USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Watertown > Historical sketches of Watertown, Massachusetts > Part 22
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These machines are being sold very widely in this . and other countries. The new building planned for this factory is to be 250 by 150 feet, one story high, with solid, well-protected floors for heavy machinery, with good light partly from above, well heated by steam and lighted by electricity, and well protected from danger of fire. Its approaches on three sides will be convenient for receiving materials and sending otl' machines.
Lewando's French Dyeing and Cleansing Establish- ment .- This establishment cleanses and dyes all kinds of fabrics and materials used as clothing, or as draper- ies, upholstery, carpets or rugs for floors.
The property is at present owned by George S. Harwood, of Newton, who has about $150,000 invested in it. Wm. Lincoln Crosby, 17 Temple Place, Boston, is at present manager.
The superintendent of the works at Watertown for the last two years is Peter Burbank, who has had nearly thirty years' experience in the business. There are employed here during the different seasons of the year from one hundred to two hundred persons, over one-third of them men, the other two-thirds women. There is distributed in weekly wages from $1000 to $2000.
The principal office for the transaction of business is 17 Temple Place, Boston ; there are branch offices in other parts of Boston, in New York, Philadelphia, and other cities, with a system of advertising and sending by mail and express that reaches the whole of the United States and the Provinces.
The laundry has been recently refitted and fur- nished with the improved machinery manufactured by the Empire Laundry Machinery Company of this place, and turns out about 4500 collars and cuffs, 500 shirts, and a large variety of other articles each day, or about $500 worth each week. Starch made in
Watertown is believed to be the best and is therefore used.
They have a most systematic method of receiving, marking, accounting for and trenting each article in each bundle taken into the works, so that each owner is sure to receive his own property when finished. Mistakes seldom occur. Flannels are washed by hand so as to prevent shrinking, but most goods in the huge washers ; they are dryed in the excelsior dryer, turning 1400 revolutions per minute, and starched and ironed when required, by special machinery for the different kinds of fabrics or garments. Those requir- ing polishing are, if collars or cuffs, for instance, passed through a parallel ironer ; all are dried by steam. A large part of the water required here, as well as in the dye-honse, is furnished from six artesian wells, although a large quantity of water is taken by measure from the Watertown Water Supply Com- pany.
In the dye-house experienced chemists and expert dyers are employed. Experienced pressmen and presswomen are required in a part of their works. The requisite knowledge and skill necessary to sustain the reputation which the establishment has acquired, is the result of long experience.
A boiler of 120 and two of forty-five horse-power are used to supply the motive- power and to furnish steam for heating and drying purposes. Three steam- engines of about eight, six, and ten horse-power operate the laundry and other machinery, including a large pump for raising the water from the artesian wells. If we had space to describe the processes in the different departments, and give the names of those who have charge, or have acquired greatest skill, we certainly should begin with the dye-rooms. It is understood, of course, that when an old garment is to receive a new color, it is as far as possible discharged of its former color in order that the dye-stuff's may have their proper effect. Otherwise it must be determined by experiment upon a small part, or by former experi- ence, what peculiar combinations are required to be made in order to produce the exact shade desired. Patrons send with their fabrics or garments, bits of color of the kind ordered, little thinking of the patience or skill acquired by long experience, needed to make it possible to make even an approach, in some cases, to the effects desired. The art is so pecu- liar, the knowledge so technical, and so beyond the comprehension of the uninitiated, that for most, ad- mission to this room would be only bewildering, and to those prepared to understand the secrets of the workmen, manifestly unpermissible.'
There are drying-frames to prevent shrinking, frames and cushions for laces and for drapery cur- tains, naphtha cleaning rooms for certain kinds of work, a separate department for cleaning and dyeing gloves, of which 10,000 pairs are sometimes done in a month. One might be greatly surprised to see a soiled pair of light-colored gloves come out fresh in
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their delicate tints, as if never worn, while black can always be imparted to those that seem to most, hope- less of further usefulness.
