USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume II > Part 32
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Building Ships That Traverse the Seven Seas-Caviling critics of Massachusetts take delight in harking back to the days of yore, when the sailing ship was mistress of the seas, prior to the time when steam and oil burning vessels assumed their sway of ocean commerce, and, without the slightest recognition of the perfectly obvious fact that modes and methods of water transportation are today entirely different from those which prevailed in the fifties, they point to the supremacy then held by the ship builders of the Commonwealth, and especially those of Boston and its environs in the construction of the white-winged racers of the clipper-ship era, and emphasize in their mistaken zeal that Massachusetts is no longer to be reckoned with in the production of ocean tonnage.
They merely exhibit their ignorance of the present day fact that four decades ago fertile fields of idle terrain existed where now stands the plant of the Fore River Shipbuilding Company, consisting of eighty buildings, employing about 4,000 persons, with a capacity to turn out a fleet of gigantic ships in a single year, if necessary, that would exceed in tonnage and numbers that vast galaxy of argosies designed and built by Donald McKay, Samuel Hall, the Briggs Brothers, and a dozen other ship builders, whose products, in their day, marked an era in the merchant marine.
They fail to recognize that today the ships launched from the Quincy plant sail the seven seas, and that there is no shipbuilding plant north of New Jersey so completely equipped to serve the needs of the United States and of foreign nations as that of the Fore River unit.
It was not until the country was electrified by the blowing up of the battleship "Maine," in the harbor of Havana, in 1898, that the oppor- tunity was presented for Massachusetts to demonstrate that it still possessed the private facilities to build ships for the Navy. While from early times naval vessels have been launched at the government-owned Charlestown Navy Yard, no warship of size had been constructed at private Massachusetts yards subsequent to the Civil War period until the contracts for the torpedo boat destroyers "Lawrence" and "Mac-
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donough" were awarded to the Fore River Engine Company, the part- nership predecessor of the subsequently incorporated Fore River Ship- building Company.
Ten years later, when the contract for the United States protected cruiser "Des Moines" was awarded to the company, and it became necessary to provide deeper water for launchings, the original plant was moved down the Fore River about two miles. Here, the battleships "Rhode Island" and "New Jersey" were built, as well as the "Thomas W. Lawson," the only seven-masted schooner ever constructed, and at that time the largest sailing vessel in the world.
Then followed, in after years, the battleship "Vermont"; five sub- marines for the Imperial Japanese Navy, the construction of which called for a display of ingenuity on the part of the Fore River manage- ment, inasmuch as the vessels had to be assembled in the yard, then knocked down, loaded on freight cars, shipped to the Pacific Coast, and reshipped by steamer to Japan, where they were reassembled ; the scout cruisers "Salem" and "Birmingham," which called for a speed of 24 knots, with coal consumption of 1.8 knots per ton, and no experience to guide the Company's engineers in this field, but the development by them of a 120-inch, 7-stage Curtiss turbine solved the problem, and marked a turning point, not only in the history of Fore River, but in the annals of the United States Navy, and of marine construction in general. Numerous submarines, lightships, United States Army tugs, torpedo boat destroyers were built between 1905 and 1909, while the Company also launched the great United States battleship "North Dakota," up to that time the largest and most costly vessel that had been laid down in the yard.
In 1910, the Company, in competition with the entire shipbuilding world, received the contract for the building of two battleships for the Argentine Republic, and it was at that period when the amount of cap- ital necessary to handle these immense contracts was so large that the financial aid of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation was sought, and Charles M. Schwab made the important decision in favor of the Massachusetts yard. The "Rivadavia," of 39,000 dead weight tons, was built at Fore River, and the contract for the "Moreno," the second Argentine battleship, was sublet to the New York Shipbuilding Corporation.
In 1913 the Fore River Shipbuilding Company was bought by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, and reorganized under the name of the Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation, and the following year Joseph W. Powell, assistant to the president, of the William Cramp and Sons Ship and Engine Company, at Philadelphia, became president of the Massa- chusetts corporation.
