Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 45

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

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William T. Nicholson, a journeyman machinist who was employed by Joseph R. Brown in 1852, rose to be general manager of the Brown shop in 1856. Two years later he estab- lished a machine shop, and during the Civil War manufactured parts for 150,000 Springfield rifles, using machines designed by him for the purpose. He organized the Nicholson File Company in 1864, to manufacture files by machinery, and achieved success where others had failed. His files cut, forged and ground by machinery, were superior to hand-made files; he designed and perfected filemaking machines, and obtained more than forty patents. The out- put in 1867 was 3600 files per day, and was increased until, when he died in 1893, Nicholson had developed the largest and most complete filemaking plant in the world, with a product reaching 36,000 files per day. Other plants have been acquired and the business has been

GOLF CLUB, NEWPORT

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extended under the direction of Samuel M. Nicholson, son of William. The Nicholson File Company in 1930, besides its factories in Providence, operated others at Paterson, New Jer- sey ; Anderson, Indiana; Philadelphia, and Port Hope, Ontario. The company manufac- tures files and rasps of all kinds and sizes from the largest and heaviest to the finest and lightest, besides Swiss pattern files, file handles, file cards, file brushes and file holders-a file for every purpose.

STEAM ENGINES-George T. Corliss came to Rhode Island in 1844 to perfect a harness sewing machine, but became interested in steam engines, and in 1848 built an engine for the Providence Dyeing, Bleaching and Calendering Company, on which he obtained a patent in 1849. This upright beam engine of 200 horse-power was successful both in economy of fuel and perfection of regulation, thus to assure steady, harmonious motion. Other larger engines of the same design were built by Corliss for mills in Boston, New Bedford and Utica. A new plant to construct steam engines was erected, and the Corliss Steam Engine Company was incorporated in 1856. Corliss continued improving his steam engines and won extraordi- nary recognition. He was awarded the Rumford medal by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1870, with citation, in which the President of the Academy said: "In the opin- ion of those who have officially investigated the matter, no invention since Watt's time has so enhanced the efficiency of the steam engine as this for which the Rumford medal is now pre- sented to you." Corliss won the highest prize at the Paris Exhibition, 1867, and was awarded a diploma of honor at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873. He built the steam engine that oper- ated the machinery exhibited at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. The King of the Belgians made him an officer of the Order of Leopold in 1886; and he received the Montyon prize from the Institute of France in 1879. George T. Corliss died in 1888.

Noble T. Greene, of Thurston, Greene & Company, patented in 1855 an improvement for steam engines known as the "Greene drop cut-off." The engine was successful, but its manu- facture was enjoined until 1869 as an infringement of the Corliss patent. When production was resumed, the Greene engine was built by the Providence Steam Engine Company, incor- porated in 1863. The company made also marine engines and boilers, and from 1864 to 1881 had contracts with the United States government. The huge wooden shears at the east water front below Point Street bridge in Providence, which were used by the company in hoisting boilers and engines from government vessels, were for many years a prominent landmark.

William A. Harris, who was employed by the Corliss Steam Engine Company from 1856 to 1864, manufactured an improved Corliss engine, known as the Harris-Corliss, beginning in 1868 at a factory located at Park and Promenade streets, Providence. George M. Cruick- shank built a vertical stationary engine that had an extensive sale. Another Rhode Island steam engine, the Armington & Sims, was manufactured by a company organized in 1883 by Pardon Armington and Gardner C. Sims. This engine was compact, furnished steady power, and was used extensively in producing electricity for lighting. Thomas A. Edison once said of the Armington & Sims engine: "I fail to see what improvement in its mechanism can be suggested. The Edison Company have about 300 of these double-disk engines in daily use- those at the central lighting station in New York giving a regular duty of over 150 horse-power at a speed of 350 revolutions per minute without heating, and this for many days together without slackening speed." The Armington & Sims engines were sold by thousands, and were noted for economy of fuel, workmanship, simplicity of construction, durability and low price. The engine earned awards at the Cincinnati Exposition, 1883, for quick action ; at the Toronto Exposition, 1883, for high speed ; at the Southern Exposition, 1883, as the best quick-action steam engine for electric lights ; and at London, 1885, a gold medal.