In the cleansing house, men's clothing, ladies' dresses and robes, blankets, carpets, curtains, draper- ies can be thoroughly cleansed by what is known as the dry process. Elaborate ball and stage dresses are thoroughly cleansed without taking them to pieces. Velvets, laces, shawls, are handled with great care, and so skillfully and delicately treated, that they sel- dom receive injury. One of the new and secret pro- cesses on which they pride themselves, and of which they make great use, enables them to remove the dis- agreeable shiny appearance which smooth woolen cloths take on after a little wear; 5000 garments have been thus treated within a year and a half.
The manager says this business was begun by Mr. Lewando, in Boston, in 1829. Still we find in the Watertown Enterprise of 1880 the following state- ment :
"The Watertown Dye-House was founded by Mr. James McGarvey, in a small way, on Pleasant Street, about forty years ago. After a few years Mr. Adolphus Lewando succeeded him. Shortly after, the building was destroyed by fire, and Mr. Lewando decided to re- move the business to Saccarappa, Me. The move, however, proved to be an unfortunate one, as the dis- tance to Boston was a serions obstacle in the way of securing orders, and Mr. Lewando decided to remove to Dedham, Mass. There the enterprise was attended with fair success, but for some reason the proprietor deemed another change necessary, and, in 1865, the business came back to its birth-place-Watertown- since which time it bas continued to grow in pros- perity until it has reached its present magnitude. At the time of Mr. Lewando's death, which occurred, we believe, about 1871, a Mr. Farmer, of Boston, suc- ceeded him and carried on the business for about three years. At the expiration of that time a son of Mr. Lewando's associated with him in business a gentleman by the name of Cate, and this firm re- mained in occupation for one year. The business then passed into the hands of Messrs. Harwood and Quincey, who erected at different times the large brick block now almost entirely occupied by them for their business, the block of houses on the river-bank above their works, and the buildings on piles in the river above the island, below and on the opposite side of the Galen Street or 'Great Bridge,' and who re- modeled the remaining buildings as the enlarged and improved condition of their business demanded.
"In 1886 Mr. Quincy retired from the firm, so that since that the business has been carried on by Mr. Harwood alone.
" This business is now claimed to be larger than that now carried on by any similar establishment in the United States, and is rapidly increasing."
Metropolitan Laundry .- This laundry was started many years ago in connection with the shirt factory
of Mr. Charles J. Hathaway, who began to manufac- ture shirts in large quantities and to sell them in Boston at wholesale as early as 1848. At first a necessity in the manufacture of white shirts, it was managed as a part of the shirt factory. During its history it has passed through many different hands until at present it has grown into an independent establishment by itself and is now owned and man- aged by Mr. H. H. Sawyer, who runs it under the above title. It is true that some of its work comes from the adjoining Metropolitan Shirt Factory, but it has with it no necessary connection, except to sup- ply the latter company with steam and power from their large boiler.
The present capacity of the works is 40,000 or 50,000 pieces each week, and employs about forty per- sons. The building is large enough for a larger busi- ness, and will be fully utilized soon, if the present rate of increase of business continnes. The goods laundered are partly new from manufacturers, or are from families residing in different places, from whom the work is obtained by a regular system of collec- tions, mostly within New England.
This laundry is newly and very fully furnished with new machinery of every variety from the Empire Laundry Machine Company of this place. It is the aim of the present proprietor to do first-class work ; so he spares no effort in trying to provide, with first- class appliances of every kind, the best help this place affords, where work-people have been trained by long experience to do excellent work, and also weeks in other places their most skillful workmen.
Goods can be laundered now in a very short time. While following for convenience the old system of weekly collections and deliveries, work is on occasion done very quickly. As in the large hotels of Europe, here one can have his linen thoroughly laundered while he is taking a nap, or a bath,-a Turkish bath.
