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AUTHORS' EDITION
No. 30
PRINTED FOR
B. E. FERNOW,
CHIEF UNITED STATES DIVISION OF FORESTRY.
The Author's Edition is limited to
One Hundred Copies, one copy for
each Contributor.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF
AMERICAN COMMERCE
f Reproduced from the painting by filbert Oftuatt, in the Sffiettopolitan SJBuMum of &tj,rt.
with the permiaaion of the owner, fff&r. &3,uqu.atu.i ^jay.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1895, by
D. O. HAYNES & Co.
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
'775700
THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW-YORK.
EDITOR'S PREFACE
THIS volume illustrates the dignity of labor, the beneficence of liberty, and the
triumphs of invention. It is an epic on the marvels of intelligent work. The
wonders of the material development of the most remarkable of the centuries of
recorded time are exhibited in this gallery of pen -pictures. They are the word-
paintings of artists, each eminent in his own department of beneficent industry. It
is an American story; but the United States is the most conspicuous illustration and
example of the nineteenth century and its results. Peace and free institutions have
furnisjied the opportunity for individual efforts. States constructed, cities founded,
wildernesses settled, and vast populations prosperous in varied industries are the rich
contributions of our country to the world's progress in the past hundred years.
Capital and labor have caused and shared this creation of power and production,
and this volume, which is an encyclopedia of industrial development for a century,
written by business men, is appropriately dedicated to the business men of America.
C. M. D.
PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION
THE evolution of an idea is always interesting. In submitting to the public this history
of American commerce, an explanation of the causes in which it had its inception may most
properly premise a review of the finished work. The present year marked for the oldest
commercial paper in America, the " Shipping and Commercial List and New York Price Cur-
rent," the completion of one hundred years of useful existence. In seeking some method of
celebrating the centennial in a manner worthy at the same time of the paper and of the busi-
ness interests of the country, the present idea was evolved. It was decided that in no better
way could service be rendered to the American commercial community than by gathering
together in compact form the interesting facts of its remarkable development. At first the
intention was to present this history in a centennial edition of the paper, and upon this plan
the work was begun. Then, as in the end, the plan contemplated the publication of one
hundred chapters, written by one hundred men representing the great lines into which our
trade and industries had been developed and specialized in recent years. The suggestion of
such a work met with most generous welcome in the business world. Its need was recognized
at once, and its novelty and value elicited eminent aid. The very success of the idea compelled
the changing of the original plan. In the form of a newspaper publication the work would
have lacked permanence and breadth of scope. It seemed almost unfair to interest representa-
tive men throughout the country, who would bring enthusiasm, ability, and experience to the
work of describing the industries of the country, and then to place upon them limitations of
space within which they could do justice neither to themselves nor to their subjects. More-
over, it was not solely as a newspaper centennial that the event was of importance ; it had a
deeper and more extended historical significance. Like the " Shipping and Commercial List"
itself, the centennial to be celebrated was but the natural outcome of a great event in the
history of our establishment as a nation.
In the year 1795 there was ratified by the Senate of the United States, and formally
approved by President Washington, a treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation with Great
Britain. This treaty, negotiated by John Jay, of New York, as envoy extraordinary, secured
to this country a commercial liberty commensurate with its position of national independence,
as recognized in the treaty of peace twelve years before. It conceded the actuality of the
national existence, and implied conviction as to its permanence. Above all, it averted the
almost certain disaster of a war, then imminent, between the two countries. The confidence
it inspired in the business world by its recognition of this country as a treaty power, and
yiii ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the immediate advantages it brought to our commerce, are shown in the fact that the foreign
trade of the United States almost doubled in the single year following its making. Arranged
at a time when the American people were smarting under a sense of bitter wrong inflicted
by Great Britain, the many advantages obtained by the Jay treaty were not, at first, fully
appreciated. Political partizanship attacked it blindly, and the great party then clamoring for
an alliance with France denounced it fiercely. In its support, the calmer counsels of such great
statesmen as Washington and Hamilton, representing the conservative and substantial elements
of the nation, finally prevailed, and the treaty was adopted. Time has too fully demonstrated
the wisdom of this action to make necessary a further discussion of the long-since-refuted
arguments by which the consummation of the treaty was opposed. The era it ushered in was
for the nation one of progress and prosperity unprecedented.
The opportunity to celebrate the centennial of our oldest commercial paper as well as that
of our country's commercial progress naturally spurred us on to the highest possible attain-
ment. It was determined to have nothing ephemeral or meretricious about the publication, and
to make it, not a newspaper issue, but a standard book of reference, prepared under the best
literary guidance and made with the best mechanical skill. The opportunity was in every way
worthy of the undertaking, for in addition to the commemoration of commercial liberty there
was demanded a permanent and authentic record of the results accomplished through this
liberty. Properly produced, such a history of American commerce would not only do long-
delayed justice to the memory of the patriots of one hundred years ago, but would apprecia-
tively recognize the men who by their industry and genius have aided in the industrial advance
of this country, and would provide for the present and the future a source of inspiring and
stimulating knowledge of the grandeur of American achievement. It was to this end that this
history of American commerce, as it now appears, was undertaken, and in this spirit the work
has been carried on throughout. The incentive and the material were at hand, and the men
whose influence had directed our commercial activities in the crowning years of the century were
still here to aid in making the work authentic and complete.
These considerations were presented to Hon. Levi P. Morton, Governor of the State of New
York, and to Dr. Chauncey M. Depew. Governor Morton at once Accepted the assignment of
" American Banking," and Dr. Depew generously consented to edit the entire work. From
this time the success of the undertaking was assured. The merits of the plan impressed the
leaders in other lines of industry, and the most generous cooperation followed. In choosing
the men to contribute the various articles, the editorial committee, to whom was delegated the
authority of selection, considered but one question : Was each fitted by ability and experience
to represent the industry with which he was identified ? No other question entered into the
matter. Political considerations were especially avoided. The work was to be simply a
magazine of facts collated by men who knew their significance, and made interesting with the
vitality of actual experience, — a book about business, by business men, for business men, — a
record of events in the departments of enterprise and production, with such reference to causes
and conditions as should be necessary to describe intelligently those events.
If the need of such a history was understood before, it certainly became more impressive
as the work upon the book progressed. For a century the commercial history of the United
States had remained unwritten, and records such as the compiler of political and universal
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE U
history finds preserved for his reference, were not obtainable for a work of this character. They
were scattered, incomplete and often conflicting, through every conceivable channel, from the
old ledger entries of long-forgotten firms to the modern monographs in the files of periodical
publications. The wisdom of dividing the work into one hundred chapters written by one
hundred contributors now received corroboration anew. Upon no other plan could the data
essential to the work have been gathered ; nor by any other means could the publication have
obtained that historical accuracy and standard of authenticity which a work of this kind must
possess to have permanent value. No one historian, however industrious or versatile, could
have written " One Hundred Years of American Commerce." Only by the cooperation of the
leaders in every branch of industry treated could the desired results have been obtained, and it
is here due to the writers of this book to state that, chosen as they have been from the ranks
of the busiest men of to-day, they have still found time cheerfully and ably to cooperate for
the patriotic purposes of this history of American commerce. In order that the reader may
understand something of the plan upon which the work was written by these contributors,
we quote from the first letter of suggestions sent out by the editorial committee in charge
of the work :
" As to the character of the work. In the varied individuality of style, naturally resultant
upon so many contributors, we hope to escape that dullness of machine-made history which
keeps so many otherwise useful volumes unread. Therefore upon every contributor we would
impress the fact that he should not sacrifice his personal style or preferences. It is not the
encyclopedic knowledge of the pedant that the world wants to-day. It is the living acquain-
tance with men and things, causes and effects, that shall show what is and the promise of what
is to be. The information that every successful man has of his own business is of greater value
than the statistics of the records. In our work we desire to bring the man and the records
together, and to have him show the meaning of the records in the light of his personal and
practical knowledge. Is this to be a statistical or a descriptive work? is an important question
that has been asked. Are the articles to be nearly all statistics, and is the progress in the
various lines to be shown by figures or by words? The answer is that this is to be both a
statistical and a descriptive work ; but the statistics are to be subordinated to the description,
or not used at all unless they are necessary to the description. Description without statistics
would have no force ; statistics without description would be meaningless to many. The union
of the two in the hands of men who know the significance of the statistics they cite will give
these articles their interest and weight. In dealing with branch or allied subjects pertinent to
the article under discussion, contributors are recommended merely to summarize the cognate
subject briefly and with special reference to its application. There are so many ramifications of
every great industry that to attempt to follow more than the main story would be impossible.
To conform to the centennial feature of the work, it has been decided to limit the number of
chapters to one hundred. A history of ' one hundred years of American commerce, in one
hundred chapters, by one hundred Americans,' has the ring of a slogan of success. And the
men in charge of this work will keep constantly before their minds not only the making of the
work, but the making it of such a nature that business men will not only need but want it. A
strong, accurate, and true record, as well as an attractive one, is the aim."
The policy persistently observed has been studiously to refrain from interfering with either
i ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the style or method of treatment by which each writer has stamped his own individuality upon
his work. The editors have attempted no greater uniformity than that which was necessary to
prevent extended and useless duplication in allied subjects. If, therefore, the reader of this
book finds that its chapters are not always uniform in length or treatment, he is but noting the
differences which must exist in literary work among one hundred men. In these very differ-
ences exists one of the most interesting and most effective phases of the history. In presenting
the book herewith it is only necessary to add that each article bears the trade-mark of its
quality in the signature of its contributor. When it is further recalled that actual personal
knowledge covering from one half to two thirds of the century under discussion, and directly
received but hitherto unpublished oral tradition concerning the remainder, are possessed by the
majority of the relators, the present work has had sufficient testimony to its worth. The figures
accompanying each article are such as are deemed the most authentic, and have been derived
from every available source. In the frequent preference given to the reports of the United
States census the writers have taken the stand that, however imperfect these may have been
found in certain particular instances, they are still, taken collectively and with due regard to
their official nature, the soundest basis for comparisons covering extended periods. Where
particular trades have preserved their own records, and these have been considered reliable,
figures have been based upon them, while in other instances special statistics personally
compiled by the writer have been given. In all these cases the figures given are considered
the most authentic by the writers, and this judgment by them must be the support for
their accuracy.
The method pursued in dividing the work into its one hundred chapters so as both to
comprehend and to distinguish all the great factors in the industrial activities of the country
will be apparent upon examination of the Table of Contents. Beginning with great national
interests, as banking and interstate commerce, the classification follows through the great
corporate subdivisions of industry, — as the telegraph, ship-building, newspapers, — then through
the products of the earth — as cotton, rice, and sugar — and our natural resources, — as mines,
live stock, etc., — and so on down through the long list of manufactures in which the genius of
America has been shown, to the mercantile activities comprised under the various trades. The
chapter numbered XCIX, " Other Industries," was introduced to provide representation for
other more or less important industrial factors not elsewhere treated.
The editorial management of the history, under Dr. Depew, has been conducted by Mr.
Thomas C. Quinn. Of the associate editors whose work deserves mention are Mr. Wesley W.
Pasko, Mr. William Douglas Willes, and Mr. Charles Frederick Stansbury. Mention should
be made also of the work of Mr. John Winfield Scott, whose wide acquaintance and patriotic
labors did much toward making possible the final successful result. For the typographical
excellence of the book-maker's art evidenced in this volume, credit is due to the De Vinne
Press, to whose reputation for elegance and fine work little can be added. The art work of
the history was placed in charge of the artist William C. Smith, of whose skill many of the
portraits in this work give evidence. The engraving of the portraits drawn by Mr. Smith, as
well as the reproduction of the other portraits, was done by the Gill Engraving Company.
Words of recognition are also due to the L. L. Brown Paper Company, of Adams, Mass., for
their care in the manufacture of the hand-made paper for the authors' edition of the history.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OK AMERICAN COMMERCE
li
One result of the work upon this history which was not directly foreseen when the project
was conceived has been the setting aside of December igth as " Commercial Day," in honor of
the centennial of American commercial liberty, and in recognition from year to year hereafter
of the beneficent results of American industry and enterprise which this history of American
commerce both demonstrates and commemorates. The idea of this celebration came to Dr.
Depew through his editorial work on this history. His suggestion of Commercial Day has
already been taken up throughout the country. The Chamber of Commerce and the Board of
Trade of New York led off in the movement. In the resolutions passed by the Chamber of
Commerce their leadership in the promotion of Commercial Day was most strikingly justified
by allusion to the fact that it was the solid men of New York, as represented by the Chamber
of Commerce one hundred years ago, who, uninfluenced by partizan clamor, came to the assis-
tance of President Washington in securing calmer consideration for the Jay treaty. Commercial
Day this year will be celebrated with a banquet in New York at Delmonico's, given under the
auspices of the editors and contributors to this history of American commerce, and to which
have been invited representative business men in all lines of industry and from all sections of
the country. Chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade throughout the country, following
the example set by New York, will commemorate the day with appropriate exercises. From
1895, the centennial of American commercial liberty, will date Commercial Day, devoted to
the interests of American trade and to renewing from year to year the vigor of our national
patriotism and enterprise.
In the closing days of the work on this history the painful news of the death of Mr.
Frederic Gunther was received. Only a few days before his death Mr. Gunther had revised
the proof of his article on the fur trade for the history. This contribution from his experience
will remain to testify to his ability and the success of his business career.
We must finally express our deep sense of obligation to the one hundred Americans who
have cooperated in the production of this history, and to whose enthusiasm, experience, and
ability it is a lasting monument. That our part has been done in a manner which shall be
considered worthy of them and of the commercial interests of our country is the highest praise
for which we hope.
THE PUBLISHERS.
December 10, 1895.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I AMERICAN BANKING .
2 AMERICAN LABOR
3 IMPORTS AND EXPORTS
4 INTERSTATE COMMERCE
LEVI P. MORTON, Governor of the State of New York .
CARROLL D. WRIGHT, LL.D., Washington, D. C.,
United States Commissioner of Labor 1 1
WORTHINGTON C. FORD, Washington, D. C.,
Chief United States Bureau of Statistics 20
EDWARD A. MOSELEY, Washington, D. C.,
Secretary Interstate Commerce Commission 25
5 THE POSTAL SERVICE IN COMMERCE . THOMAS L. JAMES, New York,
President Lincoln National Bank, and Ex-Postmaster-General 33
6 OUR MERCHANT MARINE .
EUGENE T. CHAMBERLAIN, Washington, D. C.,
United States Commissioner of Navigation 38
7 OUR COMMERCIAL WEALTH AND VOLUME OF BUSINESS, CHARLES F. CLARK, New York,
President The Bradstreet Company 42
47
8 THE CORPORATION IN COMMERCE . . Col. WILLIAM JAY, New York
9 COMMERCIAL ORGANIZATIONS .
10 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF NEW YORK COMMERCE, General HORACE PORTER, LL.D., New York 55
. ALEXANDER E. ORR, New York,
President New York Chamber of Commerce 50
11 OUR FOREIGN TRADE FROM A TRADER'S STANDPOINT, CHARLES R. FLINT, New York,
Flint Eddy &* Co., Merchants 63
12 WALL STREET JOHN P. TOWNSEND, LL.D., New York,
President Bowery Savings Bank 67
13 ADVERTISING IN AMERICA
14 FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE
15 LIFE INSURANCE ....
16 AMERICAN RAILROADS
17 AMERICAN CAR-BUILDING .
18 AMERICAN SHIP-BUILDING
FRANCIS WAYLAND AYER, Philadelphia, N. W. Ayer & Son 76
HENRY H. HALL, New York, Hall & Ifenshaw . . 84
SHEPPARD HOMANS, New York,
First President Actuarial Society of America, and
Corresponding Member Land. Inst. of Actuaries 91
STUYVESANT FISH, New York,
President Illinois Central Railroad 98
JAMES MCMILLAN, Detroit,
United States Senator from Michigan 1 13
CHARLES H. CRAMP, Philadelphia,
President William Cramp & Sons
Ship and Engine Building Co. 1 19
xiv ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
CHAPTER PAGE
19 THE TELEGRAPH General THOMAS T. ECKERT, New York,
President Western Union Telegraph Co. 125
20 THE TELEPHONE . . . . . . JOHN E. HUDSON, Boston,
President American Bell Telephone Co, 133
21 THE EXPRESS . . . . . . LEVI C. WEIR, New York,
President Adams Express Company 137
22 THE STREET RAILWAYS OF AMERICA . HERBERT H. VREELAND, New York,
President Metropolitan Traction Company 141
23 THE HOTELS OF AMERICA . . . HIRAM HITCHCOCK, New York,
Hitchcock, Darling & Co., Proprietors Fifth Avenue Hotel 149
24 AMERICAN THEATERS ALBERT M. PALMER, New York, Proprietor Palmer's Theater 157
25 AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS .... General CHARLES H. TAYLOR, Boston,
Editor and Managing Proprietor Boston Globe 166
26 THE AMERICAN TRADE AND TECHNICAL PRESS, DAVID WILLIAMS, New York,
Publisher and Proprietor The Iron Age 1 74
27 AMERICAN MINES RICHARD P. ROTHWELL, New York,
Editor The Engineering and Mining Journal 178
28 AMERICAN QUARRYING .... REDFIELD PROCTOR, Proctor, Vt,
United Slates Senator from Vermont 188
29 POWDER AND EXPLOSIVES . . . FRANCIS G. ouPoNT, Wilmington, Del 192
30 AMERICAN LUMBER BERNHARD E. FERNOW, Washington, D. C.,
Chief Division of Forestry, U. S. Department of Agriculture 196
31 PETROLEUM: ITS PRODUCTION AND PRODUCTS, HENRY C. FOLGER, Jr., A. M., LL.B., New York,
Standard Oil Company 204
32 AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS ^f . . GEORGE E. MORROW, Stillwater, Oklahoma,
President Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College,
,,_„-_ and Director Agricultural Experiment Station 215
33 AMERICAN LIVE STOCK .... LAZARUS N. BONHAM, Oxford, Ohio,
Ex-Secretary Ohio Slate Board of Agriculture 22O
34 AMERICAN COTTON RICHARD H. EDMONDS, Baltimore,
Founder and Editor Manufacturers' Record 231
35 AMERICAN WOOL WILLIAM LAWRENCE, A. M., LL.D., Bellefontaine, Ohio,
President National Wool Growers' Association, and
President Ohio Wool Growers' Association 216
36 AMERICAN HORTICULTURE . . . ALFRED HENDERSON, New York, Peter Henderson & Co. . 248
37 AMERICAN SUGAR JOHN E. SEARLES, New York,
Secretary and Treasurer American Sugar Refining Company 257
38 AMERICAN RICE JOHN F. TALMAGE, New York, Dan Talmage's Sons . . 262
39 AMERICAN FLOUR CHARLES A. PILLSBURY, Minneapolis,
Pillsbury. Washburn Flour Mills Company 266
40 AMERICAN GLASS INTERESTS . . . JAMES GILLINDER, Philadelphia,
President Gillinder & Sons, Incorporated 274
41 AMERICAN POTTERIES .... JOHN MOSES, Trenton, N. J.,
President The John Moses &° Sons Company 285
42 AMERICAN GAS INTERESTS . . . EMERSON McMiLLiN, New York, Emerson McMillin &• Co. 295
43 AMERICAN PAPER MILLS .... WARNER MILLER, Herkimer, N. Y.,
Her/timer Paper Company 302
44 AMERICAN PUBLISHING . . . . JOHN W. HARPER, New York, Harper &• Brothers . . 308
45 AMERICAN PRINTING .... THEODORE L. DE VINNE, New York, The De Vinne Press 314
46 THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY . . CHARLES HUSTON, Coatesville, Pa.,
President Lukens Iron and Steel Company 320
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
CHAPTER
47 COPPER AND BRASS
XT
UMi
. ALFRED A. COWLES, New York,
Vice-I'resident Antonio Bran and Copper Company 339
48 LOCOMOTIVE AND ENGINE WORKS . ALBA B. JOHNSON, Philadelphia, Baldwin Locomotive Works 337
MACHINERY MANUFACTURING INTERESTS, WILLIAM SELLERS, Philadelphia,
President and Engineer William Sellers &• Co., Incorporated 346
AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY AND IMPLEMENTS, V^RIDGE M- FOWLER Chicago,
Vite-1'resident McCormick Harvesting Machine Company 352
STOVES AND HEATING APPARATUS . . JEREMIAH DWYER, Detroit,
President Michigan Stave Company 357
PLUMBERS AND STEAM-FITTERS' SUPPLIES, JORDAN L. MOTT, New York,
President J. L. Matt Iron Workt 364
53 BUILDING MATERIALS
. WILLIAM H. JACKSON, New York,
President Jackson Architectural Iron Works 371
54 ELECTRICAL MANUFACTURING INTERESTS, THOMAS COMMERFORD MARTIN, New York,
Editor The Electrical Engineer 377
55 THE PACKING INDUSTRY
56 AMERICAN FISH FOODS .
57 AMERICAN CANNING INTERESTS
58 AMERICAN WINES
59 AMERICAN DISTILLERIES .
60 THE BREWING INDUSTRY .
61 AMERICAN TOBACCO FACTORIES
62 AMERICAN SOAP FACTORIES .
63 THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY
64 THE LEAD INDUSTRY .
65 THE SALT INDUSTRY .
66 THE BISCUIT INDUSTRY .
67 THE COTTONSEED OIL INDUSTRY
68 THE STARCH INDUSTRY .
69 THE MATCH INDUSTRY .
70 THE ICE INDUSTRY .
71 SODA FOUNTAINS
72 AMERICAN TEXTILE MILLS
73 AMERICAN CARPETS .
74 THE CORDAGE INDUSTRY
PHILIP D. ARMOUR, Chicago, Armour &• Co.
• 383
EUGENE G. BLACKFORD, New York,
Ex-Commissioner of Fisheries 389
EDWARD S. JUDGE, Baltimore,
Editor The Trade, and Secretary National
Association of Canned Food Packers 396
CHARLES CARPY, San Francisco,
President California Wine Association 401
JAMES E. PEPPER, Lexington, Ky., James E. Pepper cV Co. . 407
FRED PABST, Milwaukee, President Pabst Brewing Co. . 413
PIERRE LORILLARD, Junior, New York,
President P. Lorillard Company 418
SAMUEL COLGATE, New York, Colgate &> Co.
422
. HENRY BOWER, Philadelphia,
Henry Bower &* Son, Manufacturing Chemists 429
. WILLIAM P. THOMPSON, New York,
President National Lead Company 433
. HENRY G. PIFFARD, A.M., M.D., New York,
President Genesee Salt Company \\>
. FRANK A. KENNEDY, Cambridge, Mass.,
Kennedy's Branch, New York Biscuit Company 446
. THOMAS R. CHANEY, New York,
President American Cotton Oil Company 451
. THOMSON KINGSFORD, Oswego, N. Y.,
President T. Kingsford cir1 Son 456
. OHIO C. BARBER, Akron, Ohio,
President The Diamond Match Company 460
. ROBERT MACLAY, New York,
President Knickerbocker Ice Company 466
. JAMES W. TUFTS, Boston,
President American Soda Fountain Company 470
. S. N. DEXTER NORTH, A.M., Boston,
Secretary National Association of Wool Manufacturers 475
. SHEPPARD KNAPP, New York, Shcppard Knapp & Co. . 485
. BENJAMIN C. CLARK, Boston, Pearson Cordage Company . 489
xvi ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
CHAPTKK PACE
75 HIDES AND LEATHER .... ROBERT H. FOERDERER, Philadelphia . 494
76 AMERICAN RUBBER MANUFACTURES . CHARLES L. JOHNSON, New York,
Secretary United States Rubber Company 498
77 AMERICAN WALL PAPERS . . . . HENRY BURN, New York,
President National Wall Paper Company 505
78 AMERICAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS . WILLIAM STEINWAY, New York, President Steinway & Sons . 509
79 AMERICAN CARRIAGE AND WAGON WORKS, CHAUNCEY THOMAS, Boston, Chauncey Thomas & Co. .516
So AMERICAN SAFE WORKS .... WILLIS B. MARVIN, New York, Marvin Safe Company . 521
81 AMERICAN SEWING MACHINES . . FREDERICK G. BOURNE, New York,
President The Singer Manufacturing Company 525
82 AMERICAN WATCHES AND CLOCKS . EDWARD HOWARD, Boston,
Founder The E. Howard Watch and Clock Company 540
83 AMERICAN TYPEWRITERS . . . . CLARENCE W. SEAMANS, New York,
Wyckoff, Seamans &> Benedict 544
84 THE BICYCLE INDUSTRY .... ALBERT A. POPE, Boston,
President Pope Manufacturing Company 549
85 THE DRY GOODS TRADE .... JOHN N. BEACH, New York, Tefft, Weller & Co. . . 554
86 THE CLOTHING AND FURNISHING TRADE, WILLIAM C. BROWNING, New York, Browning, King & Co. 561
87 THE BOOT AND SHOE TRADE . . . WILLIAM B. RICE, Boston, Rice <&• Hutchins . . .566
88 THE HARNESS AND SADDLERY TRADE . ALBERT MORSBACH, Cincinnati,
President National Wholesale Saddlery Association 5 75
89 THE FUR TRADE . . . . . . F. FREDERIC GUNTHER, New York, C. G. Gunther's Sons . 579
90 THE JEWELRY TRADE .... CHARLES L. TIFFANY, New York, President Tiffany & Co. 589
91 THE GROCERY TRADE .... JAMES E. NICHOLS, New York, Austin, Nichols <&•* Co. . 595
92 THE FRUIT TRADE JOHN W. Nix, New York, John Nix &• Co. . . .602
93 THE DRUG TRADE JOHN MCKESSON, New York, McKesson & Robbint . . 607
94 THE PAINT, OIL, AND VARNISH TRADE . DANIEL F. TIEMANN, New York, D. F. Tiemann &• Co. . 620
95 THE CONFECTIONERY TRADE . . . ALBERT F. HAYWARD, Boston,
President and Treasurer Fobes, Hayward &= Co. 625
96 THE FURNITURE TRADE .... GEORGE W. GAY, Grand Rapids, Mich.,
Treasurer Berkey 6° Gay Furniture Company 628
97 THE HARDWARE TRADE .... EDWARD C. SIMMONS, St. Louis,
President Simmons Hardware Company 633
98 THE STATIONERY TRADE .... JOHN G. BAINBRIDGE, New York, Henry Bainbridge &* Co. 642
99 OTHER INDUSTRIES ALBERT CLARK STEVENS, New York, Editor Bradstreefs . 6.48
100 THE NEXT ONE HUNDRED YEARS . . CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, LL.D., New York . . .675
ILLUSTRATIONS
CHIEF-JUSTICE JOHN JAY. FRONTISPIECE
PAGE
LEVI P. MORTON .... 4
CARROLL D. WRIGHT ... 12
WORTHINGTON C. FORD . . 20
EDWARD A. MOSELEY . . 28
THOMAS L. JAMES .... 36
EUGENE T. CHAMBERLAIN 40
CHARLES F. CLARK ... 44
WILLIAM JAY 48
ALEXANDER E. ORR ... 52
HORACE PORTER .... 56
CHARLES R. FLINT .... 64
JOHN P. TOWNSEND ... 68
FRANCIS W. AVER .... 80
HENRY H. HALL .... 84
SHEPPARD HOMANS ... 92
STUYVESANT FISH . . . .104
JAMES MCMILLAN . . . . n6
CHARLES H. CRAMP ... 120
THOMAS T. ECKERT ... 128
JOHN E. HUDSON .... 134
LEVI C. WEIR 138
HERBERT H. VREELAND . 144
HIRAM HITCHCOCK . . .152
ALBERT M. PALMER . . . 160
CHARLES H. TAYLOR . . . 168
DAVID WILLIAMS . . . .176
RICHARD P. ROTHWELL . 180
REDFIELD PROCTOR . . . 188
FRANCIS G. DuPONT ... 192
BERNHARD E. FERNOW . . 200
HENRY C. FOLGER, JR. . .208
GEORGE E. MORROW . . .216
LAZARUS N. BONHAM . . 224
RICHARD H. EDMONDS .
WILLIAM LAWRENCE .
ALFRED HENDERSON .
JOHN E. SEARLES . . .
JOHN F. TALMAGE . . .
CHARLES A. PILLSBURY
JAMES GILLINDER . . .
JOHN MOSES
EMERSON McMILLIN . .
WARNER MILLER . . .
JOHN W. HARPER . . .
THEODORE L. DE VINNE
CHARLES HUSTON . . .
ALFRED A. COWLES . .
ALBA B. JOHNSON . . .
WILLIAM SELLERS . . .
ELDRIDGE M. FOWLER .
JEREMIAH DWYER. . .
JORDAN L. MOTT . . .
WILLIAM H. JACKSON .
T. COMMERFORD MARTIN
PHILIP D. ARMOUR . .
EUGENE G. BLACKFORD
EDWARD S. JUDGE. . .
CHARLES CARPY. . . .
JAMES E. PEPPER . . .
FRED. PABST
PIERRE LORILLARD, JR.
SAMUEL COLGATE . . .
HENRY BOWER ....
WILLIAM P. THOMPSON .
HENRY G. PIFFARD . .
FRANK A. KENNEDY . .
FACING
PAGE
. 232
. 240
. 252
. 26O
. 264
. 268
. 276
. 288
. 296
• 3°4
. 308
324
332
34°
348
352
36o
368
372
380
384
392
396
404
408
416
420
424
43°
436
444
448
PACING
PACK
THOMSON KINGSFORD . . 456
O. C. BARBER 464
ROBERT MACLAY .... 468
JAMES W. TUFTS .... 472
S. N. D. NORTH 480
SHEPPARD KNAPP .... 486
BENJAMIN C. CLARK ... 492
ROBERT H. FOERDERER . 496
CHARLES L. JOHNSON . . 500
HENRY BURN 506
WILLIAM STEINWAY . . .512
CHAUNCEY THOMAS . . .516
WILLIS B. MARVIN. . . .522
FREDERICK G. BOURNE . 528
EDWARD HOWARD ... 540
CLARENCE W. SEAMANS . 544
ALBERT A. POPE 552
JOHN N. BEACH 556
WILLIAM C. BROWNING. . 564
WILLIAM B. RICE .... 568
ALBERT MORSBACH . . .576
F. FREDERIC GUNTHER . 580
CHARLES L. TIFFANY . . 592
JAMES E. NICHOLS ... 596
JOHN W. NIX 604
JOHN McKESSON .... 608
DANIEL F. TIEMANN . . .620
ALBERT F. HAYWARD . . 626
GEORGE W. GAY .... 628
EDWARD C. SIMMONS . . 636
JOHN G. BAINBRIDGE . . 644
ALBERT CLARK STEVENS . 652
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW . . 676
jml
THE CHRONOLOGY OF
AMERICAN COMMERCE AND INVENTION
WITH OTHER IMPORTANT HISTORICAL EVENTS
1795.
Second Year, President Washington's Second Term.
President, GEORGE WASHINGTON, Virginia.
Vice-President, JOHN ADAMS, Massachusetts.
Secretary of State, EDMUND RANDOLPH, Virginia.
Secretary of the Treasury, ALEXANDER HAMILTON, New York.
Secretary of War, HENRY KNOX, Massachusetts.
Postmaster-General, TIMOTHY PICKERING, Massachusetts.
Attorney-General, WILLIAM BRADFORD, Pennsylvania.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, F. A. MUHLENBURG,
Pennsylvania.
Secretary Hamilton announced his redemption policy, Jan. 15.
Jacob Perkins, of Newbnryport, Mass., patented a machine
for cutting and heading nails, Jan. 16.
Secretary Hamilton resigned, and Oliver Wolcott, of Con-
necticut, succeeded him, Jan. 31.
Federal money first reckoned by decimal system of dollars,
cents, and mills, Feb. 5.
Joseph Habersham, of Georgia, appointed Postmaster-Gen-
eral, in place of Timothy Pickering, resigned, Feb. 25.
National flag established with fifteen alternate red and white
stripes, and a blue union with fifteen white stars, May I.
Jay Treaty ratified by the Senate, June 24; ratifications
exchanged between the two countries, Oct. 28 ; formally an-
nounced by President Washington to the House, December.
The United States agreed to pay annual tribute to the Dey
of Algiers to secure exemption from pirates, Sept. 5.
Spain conceded the free navigation of the Mississippi River,
and the Florida boundaries were established, Oct. 27.
Charles Lee, of Virginia, appointed Attorney-General, in
place of William Bradford.
Timothy Pickering appointed Secretary of State vice Ed-
mund Randolph, resigned, Dec. II.
First issue of the New York Prices-Current, now the Ship-
ping and Commercial List and New York Price-Current,
Dec. 19.
Etienne Bore1 developed an improved method for the extrac-
tion of sugar from the cane.
1796.
Tennessee admitted to the Union, June I.
John Fitch ran the first screw boat using steam power on
the Collect, New York, August.
French Directory refused to recognize the United States
Minister, Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, Sept. II.
Washington issued his farewell address. Sept. 17-
Binny & Ronaldson established in Philadelphia the first
permanent type-foundry.
New York Insurance Company, the second in the country
to take marine risks, incorporated.
Major Isaac Craig and Colonel James O'Hara established
the first glass-works in Pittsburg.
1797.
John Adams inaugurated, March 4.
Thomas Newbold of New Jersey patented first cast-iron
plow, June.
Yellow fever epidemic at Philadelphia and New York, Aug.
French Directory issued decree against American commerce.
Philadelphia Quakers petitioned Congress against slavery.
1798.
Navy Department created. George Cabot first secretary,
May.
Congress suspended commercial relations with France, June.
Alien and Sedition laws passed, July.
First salt manufactory established in Ohio.
Joseph Hopkinson wrote "Hail Columbia."
Imprisonment for debt to the United States abolished.
First machine for making combs patented by Isaac Tryon.
First American vessel launched on Lake Erie.
First merino sheep brought from Spain by Hon. William
Porter.
1799.
Napoleon overthrew the French Directory, and commercial
relations with this country were restored, August.
George Washington died at Mount Vemon, aged 67, Dec. 14.
The government paid 8 per cent, for a $5,000,000 loan.
Yellow fever epidemic in New York.
The Manhattan Company chartered in New York.
First shipment of ice from New York to Charleston, S. C.
Eliakim Spooner took out first patent for a seeding machine.
1800.
Epidemic of yellow fever at Baltimore, August.
War office and Treasury building at Washington burned,
September.
Congress first assembled at Washington, Nov. 22.
General bankruptcy law passed, December.
The Second Census gave the population of the country as
5,308,483.
United States first imported India rubber at Boston.
1801.
John Marshall chief justice of the United States, Jan. 20.
Thomas Jefferson inaugurated, March 4.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Tripoli declared war against the United States, June 10.
The federal judiciary reorganized.
Quarantine established on Staten Island.
First sheet-copper turned out from Paul Revere's mill at
Canton, Mass.
Congressional Library established.
1802.
West Point Military Academy established, March 16.
Ohio admitted to the Union, Nov. 29.
Process for making potato starch patented by John Biddis,
of Philadelphia.
First important powder-works established by Eleuthere I.
du Pont.
Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce established.
Abel Porter & Company commenced the manufacture of
gilt buttons in Connecticut.
1803.
Louisiana purchased from France for $15,000,000, Apr. 30.
Richard French and J. T. Hawkins patented the first con-
trivance for reaping machines, May 17.
First cotton mill established in New Hampshire.
Crawford built the first tavern in the White Mountains for
summer tourists.
First bank established in Cincinnati.
1804.
Lewis and Clark started to explore the Northwest, March.
Machine-embroidering introduced by John Duncan, May.
New Jersey's slaves freed, July 4.
The Burr-Hamilton duel at Weehawken, N. J., July u.
Chicago first settled as a trading post by John Kinzie.
National Bankruptcy Act repealed.
Middlesex Canal completed between Boston and the Con-
cord River.
The manufacture of white lead begun by Samuel Wetherill
in Philadelphia.
Captain John N. Chester imported the first bananas.
Almy & Brown of Providence, R. I., made first consign-
ment for sale of American cottons to Elijah Warren of Phila-
delphia.
1805.
Peace with Tripoli, June 3.
Robert Fulton originated the marine torpedo.
First cargo of ice for export shipped to Martinique by
Frederick Tudor.
First drove of cattle on the hoof for the Eastern market
crossed the Alleghanies.
Printers' ink first manufactured here.
1806.
England proclaimed the blockade of the European ports,
June 16.
France by Berlin decree proclaimed the blockade of Eng-
lish ports, Nov. 21,
The first cargo of anthracite coal shipped to Philadelphia
from the Pennsylvania mines.
First confectionery factory established in New York by
Ridley.
David Melville, of Newport, R. I., made earliest use of gas
to light his house.
First American saws manufactured by William Rowland,
of Philadelphia.
1807.
Aaron Burr's trial for treason began, May 22.
Fulton's first steamboat, the Clermont, made the trip from
New York to Albany, Aug. 1 1.
Aaron Burr acquitted, Sept. I.
The Embargo passed by Congress, Dec. 22.
Patent shot-tower of Paul Beck built on the Schuylkill.
Eli Terry, of Plymouth, Conn., began the manufacture of
clocks by machinery.
Machine for the simultaneous cutting and heading of tacks
patented by Jesse Reed, of Bridgewater.
Shipment of ice from Boston to Havana commenced.
Anthony Tiemann introduced the manufacture of colors.
First wheat-starch factory started at Utica by Edward and
John Gilbert.
1808.
Importation of slaves forbidden, Jan. I.
The P/ucnix, built by John Stevens, of Hoboken, made first
sea trip by steamboat, between New York and Philadelphia.
American Fur Company founded by John Jacob Astor.
First patent for stoves to warm by rarefied air granted to
Daniel Pettibone, of Philadelphia.
Bakewell and Page inaugurated the manufacture of flint-
glass at Pittsburg.
First queensware made by Columbia Pottery Company at
Philadelphia.
1809.
James Madison inaugurated, March 4.
Embargo removed except to French and English ports,
March 15.
Cotton duck for sail-cloth first made in the United States.
Abel Stowell, of Worcester, Mass., patented a machine for
cutting screws.
Discovery of Manhattan Island celebrated by a banquet at
the old City Hotel, New York.
1810.
The Third Census gave the population of the country as
7,239,881.
Peregrine Williamson, of Baltimore, made the first metallic
pens.
Astoria, Oregon, founded by the Pacific Fur Company
and John Jacob Astor.
Kaolin discovered at Monkton, Vermont.
Plan for cantaliver bridge across East River proposed by
Thomas Pope.
George Frederick Cooke, the English actor, inaugurated
the star system in American theatres.
Simmons and Rundel, of Charleston, S. C., patented a pro-
cess for saturating water with " fixed air," producing a sort of
soda water.
1811.
The first steamboat left Pittsburgh for New Orleans via the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Oct. 27.
Gen. Harrison defeated Tecumseh at Tippecanoe, Ind.,
Nov. 7.
Congress refused to recharter the Bank of the United States.
First steam ferry-boat ran between Hoboken and New York.
Wooden shoe pegs invented.
Exports of flour exceeded 1,000,000 barrels for the first
time.
1812.
A ninety days' embargo proclaimed, Apr. 4.
Louisiana admitted to the Union, Apr. 30.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
War declared against England, June 18.
Engagement between the Constitution and the Guerriere,
Aug. 19.
The first pin factory was established in New York.
Pittsburgh started the first rolling-mill.
1813.
Engagement between the Chesapeake and Shannon, June I.
Commodore Perry's great Lake Erie victory, Sept. 13.
Two New York men began the manufacture of hair-cloth at
,ahway, N. J.
First Brooklyn ferry ran.
Stereotyping and printing from stereotype plates was
introduced.
First complete mill in the world for turning out raw cotton
as finished cloth, established at Waltham, Mass.
Illuminating gas apparatus patented by David Melville.
Francis C. Lowell brought out the power-loom.
1814.
Washington captured by the British, and public buildings
and records burned, Aug. 25.
Specie payment suspended, Sept. I.
Delegates from New England States convened at Hartford,
Conn., to devise defense against the British independently of
the National Government, Dec. 15.
Treaty of peace with England signed at Ghent, Dec. 24.
Steel plate engraving invented by Jacob Perkins, of New-
buryport, Mass.
1815.
Gen. Jackson defeated the British at New Orleans, Jan. 8.
War against the United States declared by the Dey of Algiers,
March.
Commercial convention with England signed, July 3.
Secretary of the Treasury Dallas proposed a protective tariff.
Steam-power first applied to machinery for cabinet-making.
The first steamboat ascended the Mississippi to Louisville.
1816.
First savings-bank opened in America, at Philadelphia, No-
vember.
Indiana admitted to the Union, Dec. 1 1.
Lighting the streets with gas introduced at Baltimore.
First Seminole war.
Concessions granted by the Spanish government allowing
shipment of ice to Cuba.
Black-Ball packets, the first line, established between New
York and Liverpool.
1817.
United States National Bank opened again at Philadelphia,
January.
James Monroe inaugurated, March 4.
Ground broken in construction of Erie Canal, July 4.
Mississippi admitted to the Union, Dec. 10.
Steam-power first applied to paper-making at Pittsburgh.
Work begun by the United States Coast Survey.
First Deaf and Dumb Asylum established at Hartford, Conn.
Harper's publishing house founded.
Gas employed in lighthouse illumination by David Melville.
Thomas Gilpin & Co. operated the first cylinder machine
for making paper at Wilmington, Del.
Steam navigation began on Lake Erie.
1818.
Congress established the flag with thirteen stripes, and a
star for each State, Apr. 14.
Illinois admitted to the union, Dec. 3.
Western State banks suspended.
Reed principle for musical instruments patented by Aaron
Merrill Peasley.
First line of steam packets on Long Island Sound between
New York and New Haven.
Elisha Mills began the packing industry at Cincinnati.
First stage-coach over the Cumberland road to Wheeling.
The internal revenue tax on whisky abolished.
Du Pont powder-works destroyed by terrific explosion.
First drove of western cattle brought to New York.
1819.
Florida purchased from Spain for $5,000,000, Feb. 22.
The first paper devoted to agricultural interests published
at Baltimore, Apr. 2.
The Odd Fellows organized at Baltimore, Apr. 26.
Steamship Savannah started on first trans-Atlantic trip of
steam-vessel, May 21, and arrived at Liverpool, June 20.
Alabama admitted to the Union, Dec. 14.
Seth Boyden began the manufacture of patent leather at
Newark.
The manufacture of porcelain from domestic materials was
begun in New York by Dr. H. Mead.
Great financial depression existed.
First savings-bank opened in New York.
John Conant of Vermont invented his cooking-stove.
Plow with interchangeable parts patented by Jethro Wood.
Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett put up the first canned
goods in New York.
1820.
Thomas Blanchard patented the gun-stock lathe, Jan. 20.
Maine admitted to the Union, March 15.
The Fourth Census gave the population of the country as
9,633,822.
Anthracite coal first used successfully for the generation of
steam at Philadelphia.
The first steamboat ran on Lake Michigan.
First rubber shoes imported from South America.
Daily meeting with regular call of stocks begun on
"Change."
The United States Pharmacopoeia established.
1821.
Missouri Compromise adopted, Feb. 26.
General Jackson took possession of Florida on behalf of
the United States, July I.
Missouri admitted to the Union, Aug. 10.
New York quarantine station and hospitals established
at Castleton, S. I., September.
Sophia Woodhouse, of Wethersfield, Conn., patented the
straw hat, Dec. 25.
American Colonization Society secured Liberia, December.
Bronze printing patented by George J. Newbury.
Remains of Major Andr£ removed from Tappan, N. Y.,
to Westminster Abbey, London.
The rotary steam-engine patented by Mr. Ward, of Colum-
bia, S. C.
The first college of pharmacy established at Philadelphia.
1822.
Treaty of commerce and navigation concluded with France,
June 24.
The Merrimac Manufacturing Company started the city of
Lowell, Mass., Sept. 3.
Mason and Baldwin of Philadelphia began engraving cy-
linders for calico printing.
First patent of artificial teeth secured by C. M. Graham.
xxii
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Iron conduit pipes were first used in the Fairmount Water
Works at Philadelphia.
Thomas Skidmore of New York introduced India rubber
tubes for gaseous fluids.
Naval expedition sent against the West Indian pirates by
United States.
Lock coulter for plows patented by David Peacock of New
Jersey.
Depau's line of Havre packets established.
The first wheel mill for incorporating powder erected on
Brandywine Creek, Del.
Luke Davies opened the first store distinctively for men's
furnishing goods.
1823.
Monroe Doctrine promulgated, Dec. 2. European powers
not to be permitted to interfere with the independent States
of America, or to acquire dominion on this continent.
First steam-power printing-press set up in Albany by a
printer named Van Benthuysen.
Champlain Canal, connecting the Hudson at Albany with
Lake Champlain, opened.
Manufacture and tin-plating of lead pipe for stills was
begun in New York by Thomas Ewbank.
The first smelting-works in the lead region of the upper
Mississippi erected by Col. James Johnson of Kentucky.
Nicholas Longworth of Cincinnati commenced the making
of wine with the muscatel grape.
First corporation for the manufacture of gas started as the
New York Gas-Light Company with a capital of $1,000,000.
1824.
Lafayette arrived at Staten Island on his visit to the United
States, Aug. 15.
The geological survey of North Carolina was begun by
Denison Olmsted.
Zadoc Pratt established a great hemlock tanning factory
in Greene Co., New York.
Cape Cod began to manufacture isinglass from hake.
The first juvenile reformatory established in New York.
Glazed-ground wall-papers were first made.
1825.
John Quincy Adams inaugurated, March 4.
Corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument laid by Lafayette,
June 17.
Isaiah Lukins of Philadelphia patented the lithotritor in
England, Sept. 15.
First boats left Buffalo by the Erie Canal, Oct. 26.
De Witt Clinton and the first boats arrived in New York
via the Erie Canal, and a grand celebration took place in
this city, Nov. 4.
First performance of Italian opera at New York, Nov. 29.
Isaac Babbitt, of Taunton, Mass., invented Babbitt metal
and commenced the manufacture of Britannia ware.
William Ellis Tucker commenced the manufacture of porce-
lain at Philadelphia.
The so-called labor movement first came into prominence.
The circular saw brought out by Mr. Richardson of Phila-
delphia.
Taylor & Rich erected the first mahogany mill.
1826.
Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, died, Jan. 8.
New England Society for the Promotion of Manufactures
and the Mechanic Arts chartered, March 3.
Death of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, July 4.
First railroad with metal rails from Quincy, Mass., to tide
water, three miles away, Oct. 7.
James Oram, founder of the Shipping List and New York
Price Current, died Oct. 27; born May 10, 1760.
National Academy of Design founded in New York.
Power-loom for weaving wire invented by John S. Gastrin,
of New York.
Manufacture of palm-leaf hats begun in Massachusetts.
Ice first cut on Rockland Lake and retailed in New York.
Failures of the great tea importers caused a heavy loss to
the Government in customs duties.
Composition rollers for printing presses first used.
W. Kendall patented the insertable tooth for rotary saws.
1827.
Switchback Railroad operating by gravity opened at Mauch
Chunk, Pennsylvania, Jan. 8.
First general convention of the manufacturing interests
of the country held at Harrisburg, Pa., July 30.
English artists introduced lithography at Boston.
James MoClintin of Chambersburg, Pa., invented the first
practical contrivance for mortising and tenoning.
The manufacture of wood type was begun at New York
by Darius Wells.
The first bell made from blistered bar steel in New York.
Rope factories first applied steam as power at Wheeling.
Sandwich Glass Company made first pressed glass.
First drove of hogs entered Chicago.
Stone for Bunker Hill monument quarried at Quincy.
Harrison Gray Dyar constructed an electric telegraph on
Long Island.
Jacob Perkins built a compound stationary engine, using
steam of 1400 pounds pressure.
1828.
The American Institute organized, Feb. 19.
Heavy duties laid on imported fabrics of cotton or wool,
May 15.
The first wool sale was held at Boston and brought $300,-
ooo, June 10.
First edition of Webster's American Dictionary published,
June.
First American power-loom for weaving checks and plaids
patented by Rev. E. Burt, of Conn., August 19.
Franklin Institute medal awarded Seth Boyden for first
buckles and bits made of annealed cast iron, Oct. 16.
First patent for locomotive issued to William Howard of
Baltimore.
Manufacture of varnish begun in New York by P. B. Smith.
William Woodworth of Hudson, N. Y., invented the first
machine for planing, cutting, tonguing, and grooving boards.
Sea Island cotton first appeared in the market.
The first trip-hammer shop for the manufacture of axes
built by Samuel Collins, at Collinsville, Conn.
Manufacture of horse collars begun by Timothy Deming
at East Hartford, Conn.
Carbondale Railroad, the first on which a locomotive was
used, built.
1828.
Andrew Jackson inaugurated, March 4.
Safety Fund Banking Act passed in New York State, April.
First annual fair at Castle Garden of the American Insti-
tute of the State of New York, Nov. I.
Hamilton Stewart began in Philadelphia the manufacture of
damask table linen, December.
Tin ore discovered at Goshen, Conn., by Prof. Hitchcock.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The manufacture of sewing silk by machinery begun by
James Conant at Mansfield, Mass.
Dr. John M. Revere of New York perfected the process
of galvanizing iron.
First paper from grass and straw fiber made by machinery
by G. A. Shryock, of Philadelphia.
The Stourbridgt Lion, the first locomotive ever run in this
country, arrived from England.
First American locomotive constructed by Peter Cooper for
the Baltimore and Ohio R.R.
1830.
Joseph Smith organized the first Mormon Church at Man-
chester, N. Y., Apr. 6.
The Welland Canal between Lakes Erie and Ontario com-
pleted, Aug. 3.
The City of Chicago was laid out, Aug. 4.
The Fifth Census gave the population of the country as
12,866,020.
The first astronomical telescope was erected at Yale.
Joseph Dixon began the manufacture of lead-pencils at
Salem, Mass.
First native Georgia gold came to the United States.
The omnibus first appeared in the streets of New York.
Windham, Conn., turned out the first Fourdrinier ma-
chines.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened its first section
operated by horse power.
Holmes, Hotchkiss, Brown & Elton commenced the manu-
facture of sheet brass at Waterbury, Conn.
First locomotive constructed in the United States for actual
service, the Best Friend, built at West Point Foundry Works
for the South Carolina Railroad.
1831.
The first train drawn by a locomotive ran on the South
Carolina Railroad, Jan. 15.
The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad opened in September.
Discovery of chloroform announced by Samuel Guthrie, of
Sackett's Harbor, N. Y., Oct. 12.
The first four-wheel car trucks used on the South Caro-
lina Railroad.
Timothy Bailey of Albany invented the power-loom for
stocking knitting.
The Morris Canal opened, connecting Newark with the
Delaware river.
The West Feliciana Railroad, the first west of the Alle-
ghanies, incorporated in Louisiana.
The Baldwin Locomotive-Works established in Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania inaugurated a system of internal improve-
ments, consisting of 292 miles of canal and 126 of railroad.
1832.
Asiatic cholera made its first appearance in New York,
June 21.
Commercial and financial distress, July to October.
The first street-railway in the country opened in New York
between City Hall and Fourteenth street, November.
Davis & Gartner, of York, Pa., built three locomotives of
the grasshopper pattern for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
The Nullification Ordinance passed by South Carolina.
First hogs packed in Chicago by George Dole.
Egbert Egberts, of Cohoes, brought out the power knitting-
machine.
First cargo of Sicily oranges and lemons imported.
Manufacture of table cutlery begun in this country.
Use of tan-bark in manufacture of white lead introduced.
First soda water apparatus manufactured by John Matthew*
of New York.
Trowbridge, Dwight & Company established the wholesale
clothing manufacture at New Haven.
First shirt factory established by David & Isaac Judion in
New York.
Swiveling fore-end truck for locomotives introduced to gen-
eral use.
1833.
The first cargo of American ice was exported to India by
Frederick Tudor, May.
The " New York Sun " founded, Sept. 3.
Government funds withdrawn from the Bank of the United
States, October.
The first company to import and breed cattle organized,
Nov. 2.
Commercial treaties were entered into with Austria, Tur-
key, and the Two Kingdoms of Sicily.
Treasury Building at Washington was burned.
Obed Hussey patented and exhibited in Ohio the first practi-
cal reaping-machine.
Ross Winans built the first typical American passenger cars.
The Roxbury India-Rubber Company, the first in the busi-
ness, organized.
Samuel Preston invented the pegging-machine.
The crosshead pump for supplying feed-water to the boiler
in locomotives introduced.
1834.
New York National Guard called out for the first time in
suppressing the anti-abolition riots, April.
Cornelius M. Lawrence first mayor chosen by vote of the
people in New York, May.
Cyrus Hall McCormick patented his reaper, June 21.
The first vessel arrived at Chicago from the lower lakes,
July 12.
Lathe for turning lasts patented, Dec. 25.
First attempt at crushing the oil from cotton-seed made
at Natchez.
Screws were first made entirely by machinery.
Rope-yarn spinner invented in New York.
The first saw-mill in the Saginaw valley built by Harvey
Williams.
Half-crank locomotive driving axles introduced.
The manufacture of door locks begun in Connecticut.
1835.
New York voted to begin the Croton Aqueduct, March.
Solyman Merrick, of Springfield, Mass., patented the first
practical screw wrench, Aug. 17.
Texas declared independence, Nov. 7.
Great New York fire. Loss $20,000,000, Dec. 16.
Chicago opened her first bank and organized a fire de-
partment.
The first house was built on the site of San Francisco.
Samuel Colt began the manufacture of the revolving pistol.
The circular web knitting-machine invented in Connecticut.
Horseshoes were first made by machinery by Henry Bur-
den, at Troy.
Improved methods of minting introduced from Europe by
Franklin Peale.
Pins first made by machinery in New York.
Gas companies organized in Philadelphia and New Orleans.
The "New York Herald" established.
The first furnaces made in New England by William A.
Wheeler, of Worcester, Mass.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Professor Morse exhibited his telegraph in the University
of New York.
First link in rail connection of New York and Boston formed
by the opening of the Boston and Providence Railroad.
1836.
President Nicholas Biddle secured, on Feb. 13, a charter
from the State of Pennsylvania for the Bank of the United
States, the Federal charter of which expired March 30.
Arkansas admitted to the Union, June 15.
Specie Circular issued, July II.
First patent of friction match granted Alonzo D. Phillips,
of Springfield, Mass., Oct. 24.
United States Patent Office and contents burned, Dec. 15.
The manufacture of fine-cut chewing tobacco by machinery
commenced at Centreville, Miss.
Brigham Young was elected president of the Mormons.
First sleeping-car ran on the Cumberland Valley Railroad.
First transatlantic cotton freight steamship built for Savan-
nah merchants.
The first cargo of wheat shipped on Lake Michigan for
Buffalo.
Astor House opened in New York.
First American patent issued for a typewriting machine.
E, R. Campbell patented the coupling together of two pairs
of locomotive driving-wheels.
Rubber belting patented.
Power presses introduced for magazine and newspaper
printing.
James Atwater, of New York, brought out the illuminated
case stove.
J. & L. K. Bridge imported from Sicily the first cargo of
flaxseed.
1837.
Fire at Charleston, S. C., Apr. 27, destroyed 1 158 buildings.
Michigan admitted to the Union, Jan. 26.
Martin Van Buren inaugurated, March 4.
Suspension of banks and general panic, May IO.
Sub-treasuries recommended by President Van Buren,
Sept. 4.
Pitts Brothers patented the combined threshing and clean-
ing-machine, Dec. 29.
Chicago incorporated as a city.
Capt. John Ericsson successfully applied the screw pro-
peller to steam vessels.
The fancy weaving loom was patented by William Crompton.
Canning of corn commenced at Philadelphia by Thomas B.
Smith.
Counterbalance weights introduced for locomotive driving-
wheels.
1838.
Fire at Charleston, S. C., Apr. 27, destroying 1158 buildings.
The Specie Circular repealed, May 31.
Congress constituted every railroad a postal route, July 7.
Capt. Charles Wilkes started on his South Sea explora-
tions, Aug. 18.
The National Silk Society organized at Baltimore, Dec. II.
First New Jersey zinc ores smelted at Washington.
Branch United States mint established at Dahlonega, Ga.
The Smithsonian Institution founded in Washington.
Solid pin heads first manufactured at Birmingham, Conn.
Dimond Chandler began the manufacture of gold spectacles
and silver thimbles at Longmeadow, Mass.
Elisha H. Root, of Collinsville, Conn., invented the first
machine for punching and making the eyes of axes, hatchets,
and hammers.
First shipment of wheat from Chicago.
David Bruce Jr., invented the type-casting machine.
First tiles made by Abraham Miller at Philadelphia.
Steam introduced in heating processes in sugar-refining.
1839.
The first express started by W. F. Harnden between New
York and Boston, March 4.
The United States Bank, rechartered by the State of Penn-
sylvania, failed, Oct. 10.
John William Draper, professor of chemistry in University
of New York, took the first photograph from life, November.
Hot-water heating introduced at Niblo's conservatory.
The ice-plow invented.
First pottery built at East Liverpool, O.
1840.
Adams Express commenced between New York and Bos-
ton, May 4.
First successful iron-furnace with anthracite and hot-blast
fired by David Thomas at Catasauqua, Pa., July 4.
Steamship Britannia, the first Cunard liner, left Liverpool
for New York, July 4.
The Sixth Census gave the population of the country as
17,069,453.
The first castings for structural iron made.
John Ames, of Springfield, Mass., patented the first machine
for making, ruling, and cutting paper.
Henry Disston commenced the manufacture of saws.
Patent for the electric telegraph issued to Professor Morse.
Jonas dickering patented the grand piano with full iron-
frame.
First advertising agency opened in Philadelphia by Volney
B. Palmer.
The manufacture of blasting-powder begun.
Edwin Hodges built first brass-wire-drawing mill at West
Torrington, Conn.
The American buggy first came into general use.
A walking-beam electric engine constructed by Davis &
Cooke.
1841.
William Henry Harrison inaugurated, March 4.
President Harrison died and Vice-president Tyler suc-
ceeded him, Apr. 4.
First edition of Horace Greeley's Tribune, Apr. 10.
First steam fire-engine completed and used in New York,
July.
President Tyler vetoed a bill for a United States Bank,
Aug. 16.
A second bill for a United States Bank vetoed, Sept. 9.
The india-rubber ball patented by Edwin Chaffee, of Cam-
bridgeport.
Congress passed a general bankruptcy law.
Samuel Slocum, of New York, invented a machine to stick
pins in paper.
The manufacture of the metal stencil was begun in Boston
by John Pope.
First electrotypes appeared in " Mapes' Magazine."
Frederick E. Sickles invented the drop cut-off valve gear for
steam-engines.
The first mercantile agency established.
Making of Connellsville coke commenced.
Canning of Maine salmon begun.
The city of Philadelphia acquired its own gas plant.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
1842.
Dorr's Rebellion in Rhode Island, May 18.
Fremont's first western expedition, June 10.
Croton water was let into the Fifth Avenue aqueduct, July 4.
Professor Morse laid first submarine telegraph wire between
New York and Governor's Island, Oct. 18.
President proclaimed treaty settlement with England of
the Northwestern Boundary question, Nov. 10.
The first attempt at a machine for sewing was made by J.
J. Greenough, but proved impracticable.
Reuben Partridge patented the match-splint machine.
John Ryle built the first silk piece loom at Paterson, N. J.
Walworth & Nason introduced the Perkins hot-water heater.
Thomas Kingsford discovered and perfected a process for
making starch from corn.
American ice first exported to London.
First factory for pocket-knives established in Connecticut
1843.
Ericsson built the Princeton, the first screw war vessel
in the world.
Napoleon E. Guerin introduced hatching of eggs by arti-
ficial heat.
The manufacture of manilla grass paper was begun in Bos-
ton by Lyman Hollingsworth.
Improvement in pills patented by Benjamin Brandreth.
Patent issued to Enos Wilder for the first fire-proof safe.
Congress voted an appropriation of $30,000 to Professor
Morse for an experimental telegraph line between Washington
and Baltimore.
1844.
Prof. Morse sent a telegraphic message from Baltimore
to Washington, May 27.
Treaty with China opened several ports there to trade and
residence, July 3.
United States recognized the independence of the Sand-
wich Islands, July 6.
U. A. Boyden built the first turbine water wheel for a
Lowell cotton mill, August.
Williams & Ketcham patented the first mowing-machine,
Nov. 18.
Copper mining was commenced in the Lake Superior region.
Patent granted to Charles Goodyear for the vulcanization
of rubber.
First wall-paper printing-machine imported from England.
Leverett Candee made first boots and shoes from vulcanized
rubber.
Power-loom for ingrain carpets invented by Erastus B.
Bigelow.
A. D. Puffer, of Boston, secured a patent for the first soda-
water cooler.
1845.
President Tyler authorized the annexation of Texas, Mar. i.
Florida admitted to the Union, March 3.
James K. Polk inaugurated, March 4.
Telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington opened
for the public business, April I.
Fire did $10,000,000 damage in Pittsburg, Apr. 10.
Naval Academy founded at Annapolis, Oct. 10.
Texas admitted to the Union, Dec. 29.
Anti-rent riots in New York State.
Borings in Tarentum, Pa., struck petroleum.
E. B. Bigelow invented the carpet-loom.
The manufacture of files was commenced at Matteawan,
N.Y., by John Rothery.
Eastwiclc & Harrison invented the equalizing beam* con-
necting locomotive driving-wheel*.
First shipment of apples from Boston to Glasgow.
Sebastian Chauveau, of Philadelphia, introduced the nie of
machinery in making confectionery.
First slate quarry in Vermont opened by Colonel Allen and
Caleb Ranney at Scotch Hill.
Lowest price on record for cotton.
1846.
Magnetic Telegraph Company organized Jan. 14, and line
completed between New York and Philadelphia, Jan. 18.
War declared against Mexico, May n.
California declared independence from Mexico, July 5.
New Mexico annexed by the United States, Aug. aa.
Elias Howe, Jr., patented the first sewing-machine, Sept. 10.
The anesthetic property of ether discovered by Dr. Wil-
liam T. G. Morton, of Boston, Sept. 30.
Iowa admitted to the Union.
Mormons selected site of Salt Lake City.
Japan refused to open commercial relations with this country.
The " ten-wheel " locomotive introduced.
Oliver R. Chase, of Boston, built first machine for making
lozenges.
Eastern Hotel, in Boston, the first public building to be
heated by steam.
First iron furnace using raw bituminous coal erected at
Lowell, Mahoning County, O.
1847.
Commodore Shnhrick proclaimed the annexation of Cali-
fornia by the United States, Feb. 8.
G. Page patented the revolving-disk harrow, August 7.
The City of Mexico fell to General Scott, Sept. 14.
Zinc was discovered in paying quantities in Lehigh
County, Pa.
Pig iron decarbonized by an air-current into steel by Wil-
liam Kelly, of Kentucky.
Richard M. Hoe patented the type-revolving press.
Farmer constructed an electro-magnetic locomotive which
drew a car containing two persons.
Use of adhesive postage stamps first authorized.
Auction sales of plants and flowers begun in New York.
1848.
John M. Marshall discovered gold in California, Jan. 18.
Treaty of peace with Mexico signed at Guadeloupe Hi-
dalgo, Feb. 2.
Astor Library founded, May.
Wisconsin admitted to the Union, May 29.
First meeting of the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science held at Philadelphia, Sept. 20.
Cochituate water introduced into Boston, Oct. 25.
Machine for punching and pointing wooden pegs patented
by Henry P. Westcott.
Suspension bridge completed across the Ohio river at
Wheeling.
Rogers Locomotive Works shipped locomotives to Cuba.
First cast-iron-front building in the world erected in New
York.
Erastus B. Bigelow invented the power-loom for weaving
Brussels and tapestry carpets.
1849.
First diploma to woman physician granted at Geneva, N. Y.,
to Elizabeth Blackwell, January.
First bank established in San Francisco, Jan. 9.
xxvi
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Zachary Taylor inaugurated, March 5.
Great inundation at New Orleans, March.
Astor Place Opera House riots, May 10.
Asiatic cholera epidemic in New Orleans, New York, St.
Louis, Philadelphia, Nashville, Buffalo, Chicago, and Boston,
August.
Connecticut river successfully dammed for utilization of
water-power, Oct. 22.
Overland rush for California commenced.
The improved steam-engine valve patented by George H.
Corliss.
Department of the Interior organized with Thomas Ewing
as first Secretary.
New York Associated Press founded.
Henry Evans of Newark introduced the pendulum press
for can tops.
