Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 44

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 44

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doubting that the future of the industry would be as prosperous as it ever had been was the threat of competition by factories erected in the South, which had been so successful that Northern mill owners were watching their progress anxiously.

Eventually Rhode Island manufacturers met the threat of Southern competition by enter- ing the Southern field, and the twentieth century has witnessed the duplication in Southern states of many New England and Rhode Island factories. In this Rhode Islanders were fol- lowing the lead suggested by the Sprague investments in mill sites and water rights in South Carolina before 1873, and the success of Southern mills has justified the Sprague venture as not so speculative as it had seemed when conservative men met in conference to discuss the condition of the Sprague properties after the panic. The same twenty years, from 1880 to 1900, revealed an increase in the number of bleaching, dyeing, printing and other finishing factories in Rhode Island, in the number of persons employed by converters, and in the cap- ital invested and value of the product. The last may be explained as due in part to the fact that Rhode Island finishing factories were converting thousands of yards of cloth woven in other states, and that much of the product of Southern factories was shipped as gray cloth to Rhode Island to be processed by bleaching, dyeing, mercerizing, printing, and other methods. In finishing cloth Rhode Island had an undisputed advantage, because of large quantities of pure, clear water available and free both from alkali, rust and other mineral impregnations, and from the vegetable and animal growths that flourish in warmer Southern waters.

An enumeration of factors that have operated somewhat to depress the cotton cloth industry in Rhode Island during the first quarter of the twentieth century-including (I) strikes and lockouts and the ill-feeling betwixt capital and labor that arises from divergent views as to the equitable distribution of the profits of industry; (2) stringent laws regulating conditions of employment, and prohibiting labor by children under fifteen years of age; (3) increasing competition by Southern mills in the production of cotton yarn and cotton cloth ; (4) radical changes in the character of women's clothing arising from preference for other fabrics than those made of cotton, and from fashions tending both to eliminate certain gar- ments and to reduce the yardage of cloth required for other garments-suggests a decrepit industry tottering along the brink of bankruptcy. Yet an industry that gives employment to nearly 26,000 persons, in spite of all the improvements of nearly a century and a half in machinery and methods, that operates over 1,800,000 spindles and 40,000 looms, is neither moribund nor unprofitable. The closing of mills-indicated by the reduction to sixty in the number of units in service-lends itself to interpretation as a measure of economy quite as readily as one of decline. The industry has endured reverses, but it is still fundamentally sound. The genius of the Rhode Island cotton manufacturer has been displayed in finding new lines to replace those which have been abandoned because of changing circumstances.

The following list of products of Rhode Island cotton mills is suggestive: Besides the lines of staple yarns and plain cotton cloth-corduroy, velveteen, plush, twills, satin broad- cloth, voile, corded shirtings, jeans, sheetings, corded sheetings, cotton flannels, draperies, bedspreads, cotton blankets, broad loom jacquard-decorative fabrics, fine lawns, muslins, cross-barred muslins, cambrics, velours, pile fabrics, mercerized cotton substitutes for linen, tire cord, tire fabrics, cotton wadding and batting, book cloth, cotton and silk corset cloth, cotton and silk cloth, cotton and rayon fabrics, cotton and mohair upholstery plushes, and other combinations of cotton, silk, rayon, wool and mohair in yarn and cloth. The rising automobile industry has opened new lines for Rhode Island cotton mills in the production of tire cloth, cloth bases for waterproof fabrics used in covering, and upholstery cloth for linings and fittings. Units or combinations operating more than 50,000 spindles each in 1930 included : The Brown & Ives organization, Goddard Brothers, agents, operating six mills at Ashton,