The era of the stationary steam engine was nearing conclusion, however, when Edison, Brush and other pioneers in electric engineering were installing Rhode Island built steam

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engines in electric generating plants. Within a few years electric motors, deriving power from central public service stations, replaced factory steam power plants for most purposes, and what had been a most prosperous industry, employing thousands of skilled metal work- ers, declined. The Franklin Machine Company, established in 1798 and incorporated in 1885, absorbed other companies; it occupies the Corliss plant erected by George H. Corliss when his engine had achieved international reputation; and builds steam engines as one product of a general foundry and machine business. It advertises the old Rhode Island engines, which are still standard where steam engines are used.

SAFES, HORSESHOES, WINDLASSES, SEWING MACHINES-William Corliss, brother of George T. Corliss, came to Rhode Island in 1857, and was employed at the Corliss Steam Engine Company until 1871, when he was appointed one of the commissioners to build the Providence water works. After a study of safes had convinced Corliss that none was burg- lar-proof, he invented a chilled iron spherical safe, which was received so enthusiastically that one commentator declared : "We can say that here in Providence has been sounded the death-knell of the professional bank burglar-we may believe that his race is to be ended in our day." Corliss made his first burglar-proof safe at the Rhode Island Locomotive Works in 1875. Difficulty was experienced in building moulds, but the project was successful, although one mould weighed forty tons. The safe consisted of a chilled iron spherical cham- ber, which rotated within a spherical shell. When the safe was closed the door of the chamber was wholly within the outer shell, and the safe exposed to a burglar a spherical wall of chilled iron four to eight inches thick. The Corliss Safe Manufacturing Company was incor- porated in 1877, and built a factory in Auburn. The Corliss Safe and Vault-Door Company was organized in 1889, and in 1895 the Corliss companies were absorbed by the Mosler Safe Company. Safes of the Corliss pattern were sold in all parts of the United States. They are still manufactured, but not in Rhode Island, safemaking being one of the Rhode Island indus- tries that has "gone west," in the process of consolidating enterprises.

Horseshoes, from time immemorial, had been hand forged until Charles H. Perkins invented a machine for making horseshoes in 1857. Less than ten years later he invented another process, and the Rhode Island Horseshoe Company was incorporated in 1867. The enterprise was promoted by the A. & W. Sprague Company, which was interested in horse- shoes because of ownership of the Providence street railway company, and also because a member of the Sprague family had invented an improved type of machine used in making horseshoes. The horseshoe company rode out the panic of 1873, and, when its factory was destroyed by fire in 1887, rebuilt. The plant at Valley Falls was complete in all the details for manufacture, from the making of iron and steel bars from scrap iron, and a department for manufacturing and repairing its own machines, to a cooper shop, which made kegs and boxes for shipping the product. The company manufactured heavy and light horseshoes, the Goodenough shoe used by horse railroads, burro or jack shoes, snow shoes, and the Perkins chisel-pointed, prong-toe calk. The horseshoe factory was prosperous until the electric trolley car replaced the horse-car, and the automobile banished horses from streets and roads. The Rhode Island Horseshoe Company was purchased by the Rhode Island Perkins Horseshoe Company, a New Jersey corporation, in 1891 ; operations at Valley Falls were continued until there was no longer a profitable market for horseshoes.

Joseph P. Manton of Rhode Island invented a ship windlass in 1857, which was manu- factured for years thereafter by the American Ship Windlass Company. Besides the basic patent, Manton procured others on improved types of windlasses, and the company made steam windlasses, steam capstans, improved hand windlasses and hand capstans. The Rhode Island windlasses were standard and were adopted by the United States Navy. In one period of ten

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years, it is related, every steel and iron ship built on the Atlantic coast or on the Great Lakes was equipped with the Manton windlass, and that at the time seven-eighths of all vessels of American registry were similarly equipped. The American Ship Windlass Company owned and operated a large plant near the Red Bridge in Providence, which was devoted exclusively to making capstans and windlasses. For years Frank S. Manton was the active manager and agent. Eventually the American Ship Windlass Company went the way of other consolidated enterprises, the equipment was removed and the Providence plant was closed.

The Household Machine Company, incorporated 1882, made the Household sewing machine, at one time employing 400 persons in two factories. The Household sewing machine was made at an earlier date by the Rhode Island Tool Company, which had manufactured muskets and other weapons during the Civil War, and in 1877 made Peabody Martini rifles for Turkey, which were used in the war with Russia. Other Rhode Island establishments once prominent in a thriving iron and steel industry, but no longer operating, include the Provi- dence Machine Company, mill machinery; the Granger Foundry and Machine Company, calico printers' machinery ; the Phenix Iron Foundry, machinery for bleaching and dyeing ; the Providence Steam Engine Company. In more than one instance the company's prosperity was promoted by the genius of a master mechanic, and stopped shortly after the man died. In others the industry ceased to be profitable because of competition, consolidation with organ- izations centred in midwestern states, or because with changing conditions, the major product, like the steam engine and the horseshoe, was relegated to its association with a departed era.