1850.
The first meeting of influential men was held at Phila-
delphia to consider the question of a transcontinental railroad,
Apr. I.
First number of Harper's Magazine was published, June.
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty promulgated, July 4.
President Taylor died, July 9.
Vice-president Millard Fillmore succeeded to the chair,
July 10.
The manufacture of watches by machinery was commenced
in Boston by Dennison, Howard, and Davis, July.
Fugitive Slave Bill passed, Aug. 23.
California admitted to the Union, Sept. 9.
The Seventh Census gave the population of the country as
22,191,876.
S. S. Putnam, of Neponset, Mass., began the manufacture
of nails for horse shoes by machinery.
Collins Line, the first American line of steamships to Liver-
pool, established under government subsidy.
Export of coal first attained commercial importance.
First ice machine patented.
Thomas Kingsford discovered the food properties of corn-
starch.
Machinery first came into use in the boot and shoe shops.
The manufacture of reed organs commenced.
Page, of Washington, constructed an electro-magnetic loco-
motive of sixteen horse-power.
1851.
Minot's Ledge Light carried away, Apr. 16.
Fire did $3,000,000 damage at San Francisco, May 3.
Southern Rights Convention held at Charleston, May 8.
New York and Lake Erie Railroad completed from Pier-
mont to Dunkirk, May 14.
A second fire destroyed $3,000,000 more property in San
Francisco, June 22.
Nicaragua route between New York and San Francisco
opened, Aug. 12.
Hudson River Railroad completed from New York to Al-
bany, Oct. 8.
Louis Kossuth arrived on his visit to this country, Dec. 5.
Principal room of the Library of Congress destroyed by
fire, Dec. 14.
The canal from Evansville, Ind., to Lake Erie completed.
Postal rate established at three cents per half ounce for dis-
tance less than 3000 miles.
Nelson Goodyear patented process for making hard rubber.
A. C. Gallahue, Elmer Townsend and B. F. Sturtevant
patented a pegging machine which cut and drove.
Western Union Telegraph Company established.
Electric locomotive taking its power from a stationary bat-
tery constructed by Thomas Hall, of Boston.
Cyrus H. McCormick wins a great victory with his reaping-
machine at the World's Fair in London.
1852.
Fisheries dispute with England, May 26.
Fire did $5,000,000 damage at Sacramento, Nov. 2.
Commodore Perry started for Japan on his special mis-
sion to open up commerce there, Nov. 24.
United States refused to join England and France in a per-
petual renunciation of annexation designs on Cuba, Dec. I.
The electric telegraph fire-alarm introduced in Boston.
American Pharmaceutical Association organized.
First paints ready mixed for use, made.
Maker's stamp on boiler-plate first demanded by law.
Tilton, Pepper & Scudder start the first plate-glass works
in Brooklyn.
First pottery in Trenton built by Speeler, Taylor & Bloor.
Lamp chimneys first manufactured by Christopher Dor-
flinger in Brooklyn.
1853.
Ericsson's caloric ship made its trial trip, Jan. II.
Franklin Pierce inaugurated, March 4.
Capt. Ringgold's South Sea expedition sailed, May.
World's Fair opened at the Crystal Palace, in New York,
July 14.
Commodore Perry presented to Japan the President's desire
to establish commercial relations, July 14.
Purchase of Central Park authorized, July 23.
New York Clearing House established, Oct. 11.
The first paper collar was seen in New York.
Lumber-rafting inaugurated by Schulenberg & Borckler.
United States Pottery Company of Bennington made first
inlaid-flooring tiles.
Steam fire-engines put into permanent service in Cincinnati.
Yellow fever epidemic at New Orleans caused 7848 deaths.
1854.
Cyrus Field, Peter Cooper, and others organized the New
York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, Mar. I.
The Homestead Bill passed by Congress to encourage set-
tlement on the public lands, March 3.
Treaty with Japan signed, March 31.
Kansas Nebraska bill passed, May.
Reciprocity Treaty concluded with England concerning the
Newfoundland fisheries, June 7.
Otis Tufts patented an elevator for hotels, Aug. 9.
The steamship Arctic lost at sea and 350 people perished,
Sept. 27.
The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, the first petroleum
company, incorporated in New York, Dec. 30.
Registry system established by the post-office.
The first merchant flouring-mill started in Minneapolis.
Mellier process for straw-paper brought out by A. C. Mel-
lier.
G. D. Dows introduced in Boston the first marble soda
fountain.
1855.
The first bridge across the Mississippi river completed at
Minneapolis, Minn., January.
The railroad between Panama and Colon completed, Jan. 28.
Suspension bridge at Niagara completed, March.
Cotton-seed oil first successfully made by Paul Aldige at
New Orleans.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Hugh Burgess patented chemical wood pulp.
Year of the country's greatest maritime construction.
Vacuum pan introduced in the sugar refineries.
Yellow fever ravaged Norfolk and Portsmouth, Va.
1856.
First telegraph cable laid across the Hudson at New York,
Feb. 12.
The first railroad in California was completed, Feb. 22.
Central Park purchased for $5,398,695, February.
The first street-railroad in New England began running be-
between Boston and Cambridge, March 26.
George Esterly patented a corn cultivator, April 22.
New York, Newfoundland, and London Electric Telegraph
Company organized, May 6, and cable laid to Newfoundland.
Statue of George Washington was unveiled in Union Square,
July.
Gail Borden patented condensed milk, Nov. 4, and its man-
ufacture commenced at Litchfield, Conn.
Bessemer steel first made at Phillipsburg, N. J.
Cyrus W. Field established telegraphic communication with
Newfoundland.
Sorghum was introduced.
The first vessel made the passage from Milwaukee to Eu-
rope via the Welland Canal, Great Lakes, and St. Lawrence
river.
First refined spelter made at Bethlehem, Pa.
Borax discovered in California.
Use of the adhesive postage-stamp made compulsory.
1857.
James Buchanan inaugurated, March 4.
Dred Scott decision, March 6.
First great strike and railroad riots commenced on the Balti-
more and Ohio, Apr. 27.
Pennsylvania Railroad bought for $7,500,000 the railway
and canal system built by the State, June 25.
Police riots began in New York, July 3.
Ohio Life and Trust Company suspended, and a financial
panic followed, Aug. 24.
First and unsuccessful attempt to lay a transatlantic tele-
graph cable, August.
Specie payment suspended, Oct. 15.
Resumption of specie payment, Dec. 4.
General Rodman began his experiments to discover pressures
in the bores of guns at the moment of firing.
The Steamship Central America, having on board $7,800,-
ooo of treasure from California, foundered off the Cuban coast.
The manufacture of straw-paper begun by J. B. Falser at
Fort Edward.
Japan teas appeared in the market
1858.
Minnesota admitted to the Union, May 1 1 .
First transatlantic cable successfully laid, Aug. 4.
First message sent over the transatlantic cable, Aug. 16.
Peter Cooper presented Cooper Union to the public.
Gold was discovered at Pike's Peak, Colorado.
Wells, Fargo & Company established the Overland Mail
Company.
First cut loaf sugar made in this country.
Greasing-machine patented by W. K. Thornton, of Michigan.
E. S. Drake sank the first petroleum well at Titusville, Pa.
1859.
Oregon admitted to the Union, Feb. 14.
Treaty with China, Aug. 16.
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry, Oct. 16.
D£but of Adelina Patti in opera in New York, Nov. 24.
The improved grand piano patented by Steinway, Dec. 20.
Photolithography for maps in colors was introduced.
First shipment of flour from Minneapolis to the Eait.
Farmer invented the self-exciting dynamo to take the place
of the galvanic battery.
1860.
1 1 7 operatives killed and 312 injured by collapse of the Pem-
berton Cotton Mills in Lawrence, Mass., Jan. 10.
The chain of railroads was completed from Bangor, Me., to
New Orleans, January.
The Japanese ambassadors to ratify Perry's Treaty arrived
at San Francisco, March 27.
The Great Eastern arrived at New York, June 28.
Colonel William Walker, the famous filibuster in Central
America, was shot at Truxillo, Sept. 12.
The Prince of Wales arrived at Washington and visited the
President, Oct. 3.
South Carolina seceded from the Union, Dec. 20.
Central Park was opened to the public.
The Eighth Census gave the population of the country as
31,443,321.
The " oil fever " broke out in the Alleghany River valley.
American merchant marine at the point of its greatest pros-
perity.
First importations of Sisal hemp.
Salt first attained commercial importance in Michigan.
The transcontinental telegraph sanctioned by Congress.
First wrought-iron I-beams rolled by Peter Cooper at Tren-
ton.
Alexander Smith and Halcyon Skinner of Yonkers secured
a patent for power-loom to weave Axminster and Moquette
carpets.
Centrifugal machine introduced in the sugar refineries.
1861.
First shot of the Rebellion was fired in Charleston harbor
against Star of the West, Jan. 9.
Mississippi seceded, Jan. 9.
Florida seceded, Jan. 10.
Alabama seceded, Jan. II.
Georgia seceded, Jan. 19.
Louisiana seceded, Jan. 26.
Kansas admitted to the Union, Jan. 29.
North Carolina seceded, Jan. 30.
Texas seceded, Feb. I.
First flowing oil-well struck in Pennsylvania, Feb. I.
Provisional Confederate Government organized at Mont-
gomery, Ala., Feb. 9.
Jefferson Davis inaugurated president of the Confederacy,
Feb. 19.
Abraham Lincoln inaugurated, Mar. 4.
Fort Sumter fell, Apr. 14.
Virginia seceded, Apr. 17.
Stephen A. Douglas died, June 3.
First balloon reconnaissances, June 23.
Battle of Bull Run, July 21.
Telegraphic communication opened between St. Louis and
San Francisco, Oct. 25.
Capt. Wilkes boarded British steamship Trent and seized
Mason and Slidell, Nov. 8.
First message sent over the transcontinental telegraph line,
Nov. 15.
Banks suspended cash payments, Dec. 30.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Stereotyping for newspapers introduced by the "New- York
Tribune " and " New- York Herald."
The McKay sewing-machine patented.
1862.
Mason and Slidell released and sail for Europe, Jan. I.
First legal tender act passed, Feb. 25.
Battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac, March 9.
The National Guard created by New York, April.
Farragut captured New Orleans, Apr. 24.
Revenue tax imposed on spirits, July I.
Union Pacific Railroad chartered, July I.
Postage stamps used for fractional currency, July.
Announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, Sept. 22.
Dr. R. J. Catling completed the first Galling gun at In-
dianapolis, Ind., Nov. 4.
Lockhart & Company export first shipment of American oil.
Chicago became the recognized center of the packing in-
dustry.
Confederate cruiser Alabama captured and burned ten mer-
chantmen in two weeks.
Brewers' Association organized.
1863.
3,120,000 slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation,
Jan. I.
The National Academy of Science created by Congress,
March 3.
West Virginia admitted to the Union, June 19.
Certificate of authority of the Comptroller of the Currency
issued to the first of the present national banks, June 20.
Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3.
Draft Riots in New York, July 13-17.
Habeas corpus suspended, Sept. 15.
Distance limit for letter postage in the United States re-
moved.
First harness-thread factory established at Paterson, N. J.,
by Barbour Brothers.
Henry Disston built first crucible-steel melting plant for
saw steel.
The channeling-machine invented by George J. Wardwell
of Rutland, Vt.
The so-called musical telephone brought out by Reis.
1864.
Funding of the greenbacks in the six per cents, stopped,
Jan. 21.
Sanitary Fair opened at Philadelphia, June 7.
Battle between the Kearsarge and Alabama, June 19.
Gold dollar was worth $2.85, July n.
Nevada admitted to the Union, Oct. 31.
From Dec. 1861 to October 1869, the advance in the price
of cotton goods had been 1000 per cent.
Columbia College School of Mines organized, Nov. 15.
General Sherman left Atlanta for the Sea, Nov. 16.
Northern Pacific Railroad chartered.
Postal money-order system established.
George M. Pullman built the " Pioneer," his first car.
1865.
Union troops entered Richmond, Apr. 2.
Lee surrendered, Apr. 9.
President Lincoln assassinated, Apr. 14.
Andrew Johnson succeeded to the presidency, Apr. 15.
Johnston surrendered, April 26.
Jefferson Davis captured, May II.
First rail laid on the line of the Union Pacific, July.
Capt. Wirz, jailer of Andersonville Prison, hanged, Aug. 21.
All restrictions removed from Southern ports, Sept. I.
Martial law ended in Kentucky, Oct. 12.
Habeas corpus restored in the Northern States, Dec. I.
National Wool Growers' Association organized, December.
The Bullock perfecting press brought out.
Polished plate glass first made at Lenox, Mass.
New York Stock Exchange moved into its present building,
Broad and Wall streets.
1866.
France acceded to request of United States to withdraw
troops from Mexico, Jan. 9.
President Johnson publicly denounced the Reconstruction
Committee, Feb. 22.
The President proclaimed the Rebellion at an end, Apr. 2.
Civil Rights Bill passed over President's veto, Apr. 9.
Jefferson Davis indicted for complicity in the assassination
of Lincoln, May 8.
Fenian invasion of Canada, June I.
Commercial convention concluded with Japan, June 25.
Fire did $10,000,000 damage at Portland, Me. , July 4.
Tennessee restored to the Union by Congress, July 23.
The second Atlantic cable successfully laid, Aug. 16.
Convention of workingmen at Baltimore made first demand
for an eight-hour working day, Aug. 21.
The lost Atlantic cable of 1865 brought up, spliced, and laid,
September.
Congress established the elective franchise without respect
to race or color in the District of Columbia, Dec. 14.
Daniel G. Chase, of Chicago, patented a machine for mak-
ing conversation lozenges.
National Board of Fire Underwriters organized.
Salmon canning on the Columbia river begun.
Steinway & Son perfected and introduced the upright piano.
Tallemont & Carrol patented the velocipede with two
wheels.
1867.
French troops evacuated the City of Mexico, Feb. 5.
Nebraska admitted to the Union, March I.
Military Reconstruction Bill passed, March 2.
National Bankruptcy Bill, March 2.
Jefferson Davis released on $100,000 bail, May 13.
The President removed Secretary of War Stanton, Aug. 12.
First steel rails rolled by Cambria Iron Company of Johns-
town, Pa., August.
The President proclaimed general amnesty to all who took
part in the Rebellion, Sept. 7.
Alaska purchased from Russia for $7,200,000, Oct. 9.
Convention of the manufacturers of the country at Cleve-
land, O., demanded the full payment of the national debt,
Dec. 18.
Pullman Palace Car Company organized.
First consignment of California green fruit received in New
York.
Ground wood pulp first put into printing paper.
Hard-rubber-covered harness trimmings patented by An-
drew Albright, of Newark.
American Institute of Architects founded.
Master Car Builders' Association organized.
1868.
The non-concurrence in removal of the Senate returned
Secretary Stanton to the War Department, Jan. 13.
Fire did $3,000,000 damage in Chicago, Jan. 28.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
House resolved that President Johnson be impeached,
Feb. 22.
Race riots between Irish and German immigrants on Ward's
Island, March $.
Impeachment trial of President Johnson begun, March J.
Memorial Statue of Abraham Lincoln unveiled at Washing-
ton, Apr. 15.
Secretary Stanton finally retired and succeeded by Gen.
John M. Scliofield, Apr. 26.
North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Ala-
bama, and Florida again admitted to representation in the
Union, June 12.
Arkansas readmitted to the Union, June 20.
New treaty with China, July 4.
A majority of the States adopted the Fourteenth Amend-
ment to the Constitution, July 20.
Congress passed bill providing for the payment of the na-
tional debt, July 25.
Gen. Grant abolished by proclamation the military districts
as authorized by the Reconstruction Act, July 28.
President Johnson acquitted on impeachment proceedings.
First Westinghouse air-brake used on the Pittsburg, Cin-
cinnati and St. Louis.
Improved typewriting machine patented by C. Latham
Sholes.
First Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnace built at the New
Jersey Steel and Iron Company's works at Trenton.
1869.
Great Niagara Suspension Bridge opened, Jan. I.
Improvements to East River channel began at Hell Gate,
Jan. li.
Ulysses S. Grant inaugurated, March 4.
First transcontinental railroad completed by the junction
of the Union and Central Pacific, May 15.
United States end of first Franco-American cable landed
at Duxbury, Mass., July 23.
Ground broken in the construction of the New York Post-
Office by Col. Joseph Dodd, Aug. 9.
Black Friday in Wall Street, Sept. 24.
Treaty negotiated for the annexation of San Domingo, but
rejected by Senate, Nov. 29.
Cable screw-wire machine for boot and shoe manufacture
invented.
System of traveling theatrical companies introduced.
1870.
Hiram R. Revels of Mississippi, the first colored man elected
to the United States Senate, Feb. 25.
President proclaimed Fifteenth Amendment ratified by the
States, March 30.
Attorney General Hoar and Secretary of the Interior Cox
resigned, June 20.
Kansas Pacific Railroad opened to Denver, Aug. 15.
President proclaimed neutrality in Franco-Prussian trou-
bles, Aug. 22.
General Robert E. Lee died, aged sixty-three, Oct. 12.
The Ninth Census gave the population of the country as
38,558,783.
Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia restored to the Union.
Terra-cotta first generally used for building purposes.
Soleil's polariscope introduced into this country.
Single or continuous process for making wall-paper intro-
duced.
Bigelow attacher and heeling machine introduced in shoe
factories.
Granger movement began in Illinois.
Rhode Island passed first of the drug law*.
Chicago-Omaha railroad pool.
Advertisements in magazines first largely published by
Scribner's Monthly.
1871.
Income-tax law repealed, Jan. 26.
To relieve the destitution in France caused by the Franco-
Prussian War, A. T. Stewart, the New York merchant, sent a
$50,000 cargo of flour to Havre, Feb. 25.
Congress passed the bill for a centennial celebration in 1876,
March 3.
The first Civil Service Commission was authorized, March 3.
Charles Sumner was removed from the chairmanship of the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, March 9.
United States and England agreed to submit Alabama claims
to arbitration, May 8.
Ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien reported feasible
by Commander Selfridge, United States Navy, July.
Anti-Tweed mass meeting in New York upon the dis-
covery of his gigantic frauds, Sept. 24.
The great Chicago fire destroyed $200,000,000 worth of
properly in that city, and 250 lives were lost, Oct. 8.
The Post-Office extended its money-order system, making
it international, October.
R. Hoe & Company complete the perfecting press.
Texas Pacific Railroad incorporated.
1872.
Yellowstone National Park created by Congress, Feb. 27.
Amnesty Bill passed by Congress completed the political
reorganization of the country, and filled every seat in the na-
tional legislative body, May 22.
Geneva Tribunal met, and $15,500,000 awarded the United
States on the Alabama claims, June 15.
Import duties on tea and coffee abolished, July I.
Great fire in Boston; damage $75,000,000, Nov. 9.
The Bonanza mines on the Comstock Lode discovered.
First iron oil-tank cars used.
Water-gas process patented by Lowe.
Cable grip patented by Andrew S. Halliday.
Hoffman Brothers made first practical application of the
band saw.
National Stove Manufacturers' Association organized.
Carriage Builders' National Association organized.
1873.
Political riots in New Orleans, March I.
The annual salary of the President of the United States fixed
at $50,000, March 4.
Chicago celebrated the rebuilding in nineteen months of the
entire section laid waste by the great fire, June.
Congress abolished the franking privilege, July I.
Jay Cooke & Co., the New York bankers, failed, and a fi-
nancial panic ensued, Sept. 18.
Acquittal of Mayor A. Oakey Hall of New York on charges
of corruption, Dec. 24.
Westinghouse automatic air-brake introduced.
First Lowe apparatus for water-gas erected at Philadelphia.
Apparatus for hot soda water patented.
First East and West trunk line agreement made at the Sa-
ratoga Conference.
1874.
Mill River dam in Massachusetts burst, destroying four vil-
lages and causing the loss of over 200 lives, May 16.
XXX
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The great steel bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis
completed by James B. Eads, July 4.
Fire did $4,000,000 damage at Chicago, July 14.
Shore end of a new Atlantic cable landed at Rye Beach, N. Y.,
July 15.
The Lincoln monument at Springfield, 111., dedicated, and
the remains of the martyred President placed in the crypt
prepared, Oct. 15.
Bradford oil field discovered, Dec. 6.
King David Kalakaua of the Hawaiian Islands arrived in
Washington on a visit to the United States, Dec. 12.
James Lick, of San Francisco, deeded millions to a board
of trustees to be used in benevolent undertakings.
Massachusetts passed a ten-hour law.
First trunk pipe-line from oil regions to Pittsburgh.
Barbed-wire manufacture began at De Kalb, 111.
First fast mail on the New York Central Railroad.
1875.
Bloody political riots in New Orleans, Jan. 4.
Senator Sherman's bill for the resumption of specie pay-
ment passed to take effect Jan. I, 1879, Jan. 14.
Hoosac Tunnel completed, Feb. 9.
Oshkosh burned, Apr. 28.
Bank of California in San Francisco suspended, Aug. 26.
Vice-president Henry Wilson died and was succeeded by
Thomas N. Ferry, President pro tern, of the Senate, Nov. 22.
William M. Tweed escaped from his Ludlow Street jailers,
Dec. 4.
Secretary Benjamin H. Bristow exposed the whisky frauds.
First use of natural gas as a fuel in glass-making by Roches-
ter Tumbler Works.
The Palace Hotel opened in San Francisco.
First typewriting machine offered for sale.
1876.
Great forgeries by E. D. Winslow, of Boston, discovered,
Jan. 24.
Gen. O. E. Babcock, private secretary to the President,
acquitted of complicity in the whisky frauds, Feb. 7.
Secretary of War Belknap resigned, under charges, March 2 ;
was impeached and arrested, March 8, and acquitted, Aug. I.
Bell secured his first patent for the telephone, March 7.
A. T. Stewart died, aged seventy-three, Apr. 10.
Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, arrived in New York on a
visit to the United States, Apr. 15.
President Grant opened the Centennial World's Fair in
Philadelphia, May 10.
Peter Cooper was nominated for the presidency by the Na-
tional Greenback party, May 18.
James Bailey, the first of the A. T. Stewart cousins, com-
menced a contest over the will, June.
Secretary of the Treasury Bristow resigned, June 17.
The Custer Massacre, June 25.
Colorado admitted to the Union, Aug. I.
William M. Tweed re-arrested at Vigo, Spain, and returned
to New York, Sept. 6.
Hallett's Point Ledge removed by dynamite, Sept. 24.
The first cremation furnace completed at Washington, Pa.
Oct. I.
President declared South Carolina in a state of insurrec-
tion, and Federal troops were stationed at the polls, Oct. 17.
The famous Hayes-Tilden presidential election, Nov. J.
The Brooklyn Theater fire, 300 lives lost, Dec. 5.
Exportation of dressed beef begun.
Power-loom for hard-drawn wire cloth invented by Wick-
wire, of Cortlandt, N. Y.
1877.
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt died, aged eighty-two,
leaving an estate of $100,000,000, Jan. 4.
The Special Commission announced Hayes elected presi-
dent by the Electoral College with 185 votes ; Samuel J. Til-
den, the Democratic candidate, received 184, March 2.
Rutherford B. Hayes inaugurated, March 5.
Alexander Graham Bell successfully tested the telephone
between Boston and Salem, Mass., March 15.
United States troops withdrawn from New Orleans, Apr. 24.
The great Railroad Strike commenced in and about Pitts-
burgh, July I.
Moons of Mars discovered by Asaph Hall, Aug. II.
Canal at Keokuk on the Mississippi completed, Aug. 22.
Brigham Young died, aged seventy-six, Aug. 29.
Bell's improved telephone put into general use.
Goodyear welt machine brought out.
Col. A. A. Pope has the first bicycle built in this country.
1878.
Gold quoted at 101^ on Wall street, being lower than it had
been since 1862, Jan. 23.
Bland Silver Bill passed over President's veto, February.
William M. Tweed died in Ludlow Street Jail, Apr. 12.
The first train ran on the Gilbert Elevated Road on Sixth
Avenue, Apr. 29.
Chin Lan Pin, the first regularly accredited resident ambas-
sador from the Chinese Empire arrived in San Francisco,
July 25.
The first train on the New York Elevated Road on the
East side, Aug. 15.
The repeal of the National Bankruptcy Act became effec-
tive, Sept. I.
Subdivision of the electric current accomplished by Edison,
and incandescent lights introduced, October.
The Manhattan Savings Institution in New York burglar-
ized to the extent of nearly $3,000,000, Oct. 27.
A. T. Stewart's body stolen, Nov. 8.
Yellow fever epidemic in the South. Memphis almost de-
populated.
Wall Street quoted gold at par, Dec. 17.
Knickerbocker Ice Company inaugurated long-distance
shipments of ice by rail.
Blake transmitter for telephones brought out.
1879.
The Government resumed specie payments, Jan. I.
A National Board of Health established, March 3.
The United States Geological Survey created, March 3.
Beef-canning on a large scale introduced by the packing
houses.
1880.
Ferdinand de Lesseps entertained by the American Society
of Civil Engineers at New York, Feb. 26.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York,
March 30.
The First National Meet of American bicyclists was held
at Newport, R. I., May 31.
The Egyptian obelisk arrived in New York, July 19.
Dr. Henry S. Tanner of Minneapolis ended a forty days'
fast, Aug. 7.
The Tenth Census gave the population of the country as
50,155,783.
Germany prohibited the importation of American pork.
Knickerbocker Ice Co. imported first Norwegian ice.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
zzzi
Edison built the first electric road at Menlo Park.
California State Board of Viticulture created.
Dongola kid put on the market.
1881.
Representatives from nineteen governments met at an In-
ternational Sanitary Conference in Washington, Jan. 5.
James A. Garfield inaugurated, March 4.
Star Route frauds discovered, March.
The Jtannette Arctic Expedition lost in the ice, June II.
President Garfield assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau, July 2.
President Garfield died, Sept. 19.
Chester A. Arthur succeeded to the presidency, Sept. 20.
Cases against Star Route principals dismissed, Nov. 10.
France prohibited the importation of American pork.
Monroe doctrine emphasized by Secretary Blaine.
1882.
Congress increased the number of representatives in the
House to 325, by a new apportionment based on the census of
1880, February.
Fire did $2,250,000 damage at Haverhill, Mass, Feb. 17.
James G. Elaine's famous eulogy on Garfield delivered in the
House of Representatives, Feb. 27.
Congress passed the first Chinese Restriction bill, May 6.
Guiteau hanged, June 30.
Bill passed to extend the charters of the national banks,
July 12.
National Wholesale Druggists' Association organized.
Mississippi floods rendered 85,000 people destitute.
1883.
The National Civil Service created, Jan. 16.
Revised Tariff adopted, March 3.
Taxes on capital and deposits of the national banks abol-
ished, March 30.
Peter Cooper died, aged ninety-two, Apr. 4.
S. G. W. Benjamin appointed first minister resident to Per-
sia, May.
Treaty concluded with Corea, May 15.
The Brooklyn Bridge opened, May 24.
Gen. Brady and ex-Senator Kellogg, of Louisiana, finally
acquitted on charges connected with the Star Route frauds,
June 14.
Last spike driven in the Northern Pacific Railroad, Sept. 8.
Letter postage reduced to two cents, Oct. I.
Centenary of British evacuation of New York celebrated.
First canneries for Alaska salmon established.
Machine for stuffing horse-collars patented by William
Foglesong, of Dayton, O.
1884.
Commercial Convention with Spain signed, Feb. 13.
Treaty with Mexico ratified, March I.
Mob riots in Cincinnati, March 28-30.
Marine Bank and Grant and Ward failures, May.
Corner stone of pedestal for Statue of Liberty laid, Aug. 5
Treaty of Reciprocity with San Domingo signed, Dec. 4.
The New Orleans Exposition opened, Dec. 16.
National Confectioners' Association of the United States
organized.
Telephone wires first put under ground.
1885.
Washington Monument dedicated, Feb. 22.
Grover Cleveland inaugurated, March 4.
President James D. Fish of the Marine Bank sentenced to
ten years at Sing Sing, June 27.
Gen. Grant died, aged 63, July 23.
Anti-Chinese riots in the Weal, Sept. 2.
Flood Rock in the East River blown up by dynamite, Oct. 10.
Ferdinand Ward sentenced to ten years at Sing Sing, Nor. I.
Fire did $2,500,000 damage at Galveston, Texas, Nov. 13.
Vice-president Thomas A. Hendricks died at Indianapolis,
aged sixty-six, Nov. 25.
Ohio oil field discovered at Lima.
Long-distance telephone introduced to use.
1886.
Senator Hoar's Presidential Succession Bill passed, Jan. 19.
Commission appointed to investigate Jacob Sharp and the
New York " Boodle Aldermen," Jan. 26.
General strike on the New York street-railroads, March 4.
Boycott by Knights of Labor begun on the Gould railroad
system in the West, March 6.
Anarchist riots and bomb throwing in Chicago, May.
The great Charleston earthquake, Aug. 31.
The Statue of Liberty dedicated, Oct. 28.
Steamship Oregon was sunk off the Long Island coast.
Wire nails first manufactured.
First oil-tank steamers built.
Experiments made with electrical locomotives by Frank J.
Sprague on the elevated road in New York.
1887.
Senator Edmund's Retaliatory Bill in the Canadian Fisher-
ies dispute passed, Jan. 19.
The courts twice declared boycotting illegal, February.
The Trade Dollar Bill passed, Feb. 19.
Strike of the Massachusetts shoe factory operatives, February.
Inter-State Commerce Commission created, April 3.
Building trades' strike in Chicago, and stove molders" strike
in St. Louis, April.
Lehigh Valley coal miners went out, Aug. 30.
First vestibule Pullman train in service.
Experiment stations established by the government.
Beet sugar first successfully produced at Alvarado, California.
1888.
Bell telephone patents confirmed by the United States Su-
preme Court, March.
Fisheries treaty negotiated with England but rejected by
the Senate, August.
The first electric street-railway was built by Frank J.
Sprague at Richmond.
1889.
Strike on New York street railroads, Jan. 28.
Department of Agriculture created, with Norman J. Cole-
man secretary, Feb. II.
Benjamin Harrison inaugurated, Mar. 4.
U. S. men-of-war Vandalia, Nipsic, and Trenton wrecked
at Apia, Samoa, Mar. 16.
Centennial of President Washington's inauguration cele-
brated at New York, Apr. 29.
Johnstown, Pa., inundated by bursting of a reservoir, May
31, 3000 lives lost.
Seattle, Wash., swept by a fire which destroyed $5,000,000
worth of property, June 6.
New York naval militia created, June 14.
North Dakota admitted to the Union, Nov. I.
South Dakota admitted to the Union, Nov. 2.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Montana admitted to the Union, Nov. 8.
Washington admitted to the Union, Nov. II.
Fire did $4,000,000 damage at Lynn, Mass., Nov. 26.
Jefferson Davis died at New Orleans, Dec. 6.
Tanks for the making of window glass introduced by J.
Chambers at Jeannette, Pa.
1890.
The United States recognized the Republic of Brazil, Jan. 29.
The Lenox Hill and Sixth National Bank, of New York,
suspended, Jan. 30.
The Centennial of the United States Supreme Court cele-
brated, Feb. 4.
President Harrison signed the World's Fair Bill, Apr. 25.
Idaho admitted to the Union, July 3.
Wyoming admitted to the Union, July n.
William Kemmler, the first murderer killed by electricity,
was executed at Auburn Prison, N. Y., Aug. 6.
Great strike on the New York Central Railroad, Aug. 8.
President Harrison signed the McKinley Tariff Bill, Oct. I.
Several heavy failures occurred in Wall Street, Nov. 10.
The Eleventh Census gave the population of the country as
62,662,250.
National Wholesale Saddlery Association of the United
States organized.
1891.
Proclamation of Reciprocity Agreement with Brazil, Feb. 5-
International Copyright bill passed, March 4.
Italy recalled Baron Fava owing to troubles over the New
Orleans race riots, March 31.
The centennial of the patent system was celebrated in
Washington by a Congress of Inventors, Apr. 8.
Treaty of Reciprocity with Spain, Apr. 20.
The first railroad passenger train ran to the summit of
Pike's Peak, June 30.
Commencement of rain-making experiments in Texas,
Aug. 10.
First armor-plate supplied to the government by the Beth-
lehem Iron Company and Carnegie, Phipps & Company.
1892.
Chilian outrages on American seamen, Jan. 18.
Constitutionality of the McKinley Tariff affirmed by the
United States Supreme Court, Feb. 29.
The Standard Oil Trust dissolved by consent of the share-
holders, March 21.
$3,000,000 cotton fire in New Orleans, Apr. 3.
Platinum discovered in South Dakota, Apr. 30.
Homestead Steel Works closed, June 30.
Attempted landing of a Pinkerton force precipitated the
bloody Homestead riots, July 6.
Work resumed at Homestead, Aug. 3.
Railroad strike at Buffalo called out the militia, Aug. 13.
The Atlantic liner Moravia arrived in New York with cholera
on board, Aug. 31.
Fire did $7,000,000 damage at Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 28.
Discoveries of gold in Colorado, Dec. 21.
Long-distance telephone line between New York and Chi-
cago formally opened.
A Vauclain compound-locomotive attained a speed of 97
miles an hour, being one mile in 37 seconds.
1893.
News received of the Hawaiian revolution, Jan. 28.
Annexation of Hawaii recommended by President Harri-
son, Feb. 15.
The President raised the Stars and Stripes on the New
York of the new American line, Feb. 22.
Grover Cleveland inaugurated, March 4.
President Cleveland withdrew the Hawaiian treaty from
the Senate, March 9.
Fire did $4,500,000 damage in Boston, March 10.
The World's Fair opened at Chicago by President Cleve-
land, May I.
Locomotive No. 999, of the New York Central, covered one
mile in 32 seconds, May 10.
Chinese Exclusion Act confirmed, May 14.
Wide-spread distrust breaks out in a terrible financial panic,
June 20.
$8,000,000 Clearing House Certificates issued to give relief,
June 30.
Congress met in special session, Aug. 7.
The panic had passed, but confidence was not restored,
September.
Mayor Carter H. Harrison, of Chicago, assassinated, Oct. 28.
World's Fair closed, Oct. 30.
The Silver Repeal Bill passed, Nov. i.
The last outstanding Clearing House Loan Certificate
retired, Nov. I.
1894.
World's Fair Buildings burned with a loss of $2,000,000,
Jan. 8.
Decision of Court of Appeals allowed foreign corporations
to buy and sell New York real estate, Jan. 16.
$50,000,000 of 5 per cent, bonds issued, February ; second
issue of $50,000,000, November.
Coxey's Commonweal Army arrived in Washington, Apr. 29.
Boycott on the Pullman Works began the great Chicago
railroad strike, June 25.
The Hawaiian Republic proclaimed, July 4.
Chicago railroad strike ended, July 13.
Fire did $3,000,000 damage in Chicago, Aug. I.
The United States recognized the Hawaiian Republic,
Aug. 9.
The Wilson Tariff Bill passed, Aug. 27.
Launch and christening by Mrs. Grover Cleveland of steam-
ship St. Louis, largest vessel built in America, November 12.
1895.
The Bond Syndicate took an issue of $62,317,500 of gov-
ernment " coin " bonds, February.
The Empire State Express on the New York Central cov-
ered a distance of 436^ miles in 407% minutes, Sept. n.
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad equipped
its Nantasket Beach branch to operate by electricity.
Steamship St. Paul, the second great American liner,
launched.
The Baldwin Locomotive Works consummated a working
agreement with the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing
Company for the production of electric equipment for railway
service.
Great activity in the iron and steel industries.
Message by President Cleveland to Congress on Venezuela,
emphasizing the Monroe Doctrine.
" Commercial Day," December 19, observed in New York,
and by commercial organizations generally throughout the
country. The American Commerce Banquet at Delmonico's,
New York.
The New York " Shipping and Commercial List and New
York Price Current " attains its hundredth year.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF
AMERICAN COMMERCE
CHAPTER I
AMERICAN BANKING
BANKS and banking, taken of themselves, con-
stitute a chapter of first importance in Amer-
ican records. To the national life the bank-
ing system is as the arterial system to the animal life.
Through it circulates the vitalizing current which
sustains the brain of business and statecraft, and
strengthens the arm of labor. It facilitates all com-
mercial transactions, and utilizes all the resources of
trade, gathering together the surplus capital of the
country, each depositor affording comparatively
little, but collectively producing a sum immense in
quantity, which can be loaned in portions to those
who may need it. No part of the uninvested capital
then remains unused ; what is not required by one
can be used by another.
In this country the existence of banks dates from
the time of the Revolutionary War. Since then
the methods pursued to attain the ends proper to the
banking function have been frequently and often
radically changed. They have always been, however,
more or less sound, considered with regard to their
adaptation to the times they served and the needs
they had to supply. In the history of their varia-
tions, therefore, we must see the effect of changed
conditions, rather than assume the downfall of early
error. One century ago the fiscal affairs of America
rested in the hands of a great national bank, the Bank
of the United States. The institution was modeled
almost exactly upon the plan of the Bank of England,
then, as now, one of the greatest financial factors in
the world. For forty years, with a brief lapse of be-
tween four and five years, just before and during the
War of 1812, this institution continued to be the
dominant power in the financial affairs of America.
Its passing away was marked by one of the bitterest
political fights known to history, waged by that
doughty old partisan, Andrew Jackson, and his suc-
cessor, Martin Van Buren. The next quarter of a
century saw the so-called State-bank system in full
control. Many of these State banks were, undoubt-
edly, as sound and solvent as any of the great insti-
tutions to-day. Others, it is equally true to say, were
not. The condition of affairs which resulted from
their operation, as a whole, however, can scarcely
be said to have been of the best. With no uniform
basis for their government, the prosperity of the time
had constantly to struggle under the disadvantage of
a demoralized currency, discounted in direct propor-
tion to the number of miles it traveled from home.
The Civil War, with its terrible demands upon the
country, found this system unable to respond as fully
as was needed, and a new system, the one under
which we have remained until to-day, was devised.
It avoids the centralization of power in any one great
chartered institution, and distributes it at large among
the banks of the country. It places the pledge of our
government behind every bank-note issued in the
United States. Around this national system has
grown up the financial world of to-day. Among
these facilities are banks of discount and deposit,
which furnish their conveniences to the mercantile
world; great private houses, with branches reaching
to every other country, and furnishing a medium of
foreign exchange which renders possible the extended
commercial enterprises which now characterize Amer-
ica; and savings institutions, trust companies, and
financial engines without number, all furnishing the
power to drive the great business machines of to-day.
The beginning of American banking is so indis-
solubly linked with the name and fame of Alexander
Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury of the United
States, that many have forgotten the fact that Robert
Morris, the Philadelphia merchant, was the first great
American banker. He it was who, in company with
George Clymer and a few other gentlemen, taking as
their sole security bills drawn in desperation by the
Continental Congress on John Jay, then in Spain ne-
gotiating a loan, established on their own personal
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
credit in 1780 the Pennsylvania Bank, in Carpenters'
Hall, Philadelphia. This was the first bank es-
tablished in the United States. Its only object was
to aid, with all its resources, the government in
transporting and maintaining the army, then in the
most desperate need. This patriotic end it accom-
plished, and to its aid, given at a most critical time
in the national history, it is scarcely possible to as-
cribe too great an importance.
Robert Morris having been appointed Superin-
tendent of Finance, the Bank of Pennsylvania went
out of existence in the following year, and Congress,
acting by Mr. Morris's advice, granted in December
to him and his associates a charter for the Bank of
N orth America, and in January, 1781, the new bank be-
gan business in Philadelphia. Thomas Willing was its
first president, and there were twelve directors. While
this bank was, like its predecessor, designed to give
aid to the government, then in those desperate finan-
cial straits which marked the closing years of the
war, it was also intended to furnish its facilities to in-
dividuals and to carry on a general banking business.
Its capital was $400,000, and it was conducted on a
specie basis, its notes being declared legal tender. It
also secured a charter from the State of Pennsylva-
nia, and as it was the only bank in the country at that
time, it soon began to roll up large profits. The years
1783 and 1 7 84 saw this prosperous institution declar-
ing dividends of 14 per cent. Such success imme-
diately produced emulators, and a corporation was
formed to start a rival bank. Before its charter had
been secured, however, its leading projectors were
pacified by being allowed to obtain large blocks of
a new issue of $500,000 worth of stock. This pre-
served its field undivided, and its prosperity contin-
ued. In 1 787 it was rechartered by the Pennsylvania
legislature as a State bank, and with renewals from
time to time, has since continued.
New York, having seen the success of the Bank of
Pennsylvania, and her merchants, appreciating the
facilities afforded by such an institution, began agitat-
ing the question of the establishment of a bank in their
city. A number of prominent men assembled, and a
plan was proposed which was at once called by its
opponents the " land " bank. It provided for paying
in but a small proportion of the capital in specie, the
balance to be secured by land accepted at two thirds
of its appraised value, and against which notes, pay-
able in specie, could be issued for one third of its
value. Of this plan Chancellor Livingston was the
great supporter, and his influence had nearly carried
it through the legislature when it applied to be
chartered. Its adversaries, prominent among whom
was Alexander Hamilton, managed to defeat its
passage, however, and it was never revived. Much
more serious was the experience of a modified form
of " land " bank which convulsed the colony of
Massachusetts a number of years before, and was
finally established after the deposition of an opposing
governor. In a short time, however, the British
government dissolved it, and placed some severe re-
strictions upon banks in that particular colony.
The demand for a bank continued to be made
by the New York merchants, and on February 23,
1784, a call was issued for a meeting which was
held at the Merchants' Coffee House and General
Alexander MacDougal occupied the chair. It was
then decided to start a bank with a capital of
$500,000, either gold or silver, divided into 1000
shares. On March isth, 500 shares having been
taken, the stockholders organized by the election of
General MacDougal as president, and Samuel Frank-
lin, Robert Bowne, Comfort Sands, Alexander Ham-
ilton, Joshua Waddington, Thomas Randall, William
Maxwell, Nicholas Low, Daniel McCormick, Isaac
Roosevelt, John Vanderbilt, and Thomas B. Stough-
ton, as directors. William Seton was elected cash-
ier, and so unused were New York business men of
that day to banks and banking methods that Cash-
ier Seton was immediately sent to Philadelphia,
with letters of introduction to the Bank of North
America, to learn how such affairs were properly
conducted. The stockholders, in the interim, urged
on by the hopes of large profits, hastened all their
arrangements, and as a charter had not been se-
cured from the legislature, the bank started without
one, opening its doors June 9, 1784.
This bank, known as the Bank of New York, had
for its original location the old mansion of William
Walton, at No. 67 St. George's (now Franklin)
Square. Three stories high, and built of the old
yellow Holland brick with hewn stone lintels, this
ancient house, erected in 1752, remained standing
until 1 88 1.
But even at this early day, it appears, there were
many people who believed that banks were antago-
nistic to the interests of the community, and in 1785
and 1786, currency becoming scarce, a cry went up
that these institutions were hoarding specie, and in
some States, notably New York, where the feeling was
greatest, issues of paper money were put out by the
legislatures. Financial affairs were in this condition,
general confidence being shaken, when, the Con-
stitution having been adopted and General George
Washington elected to the presidency, Alexander
Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, came
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
forward with his famous financial policy. The na-
tion assumed and bonded the debt incurred by the
Continental Congress and the various colonies in
carrying on the war, and, going further, established
in 1791 the Bank of the United States. This bank,
which was chartered by Congress for twenty years,
was established to act as the fiscal agent of the
government and to be the depository for the public
moneys. It was also authorized to issue its notes,
payable in specie, and was made in every way possi-
ble the agent of the United States Treasury and the
great power in the financial affairs of the country.
Its capital was placed at $10,000,000, divided into
25,000 shares of $400 each, payable one fourth in
specie and three fourths in 6 per cent, stocks of the
United States. It was allowed to hold property of
all kinds up to the value of $15,000,000, inclusive
of its capital stock, and further to establish branch
banks in the various cities. In accordance with
this last provision it at once opened in New York a
branch known as an office of discount and deposit.
The prosperity of the Bank of the United States be-
gan at once, and during its whole career it averaged
annual dividends of 8 and 10 per cent.
The influence of Hamilton's policy was immedi-
ately felt, and prosperity speedily returned. The
spirit of speculation was let loose in the land and
a stringency resulted in the currency that seemed
likely to have serious consequences, and was only
averted by Alexander Hamilton and the United
States Treasury coming three times to the relief of
the straitened business community. After this little
set-back, which was of short duration, business con-
tinued steadily to improve. In New York, where
political influence had prevented the granting of
charters for new banks, a corporation known as the
Manhattan Company, and headed by Aaron Burr,
succeeded in 1799 in getting a charter, ostensibly to
provide New York with pure water. The capital
of the company was placed at $2,000,000, and, un-
noticed by the politicians in power, the charter con-
tained a clause which, after reciting that the capital
was to be devoted to establishing a water-supply,
declared that the surplus should be " employed in
the purchase of public or other stocks or any other
moneyed transactions or operations not inconsistent
with the laws and constitution of the State of New
York." It is needless to say that with such a clause
in its charter $500,000 was quickly found, and the
money, after fulfilling the object for which the char-
ter was granted, was devoted to the establishment of
a new bank. In 1803 no less than forty banks were
open and doing business throughout the country.
The expiration in 1811 of the charter of the Bank
of the United States, which had failed of renewal,
followed by the war declared in 1812 against Eng-
land, placed the country in a most unsatisfactory
position. Having little or no credit, it found itself
forced to fall back in great measure on the banks.
These were all institutions under State charters, no
less than 123 new ones having been created in the
four years following the dosing of the United States
Bank. These had an aggregate capital of $40,000,-
ooo and emitted notes to the face value of $200,-
000,000, a large portion of which, in the Middle
States especially, were issued as loans to the gov-
ernment.
As might, perhaps, have been expected in view of
the prostration of the public credit, the strain upon
the banks speedily became too great, and Septem-
ber i, 1814, specie payment was suspended. It
was during this period that the private banker first
assumed the importance in the commercial world
that he has to-day. Stephen Girard, the great
Philadelphia merchant, purchased in 1811 the build-
ing and stock of the late Bank of the United States,
and then began carrying on a banking business him-
self, with a capital of $1,200,000, which he shortly
increased to $4,000,000. While private bankers
had, of course, existed, there had been none in
America on such a grand scale, and it marks the
beginning of the era of great houses whose names
are associated with money the world over. Girard's
patriotism was, too, quite equal to his sagacity, and
in the closing years of the war, after the Treasury had
vainly tried to float a loan of $5,000,000, but had
only been able to secure a total subscription of $20,-
ooo, Girard took the whole amount. The assist-
ance thus furnished undoubtedly had its effect in
bringing about the successful peace. This was ac-
complished in December, 1814, and one of the acts
of Congress soon after was to grant a new charter
for twenty years to the Bank of the United States.
This institution accordingly resumed business in
January, 1817, and speedily became one of the
greatest financial institutions in the world. Its capi-
tal was fixed at $35,000,000, divided into 350,000
shares. Of this, $7,000,000 was held by the United
States. Of the remainder a great amount, as much as
84,000 shares at one time, was held in foreign coun-
tries, and the stock was quoted at 50 per cent, above
par. This bank issued notes, none being less than
five dollars, payable in specie on demand, and did
a general banking business, discounting notes and
making advances on bullion at the rate of 6 per
cent.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Its government was entrusted to twenty-five di-
rectors, five of whom, being holders of stock, were
appointed by the President of the United States.
From these directors was chosen a board of seven
which, headed by the president, had active control
of all its operations. It rapidly established branch
offices in all the cities of any importance, and in
1830 there were twenty-seven of these branch banks
in existence and doing a thriving business.
One of the first effects of the rechartering of the
Bank of the United States was to force the large num-
ber of State banks either to resume specie payments
or to wind up their affairs. Many were forced to the
latter alternative, and of the 446 State banks then ex-
isting, there were 165, including those ruined by the
war, which went out of business. From the aggre-
gate State banking capital of $90,000,000, in the
whole country, these suspensions withdrew $30,000,-
ooo. Of this amount, $5,000,000 was an actual
loss and was distributed between the government
and individual holders. For some time after this
the State banks can scarcely be said to have in-
creased, although they continued in existence and
legislative provision for them and their government
was made in many of the States.
In New York a general banking law, known as
the Safety Fund Act, was passed in April, 1829.
Under it banks were allowed to issue circulating
notes up to twice the amount of their capital, and
their loans were limited to two and a half times their
capital. A guarantee fund was created by the an-
nual payment of one half of one per cent, on the
capital stock to the State Treasurer. This payment
was only to continue until three per cent, had been
paid, and the fund thus created was to go to mak-
ing good the payment of the circulation and other
debts of any such banks as might become insolvent.
Other States had different regulations, not all of
them as wise as New York, perhaps, but each one
establishing certain precautions.
Coincident almost with the rechartering of the
United States Bank was the introduction of banks
for savings. These institutions are a branch of bank-
ing that, while deserving an extended mention, must
fall, under the lines of this article, within a brief
space. Benevolent in conception and designed to
afford the poor an opportunity to save in small
amounts, their plan is simply one of deposit, on
which the bank, as borrower, pays to the depositors
a fair rate of interest, and with the advantage of a
large capital, the aggregate of many small deposits,
makes advantageous investments unattainable to
small capitals such as the individual depositor could
control. They differ from regular banks because
of their philanthropic purposes, in being exempt
from taxation, and in not loaning or investing their
funds on personal security.
The first American savings bank was opened in
Philadelphia in 1816 and was called the Philadel-
phia Savings Fund Society. The same year one
was established in Boston, New York following in
1819, and in 1820 there were ten in the country,
having 8635 depositors and $1,138,570 in deposits.
They have increased with the country, and in 1 890
there were 921 with 4,258,893 depositors, and hav-
ing placed to their credit the enormous sum of
$1,524,844,500.
For many years the Bank of the United States
continued to grow more and more powerful. Its
resources increased, its business extended, and it be-
came a factor in the industrial and commercial life
of the nation, such as had not been dreamed possi-
ble. On the first of November, 1832, it was accord-
ing to its own showing one of the richest institutions
in the world. Its total liabilities, including the
notes it had in circulation, its deposits, and the debts
owing to holders of public funds, were $37,296,-
950.20; while its assets, including specie, cash in
Europe, and debts from industrial and banking
companies, were $79,593,870.97. This left the
enormous surplus of $42,296,920.77. It seemed as
stable as any institution of its kind in the world, not
excepting the famous Bank of England, and it
afforded a currency for general circulation that was
freely accepted everywhere. But the great power
of the Bank of the United States had made it ene-
mies, and a demand arose, upon General Jackson's
election to the presidency, that it should not be re-
chartered. The officers were chiefly of the party
opposed to him. Immediately upon entering office
the President announced that he would refuse to
sign any bill extending the life of the Bank of the
United States. He declared that it was dangerous
to the liberties of the United States, and that it was
unconstitutional. Shortly after this, the public funds
were withdrawn from the bank. So great had been
the prosperity of the country during the twenty
years this bank had operated, however, that the war
debt of the nation had been completely paid and a
surplus of $40,000,000 remained. This surplus,
upon its withdrawal from the Bank of the United
States, Congress voted to distribute among the States.
The blow dealt to the great bank by this withdrawal
was a terrible one, and with the loss of its charter
impending and the unrelenting enmity of the Admin-
istration, it was thought it must close. Nicholas
LEVJ P. MORTON.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Biddle, its president, determined not to give up,
however, and on February 18, 1836, he stole a march
on President Jackson by having it incorporated by
the State legislature as the Pennsylvania Bank of
the United States. In this form, as a State bank, it
continued to exist, but it never assumed the impor-
tance it had had before. It finally closed in 1840.
All this, however, took years to work itself out,
and in the meantime much was happening in the
financial world. The demise of the Bank of the
United States as a national institution left the field to
the banks chartered by the States. These at once
made the most of their opportunity ; and helped, as
they were, by receiving on deposit large sums of the
distributed public moneys, they increased rapidly,
and 1837 saw 634 of them in the country, having an
aggregate capital of $291,000,000. With the great
prosperity which, in the shape of State bank-notes,
came over the country with these financial changes,
arose also a spirit of the wildest speculation. Public
lands were the chosen field of the operators, and the
dealing ran into millions. It was all based, though,
on the current notes, many of these being issued by
" wildcat " banks, and worthless. Trouble seemed
certain, and President Jackson, in trying to establish
our finances on a sound basis, issued his famous Spe-
cie Circular, ordering all agents to accept nothing but
specie in payment for the public lands. This pre-
cipitated the crash. The banks were called upon at
once to redeem all their circulation in specie, and
after vainly attempting to do so, they suspended pay-
ment on May 9, 1837. Six months later, no relief
having come, a meeting of 136 delegates from banks
all over the country was held in New York to con-
sider whether means could be devised for resumption,
but no relief at that time was found possible.
It was during this unlucky year that, at President
Van Buren's suggestion, the sub-treasury plan as it
now exists was brought forward as a measure to pre-
vent the loss of the public moneys by the failure of
banks. It was defeated at this time, but three years
later passed, only to be repealed in the succeeding
year. Five years afterward, however, it was finally
reenacted.
In May, 1838, the New York banks resumed pay-
ment. They were followed in August by the Phila-
delphia and Southern banks, but these only held out
for a little over a year, and on September 9, 1839,
suspended again. Despite all the trouble in which
the banks were involved, they increased almost as
rapidly as before. In 1840 their number had swelled
to 901, with a total capital of $358,000,000. The
system of State banks, nevertheless, had grown un-
popular, and the suspensions of 1837 and 1839 and
the continuing uncertainty and lack of confidence
caused a strong demand for a return to the old na-
tional banking system. At this time the presidential
campaign in which General Harrison was elected
came on. One of the great issues on which this cam-
paign was fought and won was that a new national
bank should be established at once, and immediately
upon his inauguration General Harrison called a spe-
cial session of Congress to consider the matter. But he
was destined never to carry out the wishes of his party,
for he died before Congress had convened, and his
successor, President Tyler, twice vetoed the measure
when it was passed and presented to him, — as a bill
to establish a " Financial Agent of the Government"
"to act for it in all fiscal matters, and to facilitate
mercantile exchanges throughout the country." This
action on the part of the President settled the ques-
tion of banks acting under the authority of the United
States for many years thereafter, and until 1864 all
banks of issue and deposit were operated under char-
ters obtained in their various States. The effects of
the lack of uniformity in the system were soon visible,
not only in the stringency from 1840 to 1843, ar>d tne
later suspension of 1857, but in the generally demor-
alized currency, which, with the exception of specie,
had its standard of par only in its own neighborhood,
and could be passed at any considerable distance
only at a great discount. The farther away it went
from the bank of issue the less it was worth. The
State banks continued to put forth as many notes as
they could pass. Many of these banks were perfectly
solvent institutions, and were wisely conducted upon
a sound basis; but truth compels the statement that
many others were not, while at the root of the whole
system was the lack of an essential uniformity. Bank
failures were very common. It is worthy of mention
here that throughout all the vexations and inconve-
niences caused by the State banks in their day, New
England was little affected. What was known as the
Suffolk Bank System was there in use; by this the
Suffolk Bank of Boston redeemed and collected for
all New England banks, each of which had a stipu-
lated deposit, the whole aggregating $300,000, with
the Suffolk Bank for this purpose.
The stringency of 1840-43 having been safely
tided over by the banks, better times appeared, and
a still further impetus was given to our national pros-
perity in 1849 by the discovery of gold in California,
developing great activity both industrially and com-
mercially. In the next four or five years the one
event which stands out conspicuously in American
banking was the establishment on October n, 1853,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of the New York Clearing House Association. This
association, of the utmost importance in expediting
and giving security to the great banking interests of
the country, began with a membership of fifty-two
banks. Its system, so simple and yet so effective
that it seems almost impossible its origination and es-
tablishment could have been so long delayed, is that
by which each bank, instead of presenting separately
to the other banks for payment such of their checks
as it holds and in its turn paying cash to all the other
banks for such of its own checks as they hold, sends
them all at a certain hour to the Clearing House.
Here all the checks are assorted, a clerk being pres-
ent from each bank having a membership; andthesum
total of the checks each bank presents, compared with
the sum total of the checks presented against it, gives
a balance for which the Clearing House draws its
check, and transactions that would have taken many
clerks and messengers a whole day to complete,
are finished in an hour or a little more. In addition
to the convenience of this system, its beneficial effect
in economizing currency is immense. When it is re-
membered that the great banking interests which
center in New York have transactions daily involv-
ing exchangesof from $100,000,000 to $200,000,000,
it will be readily understood what a vast loss such an
amount of idle money would entail under the old
system of separate clearance payments. The Clear-
ing House, with its system of balances, is able to
settle it all by the use of from 3 j£ to 4 per cent, of
the total currency amount involved.
In addition to these advantages, the Clearing
House is an assurance of protection for its mem-
bers, and in its more extended operations of issuing
loan certificates at critical times has been a bulwark
of safety to the banking interests of the whole coun-
try. By its help, at the outbreak of the Civil War,
the New York banks were enabled to come instantly
to the assistance of the government with large
sums, which they could scarcely have commanded
otherwise; and later, in the panics of 1873 and 1893,
the issuance of $25,000,000 in loan certificates on
the first occasion, and nearly $50,000,000 on the
second, again did much toward enabling the banks
to withstand the terrible pressure of those times.
Between these years the average daily exchanges
of the Clearing House were $105,964,277 and the
average daily balances $3,939,265. At present
sixty-six banks are members of the Clearing House
Association. Besides these, eighty-one other banks
and trust companies which are not members are
cleared here through the banks which belong to the
association. A sixty-seventh member of the Clear-
ing House Association is the Assistant Treasurer of
the United States, at the sub-treasury in New York.
Almost 90 per cent, of the government expendi-
tures being made in New York by check, the mem-
bership of the Assistant Treasurer greatly facilitates
clearance.
The advantages of the clearing-house system were
immediately recognized when the New York asso-
ciation started, and Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago,
St. Louis, and other cities soon adopted it.
Returning to 1853, the banking interests of the
country continued much in the same condition, but
trouble was already brewing from over-speculation,
and in 1857 the great financial and industrial de-
pression, which was fortunately as short as it was
sharp, struck the country. The great storm broke
on August 24th of that year, when the Ohio Life and
Trust Company suspended with liabilities of $7,-
000,000. It was a terrible failure, and on September
25th and 2 6th the Philadelphia banks were forced
to suspend ; a general suspension in Virginia, Mary-
land, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia
soon following. The trouble increased in New
York, and a run on the banks threatening serious
consequences, the legislature on October i4th au-
thorized a suspension of specie payments for one
year. The banks accordingly closed, but on Decem-
ber 24th, after only two months, the city banks re-
sumed. The Massachusetts banks also suspended,
and the panic became general in New England,
factories being shut down, banks closed, and troops
held in readiness to suppress anticipated riots among
the great crowds who were thrown out of work. For-
tunately the trouble did not last long, but while it
existed there were 5123 failures, with total liabilities
of $291,750,000.
The resumption of banks and renewal of business
was general early in the succeeding year, and that
the banks of the country suffered as little as any of
the great interests affected is shown by the fact that
in 1860, one year prior to the long suspension of
specie payments caused by the war, there were in
the country 1562 banks, with an aggregate capital
of $422,000,000 and a circulation of about $207,-
000,000. They held in specie at the time $83,594,-
537, and were credited with deposits of $254,000,000.
During the next four years the part played by the
banks was loyal and patriotic, but the history of
that time with its government issues of " legal ten-
ders" comes more properly within the domain of
national finance. The national banking law, which
regulates the banks to-day, was passed June 3, 1864.
Its provisions are simple and eminently secure, and
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in their operation have proved most satisfactory.
They require a company of five persons or more
and a fully paid-up capital. As a security for their
notes of issue they are obliged to hold the govern-
ment's pledge in the form of United States bonds,
on which they are allowed circulation by the Comp-
troller of the Currency up to 90 per cent of their
par value. Shortly after this law was passed, Con-
gress placed a prohibitive tax of 10 per cent, on the
circulating notes of the State banks, so that for the
first time since 1836 the currency of the country re-
turned to the original basis of the national credit,
where it has since remained.
The national banking law had no sooner passed
than many of the old State banks began changing
to the new system. While the war lasted the num-
ber of the national banks was about 500. Those
that remained under the old State charters contin-
ued to do, as they are doing to-day, a general bank-
ing business of discount, loan, and deposit, but the
circulation of their notes became impossible owing
to the tax. When the national banks were first or-
ganized Congress had provided that the total cir-
culation to be allotted them by the Comptroller of
the Currency should not exceed $300,000,000. So
rapid was their increase, however, that four years
later the full amount of these notes had been issued,
and there were 1629 national banks with a paid-in
capital of $426,189,111. Of these banks Massa-
chusetts had 207; New York, 299; Pennsylvania,
197; and Ohio, 133. Two years later, inconven-
ience being experienced because the limit of circu-
lation had been reached, Congress authorized an
extra issue of $54,000,000, which was almost imme-
diately taken up.
The following year (1873) saw the disastrous ordeal
of panic and distress through which it was inevitable
the nation should pass on its return from the infla-
tion caused by the great war loans to the sound and
normal basis of peaceful prosperity. It was passed
without wreck, although commercial and financial
interests suffered heavily. In 1875 Congress re-
moved all restrictions upon the total amount of
notes the national banks might issue. It also voted
the resumption of specie payment, which had been
suspended since 1861, and decreed that it should
take place January i, 1879. This resumption, it
may be said, to the undying credit of the American
nation, was accomplished without the slightest dis-
turbance of business. Since then, the number of na-
tional banks in the country has increased steadily
each year. With 2047 banks, having an aggregate
capital of $497,864,833 and a total surplus of $134,-
123,649 in 1875, the next ten years showed, in 1885,
the existence of 2665, with capital amounting to
$524,599>6°2 and a surplus of $146,903495, mak-
ing an increase of 618 banks and a gain of $26,734,-
769 capital and $12,779,846 surplus. Still growing
and prosperous, the country continued to call for the
further extension of the banks with their facilities and
assistance, and in 1892 their number had become
3701, having an aggregate capital of $679,076,650
and a surplus of $237,761,865. These banks in
their average daily deposits took over $300,000,000,
which shows the enormous part they play in the
business world. Of this, about 90 per cent, is in the
form of the almost universal check.
In this year (1892) came upon the country the
beginning of the depression of business and financial
stringency that is now so happily showing signs of
abatement. It came more gradually than such
crises usually come and has been more persistent
Without actual panic the country verged perilously
near to disaster. The money-broker, who had almost
disappeared since the days of the war, reappeared
and secured premium for currency of any sort. The
banks had very little money of any kind, and for a
time payments were almost wholly in certified checks.
This showed that the trouble was not really organic,
and vast sums of idle money, hoarded and withdrawn
from circulation, further attested that the country
was not impoverished. But confidence was lacking,
and it operated as a check on enterprise which, re-
acting industrially as it always does, reached all
classes and caused much suffering. It also gave
rise to the great danger of a run being commenced
on the savings-banks. In the West, indeed, this did
happen; and many perfectly solvent institutions were
forced to the wall, being unable to realize quickly
enough on their securities to meet demands. In
New York, when the trouble became threatening,
and a rush of eager, excited depositors was to be
expected at almost any moment, the savings-bank
officials met, and taking advantage of the law, de-
clined to pay any accounts without three months'
notice. This saved the banks, but it was the nearest
approach to suspension that had been known since
i873-
The causes of the trouble have been matter for
much discussion and difference of opinion during
the past two years ; and a belief that its roots lay in
certain fallacies of national finance has caused action
by Congress, which has undoubtedly been beneficial
in its effect. Still, it is questionable whether the true
seat of the difficulty has been, or will be, reached by
any of these measures or plans of alleviation. An
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
overreaching speculation, which had locked up re-
sources that should have been available, coupled
with great uncertainty and some apprehension, per-
haps owing to political events and the commercial
and industrial changes they might be expected to
bring with them, had much to do with it. To-day,
it is pleasant to believe we have passed beyond it.