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From the first his vigorous, far-sighted management made progress and success possible on a greater scale than previously. In accordance with the Bethlehem policy, practically all the earnings were ploughed into the Quincy plant in the shape of improvements and extensions, and thus a foundation was laid upon which it was possible to build one of the most efficient shipyards in all the world, when the country went to war in 1917.
When, in 1914, England wanted submarines and desired them in a hurry, Charles M. Schwab, who was in the British Isles at the time, promised to deliver ten in six months from the date of the contract. The Fore River organization was called upon to make the deliveries, and despite the fact that at the request of the United States State Depart- ment the work was performed on Canadian soil, to avoid entanglements, the boats were delivered in the contract period.
It was in the same year that Samuel Wiley Wakeman, formerly asso- ciated with the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, and prior to that with the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, came to the Fore River plant, where today he is the efficient general manager of the main unit, as well as general manager of the Simpson Dry Dock plant, at East Boston. Under his able direction and with his broad vision the companies have gone forward in the intervening dozen years to greater accomplishments than ever before. In 1916, a year before this country entered the war, nineteen contracts were accepted, and 15,000 men were employed. It was during that year that eight new torpedo destroyers for the United States Government were laid down and these larger, faster and more complicated war engines were over across and fighting for Uncle Sam within a brief twelve months. Eight submarines, built in 1916, together with three freight and tank steamers constructed for private interest, were commandeered by the Emergency Fleet Corporation after the United States entered the war in April, 1917.
Following that event contracts came thick and fast-in April, for a battle cruiser and eight more destroyers; in August, for ten, and in December, for ten more, while fifteen more submarines were ordered, and four freighters for private companies, the latter being commandeered upon completion for the Emergency Fleet Corporation.
On October 5, 1917, due to the very urgent need of destroyers to combat the German submarine menace, an additional contract for thirty- five vessels of that type was awarded the Fore River plant, with authority to construct at Squantum, Massachusetts, a plant for the exclusive con- struction of destroyers, and for two subsidiary plants, one at Buffalo, New York, to manufacture turbines for the vessels, and one at Provi- dence, Rhode Island, where boilers were to be built for them.
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Unlike any other shipyard in the country, all ship construction at Squantum was ordered to be carried on under cover. The plant covered seventy acres, with ten covered building slips, six wet slips, and all the buildings necessary for a completely-equipped shipyard. At one period 8,000 men were employed. Work proceeded at Squantum, Buffalo, and Providence during one of the most severe winters that has visited this section of the country in decades, yet five keels were laid at Squantum on April 20, 1918, and the first boat was launched on July 18, eighty-nine days later, and delivered on November 30, 1918, just a little over a year from the time the construction of the plant was commenced,-an almost incredible feat, particularly when the fact is taken into consideration that the site of Squantum was a swamp and an enormous amount of filling had to be done before construction could be commenced.
The year 1918 was signalized by the signing of contracts by the Fore River concern for three merchant ships for the Emergency Fleet Cor- poration, three sister ships having been contracted for by the same cor- poration on the last day of December, 1917, while an enormous increase was made in the amount of work done at the Fore River, including seventeen destroyers,-practically as many as were delivered by all the rest of the United States shipyards put together,-which were turned over to the Government, together with ten submarines, and six merchant vessels-a total of thirty-four craft altogether, which figure constituted a record for one year's work at the plant up to that period.
When, on November 5, 1918, the boiler plant at Providence and the turbine factory at Buffalo were placed directly under General Manager Wakeman's charge, he had, with the complement at the Quincy plant and the Squantum works, more than 26,000 men under him.
In 1919, contracts were signed for two scout cruisers-the "Raleigh" and "Detroit," for four tank steamers, an ore steamer, six additional S-boats for the United States Government, which, with the twenty-nine destroyers delivered from the Squantum unit, the nineteen from Fore River, eight merchant vessels and thirteen submarines, also delivered from the latter plant, produced the staggering total of sixty-nine ships completed and turned over to their owners in one year.