A VIGOROUS METAL INDUSTRY-The losses recorded in the preceding paragraph were principally the products of changes involving the discarding of old for new devices. The iron and steel industry is not decadent in Rhode Island. In 1900 144 establishments employed 8800 persons; in 1930 150 establishments employed 19,000 persons. The products of Rhode Island iron and steel factories in 1930 include almost everything made of ferric metal, from wire, screws, bolts and nuts, through a long line of fine tools and measuring devices, to every type of finished machinery and accessories for completely outfitting textile and jewelry plants, besides world-famous printing presses and other types of specialized machinery for construc- tive manufacturing, and even mighty cannon of the largest calibre for war or guaranteeing peace. The twentieth century metal factories include old as well as new establishments. The old include the four world leaders-American Screw, Brown & Sharpe, General Fire and Nicholson File-and some others even older. Builders Iron Foundry in Providence. for- merly High Street Foundry, has been operated since 1820; it is the largest foundry in Rhode Island, employing over 500 persons, and making, besides a line of standard castings, others on order. The Builders' Iron Foundry, has a war record; it cast hundreds of mortars and cannon for the Union army and navy during the Civil War. It built seacoast howitzers dur- ing the Spanish-American War, besides casting shot and shell. It constructed other large cannon on government contracts, including long-range heavy rifles with massive carriages. The Builders' Iron Foundry was still active during the World War, though nearly a century old then. The beginning of the William H. Haskell Manufacturing Company of Pawtucket was also in 1820; in 1930 it employs more than 200 persons, and manufactures a complete line of nuts, bolts, screws, etc. One hundred years ago the first plant of the combined Fales & Jenks Machine Company of Pawtucket, Easton & Burnham Machine Company of Paw- tucket, and Woonsocket Machine and Press Company was occupied; the companies manu- facture a complete line of cotton mill equipment, and maintain a southern office in South Carolina as well as a selling office in Pawtucket. The three establishments employ over 500 persons. The Rhode Island Tool Company of Providence established in 1834, manufactures nuts, bolts, screws and drop forgings, and employs nearly 300 persons. The J. A. Gowdey

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Reed and Harness Manufacturing Company, of Providence, the "pioneer reed works of America," established in 1834, makes loom reeds for silk, cotton, wool and wire weaving. The James H. Tower Iron Works of Providence, established in 1835, makes iron stairways, fire escapes, steel tanks, flues, ornamental iron, and structural steel for buildings and bridges ; and employs 150 persons. Fuller Iron Works of Providence, 1840, makes standard castings. The New England Butt Company of Providence was established in 1842 to manufacture butted hinges; in 1930 it employs 200 persons and makes braiding machinery, sash cord machinery, wire insulating, stranding and cabling machinery for steel, copper, bronze or aluminum cables or ropes ; rubber insulating machinery, weather-proof wire polishers, rubber spreading machinery for the manufacture of hospital sheeting, raincoat materials, etc .; foun- dry work and cast iron mouldings. The Butt company has weathered the changes of ninety years by taking on new lines of business for old, and by the diversity of its production.