In this brief resume of a century of banking in
America, the vastness of the present interests has
been already foreshadowed. How enormous these
interests are and of how general usefulness, words
alone can convey no adequate idea. In figures only
can expression be found for the financial magnitudes
that make up the American banking interests of to-
day. From the $400,000 capital represented by
Robert Morris's bank in Philadelphia a little over
100 years ago, the aggregate capital of the banks
of the United States is now, according to the
latest available statistics, the tremendous sum of
$1,069,826,555, while one person in every seven or
eight in the whole country patronizes the banks as
a depositor and thus gains the privilege of their con-
veniences and economy. Against the above aggre-
gate of capital the banks hold aggregate resources
amounting to $7,342,397,052, and of the 12,000
banks in existence, exclusive of loan and trust com-
panies, in the year ending July, 1894, only seventy-
nine failures occurred. The solvency of the system
is well evidenced in this, and safeguarded as the
banks are by Federal and State legislation, with reg-
ular examinations by experts and sworn reports from
officials, it is fair to say that no community enjoys
greater security for its funds of deposit or exchange.
The very foundation of the American system for the
past thirty years has been the national bank, which
has opened its doors in nearly every town and hamlet
of the country where the common business of life is
transacted. It is a well- organized, carefully super-
vised, uniform system, which renders its benefits to
the individual directly and indirectly, as well as in
the revenue it affords the government. The latest
statistics give the number of national banks in the
country, October 31, 1894, as 3756, in which there
were 287,842 shareholders. Their aggregate capital
was $672,671,365, and their total surplus and un-
divided profits $334,121,082. Of these banks and
their capital, Pennsylvania led with 406 within her
borders, but her capitalization was but $74,168,390,
or less than that of New York with 334 banks and
$87.346,o6o capital, or than Massachusetts with 267
banks and $97,992,500. In the importance of its
national banks Ohio ranks fourth, with 246 institu-
tions having a capital of $45,240,100.
The total resources of the national banks on
October 2, 1894, were $3,473,922,055, and on Oc-
tober 3151 of the same year they had a total cir-
culation of $207,472,603 outstanding, as security for
which there were United States bonds on deposit to
the value of $199,706,200, and $28,071,239 lawful
money reserved on deposit to redeem circulation.
Their total loans and discounts were $2,007,122,-
191. In individual deposits the national banks
held on July 18, 1894, $1,647,017,129, and the
number of depositors was given as 1,929,340.
Under the latest statement of the condition of the
national banks, based on Comptroller Eckels's call
of July nth last, the figures show the aggregate of
resources and liabilities to have been $3,410,002,-
591 each. The whole number of national banks
was 3715.
As the national banks do not usually pay interest
on current balances, the fact that they are utilized as
banks of deposit to such a great extent shows the
appreciation in which the facilities afforded by them
for the transaction of business are held by the public
at large. Since the national banking system started,
upward of thirty years ago, the aid rendered through
it to the business world in carrying on its undertak-
ings has come to be fully recognized. The ruinous
rates of exchange prevailing under the old State-
bank system, prior to the war, are happily forgotten.
A check or draft can be bought from a bank
in New Orleans or San Francisco, drawn on its
New York correspondent, which will cost but the
smallest fraction of i per cent., or nothing at all, ac-
cording to the time of year and the direction in
which money is moving. For this same exchange
in 1859 the average rate was from i to \y2 per
cent., a tax upon the extension of business that
could not be borne in the present era of close
competition and narrow margins. Again, on the
total issue of about $200,000,000 of State bank-
notes in circulation prior to 1 860, a loss of from i per
cent, to 10 per cent, was entailed upon the holders
in any but the most restricted local transactions.
The advantage of replacing this circulation of dis-
count by a bank-note of uniform appearance, with
value fixed by law and ordered receivable at par
by every other bank in the system, was speedily
apparent. Furthermore, behind this uniformity lies
as security the quickest asset known, in the shape of
the United States bond fully covering the circula-
tion. Lawful money reserves further provide for the
redemption of circulating notes by these banks, and
a further reserve of deposit funds is ordered not
alone to secure depositors, but to still further hedge
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
about the reserves from possible impairment. In
all these ways, as well as by the reductions achieved
in rates of interest on loans and discounts, through
making available a largely increased capital, together
with lessened charges for collection made possible
by thorough organization, the people have directly
felt the benefits of improved banking methods. The
immense aggregate saving that is accomplished an-
nually along these lines can be gathered from the
fact that the clearing houses of the United States in
the single year of 1894 had clearings amounting to
over $45,000,000,000. With such great sums as
these, the smallest fractional charge possible becomes
heavy in the aggregate of transactions.
Of the relation of the national banks to the gov-
ernment there is but little dispute, and practically
but one opinion — that it is mutually beneficial.
Until March 3, 1883, both capital and deposits of
the national banks were taxed, and a further tax of
i per cent, on their circulation has been continued
from the first. From these three items of taxation,
the first two discontinued since 1883, an aggregate
amount of $144,660,952 had been yielded up to
July 1 8, 1894. In addition to this a conservative
estimate allows two fifths per cent, of revenue to
government on the national bank-note circulation,
through failures to redeem, which forces the banks
to make the full amount good before taking down
their deposit of United States bonds against which
the notes were issued.
As government depositories the national banks
further perform without charge duties that annually
save the government a great deal of money. Since
their inauguration the national banks have received
and stored in their vaults, at various times, $3,-
500,000,000, a service of great value. As a gov-
ernor of the national currency, operating to keep it
within controllable bounds, the national banks have
also been of the greatest assistance through the fa-
cilities they afford for the issue of instruments of
credit. The depositors in the national banks in
1894 outnumbered by 492,702 those in all the
State and private banks and loan and trust compa-
nies combined. As these, together with the national
banks, are utilized for checking against balances on
deposit rather than on those in banks for savings, it
is readily seen that the check is more largely em-
ployed at the national banks than at the other insti-
tutions, and inasmuch as at least 53 per cent, of
even the retail, and consequently more largely cash,
business of the country is transacted through the
medium of these small pieces of paper, while from
90 to 92 per cent, of the total business is thus
transacted, the important part they play will be like-
wise readily understood. The circulating medium
which, in a relative sense, these instruments of
credit supply, is perhaps a relief that should coun-
terbalance the complaint sometimes made regarding
the non-elasticity of issue under the present national
banking system. The average annual circulation
of the national banks between 1864 and 1894 was
$282,801,252, and the security of the notes is ab-
solute. A fluctuating market for bonds, against
which only a percentage of issue is allowed, has
undoubtedly made the lines of issue a little rigid,
but whether more so than is consistent with proper
precautions against possible manipulation or infla-
tion is a matter of extreme doubt. In fact, so far
as the system goes, it is the most perfect yet de-
vised, and in its operation has united uniformity
and stability with great facility of adaptation to
the constantly arising needs of the commercial and
financial interests.
On the national banks as a foundation, then, rests
the great superstructure of State, private, and sav-
ings-bank institutions, which, together with the
building and loan associations and the loan and
trust companies, constitute the remainder of the
money-managing world of this country. Of the
State banks there were in the United States 5033 on
July i, 1894, with an aggregate capital of $244,-
435,573 and resources amounting to $1,077,164,-
813. These banks held a surplus of $74,412,319.
The aggregate deposits were $658,107,494, and the
loans and discounts $665,988,823. Of United
States bonds these banks held but $604,055, as
against $10,662,200 held as investment by the na-
tional banks in addition to those deposited as secur-
ity. The business is profitable, but in the average
rather less so than that of the national banks. In
all the respects of general banking the State banks
transact the same kinds of business as the national
institutions, with the exception of the issuance of
circulating notes and the performance of those
functions of a governmental nature entailed by a
Federal charter.
The savings-banks in existence in July, 1894, were
1024 in number and in two classes, the mutual and
the stock. The latter class, of which there were
378, is of comparatively slight importance, not more
than 15 per cent, of the total figures of this branch
of banking being accredited to it. The capital
stock of the savings-banks of the country is about
$30,000,000, and their total resources are $1,980,-
744,189. The total amount of the deposits of indi-
vidual savings is $1,747,961,280, while about $30,.
10
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
000,000 more is held subject to check. The loans
of these banks amount to $1,026,622,425, of which
but a very small percentage relatively is secured on
other than real or intrinsic values.
The private banks, while neither so numerous nor
so heavily capitalized as the branches just men-
tioned, are a most potent factor in the commercial
world, by their especial prominence in the field of
foreign exchange. Their number in 1894 was 904,
and their total capital $26,652,167, with resources
of $105,379,051. Their surplus was placed at $6,-
005,126. The total of the loans and discounts was
$66,596,017, being $521,468 in excess of deposits.
The 224 loan and trust companies have a total
capitalization of $97,068,092 and a surplus of $57,-
663,599. Their total resources are $705,186,944, of
which loans and discounts are $374,421,713. With
the exception of the national and savings-banks,
these companies are the heaviest holders of United
States bonds among the banks, $13,449,411 being
accredited to them.
These five branches constitute, properly speaking,
the American banks. The building and loan as-
sociations are a species of cooperative banking, sav-
ings, and loan business, and, since they started in
1840, have grown rapidly. The statistics of 1894
gave 5838 of them in operation in the United
States. These wonderfully fast-spreading institu-
tions, deriving their capital from dues assessed on
their members and loaning it again to those giving
real security, had in 1894 the enormous sum of
$470,142,524 loaned on real estate alone. As
nearly all the loans are small in amount, being
simply enough to build a home for some compara-
tively poor person, the extent of this cooperative
undertaking is readily seen. In addition to these
loans on real estate, the associations have combined
resources sufficient to bring the total to $528,852,-
885, against which the heaviest items are $370,003,-
478 for dues paid in, and $35,775,366 on paid-up
stock.
Under these various heads, then, the banking in-
terests of America have grouped themselves in the
closing years of the nineteenth century. Beneath
them all are the broad, strong shoulders of the United
States government, bearing the final responsibility.
In the magnitude of the interests now represented in
the bank, all branches of industry and commercial
activity have at last come to see their share. In the
statistics of the annual report is told each year the
story of what America has achieved. In the exten-
sion of the bank to the remoter districts are carried
the same improvements to the every-day business
conditions of the community that the waterworks
brings to the sanitary conditions, or the public school
to the educational conditions. The bank is the agent
of civilization in its advance, whether in new coun-
tries or new fields of human endeavor. In the city it
is the great driving engine furnishing the power for
the machinery of affairs. The few brief figures of the
dry and business-like report, giving the resources of
the banks of the United States at $7,342,397,052,
tell most eloquently the commercial and industrial
achievements of the American people. To this suc-
cess the banking interests have contributed in no
scanty measure, and in it they, in common with all
the people, share to-day.
One very prominent feature in the history of bank-
ing has been the part played by private banks. It
has been seen that Stephen Girard was very import-
ant in the history of Philadelphia banking; and later,
Prime, Ward & King, bankers in New York, were
enabled to perform eminent services for their country
by loans negotiated in England. It was not, how-
ever, till about the time that the supply of gold from
California raised the prices of commodities all over
the globe, that many important American houses in
banking circles became prominent. Every great city
now has its private banks and bankers, who exercise
an important part in the economy and distribution of
wealth. They are able to handle business without
making it known to the whole world; they can af-
ford instant aid, without appeal to a board of direc-
tors, and everywhere they have proved of value.
Such names as those of the Drexels, the Morgans,
the Peabodys, and the Browns, will instantly occur
to every one as household words in the realm of
finance.
CHAPTER II
AMERICAN LABOR
A CORDING to the census of 1890, the total
number of people engaged in gainful oc-
cupations of all kinds was 22,735,661, of
which number 18,820,950 were males and 3,914,711
females. These figures include all engaged in any
gainful occupation, whether wage-earners or wage-
payers, whether employers or employees, and whether
engaged in manual or professional service. Elimi-
nating the wage-earners from this vast number, it
is found that they constituted 15,099,901, of which
number 11,802,540 were males and 3,297,361 were
females. If we classify this large number of wage-
earners, we find that 3,639,437 were engaged in
agriculture, fisheries, and mining; 4,153,385 in do-
mestic and personal service; 2,364,661 in trade and
transportation, and 4,942,418 in manufacturing and
mechanical industries. These statements are general,
and that more specific information may be at hand
the table on the next page has been made, giving
the number of males and females and the total
employed in specific occupations where more than
50,000 were engaged.
It would be exceedingly interesting if the growth
of this great body of working-people, numbering
over 15,000,000 at the present time, and the in-
fluences which have brought it into existence, could
be traced step by step during all the past 100 years.
It is impossible to give statistical statements of the
number of persons employed in any industry, or
otherwise, until the census of 1850, so we cannot
ascertain what the strength of the body of working-
people was in 1795. A fair calculation, based on
relative statistics at different periods, would indicate
that it was less than 500,000. Calculations in this
respect are not satisfactory, however, because labor
at the beginning of the loo-year period of which we
are treating was engaged in domestic manufactures,
of which no general account exists.
Four fifths of the population of the United States
at the close of the Revolutionary War was, according
to Mr. Bancroft, the historian, of English descent.
He states that in 1775 the colonies were inhabited
by persons one fifth of whom had for their mother
tongue some other language than the English. At
the present time careful consideration would indi-
cate that only about one half of our population can
claim the English as their mother tongue ; and yet,
during the first quarter of the present century, im-
migration could not have affected the nationality of
our working-people to any great extent, the accepted
estimate of the total number of immigrants between
1790 and 1819 being placed at 250,000. Prior to
this year (1819) no account was taken of the num-
ber of immigrants settling in the country, but since
that year the Federal government has taken account
of immigration. In no year between 1820 and 1824,
inclusive, did the number arriving in this country
reach 10,000. In 1833 the largest number in the
first third of the present century arrived, when
58,640 immigrants were registered. In only two
years, 1835 and 1838, has the number been less
than that just given, but with these two exceptions,
the annual immigration has been progressive, al-
though varying in volume. Great impetus was
given in the forties, the movement being accelerated
by the famine in Ireland in 1846 and 1847, and by
political causes in Germany. The total immigra-
tion since the Revolutionary War and up to July
31, 1895, was 17,731,678, while the foreign-bom
residing in this country at the census of 1890 was
9,249,547, being 14.77 Per cent, of the whole
population.
These large additions to our population must
have had a marked influence upon our industrial
conditions. In 1880 30.63 per cent, of all persons
engaged in manufacturing and mechanical indus-
tries were foreign-bom, while in 1890 31.56 per
cent, of those so engaged were bom abroad. In
12
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
1880 12.52 per cent, of the foreign-bom were en-
gaged in agriculture. It is seen, therefore, that the
manufacturing and mechanical industries have ab-
sorbed a much larger proportion of the new ele-
ment than has agriculture. The tendency of our
immigrants is to assimilate with our mechanical in-
dustries. This, of course, increases the supply of
labor in comparison to the demand, and may have
at times lowered wages and crippled the consuming
power of the whole body of the population. I am
satisfied that this has not been serious, and it may
have been imperceptible, for at the time of the ac-
celerated movement of immigration there was a vast
development of the railroad interests of the country,
which development could not have been carried on
so extensively and completely as it was without a
large body of common laborers. Immigration sup-
plied this labor, but it soon began to find its way
into organized industry. As the tendency of wages
has been constantly upward since the close of the
last century, it cannot be argued that the assimila-
tion of immigrants with our own native labor has
reduced wages, but it can be assumed — without the
possibility of proof, however — that such assimilation
may have retarded their increase beyond what was
experienced.
During the past few years the industrial depres-
sion has checked immigration, but with renewed
prosperity the movement may assume its normal
proportions. The character of immigration has
changed, and this change has not been for the bet-
ter. If immigration could be left entirely to natural
motives it is quite evident that the movement would
be retarded gradually, but it is stimulated by trans-
portation companies, in their desire to secure busi-
ness, to such an extent that a large body of objec-
tionable immigrants has been brought to the country
during the past ten years. When it is known that an
immigrant can be transported from Italy to Chicago
for less money than a first-class passenger can travel
from New York to Chicago it is not strange that
people flock to the United States ; and during this
past decade it is quite certain that labor in America
has suffered through this class of immigration, espe-
cially in mining districts, where wages have been
kept down and much distress has prevailed through
NUMBER OF MALE AND FEMALE WAGE-EARNERS REPORTED FOR OCCUPATIONS IN WHICH
50,000 OR OVER WERE EMPLOYED IN 1890
OCCUPATIONS.
MALES.
FEMALES.
TOTAL.
OCCUPATIONS.
MALES.
FEMALES
TOTAL.
Agriculture, Fisheries, and Min-
ing:
Agricultural laborers .
2.556,930
59,8»7
6^,829
208,330
140,906
70,047
82,i<;i
55,66o
I39,7i8
6,008
1,858,504
31,816
6,688
237,523
74,35°
169,704
131,602
492,852
368,265
54,005
79,459
48,446
55,875
205,931
381-312
447,085
•a
219
'33
687
2,825
147
86,8^2
54,8i3
216,627
51,402
1,205,876
283
4,875
27,772
64,048
237
24
4
2,909
o 29
58449
M38
3,004,015
60,150
65,857
208,549
141,039
70,734
84,976
55,807
139,765
92,810
1,913.317
248^43
58,090
' -443,399
74,633
'74,579
'59,374
556,900
368,502
54,029
79463
S',355
55,904
264,380
382,750
Telegraph and telephone oper
ators . . .
43,740
57,908
205,256
179,838
60,007
105,313
611,226
80,144
828
142,087
"76,937
61,006
158,874
5«,S6l
52,745
406
66,241
218,622
56,555
80,889
133,216
3,988
121,586
54,427
83,601
63,529
47.6^6
8474
2,273
59
33>6o9
194
129
191
92,9«4
288,155
2449
139
63
42
41,850
60,058
47
1,246
42
5,565
3°2
145,716
63,611
947
27,821
3,696
•j6.i7C
52,214
60,181
205,315
213.447
60,201
105,442
611,417
173,058
144,53°
177,076
61,069
158,916
93,4"
52,844
60,464
66,288
219,868
56,597
86,454
'33,5>8
149,704
185,197
55-374
111,422
67,225
8,1.071
Manufacturing and Mechan
tea I Industries:
Fishermen and oystermen. . . .
Lumbermen and raftsmen
Miners (coal)
Miners (not otherwise noted) .
Stock-raisers, herders and
drovers
Blacksmiths. . .
Boot and shoe makers and re-
Domestic and Personal Service:
Barbers and hair-dressers
Bartenders..
Brick and tile makers and terra-
cotta workers . . .
Butchers
Engineers and firemen (not
locomotive).
Carpenters and joiners
Cotton-mill operatives
Housekeepers and stewards . .
Laborers (not specified)
Launderers and laundresses. .
Nurses and midwives. . .
Dressmakers
Iron and steel workers
Machinists
Marble and stone cutters
Masons (brick and stone)
Mill and factory operatives
(not specified)
Servants
Watchmen, policemen, and de-
tectives
Trade and Transportation :
Agents (claim, commission,
real estate, insurance, etc.)
and collectors
Millers (flour and grist)
Milliners
Molders
Painters, glaziers, and var-
Bookkeepers and accountants.
Clerks and copyists
Draymen, hackmen, teamsters,
etc ...
Plumbers and gas and steam
fitters. . .
Printers, lithographers, and
Hostlers
Locomotive engineers and fire-
men.
Sawand planingmill employees
Seamstresses
Messengers and errand and
office boys. . . .
Tailors and tailoresses .
Tinners and tinware-makers.
Tobacco and cigar factory
Sailors ....
Salesmen and saleswomen.
Steam-railroad employees (not
Wood-workers (not otherwise
specified)
Woolen-mill operatives
CARROLL D. WRIGHT.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
13
the influx of very cheap foreign labor. It may be
said, with almost entire truthfulness, that the mining
industry is the one that has chiefly suffered in
various directions through foreign immigration.
In 1795 the labor of the country was, as already
stated, of a domestic character. Working-people
were engaged in agricultural pursuits, the fisheries,
and in the clearing of the forests, while a small per-
centage were engaged in what is known as domestic
manufacture and in commerce. The factory system,
dating from 1790 as the year of its birth, did not
become influential, so far as labor was concerned,
until after 1820. With the complete establishment
of textile factories, which occurred in 1813 at Wal-
tham, Mass., which town has the honor of erecting
the first complete factory in the world for the manu-
facture of finished cloth, in all the various processes,
from the raw material, labor began to find new ave-
nues of employment, and the young women of the
rural districts were induced to enter factories as
spinners and weavers. The growth of the textile
factory was rapid after 1820, both in the New Eng-
land and the Middle States. Fair wages and easy
work attracted the women of our own country and
English girls, and until Irish immigration com-
menced in earnest our textile factories were sup-
plied with English and American girls mostly, but
since their day there have been various changes.
The American and the English girl stepped out of
the factories and up into higher callings, and the
Irish operative stepped in. The Irish operative has
during the last twenty years or more, however, been
giving way gradually to the French-Canadian and
representatives of other nationalities. Practically
during the last fifty years there have been three
changes in nationalities in the operatives of our
textile works. With the adaptation of steam and
water-power in the textile industry other industries
grew. Of course, all manufacturing received a great
impetus during the Revolutionary War, when our
people were obliged to furnish their own supplies.
During the war the manufacturers extended their
enterprises and built mills — which are sometimes
called factories — but they were simple in their con-
struction. At the close of the war all these efforts
either ceased or the production of the mills was
greatly reduced.
The American nation found itself independent
politically of Great Britain, but still a subject of it in
respect to all its manufacturing interests. The Eng-
lish government sought to prevent the planting of
the factory system here, but through the ingenuity
and perseverance of Samuel Slater, who had served
his apprenticeship in the construction and manage-
ment of factory machinery in England, the system
was established in the United States; and then, as a
result of the earlier legislation after the adoption of
the Federal constitution, manufactures were stimu-
lated and the era of industrial progress in this coun-
try was opened. It can be said that the century
from 1795 to the present year has been one of con-
stant progress in the labor world, the factory sys-
tem gradually taking over to itself industry after
industry, until nearly everything is now produced
under it. The old domestic or hand system has
passed away almost entirely, and the re'gime of
invention and machinery holds full sway. These
great industrial changes have practically wrought a
revolution in this and other countries, bringing con-
stant employment to our working-people, and result-
ing in a tendency all through the century to the
increase of wages and a decrease in the cost of
production.
Along with this change in the method of produc-
tion, mining has been developed to an enormous
degree, until now the United States produces as
much iron as the mother country. The development
of iron-mining and the manufacture of iron have
brought into employment a vast body of skilled
workmen, and the ramifications of the industry still
greater forces. Our large towns and cities are, as a
rule, thoroughly equipped with sewers, and the
manufacture of pipes and mains for this purpose, as
well as the manufacture of gas-pipes and mains and
plumbing work generally, has been the result. These
latter changes have occurred within the last fifty
years.
The change in the system of work has practically
done away with apprenticeships. Manual training
and the work of trade schools are fitting boys and
young men for skilled work in a better way than did
the apprenticeship system, which was the universal
rule at the beginning of our century. With the es-
tablishment of the factory system apprenticeships
were less obligatory. By 1850 the resort to them was
waning, while since the vast development of the fac-
tory system, especially subsequent to the Civil War,
they have been still less prevalent. Another great
change which has come in the way of industry is the
employment of women. They were engaged only in
domestic labor, except in rare instances, in 1 795, but
now there are few occupations in which they are
not represented. The number grows from census to
census. This change was brought about by the
adoption of the factory system, under which women
found they could attend light-running machines with
14
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
skill and with fair remuneration. While their com-
pensation is exceedingly low now in almost all indus-
trial pursuits, yet it is something where nothing was
received before. They constitute a new economic
factor in industry, and being a new economic factor,
they cannot as yet hope to receive liberal wages. It
can hardly be said that they have displaced men, but
they have displaced boys and girls to a considerable
extent. The first tendency under the factory system
was to employ children, and the number constantly
employed increased from year to year, until during
the last fifteen or twenty years, when the number has
been rapidly on the decline. Public sentiment voiced
by legislation, as well as the economies of production,
is driving the children out of our factories : women
are taking their places. In some industries men have
taken the places of women, the change of the form of
work resulting in such displacement. Laundry work
is practically factory work now ; and the old domes-
tic hand-weavers, who were to a large extent women,
have seen their work transferred to the factory.
These industrial revolutions have carried with them
other changes, which perhaps are more ethical than
economical in their relations. For instance, under the
old system of labor, employers had a paternal rela-
tion to their employees, and even in the early cotton
mills in New England the paternal system of caring
for employees was adopted. This was chiefly notice-
able at Lowell, and later on also in Manchester,
Conn., under the Cheneys' administration of the silk-
works ; but as the factory system has spread this pa-
ternal care has been lessened, although during the
last few years there has been a great revival in the
discussion of the usefulness of such paternal over-
sight. The absolute necessity for the congregation
of great bodies of working-people in one locality is
everywhere stimulating the thought that there should
be some other rule than that of entire non-interference
with the welfare of employees. The public is consid-
ering this question, and great employers here and
there are trying the experiment of taking an interest
in the home welfare of their employees as well as in
their efficiency.
The changes in the industrial system have had
many ramifications. The labor movement in this
country, that is, the organized attempt of labor to
impress its aims upon the whole people, may be said
to have begun with the century that is now closing,
but it did not gain full headway until the nineteenth
century was fairly on its way. This is true, notwith-
standing the labor question has been present always
in the development of the world; but contempora-
neous with the development of the industries of the
United States the movement, as it is now known, has
taken place, and its speed has been accelerated as the
industrial development has progressed. Prior to
the establishment of the factory system there was lit-
tle organization. Here and there a club of skilled
workingmen existed. This was notably in the
Eastern and Middle States. Since 1825, however,
the movement has been rapid, and its results, while
not always satisfactory, are indicative of real pro-
gress. In the early years of the labor movement
many arguments were advanced against it, and the
attempt made to prevent workingmen from joining
in organization. The merchants and ship owners
of Boston, at a meeting held in the Exchange Cof-
fee Rooms on May 15, 1832, voted to discoun-
tenance and check what was called the unlaw-
ful combination formed to control the freedom of
individuals as to the hours of labor, and to thwart
and embarrass those by whom they were employed
and liberally paid. This meeting was emphatic in
its declaration that there was a pernicious and de-
moralizing tendency in combinations and an un-
reasonableness in any attempt made by organizations
to secure more favorable conditions of work. It was
held everywhere that labor ought always to be left
free to regulate itself, and that neither the employee
nor the employer should have the power to control
the other; and the old stock argument that organi-
zation would drive trade from the country was re-
sorted to then, as now, and a resolution was adopted
at the meeting referred to, that the members of it
would neither employ any journeyman who at the
time belonged to a labor combination nor give work
to any master mechanic who employed them while
they continued pledged to their associations. These
statements sound very much like those made at the
present time, and yet the story of labor organization —
its course, its successes, its failures, the philosophy un-
derlying it, and the influence it has exerted in many
directions — goes to prove that the world is growing
better, and that the condition of labor as it now exists
is a vast improvement upon its condition at any other
period. This might be proved by an exhaustive cita-
tion of wages and prices during the past 100 years,
were such citation necessary. It may, perhaps, be
well simply to say that wages, even during the past
half-century, have increased, on the whole, something
over sixty per cent., while the general course of prices
has been downward. This is true of other countries
in which machinery performs an important part in
production, but it is essentially true in America, for
here, with our vast resources, our peculiar systems of
education and of government, exerting great influence
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
upon the minds of all, wages are higher than in any
other country in the world. The standard of living
is necessarily higher, of course, and the workingman
finds that he is able not only to preserve his working
condition, but to participate in other things which
are essential to his spiritual development.
To-day organized labor has many defenders. It is
looked upon with disfavor in some quarters, but I
think, as a rule, employers are quite willing that their
employees should organize, for they have their own
organizations and do not feel like denying the right to
others. Of course, a very large proportion of the
working-people of this country are unorganized, and
I presume this is true of manufacturers and employ-
ers on their side ; but as the methods of production are
brought to a larger and grander scale, organization in
every direction will more and more prevail. At pres-
ent organized labor is estimated at 1,400,000. This
is the result of an estimate based on the claims of
different organizations. I am inclined to think it is
too liberal an estimate, and yet, placed in compari-
son with 15,000,000 wage-earners, it does not seem
large ; but, as a rule, organized labor is employed in
the manufacturing and mechanical industries, and in
this sense the percentage is high. The proportion of
organized manufacturers to the whole body is prob-
ably much larger.
As the labor movement has grown strikes have
become more frequent, and while undoubtedly the
era of strikes is passing away, yet it will be some
time before the downward scale is reached as to
numbers and importance. The great strikes in the
country have had a marked influence in many direc-
tions. They have excited working-people to under-
take other strikes; they have brought bitterness
between employer and employee, and yet on the
whole they are bringing a new line of thought to the
public mind, and their study will, I feel sure, result in
good to all classes. Strikes are teaching the public
its interests in industry as over against the personal
and selfish interests of the two parties immediately
involved.
The labor question has met with a great change as
a result of the Civil War. Our negro population has
lost some of the old occupations in which it was en-
gaged in the North half a century ago, but it is gain-
ing others. In the South the employment of the
negro is becoming more varied and his condition
more hopeful as one of pecuniary prosperity. Negro
labor is abundant, good, and steady in certain lines.
The question is often asked, whether the division of
employment lessens the quality of work. I do not
believe it does. The great principles of modern in-
dustry are association, concentration, and specializa-
tion. With the first the second is absolutely essential,
and the third is the result of concentration. If these
things lessen the quality of the work, then the op-
posite must be true — that without them quality is im-
proved. This carries the argument too far. If there
is much truth in it, then the simplest, humblest kind of
work is best for the worker. Sawing wood and pav-
ing streets, the most ordinary manual toil, are better
for the worker than the employment of his intellect
in tending a machine. A study of all the facts leads
to the positive conclusion that the division of employ-
ment does not lessen the quality of the worker when
considered as a man.
Working-people have experimented with coopera-
tion, profit-sharing schemes, and other methods of
increasing wages. These experiments have in many
instances proved failures; in others, successes.
They are likely to do some good, but it will be a
long time before the moral character of the men in-
volved will permit successful management of co-
operative schemes. The principle is right The
cooperative principle is that of our modem system
of industry. Pure cooperation, probably, cannot
succeed, from an economic point of view, but the
cooperative spirit can prevail to a higher degree
than it now does; and all these things — combinations
of workingmen, public sentiment, economic condi-
tions (and the latter more largely than any other) —
have reduced the hours of labor from eleven, twelve,
and thirteen per day to eight, nine, and ten per day.
These changes, however, came gradually, and as the
result of improved methods of production.
After the economic changes were assured law
stepped in and made the custom the public voice.
The first ten-hour law in this country, however, was
not passed until 1874, when the State of Massachu-
setts provided that women and children should not
be employed over ten hours a day in the textile fac-
tories of the State. Another specific change which
has come is the frequent payment of employees for
their services. The method in former times was to
pay the working-people part in cash and part in
goods, and settlements were made at long intervals.
Now everywhere, with a few exceptions in the West,
where to some extent the truck system still prevails,
cash payments at short intervals are the rule. This
change has been brought about both by public senti-
ment and by statutory enactments.
One of the greatest changes which has been
wrought by the new system has come through cor-
porations. When the century began, the working-
man and his employer were practically associated ;
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
they worked side by side; they had a personal ac-
quaintance each with the other, and their interests
were, to a large extent, practically the same. With
the establishment of the factory system there came
the necessity of using large capital, more than one
man or a firm of men contributing ; so the corpora-
tion became a necessary factor in the development
of industry. Many small stockholders aggregated
their means and made a large capital. The inter-
ests of the stockholders had to be administered by
a corporation government, and this corporation gov-
ernment employed men and women. The ethical
relations were changed at once. As a great capital
is now the result of the aggregation of small savings
in many respects — although in some instances the
stockholders are heavy capitalists — the organization
of labor has grown on the ground that one organi-
zation should deal with another; that if the stock-
holders lose their personality and are represented by
a manager, the large body of working-people lose
their personality, and their interests should be repre-
sented by a manager or a committee. One of the
vital changes resulting from this growth of corpora-
tions is the liability of the employer to the employee
for damages received while in the employment of
the corporation. The old common-law rule relating
to the liability of employers for accidents occurring
to their employees is that a workman cannot recover
damages for injuries received through the carelessness
or negligence of a co-employee, although a stranger
may recover for an injury following the same care-
lessness or negligence. This rule grew up under the
domestic system,when employer and employee worked
side by side, and each knew the character and skill
of the other, and when several workmen working
together were supposed to be acquainted with the
risks of their occupation as well as with the character
and skill of their co-employees. But when expanded
methods are introduced this old rule becomes some-
what ridiculous; for co-employees maybe a brakeman
and a switch-tender, and under this rule a brake-
man on a train running, perhaps, 500 miles, could
secure no damages whatever from a railroad cor-
poration employing him, in consequence of any in-
juries received through the carelessness or negligence
of a switchman along any part of the line, although
the brakeman knew nothing of the switchman, had
no knowledge of his skill or capacity when he en-
gaged with the company, and in no sense of the
word, so far as risk and association of service were
concerned, could be considered the co-employee of
the switchman. Yet, as the common-law rule grew
up before great industrial enterprises were estab-
lished, courts have projected it, and have ruled that
in such a case as that just mentioned the switchman
and brakeman were co-employees, and that therefore
the employer could not be held liable. This rule is
being broken down by statutory restrictions in differ-
ent parts of the world, although it has not generally
been modified, and still holds good in many States.
There are very many other points where changes
in relationship have been made by the change in
system. Looking the field over broadly, the con-
clusion must be reached that on the whole the work-
ing-people have been gainers during the progress of
the past century — gainers not only in wages, both
real and nominal, but in their relations to society ; so
with the facts briefly stated we may well consider
such relations and the general philosophy of Ameri-
can labor conditions.
De Tocqueville, when studying this country, ob-
served that amongst a democratic people where
there is no hereditary wealth every man works, or
has worked, to earn a living, or is the son of parents
who have worked, and that in such a community
the notion of labor is presented to the mind on every
side as the necessary, natural, and honest condition
of human existence ; that in America even a wealthy
man thinks he owes it to public opinion to devote
his leisure to some kind of industrial or commercial
pursuit, or to public business, and would think him-
self in bad repute if he employed his life solely in
living.
These reflections of De Tocqueville, conveying
the idea of life or of actual living, are stimulated by
all the elements which make up the essential char-
acteristics of this period. Nearly all the great for-
tunes, as they now exist, have been built upon the
actual toil of some industrious ancestor. It does not
do for our wealthiest people, unless they wish to be
called simply aristocratic, to look beyond a genera-
tion, or, at the most, three generations, to find their
ancestry engaged in arduous labor, building from
that condition to a business career, and leaving be-
hind them at its close possessions upon which have
been erected great fortunes. In some instances, to
be sure, present fortunes are the result of fortunate
speculation or investment in real estate, but the rule
is the other way, and as first stated.
The American nation consists of workers ; and at
the present time more than at any previous period
the younger members of very wealthy families are
devoting their time and service to labor as assiduously
as if their subsistence depended upon their earnings.
In America, therefore, labor holds a more honora-
ble place in the minds of all the people than it does
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
17
in any other land, and individuals can look forward
to the highest class of associations, both social and
intellectual, as a result of their application of skill,
provided always they are ruled by integrity, and
shall build up a character which will sustain itself
under all conditions. A workingman may not en-
ter the highest social ranks while a workingman, es-
pecially in dense social centres, but in our country
villages and large towns observation teaches that the
American workingman has the entree to the best so-
ciety in his community, without regard to the size
of his bank-account, character being the card on
which he gains his admission. I have attended so-
cial functions where I have met skilled mechanics
and wealthy men, and have found them meeting on
an equality, each regarding the other on the basis of
the personal character which he brought to the
function.
There is another side to this, of course, and a
picture of certain features of American labor can be
drawn under which the individual feels that he
must keep at the bottom, at least, of the social
ladder. A study of conditions, however, proves
that the base of the social structure is growing nar-
rower as time, as education, as a wise altruism lead
men out of their lowly conditions to a better plane;
and the American laborer everywhere is an active,
earnest, and, I believe, an honest factor in keeping
up the struggle to secure a higher standard of liv-
ing. If the facts were otherwise the outlook would,
indeed, be a despondent one ; but a glance at the
facts proves the reverse, and shows that the propor-
tion of wage-earners of the total population is con-
stantly increasing.
Our 15,000,000, and over, of wage-earners con-
stitute a vast body on whose prosperity, intelli-
gence, and moral worth is based the welfare of the
Republic. With their happiness goes the happiness
of the whole people. When they are unhappy, dis-
turbed, and discontented the Republic is resting upon
an insecure foundation. I do not mean that discon-
tent can or ought to be removed, it being not wise
that perfect contentment should rule in all things,
for perfect contentment means a stationary condi-
tion. Progress can come only when the body of
workers in a community are contented because
moving onward and upward. Absolute " content-
ment with one's lot is the virtue of the subjects of a
despotically governed and non-progressive state,"
and this sort of contentment does not indicate hap-
piness, but a stationary condition, which ultimately
leads to retrogression, a loss of ambition, and the
growing disuse of the inventive genius of man.
Our American wage-earners demand, and are enti-
tled to, something more than is indicated by con-
tentment, for their experience with inventions, and
under our educational system, teaches them that
from rude instruments of toil they have become
intelligent factors, in both a social and a political
sense. They are not simply animals, wanting an
animal's contentment; they are something more,
and they want, and are entitled to, the contentment
belonging to the best environment. They are, in a
sense, and a valuable sense, the patrons of all that
gives character to a great nation. They believe in
education, in art, in music, in the progress of the
sciences, and in political purity, and are informing
themselves on the great topics which engage the
thoughts of our statecraftsmen. They are often
able not only to present their views clearly and
forcibly, but to indulge in discussions which would
be a credit to any legislative body. These features
constitute the American wage-earners' exceedingly
active, and, in a short-sighted way, sometimes un-
comfortable, elements in the great struggle that is
going on to lift themselves and all connected with
them to a higher plane of living. All who aid in
this struggle are the friends of humanity; all who
throw obstacles in its way are the enemies of
humanity — not knowingly, perhaps, but because
they cannot reach far enough in their comprehen-
sion of conditions, and growing conditions, too, to
see that happiness and prosperity must be the result
of the struggle. Selfishness and ignorance would
keep men on a level ; progressive movements mean
more, and look to the leading forth of all the best
faculties of all members of the community.
All the disturbances which we have seen during
the past score of years, and which seem, super-
ficially considered, to indicate that we are approach-
ing an industrial war, are but protests against fixed
conditions. These disturbances very often arise
from unwise considerations and from ignorance of
the conditions of production, but they all indicate
one grand trend ; and while it is to be hoped they
will grow less and less as intelligence develops the
unwisdom of certain forms of contest, they must be
considered as a part of the progressive movements
of our age, to be deprecated, to be sure, when there
is an inimical animus underlying them — to be dep-
recated, perhaps, in most instances — and yet, out of
them, American labor emerges with a clearer under-
standing of the inevitable conditions of life and a
clearer view of the higher ethical elements essential
to overcome them. These views constitute the chief
elements of what is known as the labor movement,
18
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in which American labor has actively participated
for a great many years — first, seeking organization;
second, by organization, making its protests and
issuing its demands. Philosophically, these protests
and demands must be viewed as educational factors
and not as war factors.
I have always liked the definition of labor which
John Ruskin has given us. " Labor," he says, " is
the contest of the life of man with an opposite; the
term ' life ' including his intellect, soul and physical
power, contending with question, difficulty, trial or
material force. Labor is of a higher or lower order
as it includes more or fewer of the elements of life ;
and labor of good quality, in any kind, includes
always as much intellect and feeling as will fully
and harmoniously regulate the physical force."
The truth of this definition must be accepted, and
with its acceptance the labor movement, so-called,
is at once lifted from a sordid to a high ethical
plane; taken out of narrow grooves and made to
become the very essence of the whole of the relig-
ious and political movements of the closing years of
this century. Whether Ruskin's definition is recog-
nized or not, the truth exists, and so the struggle of
the wage-earner becomes of that high order which
insists upon recognition as a factor in securing to all
people something beyond the mere wants of exist-
ence. A man who is working simply to secure food,
shelter, and raiment, that is, the conditions abso-
lutely essential to keep him an efficient working
machine, is not the best product of civilization;
but the man who is willing to work industriously to
secure these absolute necessaries to make his serv-
ices efficient, and then, over and beyond them,
something of the spiritualizing necessaries of life, is
a credit to our civilization ; and these spiritualizing
influences can be secured only when, after paying
for the necessary lubrication of his working muscles,
he is able to furnish himself and his loved ones with
elements of life which have heretofore been consid-
ered luxuries. He must be able to secure some-
thing of these higher elements, or he loses, and
retrogression is the result. He must be able to
educate his family, and to give them of the best
things of life to such an extent that they become
active participants in the results of invention, which
throw around life everywhere more than could be
secured under old conditions.
With his conscience quickened by the very atmos-
phere that surrounds him, the wage-earner under-
stands, more than any other wage-earner anywhere,
that the sacredness of property must be insisted
upon and preserved, and that all attacks upon ex-
isting institutions must be repelled, especially when
those attacks are made for the purpose of destruc-
tion with a view to the building of a new structure
upon the ruins of the old. He is often radical in
his political views, but as a class in the community
he is ready to aid in the improvement of govern-
mental and social structures rather than to assist in
their destruction, even when the view is presented
that only on their destruction can a properly devel-
oped new structure be erected. He is often led
away by specious arguments, and under such condi-
tions allies himself to various so-called progressive
movements; but he is always open to conviction,
and when he sees that he is simply being led on the
old, well-beaten paths of iconoclasm, he turns and
allies himself with those who are seeking real and
true progress through evolutionary processes.
The American workingman is sometimes a social-
ist, but he does not believe that socialism, and espe-
cially political socialism, has anything in it which
will help him to secure the coveted margin over
necessaries — anything that will help him to things
spiritualizing. He is a socialist, as a rule, in a cer-
tain sense, but his socialism is not political; it comes
from a spirit within him, and it seeks to aid all who
are engaged with him in the struggle to secure better
environment. This sort of socialism in American
labor has no danger in it. On the other hand, it
is critical in its nature, and thus helps the whole
body of the people to understand what evils exist
and what conditions ought to be secured in their
place.
The American laborer, as such, is never an an-
archist, for he is a law-and-order man, and believes
that through development of the individual char-
acter the best social conditions can be reached. Now,
as the wage-earners of this country comprehend these
high and moral grounds more fully and more clearly,
they will become more contented in the true sense —
not contented to stand still, but contented with the
knowledge that they are progressing.
From what has been said it will be clearly under-
stood that conditions are not always favorable; that
there are fluctuations, business depressions, having
their discouraging influence, and strikes, unsettling
the public mind. The clash between ethical and eco-
nomical conditions leads to disruptions sometimes in
business associations, and arrays, to all appearances,
capital on the one side and labor on the other, and
gives color to the prophecy sometimes put forth that
ultimately this clash will lead to bloody strife. I
cannot acquiesce in this view, although I see clearly
the clash itself, and largely the causes for it. The
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
19
causes are mostly ethical, growing out of the rela-
tions of men and the lack of appreciation of the duty
which is owed to the public. Macaulay said that
the evils arising from liberty were only to be cured
with more liberty. So the evils which apparently
surround us at the present time, and which appar-
ently grow out of the industrial world, are the results
of an intelligence which did not exist in the past, and
the cure for them is more intelligence. Capital and
labor are intelligent enough to get into difficulty:
they are not intelligent enough yet to keep out of diffi-
culty. It requires a very high moral character on the
part of both employer and employee for each to rec-
ognize the rights and the privileges of the other; but
with this recognition, quarrels, as such, will largely
cease, and contests of mind will take the place of
those unhappy contests which are now so frequent.
When the employee recognizes that his highest social
duty is to render the very best service of which he is
capable, and the employer recognizes that his highest
social duty is to compensate the best service with
the best wage, a vast deal of friction will be avoided.
Integrity of business involves both the employing
and the employed elements of society. Confidence
in each other is the surest cure for many of the dif-
ficulties, and while the world is growing altruistic,
it will not grow altruistic at the expense of individ-
ual development; but after the rendering of the best
social service there will come a coordinated force
involving both altruism and individualism. Either
means destruction in a degree. Coordination means
success and reasonable happiness. The ethical force
cannot rule at the expense of the economical, nor can
the economical force rule at the expense of the eth-
ical. Their coordination is the true line of progress.
As American labor comprehends this more and
more clearly, and I believe it is comprehending
these principles, and as the employer comprehends
them more and more clearly — and I believe that he
is so doing — we may hope for the adjustment of dif-
ficulties on a plane of moral responsibility not yet
reached, except incidentally. The settlement of labor
controversies is one thing, their prevention another.
If the intelligence of different elements has not reached
that degree whereby they can be prevented, then
there should be some recognition of that settlement
and adjustment which recognize the importance of
each side in the success of industrial enterprises. Amer-
ican labor is doing much, and can do much more, in
bringing about such prevention and such adjustment.
May every struggle to that end meet with the cordial
appreciation and support of all right-minded citi-
zens! The century closes with omens of this con-
summation. We must not look for Utopias nor the
millennium ; but we must look for the evolution of
moral forces through industrial forces, for society
flourishes or decays as industrial elements prosper
or decline.
CHAPTER III
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS
THE imports and exports of the United States
are the expression and measure of its com-
mercial dealings with the nations and peoples
of the world. Their development and importance
have been commensurate with the economic growth
and political power of the country and people. To
compare the foreign trade of the United States in 1 79 5
with that in 1895 would be to compare a wheelbarrow
with a locomotive or an ocean liner. The local na-
ture, the simplicity of character, and the limited quan-
tity of the trade in the earlier period have become the
world-wide, the complex, and enormously extended
commerce of to-day. Then the trade was confined
as well by the limited markets as by the selfish greed
of nations possessed of colonial dependencies, mo-
nopolized by themselves in production and in com-
merce. Then the long and comparatively infrequent
voyages made commerce a matter of speculation,
of widely fluctuating prices, of capital at risk, and
consequently of doubtful returns. Now the world
is one great market to buy and to sell in. Prices are
equalized and made stable by banking facilities, by
rapid communication by mail or telegraph, by fre-
quent voyages, and by the free and cosmopolitan
movements of labor and capital. The millions ven-
tured in foreign trade in the last century have be-
come the hundreds of millions embarked in foreign
trade to-day ; and over and above the great transfer
of commodities from country to country there is a
large and ever-increasing transaction in securities,
national, State, and corporate. Mere statistics can
convey only one idea of this growth and develop-
ment. They may point out the mass or quantity,
which is the least interesting and vital phase of the
question ; but the nature or character of that mass
has also materially changed. It is on this change
of nature that I wish to say something.
When the peace of 1783 was declared the United
States comprised a strip of territory on the At-
lantic Ocean extending from Maine to Florida, and
bounded on the west by the Mississippi River. In
1790 the total area of settlement v/as 239,935 square
miles, having a population of 3,929,214 souls. In
this comparatively limited area important commer-
cial products were raised. The tobacco of Virginia
and Maryland supplied the world ; the rice and in-
digo of the Carolinas stood high in European mar-
kets ; and the fish and lumber products of New Eng-
land, with the breadstuff's of the Middle States, gave
a large and profitable commerce with the West Indian
Islands, then colonial possessions of Europe. In
New York the fur trade centered, and even as early
as this time the Northwest Territory pointed to an
agricultural possibility which fifty years later was
to begin an economic revolution in Europe, the re-
sults of which are still incomplete. The extension
of national territory west of the Mississippi, and
southward so as to include Florida and Texas, has
contributed to develop commerce on almost the
same lines which were marked out in the first years
of the Republic.
It was agriculture in 1795 which contributed most
largely to the export trade ; it is agriculture in 1895
which still feeds the largest part of the exports.
The rise of cotton culture, and its rapid extension
through the South, were the leading features of our
export development for fifty years. The rapid set-
tlement of the West, and an enormous extension of
agricultural production in cereals and provisions,
were the leading features of the subsequent forty
years. Beginning with 1816, the establishment of
manufactures, fostered and assured by the peculiar
inventiveness of Americans, laid the foundation of
industries which at the end of eighty years are fitted
in many lines not only to compete with, but almost
to supply, the world. In 1895 the estimated popu-
lation of the country was 70,000,000 and the area
of the country in land surface was 2,970,000 square
miles. The value of domestic exports per capita
of population in the last decade of the eighteenth
WORTHINGTON C. FORD.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
21
century was somewhat less than $6 ; the per capita
exports in 1895 were over $11. The productive
capacity of the country has thus been sufficient to
feed, clothe, and support in increasing comfort a
population which has increased in numbers seven-
teenfold ; and at the same time afforded a surplus
which has given an export trade double in relative
importance and increased fifty or sixty fold in abso-
lute value, as the $800,000,000 of 1895 represent an
enormous trade, conducted on a basis of low prices,
compared with the trade of 1795, conducted under
the regime of high prices.
The lasting and substantial qualities of American
export trade are proved by its survival of accidents
and adverse conditions which threatened at times
to overwhelm it. The Napoleonic wars practically
closed the ports of the civilized world to American
products and American shipping, and the disaster
was aggravated by the domestic Embargo. Wild-
cat banking schemes have periodically swept over
the country, entailing wide-spread ruin and economic
disturbance, shaking the commercial system of the
country to its very foundation. State and corpo-
ration repudiation and defalcation have at times
thrown a cloud over American interests, and have
retarded development, while even destroying some-
thing of what had already been accomplished. To
these exceptional and preventable conditions should
be added others which the economist has recognized
as periodic and inevitable — recurrent waves of finan-
cial distress and commercial depression, which have
seemed to follow a definite law, and yet can never
be foreseen, or their effects provided against and
neutralized.
The geographical distribution of exports would
necessitate a sketch of the changes in political divi-
sions throughout the world during the century. The
breaking up of the old colonial system and the rise
of independent States and powers, the formation
of alliances essentially modifying the sovereignty of
political divisions, have introduced so many new
conditions that the geographical nomenclature of
1795 will not apply in 1895. The great Spanish
and Portuguese colonies in the New World have
with few exceptions become emancipated from the
mother countries, and as independent powers have
sought and developed commercial connections pro-
hibited under the mercantile system of the last cen-
tury. Central and South America have framed and
maintained commercial systems of their own, instead
of feeding and supporting a commerce profitable
only to the mother state. The Floridas in 1795
were counted among the possessions of Spain. Hayti
was a French colony. Germany had no existence as
a united power, and the Hanse towns represented
commercial Germany. The trade with Canada was
of little importance. Australia was a geographical
name. Texas was part of a foreign country, as was
all westward of the Mississippi ; and the exchange of
merchandise with Africa and Asia, while important
even at that day, was limited in its development by
local hostilities and by trading monopolies.
The embryonic condition of exports is shown by
the distribution of 1 795. Of a total of nearly $48,-
000,000 outgoing, $31,000,000 were sent to Euro-
pean countries, $14,000,000 to the West Indian
possessions of those countries, and $3,000,000 to
all the rest of the world. The intimate connection
between political and commercial conditions is shown
by the fact that the exports to France and the French
West Indies were $12,653,635 ; to the Hanse ports,
$9,655,524 ; while to Great Britain and her posses-
sions in the West Indies and North America the
exports were $9,218,540. France ranked first in
importance, Germany second, and Great Britain
third. The treaty of Jay and the necessities of the
British West Indies made necessary some alterations
in the regulations imposed by Parliament on colo-
nial trade, and these changes were reflected in the
current of the leading exports of the United States.
France lost her dominant position and was super-
seded by Great Britain. This relative position has
never been changed.
A study of the yearly fluctuations in the export
trade, and a general statement of the leading causes,
would be of exceeding interest. Each article would
present the material for a study of commercial con-
ditions as influenced by competition, production, or
political factors. This, however, would be out of
the question in an article of this length. The high-
est development of exports has occurred within the
last thirty years, when the rapid settlement of the
West, and the improved methods of transportation
have enabled its products to reach a market at such
rates as allow aggressive competition with similar
products of other exporting countries. Without
modern appliances the large export trade in fresh
meats, butter, fruits, and even oleomargarine, could
not exist.
Another side of this story is of high economic
value, showing how a productive interest may wane
and die through the rise of more favorable condi-
tions elsewhere for producing or marketing, or by
the discovery of other products which will better
attain the end to which they are the means. In
the same manner an interest may out of a very small
22
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
beginning become sufficiently important to control
the market of the world. A century ago indigo was
a large product of the Carolinas ; it ceased to be an
article of export, in quantity, at the beginning of the
century. The United States was a large exporter
of rice in 1795 ; in 1895 it was an even larger im-
porter. Forty years ago whaling was a profitable
pursuit, and whale and fish oils constituted an item
of export. That industry has almost disappeared as
a commercial factor ; but the $2,000,000 or $3,000,-
ooo worth of whale-oil has been more than compen-
sated by the $45,000,000 of exports of petroleum,
an article which came into use about thirty years ago.
The ills of other nations have at times redounded
to the benefit of the United States. European wars
created an opening for the prepared meat products
of the West ; the vine diseases in the wine countries
of Europe gave an opportunity for an export of
American wine — an export which must grow. Coal
was not sent abroad in any quantity till 1850, but it
now represents a trade of more than $10,000,000.
Cotton was imported from the West Indian Islands
in 1795 ; it has long been the principal item of ex-
port. Copper, when it touched $2,000,000 in the
trade returns of 1858, was believed to have reached
a very high point ; but that product of the American
mine now controls the world's markets, and an ex-
port of $13,000,000 is not believed to have touched
an even reasonable limit.
In 1895, seventy per cent, of the total value of
domestic exports was composed of agricultural pro-
ducts. The products of the fisheries and of the
forest and mining, partaking of the qualities of agri-
cultural products in being subject to the law of
diminishing returns, raised the proportion to seventy-
seven per cent., leaving about twenty-three per cent,
contributed by American manufactures. The arti-
cles of food and the crude materials of manufactures
are exported to countries which have developed in-
dustrial rather than agricultural systems, and which
need the food to support their laboring populations,
and the raw materials to feed their industries. So
long as the United Kingdom held almost the mo-
nopoly in the great manufacturing industries where
machinery has superseded hand labor, our export
trade was chiefly with that country. Within twenty-
five years the rise of large manufacturing interests
on the Continent, and the extension of merchant
marines of continental countries, have been reflected
in the direction of American exports. What would
formerly have gone to Great Britain and thence been
distributed throughout continental Europe is now
sent to the continental countries direct.
To sum up, the United States export trade con-
tributes the cotton used in cotton manufactures
wherever the industry is developed ; by its bread-
stuffs and provisions it contributes a necessary ele-
ment to the support of the industrial peoples of other
lands, supplying a cheap and wholesome food ; its
mineral oils are to be found everywhere, giving a
cheap and safe light to peoples who have lived here-
tofore in semi-darkness ; its tobacco has always been
appreciated, as have its naval stores ; its agricultural
implements and tram-cars, its clocks and watches,
and its rubber goods are evidences of a superior
inventive ability. The lines of the export trade of
the United States are so broad and well defined that
nothing within the reach of human possibilities can
destroy their main features.
The imports do not require the special study that
exports seem to demand. The latter are a fair gauge
of the productive capacity of the country, for it is
only the surplus product which can be exported —
that which is beyond domestic consumption. Im-
ports measure the purchasing ability of the people
and constitute a rough measure of the industrial
advancement and of the degree of taste and well-
being attained. The development of the import
trade has been a process of selection, rejecting one
class or article and taking others, as the domestic
supply is sufficient or wanting. In the last century
all manufactures of a grade above the crudest were
brought in from abroad. There were few " indus-
tries " outside of the household industries, and con-
sequently little or no demand for raw material of
manufacture. A little cotton was imported ; some
lead from England ; and hemp, cordage, and cables
from Russia gave material for ship building; but
these few articles comprise all the imports which
can be directly identified with " industry." In 1795
a little unwrought steel came from the United Neth-
erlands ; somewhat later Swedish bar-iron took its
place ; but manufactured iron and steel have come
from the United Kingdom.
Compared with such a situation, the imports of
1895 offer a striking contrast. That there are a
large number of commodities of almost necessary
consumption which cannot be grown or prepared
in the United States needs no proof. Tea, coffee,
sugar, spices, and such tropical products can be ob-
tained in the required quantities by exchange more
easily and cheaply than by growing them. Articles
of food will, therefore, always constitute a large item
of imports, and in 1895 constituted one third of the
total. Imports of the crude materials of manufac-
tures—wool, cotton, flax, and hemp, coal and iron,
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24 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
and silk— constitute a measure of industrial growth thirds of the entire imports are received through
and conditions. By the establishment of domestic New York, and more than one half of the exports
industries, and by the refining of demand through are sent out through that port. The main geo-
the accumulation of wealth and the education of graphical features of the foreign commerce of the
taste, better products are demanded of both foreign United States are shown by the accompanying
and domestic manufacture. In 1895 the imports of figures :
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS IN 1895 BY GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS.
IMPORTS.
PEE CENT.
EXPORTS.
PER CENT.
PER CENT. OF IM-
PORTS AND EXPORTS.
$•183,645,813
52.4
$627,927,692
77-7
65.72
133,915,682
18.3
108,575,594
13-4
15-74
112,167,120
'5-3
33.525.935
4-2
9.46
77,626,364
10.6
I7.325.057
2.2
6.17
17,450,926
2.4
13,109,231
1.6
1.98
?, 700,160,
.8
6,377,842
.8
•79
1454,891
.2
696,814
.1
.14
Total
$731,969,965
$807,538,165
100.00
$613,737,342
83.8
$590,392,743
73 i
78.21
Gulf ports
18,865,503
2.6
130,275,045
16. i
9.69
40,568,501
5.5
36,879,310
4.6
Northern border and lake ports . . .
51,016,783
7,78l,8-j6
7.0
I.I
49,991,067
6.2
.CI
Total
$7'U, 060.061;
$807,538,165
IOO.OO
materials in a crude condition for use in domestic
industries comprised more than one fourth of the
total imports. What remained were articles manufac-
tured which could not be obtained in this country
to meet the tastes of the consumer or to gratify the
whims of fashion. The crude materials are, as a
rule, obtained from agricultural countries of recent
settlement, or from older countries sparsely popu-
lated, with a semi-civilized people. Australia is the
great source of wool-supply ; Cuba of sugar, Brazil of
coffee, Asia of silk, Egypt of raw cotton, and South
American countries of hides, skins, and india-rubber.
Manufacured articles are of European origin.
A word may be added on the geographical dis-
tribution of imports and exports in 1895. The
United Kingdom received forty-eight per cent, of
the exports and contributed twenty-two per cent.
of the imports. No other country approaches this
percentage in American trade. The natural advan-
tages of the harbor of New York long since pointed
it out as a great commercial center ; while the enter-
prise and liberality of State and citizens in making
internal improvements have enabled it to maintain
a dominant position in the face of intense and ap-
parently almost destructive competition. Canals
and railways and banking institutions having foreign
connections have made the city what it is. Two
Foreign commerce must grow with the increase
of population and wealth. From time to time fears
have been expressed that the United States is not
holding its own in foreign markets ; that its products
are being undersold by similar products of other
nations. Russian and Indian wheat, Indian and
Egyptian cotton, Russian petroleum, and, last, the
grain products of the Argentine Republic, have ex-
cited apprehensions the full extent of which have
never been realized. That competition from the
outside must produce some effect need not be ques-
tioned ; but that this effect could ever end fatally to
the productive interests of the United States is be-
yond belief. If the agricultural products of our
country no longer meet with favor in foreign mar-
kets, there will always be room for our manufactures,
the export of which has shown in recent years a
marked increase. In 1875 the value of exported
manufactures was $92,678,814, constituting 16.57
per cent, of the total exports. In 1895 the value of
manufactures was $183,595,743, constituting more
than twenty-three per cent, of the total. It is in
this direction that the greatest development of
American exports must lie ; and the field is so vast
that it will more than compensate for any reduction
in demand for food products or for materials in a
raw condition.
Q.
V T T T T
CHAPTER IV
INTERSTATE COMMERCE
r I AHE colonies, under the lead of Massachu-
setts, early attempted to provide roads ; yet
.A. for more than two hundred years nothing ex-
isted in this country that by any stretch of the ima-
gination could be called a postal service. The only
carriers of commerce for nearly two hundred years
after the first settlers sought these shores were the
simple sailing vessels, that crossed the ocean only at
the greatest hazard. Courageous attempts to navi-
gate the ocean waters and the almost unknown rivers
and lakes were numerous before 1800, and canals,
even, were attempted. It can hardly be said, how-
ever, that anything deserving the name of interstate
commerce existed in this country at the beginning of
the present century, since at that time the total effects
of the government were transported from Philadelphia
to Washington in a frail sloop, and President John
Adams and his wife lost their way, as tradition has
it, in the woods beyond Baltimore, as they proceeded
in their carriage toward the new capital. The Alle-
ghanies constituted an almost impassable barrier be-
tween the East and the West, and such necessary
products as the colonists could not obtain in their
immediate neighborhoods were mostly brought from
over seas.
There was another difficulty in the way of trade.
The high price of labor rendered it impossible to
manufacture linen, cotton, or woolen cloth, except
at a cost twenty to fifty per cent, greater than the
same stuffs could be turned out for in England. The
trade of New Hampshire was principally in lumber
and fish, which were exported. In Massachusetts a
little wool and flax were worked into a coarse cloth,
and a few hats were made, but it was cheaper to
import them. In the province of New York the ex-
port of furs, whalebone, oil, pitch, tar, and provisions
included everything. So it was in New Jersey.
Virginia produced nothing for intercolonial trade.
Tobacco was a permanent staple, but it became
chiefly an export. The early colonists were inevi-
tably sailors. Therefore a considerable coasting trade
grew up, but there were no means of internal trans-
portation except by wagons and the rude craft plying
the natural waterways. In spite of this the Consti-
tution, which went into operation March 4, 1789,
embraced the right to regulate domestic commerce,
— a right not conferred by the previous Articles of
Confederation, — and from that year one may find
exhibits of the tonnage employed in the coastwise
trade. In 1789 this tonnage was 78,607; in i8ia
it was 477.971-
The Americans of those early times had only a
vague knowledge of the country west of the moun-
tains ; yet the hardy settlers along the coast soon beat
out for themselves paths to this unknown region. The
act to provide for the Cumberland road was passed
in 1806, and the first stage-coach driven from Cum-
berland to Wheeling in 1818. The length of the line
first opened was 130 miles, and its cost $1,700,000.
In those years, too, were tried the first experiments
with steam-craft. Livingston and Fulton built the
Clermont in 1807, and Fulton claimed under his pat-
ent a monopoly of transportation on the Hudson and
other rivers. His claim was carried to the courts
and defeated, so that after 1815 the rivers of the
country were free to steam- vessels. In 1812 steam-
boats made their appearance on the Western rivers.
The first craft, the New Orleans, built at Pittsburg
by Fulton at a cost of $40,000, a stern-wheeler of
between 300 and 400 tons, put out for New Orleans.
Others followed, but none proved able to ascend the
river, until 1815, when the Enterprise, a stem-wheeler
of 70 tons, made the trip from New Orleans to Cin-
cinnati in twenty-eight days. It was later than this,
again, that steamships came gradually to ply up and
down the coast.
26
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The first charter for canal building was granted to
the James River Company by the legislature of Vir-
ginia in 1 785. Another of these projects was the Dis-
mal Swamp Canal, begun in 1 787, under a joint char-
ter from Virginia and North Carolina, and opened
in 1 794. The owners of its stock included George
Washington and Patrick Henry, and it was origi-
nally designed to facilitate the movement of lumber
out of the Dismal Swamp. The Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal, the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal,
and the Union Canal, of Pennsylvania, intended to
connect the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers, were
only forerunners of the Erie Canal, 363 miles long,
completed in 1825. A canal from Lake Champlain
to the Hudson River was completed in 1823. On
the opening of the Erie Canal the cost of freight
fell, according to its class, all the way in amount
from $15 to $25 per ton, and the time of transit
from twenty to eight days. Wheat was worth $33
per ton in western New York, and it did not pay
to send it to market, down the Susquehanna to Bal-
timore. The canal changed all that. Indeed, it
has been said that the Erie Canal added $100,000,-
ooo in value to the farms of New York State. It
made New York City the commercial metropolis.
Freight which had gone overland from Ohio to
Pittsburg and Philadelphia, at a cost of $120 per
ton, now went to New York by way of the lakes,
the great canal, and the Hudson. The opening of
the Erie Canal excited also a fever of enterprise in
canal building in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts,
Maryland, and Virginia.