As the huge baskets are brought in, filled with parcels from the families, by the collecting wagons, each piece is marked, recorded, sorted, and put into the rotary washers for their first washing. These are, some of them, of wood ; some, since copper has fallen from its high price, are wholly of metal, a composite metal, which has strength and endurance and does not ordinarily discolor delicate clothing. Abont an hour spent in turning and reversing in strong solu- tions of soap and the following baths of clear water, without wearing by rubbing, is generally sufficient to remove all dirt and leave the clothing white and clean. The clothes, carefully packed in the centrifu- gal ,wringer, soon have every drop of water whirled out of them. This machine hums like a top, and by its rising key indicates a very great velocity, it is said 1400 or 2000 revolutions each minute. The clothes are then passed through the starchers, to the dry room, where the last trace of dampness is re- moved, then to the ironers and the polishers. We have not space to describe all the processes upon the
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEA COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
perfection of which the excellence of the work done depends.
Of course where there are many collars, or cuffs, or shirts, or articles of any one kind to be done, machines, as here, just fitted to a bosom, a cuff, or a collar may be provided for that particular use which will operate almost automatically. By specialization of work, a greater degree of skill is reached.
A woman in any kitchen or laundry, however, might have a self-heating iron, or, in other words, a smoothing or polishing iron with a supply of gas and air to burn inside of it, so as to maintain the uniform temperature required for such purposes.
A forty horse-power boiler supplies the steam for heating and drying purposes, also to the small steam engine of twelve horse power which drives all the machinery with precision and order. The visitor comes away with the feeling that at the present time there is a great advance upon the days of our fathers, and that woman has indeed been re- lieved of much of the mere drudgery of labor.
The number of persons employed here is between forty and fifty,-eight or ten men, the rest women.
Shirt Factories .-- The shirt industry of America was founded in 1832 in New York.
" It was in the Presidency of Andrew Jackson, in 1832, when people were talking of nullification, about disposing of the surplus in the national treasury, about the Abolitionists of Boston, about the right of petition which John Quincy Adams was making a brave fight for, when Boston was a week's journey away from New York, when there was as yet no West, and Cincinnati was a frontier village, St. Louis a trading-post, Chicago a wilderness, no railroads, no telegraphs, no newspapers that printed news, no great factories, no sewing-machines, no machinery for mak- ing shoes, hats, clothing, furniture; only rude iron- working tools, rude printing-presses, imperfect steam- engines. There were great planters then, great mer- chants, but no great manufacturers. What men made, they made with their hands." What a change with- in sixty years in manufactures ! What a change in the condition of the common people, especially of women !
It must have been in the thirties that the first shirt factory was started in Watertown, and that by a wo- man, not long after the one in New York City, and probably without knowledge of that. Mrs. Silas M. Bates (her name was Mrs. Potter then) began, in a house, on Main Street, that was removed to make place for the present Public Library building, with the help of girls whom she hired for the purpose, the manufacture of shirts for sale by the dozen. Sbe af- terward occupied a house on the opposite side of Main Street, farther from the square, and finally, be- tween 1840 and 1845, put up the building now occu- pied by J. G. Barker as a shirt factory, on Spring Street, nearly opposite Fayette Street. It is said that she had a place for the sale of these shirts in Bos-
ton. Possibly this was so, although it has been said that Mr. Hathaway's store on Milk Street was the first wholesale shirt house in Boston.
Mr. Black well followed her and carried on business here for several years. He had already begun in an- other building near the railway.
Mr. Barker, who followed him in this building, has been in the business about thirty years, and at the present time employs one man and about fifteen wo- men at his works, and as many more outside who do their work at home and bring it to him when fin- ished.
Mr. Barker makes all kinds of shirts, mostly of the better grades, for some of the best firms in Boston.
"Boston was early the seat of shirt manufacturing for the trade, C. F. Hathaway having established himself in that city, with a factory at Watertown, Mass., in 1848. He built up a considerable business, manufacturing mainly for jobbers, and the ' Hath- away shirt' became widely known throughout New England, with a well-deserved reputation for careful, honest workmanship, good material, and full size." This is from a leading journal which treats of the his- tory of this manufacture.
The Metropolitan Shirt Factory is the principal shirt-factory in town. It was bought of Mr. Hatha- way some twenty-five years ago and is situated on Spring Street, near the corner of Palfrey Street. With some change of name and in the style of the firm, it is essentially the same, except that it is increased in extent. It is run by Simons, Hatch & Whitten, manufacturers and wholesale dealers in men's furnish- ing goods, whose place of business is on Winthrop Square and Otis Street, Boston.