John Hope and Sons Engraving Company was established in 1847. John Hope invented a pantograph engraving machine for transferring designs to copper rolls for calico printing. The machine etched the design through a coating of varnish, and the pattern was set by rotat- ing the roll in nitric acid, which ate away the copper exposed by the scratching. The company at one time supplied the machines used by calico printers throughout the United States; it is still active, engraving and building engraving machinery. The Crompton & Knowles Loom Works, established in 1851, manufacture weaving machinery for all fabrics; the Providence plant employs 400 persons. C. B. Cottrell & Sons Company of Westerly, established in 1855, manufacture rotary and other printing presses and accessories. The Cottrell presses achieved a reputation for fineness, and were adopted by the periodical press. The Cottrell presses have been improved with the constant advance in printing processes, and are employed by leading magazines and periodicals in the production of multiple-color printing at the rapid rate required in modern publishing. Other large establishments of more recent origin include : Rhode Island Malleable Iron Works, Hillsgrove, 1867, foundry, employing 165 persons ; Pawtucket Manufacturing, 1881, bolts, nuts, and machinery for making nuts and bolts, employ- ing 250 persons ; Imperial Knife Company, Providence, 1927, manufacturing a varied line of cutlery and employing 400 persons; Hemphill Company, Central Falls, 1906, "Banner" auto- matic knitting machines employing 360 persons; Standard Machinery Company, Cranston, 1903, "world's largest builders of jewelers' machinery," manufacturing power presses, drop hammers, rolling mills, swaging machines, draw benches, miscellaneous wire and sheet metal machinery, ball and roller bearings, and employing 100 persons; Universal Winding Company, Cranston, manufacturing textile and coil winding machines, and employing 1050 persons ; Textile-Finishing Machinery Company, Providence, 1902, employing 275 persons; Taft Pierce Manufacturing Company, Woonsocket, employing 300 persons ; Narragansett Machine Company, Pawtucket, 1868, manufacturing steel filing cabinets and gymnastic machinery and apparatus, employing 250 persons; Potter & Johnson Machine Company, Pawtucket, tools, employing 480 persons; H. & B. American Machine Company, Pawtucket, mill machinery.

Allied with the machine factories are eighteen wire making establishments, the largest of which are United Wire and Supply Company, Cranston, employing 200 persons ; American Electrical Works, Phillipsdale, employing 500 persons; Washburn Wire Company, Phillips- dale, employing 240 persons; Anaconda Wire and Cable Company; Pawtucket, employing 225 persons ; Collyer Insulated Wire Company, Pawtucket, employing 260 persons; Phillips Wire Company, Pawtucket, employing 400 persons. The oldest organization is the American Elec- trical Works, which started in Providence in 1870. The product includes wires for telephone, electric railways, electric lights, etc.

JEWELRY AND SILVERSMITHING-Jewelry manufacturing is Rhode Island's fourth indus- try in 1930, with 400 establishments employing 20,000 persons. This classification includes,

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besides "manufacturing jewelers," hub and die cutters, enamelers, platers, refiners and silver- smiths, makers of jewelers' cards, jewelers' cases and displays, jewelers' supplies, and emblems and badges, and dealers in precious and imitation stones. Until 1890 the average establishment employed less than twenty-five persons; since then there has been a general tendency toward larger numbers, although the characteristic organization in jewelry manufacturing is still a small shop. A large factory building housing one jewelry establishment is a rarity ; in Rhode Island factory buildings devoted to jewelry manufacturing provide accommodations for sev- eral shops, usually with heat, light and power provided. The contrast appears in the group of buildings housing the Gorham Manufacturing Company, the large factories of the Brier Man- ufacturing Company, Theodore W. Foster & Brother Company, and Ostby & Barton Com- pany, and the number of smaller shops in the Manufacturers Building on Sabin Street, the Fitzgerald Building on Eddy Street, the Lederer Building on Stewart Street, the buildings at 144 and 158 Pine Street, and other similar buildings in Providence.

The largest silversmithing factory in Rhode Island bears the name of Gorham and is the successor of a small shop in Providence in which Jabez Gorham manufactured silver spoons. Jabez Gorham was born in Providence in 1792, and by 1830 had established a reputation as a silversmith that extended throughout New England. After extending the business to include additional styles of silver articles, Jabez Gorham retired in 1842. His successor was his son, John Gorham. By 1850 the company was manufacturing both solid and plated silverware, and the new hollow silverware. The plant was extended, and in 1885 occupied all the buildings in the square in Providence bounded by North Main, Steeple, Canal and Friend streets. Toward the end of the century removal was made to a new plant in Elmwood, which had been designed and constructed for the Gorham Manufacturing Company. The factory buildings covered six acres of a tract of thirteen acres and the establishment was complete, even to the details of having an independent water supply drawn from an artesian well, an independent electric lighting plant, an independent fire department, a machine shop and blacksmith shop, a photographic outfit, and shops for making the boxes and cases in which the product was packed. The Gorham Manufacturing Company makes sterling silverware, gold, electro plate, bronze, ecclesiastical ware and silver polish. Its facilities extend from stamped silverware to casting the largest statuary. For the World's Fair at Chicago the Gorham Manufacturing Company cast and displayed a life-size silver statue of Columbus, a replica of which in bronze stands in Providence at the junction of Elmwood and Reservoir avenues. The Gorham Company, a selling corporation, markets the products of the Gorham Manufacturing Company, the Gorham-Whiting division in Providence, and establishments at Concord and Newark. The Providence factory employs 1400 persons. The plant includes a recreation building for employes ; the latter maintain a cooperative savings bank.

