USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 54
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The company was enormously prosperous, and George Eastman be- came one of America's wealthiest men. His greatest joy in life, however, was giving his money to good causes-not some of it but all of it. During the first quarter of the twentieth century he was one of America's five leading philanthropists. His total benefactions were approximately $100,- 000,000.
Other firms in the Rochester area specialize in measuring, scientific, and engineering instruments. They produce a great variety of devices which record and control temperature, pressure, humidity, flow liquid level, and sensitive industrial processes. The group also includes those firms which produce medical, surgical, and dental equipment.
The second-ranking industry in the Rochester area is the manufacture of apparel. Aside from New York City, it is the leading apparel center in the state. The manufacture of apparel, like that of instruments, ante- dates the Civil War. About 1840 a small shop operated by a Rochester couple made and sold boy's trousers; in the 1950's the area is the home of some of the top producers of men's clothing. With only nineteen men's apparel manufacturers-1 per cent of the national total-the Rochester
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area accounted for over 6 per cent of the nation's suit output in 1947. The bulk of the output is centered in Rochester, although facilities have been set up outside the city to tap the supply of skilled needleworkers in surrounding communities.
The making of machinery (other than electrical) furnishes employ- ment for about 10 per cent of the area's manufacturing workers. Rochester itself is noted for the production of gear-cutting machinery, food-process- ing equipment, pumps, carburetors, and check-protecting devices. In Batavia the Massey-Harris Company produces combines, corn pickers, mowers, manure spreaders, and other farm implements. In Seneca Falls one of the nation's largest pump plants makes pumps not only for moving water but for use in processing such products as wood pulp, molten lead, bread dough, and printer's ink.
Linked closely with the abundant crops of the fertile farmlands of the Genesee Valley, the Finger Lakes region, and the farms along Lake Ontario is the thriving food-products industry. While most of the food establishments are in Rochester, some are located in Medina, Newark, Geneva, Canandaigua, Batavia, and Penn Yan. The food-products in- dustry includes wine manufacture, canning of fruits and vegetables, milling of cereals, and production of candy, baby foods, flavorings, and spices.
Other large industries in the Rochester area are those which produce electrical machinery, printed matter, and fabricated metals. Also im- portant is the production of porcelain goods, pianos, chemicals, paper products, textiles, leather goods, and automotive equipment.
III. The Capital District: Counties-Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Sche- nectady, Schoharie, Warren, and Washington
For many decades this area devoted its energies primarily to agriculture and trade. During the nineteenth century, however, and especially after the opening of the state's canal system, it increasingly turned to varied types of industrial enterprise. After the 1880's, when the Industrial Revolu- tion gained momentum, many of these early ventures expanded rapidly and others were added. By 1950 the area employed almost 100,000 per- sons, or about 30 per cent of the area's labor population, in its manu- facturing plants. Slightly more than half of the manufacturing workers are in plants turning out durable goods. The leading industries of the area are electrical machinery, foundry and machine-shop products, apparel, transportation equipment, and paper.
The largest employer in the area is the General Electric Company at Schenectady. The early history of this company, one of the three largest manufacturers of electrical apparatus in America, is like that of many other present-day New York manufacturing enterprises and admirably
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illustrates the rapid trend toward expansion and consolidation of busi- ness enterprise in America during the half century after 1870. Following the establishment of the Edison Electric Company in 1878, the electric industry expanded rapidly. In 1880 the Edison Lamp Company, a sub- sidiary of the Edison Electric Light Company, was formed and in 1882 located at Harrison, New Jersey. Other Edison subsidiaries came into being about the same time. Bergmann and Company in New York City, headed by a former Edison employee, began the manufacture of light sockets, switches, and other such items in 1880. Later in the same year the Edison Machine Works began operations in New York City. Cramped for space, it transferred its plant to Schenectady in 1886. In 1881 the Electric Tube Company began functioning as a part of the expanding Edison enterprise. For the direct installation of equipment on customers' premises, the Edison Company for Isolated Lighting was formed in 1882. Rounding out the list of subsidiaries was the Canadian Edison Manu- facturing Company. In 1889 all the Edison lighting companies, with the exception of those operating central stations, consolidated into the Edi- son General Electric Company.