The first voyagers on the Great Lakes, La Salle
and Hennepin, set sail in 1678 in a schooner of ten
tons, which they had launched near the present city
of Kingston, Ontario. From the mouth of the
Niagara River they continued their journey by land,
and in the following May launched the Griffin, the
first sailing vessel to navigate the upper lakes. In
September they reached their destination at Green
Bay. From 1700 until 1756 the construction and
navigation of sailing vessels on the lakes was
largely confined to Lake Ontario. Then the Eng-
lish began to build and sail vessels upon Lake Erie
and Lake Ontario, and the commerce of Lake
Ontario increased so fast, that in 1800 it exceeded
that of all the other lakes together. The first Ameri-
can vessel to sail Lake Erie was launched at Erie in
1798. The first steam- vessel that navigated the
Lakes was built at Sackett's Harbor in 1817, and
measured 240 tons. The next year the first steam-
boat above Niagara Falls was launched at Black
Rock, and made voyages between that place and
Detroit. The schooner Illinois, 100 tons, was the
first vessel to arrive at Chicago from the lower lakes.
"This event," writes one, "occurred July 12, 1834,
when all the male inhabitants of the village, amount-
ing to nearly 100, assisted in dragging the craft across
the bar."
Gibson and Linn, according to Ringwalt, in 1776,
descended the Ohio and the Mississippi from Pitts-
burg to New Orleans, and brought back a cargo of
136 kegs of gunpowder for the use of the continental
army. When they reached the falls of the Ohio River
they were obliged to unload their boats and carry
the cargo around the falls ; but the success of their
trip gave an impetus to the flatboat trade which has
continued in one form or another up to the present
time. The first regular packet line between Pittsburg
and Cincinnati was established in 1794, and con-
sisted of four keel-boats of twenty tons each. They
were much like the modern canal-boats, and could be
either propelled by sails, pushed by poles, or towed
by horses. Freight charges were high, the following
rates for steamboats on the Mississippi having been
established by the legislature of Louisiana in 1812 :
From New Orleans to Louisville, four and one half
cents per pound for heavy goods, and six cents for
light, averaging five cents per pound, or per ton
$112; from New Orleans to Natchez, three quarters
of a cent per pound, or $1.50 per barrel; and the
same rate for all intermediate landings from New
Orleans to Louisville. Passage, $125 for the full
trip, and $30 to Natchez. Half-rates were allowed
for tonnage going down the river.
Hon. Levi Woodbury, who made a trip down the
Mississippi in 1833, says : " At every village we find
from ten to twenty flat-bottom boats, which, besides
corn on the ear, pork, bacon, flour, whisky, cattle
and fowls, have a great assortment of notions from
Cincinnati and elsewhere. Among these are corn
brooms, cabinet furniture, cider, apples, plows, cord-
age, etc. They remain in one place until all is sold
out, if the demand be brisk ; if not, they move farther
down. After all is sold out they dispose of their
boat, and return with their crews by the steamers to
their homes."
By 1856, however, the steam-tonnage of the Mis-
sissippi and its tributaries equaled the steam-tonnage
of the whole of Great Britain. Until 1850 the boats
measured from 200 to 400 tons ; but the builders en-
larged their vessels from year to year, until, in 1878,
they attained the size of the transatlantic liners. The
steam-tonnage of the inland and coast lines of the
United States increased from 24,879 tons in 1823
to 1,172,372 tons in 1876, as follows:
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
INLAND AND COASTWISE FLEETS, 1876.
NUMBKR OF
VKSSELS.
TONNAGE.
Atlantic and Gulf coasts 2,081 665,879
1'ucific coast 270 78,439
Northern lakes 921 201,742
Western rivers 1,048 226,312
Total 4,320
1,172-373
In 1891 there were on the Great Lakes 3700
steam- and sail-vessels, with a net registered tonnage
of 1,250,000 tons. In that year they carried 63,-
250,000 tons of freight, while in 1890 the ton-mile-
age carried by this fleet was 18,849,348 ton-miles, or
24.7 per cent, of the ton mileage of all the railroads
of the United States. The tonnage of the lake
marine more than doubled during the five years
from 1887 to 1892. On the 16,000 miles of the
navigable waters of the Mississippi River and its
tributaries there were afloat, in 1890, 7445 crafts
of all kinds, with a registered tonnage of 3,400,000
tons. During the year this fleet carried 30,000,000
tons of freight and 11,000,000 passengers. The
Hudson River had, in the same year, a traffic of
5,000,000 passengers and 15,000,000 tons of freight,
exclusive of 3,500,000 tons that passed through the
canals of New York by way of the Hudson River
to tide-water. The total for these four divisions of
waterways alone was 111,750,000 tons. The Mis-
sissippi Valley rivers furnish transportation facilities
for twenty-four States, embracing an area of 1,240,-
ooo square miles.
The average freight rate on wheat from Chicago
to New York in 1890 was 5.85 cents per bushel by
lake and canal, and 14.31 cents per bushel by rail,
the water cost being $1.94 per ton, and the rail cost
$4.77 per ton. The Erie Canal is only a little over
300 miles long, yet Mr. Albert Fink says that it regu-
lates the freight rates of all the railroads east of the
Mississippi River, not only on those whose tracks run
parallel with the canal, but upon those which run in
the opposite direction.
The development of the railway system of the
United States has been without a parallel. Time
and distance have been overcome, and the products
of the farmers, the lumbermen, the miners, and the
artisans now reach in successful competition the
markets of the world. The railway had its incep-
tion less than seventy years ago in the little four-mile
tramway constructed in the town of Quincy, Mass.,
and operated by horses. The first really important
railway was the Baltimore and Ohio, fourteen miles
of which were opened in 1830. In the same year
the South Carolina Railway was begun ; in 1833 it
was completed for 1 36 miles, and was then the long-
est railway in the world. It was also the first rail-
way to carry the United States mails. In 1834 the
opening of the Philadelphia and Columbia Rail-
road, as part of the system of internal improve-
ments of Pennsylvania, gave that State a continu-
ous line of railways and canals from Philadelphia to
Pittsburg. In 1835 the Washington branch of the
Baltimore and Ohio road was opened. The com-
pletion of the Boston and Albany road in 1841, and
a connecting-link composing the line from Albany
to Buffalo in 1842, marked the opening of the first
great railway line. The real beginning of interstate
commerce in this country may be said to date from
this time.
The total railway mileage of the United States has
now reached 178,000 miles, or nearly one half the
railway mileage of the world. The total mileage
of all tracks reaches 235,000 miles, representing a
capital of nearly $i 1,000,000,000 — an amount equal
to one sixth of the entire wealth of the country, and
five times greater than the entire circulating currency
of the United States. The annual earning capacity
of this capital is $1,200,000,000 — an amount more
than three times the entire annual revenues of the
government ; and it operates lines having an annual
traffic of over 600,000,000 passengers and 745,000,-
ooo tons of freight. An idea of the magnitude of
this single branch, concerned with the transporta-
tion of freight, may be conveyed when it is stated
that 745,000,000 tons means that a train of cars
long enough to reach more than six times around the
earth would be required to transport it all at a single
load. The average distance over which this freight
was hauled by the railroads was about 125 miles.
Set a single team to the task, and it would take it
something like 1,020,547 years to move the same
amount twenty-five miles.
The total number of tons of freight carried by the
steamers and sailing vessels of the rivers, lakes, and
coastwise transportation routes of the United States
in 1890 was 182,448,402 ; the tonnage moved by
the railways in the same year was more than three
times greater. Suppose that there had been no in-
crease since 1890 in the water traffic, and add to this
amount the freight traffic of the railways during the
year 1893, namely, 745,119,482 tons; this would
make the total average tonnage of the railways and
waterways of the United States 927,967,884. It is
difficult to believe that the railways of the country
moved in 1893 more than eleven tons of freight for
every man, woman, and child within the boundaries
of the United States.
As late as 1850 there seems to have been little
28
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
conception of the influence which the railways were
to wield in the development of the interstate traffic
of this great country, and of the country itself. It
was thought that they could not successfully compete
with waterways and canals, except where a speedy
carriage was essential. The solution of the problem
of cheap transportation from Pittsburg, for example,
was not reached until the railroads threatened to
take away all traffic from the traders ; so that Pitts-
burg coal can now be delivered in New Orleans for
about $2.60 per ton, although New Orleans is 2000
miles away by river. Cow Island, on the upper
Missouri, is 4300 miles from Pittsburg ; yet coal is
carried to market there, a distance as great as from
New York to the Baltic Sea. Not less than 20,000
miles of inland navigable waters are accessible to
these Pennsylvania coal traders. The aggregate
number of vessels engaged in this business is more
than 4000, and of the 13,000,000 tons of coal that
were mined in 1893 in the counties near Pittsburg
about 4,500,000 tons were carried to market by
water. Yet let me illustrate further the growth of
domestic trade in a part of our country which was
only lately as remote and undeveloped as the west-
ernmost provinces of Brazil. This growth, due to
the transition from the pony express to the trans-
continental steam-car, quickened the activities of
California and of the whole Pacific slope like the
inspiration of a new life. The assessed value of all
property within California rose from $260,563,886
in 1869 to $584,578,036 in 1879. In 1889 ship-
ments were made over the lines of the Southern
Pacific system of 1,140,596,010 pounds from San
Francisco, and of 1,571,347,605 to San Francisco.
The probable duration of an overland journey from
the Missouri River to California before the conti-
nental railways were constructed was about no days.
It took Lewis and Clarke two years and a half to
travel from the Mississippi to the mouth of the Co-
lumbia and back.
It is claimed that the practically unobstructed
competition which has prevailed among railways has
been a main cause of many consolidations of rail-
way interests. On the other hand, in defense of con-
solidation and combination, it is asserted that these
result in better and swifter service and lower rates.
Whatever the cause or causes, rates generally are
much lower than they were ten years ago. On
June 30, 1894, 44 railways, each with an operated
mileage of over 1000 miles, out of a total of 1039
operating corporations, controlled and operated 56.30
per cent, of the total railway mileage in the United
States. Extend the classification to include all roads
operating over 400 miles of line, and it appears
that 90 corporations operate 72.90 per cent, of our
total railway mileage. In 1837 the superintendent
of motive power of the Columbia and Philadelphia
Railroad reported that the following charges were
imposed on the railroads named:
FREIGHT RATES ON RAILROADS IN 1837.
RAILROAD.
Baltimore and Ohio
Baltimore and Washington
Winchester and Potomac . .
Portsmouth and Roanoke . ,
Boston and Providence
Boston and Lowell
Mohawk and Hudson
Petersburg
PER TON PER MILE.
CENTS.
These rates seem preposterous when compared
with the .878 of one cent per ton per mile, which
was the average charge on all the railroads of the
United States during the year 1893.
The growth of lake commerce in this country is
something marvelous. The increase of freight ship-
ments through the St. Mary's Canal, both east and
west bound, was from 1,410,347 tons in 1881 to
8,888,759 tons m I%91> or an advance of over 530
per cent. There was an increase in the valuation
of this tonnage from $28,965,612.92 to $128,178,-
208.51, or an increase of over 340 per cent. During
the season of 225 days in 1891 in which this canal
was open there passed through it 7339 steamers
and 2405 sail-vessels — a total of 10,191 vessels,
or an average of over 45 per day during the entire
season. The total registered tonnage for the season
was 8,400,680. The freight which passed through
the canal was carried an average distance of about
800 miles, at a cost per mile per ton of 1.35 mills.
The size of the vessels passing through the canal con-
tinues to increase. The average registered tonnage
per vessel in 1867 was 626.3 tons, while in 1891 it
was 962.1 tons. This freight-tonnage during the
season of 1889 amounted to 19,717,860 tons. The
tonnage passing through the same canal during the
season of 1890, including the foreign and coastwise
traffic, amounted to 21,888,472 tons, while the ton-
nage of all vessels of the Atlantic coast engaged in
foreign trade during 1890 was but little more — 22,-
497,81 7 tons. All the vessel-tonnage engaged in the
foreign trade, entering and clearing at London, Eng-
land, during the same year was 13,480,767 tons, and
at Liverpool the same year it was 10,941,800 tons;
so that the vessel-tonnage passing through the De-
troit River in 1890 was more than 8,000,000 more
than that of London, about double that of Liver-
pool, and nearly equal to that of the two combined.
EDWARD A. MOSELEY.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Another comparison : The tonnage passing through
the Suez Canal in 1890 was 6,890,094 tons— less than
one third of that passing through the Detroit River.
It should be recalled, too, that the Detroit River was
open for navigation during the season of 1890 only
228 clays, while the Suez Canal was open during the
entire year. Take one more comparison : The total
tonnage, entrances and clearances, of the foreign and
coastwise trade of Chicago and Buffalo for the sea-
son of 1 890, as compared with that of the four great
British ports, was as follows :
TONS.
Chicago 10,288,868
Buffalo 9,560,590
London 20,962,534
Liverpool 16,621,421
Glasgow 5.977.860
Hull 5,061,882
Carrying the comparison still further, the volume
of this inland trade is again shown in the figures
giving the foreign trade of the following great com-
mercial ports :
TONS.
New York 12,646,555
Hamburg 10,417,096
Antwerp 8,203,999
Marseilles 7>392>556
Havre 4,418,876
Bremen 3,481,769
Boston 2,676,387
Philadelphia 2,585,866
San Francisco 1,980,483
It will be seen that the commerce of the two in-
land cities, Chicago and Buffalo, consisting almost
wholly of a coastwise trade within the confines of
the Great Lakes, compares most favorably with the
tonnage movement of the great maritime cities of
the world.
In 1859 the average freight rate by lake on a
bushel of corn from Chicago to Buffalo was 15^
cents; in 1871 the rate was 7^ cents per bushel.
In 1857 the average rate by lake and canal on a
bushel of wheat from Chicago to New York was
25.29 cents; in 1870 the rate for the same service
was 17.1 cents per bushel; in 1880 it was 12.27
cents per bushel ; and in 1890, 5.85 cents per bushel.
In 1870 the average rate of freight by rail on a
bushel of wheat from Chicago to New York was
33.3 cents; in 1880 the rate was 19.9 cents; and in
1890, 14.31 cents. In 1867 the average rate for
carrying iron ore from Escanaba to Lake Erie was
$4.25 per ton; in 1870 the average rate was $2.50
per ton; in 1891 the average rate was 82 cents per
ton ; and at one time in that year it was as low as
55 cents per ton.
The benefit of these great reductions in lake trans-
portation rates appears very forcibly in the move-
ments of the huge cargoes of coal that are sent from
ports on Lake Erie to the harbors of the upper lakes.
In 1887 the average rate per ton for lake transpor-
tation of coal from Buffalo to Chicago was $1.05;
in 1891 the average rate was fifty cents per ton ; and
from November 10, 1891, to the close of navigation,
coal was carried from Buffalo to Duluth, a distance
of 1000 miles, for ten cents per ton. Using the
common unit (cost per ton per mile) for compari-
son, and taking the official report of the movement
of freight through the St. Mary's Falls Canal, the
ton-mileage rate has decreased as follows: 1887,
2.3 mills; 1888, 1.5 mills; 1889, 1.5 mills; 1890,
1.3 mills. The average revenue per ton of freight
per mile on all the railroads of the United States was
given at 9.4 mills in 1890, or more than seven times
as much as the cost of freight carriage through the
St. Mary's Falls Canal.
The regulation of interstate commerce before the
Declaration of Independence was by Parliament.
Under the Articles of Confederation trade was con-
trolled, where it was controlled at all, by the legisla-
tures of thirteen distinct sovereignties. It soon be-
came evident that the several States would not unite
in any general or fixed rule to govern commerce.
Discriminations naturally followed, which resulted
in confusion and discord among the different parts
of the confederacy. Accordingly one of the reforms
demanded under the old confederacy, and intro-
duced in the Constitutional Convention, was that
" Congress shall have power ... to regulate com-
merce . . . among the several States." The dis-
satisfaction among the States in respect to the inter-
change of trade, and the urgent demand for a uniform
and general principle controlling their commerce,
were clearly shown in the debates of the Constitu-
tional Convention. The following contemporane-
ous opinions are of interest :
"The want of authority in Congress, under the
confederation, to regulate commerce had produced
in foreign nations, particularly Great Britain, a mo-
nopolizing policy injurious to the trade of the United
States. . . . The same want of a general power over
commerce led to an exercise of the power, sepa-
rately, by the States, which not only proved abortive,
but engendered rival, conflicting, and angry regula-
tions." (Madison Papers, vol. v., p. 119.)
" The oppression of the uncommercial States was
guarded against by the power to regulate trade be-
tween the States." (Mr. Sherman, Deb. on Fed.
Cons., Mad. Pap., vol. v., p. 434, 1787.)
" Mr. Carroll and Mr. L. Martin expressed their
apprehensions, and the probable apprehensions of
30
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
their constituents, that, under the power of regulat-
ing trade, the general legislature might favor the
ports of particulai States, by requiring vessels des-
tined to or from other States to enter thereat."
(Ibid., p. 455.)
To cover this defect, Art. I., Sec. 9, Cl. 6, of the
Constitution was enacted, to wit : " No preference
shall be given by any regulation of commerce or rev-
enue to the ports of one State over those of another,
nor shall vessels bound to or from one State be
obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another."
General Washington, in a letter to a friend on the
weakness of the confederation, and pleading for a
stronger government, wrote: "We have abundant
reason to be convinced that the spirit of trade
which pervades these States is not to be repressed.
It behooves us, then, to establish just principles, and
this cannot, any more than other matters of national
concern, be done by thirteen heads differently con-
structed and organized. The necessity, therefore,
of a controlling power is obvious, and why it should
be withheld is beyond my comprehension."
Alexander Hamilton, in the " Federalist," Letter
VII., wrote : " The competition of commerce would
be another fruitful source of contention. The States
less favorably circumstanced would be desirous of
escaping from the disadvantages of local situation,
and of sharing in the advantages of their more for-
tunate neighbors. Each State or separate confed-
eracy would pursue a system of commercial probity
peculiar to itself. This would occasion distinctions,
preferences, and exclusions which would beget dis-
content. The habits of intercourse on the basis of
equal privileges, to which we have been accustomed
from the earliest settlement of the country, would
give a keener edge to those causes of discontent
than they would naturally have, independent of the
circumstances." Also, in Letter XXII. : " The inter-
fering and unneighborly regulations of some States,
contrary to the true spirit of the Union, have, in
different instances, given just cause of umbrage and
complaint to others ; and it is to be feared that ex-
amples of this nature, if not restrained by a national
control, would be multiplied and extended till they
became not less serious sources of animosity and dis-
cord than injurious impediments to the intercourse
between the different parts of the confederacy."
In the debates of the Constitutional Convention
the clause regulating commerce, etc., was agreed to
nem. con., not even a yea-and-nay vote being taken.
When the grant of this power to regulate commerce
among the States was made by the Constitution,
the traffic which might be controlled under it was
quite insignificant. On the land there was nothing
that could approach the dignity of interstate com-
merce, and its regulation, as also of that which was
exclusively State traffic, was for the most part left to
the rules of the common law. The exceptional regu-
lations, if any seemed to be called for, were made
by the State laws. For the regulation of commerce
on the ocean and other navigable waters, Congress
very promptly passed the necessary laws ; but its
jurisdiction within the limits of the States was not
very clearly understood, and it was not until the cele-
brated case of Gibbons vs. Ogden, decided in 1824,
that it was authoritatively and finally determined
that the waters of a State, when they constituted a
highway for foreign and interstate commerce, are, so
far as concerns such commerce, as much within the
reach of Federal legislation as are the high seas, and
consequently that exclusive right for their navigation
cannot be granted by States whose limits embrace
them. But while providing from time to time for
the regulation of commerce by water, Congress still
abstained from undertaking the regulation of com-
merce by land. The reasons were the same. The
land commerce was insignificant, and the rules of the
common law were in general found adequate for the
settlement of any questions. When Congress pro-
vided for the construction of the Cumberland road,
it was thought undesirable to regulate its use by
national law, or to take national supervision of the
commerce upon it ; and it was left to the supervision
and care of the States through or into which the
road was built. With the application of steam as a
motive power for propelling vessels, conditions were
immediately changed. But even then the circum-
stances were favorable to a prolongation of State con-
trol. The first improved highways were turnpikes,
the next in grade canals ; but the highways by water,
as well as the highways by land, were provided for
by the States. It was not unnatural that they should
be left in charge of the regulation of trade upon
them, especially as no complaint was made that
their regulations were unjust, or that they discrimi-
nated unfairly as against the citizens or the business
of other States. When, in 1830, steam-power began
to be applied to the propulsion of vehicles upon land,
the same conditions continued to prevail. The power
of the Federal government in the regulation of com-
merce between the States was put forth negatively
rather than affirmatively ; that is to say, it was put
forth in restraint of excessive State power, instead
of by way of affirmative national regulation.
1 See First Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce
Commission.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
31
The subject of the management of railways in re-
spect to interstate commerce had been more or less
discussed in Congress, when in March, 1885,3 reso-
lution was adopted by the United States Senate
empowering a select committee, known subsequently
as the Cullom Committee, to investigate it. On
January 18, 1886, this committee submitted a re-
port based upon testimony contained in more than
1450 printed pages. On page 40 the committee
says : " Unjust discrimination is the chief cause of
complaint against the management of railroads in the
conduct of business, and gives rise to much of the
pressure upon Congress for regulating legislation."
In summing up the testimony, on pages 180-182
the committee says : " The complaints against the
railroad systems of the United States expressed to
the committee are based upon the following charges :
(i) That local rates are unreasonably high, com-
pared with through rates. (2) That both local and
through rates are unreasonably high at non-compet-
ing points, either from absence of competition or in
consequence of pooling agreements that restrict its
operation. (3) That rates are established without
apparent regard to the actual cost of the service per-
formed, and are based largely upon what the traffic
will bear. (4) That unjustifiable discriminations are
constantly made between individuals in the rates
charged for like service under similar circumstances.
(5) That improper discriminations are made between
articles of freight and branches of business of a like
character, and between different quantities of the
same class of freight. (6) That unreasonable dis-
criminations are made between localities similarly
situated. (7) That the effect of the prevailing pol-
icy of railroad management is, by an elaborate sys-
tem of secret special rates, rebates, drawbacks, and
concessions, to foster monopoly, to enrich favored
shippers, and to prevent free competition in many
lines of trade in which the item of transportation is
an important factor. (8) That such favoritism and
secrecy introduce an element of uncertainty into
legitimate business that greatly retards the develop-
ment of our industries and commerce. (9) That the
secret cutting of rates, and the sudden fluctuations
that constantly take place, are demoralizing to all
business except that of a purely speculative charac-
ter, and frequently occasion great injustice and heavy
losses. (10) That in the absence of national and
uniform legislation the railroads are able, by vari-
ous devices, to avoid their responsibility as carriers,
especially on shipments over more than one road,
or from one State to another, and that shippers find
great difficulty in recovering damages for the loss of
property or for injury thereto, (i i) That railroads
refuse to be bound by their own contracts, and arbi-
trarily collect large sums in the shape of overcharges,
in addition to the rates agreed upon at the time of
shipment. (12) That railroads often refuse to recog-
nize or be responsible for the acts of dishonest agents
acting under their authority. (13) That the common
law fails to afford a remedy for such grievances, and
that in case of dispute the shipper is compelled to
submit to the decision of the railroad manager or
pool commissioner, or run the risk of incurring fur-
ther losses by greater discriminations. (14) That
the differences in the classifications in use in vari-
ous parts of the country, and sometimes for ship-
ment over the same road in different directions, are
a fruitful source of misunderstandings, and are often
made a means of extortion. (15) That a privileged
class is created by the granting of passes, and that
the cost of the passenger service is largely increased
by the extent of this abuse. (16) That the capitali-
zation and bonded indebtedness of the roads largely
exceed the actual cost of their construction or their
present value, and that unreasonable rates are charged
in the efforts to pay dividends on watered stock and
interest on bonds improperly issued. (17) That rail-
road corporations have improperly engaged in lines
of business entirely distinct from that of transporta-
tion, and that undue advantages have been afforded
to business enterprises in which railroad officials are
interested. (18) That the management of the rail-
road business is extravagant and wasteful, and that a
needless tax is imposed upon the shipping and trav-
eling public by the unnecessary expenditure of large
sums in the maintenance of a costly force of agents
engaged in a reckless strife for competitive business."
The report of Senator Cullom's Committee formed
the basis of the law commonly known as the Inter-
state Commerce Act, which became effective April
3, 1887. The Supreme Court in the case of the
Union Pacific Railway Company against Goodridge,
October term, 1892, in speaking of a similar act of
the State of Colorado, said : " This act was intended
to apply to interstate traffic the same wholesome rules
and regulations which Congress two years thereafter
applied to commerce between the States, and to cut
up by the roots the entire system of rebates and dis-
criminations in favor of particular localities, special
enterprises, or favored corporations, and to put all
shippers on an absolute equality."
The statute recognizes the fact that it is no proper
business for a common carrier to foster particular
enterprises or to build up new industries ; but, deriv-
ing its franchise from the legislature, and depending
32
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
upon the will of the people for its very existence, it
is bound to deal fairly with the public, to extend rea-
sonable facilities for the transportation of persons and
property, and to put all its patrons upon an absolute
equality. The laws making the giving of transpor-
tation privileges a criminal offense are at present
difficult of enforcement. Public opinion has not
yet been roused to the energetic condemnation
which is necessary to make these special favors as
completely unknown as they are at the post-office
window, where the value of every stamp must be
paid.
At the head of all the vast machinery employed
in moving interstate commerce are men of integrity,
and of ability rarely developed in other walks of life,
broad-gauged men, to whom the public is indebted
for the efficiency with which they carry on their stu-
pendous enterprises. Under the railway presidents
are the traffic managers, the passenger and freight
agents. The feeling of these men that they must
serve solely the corporations which employ them
has grown to be a second nature with them. Their
duty to the government and to the public, therefore,
is sometimes obscured, and it is hard for them to
realize that many practices which they have come
to regard as ordinary business methods are wrong.
So also the shipper and the merchant find it hard to
realize that the push and barter and dicker that have
made them successful must be abandoned when they
ship their merchandise ; that it is no longer to be
bargained for, and cannot be carried except at a
rate open to every competitor.
On February 4, 1887, the Act of Congress creat-
ing the Interstate Commerce Commission, and in-
vesting it with authority to regulate certain matters
with respect to commerce which were detrimental
to the public interest, and with authority to require
annual reports from all carriers engaged in carrying
interstate commerce, was passed. This act, being
in the nature of experimental legislation, has not
accomplished all that its framers hoped or intended,
but that great good has been accomplished cannot be
denied. Various defects in its practical application
have from time to time been brought to the atten-
tion of Congress, and amendments to remedy some
of them have been adopted. The statistics compiled
from the reports required under the provisions of this
act have marked a new era in railway statistics in this
country. Being compiled from sworn reports made
up on a uniform plan and for a uniform period, in
compliance with a requirement of law, and published
as official documents of the government, they are
accepted as authority, and eagerly sought after by
the public and by railway officers.
I may observe in closing that within the past two
or three years the courts have taken advanced ground
in asserting the power of the Federal government over
interstate commerce. It was held by the Supreme
Court in the case of Debs that " the government of
the United States is one having jurisdiction over
every foot of soil within its territory, and acting
directly upon each citizen ; that while it is a govern-
ment of enumerated powers, it has within the limits
of those powers all the attributes of sovereignty ; that
to it is committed power over interstate commerce
and the transmission of the mail ; that the powers
thus conferred upon the national government are not
dormant, but have been assumed and put into prac-
tical exercise by the legal action of Congress ; that in
the exercise of those powers it is competent for the
nation to remove all obstructions upon highways,
natural or artificial, to the passage of interstate com-
merce or the carrying of the mail; that while it
may be competent for the government (through the
executive branch, and in the use of the entire execu-
tive power of the nation) to forcibly remove all such
obstructions, it is equally within its competency to
appeal to the civil courts for an inquiry and deter-
mination as to the existence and character of any
alleged obstructions, and if such are found to exist,
or threaten to occur, to invoke the powers of those
courts to remove or restrain such obstructions." In
this case the extent and nature of the power of the-;
Federal government over interstate commerce, and
the methods by which that power can be applied,
were discussed. It was decided that the United
States Circuit Court, sitting as a court of equity,
has power to enjoin, at the instance of the Attorney-
General of the United States, acts of obstruction to
interstate commerce, notwithstanding that the acts
enjoined, or some of them, might amount to offenses
against the criminal law of the United States.
While it is clearly the fact that, under our form
of government, the national authority has no excuse
for interfering with the relations existing between
employer and employee in ordinary business transac-
tions, it is maintained by many that as the govern-
ment has control of the agencies engaged in interstate
commerce, those who are employed by such agencies
are also engaged in the public service, and for that
reason an obligation exists on the part of Congress to
enact such legislation as will tend to settle differences
which may arise between railroads and their em-
ployees without causing inconvenience to the public.
A
CHAPTER V
THE POSTAL SERVICE IN COMMERCE
IT is something more than a mere figure of
speech to call the post-office the right hand
of commerce. The rapid transmission of
news, domestic and public, has been of enormous
benefit to individuals and the general community,
but to the merchant it has been paramountly one of
the most important factors in successfully carrying
on his commercial enterprises. We can scarcely
conceive how a business of any consequence could
ever have been prosecuted without the aid of this
most important and, I am happy to say, best appre-
ciated branch of the government service. To tell
the story of the post-office in commerce, therefore,
would be to recite the history of the service itself,
from the time in England, in 1533, when the few
posts that were established were for the exclusive
use of the sovereign, down to the present day, when
the letter of the poorest and most despised person
in the British dominions or in the United States is
treated as sacredly and handled with as much care
as though it were written by the Queen of England
or the President of our country. Even with the
generous space allotted to me I can only hope to
allude briefly to the most important episodes in the
service, whose history is a part of the annals of
commercial progress throughout the world.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century there
were only four established posts in the British do-
minions— one to Ireland, one to Scotland, one to
Plymouth, and one to Dover, the last-named being
the most important and most used, because it passed
through the county of Kent, the highroad to the
Continent. There were no commercial relations
between one town and another, but the foreign trade
was considerable. Many foreigners, on account of
being persecuted in their native countries, had been
driven to London. It was the era of the Flemish
merchant, who introduced the manufacture of
woolen cloth, and so successfully that the exports
from England to the Netherlands in the time of
Philip II. amounted to 5,000,000 crowns annually.
These Flemish merchants were exceptionally intel-
ligent, and nearly all the peasants they employed
were able to read and write. A nice little quarrel
arose between the crown and the foreign merchants
in London. The latter claimed the right to send
their letters by their own agents ; the crown insisted
that all communications should be sent through the
regular channel. This feud had existed for many
years. A proclamation issued in 1591 gave the
state a monopoly of carrying letters through the
county of Kent, a law which was applied to all the
postal routes eighteen years later. In 1 603 another
proclamation gave to those who furnished horses for
the post carriers the exclusive right of letting horses
to travelers ; but the foreign merchants, against
whom these proclamations were directed, still per-
sisted in sending their letters by their own special
messengers, procuring horses from other quarters.
Another proclamation, in which magistrates were
urged to see that horses were procured at the post-
houses alone, had no effect. Under Lord Stanhope,
the master of the posts (what we should call the
postmaster-general) at that time, there was a for-
eigner of the name of De Quester, who was superin-
tendent of the foreign post, and who had discharged
his duties so faithfully, sending the government des-
patches with such promptness, that the king, in
1619, made him "Postmaster of England for For-
eign Parts out of the King's Dominions." Doubt-
less this appointment was partly intended to induce
the foreign merchants to give up their special mes-
sengers ; but it not only failed to produce that effect,
but gave dire offense to Lord Stanhope, who had
letters patent to his office which declared that he
had charge of the internal parts of the kingdom and
those "beyond the seas within the king's domin-
ions." In this way, through the practice of the
foreign merchants in employing special messengers,
a serious quarrel was brought about between Lord
33
34
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Stanhope, De Quester, and the king, which was
referred to the Privy Council for settlement. The
Council finally agreed that the foreign merchants
(who, by the way, were called " merchant adventur-
ers ") were " to have a post of their owne choice "
to the city of Hamburg and town of Delft, " where
the staples of cloth are now fetched, or to have such
other place or places whither the same shall happen
to be removed." This action superseded De Ques-
ter's appointment, though some few restrictions were
imposed upon the merchants. Stanhope gained a
lawsuit he had instituted to defend his rights, and
Billingsley, a broker who had been carrying the for-
eign merchants' letters, was sent to prison, but after-
ward, on petition to the king, released.
From the earliest days of the English post-office
the merchants had been favored ; their bills of ex-
change, invoices, and bills of lading, when written
on a single sheet of paper, were exempt from post-
age. The postmaster-general contended that the
exemption applied only to foreign letters ; the mer-
chants claimed that inland letters were included;
otherwise, they shrewdly observed, "letters might
go cheaper to Constantinople than to Bristol." The
result of the controversy was that the merchants
procured an act to be passed declaring their inter-
pretation of the law to be correct.
When Sir Rowland Hill, the father of penny
postage, was making his brave fight for postal reform,
he was glad to have the aid of a committee of
London merchants to collect evidence in favor of
his plans. The chairman of this committee was
Mr. Bates, of the house of Baring Brothers ; and
other members equally prominent were obtained
without difficulty. When the act in favor of penny
postage had passed the House of Commons the
measure had to come before the House of Lords.
The ultraconservative element were in the habit of
saying in those days, " Thank God, there 's a House
of Lords!" One of the members of the Mercantile
Committee, with an enterprise that would be com-
mendable in a nineteenth-century journalist, sought
to " interview " the Duke of Marlborough, who was
a member of the Upper House, thinking, very
properly, that if some expression from him in favor
of the measure could be obtained before it came up
for consideration in the House of Lords, it would
be of immense advantage to the postal reformers.
But " interviewing " was not in vogue in that day,
and the noble lords were unapproachable, especially
to persons who had " views " about reforming any
branch of the English government. The merchant,
representing the committee, wrote to the duke that
they would like to see him and present their reasons
for demanding reform in postal matters, and a re-
duction of the rate to a penny. The duke's reply,
through his secretary, was that "he is not in the
habit of discussing public affairs in private, and he
declines to receive the visits of deputations or indi-
viduals for the purpose of such discussions." Row-
land Hill then wrote a letter to his Grace, giving his
reasons for the establishment of a uniform penny
postage. The duke never answered the letter, but
when the debate came up in the House of Lords he
supported the measure. The merchant of to-day
will smile, as I suppose the merchants of that day
were amused, at the objection of one noble lord to
Rowland Hill's scheme. He argued that, under the
low rate of postage, the amount of correspondence
would be so greatly increased that " the whole area
on which the post-office stands would not be large
enough to receive the clerks and the letters." The
mind of many an English official or statesman be-
comes peculiarly dense when he comes face to face
with some reformatory measure that is going to
make things easier and more convenient for his gov-
ernment or the English people. Rowland Hill mildly
observed that his lordship should have no hesitation
in deciding " whether, in this great and commercial
country, the size of the post-office is to be regulated
by the amount of correspondence, or the amount
of correspondence by the size of the post-office."
In the early history of the post-office in America
it is singular that our colonies were considered sec-
ond in importance to one of the West Indian Islands.
By an order of the English government in 1688,
after prescribing the rates of postage to be charged
between the mother country and Jamaica, the order
reads: "And his Majesty is also pleased to order
that letter-offices be settled in such other of his
Majesty's plantations in America as shall be found
convenient for the service and the ease and benefit
of his subjects." Four years later, in 1692, Thomas
Neale obtained a grant from the crown authorizing
him to "set up posts in North America." Neale
never left England, but appointed Andrew Hamilton
his representative in this country. By 1698 a
weekly post, running over 700 miles of road, had
been established between New York and Boston,
and from New York to New Castle in Pennsylvania.
The postage on a letter between New York and
Boston was a shilling. £20 a year was paid "to
Mr. Sharpus, that keeps the letter-office at New
York," who earned ^170 in addition for carrying
the mail half-way to Boston, and the mail from
New York to Philadelphia. A salary of ^10 was
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
" allowed to him that keeps the letter-office at Phil-
adelphia," and an allowance of^ioo to the deputy
postmaster of Virginia and Maryland.
The receipts from the service increased each year.
In 1693 the receipts of the New York office were
£61; in 1695, £9,2; in 1696, ^93; in 1697,
;£«22. The "Boston, Road Island, Connecticut,
and Piscataway posts " produced from .£148 the
first two years 10^298 in the fourth. The post to
Philadelphia kept improving, but the Virginia and
Maryland routes never yielded anything; in fact,
were run at a loss of ^600, the correspondence not
exceeding i oo letters a year. The whole system did
not pay expenses, and in 1697 Neale was .£2360
out of pocket. The great question was then, as it
has been even in later years, " How can the postal
service be made self-supporting? " Hamilton pro-
posed that the rates should be raised, that the post
carriers should go " ferry free," and that ship-cap-
tains (after a regular postal rate had been settled
between England and America) on both sides of the
Atlantic should be required to take the mail they
had, at once, to the post-office of the port at which
they first touched. Under the new rate, the charge,
where the distance was not more than eighty miles
from New York, was sixpence ; to and from Boston,
twelvepence ; to and from Boston and Annapolis,
Md., thirty-six pence ; " to and from New York and
James Towne, 380 miles, and many broad and
dangerous bays and rivers to be ferryed over," thirty
pence. The English government, according to its
own home officials, had not supported the postal
service in the colonies as it should have done, the
extent of its interest showing itself in an annual
appropriation of ^50, in consideration of which the
government letters were to be carried free. Its
own postmasters-general, about this period, admitted
that the posts in private hands could not prosper for
want of due encouragement, and they recommended
that the service should be carried on by the govern-
ment. Neale's offer to sell his patent for ^5000,
or ^1000 a year for life, or for the unexpired term
of the grant (about sixteen years), was not accepted
by the government. He died in debt, his interest
in the posts having been transferred to Hamilton,
who died in 1703, when his widow took charge of
the business for three or four years, and in 1707 the
posts became vested in the crown. In 1722 the
posts began to be self-supporting. In August of
that year the postmaster-general wrote : " We have
now put the post-office in North America and the
West Indies upon such a foot that for the future, if
it produce no profit to the revenue, it will no longer
be a charge to it ; but we have good reason to hope
there will be some return rather from thence."
In these early days, when there was a monthly
service between Boston and New York, the post-
office in the metropolis was a locked box that stood
in the office of the secretary of the colony. It took
four weeks, in those times, to accumulate a post-
rider's mail, even with the " small portable goods "
that were allowed to be carried in that way. Later
on, in 1775, after the time of Benjamin Franklin,
the first postal reformer, who established the penny
post, made newspapers pay, quickened the pace of
the riders, advertised letters, etc., the New York
post-office was located in a printing-house in Water
Street. Ebenezer Hazard, a bookseller, was the
postmaster, and William Goddard, an enterprising
journalist and printer of New York (born in New
London, Conn.), had charge of the route to Phila-
delphia, Mr. Hazard managing the route to Boston.
This latter route will be remembered for notable
exploits in the way of post riding, including the ride
of Paul Revere, who in 1773 rode from Boston to
New York, and thence to Philadelphia, with the
news of the " Boston tea-party " ; that of Ebenezer
Hurd, who was in the service forty-eight years,
traveling over as much space as twelve and one half
times around the world, or as far as the moon and
half-way back ; and the most famous ride of Paul
Revere in 1775, when he proclaimed the intended
movement of the British army to Lexington and
aroused the people to arms.
The development of the ocean postal service
presents interesting phases. In the days of New
Amsterdam the whole colony looked upon the
arrival of a ship as the most important event of the
day. It was of special interest to the merchants,
whose correspondence was first delivered to them,
after which the letters for the general public were
distributed, the crowd always being down at the
dock waiting to receive their mail. The masters of
ships sailing to and from America in those days un-
consciously instituted what the well-known reformer,
Mr. J. Henniker Heaton, of England, is striving to
bring about in the present day— ocean penny post-
age ; that is to say, correspondents would drop let-
ters in a coffee-bag hung up in one of the coffee-
houses that were so common then on both sides of
the water, and the masters of the vessels would call
for the mail just before sailing, and deliver the let-
ters at the port of destination, charging one penny
for a single letter and twopence for a double one.
When Thomas Neale (already mentioned in this
article) failed to make the inland post pay in the
36
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
colonies, he proposed to establish sea rates of post-
age. Letters would then be in charge of the post-
office, and the shipmaster, as its agent, would hand
them over to a postal official on arriving in port.
Correspondence, it was argued, that was being
delivered by private hand, under the new system
would have to pass through the posts and pay regu-
lar rates, which should be sixpence for a single let-
ter, one shilling for a double letter, and one shilling
sixpence for a packet. The English postal author-
ities of that day were wiser than those of the time
of Rowland Hill, for they answered that the way to
increase the revenue of the post-office was to " make
the intercourse of letters easy to people." Rowland
Hill, one hundred and fifty-nine years later, had to
struggle long and hard to convince the post-office
department of the truth of this proposition, while
the postmasters-general in the time of Neale wrote :
" The easy and cheap corresponding doth encourage
people to write letters," and declared that the postal
revenue had been increased when the rate, before this
time, had been reduced from sixpence to threepence.
The system of the coffee-house delivery of letters
was used by the residents of " Breucklyn, Pavonia,
and Hackensack," who left their mail at some well-
known tavern previously agreed upon. This custom
was followed until after the English took possession
of New York. The best-known coffee-houses in New
York were the Exchange Coffee-House, located at
the foot of Broad Street, and the Merchants', located
on the southeast corner of Wall and Water streets.
After the War of 1812 the mails were carried by
the packet service, which had been rapidly devel-
oped, owing to the increased trade between America
and Europe. Frequent trips were made, and the
facilities for foreign correspondence were much bet-
ter than they had been. Then, from 1840 to 1855,
came the era of the clipper-ships, which were built
with special reference to speed, and whose services
were quickly utilized by the American newspapers,
the best representatives of our national spirit of
enterprise. One of these clipper-ships, in 1846 (the
Toronto, of the Morgan Line), beat the Cunard
steamer from Liverpool, bringing a copy of the
London " Times," containing European intelligence,
forty-two days later than the last paper received.
The New York " Herald " secured this prize, and
published an " extra " about it the same afternoon.
In 1845 Congress authorized the postmaster-
general to make contracts for the transportation of
the foreign mails, which had now become an impor-
tant feature of the postal service. After the ocean
mail service had become fairly started it was im-
proved rapidly. Various suggestions have been
made from time to time as to granting subsidies for
this service. My own opinion is that the ships
should receive proper compensation for carrying the
mails, on the same plan that we pay the railroads,
or should do the work under contract for specified
distances. The amount of foreign mail carried has
increased enormously. In 1840, when the Great
Western brought it over, the British mail amounted
to two sacks ; at the present time it amounts to five
or six truck-loads. Over 100,000 letters are now
despatched from New York every sailing-day, and
nearly the same number are received. The next
great step in perfecting this branch of the service
will be universal international penny postage. To
bring about this change, Mr. J. Henniker Heaton,
M.P. from Canterbury, has been and is working
with the same intelligence and persistency that
characterized Rowland Hill ; and eventually, I hope
and believe, he will meet with the same success.
The growth of the railway mail service is another
most important feature in the history of the postal
service. The railroad was first used as a post-office
in England in 1837, between Liverpool and Bir-
mingham. On the completion of the railroad line
the following year what was called the " flying mail "
train was started from the British metropolis to
Birmingham. In 1834 the mails were being con-
veyed in the United States over seventy-eight miles
of railroad, being carried in closed bags. In 1860
Postmaster-General Holt arranged to run a mail-
train between New York and Boston, via Hartford
and Springfield, with the idea of forwarding East
the Southern mail more promptly, instead of allow-
ing it, as the practice had been, to remain over a
day in New York. The following year a railroad
mail was established between New York and Wash-
ington. In 1863 it was suggested that "post-office
cars" could be placed on the principal railroad
lines, and that clerks could sort the mail for the
terminal points and intervening stations while the
cars were in transit. A test of this system was
made in 1864, under the direction of the postmaster-
general, by Colonel George B. Armstrong, at that
time assistant postmaster at Chicago. The test was
made between Chicago and Clinton, la., August
28, 1864. There were then no pigeonhole cases for
letters, nor such conveniences for handling the mails
as now exist. Under the system then in vogue they
were not necessary ; for postmasters were required
to post-bill all letters, paid and unpaid, wrap them
in paper, those for each post-office in the State being
done up separately, and write the name of the post-
THOMAS L. JAMES.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
37
office of destination on the package. Those for
other States were massed together, wrapped up, and
addressed to the nearest distributing post-office.
In 1864 a successful experiment of the same kind
was made on the route between New York and
Washington, expert clerks from the principal East-
ern cities being selected for the work, which, it may
be said, has been always exceptionally well done.
Even as far back as 1863 a convention of special
agents reported of the employees : " The amount of
labor they perform and the degree of intelligence
exhibited can hardly be estimated outside the
department."
In 1865, in quick succession, postal cars were
placed on the lines between Chicago and Daven-
port, la., Chicago and Dunleith, 111. ; and the
Chicago- Burlington and Galesburg-Quincy lines
were established. The first railway postal service
was put on the Philadelphia- Pittsburg route, on all
the principal railroad lines leading out of Chicago,
and on the Hudson River and New York Central
railroads, between New York, Albany, and Buffalo.
The new system made more rapid progress in the
West than in the East, the New York and Washing-
ton and the New York and Albany-Buffalo being for
a long time the only postal-car routes. But the suc-
cess of the service in the West led to its extension
not only in the Eastern States, but over the whole
country, so that by 1872 there were railway post-
offices on fifty-seven lines of road.
Another improvement that marks the progress of
the postal service was the change in the rate of post-
age in 1851. Before that year the rate was five
cents per half-ounce for a distance not exceeding 300
miles, and ten cents exceeding that distance. In the
year mentioned the rate was changed to three cents
per half-ounce for a distance not exceeding 3000
miles, and ten cents exceeding that distance. The
use of adhesive stamps was authorized in 1847 and
made compulsory in 1856. In 1863 the distance
limit for carrying a letter was removed. In the
same year the free-delivery or carrier system was
established in 49 cities. In 1895 the carrier service
is in use in 610 cities. There are about 12,000
carriers employed, at an annual cost of about $n,-
323,000. There are twice the number of carriers
now employed in Chicago than were in the service
throughout the entire country in 1864.
In 1854 the registry system was established, which
is certainly one of the greatest conveniences the
commercial world possesses. It took five years to
improve it and bring it into general use. The
safety of the system is illustrated by the fact that
the losses by fire, accident, and theft amount to but
one in every 16,306 pieces. About 15,000,000
pieces of all classes of matter are registered in a
year. In 1864 the money-order system was estab-
lished. Within the first six months 419 offices were
made money-order offices; now there are nearly
20,000 such offices.
Business men, more especially publishers, will re-
call the law of 1875 which enabled them to mail
newspapers and periodicals at the rate of two cents
per pound. Ten years later this law was amended
so as to make the rate one cent per pound. In
making this change the government showed that it
recognized the newspaper and the periodical as
educators. Although this wise provision has been
abused to such an extent as to make it largely
responsible for the postal deficiency, it is safe to say
that the law can be so amended in the future as to
stop the abuses complained of, and at the same time
preserve the undoubted advantages which, by its
operation, are conferred upon the people.
In the extent of its work and the manner in which
the service is performed it is safe to say that the
postal department in this country cannot be excelled
by any other in the world. A late English writer
(Mr. Herbert Joyce, of the London post-office) has
this to say : " American progress has long been the
wonder of the world, and in nothing, perhaps, has
it displayed itself more remarkably than in the mat-
ter of the posts. The figures which the United
States post-office presents to us year after year — fig-
ures as compared with which even those of the post-
office of Great Britain fall into insignificance — make
it difficult to believe that only two hundred years
ago an enterprising Englishman [Thomas Neale]
was struggling to erect a post between New York
and Boston."
The United States spends more money on its
postal service than any other nation, the expendi-
tures in 1874 amounting to $84,000,000, while
Germany, the next in postal rank, expended less
than $64,000,000, and Great Britain less than $37,-
000,000. The United States is ahead of the other
countries in annual transportation on railroads and
other roads, the miles of service in 1894 being 264,-
717,595 ; and in Germany, next in rank, 112,480,-
758. Our postal service gives employment to
about 180,000 persons ; that of Germany to 155,000 ;
and that of Great Britain to 131,000.
CHAPTER VI
OUR MERCHANT MARINE
EASTWARD for 3000 miles of the group of
fifteen States along the fringe of the sea
from Massachusetts to Georgia, which Jay's
treaty gave a recognized place among the mari-
time and commercial powers of the world, stretched
the barren Atlantic; for 3000 miles to the west
stretched forest, plain, prairie, mountain, and lake,
storing a wealth the extent of which no man of
that time, even in the most extravagant burst of en-
thusiastic prophecy, was to conjecture, and the de-
velopment of which has been the marvel of man's
industrial progress. If our merchant marine has
lagged far behind our other national industries ; if,
for the time, it has been outstripped by competitors,
while American manufacture and agriculture have
pushed themselves into the front rank, it must be
borne in mind that illimitable natural resources,
roughly to be gauged by the creation into new States
of over 2,000,000 square miles of territory, and by
an increase of upward of 60,000,000 in population
during the century, have stood behind the latter.
The American merchant marine, on the other hand,
in the unrestricted rivalry of nations, — which, from
the nature of the element, must obtain upon the high
seas, — for forty years has been hampered by the re-
tarded use of modern materials of construction, and
by restrictions forbidding it to enter that rivalry on
even terms with competing nations, which have
sought out and applied every device to promote
their own navigation.
The record of the American merchant marine
from 1795 to the present day may be divided into
two periods. The first, covering two thirds of the
century after the promulgation of Jay's treaty, was
a period of growth, culminating in the possession of
the largest tonnage which up to that time had ever
borne the flag of any nation but one, and in the
attainment by the United States of a rank on the
ocean second only to that of Great Britain and all
her colonies combined, with the promise that before
many years our sea power would be unsurpassed.
At the end of the second period the total tonnage
of our great rival surpasses ours three to one, and
on the ocean nine to one. We hold by uncertain
tenure third rank as a mercantile power on the sea ;
and of the hundreds of steamships under every flag
crossing the Atlantic and the Pacific from our shores
to the Old World, only fifteen fly the Stars and Stripes.
The dividing-line in time between these strongly
contrasting periods was vaguely within the decade
from 1855 to 1865. The forces which during this
interval turned our maritime progress into retrogres-
sion, in the order of their ultimate importance, were
the substitution of iron for wood as the chief mate-
rial of marine construction, the diversion of the
nation's energies from the sea to internal develop-
ment, and the losses inflicted upon our mercantile
marine by the Civil War. Even these causes would
not have sufficed to produce such destructive results
had not the inadequacy of our laws, compared with
the laws of rival nations, intensified their operations.
Wherein lies that inadequacy and how it may be
remedied are questions which unfortunately are mat-
ters of partizan dispute. They cannot, accordingly,
be discussed within the limitations necessarily placed
upon this volume.
On December 31, 1789, the merchant fleet of the
United States amounted to 201,562 tons, of which
123,893 tons were registered for the foreign trade,
68,607 tons enrolled for the coasting trade, and the
remainder engaged in the fisheries. In May, 1789,
James Madison, in the House of Representatives,
stated that the tonnage entered in Massachusetts,
New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, South
Carolina, and Georgia amounted to 437,641 tons
(including repeated voyages), of which only 160,907
tons were foreign. " This circumstance," said Mr.
Madison, "annexed to our capacity of increasing
the quantity of our tonnage, gives us a favorable
presage of our future independence." By 1795 the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
tonnage of our merchant fleet had increased to 747,-
965 tons, and in 1820, in spite of the oppressive
influence of the Embargo acts, to 1,280,167 tons,
583,657 tons of which were in foreign trade, com-
pared with a tonnage for the entire British empire
of 2,648,593 tons. Three years later the American
tonnage (counting repeated voyages) entering the
United States from foreign ports amounted to 810,-
761 tons, compared with 119,487 foreign, of which
89,553 tons were British.
At the outset the efforts of the United States to
engage in the carrying trade were met by discrimi-
nating duties imposed by our older rivals on Ameri-
can vessels. Sharp retaliation, begun by the first
Congress and consistently followed up, forced nation
after nation to withdraw from this mode of warfare
upon our commercial life, and led to a series of
treaties of friendship, navigation, and commerce,
which are the basis of our trade relations with the
world. By these treaties, associated with illustrious
presidents, and negotiated, as secretaries of state and
ministers, by Albert Gallatin, John Quincy Adams,
Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, Daniel Webster,
James Buchanan, Hamilton Fish, Thomas F. Bay-
ard, and others, the United States obtained for their
vessels in the ports of nearly every civilized nation
equal treatment with that accorded to the vessels of
the nation itself, and in return granted to foreign
vessels in our ports the same treatment which we
accord to American vessels. The negotiation of
these treaties is doubtless the most splendid achieve-
ment of American diplomacy ; it is surely one of the
greatest boons ever conferred upon the mercantile
marine of the world. The destructive effects of
discriminating and retaliatory taxation of shipping
upon all who resort to it had been forced home
upon our early statesmen by the experience of the
colonies and of the Confederation ; and in freeing
for all time American shipping, and with it the ship-
ping of the world, from such warfare, they gave to
navigation and to the international trade by which it
lives an impetus equal in its way to that given by
the substitution of steam for sail.
Enlisting a people predisposed to the sea, within
easy reach of boundless forests permitting the build-
ing of vessels more economically than was possible
in England, which was already compelled to import
much of its ship-timber, and freed by diplomacy
from foreign restrictions, the American merchant
marine in 1860 had reached the impressive total of
5>353,868 tons, of which 2,379,396 tons were regis-
tered for foreign trade. The total tonnage of the
United Kingdom was but 4,586,742 tons, and of
the entire British empire, 5,710,968 tons, while the
combined tonnage of France, the component parts
of the present German empire, and Norway was lew
than the tonnage we were employing in foreign trade
alone. The tonnage (including repeated voyages)
of American vessels entering the United States from
foreign ports during that year was 5,921,285, and of
foreign vessels, 2,353,911 tons. The tonnage of
American vessels entering and clearing at the ports
of Great Britain and Ireland was 2,981,697 tons,
against 3,227,591 tons German and French com-
bined.
In 1850 the new tonnage built by the United
States amounted to 272,218 tons, while that built
by Great Britain amounted to only 133,695 tons.
In 1860 our new tonnage was 214,798, and that of
our foremost rival, 301,535 tons. Our relative
positions had changed during the decade before the
war. In 1 85 5, the year of our greatest construction,
the United States built 2027 vessels, of an aggregate
tonnage of 583,450, of which 381 were full-rigged
ships. By a steady and rapid decline, without equal
in our marine history, the product of our yards in
four years fell to 875 vessels, of 156,602 tons, in
1859, of which but 89 were full-rigged ships, ris-
ing in 1860, but only to 214,798 tons. The decline
is not to be attributed to the substitution of steam
for sail, for, as the home of Robert Fulton, this
country in the early years of steam-navigation easily
took and held the first rank. In 1860 our steam
fleet aggregated 867,937 tons, of which 97,296 tons
were registered, against a total steam tonnage of
only 500,144 for the entire British empire. But
the change from wood — the material of marine con-
struction in which our new country abounded — to
iron, in the cheap production of which Great Britain
excelled, completely altered the conditions of ship-
building, and thus changed the conditions of our
own and competing merchant marines. The reasons
for this change of material, as well as the changes in
models which it necessitated, may be more appro-
priately considered under American Ship Building.
Only the fact and its relation to our merchant marine
are within the scope of this article. The fact be-
came important because our laws restricted the
American merchant marine to home-built ships.
We stood by the principle that the privileges of the
flag and of national register should be bestowed
only on home-built ships. Great Britain and other
nations had already abandoned that principle, or
soon after gave it up. Her foreign and colonial
relations, too, had impressed upon England the im-
portance of established lines of steam-communica-
40
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
don by sea, and forced upon her the policy of liberal
assistance in the establishment and maintenance of
such lines. Without insular or remote dependencies,
and freed from foreign complications, the United
States lacked the motive which made popular in
Great Britain the policy of steamship subsidies ; and
we took it up and abandoned it intermittently, thus
establishing an uncertainty in legislation which in
business affairs is often industrially more harmful
even than a wrong policy consistently pursued.
The policies of admitting foreign-built vessels to
the national register, — or " free ships," as it is popu-
larly designated, — and of subsidies to shipping, may
not be considered, under the restrictions placed
on this article; but without transgressing proper
bounds, it may be said that the two are not con-
flicting nor alternative policies, but independent
methods of dealing with different subjects. The
former aims to encourage navigation under the
national flag; the latter to promote domestic ship
building. All other nations have adopted one or
both of these policies. Our own country has adopted
and consistently followed neither. Our merchant
marine, in consequence, has naturally yielded place
on the seas to rival nations which hastened to adopt,
and have steadily supported, legislation adjusted to
the changed conditions of construction wrought by
the substitution of steel for wood as the chief mate-
rial of ship building.
Eastward for 3000 miles from our shores stretched
the Atlantic, barren, but familiar in its dangers and
rewards, and as naturally the home of the ambitious
American as of the ambitious English boy, as natu-
rally the place for the investment of American as of
British capital. For more than half a century it had
been the scene of many of our enterprises. The
discovery of gold in California in 1 849 ; the begin-
ning of our railroad system, which doubled in the
decade from 1855 to 1865 ; the discovery of petro-
leum, carrying confusion to our whaling-fleets, — to
name but a few of many causes,— at this time turned
westward from the sea our enterprise and capital.
The certainty of reward for labor and capital, and
the amount to be hoped for, were greater there than
the Atlantic or China trade could offer ; and from a
maritime power, pressing close upon Great Britain,
the United States became a railroad power of the
first magnitude. Other articles of this centennial
volume, testifying to our wonderful inland growth,
bear silent witness to one cause of the decline of
which this article is required to speak.
From 1861 to 1865, the period of the Civil War,
the American tonnage registered for the foreign
trade fell from 2,540,020 tons to 1,504,575 tons;
and within the four years immediately following the
blockade of Southern ports by the Union fleets and
the fitting out of Confederate privateers to destroy
Northern merchantmen, 874,652 tons of American
shipping were transferred to foreign flags. In Sep-
tember and October, 1862, the Alabama burned
eighteen American merchantmen ; and the damage
then done to American vessels and cargoes by pri-
vateers fitted out in British ports was later com-
promised by the payment of $15,000,000 to us by
Great Britain. In 1865 the tonnage (including re-
peated voyages) of American vessels entering the
United States from foreign ports had decreased to
2,943,661 tons, while the foreign tonnage had in-
creased to 3,216,967 tons. The war thus tremen-
dously accelerated a decline of American shipping
which from other causes was already inevitable.
The carrying power of the world's sea-going mer-
chant marine in 1875 was 28,407,946 tons ; in 1895
it is 49,526,847 tons. The relative rank of the five
principal sea powers at the beginning and end of
this period follows :
MARITIME POWERS, 1875 TO 1895.
1895.
I87S-
British
27,885,806
13,^47.^8^
German
4,065,282
1,604,773
i 261.082
4IO6 467
Norwegian
2,W?,I73
i,40t;,<x8
French
2,121,550
• i.ttfo.aoo
All others
0,84.0,0^4
6,204,879
Total
4Q. ^26.847
28.4.07.04.6
During the last twenty years the United States
and Germany have changed their relative ranks,
and this year only seven per cent, of the world's
sea-going tonnage is under the American flag, as
compared with fifteen per cent, twenty years ago.
The United States and Italy alone of the ten prin-
cipal maritime nations show a decline in over-sea
carrying power since 1875.
During the fiscal year 1 894 the tonnage of Ameri-
can vessels (counting repeated voyages) entering the
United States from foreign ports was 4,654,679 tons,
while the foreign tonnage was 15,334,984 tons.
The American tonnage entering from Europe was
341,876 tons; the foreign, 9,326,235 tons. Trans-
atlantic voyages from the United States to Europe
and Africa numbered 187 under the American flag,
compared with 5626 under foreign flags; of trans-
pacific voyages to Asia, Australia, and Oceanica, 311
were under the American and 351 under foreign
EUGENE T. CHAMBERLAIN.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
flags. Our shipping in foreign trade is now almost
wholly engaged in voyages on the Lakes and north-
ern borders to the British possessions, and to Central
America, the Caribbean coast of South America,
and the West Indies. The statistics given, and con-
clusions to be drawn from them, should be modified
by one consideration, which, though not a matter
of official record, is a well-understood business fact.
Within the last fifteen years American capital has
purchased abroad a considerable number of steam-
ships, and American enterprise is operating them in
transatlantic trade. Though barred by the law from
the use of the flag, these vessels are the evidence of
an awakened maritime spirit, promising the attain-
ment of higher maritime rank by the nation. This
awakened spirit has already secured the admission
of the Paris and New York and the construction of
the St. Louis and St. Paul, giving to the country a
line of four steamships unsurpassed in the world.
The United States, in consequence, for the first time
in many years, have entered into competition for
the express, passenger, and mail traffic of the north
Atlantic. In one instance we have thus adopted
the policy — free ships and liberal compensation to
home-built ships for public services — by which our
rivals on the sea have made themselves formidable.
If that instance is sporadic, its full results are already
in sight. But if it is the beginning of a new policy,
approved by the experience of nations, we are enter-
ing our second mercantile century with the promise
of a restored merchant marine.
More than fifty years must pass before the history
of the first century of our merchant marine on the
Pacific coast can be written. Beginning in 1849 at
San Francisco with 722 tons sail, our Pacific fleet
doubled its tonnage during the war period, and now
numbers 1520 vessels, of 456,359 tons. San Fran-
cisco stands alone among our chief seaports as enter-
ing and clearing in foreign trade a larger tonnage of
American than of foreign vessels ; and with the open-
ing of new Asiatic markets and the need of steadily
increasing tonnage our geographical position des-
tines us to be the sea power of the Pacific. The
century's record of American shipping on the At-
lantic coast has been a story of national pride, tem-
pered with national regret and mortification ; the
record of our shipping on the Pacific is one of brief
achievement and good promise. Splendid perform-
ance and bright augury, not only for the particular
section itself, but for our national future as a mari-
time power, fill every year of the record of our mer-
chant fleets on the Great Lakes. Two years after
Jay's treaty the first small merchant vessel was built
on the lakes west of Niagara, and when the first
half-century was ended the tonnage of our lake
ports was only 89,000 tons. On June 30, 1895, our
lake fleets comprised 3342 vessels, of 1,341,459 tons,
half in numbers and two thirds in tonnage being
steam-vessels. This fleet in carrying power may be
estimated at 2,666,261 tons. These figures mean
that we have created on our inland seas a mercan-
tile naval power excelled only by the strength of
Great Britain or Germany on the high seas, greater
than France or Norway, or than any other two
maritime powers combined. Natural bonds, easily
broken, fetter from free employment on the ocean
our reserve powers as a ship-building and ship-own-
ing nation, now confined to the Great Lakes. So
eager to pass these barriers have these powers been
that the lake interests have built steamships for the
Pacific trade, cut them in two in order to pass the
locks and canals which separated them from the
Atlantic, and then put them together for the voyage
round the Horn. Of our 669 steamships of over
1000 tons, 359 are shut within the lakes. Our
production of iron and steel draws close upon, and
in several years has surpassed, that of Great Brit-
ain. Freed by a ship-canal to the Atlantic, our
lake ship-building interests — having close at their
doors the center of production of sixty per cent, of
our iron output — can compete on the high seas,
and who could then doubt that interests which in
confinement have outstripped the nations of the
world, except two, will help to restore to the United
States again the rank it held as close second to the
entire British empire only thirty-five years ago ?
Join the union of the Great Lakes to the Atlantic
with a removal of the narrow Central American
barrier which separates the Atlantic and Pacific,
and, as steel in time becomes cheaper here than
anywhere in the world, may we not look even to
surpass in the first half of our second century the
rank we attained in the first half of our first century,
and take to ourselves the rule of the wave?
Eastward of the forty-four States of the Union for
3000 miles, westward for 5000, stretch the oceans
as we begin our second century of commercial in-
dependence, a nation richer in performance and
promise than any other the world knows. Geog-
raphy, natural resources, and our benign policy of
neutrality point to an ultimate destiny for this country
as the world's great ocean carrier of the future.
&U3UU.