Had this 1919 output been stretched from Boston to San Francisco one would have passed every 43.4 miles on the journey west a Fore River- built ship, turned out of the yard in the 365 days of that year. Had the vessels been placed stem to stern they would have extended four miles out to sea from Boston Light. Is there in existence the record of any United States shipbuilding yard comparable to the figures here presented? If so, Greater Boston is ready to pass the sceptre of shipbuilding suprem- acy to such a yard, but until it is shown otherwise her claim that she has
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produced greater tonnage and a larger number of craft in a single year within the past seven years than any other yard on the Atlantic or Pacific seems to be justified.
In the smashing of records for speed in construction the Fore River yard is unrivalled, for here was produced, from keel to delivery, in forty-five and one-half working days the torpedo boat destroyer "Reid," which was turned over to the United States Government in that period of time-a world's record as yet unequaled, and which, in all probability, will never be duplicated elsewhere.
The "Hadnot," a 13,500-ton tanker, 430 feet long, 56 feet in beam, was built at the plant in 1919, and at the time of her launching was ninety-nine and nine-tenths per cent. complete, and she took to the water with steam up, ready for her trial trip down the Fore River, and out to sea. The thirty-six torpedo boat destroyers built at the Quincy works were delivered in the remarkable time of twenty-seven months and five days, a far cry from the days of the "Macdonough," which required forty-seven months to construct. Sixteen of the Fore River- built destroyers saw service abroad in the World War-a record that none of the other shipbuilding concerns in this country even faintly approached. The Fore River plant was the only shipbuilding unit that successfully delivered torpedo boat destroyers to the United States Navy Department during the actual period of the late war.
These records would not have been possible if the executives of the corporation had not provided, beginning in 1916, a year before this country went to war, such enormous plant expansions as were repre- sented in the steel mill erected at that time, which is 770 feet long and 188 feet wide, and where 250 tons of steel can be fabricated in a single working day. A new concrete and steel building slip, 1,000 feet long and 130 feet wide, with two 371/2-ton cranes and one 50-ton crane makes it possible to care for the building of future battleships, as well as the largest merchant vessels. In 1921 another large slip for battleship con- struction was built, four new slips were added for destroyers, as well as one for building merchant ships, and after the close of the war a 10,000-ton floating dock was added to take care of the necessary repairs required by the vast fleet of ships then in commission. From the date of its installation until its removal to East Boston, in December, 1924, it was in constant use and today its facilities are sought almost without interruption.
Recently the Fore River plant has utilized its facilities in the con- struction of merchant and ferry boats, in repairing railroad locomotives, and in caring for repairs at the Simpson Patent Dry Dock, at East Bos- ton, now owned by the Fore River unit, which was taken over by the
HESSNEEFE
HOOD RUBBER GO
...
PLANT OF THE HOOD RUBBER COMPANY
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company in November, 1922. It was in this famous dry dock, built in 1853, at the height of the clipper ship era, that work was performed on these fleet vessels, and later in the days of the Civil War in repairing and reconditioning United States naval craft. Vast improvements and ex- tensions have been made to it and in 1925 seventeen vessels were simul- taneously undergoing repairs at the yard.
On the 3d of October, 1925, there was launched at the Fore River yard the airplane carrier "Lexington," of 27,000 tons, 888 feet long, 105 feet in beam, and with a speed of 33 knots, driven by four turbine gen- erators totaling 180,000 horsepower. She constitutes a combined landing field, hangar and workshop for the seventy-two airplanes which she carries.
Since its inception there have been built at the Fore River plant a total of four hundred craft of all types and sizes, representing a total tonnage of 1,023,762 tons, of which one hundred and eleven vessels, of 266,184 aggregate tons have been delivered to the United States Navy, while two hundred and eighty-nine merchant and miscellaneous ships of 757,578 aggregate tons have been built and launched at this famous plant.