Meanwhile, dozens of competing concerns had sprung up in many parts of the nation. Among the more important of these were United States Electric Lighting Company (organized in 1878), the Consolidated Electric Light Company (organized in 1882), the Brush Electric Com- pany (founded in 1880), the United Switch and Signal Company (or- ganized in 1882 by George Westinghouse and becoming the Westing- house Electric Company in 1886 and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in 1889), the Thomson-Houston Company (or- ganized in 1883), and the Swan Lamp Manufacturing Company (organ- ized in 1885). Alleged infringement of patents by the Edison interests led to an expensive warfare during the 1880's and 1890's. The net effects of this warfare was to reduce the number of manufactures of electric equipment, especially lamps, and to hasten the process of consolidation. In 1890, for example, the Edison General Electric Company absorbed the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company. The Thomson- Houston Company of Lynn, Massachusetts, absorbed the Brush Electric Company in 1889, and the Schuyler Electric Company in 1890. But the biggest consolidation of all occurred in 1892 when under the guiding hand of J. P. Morgan and Company, the Edison General Electric Com- pany and the Thomson-Houston Company were merged to form the General Electric Company. Its board of eleven directors included three Boston financiers and five New York bankers, J. P. Morgan being one of them.
A number of distinguished citizens of the state have contributed to the scientific growth and business stature of this ever-expanding indus-
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trial giant. Among these were the scientists Charles P. Steinmetz, Ger- man-born immigrant who landed in New York in 1889, Willis R. Whitney, and Irving Langmuir, whose research in the laboratories of the Sche- nectady plant of the company won world renown. Their scientific con- tribution was matched on the executive side by the outstanding leadership of Gerard Swope, Owen D. Young, Philip Reed, and C. E. Wilson.
In addition to the great plant at Schenectady covering approximately six hundred acres (which alone employs about forty thousand persons, including scientists and technicians engaged in the tremendous labora- tories established there for studies in engineering physics, chemistry, metallurgy, and atomic power), the company also has auxiliary plants at Waterford and Fort Edward. The bulk of the machinery, other than electrical, produced in the area consists of steam turbines produced by General Electric. Lesser machinery firms employ about 12 per cent of the area's total manufacturing workers.
Eleven of every one hundred manufacturing employees in the area are apparel workers. The invention of the detachable collar by a Troy house- wife in the early part of the nineteenth century gave the men's collar, cuff, and shirt industry its start. Today Cluett, Peabody Company and Ide's, not to mention lesser manufacturers, make Troy and its environs an important center for the manufacture of men's shirts, pajamas, under- wear, and suits and women's blouses and undergarments.
A Schenectady firm, the American Locomotive Company, forms the backbone of the area's transportation-equipment industry. This industry, founded at Schenectady in 1848 and known throughout the world for its manufacture of steam locomotives, today produces Diesel electric loco- motives and automotive parts.
Forest and water resources of this district, notably in Saratoga, Warren, and Washington counties, have made it one of the state's important wood- pulp and paper producers. The chemical industry produces pharmaceu- ticals and dyes. The stone and clay group make cement, bricks, slate and abrasives. The primary metals industry, especially in Troy and Albany, produce stainless steel and bells that top churches, schools, city halls, and office buildings. The federal arsenal at Watervliet, with five thou- sand employees, produces guns, cannon, and other military equipment. And at West Milton in Saratoga County, on a four-thousand-acre site owned by the Atomic Energy Commission, an atomic power plant for submarines has been constructed.
Textile firms are widely distributed in the district. Their principal products include papermakers' felts, woven cotton and rayon underwear products, knitted gloves, and knitted cotton and wool hose. Cotton- spinning centers, such as Victory Mills and Cohoes, have declined under
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the pressure of regional competition. The former cotton-mill plant at Vic- tory Mills now manufactures paperboard cartons.