CHAPTER VII
OUR COMMERCIAL WEALTH AND VOLUME OF BUSINESS
N'OT since the history of the world began has
there been such a marvelous advancement
of all factors creating wealth and developing
trade and commerce as during the past century ; nor
in any other section has the result been so phenomenal
as that attained in the United States. In 1795 this
country had acquired but a fraction of its present
geographical limits ; to the West it reached only
to the Mississippi River, and not until 1803, by
the purchase of Louisiana, did its territory extend
north and west to the Pacific and south to the
Gulf of Mexico. In addition to the thirteen
original States, Vermont and Kentucky had been
admitted to the Union ; but the populated area of
the country was only 366,000 square miles, against
3,580,000 square miles to-day ; and the total popu-
lation was approximately 4,500,000, scattered along
the Atlantic coast, the center being about the city
of Baltimore ; while to-day the population is about
70,000,000, or more than fifteen times as great, the
center of population having moved almost directly
west nearly 500 miles.
It is hardly necessary to explain that the com-
merce of the country in 1795 gave little promise of
what it has since become. The only efficient means
of transportation were, of course, by water, travel by
land being a tedious process, in wagons or on horse-
back, over rough and unsatisfactory roads. It is
self-evident that domestic trade at that time was of
a primitive character, and any attempt to fully char-
acterize it must fail except in so far as indicated by
a comparison of imports and exports.
Leading domestic industries one hundred years
ago included the manufacture of household and
other (chiefly wool and hemp) textile products and
rag carpets, pig and bar iron in a small way, wheel-
wrighting and smithing, lumber, carpentry, furniture,
wagons, harness, hats, shoes, ships, and meat pro-
ducts, the whole probably not aggregating very
many million dollars in value annually. A review
of the total value of the annual products of these or
like domestic industries in the census year 1890
presents a picture of unparalleled expansion, the
value of the products in the nineteen lines indicated
amounting five years ago to the enormous total of
more than $4,107,000,000, in addition to which our
metallic and mineral products in 1890 were valued
at fully $587,000,000. It would be impracticable
to indicate fully the thousand and one kindred in-
dustries to which some of those identified with the
earlier history of our country have given rise. And
no reader of these pages need be reminded of the
enormous stimulus to the production of wealth
resulting from the railroad, which is only about sixty
years old, from the discovery of petroleum or min-
eral oil, the manufacture of illuminating gas, and
the production and development of electrical motors
and appliances.
The total value of foreign shipments from the
United States in 1795 was about $47, 989,000, which,
while small when viewed from the standpoint of to-
day, meant a great deal at the time, in that it repre-
sented an increase of 1 50 per cent, over the total four
years previous. The exports were mainly to France
and her possessions, the free cities of Hamburg and
Bremen, Great Britain and her dependencies, Spain
and her possessions, the United Netherlands, the
Danish West Indies, Italy, China, and the East
Indies. Traffic with Russia was of some impor-
tance, but with the other countries of northern
Europe it was inconsiderable.
A fair estimate of the character of our export
trade at that time may be gained from a report of
the Secretary of the Treasury in 1793, covering the
year 1792, which enumerates, among the leading
articles of foreign shipment, breadstuffs, tobacco,
rice, wood, salted fish, pot and pearl ash, salted
meats, indigo, horses, mules, whale-oil, flaxseed, tar,
pitch, and turpentine, breadstuffs constituting more
than one third of the whole. South Carolina and
42
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
« Georgia were prominent as producers and shippers
of indigo, but that was before cotton had become a
noteworthy product. It had been grown and ex-
ported as early as 1791, but only in small quantities ;
the cotton-gin, invented by Eli Whitney, did not
appear until two years later. In his celebrated re-
port on Manufactures, Secretary Hamilton, though
expressing the hope of a future of usefulness for the
cotton industry, yet said that, " not being, like hemp,
an universal production of the country, it afforded
less assurance of an adequate internal supply ; " and
he devoted some space to the advocacy of the re-
peal of the duty on imported cotton, as well as of
granting a bounty on cotton produced in the United
States, when wrought at a home manufactory. In
a comparatively few years, however, all this had
changed, and American cotton had become a factor
of the first importance in the commerce of the world.
At the period under consideration the import ex-
ceeded the export trade in value. Imports for the
year 1795 were valued at $69,756,258. Of this
total, $30,972,215 came from Great Britain and
her possessions, England furnishing $21,108,350.
Next in importance was France and her possessions,
of which contributions the French West Indies sup-
plied the greater share. Following these came in
order Spain and her possessions, the United Nether-
lands and their possessions, the Danish West Indies,
Portugal and her possessions, Hamburg and Bremen,
Russia, China, and the East Indies. The importa-
tions from Great Britain comprised manufactures of
wool, cotton, linen, silk, metal, glass, and paper,
together with salt, steel, lead, nails, cheese, beer,
and porter; those from the East Indies included
cotton, sugar, and pepper; from the West Indies,
spirits, sugar, and coffee ; and from other countries,
coffee, sugar, molasses, brandy, gin, wines, and tea.
Although the total value of exports from the
United States one hundred years ago was $47,989,-
472, by 1844 (fifty years later) it had grown to
$105,745,832 — more than doubled. It was during
this period, of course, that highways were con-
structed between some of the larger trading centers,
that the Erie Canal was built, and that the country
reached a high degree of prosperity as a commercial
nation. It was obliged to wait for the development
of its agricultural resources and its shipping interests
on the New England, south Atlantic, and Gulf
coasts. The total value of importations in 1795
was $67,756,258, and fifty years later (in 1844) it
had grown to $102,604,606, an increase of more
than fifty per cent.
While to no nation has been given a preeminent
manufacturing genius, yet we have probably de-
veloped peculiar skill not only in improving upon
inventions which came to us in the rough, but also
in the more general utilization of them upon a much
grander scale. At the outbreak of our late Civil
War the total value of exports had increased to
$333i576>°57> about seven times the value sent
abroad in 1795. The aggregate value of importa-
tions in 1860 was $353,616,119, being five times
the corresponding total in 1795.
In 1877, at the beginning of the revival after the
period of depression following the panic of 1873
(which was the outcome of inflation, overtrading,
and speculation succeeding the war), exportations
for the year were valued at $602,475,220, or about
twice the like total in 1860, and nearly twelve times
the value of shipments abroad in 1795. Importa-
tions in 1877 were valued at $451,323,126, an in-
crease of forty per cent, over the total in 1860, and
nearly seven times the aggregate value in 1795.
From 1877 a rapid expansion in the volume of our
domestic and foreign trade took place, not only in
exportations of cereal and other domestic products,
but owing to the extension of our railroad system
and the diversification and development of our
manufacturing industries. Over-speculation in finan-
cial circles brought on the panic of 1884, which
was followed by a reaction in business, and after that
came a wide expansion of trade in 1 890, 1 89 1 , and
1892, followed by the panic of two years ago.
In the fiscal year 1894, one hundred years after,
the total value of exports amounted to $1,019,572,-
873, forty per cent, more than in 1877, three times
the value of shipments abroad in 1860, and more
than twenty-one times the total value of our exports
in 1795. The aggregate value of importations into
the United States in 1894 was $740,730,822, an in-
crease of sixty per cent, as compared with 1877,
more than double the corresponding total in 1860,
and eleven times the total value of importations in
'795-
An indication of the grand total value of the in-
terior and exterior commerce of the United States
must be an approximation only, owing to the dearth
of statistics. One hundred years ago the total
value of imports and exports amounted to only
$117,745,730, but in 1894 like totals aggregated
$1,760,203,695, or fifteen times as much. While
there are not the necessary data to indicate closely
the total volume of our domestic trade at the close of
the last century, there is, of course, much, although
incomplete, information bearing upon the interior
traffic of the United States to-day.
44
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Any general estimate of the wealth of the coun-
try at the close of the last century is, of course, de-
ficient when contrasted with census reports on that
subject during the past forty years. The total,
$620,000,000, is the appraisement of the value of
houses and lands one hundred years ago, and must,
of course, overlook much personal property of value,
particularly in that it does not take account of the
value of slaves. But even if one should presume
that, with all allowances for this and other omitted
items, the grand total was as much as $900,000,000,
the contrast with the total wealth of the country in
1850, after half a century of growth, was startling
indeed, showing an increase of nearly eightfold.
By 1860 we had more than doubled the material
resources of 1850. The ratio of gain from 1795 to
1860 (when the total was $16,157,000,000), was still
more remarkable, showing more than sixteen times
the total at the close of the last century. From
1860 onward the increase of national wealth was so
rapid that comparisons with the beginning of the
century become fairly amazing. The increase by
1870 was nearly twenty-seven to one, in 1880 nearly
forty-nine to one, and in 1890, less than a century
having elapsed, the total wealth of the country was
nearly seventy-five times that in 1795, the census
placing it at $65,037,000,000.
When it comes to the development of our trans-
portation interests by land and water, the record of
expansion of our railroad traffic within sixty years is
seen to surpass that of the remainder of the civilized
world, with 178,000 miles of main line of railways,
$5,075,000,000 of capital stock, $5,665,000,000 of
funded indebtedness, $1,080,000,000 of gross an-
nual earnings, and net traffic earnings of $322,000,-
ooo per annum, the railways having transported
about 675,000,000 tons of freight alone in 1894.
Our marine transportation interests, notwithstanding
the check since the Civil War, present a total of
25>54° craft registered at United States interior
cities and ports, sailing from the Pacific, Gulf,
and Atlantic coasts, on the Mississippi, Ohio, and
Monongahela rivers, and on the Great Lakes, valued
at $215,000,000. Freight transportation on the
Mississippi, Ohio, and Monongahela rivers in 1894
did not vary much from 22,000,000 tons, or a little
more than half that estimated to have been carried
on the Great Lakes, where the total was about 40,-
000,000 tons. On the Erie and tributary canals the
total tonnage last year probably amounted to about
one tenth that on the Great Lakes, or 4,000,000
tons, which would leave probably not to exceed
125,000,000 tons of freight carried seaward per
annum in vessels registered at the United States
ports. This indicates that the total freight tonnage
transported by water on the Mississippi, Ohio, and
Monongahela rivers, on the Great Lakes and the
Erie Canal, and seaward on vessels registered at
United States ports, is less than one third the weight
of freight transported by the railways of the country
each year.
Another evidence of the rapidity of the growth of
the wealth of the country is conveyed in the fact
that, whereas the government receipts in 1795
amounted to only $9,419,802, last year they aggre-
gated $313,310,166, more than thirty-four times as
much ; and while the expenditures of the govern-
ment in 1795 amounted to $10,435,070, last year
they were more than thirty-five times as much —
$356,135,215. On the other side, there was a pub-
lic debt of $80,747,587 one hundred years ago (a
dozen or more years after the close of the Revo-
lutionary War), while on December i, 1895, the net
national debt was not quite fourteen times as large,
amounting to only $1,125,883,997. The signifi-
cance of this exhibit lies in the fact that notwith-
standing the enormous expense involved in four
years of Civil War — three decades ago ; notwith-
standing the consequent check to commercial and
industrial enterprise in those and in succeeding years
of rehabilitation, yet so great were our powers of re-
cuperation, and so remarkable was the ability of the
nation to liquidate its enormous war debt, that we
find ourselves to-day with a national debt of only
$16 per capita, as contrasted with one of $18 per
capita one hundred years ago — a dozen years after
the close of the War of the Revolution. These
facts in reference to the relative national indebted-
ness, at once interesting as well as instructive, gather
significance when viewed in conjunction with best
obtainable data respecting the wealth of the country
one hundred years ago and to-day. The strength of
our position may be expressed in the statement that
whereas our national debt amounted to $18 per
capita at the close of the last century, and our
national wealth approximately to $200 per capita-
to-day the national debt is only $16 per capita, and
the wealth per individual somewhat more than
$1000. The postal service, of modest propor-
tions in 1795, had already begun to show remark-
able growth, for from the time the Constitution went
into effect the number of post-offices had grown
from 75 to 453. At this time there are more than
70,000 post-offices in the country, and the revenue
and expenses have increased in almost as great a
ratio.
CHARLES F. CLARK.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Recognizing the many and diverse elements in-
volved in any discussion of the volume of domestic
trade, it remains to be pointed out that the total
amount of gross earnings of railroads in the United
States in 1894 amounted to $1,080,305,000, or $61,-
000,000 more than the total volume of our exports
of produce, coin, and bullion for that year, and
more than twice the volume of gross railway earn-
ings in 1877, seventeen years ago.
The foregoing outline of some of the more im-
portant elements involved in any consideration of
the development of the commerce and the wealth of
the United States during the past century must for-
ever stand out conspicuously, as indicating a rapidity
and withal a conservatism of growth on the part of
a new empire the like of which the world has never
seen.
Perhaps as fair an indication, within limitations,
of our total volume of wholesale business, foreign
and domestic, is that given by totals of transactions
at clearing-house banks — about 1000 in number —
at nearly eighty of the more important cities. Dur-
ing 1894 the grand total of bank clearings aggre-
gated nearly $45,000,000,000, although the corre-
sponding total two years before amounted to nearly
$62,000,000,000, the largest annual aggregate re-
ported since clearing-house totals have been col-
lected. These transactions represent, for the most
part, wholesale dealings at nearly all the larger towns
and cities throughout the country, and, to a smaller
extent, retail transactions in that portion of the busi-
ness of the country which are settled with checks.
It would not be so bold a stroke as it might ap-
pear to estimate the probable approximate grand
total of business transacted annually, not only
through the banks, but across counters, both whole-
sale and retail. The average total of bank clearings
annually during the past five years has been about
$55,000,000,000, or thirty-two times the total value
of our exports and imports, including coin and bul-
lion, in the fiscal year 1894. This indicates in some
degree the enormous preponderance in the value of
our total commercial and industrial transactions, as
compared with that portion carried on with foreign
countries. It would be difficult to conceive of the
total value of all our domestic and foreign commerce
(judged by bank-clearing totals and other available
data) as averaging less than $70,000,000,000 annu-
ally, and probably a larger sum would be required
to gauge it.
Perhaps as striking an indication of the enormous
expansion of wealth and business in the United States
within one hundred years as any other is found in
the statement that whereas the approximate total
banking capital of the country in 1 795 was about
$12,000,000, the total capital of national and other
banks two years ago, as reported by the comptroller
of the currency, amounted to $1,067,000,000, in
addition to which there were reported belonging to
the banks $686,000,000 of surpluses and profits.
From this it would appear that whereas the total avail-
able banking capital of the country one hundred
years ago was only about $2.65 per capita, the pro-
portion per capita two years ago was only about six
times as much. Yet the banking capital of the
country two years ago was about eighty-nine times
the amount in 1795. It may strike many as
remarkable that, whereas the population has in-
creased fifteen-fold, the volume of business probably
thirty-three times, and the wealth of the country more
than seventy-five times within the last one hundred
years the total banking capital is, in round num-
bers, only about six times as much per capita to-day
as at the close of the last century. The lesson
taught by this is most timely in this day of ex-
cessive and frequently unnecessary fears that the
volume of the currency of the country will not be
maintained at the maximum. The development of
the clearing-house principle in business, the syste-
matic organization and wide-spread distribution of
credits of merchants and manufacturers, together
with the enormously increased use of checks, drafts,
and bills of exchange, — representatives of credit, —
are practically responsible for the ability of the banks
to do the enormous business of the country on only
six times the banking capital per capita they pos-
sessed one hundred years ago.
With the tenfold increase in populated area of the
country our population is fifteen times as large as it
was at the close of the last century, while the in-
creasing complexity of governmental administration
has increased total receipts from customs and inter-
nal revenue thirty-four times and expenses thirty-
five times what they were in 1795. It may be no
more than a coincidence, but it is certainly note-
worthy that an increase of 1500 per cent, in popula-
tion has brought with it almost the same increase
in the total annual volume of exports and imports.
The fact that total gross railway earnings have
doubled in seventeen years is far less significant than
that they are in excess of the total volume of our
exports of merchandise, produce, coin, and bullion.
But of even greater interest is the fact that the an-
nual volume of bank clearings at about eighty cities
throughout the United States indicates a grand total
of domestic and foreign trade probably forty times
46
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
greater than the total value of exports and of im-
ports. There remains only to be recalled the in-
crease of our interior commerce to thirty-eight
times the volume of our business with foreign
countries, over and above which is the picture
of the total wealth of the country— nearly seventy-
five times what it was at the beginning of the
century.
In thus concluding a hurried and necessarily brief
review of some of the more salient features of the
development of the wealth, trade, and manufactur-
ing industries of the United States, the suggestion
is almost involuntary that there still remains, in spite
of much that has been accomplished in recording our
material advancement, an opportunity for perfecting
and supplying systems by which records may be
kept of various spheres of activity. It is a matter
of regret that more definite information is not ob-
tainable respecting what should go to make up an
accurate estimate of the total volume of the trade of
the country. It is highly probable that estimates
and calculations presented herewith get as close to
the fact as practicable, yet much might be done
were statistics affecting trading, transportation, and
banking compiled and prepared with the system
and comprehensiveness which mark reports of the
Census Department on manufacturing industries of
the country.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CORPORATION IN COMMERCE
THE word "corporation" is comprehensive.
Every nation, every State, every city, town,
and village, is a corporation. Every parish
and every similar church society is a corporation,
and so are most of our colleges and institutions of
learning. The history of such corporations during
the last hundred years, interwoven as it is with our
national development, would fill volumes ; but in this
article the writer must confine himself to some re-
marks upon the corporation with which we are famil-
iar in business — the ordinary joint-stock corporation,
operated for the profit of the shareholders. The part
played by such corporations in the history of the
last century of American commerce is a conspicuous
one, and a concise historical sketch of this impor-
tant form of business organization, giving a brief
glimpse at its remarkable growth, together with
some reflections as to its influence upon the business
community and the country at large, should be of
interest.
In 1795 business corporations in America were
small in number and insignificant as to wealth.
There were, to be sure, several banks, a number of
insurance companies, a few turnpike companies,
some stage-coach companies, and some manufac-
turing corporations. The bulk of the business of
the country was conducted, however, by individual
traders or by partnership concerns. With the
growth of trade and the increase in commercial
activity of all sorts the organization of corporations
was speedily resorted to as offering many advan-
tages over the old-fashioned partnership. Among
those advantages is the opportunity afforded to all
to embark such part of their property as they may
choose in enterprises, whatever they may be, with-
out incurring the liability of general partners; in
other words, a man can invest such sum as he is
willing to lose in the business, with the certainty
that he cannot be compelled to pay anything beyond
that amount toward the debts of the concern.
Then, again, a shareholder in a corporation has his
affairs managed for him by salaried officers, without
care or responsibility on his part.
At first, in order to organize a corporation, legis-
lative action was required in every case. This in
earlier times answered very well ; but this power
was abused, and by and by it was found necessary
to limit the power of the various State legislatures in
this respect. Corporations are, in the eye of the
law, persons,— artificial persons,— and it was found
that a person of this description, having no body to
be imprisoned nor soul to be eternally punished, was
hard to control ; so the legislatures from time to
time passed general laws regulating the formation
and management of corporations, endeavoring in this
way to restrict them as to power, and to force them
to confine themselves each to its own particular
business. Efforts have been made from time to
time by the State legislatures to enact a systematic
code regulating all corporations, with more or less
success ; so now we have in many States a general
law for banking corporations, another for insurance
companies, another for trust companies, another for
railroads, and there are still others. Recently, also,
following the example of the English Parliament,
many of the States have enacted laws under which
corporations may be organized to carry on any
legitimate business, no matter what, not already
provided for by general statutes.
There can be no question that corporate organi-
zation has been of great advantage to the country—
to the poor as well as to the rich. By greater econ-
omy in production, rendered possible by concentra-
tion of capital, the poor have profited in the reduced
price of most of the necessaries and comforts of life.
The reduction in the prices of these articles is a
most interesting subject for study and reflection, and
if space permitted it would be easy to give numer-
ous illustrations. Indeed, it would be hard to find
any considerable number of articles, commonly
47
48
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
called comforts or necessaries, the price of which
has not been reduced by the direct influence of cor-
porate management. The comfort and convenience
of all dwellers in this country have been greatly pro-
moted by corporate control of business. Take, for
instance, our facilities for traveling. Again, the
regularity and cheapness of communication by mail,
telegraph, and telephone have only been made pos-
sible by the cooperation of hundreds of corporations
all working together in intelligent harmony. Again,
what could we now do without banks, and without
insurance companies? We owe it to the corpora-
tions that we can protect our property against loss
by fire, and our families from want in the case of
the death of their breadwinner ; and to the savings-
banks that we can safely keep our surplus earnings,
and receive them back again, safe and intact, with
reasonable interest. And so we may sum it all up
in one word and say that the conditions of modern
life would be impossible were it not for the corpora-
tions. Whether sleeping or waking, engaged in busi-
ness or pleasure, eating, drinking, dressing, or trav-
eling, or whatever we may be about, we must thank
them to a great extent for the means and opportu-
nity of doing so.
The reduction in the price of articles of general
consumption, to which reference has been made, is
due, in the writer's opinion, to two causes which in
their operation would at first glance seem calculated
to produce contrary results, but which, in fact, both
tend to the same end. These two causes are com-
petition and consolidation. It is easy to see how
competition between two or more concerns engaged
in the production of an article would tend to lower
its price until a point should be reached when but a
narrow margin of profit would remain. The con-
solidation, on the other hand, of all the competing
concerns engaged in the same business would seem
to tend to an advance in the price of the commodity
produced. This would doubtless be the case at first.
But experience has shown that there is more money
in selling a large quantity at a small profit than in
selling a small quantity at a large profit, and the
application of this principle results, as has been said
above, in the ultimate reduction of the price. A
most notable instance of this truth is to be found
in the enormous reduction of the price of kerosene-
oil since the consolidation into one company of the
various corporations engaged in its production.
How great have been the advantages to our
commerce and our country's development from cor-
porate organization no one can say. Have these
advantages been to some extent counterbalanced by
certain evils? The concentration of wealth in the
hands of corporations has had the effect of driving
the individual producer out of business. In the
early days of our country's existence many industries
were carried on in the towns and villages by skilled
workmen who were their own masters, and who
were in business for themselves. Tailors, shoe-
makers, weavers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, saddlers,
and many other manufacturers on a small scale
carried on their business for their own account, and
were a useful, self-reliant, and manly element in our
population. These industries are now to a great
extent monopolized by large corporations, and the
men who were formerly independent in their busi-
ness are now represented by salaried workmen.
The gradual extinction of this class of men of mod-
erate means who carried on their business for their
own account seems to be a distinct loss to the com-
munity.
In the earlier days of the history of this country
our foreign commerce was entirely, or almost en-
tirely, in the hands of individual traders and private
partnerships. The vessels by means of which the
trade was carried on were owned by individuals,
the ownership of a vessel being divided sometimes
among a number of persons, the captain in many
cases being a part owner. The cargo of the vessel,
on its arrival at its port of destination, was disposed
of by the captain or by a supercargo for the benefit
of the owners, and the proceeds invested at his dis-
cretion in the return cargo. This method of doing
business afforded a good field for the exercise of
individual skill, and the profits made by those en-
gaged in it were far in excess of anything that can
be realized by traders of the present day. The sub-
marine cables going to all parts of the world, owned
by corporations, have entirely revolutionized our
foreign trade. Our individual ship owners have
nearly all retired from the business, and the carrying
trade of the country is done by steam-vessels owned
by corporations, and, sad to say, nearly all of them
are owned by foreign capitalists and manned by
foreign sailors. No doubt the greatest good of the
greatest number is promoted by the operation of
great industries in corporate hands. The cost of
living is reduced ; but the disappearance from the
ocean of American ships commanded by American
skippers and manned by American sailors is a dis-
tinct misfortune. Whether this disappearance can
fairly be traced, altogether or in part, to the influence
of corporate organizations is a question which can
never be answered. It is perhaps partly due to this
cause and partly to other causes, just as the concen-
WILLIAM JAY.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
tration of business above referred to in the hands of
large corporations and wealthy people is partly due
to corporate organizations and partly to the improve-
ments in methods and machinery introduced by the
inventive genius of modern times.
Another evil growing out of the great develop-
ment of corporate control of business is a lower-
ing of the standard of business honor and business
morality. The administration of the affairs of cor-
porations of our country by their directors has in
many instances been unfair to the stockholders, and
to a corresponding extent advantageous to the
directors. It cannot be denied that many large
fortunes have been made by men who availed
themselves of the knowledge acquired by them as
directors of the affairs of corporations to buy and
sell the shares for their own profit. Many a director
in a corporation would consider it preposterous to
be told that he had no right to trade in the stock
of his corporation, and yet the director is to all in-
tents and purposes a trustee for the stockholders,
and ought not, any more than any other trustee, to
trade in the trust estate. More than this, it has not
been at all uncommon for directors to engage in
transactions with their own company, the result of
which has been greatly to their own advantage.
How many railroad companies have been wrecked
by being saddled with worthless lines with which
they have been consolidated ? Many other instances
might be cited where directors, under form of law,
have bled the corporations for which they were act-
ing. The directorate, for instance, of some great
corporate interest, rightfully active within a certain
field, leases in the form of privileges certain of its
functions to outside corporations, in the success of
which its members are concerned. Valuable con-
cessions, involving thousands of annual revenue, are
granted for the most nominal considerations, and
the tributary companies wax rich and pay large
dividends, while the great corporation whose reve-
nues are thus diverted from its stockholders pays
none at all, and its only beneficiaries are found
among the directors, who have thus misused their
power for their own ends.
Vast sums of money, American and foreign cap-
ital, have been invested in enterprises in this coun-
try under corporate control. A great deal of this
money has been lost to the investor forever. Some
of it has gone because the project in its inception
was ill considered, and the blame must rest upon
the poor judgment of the investor; but too many
schemes have been floated by corporations con-
ceived in fraud, through which confiding investors
have been fleeced. A common form of swindle is
an issue of bonds secured upon nothing but a fran-
chise that has cost the corporation nothing. A
fraction of the proceeds may be used in construc-
tion ; the balance may be, and often has been, dis-
tributed among the promoters. An allusion to this
form of corporate dishonesty is all that space admits
of ; were it not so, it would be instructive to refer
here at some length to the common device of
dishonest directors who contract with so-called con-
struction companies in which they are themselves
the shareholders, thereby reaping a dishonest profit.
The power of corporate organization has been
invoked to work great hardship and wrong in many
cases to the towns and cities throughout the coun-
try. Franchises of enormous value — especially the
right to use the streets for elevated and surface
roads — have been obtained for a most inadequate
consideration. This abuse of power by corporations
has been demoralizing in its tendency and mischiev-
ous in its results. It is impossible to compare our
great cities with those of Europe without feeling
that ours have been vulgarized, degraded, and ren-
dered hideous by the appropriation of their princi-
pal streets by private corporations for private greed.
It is idle to say that public convenience requires
that hideous structures like the elevated railroad
should exist, or that cable-cars should be run on the
surface of our principal thoroughfares. It is not so.
It is not so in any other civilized country on earth,
and would not be tolerated in any other civilized
country. Perhaps we are not so highly civilized as
we think we are.
The corporation is a tremendous power with us,
both for good and evil. It is probable that as time
goes on its powers will increase rather than diminish.
By its means cheaper living, more comfort, and
greater luxury will be brought within the reach of
us all. Let us hope that a higher plane of business
honor may be reached in the management of our
corporations.
CHAPTER IX
COMMERCIAL ORGANIZATIONS
IN the early part of the present century the
commercial organizations then existing which
had any material influence upon the home and
foreign commerce of the nations of the earth were
exceedingly limited in number. Indeed it is doubt-
ful if at that period there were more than fourteen,
viz., three in Great Britain, seven in France, and
four in the United States. All of these, save two
notable exceptions, — the Board of Trade of England
and the Council General of Commerce of Paris, —
were largely synonymous in their vocations and
operations.
In France Chambers of Commerce had been in-
stituted at a very early date — notably at Marseilles,
at the close of the fourteenth or the beginning of
the fifteenth century; at Dunkirk, in 1700; at
Paris, in the same year; at Lyons, in 1702; at
Rouen and Toulouse, in 1703; at Montpellier, in
1704; and at Bordeaux, in 1705. While England
had her Board of Trade as early as 1660, it was not
until 1786 that the present department was estab-
lished in Council, being a permanent committee of
the Privy Council for the consideration of all mat-
ters relating to trade and the colonies, with functions
partly ministerial and partly judicial. Of Chambers
of Commerce, Great Britain then had but two : that
of Glasgow, instituted in 1783, and of Edinburgh,
founded in 1785, and incorporated by royal charter
in 1786.
In the United States the oldest existing Chamber
of Commerce is that of New York, organized in
1768, and incorporated by royal charter in 1770.
Shortly afterward a second was established at New
Haven, Conn. ; another at Charleston, S. C., about
1775 ; and that in Philadelphia in 1802. It is true
that New York about this time had also a Board of
Brokers, organized about 1792 or 1793, and had
erected the Tontine Coffee-House, where merchants
and others met and discussed mercantile and semi-
commercial questions.
The Chamber of Commerce of New York is in
some respects not only the forerunner but the type
of many like institutions which have been organized
in our leading cities, representing, both locally and
otherwise, our multiplying and diversified industrial
interests. In some instances, however, it essentially
differs from other kindred institutions, since, while
caring for local welfare, it is also broadly national
in its sympathies and work. In this connection it
may be interesting to trace back this time-honored
organization to the names of the old and respected
merchants who founded it. They were : John
Cruger, Elias Desbrosses, James Jauncey, Jacob
Walton, Robert Murray, Hugh Wallace, George
Folliot, William Walton, Samuel Verplanck, Theo-
phylact Bache, Thomas White, Miles Sherbrook,
Walter Franklin, Robert Ross Waddell, Acheson
Thompson, Lawrence Kortwright, Thomas Randal,
William McAdam, Isaac Low, Anthony Van Dam,
John Alsop, Philip Livingston, Henry White, and
James McEvers. It also may not be out of place
to reproduce the original terms used in its formal
organization, reciting its usefulness as follows:
"WHEREAS, Mercantile societies have been found
very useful in trading cities for promoting and en-
couraging commerce, supporting industry, adjusting
disputes relative to trade and navigation, and pro-
curing such laws and regulations as may be found
necessary for the benefit of trades in general. . . ."
Of the history and character of the persons who
are here recorded as the original founders of this
Chamber the memories of the present generation
will not be wholly oblivious. The first public place
of meeting of the original Chamber was at the house,
now standing, on the corner of Pearl and Broad
streets. This building had been originally erected
as a town residence, and had undergone many alter-
ations in size and form. During the period of
Washington's first residence in this city it was chiefly
remarkable as being a public tavern, where in later
50
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
'•I
days Washington was entertained and took his fare-
well of the officers of the army on his departure for
his home in Virginia at the close of the Revolution-
ary War. The subsequent meetings of the Chamber
were held, first, in 1769, in the "great room of the
building commonly called the ' Exchange,' at the
lower end of the street called Broad " ; afterward, in
1779, at the Merchants' Coffee-House, on the south-
east corner of Wall and Water streets ; in 1 8 1 7 at
the Tontine Coffee-House, on the northwest corner
of Wall and Water streets; in 1827 in the original
Merchants' Exchange (in a room specially set apart
for the purpose), until that building was destroyed
by fire in 1835; then for a time in the directors'
room of the Merchants' Bank on Wall Street ; then
in premises on the corner of William and Cedar
streets, where the Chamber remained for many
years prior to its final removal to its present com-
modious quarters on Nassau Street.
At the close of the Revolution the legislature of
New York passed an act (on the i3th of April,
1784) "to remove doubts concerning the corpora-
tion of the Chamber of Commerce, and to confirm
the rights and privileges thereof." Under this act
the title was changed from the " Chamber of Com-
merce " to the " Chamber of Commerce of the State
of New York." From the earlier days down to the
present period the membership has been principally
confined to citizens engaged in finance and com-
merce, although at different times our records show
that public officers of the highest rank, including
presidents, governors, Senators, Congressmen, for-
eign ministers, and members of the State legislature,
have been either honorary or regular members of
the Chamber of Commerce. In the earlier steps
taken, almost a century ago, to form a code of
commercial laws and regulations, the most prominent
merchants of that era determined and bound them-
selves reciprocally to prevent " the scandalous prac-
tice of smuggling." Within two years after the
evacuation of the city of New York by the British
a strong effort was made in the new State legisla-
ture to adopt a plan for issuing paper money, to be
made by law a legal tender in the transaction of
business. A memorial was adopted by the Cham-
ber, setting forth in the most forcible terms the evils
and immorality of such an issue, and through its in-
fluence the proposed measure was defeated. It may
be safely alleged that to the good sense and active
management of the Chamber may be attributed the
policy which the general government adopted at
this period of peril, whereby the credit of the nation
was maintained. At an early period in the active
movements of the Chamber, in January, 1786, a
resolution was considered asking the assistance of
the legislature of New York for the creation of a
fund to connect the city of New York by artificial
navigation with the lakes. This action clearly con-
nects the sentiments of the Chamber of that early
day with the great purpose of Governor Clinton for
the construction of the Erie Canal. A few years
later we find the Chamber entertaining the project
for the construction of a ship-canal around Niagara
Falls, and a railroad from Lake Erie to the Hudson
River.
The question of tribunals of commerce was also
considered at several periods of its history ; but the
legislature was not friendly to this new departure in
commercial jurisprudence until 1874, when an act
was passed establishing a court of arbitration, to be
presided over by a judge appointed by the gover-
nor ; and this court continues to this day. Another
highly important subject had from time to time
occupied the attention of the Chamber, that of
the pilot laws of New York and New Jersey, result-
ing in the present excellent system. At the annual
meeting in 1848 the Chamber took formal measures
to assist in organizing a savings bank for the benefit
of " merchants' clerks and others " ; and a charter
was granted by the legislature as the result of this
thoughtful action, and since then this institution has
grown to be one of the most successful of similar
organizations in the country. In 1849 tne Chamber
was interested in Whitney's project for the construc-
tion of a Pacific railroad across the continent, and
a report favoring its construction was unanimously
adopted and forwarded to Congress. It was also
instrumental in getting the United States govern-
ment to remove the sunken rocks from the channel
of the East River and to widen the passage through
Hell Gate. In 1852 the Chamber took active mea-
sures in regard to the reciprocity agreement with
the North American provinces for the free inter-
change of the natural productions of the respective
countries, embracing also a full and joint participa-
tion in the fisheries and the free navigation of the
river St. Lawrence. It also repeatedly declared its
sentiments on the subject of privateering, and has
at all times maintained its inviolable determination
to adhere rigidly to the principles avowed by the
government of the United States.
The treaty negotiated with Japan by Commodore
Perry, in behalf of the United States, opened up a
new pathway to commerce with an almost unknown
nation, and the Chamber took a prominent part in
giving signal testimony of its appreciation of that
52
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
officer's conduct in a graceful gift of a silver service
of plate. At a special meeting of the Chamber, held
the 2ist of August, 1858, the successful result of the
united efforts of the English and American nations
to lay the first Atlantic telegraph-cable to connect
the continent of the Old World with the New was
announced, and the sum of $10,000 was appropri-
ated and applied to the presentation of gold medals
to the prominent officers engaged in carrying out
the -nterprise. At the meeting of the Chamber,
September 6, 1860, the following resolution was
adopted : "Resolved, That in the judgment of this
Chamber an urgent necessity exists for the establish-
ment, at an early day, of mail facilities between the
cities of San Francisco in California and Shanghai
in China, with connections at such intermediate
ports as the interests of commerce may indicate."
It seems hardly necessary to add that the above is
the germ from which has sprung the magnificent
line of American steamships which traverses the
Pacific Ocean to-day.
A remarkable epoch in the affairs of this country,
and one especially affecting all its business interests,
occurred shortly after this period. The Southern
States of the Union had united in revolt against the
government, and the President had issued his proc-
lamation calling for military aid. The Chamber
responded to this appeal by holding a large and
enthusiastic meeting on April 19, 1861, at which
an ample sum of money was raised to forward at
once for the defense of the national capital two
regiments of the State National Guard, and also to
organize several additional regiments of volunteers,
who left shortly afterward for the seat of war. At
this meeting attention was called to the fact that
a part of the advertised loan of the government
remained untaken. A special committee was ap-
pointed, and the balance, amounting to $8,000,000,
was at once subscribed, and the Treasury Depart-
ment notified that the same could be drawn for at
once. The great mass-meeting at Union Square-
now a matter of history— and the Union Defense
Committee were the outcome of the action of the
Chamber. The valuable aid rendered to the gov-
ernment by this committee, composed, as it was,
mainly of merchants and bankers of New York, was
frequently acknowledged by the highest military
authorities, and sixty-six regiments were equipped
and fitted for service and forwarded in the early
stages of the war, as standing evidences of its loyalty
and efficiency.
At a special meeting of the Chamber held on
May 15, 1872, "to give expression to the views of
the Chamber on the Treaty of Washington (result-
ing in the Geneva award arbitration), and to urge
the ratification by the Senate of an additional article
thereto, as proposed by Minister Schenck," the fol-
lowing preamble and resolutions were adopted :
" WHEREAS, The Treaty of Washington, referring
the differences between this country and Great
Britain to arbitration, has justly been regarded as a
measure of great importance to the interests of civ-
ilization and peace, and the honor of proposing it
belongs to this country; and
"WHEREAS, Differences of opinion have arisen
between the governments of the two countries re-
specting the proper construction of the treaty in
regard to the claims for indirect damages, and a
supplemental article for settlement of those differ-
ences has been proposed by the government of
Great Britain, and by the President laid before the
Senate for its advice, which article appears to this
Chamber to be sound in principle, binding the two
governments to the adoption of a beneficent rule for
the future, and especially beneficial to the United
States and its commerce ; and
" WHEREAS, The failure of the treaty would be a
great public calamity ; therefore
"Resolved, That this Chamber, without meaning
thereby to imply that our government has at all
erred in its construction of the treaty, and believing
that the supplemental article is more than an equiv-
alent for the claims of our government as originally
presented, and feeling the importance of removing
all obstacles in the way of the execution of the
treaty, earnestly recommends the adoption of the
supplemental article, and prays the Senate to ratify
it."
As the Senate was " hanging fire " in regard to
the ratification of this treaty, and war between the
two countries was apparently imminent, the action
of the Chamber in this matter was not only timely
and praiseworthy, but also wise, patriotic, and in-
fluential, as the sequel showed.
Thus it will be seen that to outline the history
and operations of the New York Chamber of Com-
merce is largely to portray the political, commer-
cial, industrial, and financial development of the
country ; for really no great politico-economic ques-
tion has arisen in the United States from the War
of 1812—15 *° the present time in which it has not
been vitally and patriotically interested. The fore-
going are, however, but few of the services which it
has so signally performed. It has been concerned
in nearly everything which related to the commer-
cial welfare and prosperity not only of the city and
ALEXANDER E. ORR.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
State of New York, but also of the country at large,
of which it is in a measure the commercial guardian.
The class of people who possessed the most
means and experience before and immediately after
the Revolution were the merchants and ship owners,
and they were the first to perceive the advantages
and value of mercantile or commercial organizations,
which, as already outlined, they perfected in New
York, New Haven, Charleston, and Philadelphia.
These commercial bodies were the initial organiza-
tions of the kind in America. Their foundations
were broad and deep, and each in its way and time
performed substantial service for the public good,
both local and general. The Chamber of Com-
merce of Baltimore, instituted in the early decades
of the century, but subsequently reorganized as the
Board of Trade, still continues its usefulness. The
Merchants' Exchanges of New York and Philadel-
phia, which were founded at an earlier date, have
passed away, probably from having been too heavily
handicapped at first with expensive buildings and in-
adequate revenues.
Succeeding the War of 1812-15, an<3 later, other
Chambers of Commerce, Exchanges, and Boards
of Trade were organized in various cities of the
Union, which also have done much toward develop-
ing the industries, trade, and traffic of their locali-
ties, as well as taking more or less active part in
promoting the general commercial welfare of the
country. But the commercial associations which
are the most numerous, and withal the strongest, are
those founded by people who deal in like things in
towns or cities which are to some extent centers of
particular callings, such as cotton in New Orleans,
leather or wool in Boston, iron in Philadelphia,
crockery in Trenton, paper in Holyoke, or print
cloths in Fall River or Providence. Among the
earliest of the general Boards of Trade which still
retain their vitality, and form an important element
in the town or city in which they are located, is the
Chicago Board of Trade, which came into existence
on March 13, 1848, but did not begin business until
May 2, 1850. From the beginning it has been an im-
portant center for grain, animal-food products, and
lumber. Similar boards were established in Detroit,
Milwaukee, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Toledo, Minne-
apolis, and other Western cities. That in St. Louis
is also an important center for the cotton trade.
Smaller organizations exist in towns numbering less
than 10,000 inhabitants, and have proved valuable
adjuncts by the infusion of greater local pride and
energy among their citizens.
Next to the New York Chamber of Commerce is
the Associated Board of Trade of Boston. Thi» u
probably the best representative body among strictly
business associations in this country. Founded on
a new idea or plan, it has so demonstrated, during
the few years of its existence, its great practicability
and usefulness as to become the exemplar of the
newer Boards of Trade throughout the country.
The Boston Associated Board of Trade is not a
promiscuous grouping of business men coming to-
gether as individuals, but is made up of delegates
from the various regularly organized trade associa-
tions of that city, these representatives being duly
elected by their own organizations, and attending
the Associated Board of Trade meetings, to speak
and act not only for themselves, but as voicing the
wishes of the associations which send them. Thus,
when the members of the Associated Board of
Trade make a decision, their action is at once of
importance (because of its comprehensiveness) in
forming commercial and legislative opinion.
As New York is the commercial metropolis of the
United States, her merchants, of necessity, must be
equally comprehensive in their dealings not only in
home products, but also in those of all other coun-
tries with whom they hold commercial relations.
To facilitate the operation of this great concentra-
tion of business it was found expedient to organize
separate Exchanges and Boards of Trade, which as
time passed have grown into large proportions. It is
impossible in this short article to describe them all,
— some seventy in number, — but a few of the more
prominent may be mentioned. The New York
Produce Exchange, with its 3000 members, specially
deals in grain, flour, provisions, lard, tallow, etc.
It possesses the finest exchange building in the
United States, and its business and influence are
proportionally great in the line of its specialties.
The Stock Exchange confines its dealings to stocks
and bonds and other similar securities of this and
other countries, and has given great impetus to the
development of transportation in this country. The
Cotton Exchange, which deals almost exclusively in
that staple, buys and sells more cotton for future
delivery than any other Cotton Exchange either at
home or abroad. The Petroleum— now the Con-
solidated— Exchange first dealt in petroleum and
mineral oils, but of late years it has turned its atten-
tion to stock securities, and is to some extent a
competitor of the Stock Exchange. The Coffee
Exchange has lately grown into very great promi-
nence, and now surpasses in the volume of its busi-
ness that of Havre, France, which is believed to be
the largest in Europe. The Merchants' Exchange
54
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
confines its operations to farm products, such as
butter, cheese, eggs, poultry, and the like, and now
aggregates an enormous business. The Wool Ex-
change and the Metal Exchange are other important
associations, which, with the foregoing, own their
buildings ; but besides these there are the Maritime
ber of such organizations throughout the whole coun-
try will probably reach 2000.
The national and trade associations probably
aggregate in number over one hundred. Following
is a list of prominent national organizations, and
their leading officers at the present time :
NATIONAL COMMERCIAL ASSOCIATIONS.
NAME.
LOCATION.
PRESIDENT.
SECRETARY.
American Association of Flint and Lime Glass Manu- ?
facturers _ 5
American Boiler Manufacturers' Association of the
United States and Canada 5
American Iron and Steel Association
Association of Iron and Steel Sheet Manufacturers
Carriage Builders' National Association
Heavy Hardware Jobbers' National Union
Manufacturers' National Association
Merchant Tailors' National Exchange of the United J
States 5
Millers' National Association of the United States
National Association of Builders
National Association of Furniture Manufacturers
National Association of Galvanized Sheet-Iron Manu- )
facturers 5
National Association of Stove Manufacturers
National Association of Wool Manufacturers
National Board of Trade
National Board of Trade of Cycle Manufacturers
National Brick Manufacturers' Association of the ?
United States J
National Cigar Manufacturers' Association
National Confectioners' Association
National Dairy Union
National Hardware Association
National Iron Roofing Association
National Live Stock Exchange
National Paint, Oil, and Varnish Association
National Retail Grocers' Association
National Retail Hardware Dealers' Association
National Retail Jewelers' Association of the United ?
States J
National Transportation Association
National Wholesale Druggists' Association
Tinned Plate Manufacturers' Association of the ?
United States j
United States Brewers' Association
Vapor Stove Manufacturers' Association
Vessel Owners' and Captains' National Association . . .
Pittsburg, Pa.
St. Louis, Mo
Philadelphia, Pa. . .
Pittsburg, Pa
Philadelphia, Pa. . .
Chicago, III
Cincinnati, O
New York
Milwaukee, Wis. . .
Boston, Mass
Indianapolis, Ind. .
Pittsburg, Pa
Chicago, 111
Boston, Mass
Boston, Mass
Hartford, Conn. . . .
Indianapolis, Ind..
New York, N. Y. .
St. Louis, Mo
Elgin, 111
Philadelphia, Pa. . .
Cincinnati, O
Chicago, 111
Chicago, 111
Chicago, 111
Boston, Mass
St. Louis, Mo
Chicago, III
Minneapolis, Minn.
Pittsburg, Pa
New York, N. Y. . ,
Cleveland, O
Boston, Mass
George W. Blair, Pittsburg, Pa.
H. S. Robinson, Boston, Mass.
B. F. Jones, Pittsburg, Pa.
J. G. Battelle, Piqua, O.
Channing M. Britton, New York.
S. D. Kirnbart, Chicago.
Thomas Dolan, Philadelphia.
Emile Twyeffort, New York.
C. A. Pillsbury, Minneapolis, Minn.
Charles A. Rupp, Buffalo, N. Y.
Otto Strechhlan, Indianapolis, Ind.
N. S. Whitaker, Wheeling, W. Va.
Lazard Kahn, Hamilton, O.
William H. Haile, Springfield, Mass.
Frederick Fraley, Philadelphia, Pa.
A. G. Spalding, New York.
F. H. Eggers, Cleveland, O.
Moses Krohn, Cincinnati, O.
John S. Gray, Detroit, Mich.
W. D. Hoard, Fort Atkinson, Wis.
< William W. Supplee, 503 Market
< St., Philadelphia, Pa.
James Beichele, Canton, O.
W. H. Thompson, Jr., Chicago, 111.
< Howard B. French, Philadelphia,
i Pa-
George A. Shurer, Peoria, IU.
S. S. Bryan, Titusville, Pa.
Herman Mauch, St. Louis, Mo.
Frank Barry, Milwaukee, Wis.
J. C. Eliel, Minneapolis, Minn.
W. T. Graham, Bridgeport, O.
Leo Ebert, Ironton, O.
C Hon. D. Dangler, Dangler Stove
\ Mfg. Co., Cleveland, O.
J. S. Winslow, Portland, Me.
George F. Easton, Pittsburg, Pa.
C E. D. Meier, 421 Olive St., St.
( Louis, Mo.
C James M. Swank, Gen. Man
I Philadelphia, Pa.
John Jarrett, Pittsburg, Pa.
Henry C. McLear,Wilmington,Del.
5 W. C. Brown, 45 La Salle St, Chi-
_> cago, 111.
E. P. Wilson. Cincinnati, O.
James S. Burbank, New York.
Frank Barry, Milwaukee, Wis.
William H. Say ward, Boston, Mass.
T. B. Laycock, Indianapolis, Ind.
John Jarrett, Pittsburg, Pa.
T. J. Hogan, Chicago, 111.
S. N. D. North, Boston, Mass.
W. R. Tucker, Philadelphia, Pa.
A. Kennedy Child, Hartford, Conn.
C Theo. A. Randall, 5 Monument
\ Place, Indianapolis, Ind.
Morris S. Wise, New York.
C F. D. Seward, 525 North Main
) St., St. Louis, Mo.
D. W. Willson, Elgin, 111.
T. James Fernley, 505 Commerce
St., Philadelphia, Pa.
George M. Verity, care American
Roofing Co., Cincinnati, O.
arles W. Baker, Chicago, 111.
!• D. Van Ness Person, Chicago, III
W. M. Crawford, Chicago, 111.
Hiram G. Janvrin, 9 Dock Square,
Boston, Mass,
illiam F. Kemper, St. Louis, Mo.
George F. Stone, Chicago, 111.
A. B. Merriam, Minneapolis, Minn.
John Jarrett, Pittsburg, Pa.
Richard Katzenmayer, New York.
F. L. Alcott, Standard Lighting Co.,
Cleveland, Ohio.
C R. R. Freeman, 95 Commercial
) St., Boston, Mass.
i:
Exchange, the Board of Trade and Transportation,
the Coal Exchange, the Mechanics' Exchange, and
many more with names indicative of their trade spe-
cialties, which have organized from time to time as
the city developed.
The approximate numbers of the various commer-
cial associations located in the principal cities, not
previously enumerated, are as follows : Philadelphia,
20; Boston, 48; Pittsburg, n ; Baltimore, 21 ; San
Francisco, 15; Indianapolis, 8; Louisville, 9; New
Orleans, n ; Minneapolis, 12 ; Kansas City, 9; St.
Louis, 26 ; Omaha, 9 ; Buffalo, 16 ; Cincinnati, 17 ;
Cleveland, 9 ; Milwaukee, 10 ; and the entire num-
Thus it will be seen that, starting with but four
commercial organizations, of the character and scope
outlined, at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
their number at its close will have increased five
hundred fold. What they have accomplished for
the people of this country is simply incalculable.
The record is found in our extensive manufacturing
industries ; in the products of the soil, forests, and
mines ; in our enormous interstate commerce ; in
our foreign trade ; in our circulating medium and
monetary institutions ; and, finally, in the unprece-
dented increase in national wealth, prosperity, and
development.
CHAPTER X
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF NEW YORK COMMERCE
INEVITABLE from the first as was the suprem-
acy of New York in the commerce of the Western
world, her preeminence to-day has largely been
attained along the lines of her own endeavor. Com-
peting in the open fields of enterprise and trade, she
fairly won the wealth that has rendered possible the
ever-increasing magnitude of her operations. Her
later progress is linked to that of the nation by the
double and indissoluble bond of cause and effect.
To the geographical location of New York have
been attributed, and to a certain extent justly, the
great advantages she enjoys over every other city
on the Atlantic seaboard. Her harbor is one of the
largest and safest in the world. It is never closed
by ice, and is always easy of access. Situated at
the mouth of that great inland waterway, the Hud-
son, the island of Manhattan affords a shore front
capable of docking the navies of the world, while
Long Island Sound, a miniature Mediterranean,
stretches far away to the east. Great trunk-lines,
tapping the vast resources of every part of the coun-
try, bring here the products which are later distrib-
uted over the whole habitable globe. This is the
condition of affairs to-day ; but there was an era,
prior to the railroads, when small vessels of far lighter
draft demanded spacious harbors, and when, the
manufacturing interests of the country being unde-
veloped, natural products alone sought the markets
of the world.
This was the time, a century ago, when New York
won her spurs. With a population of about 50,000,
she held her claim to commercial and metropolitan
honors only by contention. Philadelphia, Baltimore,
New Orleans, and even Charleston represented in-
terests as important as those which centered upon
Manhattan Island. Cotton was then an infant
monarch of little power, but the plantation interests
of the South, which were striding daily into promi-
nence, centered at Baltimore and Charleston ; the
great highway of the Mississippi was already begin-
ning to take the products of the West to New Or-
leans ; while Philadelphia, with her great banking in-
terests, and New England, with her flourishing West
Indian trade, were further challenging New York.
Of the total commerce of the country, New York
had only about one fourth credited to her. Singu-
larly enough, it differed but little in its import fea-
tures from that of to-day. The causes of this are
not hard to discover. The mercantile interests of
the city were already developed. Her social life
differed only in degree from that of the European
capitals, and wealth and luxury were found every-
where. The old aristocratic flavor of the colonial
days still remained, and in politics alone was found
the dominant democracy of the time. Gentlemen's
cellars still nursed in dusty bins the choicest wines
of sunny France, of Portugal, and of Madeira, which
made the invoice of many an arriving merchantman.
Olives, oil, dried fruits, and hundreds of other luxu-
ries came from the Mediterranean ports, while coffee,
sugar, spices, indigo, dyestuffs, and other tropical
products arrived from the West Indies and from
the Orient. Cloth and manufactured articles of
all kinds for the use of New York were brought
from England and France, and with the other
imports were traded for the wheat, flour, corn,
beef, fish, provisions, furs, lumber, and tobacco which
our own country sent here for a market. Very little
money, generally speaking, changed hands. Com-
merce resembled more an extended application of
the barter system of the early trading-post than an
international business relation.
To this brief rdsume" of the situation as it pre-
sented itself to the bewigged old gentlemen who
gathered daily at the so-called Merchants' Exchange
in the Tontine Coffee-House during the early days
of the year 1795, only one thing remains to be
added. This was the extreme insecurity of our
commercial relations, which dashed the otherwise
legitimate undertakings of our merchants with a
55
56
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
speculative savor found to-day only in the stock
market. England in 1783 was unable longer to
withhold political liberty, but a dozen years later
she still endeavored to hold on to many of the ma-
terial advantages of colonial days.
The first step toward removing the obstructions
which embarrassed our commerce was the Jay
treaty. The successful negotiation of this first of
our commercial treaties, imperfect though it was,
well deserves centennial celebration. It marks our
admission as a nation into the world's fraternity of
commerce.
Many a famous fortune of to-day, and many a
great business house since known all over the civ-
ilized world, were founded in the next decade. At
this time New York was scarcely half as large as
Philadelphia. Its merchants, who to-day would be
called importers, and its retail storekeepers, trans-
acted the business of the town. There were no
manufacturing interests, and even in 1800 this
branch of industry had only reached an annual out-
put of about $250,000, a large part of which was
accredited to brewing and distilling. When it is
considered that to-day New York's factories turn out
annually over $600,000,000 worth of goods, the sig-
nificance of the change from the condition in which
they started will be better appreciated.
The city of New York during this period extended
only about to Reade Street or Duane Street, and
above Canal Street was still the open country. The
docks were in the southeastern part of the island,
beginning at Whitehall Street and running around
to Peck Slip. Above these, all along the shore,
were the shipyards, which were the first to feel the
impetus of the good times that were inaugurated in
1795. Those were the days when a few hundred
dollars built a stanch little vessel. Her hull was
easily mortgaged for so much as would supply her
with sails and rigging, and the profits of her first
voyage to the West Indies were such that she would
tie up to the home dock completely paid for.
Through the activity of trade the ship-builder and
the merchant prince reached a prominence never
before gained by any class in the community. With
the exception of the farmers, they were almost the
only employers of labor. It was an age which, with
all its simplicity, affected a lavishness of living ex-
penditure, and these nabobs spent their money as
freely as they made it. Their argosies came back
to them laden with all the latest products of Euro-
pean industry and skill. Their warehouses, filled
to overflowing, poured into the empty holds of these
vessels great cargoes of grain, breadstuffs, fish, and
provisions, which were carried to Europe, laid waste
by Napoleon and his French legions, and which
brought fabulous prices. Return cargoes, sold at
enormous profit here, still further added to the lu-
crative nature of this early trade, and the merchants
of New York improved their time to accumulate
wealth without interruption until the Embargo of
President Jefferson in 1807.
In the mean time, however, many things were
happening which were later to produce their effect
upon the trade of New York. These causes had
already begun to shape themselves in 1800. The
population of the city was then 60,489, and it was
distinctly commercial and maritime in its nature.
The offices of the largest merchants, the three banks,
the three insurance companies, and all the business
energy of the city had centered about Wall Street,
excepting the shops and smaller retail establishments,
which lined Pearl Street, making it a main thorough-
fare then and for thirty-five years thereafter. The
coastwise and inland trade had brought to the docks
sloops and quaint old craft in shoals from New Jer-
sey, up the Hudson, and along the Sound, which
brought firewood, brick, farm produce, and other
articles, and took away general supplies. Further
than this, a large fishing-fleet made this port its
headquarters, and its season's catch, dried and
salted, continued for many years to be an important
part of our exports.
Of manufactured articles, except the very coarsest
grades, we produced almost none at that time ; but
under the fostering of the Embargo and the war
blockade there came a great manufacturing move-
ment, which continued for a period of three years.
In 1 800 attempts were made for industrial indepen-
dence in many branches. The iron-working indus-
try, always prohibited by England to the colonies,
was begun in a minor way in New York by such
men as Robert McQueen, James P. Allaire, and
others. Pianos, soon to become an essential in the
drawing-rooms of all cultivated people, were among
the earliest of American manufactures. Dodds &
Claus, the first firm engaged in this business, were
making them as early as 1792 at 66 Queen Street,
now a part of Pearl. Besides this most important
branch, New York's other industries were two or
three hat factories, which employed a few hands at
cheap wages, and several breweries, distilleries, and
tanneries. The trade in furs, too, was extensive at
this time, and John Jacob Astor soon after organ-
ized a single company, with a capital, enormous for
those days, of $1,000,000, the greater part of which
was furnished by him. He further increased his
HORACE PORTER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
67
operations a few years later by absorbing two other
companies, and establishing a Western depot on the
Columbia River. With the exception of this latter
enterprise, which soon failed, his business was in
New York.
Europe during all this period was torn by the
struggles of those national giants, France and Eng-
land. Each of the combatants had proclaimed a
blockade against all European ports except those
under its own control, and any merchantman flying
the United States flag was liable to confiscation, if
caught by a patroling cruiser or privateer of either
nation near the blockaded coast. Many ships were
lost in this way ; but the enormous profits gained
when a vessel managed to slip a cargo through were
so tempting that New York merchants continued to
embark in such ventures. It was at this time that,
protest having proved unavailing, President Jefferson
believed himself to have found a way to force the
belligerent powers to respect the neutrality rights of
America. To this end he issued in 1807 his Em-
bargo, prohibiting all American merchantmen from
leaving port, and forbidding the shipment of Ameri-
can cargoes in foreign bottoms. It was his belief
that Europe's need of the provisions this country
supplied would drive her to conciliation. In this
idea he proved mistaken, and the Embargo was
necessarily repealed in 1809. It had, however,
accomplished great mischief to New York's com-
merce, as well as to that of the country at large.
The great fleets of the merchant princes lay rotting
at their anchorages. The warehouses were deserted,
and grass grew upon the unused docks. Many
clerks were discharged, and their poverty, together
with that of hundreds of sailors thrown out of em-
ployment, made the suffering among the laboring
class severely felt.
The most important event of this time, however,
and one that far outranks the Embargo in its con-
tinuing importance, was the building by Robert
Fulton of the Clermont, the first steamboat, though
it was little more than a toy. He was aided with
means by Chancellor Livingston. At a speed of
between four and five miles an hour the little vessel
made the trip to Albany and return, thus inaugurat-
ing the present era of steam-navigation. She was
speedily followed by others. Steamboats were run-
ning on Long Island Sound in 1818, and the fol-
lowing year John C. Stevens, of Hoboken, built
the steamer Savannah, of 380 tons, which was the
first steam-vessel to cross the Atlantic. Ten years
later there were fifty steam-packets running into
New York harbor, and in 1840 the first regular
transatlantic steamers were started by the Cunard
Line.
The repeal of the Embargo in 1809 had scarcely
time to bring about any great results before die War
of 1812; and an immediate blockade by a British
fleet of the port of New York again locked up the
city within the narrowest limits, even her coastwise
trade being stopped. Much distress resulted in the
winter from the lack of firewood ordinarily brought
by the Jersey sloops. The blockade, too, had an
added severity over the Embargo, in the fact that,
being a community dependent upon England for
goods, we were suddenly cut off from our supply,
and found ourselves without means at home to rem-
edy the deficiency. Then it was that the attention
of New York was for the first time turned seriously
toward manufacturing. Homespun, although worn
in the country at large, would scarcely do for the
fashionable people in New York ; and all the hundred
and one conveniences demanded by dwellers in
city and country must be supplied. In response to
this demand factories sprang up as if by magic.
Especially wonderful was the sudden growth when
it is considered that there was not a shop in the
country then capable of turning out anything but
the simplest machinery. Despite all adverse condi-
tions, industries multiplied and prospered. Ameri-
can wool, which had hitherto been supposed only
fit for the coarsest kinds of cloth, was successfully
used for the manufacture of finer fabrics. The first
woolen-mills, owing their origin to the pressure at
this epoch, were started in 1809, and during the war
turned out satinet which sold at $4 per yard, and
broadcloth which brought from $10 to $i 2 per yard.
In this, as in the majority of other lines, prices were
abnormally high, and the manufacturers made much
money. Cotton-mills were also started. Many em-
barked in the new ventures, and nearly every kind
of manufacturing was represented. When the war
ended prosperity departed as suddenly as it had
come. England, in her desire to regain her former
market, poured in her goods at prices far below
those at which the New York manufacturer could
afford to sell his products, and forced him to shut
his doors. Tens of thousands of dollars of lost capi-
tal, and hundreds of operatives out of work, made
up the result of New York's first effort to enter the
ranks of the world's producers. It was not alto-
gether a dead loss, though, for a spirit had been
roused which continually manifested itself during
the next twenty years, and which eventually placed
this city high in the list of manufacturing centers.
With the return of peace, Messrs. Adams, Galla-
58
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
tin, and Clay went to England, where on July 3,
1815, a commercial convention was negotiated,
copied substantially from Jay's treaty, but with an
added proviso for absolute reciprocity in direct trade
by the abolition on both sides of all discrimination.
This convention was ratified December 2 ad. Con-
fidence was seriously checked by the financial and
industrial depression which followed the war, but
New York was among the earliest cities to rally and
continue her enterprises. By far the most impor-
tant of these was the proposed Erie Canal. It con-
templated the connection of the Hudson River and
the Great Lakes, thereby bringing to New York the
wealth of products of the great inland basin thus
reached. Ground was broken in the work of dig-
ging the great canal by James Richardson, on July
3, 1817, near Rome, N. Y. Eight years were re-
quired for the completion of the task. On Novem-
ber 4, 1825, the first fleet of canal-boats came through
from Buffalo to New York City, Governor De Witt
Clinton, who in the face of almost insurmountable
obstacles had carried the work through, being in the
first boat. The event was celebrated in New York
with the greatest enthusiasm, and marked the com-
mencement of the system of communication since
established both by rail and water with the interior
of the country.
As Governor Clinton and the few far-sighted men
who had supported him in his giant undertaking
had foreseen, the new canal began at once to revo-
lutionize the internal trade of America. By it New
York was able to reach, cheaply and quickly, dis-
tricts which had hitherto been accessible only by a
long and circuitous route around Florida, through
the Gulf, and up the Mississippi River. The Erie
Canal afforded to New York what she then most
needed — an opportunity to extend her domestic dis-
tribution and collection. It was the first move made
for the protection of this city against the prosperous
factors of New Orleans, to whose doors the great
Mississippi was bearing in daily increasing numbers
the huge flat-bottomed river-boats laden with the
products of the West. Many States, like Ohio, In-
diana, and Illinois, were in the habit of sending their
products to New Orleans for export, although ob-
taining their supplies and imports from New York.
The canal put all these localities in closer touch
with the great seaboard city, and paved the way as
nothing else could have done for railroad transpor-
tation facilities, when their turn came, a few years
later.
Meantime the commerce of New York continued
to flourish. Packet lines with regular weekly sail-
ings were established, the first being the Blackball
Line, founded in 1816 by Isaac Wright & Son, Fran-
cis Thompson, Benjamin Marshall, and Jeremiah
Thompson. It was followed by the Red Star Line,
organized by Trimble & Company, in 1821 ; the
Havre packets of Depau, in 1822; Grinnell, Min-
turn & Company's London Line, in 1823 ; and the
China and California packets of Low, Griswold &
Aspinwall, still later. The first of these lines, with
its regular sailing-days, began the systematizing of
transatlantic trade ; and the imports to New York
during the ten years following 1820 increased nearly
$8,000,000, while the export trade made a corre-
sponding gain, the total imports and exports of the
country in 1830 amounting to $144,776,428. Two
years later the $10,000,000 which New York had
put into the great ditch of the Erie Canal was show-
ing its fullest results. With a registered and enrolled
tonnage of 286,438, — greater than Liverpool or
any city in the world except London, — the harbor of
New York was daily thronged with vessels. Either
discharging at the docks — which had by this time
stretched themselves around to the North River
front — or at anchor in the stream, over 500 vessels
could be counted any day in the year. From for-
eign ports nearly 2000 vessels arrived annually, while
twice and a half that number, engaged in the coast-
wise trade, ran in and out in the same time. From
the invoices of all these craft could be read the story
of a volume of trade of dimensions hitherto unprec-
edented. The amount New York paid as valuation
of her imports in 1832 was $53,214,402, while the
total for the rest of the country reached only $47,-
815,864. By these figures it will be seen that New
York's percentage in duties would easily make her
the chief contributor to the revenues of the govern-
ment, as she was and always has been. Of the im-
ports of that time, manufactured articles, fully fifty
per cent, of which were dry-goods, made the great
bulk. Besides the silks, woolens, cotton goods, and
linen, hardware, cutlery, earthenware, and workings
of brass and copper, together with the wines and
spirits which England and France supplied, there
was a large and flourishing trade with Brazil and
the West Indies in sugar, molasses, and coffee, and
with the Orient in tea, spices, indigo, dyestuffs, and
other tropical products.