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Berkeley, Hope, Lonsdale, North Smithfield and Phenix, producing combed shirtings, broad- cloths, voiles, corded shirtings, jeans, sheetings and corded sheetings, 297,200 spindles and 6834 looms; the Lippitt organization, the Manville Jenckes Company, C. H. Merriman, agent, operating four mills, at Manville, Pawtucket and Woonsocket, producing tire fabrics, sheetings, fancy cotton goods, 296,400 spindles and 7550 looms; B. B. & R. Knight Corpor- ation, G. Edward Buxton, agent, operating six mills in Providence, Warwick and West War- wick, producing Fruit of the Loom cotton cloth, 200,000 spindles and 6000 looms; Lawton Spinning Company, Woonsocket, William Halliwell, President, producing fine yarns, 126,000 spindles ; Warren Manufacturing Company, H. G. Goorley, agent, producing cotton yarn and cloth, 119,660 spindles and 2820 looms; Nyanza Mills, Woonsocket, J. G. Oswald, manager, producing mercerized and dyed yarns, 72,000 spindles ; Warwick Mills, West Warwick, Wes- ton Howland, treasurer, producing silk and rayon fabrics, 67,104 spindles and 2500 looms ; Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates, Coventry, Fred R. Budlong, superintendent, 65,156 spindles and 1262 looms ; Parker Mills, Warren, L. S. Chace, treasurer, producing fine cotton goods, 65,000 spindles and 1500 looms; Greenhalgh Mills, Pawtucket, G. T. Greenhalgh, treasurer, producing fine combed cotton goods, 61,600 spindles and 1419 looms; Lorraine Manufacturing Company, Pawtucket and Westerly, W. B. MacColl, treasurer, cotton division, producing rayon and cotton dressgoods and shirtings, 54,296 spindles and 1939 looms; Potter Fine Spinners, Pawtucket, E. Linguard, treasurer, producing fine cotton yarn, 48,576 spindles.

Twenty-two dyeing and finishing establishments in 1890 employed 3720 persons ; twenty- four in 1900 employed 5942; in 1930 forty-one employed 9375. The larger organizations in 1930 were: United States Finishing Company, Andrew C. Imbrie, treasurer, dyeing, printing, mercerizing, bleaching and finishing cotton piece goods, operating four plants in Pawtucket and Providence, and employing 2420 persons; Sayles Finishing Plants, Andrew E. Jencks, buyer, dyeing, bleaching, mercerizing and printing textiles, operating four plants at Phillips- dale and Saylesville, and employing 1700 persons. Other establishments employing more than 300 persons were: Apponaug Company, dyeing and finishing piece goods; Bradford Dyeing Association, Bradford, dyeing, bleaching and finishing cotton and silk; Cranston Print Works, printing cotton piece goods; Franklin Process Company, Providence, yarn dyeing and dyeing machinery; Greenville Finishing Company, bleaching and dyeing cotton piece goods; Imperial Printing and Finishing Company, Edgewood, dyeing, bleaching and finish- ing cotton ; Lincoln Bleachery and Dye Works, Lonsdale, dyeing and bleaching cotton piece goods ; Providence Dyeing, Bleaching and Calendering Company, bleaching, finishing and mercerizing cotton piece goods; Slatersville Finishing Company, finishing cotton piece goods.

WOOLENS AND WORSTEDS-The woolen and worsted industry in Rhode Island has had a steady and generally prosperous development. Rhode Island had achieved leadership in pro- duction of worsteds in the United States in 1890, and ten years later the wool manufacturing industry in Rhode Island had surpassed cotton. Whereas cotton manufacturers, as a rule, have favored a high protective tariff, with specific duties rather than ad valorem duties on cotton cloth, wool manufacturers have leaned toward a tariff for revenue and lower duties and have been willing to forego protection while raw wool has been on the free list. Yet only slight changes in tariff rates, on occasion, have induced European manufacturers to build plants in Rhode Island; following the tariff act of 1900, French manufacturers built plants in Rhode Island at Greystone and Woonsocket. Wool manufacturing has faced fewer crises than cotton, and has thrived in periods during which cotton manufacturing has been unprofit- able. With reference to staple production affecting the large volume of each product the two industries have not been and are not competitors. The tariff acts of 1846 and 1857 reduced duties on wool, woolens and worsteds, yet the wool manufacturing industry progressed

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steadily, and suffered little in the panic of 1857, which was disastrous to cotton. Again, whereas the Civil War, and the accompanying blockade of Southern ports and shortage of cotton, closed cotton mills, wool mills experienced no shortage of supply of raw material, and worked overtime on contracts for manufacturing cloth for uniforms. The number of estab- lishments increased from forty-five in 1850 to fifty-seven in 1860, and to seventy-six in 1870. Employes increased from 1758 in 1850, to 4229 in 1860, and to 7894 in 1870. The product was valued at $2,381,825 in 1850, at $6,915,205 in 1860, and at $15,394,067 in 1870. The mills were small and built before the Civil War, the average number of employes being forty. The rise of the woolen and worsted industry in Providence belongs to the Civil War period. The first unit of the Riverside Mill was constructed in 1861. Three years later the Wanskuck Mills and the Weybosset Mills were opened. The former manufactured beavers, kerseys, elysians, ladies cloakings and fine overcoatings. The Wanskuck Mills were developed as worsted mills producing fabrics that were known everywhere by the name of the mills. The Weybosset Mills achieved distinction by designing original patterns, instead of copying imported fabrics. Other Providence mills were built : The Atlantic, 1879; the National and Providence Worsted Mills, 1879; the Geneva Worsted Mills in 1880; the Lymansville Mills in 1884. By 1890 Providence, next to Philadelphia, was the second woolen city in America, and Rhode Island led all the states in the production of worsteds. Rhode Island mills pro- duced large quantities of delaines, and printed even more in the print works. The Dunnell Manufacturing Company of Pawtucket was engaged principally in printing. Darius Goff of Pawtucket, in 1887, invented and perfected machinery for making pile fabrics, including wool plush. The ninety-one establishments, excluding knitting mills, in 1930 employ 26,000 persons, or an average of nearly 300.