In this district as in other economic areas of the state the needs for national defense have stimulated industrial expansion. Following the termination of World War II, $6,000,000 was expended at Watervliet for additional steel ingot and stainless steel production capacity, $1,000,- 000 at Rotterdam for radio equipment, $4,000,000 at Mechanicville for papermaking, and $5,000,000 at Waterford to enlarge a silicone plant.
IV. The Elmira Area: Counties-Chemung, Schuyler, Steuben, Tioga, and Tompkins
For many years this region was primarily agricultural. Hornell and Elmira, both situated on the Chemung River, utilized their waterway locations for trading, sawmills, and gristmills. Their products were floated down the Chemung and its tributaries and then by way of the Susquehanna to Baltimore. Lack of adequate transportation facilities handicapped the region as far as New York markets were concerned. Not until 1832 did a canal open the northerly markets to the Elmira area. In 1849 the Erie Railroad opened the area to the markets of New York City; with wider outlets for their products, local plants were able to expand. During the century following 1850 the industrial growth of the Elmira area, while not phenomenal, indicated future promise.
Manufacturing employees at the mid-twentieth century totaled over 30,000, composing 28 per cent of the labor force of the area, a proportion somewhat less than for the upstate region as a whole. At the close of the Korean War three out of every four workers employed in manu- facturing were in durable-goods plants-a higher concentration than that prevailing in any other area of the state.
The Elmira area's leading industry is the production of nonelectrical machinery, which employs about 34 per cent of its manufacturing workers. More than one-third of these are employed in Chemung County, an- other one-third in Tompkins, and one-quarter in Steuben. There is considerable diversification of product. The city of Elmira manufactures typewriters, adding machines, machine tools, milling machines, carbu- retors, and valves for power plants, oil refineries, and other industrial plants. Groton makes typewriters; Ithaca adding machines, clutches, flex- ible couplings, roller chain drives, and guns; Montour Falls large cranes and hoists; and Painted Post air and gas compressors, engines, and build- ing machinery.
The second-ranking industry of the area and the one which has made Corning famous is the glass industry, established in 1868. Low-cost coal and an abundance of Pennsylvania glass-sand rock close at hand were
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primary reasons for the local development of this industry. Ready rail connections to eastern markets was another compelling reason. In the mid-twentieth century glass objects for home, factory, laboratory, and office are produced in almost endless variety. The Corning Glass Center, opened in 1951, houses the world's largest library devoted to glass, a large museum tracing the use of glass from man's earliest days, a crystal glass factory where visitors may watch the hand-blown glass operations, and greatly expanded research facilities. Corning is noted for the manu- facture of precision scientific glassware, of which the two-hundred-inch mirror of the Mount Palomar Observatory is an outstanding example. Other important products of the Corning glassware industry include light bulbs, radio tubes, glass cooking utensils, technical and colored glasses, cut and engraved tableware, glass tubing, insulators, glass bricks, and many speciality glass products. Elmira produces glass containers for milk, beverages, and food.
Four other industrial groups in the Elmira area deserve brief mention: printing, transportation equipment, food, and electrical machinery. All are centered in Chemung County except the food industry, which is mostly in Steuben. Printing specialities are greeting cards, business forms, commercial photoengraving, and labels. The transportation-equipment industry includes the nation's largest manufacturer of fire-fighting ap- paratus. Food products include canned and frozen peas and spinach; and the area is famous for its champagne. The principal electrical items are starter drives, ignition parts, and electric heating units. The area has two large electronics centers-one at Bath and the other at Horseheads.
A number of lesser industries are also found in this area. Of these, the manufacture of textiles-synthetic yarns and fabrics, cotton knit cloth, underwear, knit shirts, and hosiery-is largely concentrated in Steuben County.
V. The Mohawk Valley Area: Counties-Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Montgomery, and Oneida
Although much of the area is mountainous and lake-studded, ideal for recreation, and a good part of the rest is best suited for farming, the Mohawk Valley area, measured by the proportion of the working popu- lation engaged in manufacturing, is the most heavily industrialized of all the state's economic divisions, including that of New York City. In 1950 approximately 67,000 persons, or about 47 per cent of the area's labor force, were employed in manufacturing plants. Most of its factories are concentrated in a belt of cities along the Mohawk River from Rome to Amsterdam. Inasmuch as most of these cities lie along the natural east-west channel of immigration and commerce, many of them had their beginning in the eighteenth century. They profited economically
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from the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 and later the New York Central Railroad, which followed the water route.