The earliest jewelry shops in Rhode Island were located on North Main Street in Prov- idence, northerly from the retail shopping district at Cheapside, close to Market Square. Until Nehemiah Dodge invented his process for plating gold on copper, the product was of solid gold or silver usually. The Dodge process was copied and improved upon (or was it debased ?) by others, who succeeded in producing gold-plated jewelry at even lower prices than Dodge ; thus the foundation was laid for low-grade jewelry manufacturing in the Attleboros. From small enterprises in shops with few workers except the proprietor and his apprentice, the industry was extended gradually. The value of the product was reported as $100,000 in 1810, $300,000 in 1815, and $600,000 in 1820 .* There had been a period of depression between 1815 and 1820, during which the industry had ceased almost. A list of jewelers in 1825 included the pioneers, Nehemiah Dodge and Jabez Gorham, Davis & Babbitt, Whittaker & Greene, and Joseph Veazie, all on North Main Street; Arnold Whipple, Stampers Street ;

*Bishop's "History of Manufactures."

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Sackett & Willard, North Court Street; Frost & Mumford, Cady's Lane; G. & A. Richmond, Exchange Street (then Hydraulion Street) ; William Green & Co., George Street; Bassett Nichols, Clemence Street. All the Rhode Island shops were in Providence. Though the industry was even then centred east of the Moshassuck River, the movement westward had begun ; fifty years later, except the large silversmithing plant of the Gorhams, most of the jewelry factories were west of the Providence River, with Pine, Friendship, Eddy and Page streets the approximate centre. The shopping district also had shifted westward and centred in lower Westminster Street, east of Dorrance Street. The two movements were not related, however; the jewelry manufacturers of the period did not cater to a local retail trade so much as to a wholesale trade, reached by salesmen who sold the product of Rhode Island jewelry factories by samples shown in the large cities. Therein the early practice of the enter- prising Jabez Gorham was followed; he sold at retail in his Providence shop, but the bulk of his product was disposed of to retailers in Boston, who met at his hotel to witness the opening of the box in which he carried his wares.

While statistics relating to the jewelry industry before 1850 are doubtful in the essential detail of accuracy, reports indicate steady growth and extension. Census returns for 1850 placed Rhode Island third in the list of states in the number of persons employed in manufac- turing jewelry, only New York and Pennsylvania leading. The depression following the panic of 1857 and the Civil War both retarded the jewelry industry in Rhode Island. Nevertheless, and in spite of the Sprague failure and its demoralizing effects upon the leading cotton textile industry, Rhode Island by 1880 attained first place among the states in the manufacture of jewelry, measured by (1) the number of persons employed; (2) the amount of wages and salaries paid ; and (3) the value of the product. The city of Providence, in which 142 of the 148 establishments were located, was the undisputed leading jewelry centre, the value of pro- duction in Providence, $5,444,092, being greater than for any state except Rhode Island. Twenty years later, 1899, a survey of the jewelry industry by the Commissioner of Industrial Statistics disclosed 249 establishments with a capital investment of $10,655,227. The 8767 persons employed earned $4,612,889 annually, and produced jewelry valued at $19,445,327. The invention by Levi Burdon of a process for making seamless plated wire had helped the industry, particularly the makers of chains. George W. Ladd, after fifteen years of experi- ment, perfected in 1867 a stiffened watch case, in which a layer of nickel between two thin sheets of gold replaced a corresponding amount of the precious metal, and added strength to the case. The new watch case was accepted immediately as an improvement over cases made of solid gold; 3000 were sold within a year, and thousands yearly thereafter. Collar buttons, sleeve buttons, and studs for men's shirts had been an important product of jewelry factories. Rhode Island inventions in button making included an almost endless number of devices for punching and shaping buttons and studs from sheets and strips of solid or plated metal, lever and other mechanical adjustable parts for tipping the head of button or stud for inserting it easily into buttonhole, separable shank and telescopic shank buttons and studs, with spring locking devices, and pearl-backed buttons and studs to avoid contact of metal with the epi- dermis of the wearer.

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 45

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