A Rubber Company That Spells Quality-Just three decades ago, on a hot August morning, Frederic C. Hood, then a young man in his early thirties, turned the first shovelful of earth for a single factory building, where, today, there stand on ninety-six acres of owned or controlled land, thirty-eight structures containing approximately 2,000,000 square feet of floor space, in which are housed 10,000 contented employees, who in 1925 produced rubber goods which sold for almost $39,000,000. In the beginning there were six stockholders; today there are four thou- sand six hundred.
It was on July 27, 1896, that it was definitely decided to locate the plant of the Hood Rubber Company, at Watertown, and on that day ground was broken for the side track over which the first brick were hauled on the following fourth of August. The initial structure was completed on November 3, 1896- the day William McKinley was elected President of the United States-but it was not until the 17th of that month that a small group of workmen gathered to try out the new equipment, and to produce on that day twelve pairs of rubber shoes. The next day they manufactured 216 pairs, and in December the output grew to 3,000 pairs per day. From that time to the present it has been a continuing growth until the company commands a market for its products that stretches across the entire continent, and to all civilized lands on the face of the globe. Its rubber footwear, vulcanized canvas
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footwear, automobile tires and tubes, hard rubber products, rubber heels, and mechanical goods are internationally known. From that eventful first day certain fixed principles enunciated by its founder have been con- sistently and rigidly adhered to in every article marketed by him. Fred- eric C. Hood realized that the only stable foundation upon which to build success was to manufacture quality merchandise and to create and main- tain operating conditions that would not only make distributors desir- ous to handle the merchandise but that would produce happiness and contentment among the employees as well.
To that end he not only revolutionized methods as the corporation expanded, but he introduced, one after another, certain industrial rela- tions plans which have placed him in the forefront as among the far- seeing industrialists of the nation.
The energy, perseverance, initiative and general activities of the Hood Rubber Company since its inception are due in a great measure to the fact that its development lay in the hands of a young man whose enthusiasm was not to be thwarted. Mr. Hood early recog- nized the fact that young men must continually be sought out, secured, trained and advised to the end that there may be continuity in policies and that their activities may be developed into a constructive force in building on the experience gained by the older members of the organization.
The rapid growth of the distribution of the company's products has been brought about in part by a change in the methods heretofore found in the general footwear field.
The Hood organization today has largely supplemented former plans of distribution with their own factory-owned and controlled branches- this in the interest of a more sincere desire to render a quicker and better service to the dealer who handles the products.
Scores of branch sales headquarters for the distribution of Hood Tires, or Hood Footwear, or both, have been established and are man- aged by a group of men trained by years of service in the plant. These men have played a substantial role in giving the company its present dominating position in the field of distribution.
The total production statistics of the industry indicate that in the field of footwear the Hood Company ranks among the first three pro- ducing units of the country.
From 1901 to 1906 radical changes were made in the old-established methods of handling rubber materials, new methods for footwear, such as pressure cures, were successfully introduced, while aluminum lasts supplanted the inefficient and less economical wooden lasts. One of the foremost rubber chemists in the world was brought from England, and
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was established in the company's laboratory, at that time located in Boston.
Following his death in 1905, the laboratory was removed to Water- town, where it now occupies two entire floors within the factory, and where a force of upwards of fifty technically trained experts are con- stantly engaged upon research problems.
It seems somewhat anomalous to think of tires or footwear having in them the application of engineering principles, yet such is the case with every product of the Hood Rubber Company.
Financial writers credit the Watertown concern with being the only one of the group of truly large rubber organizations that has survived the depressed conditions of the past few years in the rubber industry, with its capital not only unimpaired, but actually increased by additions to the surplus account, and maintaining consecutive dividends on both its common and preferred issues of stock.