Wool manufactories were classified in the census of 1870 as producing woolens or wor- steds; at that time sixty-five of seventy-six establishments manufactured woolens, the value of which was more than eighty-one per cent. of the total product. Ten years later the num- ber of worsted mills was the same as in 1870, but the number of employes and the value of product both had more than doubled, the latter in spite of a change of fifteen per cent. in the purchasing power of the standard dollar. The number of woolen mills was smaller in 1880 than in 1870, but the number of employes and the value of product both had increased. A third division in the wool manufacturing industry appeared in the census statistics for 1890, which showed forty woolen mills, sixteen hosiery and knitting mills, and twenty-eight worsted mills. The industry employed 19,323 persons and the product was valued at $34,721,270. In 1900, ninety-two establishments employed 19,200 persons and produced goods valued at $41 .- 385,729. The wool manufacturing industry in 1930 is widespread in Rhode Island with over 100 mills located as follows: Woonsocket twenty-four, Providence eighteen, Central Falls three, Pawtucket three; in Providence County other than in the cities, thirty, at Allendale, Bridgeton, Centredale, Forestdale, Glendale, Greenville, Greystone, Harrisville, Lymansville, Manton, Mapleville, Nasonville, North Smithfield, Oakland, Pascoag, Stillwater, Thornton, West Glocester ; in Bristol County, three, at Bristol and Warren; in Kent County, three, at East Greenwich and Washington; in Washington County, twelve, at Ashaway, Belleville, Car- olina, Hope Valley, Lafayette, Peacedale, Wakefield, Westerly, and Wyoming. The twenty- four Woonsocket mills operate 262,484 spindles and 676 looms, and employ 7672 persons. The eighteen Providence mills operate 168,964 spindles and 2640 looms, and employ 9071 persons. Providence maintains leadership as the state wool manufacturing centre by its pro- duction of cloth on four times as many looms as are operated in Woonsocket. Of the 100 factories in 1930 fifty were cloth mills, of which twenty-six produced no yarn; and forty-one produced yarn or other supplies for cloth mills but no cloth. The largest establishments were the three mills of the American Woolen Company, at Manton, Providence and Warren, oper-

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ating 24,600 spindles and 701 looms; the Atlantic Mills of Rhode Island, at Providence, with 61,120 spindles and 1550 looms; the Wanskuck Company, with four mills, operating 47,324 spindles and 574 looms. The Lorraine Manufacturing Company, converters, employed the largest number of workers. Of yarn producing organizations the largest were the Centredale Worsted Company, with mills at Providence, Allendale, Centredale, and Stillwater, operat- ing 25,900 spindles ; the Jules Desurmont Worsted Company of Woonsocket, 38,400 spindles ; the Falls Yarn Mills, Woonsocket, 10,000 spindles; French Worsted Company, Woonsocket, 28,000 spindles; Guerin Mills, Woonsocket, operating three factories with 36,000 spindles ; Lafayette Worsted Company, Woonsocket, 32,500 spindles; Masurel Worsted Mills, Woon- socket, 17,000 spindles; Peacedale Mills, Peacedale, 20,000 spindles; Pocasset Worsted Com- pany, Thornton, 20, 160 spindles; Rochambeau Worsted Company, Providence, 13,440 spindles ; Samoset Worsted Mills, Woonsocket, 26,800 spindles; Stillwater Worsted Mills, operating factories at Harrisville, Greenville, Ashaway, and Mapleville, 16,000 spindles ; Syd- ney Worsted Company, Woonsocket, 10,000 spindles; Woonsocket Worsted Mill, 19,174 spindles. Sixty-six factories in 1930 were producing worsted yarns or cloth.

