory. Even with these en-
larged basic facilities, Sessions still relies on smaller companies for many parts going into its products.
Management has not neglected its obligation to its employees in this steady growth, and it has en- deavored to make work and work- ing conditions more enjoyable. Sessions Clock was one of the first concerns in the area to introduce scheduled music into the various departments each hour for the en- joyment of all its employees while performing their duties. Music and the Public Address System are piped into thirty-six stations over a network of more than two miles of wire.
The company was also one of the first to promote regular morn- ing and afternoon rest periods for relaxation in the cafeteria and lounge.
The idea of color dynamics was introduced in 1946 and proved so popular and effective that the man- agement now employs a permanent maintenance painting staff to keep every department "ship-shape" in color.
A company-sponsored Pension Program is provided, and extensive Health and Accident Insurance, plus Federal Credit Union facili- ties, are offered to all employees.
Each year the company sponsors dinners, outings, excursions and various holiday parties for em- ployees and their families. The
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THE MAKING OF BRISTOL
Recreation Association helps pro- mote many sports, tournaments and contests.
These events are told about in Sessions Time, the house bi- monthly organ, which keeps all employees and distributors up to date on plant and personality news and the future plans of the com- pany. For the years ahead those plans include still greater expan- sion with new products.
Today the city of Bristol contrib- utes to American industrial strength with more than thirty diversified in- dustries, numbers of which lead the entire country. Thirteen thousand people, more than a third of its total population, are industrially em- ployed, and the annual payroll is $50,000,000 a year. This is more than double the cost of the United Nations to the United States. It totals more than the value of all goods the United States shipped to the 400,000,000 people of China each year prior to the World War.
It has taken two and a quarter centuries to build the Bristol of to- day. The shape that life in Bristol has assumed has been due in good part to certain abiding principles.
In October 1952 the people of the Fall Mountain School District pitched in, contributing supplies and their labor without cost to the city, to put a new ceiling in the recreation and mechanical drawing
room of the schoolhouse. In that same way, with that same spirit, the handful of settlers in the Pequabuck wilderness built their first church and their first schools.
That early eagerness for knowl- edge soon led to other schools in every quarter of Bristol and Forest- ville. In that same spirit they erected the early Academy on Fed- eral Hill. Out of these efforts and experiences grew the many fine public and private schools of the Bristol of today, and the high school on the splendid approach of Memo- rial Boulevard.
At the very outset, the settlers provided for a training band to pro- tect their homes, the institutions and the good life of freedom they valued so highly. The fine record of Bristol during the last war, as during earlier crises, reveals that the meaning of those earlier sacri- fices, at a time when the folk had to work far harder to survive, has not been lost.
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