This firm have several factories for different kinds of work in different places ; at thisthey manufacture all their " fine grades of white, dress, fancy, and night shirts."
The capacity of these works is about one hundred dozens per week, with an immediate prospect of en- largement. Two men and about fifty women are em- ployed. G. F. Faxon, the superintendent, has been engaged in this work and in this place about thirty years. The power is supplied by an engine in the adjoining laundry, which drives the fifty sewing-ma- chines at a high rate of speed, and the two button- hole machines, one of which is capable of making 1600 button-holes each day.
The cutting-room is 160 feet long. This room has the longest cutting-board in use. It is 120 feet long, is capable of accommodating a full 40-yard web of cloth. Indeed, forty-eight to sixty webs of cloth laid one over the other exactly are stretched ont on this cutting-table. The patterns for all the different pieces which go to make up the finished garment are laid upon the outstretched webs, according to the judgment and skill of the cutter, so arranged as to waste no possible portion of the goods, and yet give each part its exact and proper form. These patterns
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are made of light wood, or of thick paste-board bound with brass, along the edges of which a sharp knife in the deft hands of the cutter strikes down through all the thicknesses at once.
The goods when received are piled on counters or shelves by the side of the table, from the huge cases which we may see at the end. They are of different materials, each with its great variety of designs and each of different combinations of colors. Some are for negligee shirts, for seaside or country-lawns, and beautiful enough for the most fastidious in taste.
In the sewing-room the thirty or more nimble and skillful pairs of hands pass the pieces which have been put together, as they alone know how to do it, under the sewing-machines, where the seams are fin- ished faster than could have been imagined possible a few years ago. The button-holes even are made and finished by improved machines ready for use. See this woman place the band under the machine; the stitching proceeds down one side, turns automatically, returns down the other side, is barred, the hole cut, and is ready for use in much less time than it takes to say it. These shirts have their handkerchief pock- ets and their watch-pockets, the latter with a barred opening for the watch-chain.
These soft, zephyr-like fabrics surely require no starch. In this next room they are smoothed out, examined, folded ready for the neat boxes in which they are packed, and marked according to style and size, ready for the trade, or are put up with exact ref- erence to orders from various parties all over the country, each with its appropriate numbers and marks. Each dealer has his own name and address woven in colored letters, with a neat design, placed upon each garment which he orders. Thus it would seem from the garments themselves, when finished in this one factory, that they had been made in a hun- dred different factories, all the way from Maine to California, from Minnesota to Florida, while the deal- ers know for all the glory they get for this superior manufacture they are indebted to the one firm, Simons, Hatch & Whitten.
"One naturally inquires what is the condition of these shirt-makers? Are they like the poor women for whom Hood has enlisted the sympathy of the tender-hearted? Are they
" With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red Compelled to sit in unwomanly rags, Plying the needle and thread ?"
For my readers surely wish to know whether indeed they cry with mute lips and pleading eyes,
" O men, with sisters dear ! O men, with mothers and wives ! It is not linen yon're wearing ont, But human creatures' lives."
Not a bit of it. The steam-engine drives the nee- dles. The introduction of steam-driven sewing-ma- chines into Massachusetts in the manufacture of shirts, we are informed by the superintendent, was first
made by this factory. Seams are sewed up almost quicker than you can wink. The animation of the sewers' faces, and the beauty of the materials with their graceful figures and harmonious blending of shades, the cheerful hum of the sewing-machines, combine to make a sight which it is pleasant to re- member. And long before dark the scene changes ; the women are released with full freedom
" To breathe the breath Of the cowslip aud primrose sweet, With the sky above their heads, And the grasa beneath their feet."
Formerly three dollars a week was considered good wages for a smart girl. Now few, even with their nine hours a day, earn less thao six to ten dollars a week.