OTHER TEXTILES-Other textile manufacturing in Rhode Island includes knit goods, braiding, webbing and narrow fabrics, lace, thread, silk and rayon. Thirteen knit goods estab- lishments employ 1250 persons, operate 1675 machines, and manufacture bathing suits, elas- tic braids, hosiery, jersey cloth, knitted neckwear, knitted underwear, linings, narrow woven fabrics, sweaters and knitted dressgoods. Thirty-two braiding mills employ 3574 persons, and operate 39,556 braiding machines, 262 looms and 53,500 spindles. The products include auto and radio cables and harnesses, beaded tip shoe laces, braided elastic fabrics, braided narrow fabrics, braided novelties, braids, corset laces, elastic and non-elastic braids, elastic cords, electrical cords, narrow fabrics, ribbons, rick-rack braid, shoe-laces, tapes, underwear braids, and wicks. The larger establishments are: East Providence Mills, 8000 braiders and forty-eight looms; International Braid Company, Providence, 30,000 spindles, 1000 braiders and 150 looms; Joslin Manufacturing Company, Providence, 12,500 spindles, and 4800 braid- ers; Shoe Lace Company, Providence, 10,000 spindles and 5000 braiders. Fifteen webbing factories employed 3084 persons, and operated 8696 spindles and 4524 looms. Eleven of the fifteen factories were located in Pawtucket, the others at Shannock, Westerly, Wickford and Woonsocket. The products included narrow fabrics of cotton and silk, elastic and non-elastic braids, elastic webbing, fancy braids, and tapes. The Hope Webbing Company, 1200 looms, and the Rhode Island Textile Company, 1500 looms, both of Pawtucket were the largest establishments.

The largest thread mill in Rhode Island is the Conant plant of the J. & P. Coats Com- pany at Pawtucket, which employs 3380 persons and manufactures spool cotton, and spool and skein silk. Other thread mills are the Ballou of Providence, Consolidated of Warren, Premier of Pawtucket, and York of Providence, the latter manufacturing shoe thread. Lace making is practically a twentieth century innovation in Rhode Island, with nine establishments oper- ating in 1930 and employing over 1000 persons. The products include silk and cotton laces, including narrow and wide laces, lace dress goods and trimmings. The factories are located at Alton, Central Falls, Pawtucket, Riverpoint and West Barrington. Rhode Island has two fishline factories, at Ashaway and Rockville.

Rhode Island has also a new and rapidly growing silk and silk goods industry, which in 1930 included thirty factories, employing 8800 persons and operated 14,000 looms. The silk industry is centered in Central Falls, Pawtucket and Valley Falls; with a few factories in the Pawtuxet Valley, Providence and Woonsocket. The products include broad silks, broad and dress silks, cotton and silk fabrics, draperies, novelty fabrics, rayon and cotton yarns and

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cloth, silk nets and laces. The factories produce both yarn and cloth, and provide facilities for dyeing. The largest establishments are the Royal Weaving Company, 2500 looms; Ham- let Textile Company, 2000 looms, and Salember & Clay, operating two factories, with 6000 looms. The combined textile industries in Rhode Island provide employment for 60,000 persons, and pay wages amounting to $55,000,000 annually. The expenditure for raw material is approximately $100,000,000, and the finished products sell for $170,000,000 annually.

IRON AND STEEL-The manufacture of iron and steel is still a leading industry in Rhode Island, in spite of the tremendous development of the basic industry west of the Allegheny Mountains. Rhode Island holds a distinctive position because of the quality of production, and four Rhode Island establishments-the American Screw Company, Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company, General Fire Extinguisher Company, and Nicholson File Company -lead in their respective lines. The American Screw Company resulted from the consolida- tion of earlier companies. The first American patent for a screw machine was issued to David Wilkinson of Rhode Island in 1798. Three screw companies were chartered in Rhode Island before 1850-the Providence and the Eagle, both in 1838, and the New England in 1840. The Providence company lost its factory by fire in 1840 and retired from business. The Eagle Company was almost crippled by an adverse judgment in a patent infringement case, but con- tinued operations. The New England Company made a pointed screw in 1849, which prom- ised to be successful, but at almost the same time bought the patent rights for a new screw made by Thomas J. Sloan, and began to manufacture the latter. The Eagle and New England companies united as the American Screw Company in 1860, and by purchase and consolida- tion of other properties, and salesmanship unsurpassed by modern high-pressure methods, acquired a position of leadership which for a long while amounted practically to a monopoly and which the company maintains at present as the largest producer in the field. The process of manufacture first perfected by the American company consisted of three principal opera- tions, automatic heading blanks cut from a coil of wire, automatic nicking and shaving the heads, and automatic threading of the shanks. With the invention of Bessemer steel the American campany introduced a cold-forging process, using a heading machine to impress the blank with thread and gimlet point.