The exports from New York during this same
year reached the amount of $26,000,945, or between
one fourth and one third of the total exports of the
country. The prominence of New Orleans as a
port of the West explains the discrepancy between
in and out volume of trade of New York, which dis-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
crepancy, in fact, existed more or less markedly up
to the time of the railroads. The exports most im-
portant at that time were wheat, flour, corn, rice,
beef, pork, butter, dried fish, general provisions, furs,
tobacco, and lumber, together with some of the
coarser grades of manufactured goods. In this list
the manufacturing progress of the city since the dis-
astrous setback that followed the War of 1812 is
plainly shown. Soap, boots and shoes, furniture,
carriages, trunks and leatherwork, hats, cordage,
earthen and stone ware, drugs, and rough ironwork
were all being turned out, and in quantity sufficient
to warrant exportation in many of the lines enumer-
ated. There were also paper-mills, type-foundries,
printing-press manufacturers, and large flouring and
tanning interests centered here.
The prosperity of this time, commercial and finan-
cial, was rudely broken in upon three years later by
the great fire which occurred on the night of Decem-
ber 16, 1835, m Merchant Street, and which, after
raging three days, was finally extinguished only by
blowing up a number of houses with gunpowder,
thus leaving a vacant space that the flames could
not pass. It had destroyed, however, nearly the
whole of the business section. In and around Han-
over Square, Pearl and Wall streets, 648 houses and
stores were burned, together with contents valued
at $18,000,000. The blow was a terrible one, and
the insurance companies of the city succumbed at
once. Scarcely one survived. Business of every sort
had been affected, and in the severe winter weather
that prevailed, building had to be delayed and many
interests found themselves homeless. To the de-
pression of this great conflagration can be traced
many of the active causes of the financial panic
which broke over the city and country in 1837, and
for a time darkened the whole commercial horizon.
As in the past, however, New York was one of the
first to feel better times. The country was growing
fast and demanded hundreds of articles for which
New York was the distributing point. Ohio, Indi-
ana, and Illinois had undertaken canals connecting
the Ohio and Mississippi rivers with the Great Lakes
at Cleveland, Toledo, and Chicago ; but with all these
increased activities elsewhere New York had main-
tained its position as the great port of entry. Bal-
timore's attempt to accomplish a connection with
the West by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in
1828 did not prove immediately valuable when com-
pleted, and Philadelphia, with the otheri seaboard
cities, still found the lofty walls of the Alleghanies
an insurmountable obstacle. Railroads were in op-
eration, but only in unconnected lengths, and trunk-
lines were still in the future. The telegraph, des-
tined in its later applications to revolutionize the
commercial methods of the world, was discovered
by Professor Morse in New York, and a line— the
first— was built between this city and Philadelphia
in 1845. A setback caused by another great fire
in this same year (1845), which destroyed nearly
$8,000,000 of property, was speedily passed over.
The railroads were surely, if slowly, increasing and
improving. The trade in the China seas and with
India was extending, and despite its great risks
many houses were growing rich and powerful in its
pursuit. Manufacturing had increased to a point
where the permanency of its institution could no
longer be doubted. The boundless resources of the
great Western granaries were pouring in yellow
streams to Europe. The Collins Line of steamers,
with five magnificent ships subsidized by the United
States government, were put upon the Atlantic
Ocean ; but the loss of the Pacific and Arctic, fol-
lowed by the withdrawal of the subsidy, ended the
operations of the line in 1858.
The event of this period, so far as New York's
commercial greatness is concerned, however, was
the opening of the first trunk-line, the Erie, to Dun-
kirk, in 1851. It demonstrated the usefulness of the
railroad, doubted even at that day by many, and
was speedily followed by other great systems stretch-
ing out in all directions. Long before this first road
was finished New York's position as the metropolis
of the United States was assured ; but its connection
with railroads of sufficient length was as important
to it as the opening of the Erie Canal had been
twenty-five years before. The commercial interests,
which had originated, developed, and supported the
city's greatness, began still further to expand. The
financial troubles of 1857 found New York the least
susceptible to their attack. It speedily recovered,
and the next year saw the commerce of the country
reach a total valuation of over $500,000,000, of
which only about two fifths was accredited to New
York, despite the fact that nearly two thirds of the
imports, amounting to $180,953,843, had passed
through her custom-house. The preeminence of
New Orleans in the cotton export trade still con-
tinued to keep that city on terms of formidable riv-
alry with New York, while Galveston, also deriving
its importance from the same staple, was coming to
the front with Baltimore, Savannah, and Charleston.
This year of 1858 was destined to see one of the
most marvelous of the century's achievements— the
laying of the first transatlantic cable, which was ac-
complished through the enterprise of several of New
60
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
York's public-spirited citizens. Though it operated
successfully for only a few days, its practicability
was demonstrated, and 1865 and 1866 saw others
laid and the present great oceanic system of tele-
graphs begun.
The brief operation of the cable of 1858 furnished
one striking incident of the utmost commercial im-
portance. Over it was announced the collision be-
tween the steamers Europa and Arabia, the recep-
tion of this news saving the business world at least
$250,000, which would otherwise have been spent
in additional insurances on the vessels and their
cargoes.
In 1859 the country at large owned a total ton-
nage of 3,485,266, — greater than that of any or all
nations on earth except the United Kingdom,— while
New York herself alone had a tonnage greater than
any of the other countries, with the exception of
Great Britain. This great fleet, carrying the chief
part of all America's commerce under her own flag,
was also strong in her competition for the carrying
trade of the world, the lion's share of which she had
already won. In the coastwise trade an enrolled
and licensed tonnage of 1,377,424 plied to and from
New York harbor.
The period comprised by the next few years is
one which lends itself to be told by figures more
readily than in any other way. The growing net-
work of the railroads had been slowly diverting the
cotton from the smaller seaports in its movement to
the markets, and New York was now getting a fair
share. Her total imports for the year 1861, preced-
ing the Civil War, amounted to $188,790,086, out
of $287,250,542 credited to the country as a whole.
Of the exports, of the value of $204,899,606, New
York had more than doubled the figures of three
years earlier, and claimed $118,267,177. The ton-
nage of the country had swelled to the vast total
of 5,299,175, and merchantmen carrying the Stars
and Stripes and hailing from New York could be
seen in every port of the civilized world. It was
the golden age of American shipping ; and although
New York is a far greater city to-day than she was
then, it is still a matter of regret that she cannot
carry on her vast transactions with an American
marine, rather than beneath the flags of other coun-
tries whose vessels traverse the seas. The golden
age was brief, however. It grew up in the years be-
tween 1820 and 1860, and it was cut down almost
in a year— one year of war. The close of 1862
found the United States' merchant fleet smaller by
many thousands of tons than it had been the pre-
ceding year, while Great Britain, ever on the watch
to secure an advantage, had increased her fleet cor-
respondingly and was rapidly becoming the carrier
of the world's freights.
The imports at New York showed still further the
effects of the war. A falling off of over $50,000,000
was the record, but even this was far better than
that which happened to the remainder of the coun-
try, which added up its total import trade to only
$189,356,677. The export trade of the country at
large was affected least by the troubles of this time
and only decreased slightly, while New York's ex-
ports actually increased, amounting to $127,65 1,778,
or about $9,000,000 more than during the preced-
ing year. The cause of this was shown later in the
year following the war, when between the exports of
New York for 1864 and those for 1866 there was a
falling off in the latter year of nearly $33,000,000,
due mainly to the resumption of the Southern ports.
The effect of the Civil War upon New York's
commerce fortunately lasted only a short time.
Had it not been for the disturbance it caused to
general business it is doubtful whether the war, in
its effect commercially, would not have been con-
sidered to a high degree beneficial. The figures,
when studied, show this to have been so relatively,
at least. New York was undoubtedly more promi-
nent and a larger factor in the trade of the country
between 1861 and 1864 than she is now, but it was
a much smaller trade. Her own particular pros-
perity increased with the end of the war, and in
1870 her imports and exports had increased to over
$100,000,000 greater than they were in 1862, while
the total trade of the United States aggregated nearly
$900,000,000.
The foregoing figures show that the commerce of
New York recovered very quickly from the shock of
war. The shipping interests of the city were not so
fortunate. Out of a total lost tonnage of 1,104,435
due to the war, New York had suffered about one
fifth of the whole. This loss has been recovered
but slowly, and even to-day the figures have not re-
turned to the point from which they fell. Instead
of two thirds of the commerce of the port being
done in American bottoms, as it was prior to 1860,
there is scarcely a quarter of it that does not go to
foreign carriers. England has nearly 8,000,000 of
tonnage more to-day than we, and much of New
York's trade is carried on under her flag. Ship-build-
ing has accordingly ceased to be a great New York
industry, which it was earlier in the century.
Since the war all attempt to particularize in sketch-
ing the history of such a gigantic emporium as New
York is hopeless. The causes which have already
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
been laid down as operating to bring about her
greatness are equally strong to maintain it. The
natural center of the enormous wealth of the East-
em seaboard States, she is also in direct contact by
her railroads and waterways with the most remote
centers of production, and to her as the only real
distributer must the imports come. Despite the
fact that storage and wharfage charges are higher
than in almost any other port, one third of the entire
wheat crop of the country is exported from this city.
The war and the railway systems together have so
militated against the Southern cotton ports that a
large share of that trade passes through New York.
Petroleum and the valuable products of the won-
derful oil regions, dressed beef and pork from the
enormous packing-houses of Chicago and other
Western cities, live cattle from Texas and the
Western plains, and breadstuffs and provisions of
all kinds, make up much of the great volume of
exports. Of the staples of import, among the most
important are sugar, coffee, tea, and tobacco. Of
these, one half the sugar and three fourths each of
the coffee and tea imported for the whole country
pay duty at this port.
To show more clearly the magnitude of the busi-
ness transactions involved in the commercial state-
ments of to-day, a few figures taken from the best
available sources will be useful. The year 1885
gave a total volume of commerce for the United
States of $1,304,210,275. New York's returns for
the same period showed imports amounting to $380,-
077,748 and exports $334,718,227, making a total
of $714,795,975- In 1893, in the face of the finan-
cial and commercial troubles of the year, the coun-
try's total foreign trade showed an increase of nearly
$350,000,000, making a total of $1,652,354,534.
New York's share in the nation's increased trade
was about $170,000,000, her total figures for the
year being $886,487,641.
To meet the demands of the enormous traffic in-
dicated by these figures, New York has expanded
in every way. It now has a population of about
2,000,000, and manufacturing interests with an an-
nual productivity of $600,000,000 and employing
500,000 hands. It is a center for the greatest
railways of the country, and a sailing port for half
a hundred great ocean steamship lines. It has a
water-front of twenty-five miles, thirteen of them
being along the North River, and the dock facilities
are increasing every day. The recently completed
Harlem Canal between the Harlem and Hudson
rivers has been put into operation, and with its facil-
ities the great coastwise trade in bricks, ice, and
lumber between New England and the Sound ports
and the Hudson River towns has been materially
increased, and a saving of many miles accomplished
for a number of vessels coming in on one side of
Manhattan Island and having to discharge on the
other side.
The harbor of New York to-day is thronged with
vessels the year round. Lofty-masted sailing fleets
are docked along South Street ; coastwise vessels
and freight and passenger transatlantic steamships
stretch for miles along West Street, interspersed with
slips for market-boats and fishing craft ; while count-
less ferries furnish a connection with neighboring
cities. 5,000,000 annual tonnage is computed to be
the extent of the city's shipping traffic, and 928,000
of this is in the foreign trade, the coastwise trade
with its colliers, and the fleet of New England schoon-
ers, making a large percentage of the remainder.
A total of about 6000 vessels, steam and sail,
arrive here annually from foreign ports, while nearly
16,000 enter in the coastwise trade, of which fully
14,000 are sailing craft. In addition to the Euro-
pean lines there are regular steamships to Brazil,
Venezuela, the Central American and Mexican ports,
and the West Indian Islands.
The precautions taken to guard the city from
contagion from any of the increasing number of
merchantmen have resulted in the establishment of
an effective quarantine. Originally instituted in
1746 on Staten Island, moved to Bedloe's Island
in 1784 by the State legislature, and to Governor's
Island in 1794, it returned finally to Staten Island
in 1 80 1, where its usefulness has steadily increased.
The immigration in this country centers almost en-
tirely in New York, over four fifths of the total tide
coming to Ellis Island.
The mercantile interests of the city have likewise
increased with the general expansion, until to-day
there is scarcely a great interest in the country which
has not agents in New York. Foreign houses also
have established branches here, and the old mer-
chant of one hundred years ago has become the
great importer of to-day, while his jealously guarded
designation of "merchant" has fallen upon the
modem business man, jobber, wholesale dealer, and
manufacturing agent.
Diversified as the commercial lines have become,
the growth to separate importance of the various
branches with their ramifications has compelled the
introduction of new methods. The Chamber of
Commerce and the Board of Trade and Transpor-
tation constitute bodies as great and productive of
good as ever, but around them have grown up many
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
subdivisions of the various interests. A single trade
to-day transacts a greater business than the com-
bined interests of the whole city did one hundred years
ago, and some facilitation of this enormous business
became necessary. This has resulted in the estab-
lishment of many exchanges, such as the Produce,
Cotton, Coffee, Coal, Metal, Consolidated, Fruit,
Real Estate, and others, all of which concentrate
the interests they represent at some commercial
point. The shipping interests are represented at the
Maritime Exchange, and the facilities of the cus-
tom-house, public stores, and bonded warehouses are
such as have been found to be of the greatest prac-
tical benefit. There are 1700 employees in the cus-
toms service in New York; and $150,000,000, col-
lected at the modest cost of about two per cent., is
the annual revenue this port contributes to the Fed-
eral government.
Summing up the whole situation, New York to-
day as a commercial metropolis outranks any city
in the world, with the single exception of London ;
and it requires no especially boastful spirit to say
that her prosperity is founded upon a securer basis
than that of even the great English capital. Stand-
ing at the national gateway to the great West, the
wealth that pours each way must pass through her
portals. Combining the enterprise that attempts
with the wealth that makes of the attempt a sus-
tained effort, she has only begun her career of great-
ness. She has won success in the first and hardest
stage of her journey, and the way is now clear be-
fore her. Her future is secure, for as surely as the
nation shall wax greater, richer, and more powerful,
so surely shall the metropolis of New York continue
her onward progress.
CHAPTER XI
OUR FOREIGN TRADE FROM A TRADER'S STANDPOINT
DIFFERENT conditions of soil, climate, and
population exist throughout the world, so that
a large portion of the wants of one section is
supplied from the products of another. This inter-
change is the most important agency for bringing
the peoples of the world into harmonious relations.
By its means the interests of different regions have
become so interwoven that to-day no nation can go
to war without seriously prejudicing the interests of
neutral countries as well as those of many of its own
citizens. With improved methods of production, and
the increased facilities for interchange of commodi-
ties, the wants of mankind have rapidly grown. The
luxuries of one generation have become the necessi-
ties of the next, so that to-day the masses are living
under more favored conditions than the nobility of
medieval times, and international trade has increased
fortyfold since the beginning of the eighteenth
century.
The most important developments of this " indus-
trial age " are the railroad, the steamship, and the
telegraph. They have made possible the transporta-
tion of merchandise of great bulk under conditions
generally beneficial to both producers and con-
sumers. Foreign trade has become to-day of so
much importance that the leading men of all nations
are alive to the necessity of mastering the complex
conditions governing international commerce, and
he takes the highest place in this age of industrial
wars who is most prominent in creating conditions
favorable to the industrial development of the people
he represents.
In looking at these rapidly changing conditions
from a trader's standpoint, one fact stands out, that
while the volume of foreign trade has increased,
the margin of profit has proportionately decreased.
The barter of tinsel trinkets, firearms, and spirits for
ivory, pearls, and gold-dust showed such an enor-
mous percentage of profit as to illustrate the igno-
rance which existed under primitive means of com-
munication. As facilities for communication and
transportation improved, rates of freight declined,
widening the circle of trade. During the first three
quarters of this century the margins of profit in
foreign commerce were so large that merchants with
only moderate capital entered the field successfully,
and there grew up in the maritime cities and towns
of this country a well-distributed business in foreign
trade and in the building and freighting of sailing
vessels until we possessed the finest fleet of clipper-
ships in the world.
During the past twenty-five years, however, the
margins of profit in foreign trade and transportation
have been reduced at least seventy-five per cent.
New methods have been adopted in order to suc-
cessfully meet these new conditions. Most of the
houses that were leaders in our foreign trade one
quarter of a century ago did not adapt themselves
to the changed environment of commerce, and were
forced out of business. To-day quick communica-
tion and improved banking facilities enable the
foreign merchant to transact safely a much larger
business in proportion to his capital than was pos-
sible half a century ago ; but these very facilities
have created a competition so intense that to-day
there is little or no profit in transferring the great
staples from producer to consumer, so that the trader
is forced into the position of a speculator unless he
has special facilities for distribution. While in for-
eign trade the middleman is more useful than in
domestic commerce, the tendency of the times is, by
bringing together producer and consumer, to elimi-
nate him. The trader is forced to enlarge the field
of his transactions. This he cannot safely do except
by the use of expert abilities and scientific organiza-
tion. All this makes necessary large aggregations
of capital ; and the tendency to consolidation, which
is the striking feature of industrial enterprise, is find-
ing its way into international commerce.
Yet the trader has a great advantage over the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
farmer and the manufacturer, for his capital is mobile,
and not locked up in land or in machinery that in most
factories must be thrown away within a decade by
reason of new inventions. The Bessemer-steel rail and
the triple-expansion engine have practically placed
the wheat-fields of India, the Argentine Republic,
and the western United States alongside the farms of
western Europe. The cheap land and cheap labor of
India, the natural advantages of the Argentine, and
the great machine-reaped prairies of the West have
destroyed the profit of the European tiller of the
soil, and practically extinguished the margin for the
landed proprietor. The great discontent in Europe
to-day is largely due to the unfavorable condition
of the agrarian classes; and the demand made by
them for something to better their condition has
forced to the surface the agitation of false theories
for improving trade through silver legislation.
The statistician Mulhall has made it possible to
know what the trade of the world has been, and to
trace year by year its enormous growth. The fol-
lowing table shows approximately the aggregate
value of imports and exports of each country in
millions sterling :
great force of the nation has been directed toward
the development of our internal resources ; to inter-
state commerce rather than to the extension of for-
eign trade. The largest commerce of the world,
conducted under the conditions of absolute free
trade, is carried on between the States of the United
States. Untrammeled by customs-duties, the people
of the United States, covering a territory of 3,000,-
ooo square miles, have created the most efficient
systems for exchange of commodities. They have
built 185,000 miles of railways — as many miles as
exist in all the rest of the world. They have created
the most complete systems of navigation by lake,
river, and canal, and a banking system by which a uni-
form and stable currency exists throughout the entire
country. They have not only opened up mines and
extended agriculture, but they have developed man-
ufacturing; and while the rate of wages has been
higher in this than in any other country, the people
of the United States, forced by necessity to meet the
low-priced labor of other countries, have applied
their high intelligence to the invention of labor-
saving machines, so that to-day, although the popu-
lation of the United States is but 70,000,000, the
FOREIGN TRADE OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES IN MILLIONS STERLING.
COUNTRIES.
1720.
1750.
1780.
1800.
1820.
1830.
1840.
1850.
1860.
1870.
1880.
1889.
Great Britain
17
21
22
67
7<1
88
1 60
77C
CA"?
698
France
7
13
66
107
Germany
8
ie
2O
76
AQ
4.6
C2
167
Russia
8
17
28
A.S
lie
Austria
2
6
8
Si
Italy . .
•?
c
7
3°
66
Spain
IO
18
Portugal
2
|
18
Scandinavia
2
7
t
5
8
§
48
J4
flA
Holland and Belgium. . .
Switzerland
4
I
6
2
8
15
24
1
3°
45
61
86
136
237
DO
310
60
Turkey, etc. . .
2
6
3"
45
29
55
49
72
Europe . .
62
228
Af\R
CTfi
United States
7
17
301
400
57°
62
T3fi
!>573
KI-
2>I34
2>3J3
Spanish America
IO
TC
A%
M°
1D5
ifir\
320
ififi
British colonies . .
2
35
7°
94
'35
India
9
44
103
OK
T!-»8
Various
c
3°
So
85
131
Z5
3°
35
5°
i°5
149
The world
88
1 86
Q,-
34 1
407
573
532
,4»9
2,191
3'°33
3>377
From this general view of international trade let us
turn to the foreign trade of the United States. I am
informed that Mr. Worthington C. Ford in his con-
tribution to this history of American Commerce,
will give in detail the statistics of our imports and
exports. Although the foreign trade of the United
States has increased so that we now do as much in
one week as we did in one year a century ago, the
labor-saving machinery which is run daily in this
country — its fixed steam power being one third of
that of the entire world — has a far greater produc-
tive capacity than the population of the Chinese
empire.
The restless enterprise of America, having con-
quered more than half the continent, it is now turn-
ing toward other fields of activity. In the effort to
CHARLES R. FLINT.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
extend our commerce it is natural first to consider
the countries south of us. These countries can buy
of us manufactures and food products. Their prin-
cipal employment is agriculture, and they form one
of the most important groups of those nations which
are known to economists as " neutral markets."
There are many evidences of the strength of the
movement toward enlarging our commercial rela-
tions with these sister republics : the assembling of
the International American Conference, at which
all the republics of the Americas were represented,
called under an act of our Congress for the pur-
pose of extending inter-American trade ; the com-
pletion by an American company of telegraphic
communication by land and sea to the southern-
most cities of South America ; the appointment of a
commission, with representatives from North, South,
and Central America, to report the most desirable
route for an intercontinental railway ; the establish-
ment of the Bureau of American Republics, for the
purpose of publishing their statistics and other in-
formation of interest to those engaged in American
trade ; the simplification and unification of customs
regulations ; a Monetary Conference to study plans
for facilitating inter-American exchange ; the unani-
mous recommendation by all of the American re-
publics to establish an International American Bank
under an act of the Congress of the United States,
with branches in all the other American republics ;
the celebration of treaties of reciprocity ; the pro-
posed establishment of a permanent court to settle
all inter- American disputes by arbitration ; the open-
ing to our southern neighbors of this great consum-
ing market by continuing the free admission into
the United States of hides, rubber, nitrate of soda,
and other products, and the recent removal of the
duties on coffee, sugar, and wool, so that to-day over
ninety-five per cent, of the products imported from
Mexico, the West Indies, South and Central America,
amounting to $235,000,000, are admitted by us free
of duty. Important as these have been, of still more
efficiency is the incessant activity of American mer-
chants and manufacturers who are engaged in press-
ing their wares upon the attention of these most
excellent customers.
The merchant engaged in foreign trade is obliged
to study not only the conditions of the markets which
are the distributing points of products, but he must
also investigate the conditions of production. The
American system of manufacturing great quanti-
ties of articles all precisely alike is favorable to uni-
form quality at the lowest cost. This cost is still
further decreased when manufacture is highly con-
centrated. As a result many great industries are
availing themselves of the advantages of centraliza-
tion, and so securing economies. The first important
aggregation in capital and intelligence for the pur-
pose of securing cheap production was the Standard
Oil Company, and they show what may be accom-
plished by economical methods in building up a great
foreign trade. Without assistance from tariff pro-
tection that great combination has reduced the cost
of illuminating oil to a point where it has been able
to furnish a brilliant but low-priced light even to the
countries where the people are the poorest and de-
mand the lowest price, such as China, Japan, and
India. The aggregate of these exports has reached
the enormous sum of $45,000,000 per annum. The
underlying principles which have created this great
success are now being applied to many other in-
dustries. Through these consolidations the capacity
for cheap production is greatly increased, and such
concentration of capital and industry will be a great
lever in enabling the United States to take possession
of foreign markets that heretofore have been domin-
ated by competing nations.
In labor-saving machinery and in intelligence of
the labor employed, the United States to-day is
in advance of the rest of the world. As an evi-
dence of the progress we are making as a manu-
facturing nation our exports of manufactures this
year will amount to about $200,000,000 as against
$40,000,000 in 1 860. While our merchant marine
has relatively declined, the fleets of other nations
are at our service. But in one respect we are
far behind the manufacturing nations of Europe.
Our banking system was organized originally with
a view to enable the government to borrow great
sums of money from the people during the Civil
War by selling bonds to be used as a basis for
circulation. It has since been modified, and is
to-day a most excellent instrument of interstate
commerce ; but it is utterly inadequate to deal with
foreign trade. The banking facilities of Great
Britain devoted exclusively to the foreign commerce
of that country represent an investment of hundreds
of millions of pounds sterling, while the foreign
merchants of the United States are forced to not
only be their own traders, but their own bankers.
Yet the advantages of foreign trade are great, and
when the attention of the financiers of the country
shall be directed to the organization of proper institu-
tions devoted to supplying this deficiency, the effect
upon the increase of American exports will be marked.
Such are the conditions of the past and of to-
day from the trader's standpoint ; yet he may look
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
toward the future with equanimity. While there is
a tendency to eliminate the middleman, neverthe-
less, if he be one of those fittest that are to survive,
he will greatly increase his capital. He will perfect
his organization so that he is ably represented in
every market where he attempts to do business.
He will freely use the cable to put himself in pos-
session of all the price-making facts. He will
assist in the formation of banking organizations
which will enable him to finance his operations.
While the average profit of transactions is steadily
decreasing, he may so increase their volume and
decrease the expenses of doing business that the net
profits shall be as large as or larger than before.
Then the rapid advance of America into the field of
international trade will almost push him forward
into prosperity, for the skill and knowledge acquired
through long years of business relations with foreign
markets must be availed of by the manufacturers
and producers who wish to sell their goods abroad.
By reason of superior organization he is able to per-
fectly protect himself with reference to the standing
and credit of his customers, and through his large
capital he is enabled to spread his transactions over
so many countries as to greatly divide his risks. By
associating himself with the many movements to-
ward concentration of capital and consolidation of
production he will be able more readily to defeat
his European rivals in the markets of the world.
He will do all that he can to forward such enter-
prises as the Nicaragua Canal and the Interconti-
nental Railroad, which, while in a sense yet dreams,
are dreams in course of realization. By means of
these agencies certain disadvantages of the United
States in the struggle for the world's trade will be
more than counterbalanced, and the trader will be
brought far nearer than before to the many regions
with which he desires to do business.
During the past ten years the foreign trader has
been most seriously prejudiced by the violent fluc-
tuations and uncertainty arising out of the unwise
attempts to create an artificial value for silver.
Through legislation the price of silver was advanced
to $1.20 per ounce, but speedily reacted to less than
sixty cents. While these conditions, because under-
mining confidence, caused the panic of 1893, the
trading in this country, owing to the government
sustaining the stability of its currency, had the ad-
vantage of being conducted upon a fixed basis ; but
the trade of our sister republics and of the other
countries on a silver basis was directly subject to the
rapid fluctuations in the white metal. Importers were
obligated to remit in gold, and then, owing to the de-
preciation of the currency, had to take fifty cents on
the dollar. These conditions doubled the prices of
imports, thus curtailing the volume of importations.
No conditions have ever arisen which have so
obstructed foreign trade. False hopes of relief were
based upon efforts to formulate an international
agreement fixing a uniform ratio between gold and
silver. Fortunately the silver question, after several
campaigns of education, is better understood, and
this vexed problem is in course of solution by natural
laws. Low prices are reducing the production of
silver, while the output of gold is rapidly increasing.
No business has been so seriously affected by the
uncertainty and extreme fluctuations in the price of
silver as international trade, and probably none will
benefit so much by stable monetary conditions. Our
foreign trade is already beginning to feel the effect
of greater financial stability. The power of return-
ing confidence, with the accumulated energy of years
of inactivity, multiplied by the modern facilities for
production and transportation, will create an era of
prosperity in international trade unknown in the
history of the world.
CHAPTER XII
WALL STREET
THE name "Wall Street" is but a symbol
used to signify the American money market.
As the dollar-mark placed before long rows
of figures throws a golden luster on the column, so
the name of the little great thoroughfare that runs
from the high gate of old Trinity down to the East
River lends its own significance to the surrounding
locality. Nassau, Pine, Cedar, Broad, New, Wil-
liam, and Hanover streets are all as truly parts of
the expanded Wall Street of to-day as their bankers,
brokers, and business are a part of the great Ameri-
can money market. Around the Wall Street of a
century ago as a nucleus have gathered the great
moneyed interests of the New World, and it is they,
rather than any particular street, that are designated
to-day by the term " Wall Street." Yet, if the his-
toric old street has broadened somewhat in signifi-
cance and application during the past century, it has
still lost none of its identity. Since the memorable
day in 1789 when George Washington, standing on
the steps of the old Federal House, took the oath
as first President of these United States, the street
he then surveyed has been a center for every great
national enterprise. It has been the one fixed point
around which have revolved the great financial
panics that swept the land, and it has also been the
source whence have sprung many of the greatest of
those undertakings which have rendered our country
and the age alike famous.
Something over two centuries ago green rolling
fields stretched from Broadway to the East River.
Along the ridge of the hill at the head of Broad
Street stood the high palisade of stout timber de-
fending the town against any sudden incursion of
the red warriors who still prowled the neighboring
land. This palisade, which gave its name to Wall
Street, has long been gone. It outlived the red
men, and was finally torn down, the line it made
being laid out and named Wall Street. To-day it
67
and its significance are forgotten, as are those fair-
haired, red-cheeked Dutch maidens, who, tripping
down the foot-path to the water, bearing the house-
hold linen to the wash, gave their name to Maiden
Lane ; or the jolly old burghers, clad in baggy knee-
breeches and smoking long pipes, who, in the days
of doughty Peter Stuyvesant, played their game of
bowls upon the smooth turf of Bowling Green. It
is only in the few names like these still left that we
find how historic are many old city ways. Among
them all Wall Street stands with the earliest. There,
when the old Town House was demolished in 1699,
was built, upon the site of the present Sub-Treasury,
a new City Hall, the building which was fitted up
six years after the close of the Revolution for the
meeting-place of Congress, and at which President
Washington was inaugurated.
The importance of Wall Street, therefore, may be
dated from 1700, when the affairs of the municipal-
ity centered there. By the middle of the century it
was a " grand street " with handsome private resi-
dences, the seat of the colonial legislature, and the
central point for all the political and social life of
the day. The State legislature, too, met in Wall
Street until the capital was removed from New York
to Albany, and for fully fifty years the official life of
New York converged there. Nevertheless the tide
of affairs was slowly rising in the old thoroughfare,
and the private residences began to give way before
the offices of the great merchants, who were forsak-
ing lower Broadway and the smaller streets down-
town. The shopkeepers and small traders, however,
did not venture upon this ground. It was only the
great merchant princes and moneyed traders who
first planted the standards of business in Wall
Street. To them naturally came others, and the
Bank of New York, of which General Alexander
McDougal was the first president, was in existence
but a few years when it was removed to Wall Street,
68
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
where it established itself in 1791 at the corner of
William Street, being the first bank in New York City
and the first on Wall Street.
Had the wishes of the Bank of New York been
respected there might never have been another one
in the Street; for its influence was strong in the
legislature, and for years it was impossible for any
other banking charter to be obtained. The estab-
lishment of the second bank in Wall Street, and the
State as well, came about in a most curious manner,
and the credit of its accomplishment belongs to that
shrewd lawyer, Aaron Burr. He introduced in 1799
into the legislature a bill to charter the Manhattan
Company, a corporation of large capital which pro-
posed constructing a system of water-works. Yellow
fever, then an annual scourge, caused the people to
welcome gladly any improved sanitary regulation,
and pure water was considered of the utmost im-
portance. Viewing the matter thus, even the watch-
ful politicians who were assembled in the legislative
halls saw little to object to in the new company, and
it was chartered accordingly. One brief clause had
been overlooked, however, and in it lay the pith of
the cunning Burr's success. This clause, after recit-
ing that the company's capital should be expended
in the construction of a system of water-supply,
provided that if any surplus should remain it could
be used in any business " not unlawful." Under this
head banking most certainly fell, and the Manhattan
Company, finding speedily that they had a surplus,
used it in founding their bank that same year, the lo-
cation chosen being at what was then 23 Wall Street.
One thing, however, must be said, which is that
the Manhattan Company was equally prompt in
providing its water-supply. The water was ob-
tained from an old spring, and the reservoir was
located near the corner of Reade and Center streets,
where it remains to this day, an odd-looking, old-
fashioned cistern enough, but still capable of pro-
viding water as it did nearly a century ago, when it
was considered almost as great an engineering feat
as the present Croton Aqueduct. It is years since
water has been used from it. The pipes by which
the Manhattan Company carried water through the
town were made from solid logs, the centers care-
fully bored out and the lengths jointed together.
Occasionally, even now, some contractor digging in
the lower streets of the city brings to light one of
these old pipe logs, laid so long ago ; and several
sections thus exhumed have been bronzed, and are
carefully kept in the Manhattan Bank as mementos
of the great work in the earlier days.
The choice by these two banks— the only ones in
the city — of Wall Street for their location must be
regarded as the final election of that street as the
home of American finance. The United States
Branch Bank was opened there in 1792 ; the Mer-
chants' was there in 1805, and the Mechanics' Bank
in 1810. Meanwhile, too, another potent factor
in centering business interests in Wall Street was
introduced by the erection in 1794 of the Tontine
Coffee-House. Here at noon every day gathered
the merchants from their counting-rooms and ware-
houses to discuss the news of the day, compare
notes, chat, and even make trades. At the plain
old bar in the center of the great room the best
liquors, at a time when good liquor was the rule,
were to be had ; and sedate old merchants, with a
piece of the thirst-provoking salt codfish or a dry
cracker in one hand, and a steaming glass of old
Jamaica, oily schnapps, or sound old port in the
other, gravely exchanged the courtesies of the day.
" High 'Change " they called this hour, and, entirely
apart from its convivial features, the benefits of this
general intermingling of the business men of the city
were found to be so important that a merchants'
exchange, having the Tontine Coffee-House as its
headquarters, was formed. Thus did the Exchange
first manifest itself in Wall Street, and quotations
now disseminated broadcast by electricity were then
obtained by word of mouth, the Tontine Coffee-
House being large enough to contain all the great in-
terests of the New York business world of 1795.
In this latter year, with which the century under
discussion begins, the banking facilities of New
York, exclusive of the branch office of the Bank of
the United States, aggregated considerably less than
$1,000,000, and business was synonymous with for-
eign trade. The merchants were the men of affairs,
and, except in foreign commerce or domestic traffic,
there were few ways to invest idle funds. The
buying of land — real-estate investment — had not
then become general, and manufactures were almost
unknown, at least as a field for the investment of
large capital. Gradually the very extension of
trade and business requirements began to bring
complexities. Capital increased, and the distinctive
function of the banker began, which, according to
Ricardo, is "using the money of others." Banks
increased, insurance companies sprang up, and the
management of money as apart from its use in the
channels of trade gradually became more and more
distinct. Private bankers, always in existence, gave
up little by little the mercantile branches of their
business, brokers who bought and sold for others on
commission could be found as easily in Wall Street
JOHN P. TOWNSEND.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
as at the present time, and by 1810 all the various
elements found on 'Change to-day could be observed
working themselves into distinctness.
One of the earliest of the great merchants and
bankers who ruled on Wall Street in 1796 was
Nathaniel Prime, better known as " Nat " Prime.
Later on he was the head of the famous banking-
house of Prime, Ward & King, a firm as great in
its day as any whose name rules the Street now.
" Nat " Prime was a hard-headed, picturesque old
figure, who had, rumor said, been a coachman in
Boston in his younger years. A keen fellow, he had
saved and loaned at interest until he gathered a
small sum. He was doing a small brokerage busi-
ness in New York, when, it is related, he met at a din-
ner-party one evening a rich Southern planter. The
conversation turned on money-making, and Prime
remarked that if he had $5000 he would double it
in a year. The planter asked him what security he
could give for such a loan. " The word of an hon-
est man," replied Prime ; and on that collateral the
Southerner advanced him the money. So Nathaniel
Prime got his start. Within the year he had paid
his benefactor back ; but he gave no more than was
strictly due ; and when, some years later, the same
Southerner, being in financial straits, applied to him
for a loan on the security he himself had given, he
refused him. Gratitude was a debt the law did
not recognize nor " Nat " Prime pay, but in his
financial dealings he was always the very soul of
integrity.
From these beginnings to being head of the
greatest banking-house in New York and a king in
Wall Street was a career, however, that showed the
business qualities of Nathaniel Prime ; and in the
dawning importance of that famous street his was
one of the most prominent figures. One of the first
significant events showing the extending influence
of Wall Street as a financial center was the famous
conference of its four great powers, Nathaniel
Prime, John Jacob Astor, John Robins, and John
Hone, when the State of Ohio, in 1825, contemplat-
ing internal development on a large scale, applied
for a heavy loan. Two days and a night did this
session last, and then the first great ultimatum of
Wall Street magnates went forth to the Ohio ambas-
sadors. Enact into statute certain stipulated con-
cessions and the money will be forthcoming, was the
tenor of this decision. Back to Ohio went the dele-
gates. The legislature deliberated, and passed the
required bills, and from Wall Street to Ohio went a
vast loan. This first syndicate was one that might
have been a little more peremptory in stating its
terms than those of to-day, but it was equally
prompt in living up to its agreements.
The development of the business of Wall Street
as a financial power brought in its train a system of
operations based upon the exchange of funds, the
representation in stocks of intrinsic values, and the
acknowledgment in bonds of indebtedness and lien.
Around these three simple quantities has grown the
multiplex money market of to-day. There were few
stocks, or bonds either, in 1795; nevertheless the
brokers were already on the Street, and Bleecker's
famous old auction-room was the first place where
the early bulls and bears resorted. It was a small
enough stock-list they had to operate with in those
days, and seemingly simple to master. The two or
three banks and insurance companies then existing
were quoted, and the three or four classes of gov-
ernment secuirties, but these were all. Sudden or
extreme fluctuations, except in time of war, were
almost unknown, and an operator who conned his
list well on Monday was generally posted for the
week. Upon such a field as this did the great New
York Stock Exchange make its first appearance.
Under an old buttonwood-tree standing in front of
60 Wall Street the early brokers of New York met
one day in 1792, and set forth the purposes and
obligations of the association in the following
agreement :
" We, the subscribers, brokers for the purchase and
sale of public stock, do hereby solemnly promise
and pledge ourselves to each other that we will not
buy or sell from this date, for any person whatso-
ever, any kind of public stocks at a less rate than one
quarter of one per cent, commission on the specie
value, and that we will give a preference to each
other in our negotiations. In testimony whereof
we have set our hands, this seventeenth day of
May, at New York, 1792. Lemuel Bleecker, Hugh
Smith, Armstrong & Barnewell, Samuel Marsh,
Bernard Hart, Sutton & Hardy, Benjamin Seixas,
John Henry, John A. Hardenbrook, Samuel Beebee,
Alexander Zuntz, Andrew D. Barclay, Ephraim
Hart, Julian McEvers, G. N. Bleecker, Peter
Anspach, Benjamin Winthrop, John Ferrers, Isaac
M. Gomez, Augustine H. Lawrence, John Bush,
Charles McEvers, Jr., Robinson & Hartshorn,
David Reedy."
This agreement was the only one by which the
members were bound until 1820, when daily meet-
ings and the regular call of stocks began. The
board had its permanent headquarters after 1825 in
the Old Merchants' Exchange; but after that was
destroyed by fire it established itself in one of the
70
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Jauncey buildings, whence it removed in 1842 to
the New Merchants' Exchange, now the Custom-
House. There it remained until 1853. Until that
time the board had been the closest of corporations,
its membership being governed by iron-clad rules.
Financial news agencies were unknown in those
days, and the board kept its proceedings a profound
secret, violation of this secrecy being punished by
expulsion. So intense was the curiosity over the
proceedings of this body that an Open Board, which
had been organized in 1837, took a building adjoin-
ing and dug the bricks out of the wall for the pur-
pose of spying out what was going on.
The board removed from the Merchants' Ex-
change Building in 1853 to a room in the old Corn
Exchange Bank Building at Beaver and William
streets. In 1857, the year of the great panic, the
board changed its headquarters to the Daniel Lord
Building, with entrances on William and Beaver
streets. Here it was that some of the great specu-
lators of the day flourished. Among these were
Daniel Drew, Jacob Little, and Morse, known as
the " lightning calculator," who made and lost a
fortune of millions in a little over a year. The rule
enjoining secrecy still continuing in force, it is a
fact of record that $100 a day was freely offered
for the privilege of listening at the keyhole during
the time of the calls. The board continued to hold
its meetings in the Lord Building until 1865, when
it removed to its present location. During the war
period the Stock Exchange, with a view to assisting
the government, prohibited its members from selling
government bonds "short," and also forbade them all
dealings in gold. The later action led to the forma-
tion of the Gold Exchange, which, although resulting
in a loss of many millions of dollars to its members,
was taken for purely patriotic purposes. A second
Open Board of Brokers was organized in 1863, with
headquarters in a basement in William Street, called
the " Coal-Hole." So rapidly did its business in-
crease that it soon took more spacious accommoda-
tions in Broad Street, adjoining the Stock Exchange.
The competition continued until 1869, when the old
board called a truce. Amicable negotiations led to
a consolidation of the Stock Exchange, the Open
Board, and the United States Government Board,
the result being the strongest public financial associ-
ation in the country, and one of the most important
in the world. William H. Neilson was the first
president.
The business of this exchange has become to-day
much greater than that of the combined exchanges
of the kind existing in the rest of the country. It is
the very heart of Wall Street, and its functions are as
vital to the development and prosperity of the country
as to the money market. It affords a constant and
regular market for the securities of the great corpora-
tions, and indexes their value in quotations of actual
bids and sales. Without such facilities as it affords,
the shares of these corporations, aggregating a total
par value well up in the billions, would move so
slowly that great enterprises would often lag from
sheer lack of capital. Again, transactions would be
vague, only known to the public when the interested
parties were willing, and the door would be opened
to manipulation and fraud almost unlimited were
the safeguard it affords to be removed. The Stock
Exchange, it is true, cannot control the relation of
values to prices, nor can it direct the management
of corporations by their officials ; but it can and
does secure a fair, free, and absolutely open market,
where the dealings are matters of record and public
knowledge. It can and does further insist that all
stocks dealt in on its floor shall have certain quali-
fications warranting their genuineness, and its " list-
ing" committee examines and investigates the
claims of every new security brought before it, be-
fore it is allowed on the list of those in which
members may deal. In admitting a security to its
list the Stock Exchange does not recommend it to
the public ; it simply places it among the honest
possibilities of the market, to stand or fall by its
own merit. In the unlisted securities dealt in by
special privilege of the exchange the action of the
board differs but in degree, and any stock in which
transactions are allowed, however slight its intrinsic
value may be, is stamped as not bogus.
In the exercise of these functions the Stock Ex-
change has come to stand as the great regulator of
the market for securities, and its transactions, fully
reported, serve as the standard by which values are
established. In the internal economy of the Stock
Exchange every method best adapted to conserve
the ends of straightforward and legitimate business
investment has been adopted. Among the more
important changes of the last thirty-five years have
been the following: the rule requiring the registry
of stocks, in 1869 ; the abandonment of the regular
call of stocks, in 1875; the rule authorizing the
buying in, if not delivered when due, of contracts
of active stocks, in 1884; the establishment of the
Department of Unlisted Securities, in 1885; and
finally the establishment in 1892 of its own Clearing-
House, where all active stocks dealt in are daily
cleared. The publicity the Stock Exchange thus
allows to all transactions, the centralization it affords
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
71
to the great interests of the country, and the regula-
tions it imposes upon all operations are among the
greatest advantages it confers. Its liberal enterprise,
coupled with the strictest integrity, aided by the
advantages mentioned, has most naturally placed
it in the van of organizations of this character in
the whole world.
Leaving now the consideration of the component
parts of Wall Street, and taking the Street in its true
significance as one of the greatest financial centers
in the world, its history becomes so vast, so inter-
woven with the woof of national affairs and pros-
perity, that it will only be possible to review it in its
more important phases. The War of 1812, which,
treading on the heels of the Embargo, brought the
first set-back to the new Republic, found Wall Street
still so identified with the mercantile interests that
its prostration with them at the close of the struggle
was only natural. The heavy war loans floated by
the government, however, had found their largest
takers in Wall Street, and that at a time when men
needed all their faith and patriotism to believe even
in the eventual solvency of the country. This was
the first time that the men and institutions of Wall
Street came to the nation's assistance. Looking
back and recalling the era of prosperity that followed
the war and the reestablishment of the United States
Bank, — a prosperity that in twenty years paid off the
great war debt and amassed a surplus of nearly
$50,000,000, — we can see that their confidence was
not misplaced. In this same period, too, during
which De Witt Clinton, in the face of the most
violent opposition, achieved the construction of the
great Erie Canal and placed commercial advantage
in the hands of New York, the evolution of Wall
Street was rapid. For twenty years its progress was
unimpeded, and then came the great fire of Decem-
ber, 1835. Millions of intrinsic value went up in
smoke and flame, and millions more followed in lost
time and opportunity before conditions could re-
adjust themselves. Every insurance company in
Wall Street gave up without recourse before the
overwhelming loss, and the banks felt most keenly
the ruin of their best customers, the merchants.
Just at this juncture grim old Andrew Jackson
demolished at a blow the great national bank. It
was the match to the train, although few saw the
mine it would explode. Between $40,000,000 and
$50,000,000 distributed to the State banks through-
out the country gave a momentary prosperity that
found vent in the gigantic bubble of land specula-
tion which the Specie Circular so woefully pricked.
Banks were asked to redeem their notes, but could
not, and then came the panic of 1837. Wall Street
felt the crash, but nevertheless her bankers were the
first to reopen their doors, and her capitalists the
first to regain their confidence. Long and slow was
the process of recuperation in the country at large ;
but through it all, with the banks of the West and
South opening one day only to suspend the next,
Wall Street continued evenly on its course, and the
completion in 1851 of the Erie Railroad to Dunkirk
shows how well her capitalists had retained their
faith and their courage.
The long drag of ten years, succeeded by an
equal period of prosperity struggling against bad
banking and ill-regulated finance, culminated in
1857. A branch office of the Ohio Life and Trust
Company was located in Wall Street, and from
there on the memorable 24th of August, 1857, issued
the news of its suspension. Like a house of cards
the great financial structure of the country came
tumbling down. Over-importations, with no com-
prehension of the effects of heavy and continued
gold shipments, joined to over-speculation and high
prices, may be said to have been primarily the cause
of the disaster. It was more severely felt in Wall
Street than its predecessor of a score of years before,
for the reason that it affected wider and more gen-
eral interests. The railroad, initiated in 1830,
accepted by 1835, and being pushed in every direc-
tion by 1857, was an interest with which, as to-day,
Wall Street was identified. By means of the tele-
graph, then lately brought into use, the dimensions
of the panic were thoroughly known in a week.
Failures aggregating $291,750,000 were reported
for the year, and Wall Street set itself to work to
repair the damage. Of what might have been, had
the troubles of 1860 never arisen, no one can say;
of what did occur history tells us plainly. The
government, harassed and embarrassed, turned to
Wall Street, and it did not seek in vain. Never did
a threatened power obtain freer or more speedy
relief. Obligations were fast maturing which the
government found no means to meet. Besides this,
vast sums were needed to carry on military opera-
tions. Not only the national credit, but the national
existence, was threatened.
In this emergency, Salmon P. Chase, Secretary
of the Treasury, communicated with John J. Cisco,
the subtreasurer of New York, to use his utmost
endeavors to raise the money necessary to sustain
the nation's credit. Mr. Cisco informed the banks
of the condition of the national finances and of his
instructions from Washington. He pointed out to
the leading operators and financiers that within a
72
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
few days interest on the accruing obligations of the
government would have to be paid or it must neces-
sarily go to protest. This was clearly one of the
most critical moments in the history of the nation,
and the crisis demanded sound judgment and
prompt action. The gravity of the situation was
clear to the bankers. The collapse of the govern-
ment's credit would endanger the perpetuity of our
very institutions. The foundation of all security
was threatened, and the destruction of all values
was imminent.
The outlook throughout the Union at that time
was dark, while all Europe looked on either in
apprehension or in hope that our political fabric
was going to pieces. But Wall Street took prompt
and united action to extricate the government from
its perilous position. The spirit of patriotism was
everywhere, and the great financial institutions of
the country responded with a heartiness that showed
their faith. The old Bowery Savings-Bank, one of
the richest, as it was one of the first, of such estab-
lishments in New York, voted in February, 1861, to
loan one half of all its funds to the government, and
this was accordingly done. It is difficult at the pres-
ent time, when four per cent, bonds of the United
States are selling daily in the market at twenty-one
per cent, premium, to estimate the courage that was
necessary at that period to resolve on such a course
as that followed by this bank. Government securi-
ties paying as high as seven and three tenths per
cent, interest were at that time at a substantial dis-
count, and it is matter of history that the issue, a
year later, of legal-tender notes, or "greenbacks,"
fundable in six per cent, bonds, was largely influ-
enced by the fact that except by such seemingly
arbitrary methods the loan could not have been se-
cured with either certainty or rapidity.
In the history of war-time finance, and the mea-
sures adopted under stress of the sternest necessity,
none was more lasting in its effects, nor greater in
the lengths to which it was ultimately carried, than
this authorization of the issue of legal-tender notes
—"greenbacks." When, in the autumn of 1861,
the bankers of the country had paid to the govern-
ment the last instalment of $50,000,000 of the
$150,000,000 in gold loaned, their condition was
one of extreme exhaustion. This money, disbursed
by the treasury to the army and navy, returned to
the banks but slowly, and the result of the drain
that it had produced was seen when, on December
30, 1 86 1, the banks suspended specie payment.
Of this $150,000,000 in gold thus lent the govern-
ment in the time of its direst need during the dark
days following the disaster of Bull Run, Wall Street
may pride itself on the fact that $105, 000,000 came
from its associated banks. The suspension of the
banks complicated the financial situation seemingly
beyond extrication. The maintenance of the army
and navy, which was synonymous with maintaining
the Union itself, was dependent upon a vast sum
being raised within three months. Therefore it was
as an expedient dictated solely by necessity and not
choice that the first Legal-Tender Act, providing
for an issue of treasury or government notes to the
value of $150,000,000, redeemable in six per cent,
twenty-year gold bonds, was passed, and signed by
President Lincoln, February 25, 1862. $50,000,000
of this issue, however, was to be in lieu of the trea-
sury demand notes authorized the previous July.
An issue of $500,000,000 in bonds bearing six per
cent, interest, and redeemable in five and payable
in twenty years, was also authorized by this act
for funding purposes. The first legal-tender notes
issued under the act bore the date March 10, 1862,
and none were of smaller denomination than $5.
Their effect in easing the pressure upon the treasury
was immediate. Within a month another and
smaller issue was declared, and on July nth a sec-
ond issue of $150,000,000 in notes of the same kind
was authorized, and bills of smaller denomination
than $5 were authorized. On March 3, 1863, a bill
was passed authorizing the $900,000,000 six per
cent, loan ; but, at the urgent request of Secretary
Chase, a clause was inserted leaving it optional with
the Secretary of the Treasury to permit the right of
holders to fund greenbacks into six per cent, gold
bonds. Under this new power greenbacks were
funded into sixes until January 21, 1864, when, the
original $500,000,000 issue of bonds having been
all taken up, the secretary decided that greenbacks
in future could only be funded in the five per cents.
The effect of this decision was to instantly and
seriously depress the value of the enormous paper
currency, and in it may be found the cause of much
of the manipulation which, using the premium on
gold as a leverage, shook and deranged values in
the money market for so many years.
It is thirty years now since the war closed, and
during that time there has been so much of notable
importance linked with Wall Street that only the
more prominent events need be mentioned. The
speculation in gold, giving the opportunity to un-
scrupulous operators to manipulate the stock market
for their own ends, culminated in " Black Friday,"
September 24, 1869, when many in Wall Street
began business in the morning as rich men and
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
73
went home ruined. Many versions of the causes
li.ive been given; but one thing remains certain:
that had not unnatural financial conditions permitted
the famous Gold Room to exist, the disaster would
never have occurred. It is always a situation of in-
calculable danger, when a nation's paper is at a dis-
count in her own markets. The next few years saw
no abatement of the troubles by which the financial
world was beset, and the rally which followed 1869
was but the comparative calm preceding the storm
which burst four years later. The great banking-
house of Jay Cooke & Co., staggering almost single-
handed under the terrible burden of the Northern
Pacific Railroad, precipitated the trouble in 1873.
Wall Street knew that a catastrophe was imminent,
but how to avert it was a problem.
As a bit of the unwritten history of that time, it
is related that a representative of one of the great
banking-houses in Wall Street, having formulated a
plan to relieve the tension, went to Washington to
lay it before the Secretary of the Treasury, William
A. Richardson. The latter declined to believe in
the gravity of the situation, and the banker gained
an audience with President Grant, to whom he re-
lated his fears of impending trouble and outlined
certain measures for relief. So much was the Pres-
ident impressed by the imminence of peril that he
not only gave the banker a letter to the Secretary,
requesting that official to give him a careful hear-
ing, but the President at once ordered the with-
drawal of his own private funds, a great part of
which, as it happened, was on deposit with the firm of
Jay Cooke & Company. How fortunate this action
of the President's was was shown when the very
next day the failure of the great banking-house was
announced.
The panic which this failure brought on was
sharp, as was the rally which followed and overdid
itself about ten years later, when over-extension
of railroads and incautious speculation brought a
relapse. In May, 1884, the failures of Grant &
Ward and the Marine Bank first alarmed the Street.
A few days elapsed without further serious trouble,
and then the Metropolitan Bank closed its doors
and the trouble became general. No less than
fifteen firms on the Stock Exchange failed during
this time.
It was in the panic of 1873 that the wonderful
power of the Clearing-House as exercised in the
issue of loan certificates was made manifest. This
power had already been appreciated as one of the
moving causes which had permitted Wall Street to
respond so readily to the government's demands for
large loans during the war, but its influence as a
factor in easing a tense market and relieving the
strain of panicky times was first learned in 1873,
when certificates aggregating $26,565,000 were
issued. Its second great manifestation was in 1884,
and its latest in 1893, which, following, as we have,
the course of financial crises since 1795, brings us
to the present time. This panic, from the effects
of which we are but now slowly recovering, had its
origin in many causes. Some solvent institutions
were forced to the wall through a general distrust
which compelled them to realize on good security
at a time when the market would not buy. In look-
ing for the causes of this distrust many things must
be considered. Tariff changes long impending pro-
voked a general feeling of uncertainty detrimental
to our commercial interests. The Silver Purchase
Law caused, in addition, distrust of our currency
both at home and abroad, causing the foreigner,
for that reason, added to his needs on account of
failures in South America, Australia, and Africa, to
send back our securities for sale, which caused large
shipments of gold out of the country. The Inter-
state Commerce Law and the State Railroad Com-
mission laws decreased the earnings of railroads.
The Reading Railroad receivership, which occurred
early in the year, was followed by others ; the failure
of the Cordage Company in April; the failure of
Western farm mortgage companies, caused by the
inability of farmers to pay interest and principal of
their mortgage loans ; the failure of banks, caused
by an unusual demand for deposits ; the hoarding of
currency withdrawn from banks, so that the premium
on it went up to five per cent., were all causes tend-
ing to the general disaster.
The issuance of Clearing-House certificates to
the amount of nearly $50,000,000 followed, which
tended to strengthen public confidence, or prevent it
from being wholly destroyed. All this happened be-
fore the people's attention was directed to the mod-
ification of the tariff which the election of the new
administration and House of Representatives indi-
cated. At and before the assembling of the new Con-
gress in December public attention was attracted to
the tariff, and this added to the distress; and to-
gether with continued failures of corporations, in-
dividuals, and railroads, the year 1893 closed in the
midst of gloom. The last week, when the Atchison
and New England railroads went into the receivers'
hands, was the bluest week the country experienced
in its history, unless the blue week in July may be
the exception.
Since then Wall Street and the government, or
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
rather the treasury, have been in more intimate
relation than at any other time since the Civil War.
The real necessity for this close connection is found,
perhaps, in those principles of national finance which
leave an unprotected treasury to bear the brunt of
attacks which it is powerless to avert. In this posi-
tion no more logical ally than Wall Street could be
found, despite the clamor of the uninformed ; and
in the work of the recent Bond Syndicate, headed
by J. Pierpont Morgan, has been given a demonstra-
tion of certain important economic and financial
principles never before correctly estimated. In the
preliminary steps leading up to the formation of
the Bond Syndicate of 1895 was demonstrated the
helplessness of the treasury, unaided, to control our
national finances. A depleted gold reserve in the
first month of 1894 was met by an issue in February
of $50,000,000 of bonds bearing five per cent, inter-
est, which sold at a sufficient premium to yield
$58,661,000 in gold to replenish the waning trea-
sury reserve.
The tide of exchange, always flowing outward in
the spring and summer, speedily lowered again the
gold reserve. From $106,527,068 in February, the
reserve had fallen to $52,189,500 early in August.
The movement of the crops turned the tide at
this juncture, but by October the reserve was only
$61,361,826, or far below its traditional limit of
$100,000,000 ; so a second bond issue was made in
November. $58,538,500 was netted by this sale,
and the gold reserve stood at $105,424,569. Then
came the most significant and disquieting event in
all our financial history. At a season of the year
when large exports of gold were scarcely to be ex-
pected there came a drain upon the treasury such
as had never before been known. Distrust and
rising excitement were visible everywhere ; less than
half the gold withdrawn was for export, the remain-
der was hoarded. In less than two months the gold
reserve fell to $44,705,967, and drastic measures
were required. It was evident that while the trea-
sury might continue selling bonds, it could not hold
the gold in reserve in the face of the prevailing rates
of exchange and the wide-spread distrust. Not only
was action required that would inspire immediate
confidence, but it must be also such as to sustain
that confidence by regulating foreign exchange.
This was the problem before the treasury in Feb-
ruary, 1895, and the Bond Syndicate, which came
forward to undertake the novel task, had far more
to overcome than was generally recognized. For
this syndicate to supply the treasury with gold was,
comparatively speaking, a simple matter; but for
them to so protect this reserve that it should not be
drained away as the proceeds of the previous bond
sales had been was a different matter. Nevertheless
this the syndicate undertook to do, and a contract
was entered into whereby the treasury bought from
them, by an issue of $62,317,500 in " coin " bonds,
3,500,000 ounces of gold, making the amount paid
by the syndicate for the bonds $65, 117, 500. From
February, when the agreement was entered into,
until the last week in June, when the final payment
into the treasury was made and the connection of
the Bond Syndicate with the government terminated,
this association kept the gold reserve above suspi-
cion, and their final payment left the treasury with
$107,512,362. How well they performed their
contract is shown in the fact that during April, May,
and June, when heavy gold shipments are always
made, they so regulated exchange that instead of
losing $45,000,000 of its reserve, as the treasury had
done during the same three months of the preceding
year, it actually increased it by $7,242,963. The
method of the syndicate was to meet the local needs
for exchange and to sell American securities abroad
in sufficient amounts to offset this exchange. This
it accomplished from February until the end of July.
By that time the movement of the crops should have
been sufficient to influence exchange in our favor,
but a delay of some three weeks in their shipment
caused a brief fall. Nevertheless the power of the
Bond Syndicate had been shown. It had done all
it had contracted to do, and revived the public con-
fidence at a time when it sadly drooped. It took
great risks, accomplished great good, and showed
again how far-reaching is the influence of Wall
Street. That the reserve of the treasury cannot re-
main where it placed it is no fault of the syndicate's.
The root of this evil lies far deeper — in the fallacies
of national finance; and the problem it presents
must some day be met and solved.
Without entering into any exhaustive argument of
a subject so vast as this, it may be said that at the
very base of the trouble are the greenback or legal-
tender and United States treasury notes. While the
aggregate of these is only about $500,000,000, their
actual volume is unlimited, for the reason that they
are redeemed only to be reissued. Like an endless
chain, these notes running in and out of the treasury
drain in a steady stream the nation's gold, of which
by far the greater part goes to foreign countries,
while our government, confronted with the task of
paying out gold to redeem notes it may not cancel,
has to borrow that its reserves and credit may be
maintained. The nation is in the position where it
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
75
has to give gold to all comers, but may not demand
it for itself, except in the duties of the custom-
houses. It is a fallacy which has already caused
great loss to our people, and unless speedy action
be taken will cause still more. It demands that
the treasury exercise banking functions that it was
never meant to have ; and until these so-called
legal tenders are retired it is hard to see how the
finances of this country can be either satisfactory
or sound.
If Wall Street was the sole reliance for supplies of
gold when it was required for export, it could pro-
tect itself from too great a drain by raising the rate
of discount, which would check imports and stimu-
late exports, thus giving the danger-signal to the
commercial classes, who are directly responsible for
the error of over-trading. The United States Trea-
sury, which does not discount commercial paper,
but has obligations outstanding in the form of legal
tender or treasury notes redeemable on demand, has
no means of protecting its reserve, which must be
paid as long as the demand for it continues or until
its stock of the metal is exhausted.
The work of the Bond Syndicate closes the chap-
ter of memorable events by which Wall Street has
risen to its present importance. A century ago
Lombard Street was the center of the world's
moneyed interests ; Wall Street hardly had an exis-
tence. To-day it rivals the former in many respects.
The Paris Bourse and the great centers of Berlin
and Vienna are as intimately connected with Wall
Street as with one another. A flurry in one center
reflects itself within the hour in all the others. The
Old World is coming to regard American securities
as the best and safest outlet for her investors. At
the present time Wall Street most certainly is the
channel leading to the richest and most profitable
fields of enterprise in the world. The railroads,
commerce, mines, and industries of our continent
serve as her sources of supply, and in their
development has been and will be still greater
wealth.
If in tracing this sketch of Wall Street I may have
seemed to infringe in some degree upon the domain
of national finance, it must be remembered that the
two are indissolubly linked together, and in the in-
tegrity of both lies the great safeguard of our coun-
try's prosperity.
CHAPTER XIII
ADVERTISING IN AMERICA
THE development— yes, even the continued
existence — of every industry described in
this work depends on the dissemination of in-
formation concerning it, and the resulting knowledge
of what it is and what it is doing. Such dissemina-
tion of information is advertising.
It may take myriad forms, — traveling representa-
tives ; exhibits at fairs, by window displays, or in
the stores of the retailers ; distribution of samples ;
circulation of catalogues, circulars, or other printed
and lithographed matter; advertisements in news-
papers ; signs, stationary and movable ; use of
"novelties," — but whatever it is, it is all advertising,
and, for want of a better term, may be defined as
"an effort to cause others to know," and which it
is hoped will also cause them to remember and do.
Emerson says we should read history actively
rather than passively ; that is, we should treat it as
a commentary on our own lives. While much his-
tory has in it nothing in common with our surround-
ings or purposes, and cannot, therefore, yield us
anything of direct value, the history of advertising,
being a record of the adaptation of business methods
to modern business conditions, is peculiarly rich in
helpful information, and a careful study of it in the
manner Emerson suggests should greatly benefit the
modern business man.
The advertising of the pre-printing period had, of
course, to be adapted to the conditions of that age ;
the crier, the carved sign, the crude poster, were
then the best means of conveying information to the
public. Even after the advent of the printing-press
and the newspaper the development of advertising
necessarily awaited the general education of the
masses. Book and paper were alike valueless to
those who could not read. How slowly conditions
changed may be gathered from the fact that the
Boston " News-Letter," the first paper in the country
to maintain publication, had only 300 subscribers
in 1744— forty years after its establishment.
76
A century's history of advertising in the United
States is a story of wonderful development ; but so
marvelous has been its growth during the last fifty
years that the record of the other fifty now seems
scarcely more than one of mere existence. Ameri-
can advertising has advanced along many lines,
concerning each of which much of interest might be
written.