With a daily capacity of 90,000 pairs of footwear, to say nothing of 4,000 automobile tubes and tires and other products, its leadership is so immediately apparent and so sufficiently obvious as to stamp it as one of the greatest industrial concerns of the East, while its attention to the welfare and care of its employees and their families has long since become common knowledge among the world's authorities on progres- sive factory management.
The Rise of the Boston Woven Hose & Rubber Company-The vicissitudes attending the development of an article of commerce are seldom more vividly illustrated than in the manufacture of hose, a pioneering process of so recent date as to bring it within the purview of many of the present generation.
In 1870, the late Colonel Theodore A. Dodge, of Cambridge, began the manufacture of "Blake hose," made by a machine which sewed up strips of rubber-coated canvas into hydraulic hose, the process having been invented by Lyman R. Blake, who had previously designed the sole- sewing machine afterwards made famous by Gordon Mckay.
Colonel Dodge, who had bought the Blake machine, was not success- ful in the venture, for while the hose produced was excellent in character it failed to find a ready market, due to the stitched seam, which was in reality the one part of the product that never gave out, but which, nevertheless, was the cause of public disfavor with which the Blake hose was received.
Two years later, James E. Gillespie placed before Colonel Dodge a loom for weaving multiple tubular fabrics. The latter had never before been produced except on flat looms, which left a weak spot along the
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edge. Goods woven in the round could not be made sufficiently solid, and only braided fabrics had up to that time been successfully marketed. But Colonel Dodge was quick to discern the latent possibilities in Gil- lespie's loom, but he saw it was far too complicated in design to be practical, as it included some 80,000 parts. Gillespie was commissioned by Dodge to re-design and perfect it, and the latter engaged Robert Cowen, a young machinist, to assist Gillespie, and it was to Cowen's ability that the loom ultimately was made practicable. Dodge poured $150,000 into the work before the device was considered satisfactory. In a part of an old soap factory, in Cambridge, the manufacture of rubber hose began, and singularly enough it was successful from the start.
In 1884 J. Edwin Davis became associated with Colonel Dodge and Mr. Gillespie, and these three formed the corporation known ever since as the Boston Woven Hose and Rubber Company. Since that date the growth of the concern has been little short of phenomenal. By 1893 the capital had again been increased, a plant had been erected, and constant additions of land and buildings were being acquired. From the manu- facture of hose the business had rapidly increased in scope until almost everything then possible to manufacture from rubber was being produced. Much of this success was due to Mr. Cowen, who created many ingen- ious machines to meet the requirements of each new product.
Then came the bicycle craze, and the company began the manufacture of bicycle tires. This business developed so rapidly and to such pro- portions that another increase in the capital stock had to be made, and the factory was operated twenty-four hours a day to keep up with the demand. The staple products of the company were crowded into the background and at the very height of this prosperity the panic of 1897 arrived, and the bicycle industry collapsed. This was a severe blow and made necessary a reorganization. The concern again turned its atten- tion to the manufacture of the products from which it had derived its healthy growth, and quickly resumed its former prosperous condition. New processes of manufacture, and new machines designed for the exclusive use of the company, greatly assisted in bringing the return of the business which had been neglected.
From that time to the present its history has been a story of sound, steady growth and of economical production. Few companies number among their workmen so many who can point to years of faithful, con- tented service. There are men who worked at the bench with the found- ers and it is to such men and to a management which can retain such men that the company owes no small share of its success.
The plant consists of nineteen separate buildings, covering fifteen acres, occupying the entire block bounded by Hampshire, Portland and
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Binney streets, in Cambridge, and includes a half-million dollar power house, and its own brass foundry, where hose couplings and nozzles are turned out. An auxiliary plant at Plymouth, where old automobile tires are reclaimed, together with the Cambridge factory, give employ- ment to almost 2,000 persons. More than twenty types of rubber hose are manufactured, including the fire, suction, pneumatic, air and steam- drill varieties, and the famous "Bull Dog" garden hose, perhaps the old- est and best-known in the world, of which they have frequently shipped more than twenty miles of this variety in a single day.
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