David Brown and his son, Joseph R. Brown, formed a partnership in 1833, and opened a store at 60 South Main Street, Providence, where they manufactured and repaired watches, clocks, and surveying and mathematical instruments. Four years later the plant was destroyed by fire, but the Browns reestablished their shop, and Joseph R. Brown continued to conduct it after David Brown retired in 1841. Lucian Sharpe, who had served an apprenticeship, was admitted as a partner in a new firm organized under the name of J. R. Brown & Sharpe. The shop was removed from time to time to assure ample quarters, eventually occupying the ground floor of the premises at 115 South Main Street. While there, in 1858, the firm con- tracted to build the Wilcox and Gibbs sewing machine, of which over half a million were sold. From an establishment occupying one floor and employing fourteen men, the enterprise expanded until with 300 workmen it overflowed the three-story building at 115 South Main Street. Land for the first of the group of buildings on Promenade Street was purchased in 1870. The firm was incorporated as the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company in 1868. The venture with sewing machines led the Brown & Sharpe Company to introduce mass pro- duction methods, consisting in the first instance in manufacturing large numbers of the same part and setting up special and accurate machines for standardizing the parts, thus to assure perfect fitting and accurate operation when assembled. This was exactly the type of work that was needed to lead Brown to develop his genius for making accurate mechanical devices, already forecasted by his invention in 1852 of the linear dividing engine for graduated divi-

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sions in scales of measurement, and the invention of the Vernier Caliper in 1853. Other machines invented and patented by Brown included screw slotting, tapping, universal milling, revolving screw head, and universal grinding devices, friction clutch pulleys, cutters that could be sharpened without changing form, gear-cutting attachment for milling machine, gauges and other exact measuring instruments. Samuel Darling was associated with the company, 1866 to 1896, and patented fifty devices in connection with the improvement of rules and scales. Lucian Sharpe's contribution to the firm consisted principally in developing sound business methods, whereby to market the product of Brown's inventive genius, and the combination was as successful as it was unusual. Brown & Sharpe measuring devices, tools and machines were sold all over the world through the organization developed by Sharpe, and achieved a worldwide reputation for excellence and accuracy. Joseph R. Brown died in 1876, not long after the company removed from South Main Street to Promenade Street; and the later development was largely by Sharpe. The buildings in 1896 afforded 278,764 square feet, or six and one-half acres of floor space, and the firm employed 1300 men. Lucian Sharpe died in 1899, at sea, on a return voyage from Europe. The Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Com- pany has been conducted by his sons, Lucian and Henry Dexter Sharpe. Under their man- agement the establishment has been expanded, and additional buildings have been constructed to meet the needs of the growing business. The company's plant in 1930 afforded 1,409,000 square feet of floor space and employed 6000 men. During the World War, the Brown & Sharpe Company was listed as one of the indispensable industries of the United States and was engaged in the production of standard and standardizing devices for the United States government, and other of the allies. Lucian Sharpe's apprenticeship to Joseph R. Brown no doubt suggested the former's interest in the training of apprentices for the establishment, which never has been neglected. The company maintains a system of shop and related train- ing, purposing to prepare young men for service in the establishment as foremen and as superintendents.

Frederick Grinnell, in 1874, introduced the Parmelee automatic water joint sprinkler to replace the perforated pipe sprinkler systems which the Providence Steam and Gas Pipe Com- pany had been installing in factories as devices for reducing fire losses. The latter were con- trolled by valves opened by hand; the Parmelee sprinkler went into action when water stand- ing in a pipe reached a temperature high enough to melt a metal disk. After making several improvements on the Parmelee, Grinnell invented a new type of sprinkler in 1882, which com- bined (1) a device for releasing a valve when solder holding a lever melted in air at a tem- perature of 155 degrees Fahrenheit, and (2) a device for transforming the opened sprinkler into a spraying machine throwing water in all directions. Within five years the Grinnell sprinkler had been installed in more than 1000 establishments. The company was reorgan- ized in 1892 as the General Fire Extinguisher Company. While protected by basic patents the Grinnell sprinkler was installed almost universally; it is in 1930 one of the most popular types.

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 44

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716