Inasmuch as it has been estimated that more than
seventy-five per cent, of the amount expended for
American advertising is now paid to the newspapers,
— in which term are included the magazine, the
trade journal, and all other publications of the class
known as periodicals, — we will speak first of news-
paper advertising.
The wider use which it has attained over all other
methods is not to be accounted for on the ground
that newspaper advertising is a fashion or a fad.
Its wonderful use to-day, and the still more wonder-
ful future which awaits it, have for their enduring
foundation the fact that newspaper advertising
appeals to human intelligence by the great method
through which information will for all time be com-
municated— the printed page. The plain millions
of America are an ever-reading, ever-wanting, ever-
buying people, and the business man who realizes
all three of these facts can but recognize the reason-
ableness of newspaper advertising as a means of
telling others what he has and what he is doing.
Newspaper advertising could not, of course, exist
apart from the newspaper press. So closely are
they related, that the growth of the former cannot
be adequately set forth without some reference to
the latter. This accounts for the appearance here
of a few newspaper statistics, which may be found
in more complete form in the able article on news-
papers elsewhere in this work.
In 1795, at the beginning of the period covered
by this work, there were in this country about 200
newspapers. In 1810 there were 366 ; in 1820, 700
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
77
(estimated); in 1830,1000 (estimated); in 1840, press. Comparative statistics of this character have
1403; in 1850, 2526; in 1860, 3343; in 1870, been gathered only three times. The first effort
5871 ; in 1880, 11,314; in 1890, 17,712; in 1895, was in 1828, when the number of newspapers and
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20,217. Dividing the century equally, the growth periodicals in the world was 3168, of which 800
in each half is about 1000 per cent. (twenty-five per cent.) were published in America;
It will be interesting at this point to consider the in 1866 the total number was estimated at 12,500,
position which the United States occupies in relation and of these America claimed 5000 ; the count
to the rest of the world in the extent of its newspaper made in 1882 showed a total of 25,766, of which
78
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
11,000 were published in the United States; at the
present time the whole number is probably in the
neighborhood of 40,000, of which more than one
half are published in this country.
The first daily in the United States was the
"American Daily Advertiser," of Philadelphia,
established in 1784, of which the "North Ameri-
can " of that city is the direct lineal descendant.
The following year the " Daily Advertiser," New
York, was started. We reproduce on preceding page
the first page of this paper, date of March 7, 1795.
To-day we have upward of 2000 dailies.
The first newspaper advertisement in America
appeared in the Boston " News-Letter," established
in 1 704, a two-page paper, printed on a sheet eight
inches by twelve, two columns to the page. It had
but one advertisement, which read as follows :
"This NEWS-LETTER is to be continued
Weekly, and all persons who have any Houses,
Lands, Tenements, Farms, Ships, Vessels, Goods,
Wares or Merchandizes, &c., to be Sold or Let ; or
Servants Runaway, or Goods, Stole or Lost; may
have the same inserted at a Reasonable Rate from
TWELVE PENCE TO FIVE SHILLINGS
AND NOT EXCEED. Who may agree with
John Campbell, Postmaster of Boston. All Persons
in Town and County may have said NEWS-LET-
TER every Week, Yearly, upon reasonable terms,
agreeing with John Campbell, Postmaster for the
same."
The earliest recorded instance of the publication
of any number of advertisements was in the " New
England Weekly Journal," of Boston, established in
1728, a two-page sheet, seven inches by thirteen.
The news in this paper was all foreign, and from
three to four months old. The advertisements were
of books, coffee importations, runaway slaves, sales
of negro girls, and a notice of a school for negroes.
Beyond this there was nothing but obituaries and
the sailing and arrival of vessels. But notwithstand-
ing these early instances of the use of advertisements,
American advertising cannot be said to have begun
before 1788, and then only in a very humble way,
the advertisements being confined almost entirely
to the classes just enumerated. These conditions
continued until about 1820, when greater promi-
nence began to be given to news. Hitherto the
columns not devoted to advertising had been largely
filled with elaborate treatises on party principles and
politics, and articles on literary and scientific sub-
jects; but as the news columns became fuller and
more interesting, the number of subscribers and
readers increased, and the growth of the advertising
patronage kept pace with both. The rapid increase
of newspaper advertising may, however, be said to
date from the establishment of the "Sun," New
York, in 1833 ; the " Herald," New York, in 1835 ;
the "Public Ledger," Philadelphia, in 1836; and
the "Tribune," New York, in 1841.
Leading metropolitan papers of to-day carry dur-
ing the week from fifteen to forty columns of adver-
tisements, while their big Sunday editions frequently
have over 100 columns each. In a recent exami-
nation of an ordinary week-day issue of ten leading
dailies selected from different sections of the country,
the space occupied by advertisements ranged from
twenty-five per cent, to seventy per cent., the aver-
age of the ten being forty per cent.
In the beginning of the century advertising was
almost exclusively local ; but to-day newspaper ad-
vertising divides itself, naturally and perhaps quite
equally, into two classes — local and general. Local
advertising portrays the activities of the locality.
These find expression in the myriad "want" ad-
vertisements and other classified announcements,
for the gathering of which numerous branch offices
are maintained, and the services of local and district
telegraph companies employed ; and as well in the
large daily announcements of the leading retailers,
from some of whom single papers are said to receive
an annual income approximating $50,000.
General advertising, on the other hand, voices the
enterprise of the business man anywhere who be-
lieves he has that which is really wanted otherwhere.
By such advertising, and with moderate outlay,
almost numberless articles, otherwise little known,
have been brought into general use throughout the
country, and in like manner some of the most
remarkable commercial successes of the century
have been achieved. General advertising ranges
from the advertisement of the dealer, who seeks to
make direct sales to the consumer, to that of the
manufacturer who annually expends from $500,000
to $750,000 to acquaint people with the name and
merits of an article which can be procured only
through the retailer. It has grown of late years to
such dimensions that many papers find it profitable
to employ one or more representatives whose only
duty is to present the claims of the publication to
advertisers.
Just as the marvelous strides by which American
journalism has outstripped the journalism of all the
rest of the world could never have been possible
except for the marvelous patronage of American
advertisers, so there would never have been such
wonderful growth in advertising except for the men
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OK AMERICAN COMMERCE
n
whose ability and energy have been entirely and
untiringly devoted to the promotion of newspaper
advertising. From the small beginning of special
representation of a few papers, there has grown the
advertising agency system of to-day, which well
deserves recognition among American industries.
There are probably more than fifty concerns in the
United States trading as newspaper advertising
agents, and to at least thirty of them the leading
mercantile agencies accord recognition and commer-
cial rating. The aggregate of capital invested runs
into the millions, and one or more representatives
of the industry are to be found in every prominent
newspaper center.
The first beginning in this line was made in
Philadelphia, in 1840, by Volney B. Palmer, who
afterward established branches in New York and
Boston. The S. R. Niles Agency was an outgrowth
of the Boston branch, and, with a record of honor-
able dealing through all these years, still continues
business. Mr. W. W. Sharpe, of New York, com-
menced as a boy in Mr. Palmer's employ, and
to-day does business under the style of W. W.
Sharpe & Company. Mr. S. M. Pettingill, of New
York, was also employed by Mr. Palmer, and with
Mr. Bates carried on the business there established.
The Bates & Morse Advertising Agency was their
legitimate successor, and this business is now con-
tinued by the Lyman D. Morse Agency. The
business at Philadelphia was likewise carried on
continuously and with constant growth, until in
1878 it was absorbed, by purchase, into the business
of N. W. Ayer & Son, who are to-day recognized
leaders in this line. Some idea of the magnitude of
their business can be gathered from the fact that
their outlay for clerical help during 1895 will fall
little, if any, below $100,000.
As in the enormous growth of the advertising in-
terest the advertising agency became an important
factor as well as a necessary result, so the newspaper
guide or directory was a necessity to, as well as an
outgrowth of, the exigencies of the agency. At the
first the agencies guarded with jealous care their
lists of the papers of the country, but the rapid
multiplication of papers soon necessitated printed
lists ; and as the preparation of these lists necessi-
tated the expenditure of large sums of money, the
agents finally concluded to give them to the public,
and solicit advertisements from the newspaper pub-
lishers to help pay their cost.
The first attempt was the " Newspaper Record,"
containing lists of newspapers and periodicals in the
United States, Canada, and Great Britain, by Lay
& Brother, Philadelphia, in 1856. The first per-
manent publication of this character, however, the
" American Newspaper Directory," was started in
New York, in 1869, by George P. Rowell & Com-
pany, newspaper advertising agents, who have con-
tinued the publication regularly to this date. In
1880, N. W. Ayer & Son, of Philadelphia, began the
publication of the " American Newspaper Annual,"
which has been regularly issued since. In addition
to these two directories, Pettingill & Company, of
Boston, publish a very commendable handbook,
while Dauchy & Company and J. Walter Thomp-
son, of New York, and Lord & Thomas, of Chicago,
all widely known advertising agents, with some
others of lesser repute, publish manuals, more or less
pretentious, varying in contents and make-up accord-
ing to the publisher's conception of the needs of the
advertiser.
Perhaps no better general idea can be obtained
of the great extent of the newspaper press of the
United States, and of the vastness of its advertising
patronage, than by an examination and study of the
most complete of these publications. It is almost
impossible for one not familiar with the book to
appreciate the amount of labor and expense which
its annual revision involves. Hourly changes are
going on in all parts of the country: changes of
location, changes in editors, changes in size, price,
or day of publication ; consolidations ; removals ;
suspensions. When it is known that about 4000
publications are started annually, and that, owing
to suspensions and consolidations, the net annual
increase in seasons of business prosperity ranges
from 750 to 1000, even the uninitiated can appreci-
ate in some degree the immensity of the undertaking,
and the greatness of the industry that renders the
publication of such books not only advisable, but
absolutely necessary. The newspaper directory is
as essential to the general advertiser as are the
reports of the great mercantile agencies to the busi-
ness man.
An important factor in the spread of advertising
has been the cooperative newspaper, known to
printers and advertisers as " patent insides " or
" patent outsides " — a system which has had all its
growth within the last twenty-five years. Under
this system half-printed sheets are supplied to the
offices from which, after the printing of the other
half, the papers are issued. The cost of type-setting
is reduced to a minimum, because the reading mat-
ter, with slight variations, is the same in all papers
issued from any one house. This and the wholesale
purchase of paper, together with the income from
80
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the advertising, make it possible to supply the half-
printed sheets at a price scarcely more than the
ordinary cost of white paper. It is readily apparent
that this whole system is contingent upon newspaper
advertising. Except for the income from the ad-
vertising, the system could not exist. Except for
the system, hundreds of small places over the coun-
try could not sustain the local papers which they
now issue. There are at present nearly 8000 such
papers published, — more than one third of the entire
number of the newspaper press of the country, — and
consequently a large amount of money is annually
expended for advertising in them.
Magazine advertising is only about twenty-five
years old. Although there were successful maga-
zines before that time, they did not admit advertise-
ments. It was with the appearance of the " Cen-
tury " (then called "Scribner's Monthly"), in 1870,
that the new order of things came in. Its first
number contained advertisements, which have stead-
ily increased in quantity, until its issue of December,
1894, contained 134 pages of them. In 1882, after
thirty-two successful years without them, Messrs.
Harper & Brothers yielded to the inevitable and
began the insertion of advertisements in their " New
Monthly Magazine." Here, too, the increase in
quantity was rapid, reaching 144 pages in the num-
ber of December, 1894. At the page rate of $250
the advertising income of such an issue would be
$36,000. Putting the average amount of advertis-
ing the year through at 92 pages per month, the ad-
vertising receipts of this one magazine for one year
would reach $276,000. It is estimated that the
December, 1894, issues of six leading monthly mag-
azines represented an advertising investment of
more than $180,000. There are, of course, a great
many other excellent publications of this class which
cannot here be mentioned, but which are widely
recognized as advertising mediums of great value.
It is said that Mr. Gladstone prefers the American
to the English edition of such of our magazines as
print both, for the reason that the advertisements in
the American editions are so interesting, and set
forth so clearly the enterprise and progress of our
country. Thousands of people have made the same
discovery as the great English statesman and stu-
dent of human affairs. The truth is that the public
has to-day a great and growing interest in the infor-
mation which we call advertising, and the newspa-
pers and periodicals themselves would feel bound to
print much of it as news, did they not print it in the
form of advertisements.
The trade journal is an interesting illustration of
specialization. Starting with the papers which at.
tempt to set forth the condition and movement of
trade in general, — of which class the " New York
Prices Current " (from an old issue of which we re-
produce a page) was one hundred years ago, as it
is to-day, a good example, — it has followed the
branching out of each particular industry, keeping
close step with its progress, until to-day there is
scarcely a manufacturing or commercial interest but
has its representative journal, and often several of
them, whose reading and advertising columns alike
are of value chiefly to its own special class of readers.
In early days a certain amount of advertising
went with each subscription. For instance, one
hundred years ago the payment by a merchant of a
certain sum to the " Shipping List " as a subscription,
carried with it the privilege of the use of all needed
advertising space during the same period. That
this privilege was not overworked is perhaps as
forceful proof as can be given that the value of such
advertising yet lacked recognition.
That space itself then had no fixed value may be
seen from the announcements in the " New Jersey
Journal," of Elizabethtown, on January 16,
1790, that "advertisements of A MODERATE
LENGTH will be inserted three weeks for eight
shillings, and two shillings for each insertion after-
ward."
While newspaper space to-day very often sells at
a fixed rate, the fixing of that rate is very arbitrary.
The most mentioned factors are quantity of cir-
culation, character of readers, and control of the
field. The price of newspaper space has advanced
greatly with its wider use. The "Herald," New
York, and " Public Ledger," Philadelphia, having
always enjoyed liberal advertising patronage, are
good illustrations of this. Established in 1835 and
1836 respectively, they both at first charged for
advertising fifty cents per square per insertion. The
square was for a long time the unit of measurement,
and fifty cents was for a long time the rate per
square ; but the square itself gradually shrank in size
with the flying years, until from being nineteen agate
lines in 1836 in the "Ledger," in 1863 it equaled
only four agate lines. This, of course, was twelve
and one half cents per agate line. The minimum
price soon climbed to twenty cents in the " Ledger "
and forty-five cents in the " Herald," at which it
stands to-day, showing an increase in the sixty years
of 750 and 1800 per cent, respectively.
While the price of advertising has been advancing,
the size of the papers has been increased many
times also. These enlargements have in almost
FRANCIS WAYI.AND AVER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
81
every case been made necessary by the encroach-
ment of the advertising upon the reading columns.
In some instances the paper would become three
fourths advertising, then an enlargement would fol-
low which would relieve the condition until the
ever-flowing, ever-growing stream of trade again
filled its columns. The average daily edition of the
The, New-York
ffcbliflied every MONDAY by JAMES ORAM,
umns. There are, even now, conspicuous exceptions
to the rule above stated. A number of the most
successful publications have obtained very unusual
circulation, in very unusual time, by means of
advertising in the columns of their contemporaries.
A notable instance is the " Ladies' Home Journal,"
of Philadelphia, whose 750,000 circulation has been
Prices Current.
3 Dill, ptr aim.}
MONDAY, JANUARY 9. 1797.
No. 33, Liberty .ftreet, near Mr. Ctnj D***i.
[No. 5J.
CHAMBER tf COMMERCE.
Memt&ly Ctmmittet.
TnffT?l!TLACT BACHt,
ROBIKT BOWNI,
CnAM,It L. 'CXMMAN,
NEH'.rOKK PRICE *f STOCKS,
MONDAY, Jim. 9.
U.S. Bank Stock, 11 p. ct.
New. York, - ig
6 per Cent. . ifi/j
COURSE •/ EXCHAKCl.
MoKDAY fjnt. 9.
Billi on London, 60 rfij'i fght,
5 per cent, under par.
On AmftcrJam, 60 dayj fight, 4,0
DAVID GftlM.
Deferred, - i<y*9
cents per guild, at Co diy* credit*
WHOLESALE PRICES, .carefully corrcfted— In Dollirs and Cents.
From To From To From To
ASHES* **,
ton.
D.C
190
D. C
•9S
Checfc, Englifli, .
_^_
rt. c.
2;
D.C
3
Floor, Superfine, -
all
D.C
p. c.
Pearl,
___
none.
American,
'!
Common, -
10 i
Allum, *
Almond), - %
Cwt
Ib.
7 J"
8
22
Chocolate, •
Cloves, . . ,
^~
2
I 2
I 3
Virginia Flour.,
Middling, .
10
6
..„
Anchor*, - -.
«.
ib
Coal. Foreign,
Clul
IO
10 50
Cornell, .
LV
2
Arrack, -
Gal,
none.
Virginia,
9
9 5c
Buikwheatj
3 5
BACON, -
Ib.
la
Cocoa, Surinam,
Cwt
11
22
Rye,
u.
7
Barley, (Scotch) -
7
1
IJland,
20
Indian meal,
MI
5 ^
r - --
Brim, white,
bufh.
' 37
Copper In DicetJ,
b.
29
•"UTS, Otter,
skin
i
4
Beef, Cargo,
Prinx,
bbl.
9 jo
10 50
10
II
Copperas
Coffee, for export.
Cwt
b.
2 31
ao
Z JC
3
Fifher,
Miok,
a
l
Mcft,
1! randy,)) re. id proof
Gal.
1 ;c
It
Cordagf,
Cwt
b.
'3 75
6
IJ
8
Martin*
Red Fox, *.
—
i
15
09
1 : j
id proof,
5«
Cotton, Georgia,
28
CroG-Fox, -
5°
3d proof,
66
i 68
Bahama,
—
JS
Grey Fox, .
7C
4tS proof,
81
i 87
W. I (land,
30
WiWC.it, .
^^
j.
K
Spanish, i ft proof.
37
« 44
St . Domingo,
3>
37
Lucifc Cat, -
f
3 'JO
id proof,
5°
Demarara.
35
37
MiifkratV ..
._ —
14
3d proof,
59
Surinam,
4'
Racoon,
1
4thpioof,
BrizHmo, -
Ton.
75
75
So
Cayenne,
DUCK, American,
Bolt
37
2 50
41
Bear, North.
Wolf,
7S
z
4 JO
Bread, Pilot,
Cwt
9 5C
10
Ruffia, .'-
5
8
Beaver, North.
b.
1 2
2 f o
Middling/
7
7 50
Ravens, -
12
2 JO
ShiP, ,
Crttken, .
Urin, (flruck mrjf.
>U£!
4 75
75
27
81
EngHm.No.l,
Rnflia Sheetings,
FLAX-SEED, -
rard
'iece
Bulb
34
7
2 JO
7 jo
SE'NEVA,Hol!an<i
Calk,
jrrtin,
(Jail.
6 i;
i iS
...
Brinutone, Roll, .
-wt
J
Flax,
Ib.
1 1
M
Wheat, North.
R.if!,
one.
Butter, for export.
Ib.
14
J j
61
South
i 87
CANDLES, dipt,
lbv
IJ
•"uftic
Ton.
o
2J
Rye,
i 11
mould.
'7
Fi(h, Cod, dry, -
one.
4.
Sperm.
—
•53
do. pwLJed, -
.!•!.
J
5 5C
Oats,
.50
tj
•CafCa, * ,
• —
5«
Salmon,
9 5°
0
Corn, North, (new)
Open,
Cwor, .
Bou
Ib.
' 5'
a cd
•t?
do. finoakf d,
Mackarcl -
Herrinct.
Piece
bbl.
40
9
f
45
e'ac
Sou:h. (old)
>unpowder, Fngl.
TT
l f
6,
j ,
f
fc
" Herald " and the " Ledger " is now perhaps eleven
times the size of their first number, with the adver-
tising barometer steadily on the rise. In this respect
the two papers named are not exceptional, but
rather good examples of prosperous journals the
country through.
The development of newspaper advertising has
been so rapid that many newspapers themselves
have not yet caught up with it ; that is to say, while
they all freely recommend it to other people for the
improvement of their business, but comparatively
few employ it for the development of their own.
This, of course, refers to advertising in other journals
— not to the exploiting of a paper in its own col-
largely obtained and maintained by newspaper ad-
vertising.
Some attempts have lately been made to introduce
color-work into the display of newspaper advertise-
ments. This has generally taken the form of covers
for special editions of newspapers and periodicals.
Quite recently a large newspaper advertiser has been
using color printing on colored paper for inserts in
the leading magazines. This is regarded as a sig-
nificant innovation. The wide use of color print-
ing in the regular issues of daily papers, however,
awaits the overcoming of mechanical and financial
obstacles.
We have no means of knowing what was the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
value of the advertising in the newspapers of 1795,
but the Tenth United States Census gives the value
of advertisements in the American press in 1880 at
$39,136,306, and the next census shows that these
figures had increased in 1890 to $71,243,361 — a
gain of eighty-two per cent, in ten years. We are
justified in believing that the value to-day is con-
siderably over $100,000,000 — a notable result of a
century of progress!
Perhaps nothing has done more to develop news-
papers, and therefore newspaper advertising, than
the railroads, whose remarkable story is told else-
where in this volume. Perhaps, also, nothing has
done more to develop the railroads than the news-
paper. Each without the other would seem to be
as ineffective as a half-pair of scissors ; but worked
together they have cut the restraining cords of en-
vironment and made possible the greatest national
and individual prosperity. With the newspapers to
tell of affairs and trade, and the railroads to carry
persons and things, in spite of our wide territory, we
really touch elbows with one another, and the future
greatness of our commercial interests is beyond pre-
diction. But of one thing we may feel certain : " the
best is yet to be."
When the business man of an earlier time put an
advertisement in the newspapers, what he inserted
was often an inventory of his leading articles — a
sign, so to speak, showing the nature of the business
carried on at the address indicated. The prepara-
tion of such an advertisement required no special
ability. Then, again, he generally expected what
he put in the paper to stay there for a long time.
This fact also contributed to make his newspaper
advertising of very little trouble to him.
But a change of ideas of what an advertisement
should be, and how it should be used, brought into
existence what are to-day two prominent features
of advertising, viz., the advertisement writer and the
paper devoted to advertising. The advertisement
writer is an outgrowth of very recent years. The
fierceness of competition and the increasing cost of
newspaper space have made attractive, interesting,
truthful, and convincing advertisements a necessity.
The advertisement writer studies to supply this need.
That he well supplies it must be evident to any
reader of to-day's advertisements. Many an adver-
tisement now represents far more thought than has
been used in a corresponding space in any other
part of the publication.
The good advertisement writer must of necessity
be able to see and to tell very clearly. The really
capable ones are in demand, and receive good pay.
Some business houses employ one exclusively ;
others use the services of those who write for any
one on order. The leading advertising agencies
also have them in their employ. Their work is
telling for the better on American advertising.
Papers devoted exclusively to the subject of ad-
vertising have appeared in the last ten years. There
are to-day perhaps a dozen of these, the largest
number of them being connected more or less
intimately with some particular advertising agency.
In so far as they point out methods of proved suc-
cess, publish unbiased statements, and call wider at-
tention to the common-sense nature of newspaper
advertising, they do the community a service; but
to whatever extent they air the foolishness of the
"ad. smith," with his "catchy" and "fortune-
bringing " advertisement, or circulate ill-informed or
ill-intended criticism, they do injury to the greatest
business-getting method of modern times. We be-
lieve those familiar with them will agree that these
journals are as a class growing broader in their
treatment of newspaper advertising, better recogniz-
ing its seriousness and its dignity. They certainly
have great responsibility, as they receive very care-
ful reading and are the exponents of a most useful
business idea.
The trade catalogue, always a useful business
adjunct, has in recent years been transformed into
what is often a work of beauty and interest, reflect-
ing credit on all concerned, and materially increas-
ing trade. The "descriptive circular" which the
advertiser of other days was wont to offer his readers
has been to a large extent superseded by the busi-
ness primer, booklet, or brochure, which is now a
distinct feature in general advertising. It grew out
of recognition of the fact that everything cannot
be told in an advertisement. Perceiving that the
prime object of a newspaper advertisement is ac-
complished when the reader has by replying to it
singled himself out from the mass of mankind and
placed himself within reach of correspondence or
representatives, the bright advertiser employs these
publications to give details and to further or com-
plete sales. To their preparation the best writing,
illustrating, and printing skill is often brought, with
the result that their value in advertising has now
become widely recognized. It is impossible to
estimate closely the amount annually expended in
advertising matter of this class, but the figures are
certainly enormous.
Reference should here be made to lithographic
printing, which now covers an annual expenditure
estimated at more than $15,000,000. Most of this
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
output is intended for advertising purposes. Cards,
folders, hangers, banners, albums, booklets, and
posters are produced by the million. The work as
a class is artistic and attractive, while competition
and ingenuity have greatly cheapened its cost and
widened its use.
The use of posters for advertising is of course
very old. The practice has not only grown greatly,
but many of the posters themselves have of recent
date possessed great artistic merit. The poster, as
its name implies, was originally an announcement
intended to be posted or put up in a certain place,
and it was therefore for a long time confined to local
use. About twenty-five years ago it transpired that
the effectiveness of a poster was often increased by
its being placed in unusual positions. This led to
sign painting, which in turn has become a recog-
nized method of general advertising. To-day the
most effective and ingenious use is made of blank
walls, barns, etc., for acquainting the public with
various articles. The employment of natural scenery
as a background for this work has fallen under
public disapprobation, and appears to be going into
disuse.
Another development of this outdoor work is the
erection and painting of large bulletin-boards along
the lines of railroads and great travel. These are
leased by the year to advertisers. Such a sign-
board, thirty feet long and four feet high, costs the
advertiser $30 a year. Perhaps $1,250,000 are
spent annually in all kinds of out-of-door painting,
exclusive of the bill posting above referred to.
Street-car advertising may be said to be a devel-
opment of the last fifteen years. During the first
half of this period it received practically nothing but
local patronage. About seven years ago the inven-
tion of the now everywhere common curved car-
rack, because of the uniformity in the size of cards
which it secures, opened the method to the use of
general advertisers, who were not slow to avail
themselves of it. From that time the growth has
been very rapid, until to-day there are perhaps in
this country 15,000 street-cars carrying advertise-
ments. At $100 per year per car this would make
the annual advertising expenditure $1,500,000.
Enterprise is ever seeking expression. Advertis-
ing has always been the expression of enterprise.
The few meager, colorless announcements of 1795,
written with a dull and heavy pen, fittingly expressed
the enterprise of that day. At the close of a cen-
tury of marvelous progress the enterprise of to-day
finds expression in advertising of every conceivable
form, in every available place, in the preparation
and illustration of which have been combined the
best obtainable skill of hand and brain.
Great as has been the evolution of a hundred in-
dustries in a hundred years, wonderful as has been
the advance in the arts and sciences, the printing-
press has always led the way, and is to-day the
herald and helper of them all. Its usefulness will
still further increase with the discharge of its duty,
which will be to tell the story of the better things
which the opening century will unfold to the better-
seeking millions of America.
CHAPTER XIV
FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE
AERICAN fire and marine insurance business
had its birth at about the close of the eigh-
teenth century. Both kept in the forefront
of American affairs for many years, but marine insur-
ance suffered heavily when the American flag began
to disappear from the high seas. For the past
quarter of a century it has had a hard struggle to
keep itself anywhere near the old standard of pros-
perity. To do this it has had to draw for the
greater part of its returns upon foreign commerce,
and been forced to compete with English companies.
Fire-insurance has not, as a whole, fared much better.
So distinct are the differences in the business
operations of these two lines of insurance that it is
necessary to treat of each separately. The theory
of fire-insurance is exceedingly simple — it collects
from the many and distributes to the few, relying
for its profit upon an intelligent calculation of the
chances of fire and the collection of more than it
distributes. The sources of profit are twofold : first,
interest upon invested funds ; second, excess pre-
mium receipts over losses and expenses.
Reviewing the history of fire underwriting for the
past century, it cannot be classed as one of the
profitable departments of business activity. A cer-
tain number of companies have been successful, but
only a very insignificant percentage of the various
companies organized in the United States during
the past century have sustained life for a score of
years. Only one American company which was in
existence in 1795 is now in successful operation.
It is the Insurance Company of North America, of
Philadelphia, organized in 1794, and which now
has a cash capital of $3,000,000, with total assets
of nearly $10,000,000.
The large conflagrations of the century at New
York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, and
Pittsburg each in turn crippled all interested com-
panies and ruined many; but, as experience is a
dear but a sure teacher, these fires brought about
needed improvements in municipal fire departments,
and led to new safeguards in underwriting. At the
time of the great New York fire in 1835 there were
about forty companies doing business in the city,
and all but two found themselves hopelessly in debt
when the blaze had burned itself out. The two
companies spared were the Bowery Fire and the
Jefferson, which had not taken many risks down-
town, in which section of the city the fire raged.
To save the companies from utter ruin the legisla-
ture passed an act on February 20, 1836, allowing
them to take what assets they had and pay their
losses, without interfering with their charters. This
privilege was granted for a limited period. About
ten companies availed themselves of this opportu-
nity, and then obtained a new capital and continued
in business. Twenty-eight of the remaining thirty
companies never recovered from the blow. The
company paying the greatest percentage of losses
was the Howard, which gave fifty-eight per cent.
To-day there are only two companies — the Eagle
Fire and the North River — in existence that sur-
vived the conflagration of 1835. Ten years later
there was another great fire in New York, in which
the damage was also large ; but neither the public
nor the insurance companies suffered as much com-
paratively, owing to more careful underwriting. The
fire of 1845 brought about a schedule of new tariff
rates, which lasted until 1850.
The Chicago fire of 1871 was the most disastrous
conflagration underwriters have ever known. It has
been accurately estimated that $118,000,000 worth
of property was destroyed, on which the insurance
amounted to $92,000,000. Of this sum companies
outside of the State of Illinois had written $58,144,-
ooo, and while the exact amount held by Illinois
companies could never be ascertained, it was calcu-
lated to be $33,878,000. $39,233,000 was paid to
the assured by the companies outside of the State.
About every insurance company involved in the fire
84
HENRY H. HALL.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
was forced to make assessments on its stockholders
in order to live. Credit is due to the Liverpool,
London & Globe Insurance Company for their
promptness in paying the amount of their losses at
Chicago ; but to the Home of New York, ALtna. of
Hartford, as well as to many other American com-
panies, equal credit is due. The strength of many
American companies was manifested by this severe
trial, and the necessity for foreign capital was fully
demonstrated. It is safe to say that over one
hundred companies were driven to the wall, while
every company in the State of Illinois was wiped
out. Shortly after the Chicago fire came the great
Boston fire, both preceded by the one in Portland,
each adding its proportion to the general wreck of
fire-insurance companies.
It may therefore be very readily seen that the
business of fire underwriting in the United States for
the past century has been done at a loss, and the
most successful companies, as a whole, have not
retained more than simple interest upon their capi-
tal and invested funds. The question has been
asked many times, Why cannot this important inter-
est be placed on such foundations as to present a
reasonable hope of profit to capitalists on their
investment? The chief obstacle to this attainment
has been the ignorance of legislators. Every year
the fire-insurance interest runs the gauntlet of the
legislatures of all the States, protecting themselves
from attacks made with a persistency born of igno-
rance, suspicion, and prejudice. Every recurring
legislature is freighted with schemes without num-
ber to " regulate " the fire-insurance business. To
the average legislator there is just enough mystery
about the business to tempt him to the same mental
exertion he displays on the " Thirteen Puzzle " and
in squaring the circle.
Every insurance company must exhibit for publi-
cation its premiums and losses in every State where
it transacts business, and every detail of its manage-
ment is open to public inspection. It is a blow to
all originality, a handicap to enterprise, when skill
and knowledge gained by experience are thus given
to every competitor ; but this, even, does not satisfy
our lawmakers. Various schemes of taxation are
devised, State and municipal, to which are added all
the forms of restrictive legislation that the mind of
man can conceive. In many States insurance com-
panies are denied recourse to the United States
courts, must submit to policy forms drafted by the
various legislatures, and are compelled to adopt such
methods of loss adjustment as can be comprehended
by the feeblest lawmaking mind. The history of
fire underwriting for the past century is a record of
the incapacity of American legislators.
The aggregate fire premiums collected annually
in the United States amount approximately to
$140,000,000. This is a tax levied upon every
property owner in the United States. If complaint
is made of the expense of continuing the fire-insur-
ance business, it should be recalled that the fire-
insurance capital of the world is at the command
of the resident of the smallest village. With few
exceptions, the largest manufacturing plant can
secure in the village in which it is located ample
insurance from the strongest companies in the
world ; and if loss occurs, the same is adjusted and
paid on the ground. To afford these facilities vast
and expensive organizations are necessary. Every
important insurance company has a large staff of
special agents and adjusters, and in addition to this
there are many associations to advance the interest
of associate companies. Among these is the National
Board of Fire Underwriters, composed of the lead-
ing companies of the country, which was organized
in 1866. The chief work of this organization is on
the line of public benefit, such as the recommenda-
tion of proper building laws to the various munici-
palities of the country; the inspection of all fire
departments, with suggestions for their improvement
and the increase of their efficiency ; and the arrest
and punishment of incendiaries. Through the
efforts of this board the people have been educated
as to the true economy of good building laws and
efficient fire departments. Within the past few
years the board has maintained an electrical bureau,
and by experiments and investigation has done
much to minimize the hazard incident to the gen-
eral use of electricity for light and power. With
great labor and expense it is endeavoring to awaken
public interest to the great drain on the national
resources by the annual fire waste, so large a portion
of which is due to careless building and lax munici-
pal administration. In addition to this organization
the fire underwriters maintain in every State and in
every town local boards of underwriters, for the
collection of statistics, upon which equitable rates
can alone be predicated.
Through the influence of the New York Board of
Fire Underwriters a paid fire department for the city
of New York was secured. The fire-insurance
companies are also maintaining, at their own ex-
pense, fire patrols in thirty of the large cities. These
patrols are established by law, and supported entirely
by the fire-insurance companies transacting the busi-
ness in their several localities. New York City was
86
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the pioneer in the establishment of these organi-
zations, and they are organized to protect life and
property at fires, regardless of the insurance interest
therein ; and the New York Board of Fire Under-
writers has already distributed numerous gold med-
als to its patrolmen for heroic efforts in the saving
of life. Fire underwriters stand unrivaled by any
form of purely business association in their success-
ful efforts for the general good.
Reviewing the history of fire underwriting for the
past century, there can be observed a steady advance
in the methods and practice of the business. There
must always be an element of chance in its conduct,
but there has been a gradual advance to a more
scientific basis of action. In the past fifty years
there has been a complete change in the controlling
principles of the business. The older method was
to "accept the risk as you find it," and charge
accordingly. The more modern method is to sug-
gest improvements, with a view to a lower rate and
larger liability. To make this more clear, in days
past, underwriters would accept a small " line " on a
poor risk at a high rate ; but the present method
is to decline it altogether and suggest improve-
ments, and, when made, give a lower rate and larger
line.
The fire underwriters now maintain several very
expensive organizations of expert surveyors for the
sole purpose of instructing manufacturers as to the
best means of fire protection, that the lowest rate of
fire-insurance may be secured. This entire change
of method is due to the influence of the New Eng-
land system of mutual insurance ; and it is but sim-
ple justice to these companies, of which Edward
Atkinson is now the official head, that this recogni-
tion should be made.
The conflict between projectile and armor-plate
is no more interesting than the constant combat be-
tween increase in the size of buildings and growth
of cities, and the improvement in fire-extinguishing
facilities shown by the development of the New
England system. The inception of this system was
due to the lack of proper recognition by stock com-
panies of improved appliances for the-extinguishing
of fire. A manufacturer, having introduced a fire-
pump in his mill, asked for a reduction of rate for
this appliance. It was denied. Other manufac-
turers were interested, and, having equipped their
mills with fire-pumps, a mutual company was organ-
ized ; and from that time there has been a constant
study to reduce the fire hazard, and to secure insur-
ance indemnity at least cost by the agency of a
mutual system. From a simple pump to perforated
sprinklers, thence by various improved devices to
the present perfected automatic sprinkler head, were
gradual steps in the line of defense against fire.
The general introduction of automatic sprinklers
has not only reduced the fire waste, but will eventu-
ally (with slow-burning construction) revolutionize
the practice of fire underwriting; for, with less
liability to fire, the stronger companies will increase
their acceptances on individual risks, thus concen-
trating the business in a smaller number of com-
panies, and reducing competition and expense.
Starting from the change in the conception of the
province of the underwriters, the advance to the
present practice is plain and logical. In former
times the underwriters would promulgate minimum
rates for various classes of merchandise — sole-
leather, package dry-goods, etc. Upon each of
these various classes a uniform rate would be made
for brick and frame buildings. Assuming the rate
to be adequate to pay the losses and a profit on this
class, this system was clearly inequitable. If the
stock of one merchant was in a two-story brick
building of small area, with no open skylights, etc.,
it was certainly unfair to charge him the same rate
as the merchant whose stock was in a higher and
larger building, with skylights, wood cornice, and
well-holes. To rectify this and similar cases of in-
equality a plan of schedule rating was put in force
by General Arthur C. Ducat, of Chicago. While
surveyor of the Chicago Board of Fire Underwriters
he formulated a plan of schedule rating, constructing
a theoretically perfect building, and adding for defi-
ciencies of construction. Within the past few years
this system of schedule rating has been elaborated
by President F. C. Moore, of the Continental Insur-
ance Company, of New York. A universal mercan-
tile schedule has been devised by him, which adopts
the same principle for various classes of towns and
cities. This system has already been adopted by
local underwriters in several of the larger cities.
The application of this principle will lead to a grad-
ual improvement in the construction of buildings,
and ultimately to the modern " fire-proof," or, more
correctly, " buildings of slow-burning construction."
In the line of schedule rating, and a corollary
thereto, is the general introduction of the " coinsur-
ance clause." With the improvement in the con-
struction of buildings and the increased efficiency of
fire departments, and with the aid of fire patrols, it
is expected (and to some degree realized) that the
percentage of loss by fire will be reduced — a fact
that many property owners have not failed to
appreciate, and many have inclined toward a reduc-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
87
tion of the percentage of insurance carried to valu-
ation.
Fire-insurance rates, to be equitable, must not
only be predicated upon the construction and en-
vironment of each building insured, but must also
have relation to the percentage of insurance to value
carried by the merchant. The sole object of the
various forms of coinsurance clauses insisted upon
by fire underwriters is to secure a uniform practice
upon the part of property owners as to the percen-
tage of values insured.
Each State has an insurance department, to which
all classes of insurance companies doing business in
the State must make an annual statement of their
financial condition. The head of such department
is charged by statute with the duty of determining
the solvency of every company applying for permis-
sion to transact business in his State, as well as
at the time of the renewal of the annual license.
The system of State supervision was first adopted
by the States of New York and Massachusetts ; and
the policy adopted by William Barnes and Elizur
Wright, respectively superintendents of the insurance
departments of the States named, for the govern-
ment of such departments has been generally fol-
lowed, and in the main the standard of personal and
official probity established by these gentlemen has
been observed, with a few monumental exceptions.
There is no class of government officials, either
State or national, in whom is vested such autocratic
power as is accorded the superintendents of the in-
surance departments of the various States. This
power, exercised wisely in the protection of the pub-
lic against fraudulent institutions, is beneficent and
mutually advantageous to the reputable companies
and the public ; but when exerted in securing and
publishing the smallest detail of management, it is a
barrier to proper development, and when exerted
corruptly it becomes legalized blackmail, of which,
unfortunately, there have been a few instances.
The business of insurance supports many trade
papers, many of them useful and edited with great
skill and ability. The "Insurance Cyclopedia"
(published by the " Weekly Underwriter," one of
the best insurance journals) gives a list of fifty-one
such papers now regularly issued. Fire-insurance
is now conducted throughout the United States by
thousands of agents, and the percentage of funds
lost through misappropriation is infinitesimal. These
agents, as a rule, are selected with great care.
From the ranks of insurance agents have sprung
governors of States, judges, senators, and foreign
ministers.
At the present time there are five British com-
panies engaged in the business of fire underwriting
in the United States that have been continuously in
business for over a century, to wit : London Assur-
ance Corporation, organized 1720; Norwich Union
Insurance Company, organized 1797; Phoenix As-
surance Company, organized 1792 ; Sun Fire Office,
organized 1710; Union Assurance Society, organized
1714. To-day the fire-insurance companies of
foreign countries transact twenty per cent, of the
entire business of fire underwriting in the United
States.
The distribution of the risks assumed by the fire-
insurance companies doing business in the United
States is shown by the following table of the amount
at risk and premiums collected in 1 894 :
AMOUNT AT RISK.
PREMIUMS.
Alabama
$66,828,364
$1. 067.44C
Alaska
1,110,545
23,726
Arizona
A, 7 I O, ^68
IOC 4C4
Arkansas
32,620,429
7O;. 3Q8
California.
777.813.802
Colorado
85,894,340
1,422,026
Connecticut
221,828,297
2,171,851
Delaware . . ,
IQ.67Q.838
I ?6 1 1 7
District of Columbia
75,148,286
47?.?O2
26,698 005
cn6 77C
Georgia
138,769,873
1,905,826
Idaho
c, 007.466
1SI.O7Q
04.6.661 803
II,8o5 *?O
Indian Territory . .
4, c 70.368
I2?.6l4
Indiana
268,107,483
3,480,419
272. OI I QCQ
3.86? 471
Kansas
I4O, IO9,8O2
1,961,450
l8?. 3Q7 787
2.6o? 337
IQ7.442 627
2.64Q 323
Maine
04,80,4. 47 C
I.477.28Q
Maryland
214,414,675
1,859,261
687.417.. 28l
7,648,208
Michigan
283,738,338
4,302,988
Minnesota
233,942,097
3,680,966
Mississippi
37,951,832
787,985
348,602,501
4,903,494
Montana
26,852,407
626,905
107,641,249
1,816,538
Nevada
4,182,969
119,813
64,784. C7I
853,063
433,4C7,6CQ
3.73?, 083
7,302,979
147,579
New York
3.078.604. 7OC
22.33Q.42O
48,274,243
783.7(;i
North Dakota
18,088,057
3QO.C76
Ohio
C.64,Q2C, QIO
6. 74Q. 33?
4,438,202
II4,O75
Oregon
45,287,428
936,068
886.271. 7^0
Q, 8o8,<;72
00.474, C. 3.2
Q4O,O?4
South Carolina
43,057,308
639,698
South Dakota
1 8. 74?. 334
306.04.7
115,880,325
1,784,281
179,937,487
3,217,273
Utah
20,644,800
357,886
3 3,878, 28Q
512,612
1 10,663,406
1,598,356
Washington
54,018,972
1,181,901
3Q,O34,CC4
476,487
Wisconsin
21C. 243,70?
4,237,866
Wyoming
6,922,024
132,262
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The history of American marine insurance begins
in 1793, when the General Assembly of Pennsyl-
vania chartered the Insurance Company of North
America. This company is still in existence, and
its long life is in a measure due to its special charter
privileges of being able to conduct a marine as well
as a fire insurance business. In 1796 the second
marine-insurance company was formed under the
name of the New York Insurance Company, with a
capital of $500,000. Since that time twenty-seven
other marine companies have been organized and
commenced business in New York State, and of
this number only one, the Atlantic Mutual, which
was chartered in 1842, is still in operation.
New York's marine-insurance history is that of
all the other seaboard States, for in nearly all marine
insurance once flourished, but has now succumbed
to English competition. The golden period of
American marine insurance was between the years
1840 and 1860, when the clipper sailing ship was
developed and perfected. In those times the lead-
ing merchants owned their own ships, and frequently
a member of the firm would go to China or the
East Indies to supervise the proper distribution of
the cargo, and to secure a remunerative one for the
return. The ship and cargo were insured with an
American company, and as it might be as long as
nine months before the vessel was heard from, the
risk was considerable and rates were high. As
much as five or six per cent, was charged for insur-
ance in those times. The rate on dry-goods from
Liverpool to New York in the old packet sailing
ships was placed at two per cent. This trade was
carried in American ships, and the insurance, both
on the vessel and on the cargo, was naturally placed
in American companies.
But the rates of insurance have changed with the
transformation of the ocean carrying service. The
East India goods are now shipped across the Pacific
to San Francisco, and thence East via rail. The
cost of insurance on these is now only three quar-
ters of one per cent. Rates on the Atlantic have
likewise declined. Insurance on dry-goods and like
merchandise carried in the modern "liners" is
placed at two tenths of one per cent. In other
classes of goods depreciation in rates is in like pro-
portion.
Marine underwriters do not ascribe the decline in
American marine insurance to any trouble from
unwise laws or legislative interference, but to the
changed business conditions and to English compe-
tition. The bulk of the carrying trade of the world
has passed into British hands, and a British mer-
chant and ship owner insures in a British company.
The English marine companies have, as well, invaded
American soil, and have secured a large portion of
the American business. When the English com-
panies first established themselves in America, along
in the early seventies, they began cutting rates.
The American companies did not effect any com-
bination to prevent this, but followed their example.
The American companies were also placed some-
what at a disadvantage by the laws governing the
admission of foreign marine-insurance corporations.
The foreign companies are required to make a
deposit before they can write American business ;
but in New York State, which has stringent insur-
ance laws, the amount is fixed at the minimum
capitalization allowed a home company, viz., $200,-
ooo. So much of the carrying trade of the world
is done under the British flag and with the aid of
British credit, and with countries under British con-
trol, that the American underwriter, working against
all these disadvantages, is seriously handicapped.
Therefore, there being no national or local tariff asso-
ciations among marine underwriters, the American
companies are worsted in this rate war. There
are now not enough of them to form any sort of an
association which would wield much power.
Despite the uphill work of the American com-
panies to hold their own, through loss of prestige
on the ocean and active rivalry on land, there are a
number of stock and mutual American marine-insur-
ance companies which continue to do a flourishing
business. The largest and one of the oldest is the
Atlantic Mutual, of New York, which has over
$12,000,000 of assets, and has been most carefully
managed throughout its career. It was formed in
1842, at the time when many stock companies were
turned into mutual companies, and by which change
the profits accrue to the policy holders instead of
the stockholders. The company is noted for retain-
ing its faithful and tried officers until their death.
The late John P. Jones was connected with the
company for fifty years, and was its president for
forty. In his life-work of building up the company
he was ably assisted by Vice-Presidents W. H. H.
Moore and A. A. Raven, who have been with the
company thirty and forty years respectively. Among
the other large companies which still do a thriving
business are the two Boston corporations, the China
Mutual and the Boston Marine.
There have never been many marine Lloyds in
the United States, though this form of marine insur-
ance has been most in vogue in marine underwriting
in Great Britain. The origin of the term is both
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
SUMMARY OF RISKS IN FORCE AND PREMIUMS CHARGED THEREON DECEMBER 31, 1889, BY THE
FIRE, OCEAN MARINE, AND INLAND NAVIGATION AND TRANSPORTATION INSURANCE
COMPANIES TRANSACTING BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES.
BY CLASSES.
CLASSES AND STATES IN
WHICH HOME OFFICES ARE
LOCATED.
NUMBER
OF
COM-
PANIES.
FIRE, OCEAN MARINE, AND IN-
LAND RISKS IN FORCE, AND
PREMIUMS CHARGED THEREON,
DECEMBER 31, 1889.
CLASSES AND STATES IN
WHICH HOME OFFICES ARE
LOCATED.
NUMBER
OF
COM-
PANIES.
FIRE, OCEAN MARINE, AND IN-
LAND RISKS IN FoKCE, AND
PREMIUMS CHARGED THEREON,
DECEMBER 31, 1889.
AMOUNT IN
FORCE.
PREMIUM!
CHARGED.
AMOUNT IN
FORCE.
I'REMIUMI
CHARGED.
Total
1,926
$18,691434,190
$211424,242
Class 3 A
5
$127,613,864
$',730,377
Class I
Maine
434
'5.4I3.429.842
174,201,696
i
2
2
152
1,748406
7,949,890
117,915,568
971,866,938
135,000
194,076
1,401,301
23fr»007
Alabama
7
i
ii
i
10
ii
1
'6
10
12
'16
2
14
>S
3
•1
4
•j
10
57
3
i
'29
'6
342
3
i
'6
'4
2
'I
I
8
"6
39
^
3
30,789,209
383,678,2^8
4,788,204
1.359,878,764
37-754,794
29431,941
342,381,1^6
10,172,607
173,392,934
65-045.177
144,181430
1,885,379
111,536402
406,517,661
59,517482
113,469,208
5,038,207
76,252,301
46,163,699
163,398,665
282,878,026
4,965,230,523
2,787430
8,300
213,216,829
22,147,389
1,785,670413
136,689,339
62406
16,636,119
32,4-<4,8o8
8,898,345
428,382
14,061
5>803.335
74.907
16,399,218
198455
453.182
5,459474
99,630
3,243,525
908,167
2,161,380
126,526
820,519
5,597,740
764,025
1,506,046
108,940
1,028,840
885,966
2,062401
2,884,863
46,021,786
60413
304
2,623,036
655-94S
24,211,683
1,679,380
840
405,580
525,685
223,219
Class 4
Connecticut
District of Columbia. .
Connecticut
I
3
2
I
'II
'2
5
2
3
10
21
2
12
7
10
12
,I7
3 I9
I
I
*I
*I
2
3
I
2
I,28l
9.277.077
25,988,388
'3-7 '5.239
20435,693
33,321,034
4,040,998
22476,902
4,391.567
5-709452
47,297,788
269,167,557
12,062,098
54,330,327
11,481,171
31,118,584
145,245,931
75,075.375
99,510,249
19,291414
3.543,955
256,294
93.406
25,688
241,213
M9'.233
327,800
1,207,608
84,217
37.933
920,895
4,013430
612,156
1,778,083
"89,053
2,265,924
1,354,681
1,001,589
2,590,723
175,023
60,305
Delaware
District of Columbia .
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
,, i j
Kentucky
Maryland
Massachusetts
rg*m
Minnesota
Missouri
New Hampshire. . . .
New Jersey
New Hampshire ....
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
XT *t, |2 Y
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
49,999,981
11,121,594
79,35°
3.184,314
1,561,418,038
5,005,211
45,822
692
121,028
830,771
Virginia
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Tennessee
Class 5 6
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
2,805495
33,316,514
2,092,760
14,997402
207,431,944
4,120,105,263
25,360,152
3i>279
663,102
53,677
611,252
2,698,181
42,706,752
464,512
Connecticut
16
'187
»6o
127
ii
3 29
7
jg
60
386
6 27
10
30
•i
86
2 178
4
i
'8
'II
i
'181
78,308,021
2,889,971
84,166,658
30,261,418
65,200,389
3.063,307
10433,819
11,250,866
36,528,277
102,592,626
165412,143
23,979.024
6,778,874
6,3364'5
11,781,011
36456,381
136,919,53°
342,074
106461,569
462,333,093
35.3'2,684
818,775
640,334
22,047,364
610,000
120493415
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Foreign
Class 2
,
i
2
5'
3>5«2,38o
21,847,772
591,745,356
218,118
246,394
10,596,879
Maryland
,, V ' ' "
Massachusetts
place i
Minnesota
Georgia
i
8
33
i
i
i
8
3
2
4
5
12
2
525,221
3L989479
576,650
1,628,000
535,725
1,287-253
242,331,706
6,101,882
7,189441
6,699,941
14448,211
, 273449,172
4,982,675
5,172
926,303
20,585
70,100
111,772
128,712
5,34',230
158,722
865,984
93-775
171,130
2,546,264
157,13°
Illinois
New Hampshire . . .
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
North Dakota
Ohio
830,771
Massachusetts
Pennsylvania
Minnesota
South Carolina ....
South Dakota
Ohio
Rhode Island
West Virginia .
Wisconsin
1 Includes i company for which no report is made.
2 Includes 3 companies for which no report is made.
3 Includes 2 companies from whom a statement of risks in force could
not be obtained.
* Only i company reported and that too incompletely to tabulate.
5 Includes 4 companies which could not report risks in force.
6 The companies of this class, as a rule, charge no premiums, but
assess for losses.
Includes 6 companies from which no report was received.
90
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
interesting and peculiar. The name of Lloyd orig-
inated in old Lloyd's Tavern, in Tower Street,
London, far back in the days of good Queen Anne.
It was the practice of many ship owners and trad-
ers to drop in at the tavern and talk over their pro-
spective profits ; and gradually a custom developed
of inscribing their names on a blackboard, certifying
that the men signing would be jointly liable for the
loss of a vessel during a certain voyage. From this
crude beginning have grown the world-famous as-
sociations in the British Isles. In the United States
there are a few Lloyds, two of the principal ones
being located in New York City— the United States
Lloyds and the New York Marine Underwriters.
The scope and definition of a marine policy is, of
course, entirely different from a land fire policy.
The risks insured against are many, and may be
summarized as including all perils of the sea. There
are two classes — a voyage and a time policy; the
former is generally used in insuring vessels, and the
latter for cargoes. There are naturally many clauses
governing marine-insurance policies, such as capture,
seizure, war, and so on. The life of the insurance
on a ship begins at the port from which it is insured
until moored for twenty-four hours at the port to
which it is insured. When an insurance is made
on freight to be carried under a charter, the policy
attaches as soon as the vessel sails, although she
may be destined to a distant port for her cargo.
Though single losses to marine underwriters have
been small, compared with some of those of fire
underwriters, there have been shipwrecks that have
lived in marine-insurance men's memories. One of
the greatest losses to American marine insurance
was that of the American steamer Central America,
which foundered off the Cuban coast in September,
1857. The Central America was bound from
Aspinwall, now Colon, to New York, and was
loaded principally with treasure from the California
gold-mines. She carried insurance amounting to
between $700,000 and $800,000, all of which had
to be paid by American underwriters. Another
notable loss was that of the steamer Erie, which
sailed from Pernambuco, Brazil, loaded with coffee,
on January i, 1893, and was burned at sea. Coffee
prices were high in those days, and the Erie went
down with $500,000 insurance.
Two losses which not only made inroads on the
American marine companies, but which also seri-
ously crippled the growth of American steam trans-
atlantic service, were the sinking of the steamer
Arctic, off Newfoundland, in 1854, by collision, and
the disappearance of the steamship Pacific, which
sailed from Liverpool for New York in January,
1856, and was never heard from. Both steamships
belonged to the Collins Line, which was the first
one to put on steam-vessels for the Atlantic trade.
These early losses were particularly detrimental to
American marine insurance, because the companies
carried extremely heavy lines in those days. Among
the recent heavy losses was that of the steamer
Oregon, which was run into and sunk off the Long
Island coast in 1886. American marine underwrit-
ers had between $700,000 and $800,000 on the
Oregon's cargo. The loss of the Oregon also showed
underwriters how quickly even a properly con-
structed iron ship sinks. The introduction of iron
in place of wood for building vessels has not made
any material difference in the rates of insurance, for
iron has hazards which wood has not, and vice versa.
As to the future of American marine underwrit-
ing, it is difficult to prophesy. As trade follows the
flag, so marine insurance flourishes in the country
with a prosperous merchant marine. The United
States is again forging to the front as a great ship-
building nation, and this gives American marine
underwriters hope that American marine insurance
may follow in the wake of the growth of American
ship building.
The United States census of 1890 gives the sta-
tistics of the fire-insurance interest at the close of that
year, which may be found in the table on page 6.
The following classification is employed in that
table :
Class i. — Companies having a joint-stock capi-
tal, and doing either a fire, ocean marine, or inland
navigation and transportation insurance business.
Class 2. — Companies having guaranty capital, and
doing either a fire, ocean marine, or inland naviga-
tion and transportation insurance business.
Class 3. — Companies doing a fire-insurance busi-
ness on the mutual plan and insuring only manufac-
turing property.
Class 3 A. — Companies doing a marine-insurance
business on the mutual plan and insuring ocean-ma-
rine risks.
Class 4. — Companies doing a fire-insurance busi-
ness on the mutual plan and insuring all kinds of
property on land.
Class 5. — Companies doing a fire-insurance busi-
ness on the mutual plan and insuring only dwellings
and contents and farm property.
CHAPTER XV
LIFE-INSURANCE
IT is a singular fact that the doctrine of chances,
upon which the science of life-contingencies is
based, had its origin in the solution of problems
connected with games of hazard. It happened in
this way. In the year 1654, the .Chevalier Me're', of
Paris, an ardent gamester, applied to the celebrated
Abbe Pascal for solutions of two problems for which
he himself was unable to find answers.
His first problem was to ascertain in how many
casts of two dice one might bet with advantage that
two sixes would be thrown. The second was to find
a rule for dividing the stakes between two players,
should a game of hazard be interrupted, in the exact
proportion to their relative chances of winning at
the moment of interruption. Pascal considered all
possible combinations in casts of two dice, and all
possible changes which might occur in an unfin-
ished game, and was thus enabled to solve the two
problems. He illustrated his solution by casts of
dice. While in a single cast the chance that an ace
would be thrown is just one out of six, in a suffi-
ciently large number of casts the number of aces
would be precisely one sixth of the whole number.
Generalizing, Pascal proved that, by observing a
sufficiently large number of happenings in the past,
he could, with great precision, predict the number
of happenings which would occur under similar cir-
cumstances in the future, and he thus enunciated
the theory or doctrine of chances. Thus, if it were
ascertained that out of a large number of persons
of a given age, similarly situated as regards health,
occupation, climatic influences, etc., a certain num-
ber had died in one year, the percentage of deaths
in a given time, under similar circumstances, could be
predicted with precision, provided the number were
large enough to secure a proper average. Hence
the solution of problems connected with trivial games
of hazard led to the discovery of the laws of chance,
upon which, as an exact science, was built up not
only the theory of life-contingencies, but also of
all astronomical calculations. By means of careful
observations as to the rates of mortality which have
prevailed among a vast number of insured lives, at
all ages and in different circumstances, we can fore-
tell, with almost absolute accuracy, the rates of
mortality which will be experienced under similar
conditions in the future. In other words, while
nothing is more uncertain than the duration of a
single life, nothing is more certain than the number
of deaths which will happen in a given time, among
a large number of persons under known conditions.
Hence life-insurance has for its basis an exact
science, depending upon inflexible laws of nature ;
so that it has been well said by the late Professor De
Morgan, of London, an eminent authority, " There is
nothing in the commercial world which approaches,
even remotely, the security of a well-established life-
office."
In an abstract or mathematical sense, life-insur-
ance is a bet or a series of bets. The individual
bets the insurance office that he will die within one
year ; the office bets the individual that he will not die
within that time. The stakes, called the premiums,
are accurately and equitably adjusted — one is bound
to win, the other to lose. The office gives to the
individual the right to make a series of similar bets
during each of the remaining years of his life, or for
a limited period.
In a concrete or moral sense, life-insurance is pre-
cisely the reverse of gambling — unless, indeed, the
individual who neglects to protect those dependent
upon him from pecuniary loss in the event of his
own death, and thus assumes the risks of loss to
them, is a gambler.
Life-insurance is one of the most beneficent de-
vices of modern civilization. By its means the
pecuniary loss and hardship which would result to a
family from the death of its natural protector are as-
sumed by a vast number of persons, upon each of
whom such loss falls lightly. It is benevolence
without ostentation, and charity without humiliation.
It is practically a fulfilment of the divine injunction
91
92
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
to " bear one another's burdens," and is therefore an
evidence of the highest Christian civilization.
Important as was this discovery by Pascal, it
attracted but little attention until 1671, when the
Grand Pensionary De Witt, of Holland, celebrated
alike as a statesman and a mathematician, conceived
the idea of applying the doctrine of chances to the
valuation of annuities. From the registers of births
and deaths in several towns in Holland he deduced
rates of mortality, or probabilities of living and dy-
ing for each age. In a report to the States-General
in April of that year he computed the value of
annuities for the several ages. This report is valu-
able as the first instance of the application of scien-
tific principles to the solution of questions depending
upon the contingencies of living and dying, com-
bined with the improvement of money by interest.
De Witt's report was lost to the public for one
hundred and eighty years, or until 1851, when it
was recovered through the perseverance and skill
of Mr. Augustus Hendricks, actuary of the London,
Liverpool and Globe Insurance Company, and at
one time president of the Institute of Actuaries,
London.
In 1693, the illustrious Halley, astronomer royal
of Great Britain, constructed the first complete
table of mortality, in a form which has ever since
been followed, showing for each age the chances of
living and dying, with various monetary values de-
duced therefrom. Halley's table was based upon
the records of births and deaths in London and in
Breslau. It was more than half a century afterward
before Halley's labors were applied to any work of
importance. As life-insurance became better known
and appreciated the necessity of accurate tables of
mortality became more evident. The following list
comprises the principal mortality tables which have
at any time been used by life-insurance companies :
1. The Northampton Table, based upon an enu-
meration of the deaths in that town for the forty-six
years prior to 1780, constructed by Dr. Richard
Price. As the number of persons living in these years
was not known, but merely assumed, this table was
quite inaccurate ; yet it was used as a basis of values
for many years by insurance companies, and by
courts of law in the determination of insurance pre-
miums, annuities, and rights of dower. It was used
in the determination and distribution of the surplus
of the Equitable, of London, as late as the year 1889.
2. The Carlisle Table, based upon the numbers of
both living and dying in the city of Carlisle during
eight years prior to 1787. This table was con-
structed in 1815 by Joshua Milne, actuary of the
Sun Life-Office, and was, for a full half-century, the
standard adopted by British and American life-
insurance companies. A great variety of monetary
values were computed upon this table, and a vast
number of insurance contracts were based upon it.
3. The Actuaries' or Combined Experience Table,
deduced from the mortality of seventeen British life-
insurance companies, embracing 83,905 assured
lives. This table was constructed in 1845, by the
late Jenken Jones, actuary of the Guardian Assur-
ance Company. It is valuable as being the first
important table based upon the actual mortality
among persons whose lives were insured. Although
the Actuaries' Table has long since become obsolete
in Great Britain, it has been adopted, and is still used,
as the official standard of valuation by Massachu-
setts and by several other state insurance depart-
ments.
4. The HM (Healthy Male) Table, based upon
the later experience of twenty British companies, em-
bracing the mortality among 147,000 insured lives,
and completed in 1869, under the supervision of a
committee of the Institute of Actuaries. Elaborate
monetary values have been computed upon this
table, which are embodied in the " Text-book " by
George King, actuary of the Atlas. This table has
long been the vade-mecum with actuaries, and until
it shall be superseded by tables based on later and
more extended observations will be the most reliable
standard of value in Great Britain.
5. The American Experience Table (so called),
constructed by the writer, and based upon the
mortality experience of the Mutual Life-Insurance
Company, of New York, during its first fifteen years.
Confirmed as it has been by later and more exten-
sive observations upon the mortality in that and in
other American companies, this table is unquestion-
ably the best exponent of rates of mortality which
may be expected to prevail among insured lives in
the United States. Rates of premium and estimates
of the value of contingent insurance liabilities in
nearly all American companies are based upon this
table, which is also the official standard of insurance
valuations in many of the States.
The origin of life-insurance is lost in antiquity.
At a very early period the lives of masters of vessels
and of merchants voyaging with them were insured,
always for brief periods and generally by individual
underwriters, against death or captivity by pirates.
In the middle of the sixteenth century, lives of persons
were insured for short periods by individual under-
writers, who divided the risks among themselves
very much in the manner of the modern Lloyd's.
SlIEPPARD HoMANS.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
03
The earliest life-insurance policy on record was
issued June 15, 1583, by the Office of Insurance
within the Royal Exchange, London, upon the life
of one William Gybbons. The insurance was for
twelve months for ^383 6s. 8</., at a premium of
eight per cent. The policy was underwritten by
thirteen different persons, who guaranteed sums
varying from ^£25 to ^£50 each. The oldest exist-
ing office, which transacted at any time a life-insur-
ance business, is the Hand-in-Hand, London, char-
tered in 1696 ; but its first life-insurance policy was
not issued until 1836. The earliest purely life-
insurance company was established in 1 699, under
the name of the Society of Assurance for Widows
and Orphans. This association had a brief exis-
tence. The celebrated Amicable Society for a Per-
petual Assurance was chartered March 25, 1706,
by Queen Anne. This society carried on the busi-
ness of life-insurance for one hundred and sixty years,
or until 1836, when, under an act of Parliament, it
passed out of existence as a separate institution and
was merged into the Norwich Union Life-Office.
In the year 1721, there were founded two insurance
offices, still existing, the Royal Exchange and the
London Assurance Corporation, each of which at
once issued life-policies, and each has continued to
do so until the present time. They are therefore the
oldest existing offices writing life-insurance contracts,
but their principal business has always been that of
marine and fire insurance. All of the offices above
named charged a uniform rate of premium for all
ages of about five per cent, until after the com-
mencement of the present century, and their business
was conducted upon methods very similar to those
practised by modern assessment associations.