The trading and processing of furs and skins was the area's first major industry. Because of its strategic location, the availability of industrial water and power, and an abundant labor supply including a large corps of skilled technicians, manufacturing enterprise was increasingly attracted to the area. Today its leading industries are textiles, leather goods, sterling and silverplated tableware, primary metals, machinery, food products, and apparel. It is evident from this list that the Mohawk Valley area devotes more of its industrial production to nondurable goods than do most of the other upstate areas. Two out of every three manufacturing workers in this district are employed in plants making nondurable goods.
Although in recent decades successful efforts have been made to increase the area's production of durables, textiles still ranked first in 1950. Nevertheless, the textile industry has for many years been de- clining because of southern competition. Most of the textile industry is divided about equally between Utica and Amsterdam. Utica, which opened its first woolen mill in 1847, specializes in cotton and woolen fabrics, underwear and other knit goods, and yarns. Amsterdam, fore- most city in the nation for the manufacture of rugs and carpets, estab- lished its first carpet mill in 1838.
The manufacture of textiles is also important in many other com- munities of this area: Little Falls produces sweaters, men's sport and work socks, and knit underwear; Waterville and Mohawk make underwear and knit goods; Oriskany manufactures papermakers' felts, and Oriskany Falls gauze and cheesecloth. St. Johnsville, Johnstown, and Chadwicks dye and finish rayon and other synthetic fabrics.
The leather-goods group constitutes the second major industry of the Mohawk Valley area. The industry was founded over two hundred years ago when hides acquired through trade with the Indians were dressed and sewn into mittens. This industry is today largely concentrated in the two Fulton County cities of Gloversville and Johnstown. Women's footwear, house slippers, and play shoes are manufactured at Dolgeville, Little Falls, and St. Johnsville.
Oneida County has long been famous for the production of sterling and silverplated tableware. This enterprise was the outgrowth of an experiment in communal living begun in 1848 by a group that had migrated to Sherrill from New England. In addition to silverware, Oneida County has several basic metal establishments-the products of Rome's copper and brass works, for example, are nationally known. Rome also produces iron castings, steel strips, and steel tubing. Iron castings are also manufactured at Oriskany, Clayville, and Utica. About 7 per cent of all manufacturing employees of the area are engaged in making
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a wide assortment of metal tools and nonelectrical machinery. Little Falls has the largest bicycle factory in upstate New York. On French Road, Utica, General Electric has recently opened its Light Military Electronic Equipment Department. Here work in research, development, and manufacture of complex electronic systems and devices is carried on.
Food products and the manufacture of apparel are also important in this area. Beechnut at Canajoharie, to cite one firm, processes a wide range of foods. Local apparel plants make men's and boy's suits and coats and women's dresses. Other important industries of this area in- clude electrical machinery, furniture, office and library equipment, and firearms and ammunition.
VI. Northern Area: Counties-Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence
Pioneers more than two hundred years ago established what was to be the area's first industry, the production of lumber. The magnificent stands of timber and their accessibility to the numerous rivers made it relatively easy to transport the logs from mountainside forest to saw- mill. Although no longer first-ranking in the area, this industry is still high on the list. In 1950 over 11 per cent of all those employed in manu- facturing were in the lumber industry. Wood and wood products are turned out in every county of the area and include flooring, veneers, wooden tableware, sashes, doors, and other millwork materials.