To quote again from a prominent publication on this subject :
"The growth of the factory system, with its accompanying economies, has vastly improved the condition of women employed in shirt-making, shortening their hours, lightening their work and in- creasing their wages. Before the introduction of the sewing-machine, but few women were employed in factories. The industry was almost exclusively a domestic one, and, like all domestic industries, the wages paid were not sufficient for subsistence."
" Where by hand a woman would do but one shirt in a day, the usual product now is about a dozen shirts to each machine, and the average- earnings of machine operatives, good, bad and indifferent, in large country factories, are six to ten dollars per week." "Steady, industrious girls, working full time, will earn more than this." "So the cost of shirts has been reduced somewhat more than one- half, while the average earnings of the workers have been increased about three-fold." This applies to the work done in the factory. Finishing done in the homes still brings the smaller returns. Women will work cheaper in their homes, in the leisure they can get from necessary duties, and with the help of children.
We wish we had the space to inquire, in this connection, a little more fully into the condition of the women employed in factories. " It is said that in large cotton manufacturing towns, where female help is much employed, the condition of the latter is noticeably deteriorating, in social status, morals and wages."
This is said not to be the case in shirt factories. Weknow it is not the case in our shirt factories. It certainly is not necessarily so. It was not so in the days of the Lowell Offering, when factory girls edited and published that paper. It need not be so now, with the store of good books which our Public Library offers free to all who ask for them, with our free evening schools, with the hours of leisure after and before regular work, when the fields can be seen in pleasant weather, when good reading can fill the
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
hours of storms, and good society in our churches is always open. A hasty run through our shirt factories shows that a still better condition of intelligence, morals and society is possible among wage-earning women, if they themselves will strive more in that direction.
Warren Soup Minufactory .- We have spoken of the shirt factories and the laundries and the machine- shops where the new laundry machinery is made. . But these would make poor work of it without soap and starch.
"Soap is a chemical compound of vegetable or ani- mal fatty substances with soda or potash, employed, on account of its properties of loosening and dissolving Entering the large buildinng beyond, we come first greasy and other matters, as a detergent or cleansing ' to the office, now refitted for their rapidly increasing article for the toilet, for washing clothes, and similar business. purposes."
"Soap is mentioned in the Old Testament, in Jer. ii : 22 and Mal. iii : 2; but the Hebrew words thus trans- lated mean the lye salt potash, commonly made from the ashes of plants, and the salt soda, better known as a mineral product." -- Appleton's Cyclopedia. " Soap, both as a medicinal and as a cleansing agent was known to Pliny, who speaks of two kinds-hard and soft-as used by the Germans. There is reason to believe that soap came to the Romans from Ger- many."-Encyclopedia Britannica.
Watertown early sought to provide it-elf, and a part of the rest of the world, with so necessary an article.
At present the Warren Soap Manufacturing Com- pany is an incorporated company, incorporated this present year of 1800. The stock is not quoted on the market; it is, in fact, owned entirely by three men : Mr. Albert C. Warren, of Auburndale, a son of the former owner of the works; Mr. George L. Stevens, of Boston; and Mr. Alfred H. A. Groeschner, of this town. Twelve men are employed at the works, four salesmen are employed, who travel through the country, and Crichett's teams visit the works almost every day, according to their needs.
Soap may be made in the laboratory in great variety, from hundreds, yea thousands of animal and vegetable oils, combined with either of the three alkalies. Some of these products are fragrant and delightful to every sense. In the manufacture of textile fabrics in large quantities, where oil is used freely to assist in the process of manufacture, as well as to reduce the friction of machinery, large quantities of soap must be used to cleanse the fabrics before they are fit for the dyer or for the market. The Warren soaps are known over the country in large cotton and woolen manu-
factories of hosiery and other fabrics, as well as in public and family laundries.
As we approach the works we are struck by the appearance of long lines of barrels and casks and hogsheads ruuning across a large yard, and piled under a row of sheds. These are marked Warren Standard Soaps. They are scouring soaps, fulling soaps, finishing soaps, etc., put into casks for ease of handling, and are ready to be shipped to the factories from Maine to Texas as they are ordered. The last half year over two million pounds have been manu- factured and shipped, nearly as much as the entire previous year.
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