The forest lands of the area, however, have long contributed to what at present is its top-ranking industry, the pulp and paper business. Prior to the latter part of the nineteenth century, papermakers had depended largely upon rags for raw material. With the discovery that wood pulp could be used came a shift not only in raw material but in the location of the papermills. The area had plentiful stands of spruce and balsam and abundant water resources. While the pulp and paper plants of the area today are obliged to import much of the wood used from Canada and other countries, pulp and paper manufacture still comprises the northern area's principal industry, and mills are found in every county except Franklin. This area is the key supplier to New York City's giant printing and publishing enterprises. Paper firms of the northern area also produce annually an enormous output of packaging materials in the form of boxes, cartons, bags, paperboard, and wrapping paper. Manu- facture of paper cups, napkins, writing paper, index cards, paper plates, wallpaper, and paper towels has increased greatly during the last two decades.
Ranking second to pulp and paper is the manufacture of primary metals, mostly aluminum and its products, at Massena in a big establish- ment built in 1902 by the Aluminum Company of America. An abundance
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of water for electric power made available by diverting water from the higher level St. Lawrence River into the Grass River explains in large measure the location of this Massena plant.
Other large industries of the area include transportation equipment, nonelectrical machinery, and processed foods, especially powdered milk and cheese.
Another industry closely related to manufacture is the area's mining industry. The economy of Essex, Clinton, and St. Lawrence counties rests heavily on the mineral industries, particularly iron ore, titanium, zinc, and lead mining. Even before the Revolutionary War, ores from the colony of New York provided a large share of the metal used through- out the colonies. Steel made in Troy from iron mined on the shores of Lake Champlain was used in building the famed Monitor, whose historic encounter with the Merrimac in 1862 revolutionized naval construction. New York City's stately George Washington Bridge is supported by metal cables made from the famous Chateaugay ores of the northern Adirondacks. In 1880 New York was credited with 15.8 per cent of the national production of iron ore; but with the development of the great ore deposits of the Lake Superior region New York's proportionate con- tribution to national production declined. In the period from 1920 to 1940 the state accounted for only about 1 per cent of the national total. In 1938 several of the large iron and steel corporations began to acquire and develop the mining properties of New York. Most of the ore from the northern area now goes to the Republic Steel Company's furnaces at Troy, Buffalo, and Cleveland. Some ore also goes to the furnaces of the Jones Laughlin Steel Company in Pittsburgh.
The iron ores of the northern area are rich in titanium compounds now in great demand for the manufacture of white and light-tinted paints and paint products. In 1941 the National Lead Company, an important titanium pigment producer, took title to eleven thousand acres of mineral- rich lands in the Sanford Lake region of Essex County. In 1950 the National Lead Company and the Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corpora- tion formed a new company, Titanium Metals Corporation, for the pur- pose of producing metallic titanium.
St. Lawrence County has profitable deposits of lead and zinc as well as graphite. The mineral wollastonite, important as a filler in the manu- facture of certain kinds of papers and in welding processes, is mined near Willsboro, Essex County. It is the only deposit of commercial pro- portions known to exist east of California.
With the development of the St. Lawrence River as a source of hydro- electric power the northern area is likely to become more important industrially. At present the region has a lower proportion of workers employed in manufacturing than in any other upstate area.
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A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
Table 14. Mineral production of New York in 1953 (in short tons except as noted).
Mineral
Quantity
Value
Cement (bbl.)
14,965,000
$ 39,388,000
Clays
961,000
1,303,000
Coke *
4,590,000
69,907,000
Gypsum
987,000
3,507,000
Ferro alloys *
268,000
71,735,000
Iron ore
3,825,000
36,346,000
Iron, pig *
4,698,000
237,030,000
Lead
1,000
376,000
Natural gas
(thousand cu. ft.)
2,347,000
742,000
Petroleum (bbl.)
3,800,000
16,260,000
Salt
3,323,000
17,351,000
Sand and gravel
22,531,000
23,494,000
Slate
114,000
1,733,000
Stone
15,962,000
25,251,000
Talc
156,000
941,000
Zinc
52,000
11,852,000
Other minerals
8,324,000
Totals
$186,868,000
ยข Values for processed materials not included in the totals.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce. In 1953 New York was first among the states in the output of ilmenite and talc; second in salt; third in slate and zinc; fifth in cement, gypsum, iron, sand and gravel; and nineteenth in the value of its mineral output.
VII. The Southwest Gateway: Counties-Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chau- tauqua
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