In 1762, the famous Equitable Society for the
Assurance of Life and Survivorship, of London,
commenced business. This society was founded
upon the recommendation of Dr. Richard Price,
with the view of charging rates of premium adjusted
to chances of living and dying at the different ages.
In other words, its business was from the first con-
ducted on sound principles. The society has had
from the outset a phenomenal success. It has never
employed agents or paid commissions or solicited
business. It has always been managed with great
ability, and is still pointed out with pride as the
" Old Equitable." It has led the way in many of
the advances and improvements in the system. In
the amount of business transacted it has been dis-
tanced by many modern offices ; and although its
volume has greatly diminished since its maximum,
about 1816, it is now increasing quite rapidly. The
Equitable, of London, is not, however, as has gen-
erally been assumed, the oldest office in existence
doing a purely life-insurance business. That honor
is due to a little American office in Philadelphia, Pa.,
called the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund, organized
in 1759, or three years before the Equitable, of Lon-
don. It has, for one hundred and thirty-six years,
pursued quietly, unostentatiously, and without in-
terruption the business of life-insurance. In the
Papers and Transactions of the Actuarial Society of
America, No. 2, page 83, may be found a facsimile
of a policy issued by the Presbyterian Ministers'
Fund, dated May 22, 1761, on the life of Rev.
Francis Allison. In consideration of a premium of
^6 annually, it provided for the payment, after his
death, of^2o annually, for a stated number of years,
to his widow and orphans. The premiums were
based upon the hypothesis of De Moivre, the rates
being level for life. It is, therefore, the oldest
purely life-insurance company in existence. It has
ever kept pace with modern improvements in the
science of life-contingencies, and is to-day in a sound
condition, with every prospect of continued success.
After the formation of the Equitable, of London,
in 1762, came the Pelican, in 1797, the London, the
Provident, and the Rock, in 1806, and new offices
were started in almost every subsequent year. There
were founded during the present century, in Great
Britain, about three hundred and seventy life-offices,
out of which only eighty-eight, according to the
Parliamentary Return for 1894, remain. The others
have had, generally, an ephemeral existence. Some
have been wound up voluntarily, some by processes
of law, some have been merged into stronger or
better-organized institutions, and all have suffered
penalties from the violation of sound principles of
science and commercial experience.
On the continent of Europe, life-insurance has
been a plant of slower growth and development.
Many strong offices have been built up in France,
Germany, Holland, Belgium, and Austria, with a few
in the other kingdoms. It is in the United States
and in Great Britain, however, that the system has
flourished and attained its highest development.
In the United States, the Presbyterian Ministers'
Fund was, as stated, organized in 1759, and is still
in existence. The Baltimore Life was organized in
1831, and was merged into the Equitable in 1860.
But modern life-insurance dates from 1843, when
the Mutual Life-insurance Company, of New York,
first commenced business. This great company, in
volume of assets the largest in the world, issued its
first policy February i, 1843. It is organized upon
94
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the mutual plan, having no capital, and its enor-
mous accumulations ($203,822,134 on December
31, 1894) have resulted entirely from insurance
premiums and interest thereon, after deducting pay-
ments for death-claims and expenses.
This company was organized by friends of the late
Morris Robinson, solely to give a position to that
gentleman. Its affairs were managed with great
skill by him and by his successors in the office of
president, the late Joseph B. Collins and Frederick
S. Winston. Under the present incumbent, Mr.
Richard A. McCurdy, the business and accumula-
tions are rapidly increasing. The history of the
Mutual Life-Insurance Company is a record of
phenomenal success, resulting from the application
of science and sound business principles to the most
important economy of modern times, by men of ex-
ceptional ability, energy, and business training. The
American Experience Table of Mortality, so called,
constructed, in 1 858, by the writer, and since adopted
by all American companies and by many of the
States as a standard of valuation for premiums and
liabilities, was deduced from the mortality records
of this company. The " Contribution Plan " of
dividing surplus equitably among the members of
a life-insurance company was first applied by the
writer in the distribution of the surplus of the
Mutual Life in 1863. When we consider the vast
amount of surplus now held for policy-holders by
American companies, amounting to more than
$112,000,000, in addition to over $325,000,000 of
surplus already awarded and paid to them under
the " Contribution Plan," one may appreciate its
importance and value.
In the report of the Massachusetts Insurance
Department for 1868, the commissioner, Hon. John
E. Sandford, states :
" The forty-seven life-insurance companies doing
business in this State, or rather twenty-one of them,
were fortunate enough to find themselves during the
last year in possession of divisible surplus to the
amount of more than seven and one half millions of
dollars ($7,595,671.97). The whole of this magnifi-
cent fund was made up of the overpayments of in-
dividual policy-holders, or was the surplus earnings
of their money held in reserve by the companies.
They were consequently entitled to have it divided
among them by some rule or method of distribution.
The propriety of so dividing it that each policy-
holder should receive his own — the share of it which
belonged to him, neither more nor less — is too plain
to need argument or illustration.
" How, then, shall it be divided? This is not a
question of usage, of precedent, or of convenience,
but of equity and right — of right to property, to
one's own money ; and involving, as it does, millions
of dollars annually, it is a question of the first
importance.
"As a practical question, at the present time, it
resolves itself into the discussion of two essentially
different methods of distribution, which, with some
variance of detail, appear to divide the practice of
all the mutual companies. ( i ) The ' Percentage
Plan ' distributes the surplus by a uniform percen-
tage of the annual premium — assuming, apparently,
that this premium fairly represents, for the current
year, the whole capital or stock in trade of each
policy-holder in the joint concern, on which his
share of the profits or savings for the year is to be
computed. There is no other assumption on which
such a mode of distribution is intelligible. (2) The
' Contribution Plan,' rejecting the annual premium
as the measure of distribution, inquires for the
sources of the surplus — how much of it is traceable
to the surplus earnings of each one's share in the
accumulated reserve of previous years, as well as of
the current premium, and how much to each one's
share in the savings on the payments for losses and
expenses — and professes to return to each what he
or his money has actually contributed to make up the
sum total of the surplus which is to be divided. If
one of these methods is right in principle, and the
other wrong — and they cannot both be right — the
sooner it is known and admitted the better.
"We think it admits of demonstration that the
percentage plan ignores the origin of the surplus;
that its idea is radically wrong, and discordant with
the theory and methods of life-insurance ; that it
gives money which belongs to one policy-holder,
without reason or right, to another, subtracting
from the dividend to which the longer insured is
entitled, to make for the newly insured an equal
dividend to which he is not entitled ; that it does this
uniformly and inevitably, and does it on an extensive
scale. The equity of the uniform percentage plan
in dealing with the money of the insured is like the
hospitality of the famous old robber of Attica, who,
if the legs of his unwilling guests were too long for
his bed, lopped them off, and stretched them to the
requisite length if they were too short.
"The contribution plan, on the other hand,
recognizes the constant sources of surplus — a
higher rate of interest than was assumed, a lower
rate of mortality than was expected, and a less
percentage of expense than was provided for — in
establishing the premiums and reserve of the com-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
pany. These sources yield a surplus which varies
with the reserve on each policy, with the age of the
insured, and with all the terms and conditions of the
insurance. The system adapts itself to the incidents
of each policy, and returns the surplus earnings from
interest, and the excess of the payments for mortality
and expenses, which belong to it. In a word, it
seeks to give to each of the insured the surplus which
his money has earned or created. It requires no
other statement than this to demonstrate its theoreti-
cal equity. The actual adaptation of the plan is
demonstrated by the fact that its formulas are de-
duced from and harmonize with the fundamental
processes of life-insurance, while no mathematics
either suggest or justify the percentage plan.
" In this country, where every improvement is
eagerly sought and usually accepted, its essential
features have received the indorsement of the most
eminent actuaries, and it has been already adopted
by a majority of the participating companies. The
statutes of this State have been amended in order
to admit of its adoption by our own companies.
Actual trial, which is the best test of its merits,
seems to have approved its equity and the practica-
bility of its use. Other companies, whose practice
has sanctioned thus far the older plan, are known to
be considering seriously its adoption. A firm belief
in its superior equity and in the general good results
to be expected from its use cannot fail to induce the
hope that this, with every other improvement that
science or experience suggests, may be ingrafted on
a system whose present success and beneficent future
are cherished and believed in with a strong and
abiding faith. Life-insurance claims an alliance
duce the system of non-forfeiture, since adopted by
all other American companies. By this concession,
policy-holders, who are unable or unwilling to con-
tinue their contracts, are guaranteed an equitable
surrender-value in paid-up insurance or in cash. The
company owes its success largely to the ability and
energy of its former president, the late William H.
Beers. Under its present able executive, the Hon.
John A. McCall, its business is growing with great
rapidity.
The Equitable Life-Assurance Society of the
United States was organized in 1859, by Mr. Henry
B. Hyde, who, although declining to be its first
president in favor of Colonel William C. Alexander,
has been the guiding spirit from its organization to
the present day. Under the superb management
of Mr. Hyde, the Equitable has surpassed its two
great rivals, the Mutual and the New York Life —
which started respectively sixteen and fourteen years
prior — in the items of income, volume of business,
and surplus. In one respect the Equitable is unique
among all large life-companies, and that is in the
fact that it has always remained under the manage-
ment of one man from its organization to the present
day. These three American offices are by far the
largest in the world. Want of space prevents men-
tion of other American life-companies by name.
The remarkable progress of life-insurance in the
United States may, perhaps, be best illustrated by
the following statistics, compiled from the reports of
the Insurance Department of Massachusetts for the
years ending December 31, 1859, and December 31,
1894. The list includes all companies which re-
ported to that department at the two dates named.
MASSACHUSETTS INSURANCE REPORTS, 1859 AND 1894.
COMMENCED
BUSINESS.
AMOUNT INSURED.
ASSETS.
PREMIUM INCOME.
SURPLUS — COMBINED EX-
PERIENCE. 4 PER CENT.
'859-
1894.
1859.
1894.
1859.
1894.
1859.
1894-
New England Mutual .
State Mutual
1844
1845
1851
1851
1843
1845
1846
1850
1849
1850
1859
$
13,041,484
2,876,591
1,787.650
4,210,380
37,235,392
22,559,"77
22,701,294
1,751-540
4,368,542
10,333,644
808,000
$
93,868,387
52,909,932
38,159,229
89,877,280
854,710,761
209,369,528
156,686,871
64,975,950
36,312,041
61,618,675
913,556,733
$
1,347,637
351,617
106,685
i83,5l6
5,840,150
2,800,717
2,528,842
187,768
582,840
670,268
107,974
$
24,252,829
9,893,072
6,430,146
15,653,367
202,494,184
55,656,860
62,229,586
11,046,572
6,592,373
13,695,656
183,138,559
$
347,717
57,429
52,565
109,387
1,032,663
649-157
709,613
46,370
167,688
308,354
15,590
$
3,079,506
1,849,884
1,455,372
3,109,360
36,123,164
7,626,152
4,677,973
2,472,702
988,582
2,056,336
36,038,931
$
533.7H
147,950
115,007
134,905
1,518,868
886,387
849,599
125,891
340,684
227,716
91,882
$
1,697,009
1,053,008
598,083
1,033,620
15,089,823
3-577.984
7,450,858
1,055,001
260,314
774.451
28,115,809
Berkshire
Massachusetts Mutual
Mutual Life, N. Y. . .
Mutual Benefit, N. J .
Connecticut Mutual .
National, Vermont . .
Manhattan, N. Y. . . .
Equitable, N. Y. . . .
with interests too high and sacred to be persistently
guilty of systematic wrong."
The New York Life- Insurance Company com-
menced business in 1845. I* was tne ^Kl to intro-
Among the early workers and fathers of American
life-insurance who are no longer living, special honor
should be given to Judge Phillips of the New Eng-
land; Guy R. Phelps of the Connecticut Mutual;
96
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Morris Robinson, Frederick S. Winston, Henry H.
Hyde, and Professor Gill of the Mutual Life ;
Joseph L. Lord of the Mutual Benefit ; William H.
Beers of the New York Life ; and last, but not least,
the late Elizur Wright, the first insurance commis-
sioner of Massachusetts.
There is one specialty in the larger American
companies which is worthy of attention, and that is
the very large amount of insurance written upon
tontine plans. Tontine assurance, as now written,
is simply an agreement by which surplus is retained
and accumulated for the exclusive benefit of those
policy-holders who survive and keep in force their
policies until the end of the tontine period agreed
upon — generally ten, fifteen, or twenty years.
Upon ordinary plans the surplus is divided an-
nually ; upon both plans the full sum insured is
always payable at death.
Life-insurance is, in effect, an arrangement or de-
vice by which the pecuniary loss to family or de-
pendents, which would result from the death of their
protector, is borne by a large number of associates,
upon each of whom the burden or loss falls but
lightly. In the case, however, of a person who dies
after paying one premium, or only a small number
of premiums, the pecuniary gain to his beneficiaries
is abnormally great, since the amount of insurance
is very large in comparison with the premiums paid
therefor. To pay dividends, in addition to the in-
surance in such cases, only aggravates the relative
inequality between persons dying early and those
who live longer and pay premiums for many years.
The tontine system, by awarding and paying sur-
such a large number of applicants prefer and select
tontine policies may be considered a proof of the
confidence of the companies and of their patrons in
the system. In the volume of business the tontine
companies surpass by far the companies which refuse
to issue that class of policies. Incidentally, it is
claimed that lapses are fewer among tontine than
among ordinary policies, and that there is a great
advantage to those who survive the tontine period
in the opportunity of closing their contracts by re-
ceiving their full equities both of reserve and surplus
in cash or in paid-up insurances, or of continuing
their policies with greatly reduced premiums.
While many companies in the United States have
failed and been wound up, those now doing an ac-
tive business are believed to be on a sound, healthy
basis. The cause of failure in almost every case
may be traced to extravagance or inexperience, but
not to excessive mortality in any instance. There
are at present, in the United States, fifty-six regular
old-line life-insurance companies, of which thirty-
two only are authorized to transact business in the
State of New York. The companies not admitted
to that State, however, are mostly small and unim-
portant. The magnitude of the business in the
thirty-two old-line companies doing business in
New York may be seen by the following statistics,
taken from the report of the Insurance Department
for the year 1894. The statistics for the British
offices (counting five dollars to one pound) were
taken from the Parliamentary Return for 1894,
published in 1895. The business of industrial
companies is omitted in both cases.
INSURANCE STATISTICS FOR 1894.
UNITKD STATES.
{32 OFFICES ONLY.)
GREAT BRITAIN.
Total insurance in force, December 31, 1894 .
$4.671;. C83.O4.6
$2,500,030,330
Total number of policies in force, December 31, 1894
I,78o, 3O7
Total income from premiums, 1894
QI, 3QI.4.IC
Total income from interest, etc., 1894
CI.4.Q2.4.34.
37,662,580
Total income from all sources, 1894
256,624,478
129,053,995
Payments for death-claims ....
78. 31 3. l62
63,874,645
Payments for commissions $29,854,751
Kxpenses of management . 13 672 918
Total . , $4.^^27,660
12,522,145
Total liabilities, December 31, 1894
Ql6 CQI 1^8
Total surplus, "
I3Q.74.O. 54.4.
Total assets, " "
I 056 331 682
I)O38,626,O35
Total number of companies reporting
32
88
plus to the latter class only, equalizes these otherwise
unavoidable and unforeseen inequalities. Moreover,
each person should be allowed full liberty in the
choice of different forms of insurance, and so-called
tontine companies issue all kinds. The fact that
In addition to the fifty-six regular old-line com-
panies, there are, in the United States, several hundred
cooperative or assessment companies, fraternal and
secret associations, in which, generally, the promise
to pay the sum insured in case of death is not def-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
VI
inite and absolute, but is made contingent upon the
result of assessments to be collected from survivors.
The exact number of these organizations, with the
number of members and the total amount of insur-
ance, cannot be given, but the total insurance in
force no doubt exceeds eight and one half billion
dollars at the present time, or nearly double the
amount outstanding in all the regular life-insurance
companies.
Insurance in the old-line companies is secured,
almost invariably, through the intervention of solicit-
ing agents or canvassers, who are compensated by
commissions on the premiums collected. Men, as
a rule, will not seek life-insurance as they seek fire
or marine insurance upon their houses and merchan-
dise. They require the urgent solicitations of can-
vassing agents to persuade them to do what every
one, who has a family dependent upon his exertions,
should recognize as a duty and a privilege. In the
cooperative or assessment companies the expense of
procuring business is less, but the quality of the
insurance is inferior.
In one respect, life-insurance in the United States
differs in a remarkable degree from that in Great
Britain, and, in fact, from that in all other countries.
Each of the United States, in the absence of legis-
lation by the national government, has power to
impose restrictions, conditions, and taxes upon
corporations of every other State seeking to do
business within its precincts. Each State has its
own Insurance Department and its own statutes reg-
ulating life-insurance. In consequence, the policy-
holders of life-insurance companies are subjected to
great hazard, inconvenience, and expense by reason
of diverse and oftentimes incongruous legislation.
The burden imposed upon the management of our
life-insurance companies by reason of the require-
ments of the different States, and of the necessity
laid upon them to protect the interests of the policy-
holders by guarding them against unfavorable and
unwise legislation, is very serious.
In striking contrast with the American system of
State supervision by legislative enactments is the
system adopted in Great Britain. There the com-
panies are required simply to file with the Board of
Trade sworn statements as to the amount of assets,
of income, and of liabilities, giving the table upon
which such liabilities are computed ; and the public
is left to find out their relative merits or standing by
such illumination as active competition and public
information may bestow. No attempt at super-
vision of companies is made, and in Great Britain
no tax is laid upon life-insurance. It is there as-
sumed, and very justly, that life-insurance is a pub-
lic benefaction ; that it tends to promote thrift and
economy on the part of its citizens, and to avoid
the burden of paupers upon the state, and as such
should be fostered and encouraged by every proper
means.
In other words, life-insurance in the United States
is the subject of supervision and tax by our legisla-
tive Solons, while in Great Britain publicity and
natural competition are relied upon to keep the
companies in sound condition. The two methods
are in sharp contrast. It cannot be denied that the
American system has one advantage in the complete
published returns, even to the minutest detail, of the
items of assets, liabilities, and methods of business,
which are open to the inspection of the public.
American companies are thus enabled to dispel
honest doubts and disarm designing criticism by
the simple logic of facts, and to demonstrate be-
yond question their claims to the confidence of the
community.
&?uj^a«s(h^r*t*^#*4^&
CHAPTER XVI
AMERICAN RAILROADS
DYNAMICS has never produced a greater
power than the locomotive engine. Stephen-
son's Rocket drew in its train results more
momentous in their relation to human destiny than
any motive force the world has ever known. To-
day, railroads, their achievements and their prob-
lems, are of vaster importance than any other one
factor in economic affairs. Evolved from the dis-
coveries that found steam a force and harnessed it,
through the means of applied mechanics, their de-
velopment has produced those marvelous feats of
constructive and engineering skill which distinguish
both them and the age alike. Their extension has
blazed the path of progress, and as they have built
up, so have they bound, the new sections to the old,
until beneath their network has broadened homo-
geneously the greatest nation on the face of the
earth.
Transportation, whether of the person or of prop-
erty, with ease, speed, and safety is the first and
most self-evident of the achievements of the rail-
road. In the administration and regulation of this
function questions have arisen, legislation been
framed, and experiments made during nearly thirty
years, but with small beneficent result. In the mists
of the discussion thus raised the " railroad problem "
has ever loomed larger and more distorted than it
should appear. Primarily the railroad is based upon
certain broad and immutable principles underlying
the commercial and industrial system, as an integral
part of which its dependence should be at once ap-
parent. That such has not been universally recog-
nized is due to two causes : first, few people except
those whose interests and prejudices have moved
them strongly either to one side or the other have
ever investigated the matter to its ultimate conclu-
sions ; second, the railroad system itself, in the strong
throes of its formative period, has sometimes seemed
to deny its manifest destiny. Unrestrained and
ruinous competition, reacting upon itself, has forced
98
rate wars and discriminations, confined to no one
locality or territory, but threatening even such results
as the diversion of the nation's commerce. That
this period, now approaching its end, should give
way to better conditions and wiser policies is as in-
evitable as that iron rails should give place to steel.
Potent as the railroad is, it must conform to rather
than make conditions. The New York merchant
will trade with Chicago if transportation rates leave
him a profit ; if they do not, his business with
Chicago ceases, and the carrier loses. From this it
follows that, within the limits of a just and reason-
able freight tariff, the equalizing laws of trade must
determine conditions for the railroad. With this
elementary principle in mind, the " railroad prob-
lem " loses many of its difficulties ; but it is not the
purpose of this article to discuss this question further,
except as its effects are seen in tracing the history
of the system's development.
The first railroad commonly claimed to have been
built in America was in Massachusetts, and ran
from the Quincy granite quarries to tide-water at
Neponset, a distance of three miles. It was com-
pleted in 1826, at a cost of $34,000. Candor com-
pels the statement that this much-vaunted bit of
road was neither more nor less than an ordinary
tramway for horse-power, such as had been common
at the English coal-mines for many years before that
time. Waiving, then, the claims of the Quincy
road, as well as those of the Mauch Chunk switch-
back road, built in 1827, the record shows the first
railroad in this country really entitled to be called
such, and the first on which a locomotive was actu-
ally run, to have been the Carbondale Railroad,
built in 1828, by the Delaware and Hudson Canal
Company, from their coal-mines to Honesdale, Pa.,
a distance of sixteen miles. In 1829 a locomotive
built in England from the plans of Horatio Allen,
an American engineer, was brought over, and in
August commenced running regularly on this road.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
1'hat locomotive, called the Stourbridge Lion, was
the first ever used in the United States, and was
imperfect even for those times. The multitubular-
boiler engines which succeeded this type were per-
fected by Stephenson, and the Rocket, the first of
this new class, was successfully tested over the Rain-
hill track in the same year.
The Rocket was to the railroad what the Clermont
was to steam-navigation, and to its inventor, as to
Fulton, should be accorded the full measure of glory
for the achievement. At the same time, in this case
again, as in that of Fulton, the idea thus perfected
and demonstrated practicable was not a new one.
Little known as the fact is generally, an American
was the first to conceive the locomotive engine.
His name was Oliver Evans, and in Philadelphia
he perfected in 1782 a steam-carriage, consisting of
a high-pressure engine placed on wheels. This
machine, when exhibited during that year, was
found capable of running a mile and a half at a
single stretch. From this time the records show no
further attempts in this direction for twenty years,
or until 1802, when Richard Trevethick, an English-
man, patented a self-acting steam-engine, capable
of drawing a light load at the rate of five miles an
hour. Two years later this engine was put in use
at the Merthyr-Tydvil mines ; and the demonstration
in 1811, by Mr. Blackett, an English coal propri-
etor, that weight and friction would suffice, even
with smooth wheels and rails, to render the steam-
engine self-motive on grades or with heavy loads,
caused the further introduction of short lines at the
mines. The final triumph in locomotive engineer-
ing, and the one which made possible a speed and
draft-power of practical utility, was reserved for
George Stephenson, the rough and unlettered North-
umbrian miner. Passing over his earlier struggles
and partially successful models, we find the Rocket,
in 1829, standing boldly forth as the alpha of the
modern railroad.
The first American locomotive did not appear for
nearly a year later, and was but a diminutive affair.
It was called the Tom Thumb, and its inventor was
no less distinguished a personage than the late Peter
Cooper. The boiler of the Tom Thumb, although
little larger than that of an ordinary kitchen range,
was provided with vertical tubes, thus securing the
necessary heating surface ; but the waste-steam blast
of Stephenson was replaced by a primitive bellows-
like contrivance worked by a drum, with a belt
which passed over one of the wheels of the carriage.
Notwithstanding its crudity, this little locomotive,
which was run by its inventor over the tracks of
the Baltimore and Ohio,— then operated by horse-
power,—was capable of a very fair speed.
Mr. Cooper's retirement as a locomotive engineer
came about too speedily, however, for his genius in
that line to be thoroughly tested. It was due to an
amusing circumstance, which caused the late ven-
erable philanthropist much mortification for many
years. While out with a party of friends exhibiting
the Tom Thumb, Mr. Cooper met, at a spot where
the road and railroad tracks paralleled each other,
the proprietor of the great stage-coach line of that
part of the country. This gentleman, who was
waiting with one of his fleetest trotters, proceeded
to demonstrate the superiority of horse-flesh over
steam. He would scarcely have been able to do
this but for a mishap, as Mr. Cooper fired up his
tiny furnace and ran steam far above license limits,
while the diminutive Tom Thumb trundled along at
a rate that after the first quarter was placing steam-
power well in the lead. Slowly the engineer-fire-
man-inventor saw his engine drawing away from
the wearied horse, and victory seemed certain, when
suddenly the belt, before mentioned, ran off the
drum, the fires slackened, and the race was lost.
Mr. Cooper felt his defeat keenly.
The second American locomotive was built at the
West Point Foundry near Cold Spring, N. Y. (where
the Parrott guns were cast during the War of the
Rebellion), after plans by E. L. Miller, and was
equipped with a common vertical boiler. Despite
this drawback, this locomotive, which was called
the Best Friend, did attain, unattached, a speed of
thirty to thirty-five miles an hour, and with a train
of five cars fifteen to twenty miles. This locomo-
tive was built for the South Carolina Railroad, which
ran between Charleston and Hamburg, and with the
consideration of which is fairly begun the history of
American railroads.
On the fifteenth day of January, 1831, or precisely
four months after that memorable day when George
Stephenson, standing on the foot-board of the
Northumbrian, had started the first train, on board
of which was the Duke of Wellington, over the
Manchester and Liverpool Railroad, the stockhold-
ers of the South Carolina Railroad celebrated the
first anniversary of the opening of their road by
introducing steam motive power. The Best Friend
was the locomotive, and by means of it a train of
two pleasure-cars, carrying a band and 150 stock-
holders, together with a specially fitted up carriage
bearing a detachment of United States troops and
a field-piece, went down the road on a grand excur-
sion. This was the inauguration of the passenger
100
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
railroad system of the country, and it followed very
closely, as can be seen, upon the English beginning
made by the Stockton and Darlington road in 1825.
The fact that the road was a year old before steam
was introduced illustrates a point which every stu-
dent of American railroads has had brought to his
attention and consideration, viz., that America, as
though foreseeing the final triumph of the locomo-
tive, commenced her railroads some time before this
motive power was developed. As an example of
splendid assurance, the action of this same South
Carolina Railroad in voting, on January 14, 1830,
that " steam " should be the only motive power used
on the road stands unequaled. Other roads were
similarly forehanded in laying their tracks in antici-
pation of the locomotive. The Baltimore and Ohio,
begun in 1828, was operating by horse-power a short
stretch of road fifteen miles long, from Baltimore to
Ellicott's Mills, in 1829, and carried as many as
80,000 passengers and 6000 tons of freight during
the year 1831. A year later, when the line had
been extended to Frederick, steam was introduced
as the motive power. In 1831 the South Carolina
Railroad had progressed to a point where it origi-
nated the four-wheel car-truck, and had replaced the
primitive old Best Friend — which had unfortunately
suffered from a boiler explosion early in its career —
by locomotives of more improved construction and
design. In connection with the apprehension caused
by the bursting boiler a curious custom developed
on this road. This was the introduction of a car
loaded with several bales of cotton, and known as
the "barrier car," between the locomotive and the
passenger-cars. Behind this the early Carolina
traveler felt comparatively safe.
Among others of the very early roads were the
Baltimore and Susquehanna, dating from 1 830 ; the
little four-and-a-half-mile line between New Orleans
and Lake Pontchartrain, starting the same year ; the
Boston and Lowell, incorporated in 1830; the Bos-
ton and Providence, and Boston and Worcester, in-
corporated in 1831 ; and the Mohawk and Hudson,
which commenced running in September, 1831.
Of all the early roads this latter is probably the best
known, through the numerous old prints that have
been preserved of the De Witt Clinton puffing along,
with a train of most extraordinary cars in the rear.
These were nothing more or less than ordinary
stage-coach bodies mounted on trucks, coupled to-
gether with chains. The track consisted almost
universally of wooden rails, laid upon stone or tim-
ber ties, and having an iron bar or " strap," of from
one half to five eighths of an inch in thickness,
spiked along the top on its inner edge, on which the
wheels ran. The early American locomotive engine,
of which the De Witt Clinton may fairly be said to
be typical, was a small, rather rickety affair, weigh-
ing from three to three and one half tons, with a
detached tender carrying pitch-pine for fuel, and
capable, when driven, of making thirty miles an
hour. The spark-arrester for smoke-stacks was un-
known, and outside passengers escaped lightly if
their clothing caught fire no oftener than once or
twice during a trip.
The English locomotives built by George and
Robert Stephenson at Newcastle-on-Tyne were
heavier and better machines. The first of these,
brought here before the Rocket model had been
perfected, was landed at New York in 1829, and
set up in an iron-yard on the East River, where it
was exhibited as one of the mechanical marvels of
the time. This engine, however, was little, if any,
better than the home-made ones ; but in 1 83 1 there
was imported another of the improved models,
which weighed seven tons, and was considered a
most powerful machine. This engine was for the
Mohawk and Hudson road, and cost when deliv-
ered, with all charges paid, $4869.59. Its general
appearance and effectiveness will be easily imagined
by those who saw at the World's Fair at Chicago
the famous old Johnny Bull, of the Camden and
Amboy line, of historic memory. This engine, a
great machine in its day, was landed at Philadelphia
in August, 1831.
Almost the first improvement made by American
engineers upon the English models was the intro-
duction of the swivel fore-end truck, suggested in
1831 by Horatio Allen, of the South Carolina Rail-
road, but first perfected and adopted by John B.
Jervis on the Mohawk and Hudson road, in the
same year. This change, so absolutely necessary in
a country where railroad companies had neither
money nor time to spend in avoiding heavy gradi-
ents and sharp curves, gave the American machines
an advantage over the rigid English locomotive
which they have ever since maintained. Even to-
day a billiard-table road-bed is essential in obtaining
good results from machines of English make. The
equalizing-lever, patented by Joseph Harrison, Jr.,
of Philadelphia, was the second improvement, and
was absolutely demanded by the rough-and-ready
nature of the work required on American railroads.
It gave greatly increased stability, and lessened to a
large extent the danger of derailment. The idea of
two pairs of driving-wheels was patented in 1 836 by
Henry R. Campbell.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCK
101
The railroads of the country were growing, mean-
while, and those already mentioned and a few others
were either undertaken or in view within twelve
months of the day that the Best Friend pulled the
first passenger-train out of the Line Street station in
Charleston. In 1830 there were but 23 miles of
railroad in operation in the United States. Within
a year this had been increased to 95, and a year
later still to 229 — a wonderful record, considering
the undeveloped resources of the country at that
time. It cannot be claimed that these railroads
were such as to compare even distantly with those
in England. They were but primitive constructions
at the best, cheaply built, poorly equipped, faultily
designed, and, briefly, such only as a young country
commanding the crudest of mechanical appliances
could produce. Then, as in later times, it was the
practice of railroad managers to construct their lines
as quickly and as cheaply as possible, leaving their
improvement to the future, when its necessity should
have been demonstrated, and the expense could be
borne by the earnings and surplus funds. This pol-
icy, avoiding enormous initial outlay, is still working
itself out, as has been seen so plainly of late years
in the gigantic undertakings by which the Pennsyl-
vania road is straightening its crooked course, and
the New York, New Haven, and Hartford is obvi-
ating highway crossings at grade. In England, on
the contrary, construction has always proceeded
upon a different plan. Heedless of obstacles, re-
gardless of expense, and careless of time, engineers
have gone slowly forward. Had Edinburgh and
London been as far apart as New York and San
Francisco, they might not yet have had a rail con-
nection. The Manchester and Liverpool, the second
English railroad opened, well illustrates this. It
approached very nearly to those attainments of
engineering skill which characterize construction to-
day. George Stephenson, who had invented the
locomotive, also carried out the building of its path-
way ; and in this road, with its underground tunnel,
high embankments, deep cuttings, lofty viaduct, and
buoyed road-bed across the quaking bogs of Chat-
moss, he achieved a distinction as an engineer that
was second only to the greater glory of his mechan-
ical inventions.
America, slow though she necessarily was at first
in developing the resources which were essential to
perfect railroad construction and equipment, was
behind no nation in her realization of the economic
value of this new method of transportation. Her
initial crudity, even if the circumstances of the time
did not sufficiently excuse it, may perhaps be par-
doned when it is considered what sacrifices the pro-
prietors have made in later years in order to overtake
and outstrip every other nation on the face of the
earth. The American railway system stands forth
to-day as the most stupendous and progressive, and
among the most perfect, in the world. But this is
outrunning history. Sixty-five years ago, the great
mass of the people never dreamed, wonderful as they
believed the railroad to be, of the extended achieve-
ments of to-day. Only by a few men of great
minds was the true significance of this new factor in
affairs properly appreciated. Long after the excite-
ment and novelty attending the opening of a new
road or the trial of a new locomotive had worn off
through the very frequency of its occurrence, they
were planning and working toward great ends.
They saw that the canal system must give way be-
fore the new force as soon as the public needs
demanded that speed and convenience should
replace the old-time delays and discomforts. With
it all, the men who had made New York the great
commercial center of the country, and who, down
the long Erie Canal and the broad waterway of the
Hudson, had led to their city the produce of the
great central and lake region, then known as the
West, saw their commercial supremacy menaced.
Nor did they realize the danger more quickly than
did the enterprising spirits of the other great rival
seaports — Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore —
recognize their opportunities. The Erie Canal,
striking to the very heart of the continent on the
line of least elevation above tide-water, had settled
the question, until then contested, as to which of the
great Eastern cities should become the national port
of entry and distributing center. Away down in
New Orleans, reaching up with the long arm of the
Mississippi, as well as in all the Atlantic seaports,
had been felt the diversion of the stream of Western
trade ; and it was, in fact, the effort to recover this
lost ground that caused one of the earliest of the
railroads, the great trunk-line of the Baltimore and
Ohio, to be projected. Between Baltimore and her
hopes, however, stretched the rough barrier of the
Alleghanies, and the engineering skill of those days
was scarcely sufficient to compass all at once this
difficulty. Philadelphia, too, actuated by the same
motive and attempting reprisal by the same means,
found herself balked by the same great wall. Still,
these delays were recognized as being only tempo-
rary, and already, by 1835, Boston was seen to be
reaching out over the Boston and Worcester to cross
the previously supposed insuperable barrier of the
Berkshire Hills and enter Albany. This, we know,
102
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
was accomplished in 1841 ; but long before that
time, in 1836, the great trunk-line of the Erie Rail-
way was commenced, and the foundation laid for
New York's greatness as a railroad center. The
completion of this road to Dunkirk in 1851, and its
opening for through traffic, marks the inauguration
of the trunk-line system.
Another great railroad power, active during all
the earlier period in behalf of New York, was the
New York Central, which was formed in 1853 by
the consolidation of five small railways. This shows
how, before its future great president, Commodore
Vanderbilt, entered on his successful career as a
manager, others appreciated the axiom that compe-
tition among railroads cannot exist where combina-
tion is possible. Commodore Vanderbilt was, how-
ever, well known before that as an important factor
in the business of conducting transportation. In
the very earliest days of railroads, when the Boston
and Providence, in 1835, established the first link in
the rail connection between New York and Boston,
his steamboats afforded the complementary trans-
portation. It would be far too tedious, and require
too great a space, to trace in detail the fortunes of
the American railroads through the disconnected
links of short lines which began in 1831 to spring
up all over the country. As an evidence of the
number and comparative insignificance of these
roads, it can be stated that in 1832, when the total
mileage of the country was only 229, there were no
less than sixty-seven separate railroad companies in
the State of Pennsylvania alone. In this multiplic-
ity of beginnings a general idea of the growth of
the railroads of the United States can best be derived
from the following figures, which give the total mile-
age of the country by demi-decades from 1830 :
MILES OF RAILROAD IN OPERATION FROM
1830 TO 1894.
YEAR.
1830
1840
1845
1850
1855
1865
1870
1875
1886
I885
MILES IN
OPERATION.
23
1,098
2,818
4.633
9,021
'8,374
30,626
52,922
74,096
93.296
128,361
,
"890 .................................... 166,706
9' ................................ -• ..... 170,795
..................................... 174,750
'°93 ...................................... 170,607
l894 ...................................... I7544I
Omitting for the present the consideration of the
later figures, the proportionate importance of the
early increase as expressed in percentages is seen
at once. From 1835, when the first 1000 miles of
railroad were in operation, the increase for each
established period of five years varies but little from
one hundred per cent, until the time of the Civil War.
With the railroads of the country thus doubling twice
in every ten years, it is easy to understand that condi-
tions must have been more or less chaotic so far as
rates and facilities were concerned. Towns reached
only by a long, tiresome, and expensive wagon-ride
one year were placed in close communication with
the outside world the next. The communication
naturally established trade relations ; a new market
and a new source of supply were concurrently
developed, and the effect could not be anything
but stimulating to the industrial condition of the
country.
There was much unevenness in this early develop-
ment, however, and much inequality ; not only was
one town favored at the expense of another, but
even the favored ones found themselves confined
within the limits of a system that was ignorant of
coterminous facilities, and jealous to an extreme
degree of joint traffic. In such conditions, there-
fore, it was some time before the many links began
to realize that they were but part of what must
eventually be a great chain. It was not until so
late as 1860 that the railroad chain was complete
and continuous along the Atlantic coast and to the
South, and that Bangor, Me., and New Orleans
were at last at the ends of a connecting system.
In the West, prior to 1850, there were, broadly
speaking, no railroads. The first ones to be built
on the farther side of the Alleghanies were, singu-
larly enough, in the extreme Southern States of
Louisiana and Mississippi. These roads were the
Clinton and Port Hudson, incorporated in 1833,
and the Bayou Sara and Woodville road, incorpo-
rated as the West Feliciana Railroad Company in
1831. They were operating before 1840, and have
continued ever since, enjoying the distinction of
being the pioneer Western railroads. For ten years
thereafter no new ones entered the field, but by the
middle of the next decade a network of them was
stretching across the face of the great central region.
A system of land grants did much to foster this
growth in the West. The general government
allotted certain alternate sections of the public lands
to the several States in the West, and these States
ceded them under certain conditions, in the nature
of a subsidy, to the railroads. The Illinois Central
and the Mobile and Ohio were the first railroad
corporations to gain the advantage of these grants.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
It was during this period that the far-reaching
effects of the railroads began to be appreciated in
the fuller significance to which their extension has
brought them to-day.
The intervention of the five years of war and
turmoil which came coincidently with this realization
prevented the immediate carrying out of the plans
then formed. Nevertheless men were planning all
through that dark and disturbed time, laying the
foundations of those gigantic undertakings the be-
ginnings of which were made almost before the
dawn of peace at Appomattox was saddened by the
death of Lincoln. By 1866 the spirit of railroad
extension was spinning the shining network of its
rails throughout the land; by 1869 it reached
dimensions wonderful to behold, 8000 miles in each
of the two succeeding years being the rate of in-
crease. Profits satisfying the grasping hopes of
avarice beckoned capital on, and, with small regard
for consequences to themselves, the railroad man-
agers plunged recklessly into competition. Existing
lines were paralleled ; territories already covered by
one system were invaded by rivals, and the great
war of competition began in earnest.
This weakness of unlimited competition, coupled
with the extreme sensitiveness of the railroad to
industrial and commercial changes, found it more
than vulnerable when the crash of 1873 came upon
the country. In view of the disastrous consequences
of the failure of Jay Cooke & Company, in the
troubles of that time, the railroad may fairly be said
to have aided in bringing about its own decline,
since it was in attempting to carry singly the enor-
mous financial burden of the Northern Pacific con-
struction that this great house went under. Within
the next two years railroad increase dropped off
seventy-five per cent. Then, responding to improved
conditions, it started again on the wonderful career
which ended early in the eighties, when enterprise,
having overdone itself in such follies as the Nickel
Plate and the West Shore bubbles, fell from sheer ex-
haustion. Recovering therefrom within the short
space of three years, a fresh start was taken, at a
pace that placed the record for annual railroad
extension at nearly 13,000 miles. This was between
1886 and 1887, and was followed by a normal
growth lasting until the financial troubles and indus-
trial depression of 1893, when for the first time in
the history of railroads in the United States the
number of miles of road operated decreased. The
discussion of this phase of the subject, bringing us
as it does to the present time, will properly come
later. Reverting, then, to the period immediately
103
following 1869, extending, with the brief interrup-
tion already noted, to 1883, we find an idea of the
pace at which the great systems of the country were
evolving in the figures for the single decade between
1869 and 1879.
INCREASE OF SELECTED SYSTEMS, 1869 TO 1879.
NAME or ROAD.
MILEAGE
.869.
MILEAGE,
1879.
Pennsylvania R. R. . . .
c?8
N. Y. Central and H. R. R. .
53°
4,000
Chicago and Northwestern
Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul . . .
>yj
1,150
839
2,158
2,250
This increase is not, of course, to be set down
wholly to structural extension, which was in fact
but one factor in the growth, and scarcely more
important than several others. Consolidation, or
acquirement by lease or purchase, has much to do
with the formation of great lines. This policy was
undoubtedly based in its conception upon the falla-
cious idea, generally held by railroad managers at
that time, that it was possible for a road, by exclu-
sive control of territories, to obtain advantages in
the dictation of rates and facilities that would enable
it to maintain itself upon the arbitrary basis of
charging " all that the traffic will bear." Under-
taken in this spirit, however, the great systems,
coming to understand more fully the limitations of
their power, have applied themselves to the problem
as it actually exists, and in the constantly decreasing
rates of transportation, made possible by the econo-
mies of concentration and latter-day improvements,
they have given that stimulation to trade which is
at once the encouragement of the merchant and the
advantage of the carrier. To illustrate the growth
that has resulted, the increased mileage of the fol-
lowing large systems in the period from 1883 to
1894 is given:
GROWTH OF SELECTED SYSTEMS, 1883 TO 1894.
NAME op ROAD.
MILEAGE,
1883.
MILEAGE,
1894.
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa F6
Baltimore and Ohio
2,510
I SCA
9.345
Central Pacific
ZjyO/
I -12X
Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy ....
Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific
Illinois Central
3.322
1,38"
I Q27
5.73°
3-572
Lake Shore and Michigan Southern . .
New York, Lake Erie, and Western .
Northern Pacific
1.339
1,025
U4B
1476
2,001
4.4C7
Southern Pacific
ooo
6,1"
Union Pacific.
1,820
4.46Q
104
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Sketching thus in outline the history of the rail-
roads down to recent times, one branch of the sub-
ject has been omitted until the last in order that its
importance might have the full consideration that it
deserves. This is the transcontinental system. Its
conception, its accomplishment, and its development
are the glory of American genius, and its union of
the most distant bounds of this great nation the
bond which makes one in material fact a nation
that must ever be one in sentiment and purpose.
So early as April i, 1850, there met at Philadelphia
a convention called to discuss the feasibility of a
railroad to the Pacific coast. The discovery of the
California gold-fields, and the rush thither in the
years preceding, had turned men's minds as they
had never been turned before toward that wonder-
ful country so lately won from Mexico by the
aggressive patriotism of Commodore Shubrick.
From a little-known region where traders bartered
for hides with the indolent and suspicious Mexicans,
California had become the El Dorado where hun-
dreds of thousands longed to go, and thousands
already there clamored for the supplies the East
would so willingly have furnished them. But there
were no means of getting there except by the long
sea-voyage, either crossing the Isthmus or around
Cape Horn, or by the equally slow and far more
perilous voyage in the prairie-schooner across the
plains and mountains, where hostile Indians, starva-
tion, thirst, — every danger, in short, that an unknown
and arid land could offer, — awaited the traveler.
Could a railroad but be built, these gentlemen who
gathered at Philadelphia in 1850 felt how great
would be its achievement and how instant its suc-
cess. They were ahead of their time, however, and
the project was too vast for immediate acceptance.
Man had not then become accustomed to working
miracles, as he has in these days, when no project
is too immense or chimerical to have its stock sub-
scribed for at some figure. Accordingly nothing
was done beyond the mere exploiting of a great
idea ; but perhaps that was the best thing that could
have been done, inasmuch as it familiarized men's
minds to the contemplation of the thing as possible.
The second great step in the preliminary endeavors
toward transcontinental railways was made during
the administration of President Pierce. The War
Department, at whose head was Jefferson Davis,
organized and carried out a great survey, laying out
several railroad routes across the continent. The
report of these governmental engineers still further
interested the country in the subject.
The idea first enunciated in 1850 was twenty
years in coming to its full fruition. The conditions
caused by the war, and the necessity, more strongly
felt than ever, for close communication with the
great Western regions and the Pacific slope, were
powerful motive forces in the direction of such an
undertaking. California had built her first railroad
in 1856, and was as eager to reach the Atlantic as
the Eastern States were to arrive at the Golden
Gate. With a united sentiment in its favor, and a
government ready to aid by every means in its
power, the stupendous project was inaugurated on
July i, 1862, by the incorporation by Congress of
the Union Pacific, which in its junction, seven years
later, with the Central Pacific near Ogden, Utah,
completed the first railroad line across this or any
continent. The government, as its share in the
undertaking, granted subsidies of enormous value.
To the Union Pacific — the main line of which ran
from Omaha, a straggling frontier town, to Ogden,
Utah, a distance of 1033 miles — was granted a sub-
sidy in bonds of $16,000 per mile from the Missis-
sippi River to the base of the Rockies. Across this
almost impassable barrier the amount was raised to
$48,000 per mile, and between there and the Sierras
lowered again to $32,000 per mile. In all, 1038
miles were subsidized, at an expense to the govern-
ment in bonded indebtedness of $27,236,512. In
addition to this the company was granted, subject
to securing patent, no less than 12,000,000 acres of
land.
The Central Pacific, in its turn, with a subsidized
mileage of 737, cost the government in bonds issued
$25,885,120, and received land grants amounting to
90,000,000 acres. The first rail on the Union
Pacific was laid in July, 1865, and between then
and May 15, 1869, when the junction with the
Central Pacific was finally made, the work was car-
ried on amid difficulties such as can scarcely be
understood to-day. Surveying parties, cut off by
Indians, perished miserably; construction camps
harassed, stock driven off, stragglers cut down
almost within hearing of the clicking picks and strik-
ing shovels ; constant alarms and wearying watch-
fulness— all these things made up the price which
the white man paid the Indian for passage across
his lands. Nor were these the only difficulties.
Nature herself opposed her most formidable front
to the invaders of her solitudes — deserts parched and
alkaline, rivers rock-walled and turbulent, valleys to
be crossed, hills to be cut down, mountains to be
wound about in snake-like, tortuous curves. Now
clinging to the side of a sheer precipice, now span-
ning a fathomless chasm, now diving beneath some
STUYVESANT FISH.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
109
huge spur barring the way across the everlasting
heights, slowly the twin threads of steel crept on.
Men who had shriveled with fever on the sun-baked
levels shivered with the deadly cold on the cloud-girt
heights, and hundreds fell. But the Rockies were
crossed at last; to an altitude of 8205 feet above
sea-level the long roadway climbed, falling thence
slowly to the plateau beyond. It was the greatest
engineering feat man had ever achieved, and marks
an epoch in the progress which there began to
stretch beyond the accepted bounds of human lim-
itation. The Central Pacific crossed the Sierras in
a similar manner at an altitude of 7042 feet, and
dragged for hundreds of miles through the Hum-
boldt Desert, and the work was done. There is no
need to enlarge upon the importance of what is self-
evident. The correlation of Occidental development
and Eastern prosperity is too well understood to
require demonstration, and even if it were not, the
results which the brief quarter of a century of trans-
continental communication has effected speak far
beyond the power of either words or figures.
Others of the early transcontinental lines speedily
followed on the commencement just related. Long
before the first through train from East to West was
run, new companies had been chartered, and long
construction trains, laying their roads before them as
they went, were crawling across the continent. The
Northern Pacific, chartered in 1864, was organized to
construct a line from Lake Superior to Puget Sound,
a distance of 1800 miles, with a branch 200 miles
in length to Portland, Ore. The land grants ob-
tained by this company aggregated 47,000,000 acres.
The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, chartered in
1866, obtained grants of land based on mileage;
12,800 acres being allowed per mile in the States,
and 25,600 acres per mile in the Territories. This
line in connection with the Atchison, Topeka, and
Santa F6, and the St. Louis and San Francisco
Railway, made practically two routes across the
continent. The Texas Pacific, which was incorpo-
rated in 1871 to extend from New Orleans to Sierra
Blanca, a distance of 1068 miles, joined there the
Southern Pacific, which ran to San Francisco, and
the rail connection was opened on October 15,
1882, thus perfecting the union of the Pacific coast
with the country at large, and more fully binding it
in the following year by the further junction of the
Southern Pacific with the Galveston, Harrisburg,
and San Antonio road to the Gulf.
It would be impossible to trace further, even if
space allowed, the progress in detail of that most
complicated organism, the American railroad system,
toward its present condition. By just what steps
the advance, undeniably making toward homogene-
ity and a concentration of control, is to be brought
about is a question hard to answer, and admitting
of explanation based on varying opinions. It is
unquestionable that this potent force steadily work-
ing is the one in which the final solution of the so-
called " railroad problem " will be found. It is a
power best observed in the results following its
manifestations as railroad history knows them, and
therefore best studied in the abstract rather than in
the detailed enumeration of the absorption by the
XX line of the YZ road, and so on through all the
permutations of railroad evolution.
The constructive period of the railroad in the
United States may be said to have ended in 1869,
assuming our definition of this period as that during
which extension was purely on legitimate lines, with
new fields for all, and non-competing roads the rule.
This period, being naturally one of great prosperity
for existing lines, became through this very reason
the cause of their own undoing. It showed men
where money was to be made, and regardless of the
fact that where one man may live in plenty two
men may find but scanty rations, and four men
starve, they rushed into the new field. Thus was
inaugurated, almost imperceptibly at first, but more
and more impetuously as it went on, the era of un-
checked competition, through which it seems to have
been necessary that the railroads should pass. The
very swiftness with which it came on only aggra-
vated the distemper. Industrial and commercial
conditions found it impossible to keep up with the
facilities that the railroads were offering. Manufac-
tories were only producing such an amount as trade
demanded, and trade, in its turn, was only of such
volume as consumption, regulated by existing con-
ditions, required. In the handling of this internal
commerce, transportation facilities as they then
existed sufficed.
Into this seemingly well-balanced order was sud-
denly injected the new element of vastly increased
transportation capacities. Competitors built rival
roads side by side with the old ones, and tapped
from opposing sides the tributary territories. Then,
that they might secure business, rates were lowered
and the war fairly begun. Where one railroad had
been able to handle the traffic of a given section,
two now divided between them the same traffic.
Commerce could not double itself at a bound; it
had to grow. Furthermore, it saw its advantage in
this struggle of the railroads, and so in turn crowded
each of the competitors to a fresh concession, which
100
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
was at once used as the lever to screw down again
the rival. This state of affairs could not last, and
its effects were soon seen in the bankrupt roads that
began to appear. These only brought a fresh com-
plication to a condition of affairs that was fast be-
coming alarming to the longer heads who were
managing the great lines. Thus was demonstrated
the fallacy that competition, free and untrammeled,
could work no evil. With nothing in their treasuries
and profit earning impossible, the only resource of
the bankrupt roads was to secure business at any
price in order to live, and they did it, and kept on,
while the solvent lines became poorer.
From such a state of affairs there was but one
issue — natural, but distasteful to a degree to men
who were jealous of their company's exclusive sov-
ereignty, even to the extent of refusing joint traffic.
This issue was combination, and the lukewarm
manner of its early adoption made it but a poor
remedy. Furthermore, the public, ever ready to
view with alarm the harmony of great interests, saw
in this only a gigantic scheme of the railroads to
monopolize power. The very men and communi-
ties who had thrived by the discriminations forced
by a fierce competition were loudest in protesting
when a more equitable adjustment was proposed.
Towns fifty miles apart and connected by two or
more roads could exchange their goods at a less rate
of freight than was paid by the shipper in the small
half-way town who had only one road to depend
upon. By such a system as this the railroad man-
agers sought compensation for the slaughter of rates,
and the secretly favored shippers acquiesced silently.
From those who paid full rates in the less favored
towns, however, there was no such approbation.
They were undoubtedly discriminated against, and
instead of recognizing that it was the inevitable
result of that competition so universally applauded,
they regarded it as the deliberate persecution of
great corporate interests.
In the West this feeling was most intense, and the
Granger movement, which began in Illinois in 1870,
and attained the dimensions of a political power
three years later, attests its violence. Of the legis-
lation growing out of this agitation in the West there
is little need to speak. The railroad commissions,
as at first there organized, were too extreme in
their partisanship to exert great remedial influence.
Drastic laws enacted by the legislatures, scaling
arbitrarily all rates to the basis of the competitive
rate, nearly ruined the railroads. Taxes, wages, and
fixed charges had to be met, and rates on that basis
could not accomplish it. Capital became frightened
and withdrew, and development in those sections
was arrested to such an extent that even the legisla-
tures themselves became alarmed, and where the
Granger movement had flamed the fiercest it died
the soonest, and within three or four years less
arbitrary laws were passed, and the commissions
became less bitter in their antagonism.
Early commissions in the East were more fortu-
nate, owing to the fact that the resident ownership of
railway stocks and bonds made their spirit more
temperate and their powers less arbitrary. Of this
early appearance of the State regulation of railroads,
afterward developed in 1 886 to national proportions,
the scope of this article prevents extended mention,
the subject falling more strictly within the lines of
the chapter on " Interstate Commerce."
Adhering, then, to the original lines of railroad
discussion, we come in 1873 to that epoch-mark-
ing event, the Saratoga Conference. Competition
was verging on chaos. The solvent lines, having
competed until combination had been forced as the
alternative of ruin, now sought to present a united
front to the bankrupt and reckless roads, whose
motto was " business at any price." The five great
trunk-lines connecting the Eastern seaboard with
the interior were the Baltimore and Ohio, the Penn-
sylvania, the Erie, and the New York Central, and
north of all these the Grand Trunk, a Canadian line.
Agents from the first four of these lines had from
time to time met at regular intervals and published
agreed rates. In the summer of 1873, however,
Commodore Vanderbilt being at Saratoga, repre-
sentatives from the Erie and the Pennsylvania met
him there, and an arrangement was entered into by
which, in addition to agreeing upon tariffs, the roads
in question were to establish a board of arbitration
to adjust disputes. President Garrett, of the Balti-
more and Ohio, absent from the original conference,
but consulted later, was the only dissentient Ameri-
can. He refused to submit the independent action
of his road to any board of arbitration. A rate war
with his nearest neighbor in the combination, the
Pennsylvania, was therefore begun, which resulted
in the undoing of the work of the Saratoga Confer-
ence, and all four of the American lines going back
to the old arrangement of a mutually agreed-upon
freight tariff and independent action.
The Grand Trunk, cooperated with by numerous
small Western roads, started one of the most
momentous railroad wars ever known, and one that
bade fair for a time to transfer to Boston the com-
mercial supremacy previously enjoyed by New York.
The terminals of this line, by virtue of its connec-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
107
tions, were Milwaukee and Boston, and between
these points rates were fixed at a figure that was
shortly diverting from Chicago and New York the
great stream of traffic, hitherto uninterrupted, be-
tween these great centers. Neither Milwaukee nor
Boston being competitive points for the other four
great trunk-lines, these roads were disinclined to
commence a ruinous rate war; but the divergence
of New York's trade to Boston became at length so
alarming, in the winter of 1875, that the New York
Central was forced to take action, which it did with
an initial and sweeping cut of sixty per cent. Fol-
lowing the invariable rule in such cases, the warring
parties soon reached the point when an agreement
was necessary, and a sort of truce was patched up
in December, which, after enduring a few weeks,
ended in a general me'le'e, in which the Erie, the
New York Central, and the Grand Trunk were the
most prominent, although after about eight months
the entire five trunk-lines were ready for almost any
sort of an agreement.
The significance of this earliest rate war, by which
Boston had benefited so greatly, was not lost upon
Philadelphia and Baltimore, and all through the
succeeding struggles the underlying motive was
found in the desire of one of the three other great
seaboard cities to surpass New York. With the
exception of Boston, already sufficiently favored by
the Grand Trunk, both Philadelphia and Baltimore
had always been conceded a slight differential ad-
vantage in rates to neutralize the difference in ocean
freights their location imposed. New York found
herself unable to concede the advantage longer when
her rivals began their war for supremacy, and vari-
ous more equitable substitutes were proposed and
tried. Nothing availed, however, to avert one final
struggle between all the lines ; and after rates had
sunk to from 2.8 mills to 3.5 mills per ton per mile
between the East and West, the roads at length
wearied, and the joint or " pool " system was for the
first time adopted on the great trunk-lines in 1877 ;
Colonel Fink, who had originated and successfully
carried out this idea two years before in the South-
em Railway and Steamship Association, being called
upon to take charge. Under the terms of this first
" pool " the Baltimore and Ohio received but nine
per cent., the Pennsylvania twenty-five per cent.,
and the New York Central and the Erie thirty-three
and a third per cent each.
The important relation which these four great
trunk-lines concerned in the East and West traffic
bear to the railroad system causes them to serve
most readily the purposes of illustration of the
tendency toward closer relations displayed by the
American railroads in their advance toward the
homogeneous, even if not united, system of the
future. Through wars almost numberless the out-
come has been seen in every case to have been the
assumption by the competitors of some mutual obli-
gation for the sake of peace. The " pooling " idea
thus traced to its first great manifestation has not
been, however, of such recent growth as might be
supposed. It was introduced into New England at
an early date, and quietly used for a long time.
The celebrated Chicago-Omaha pool of 1870 and
the Southern organizations also preceded the Trunk-
Line Association ; but all of these were largely ex-
perimental, and certainly lacked the coherence aris-
ing from the discipline of an actual central authority.
When, after years of the bitterest war, however, the
great trunk-lines finally came to adopt it, men real-
ized that it had been inevitable. To-day, while rate
wars and the tactics of competition are by no means
ended, nor ever will be so long as many interests
compete for similar ends, their effects are no longer
so ruinous as twenty years ago. With the great
corporate interests vested in the railroads joining
with one another for mutual protection and advan-
tage, that thing most vividly pictured by the dema-
gogues has never come to pass. Instead of a great
monopoly crushing the public rights underfoot is
found a condition of things so vastly improved since
1873 that it seems scarcely possible that railroad
science can have advanced so greatly in so short a
space of time. Rates have fallen to a point abso-
lutely impossible before the era of improvement, and
both freight and passengers are now transported for
less money, and with more safety, speed, and con-
venience, than in any other country on the face of
the earth. Freight rates, which in 1873 averaged
1.985 cents per ton mile on the great trunk-lines,
fell in the twenty years ending in June, 1893, to .8
of a cent per ton mile, a reduction of nearly sixty
per cent. In the West and in the South the reduc-
tion has been much greater. In order to better
understand the tremendous significance of this
decrease a further reference to the figures will be
useful. The shippers of the country paid in round
figures the sum of $808,000,000 for the transpor-
tation of their freight in 1893. Had the rates of
twenty years ago still prevailed, the sum of $2,020,-
000,000 would have been required to meet these
charges. Thus the people and the commercial in-
terests of the United States were saved an annual
amount of $1,212,000,000.
Such a tremendous falling off in rates has, of
108
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
course, only been withstood by the railroads by the
exercise of the most rigid economies, the adoption
of every improvement tending to minimize the cost
of operation, and an adaptation to latter-day needs,
which, on the closest of profit margins, demand a
volume of business of gigantic proportions in order
to balance the long account of the fixed charges.
Nor has this wonderful change in railroad conditions
come about without injury to the corporations en-
gaged. No less than forty per cent, of the mileage,
representing about thirty-one per cent, of the prop-
erty valuation of the railroads, has been forced into
bankruptcy during this period. The lines that have
survived the strain have done so only by the ex-
penditure of millions in the improvement of their
properties.
One of the greatest, as it is perhaps the most
important, of all these changes has been the intro-
duction of steel rails in the place of the old iron
ones. In the twenty years following the adoption
of these rails on the New York Central the volume
of traffic increased from 400,000,000 ton miles to
2,000,000,000 ton miles. With the old iron rails
such an enormous traffic would have been practically
impossible, and its cost absolutely prohibitive. Be-
ginning with a rail but little heavier than the iron
ones then in use, the weight has been gradually
increased as its economy was appreciated. To-day
the loo-pound rail is in not uncommon use on lines
of heavy traffic, especially on curves and grades,
and it has been found one of the most potent factors
in reducing cost both in draft-power required and in
diminishing wear and tear on rolling-stock. The
increased use of steel in place of iron for rails,
resulting in the practical displacement of the latter
by the former, is best shown in the figures giving the
annual production of railroad bars during the period
covered by the change.
PRODUCTION AND DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION
OF RAILROAD BARS.
RETAINED FOR
YEAR.
IRON.
STEEL.
TOTAL.
DOMESTIC
CONSUMPTION.
Tans.
Tons.
Tom.
Tons.
1873. •
679,520
"S,I92
794,712
794,371
1875.
447,901
259,699
707,600
706,598
l88o.
440,859
864,353
1,305,212
1,304,181
1885. .
1890. .
13,228
13.882
963,750
1,871425
976,978
1,885,307
973,009
1,869,426
1892. .
10437
1,541407
1,551,844
1,536,146
The tons in this table are figured at long weight,
2240 pounds.
A still clearer idea of the increase in the use of
steel rails, expressed in mileage, may be had from
the fact that where in 1880 there were 81,967 miles
of iron to 33,680 miles of steel rails, there were in
1892 only 38,641 miles of iron as against 182,858
miles of steel rails, an increased percentage of steel
from 29.1 to 82.6 of the total mileage.
The direct result of the introduction of steel rails
was an increased weight of rolling-stock, and an in-
crease in more than an arithmetical proportion of
the carrying capacity per car. The freight-car of
a capacity of 30,000 pounds, used a few years ago,
is obsolete and wasteful, while those of 60,000
pounds and of even greater capacity are now in
general use, and may be classed as standard. As
cars increased in weight so did the locomotives.
With the heavy steel rail came of necessity the
weightier and more compact road-bed, and stone-
ballasted ways succeeded the old dirt embankment.
Over this, immense weights can roll freely, and the
locomotive has become a mammoth. In place of
the little one-ton Tom Thumb of Cooper, or the
heavy seven-ton engines of the Stephensons, are
found to-day the sixty and seventy ton passenger-
fliers and the eighty and ninety ton freight-engines.
One giant of the modern rail is a ten-driver freight-
locomotive of the Lake Erie and Western, which
weighs, as it couples to its train, 115 tons, and could
draw the combined rolling-stock of every road exist-
ing in the United States in 1835.
Important as track and road-bed are to this de-
velopment, they are but a part ; and as the strength
of a chain is that of its weakest link, so would the
modern railway fail were it not for the improved
bridge construction which has also come during the
past quarter of a century. All bridges in the earlier
days of the railroad were of wood, and the long
trestleworks with which the old engineers crossed
uncomfortable swamps are still well remembered.
Apart, however, from the question of its structural
strength, the wooden span was dangerous from other
reasons : it would decay in the weather ; it would
burn if a hot coal dropped ; and it would warp and
shrink if the material used in its construction was
unseasoned. Even an improved truss, obviating to
a certain extent the latter fault, was insufficient to
make the wooden bridge either a safe or a profitable
feature of railway construction, and by 1870 it had
begun to retreat before the iron bridge. This latter
material has now so nearly superseded wood in the
bridges of the country that it is scarcely necessary
to discuss it. The many designs of truss and span
give wide variety in its application, from great sus-
pension-bridges to lofty viaducts. One of the latest,
and perhaps the greatest achievement of the bridge
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
109
builder's art, is the so-called cantilever, which may
fairly be claimed as an American invention, since
the first suggestion of it came from Thomas Pope,
who proposed in 1810 a cantilever bridge across the
East River. The first cantilever bridge built for
railroad traffic was across the Kentucky River,
C. Shaler Smith being the engineer. Since then there
have been some wonderful examples of this style of
construction.
The bridges and road-beds, improved as outlined
above, have constituted lines over which the enor-
mous traffic of to-day passes easily and cheaply.
Single locomotives now draw trains weighing 2500
tons. Huge palace-cars, weighing as much as a
whole train did in the earlier days, are now whirled
along at a rate that fifty years ago would have been
considered beyond mortal attainment. Still engi-
neers and railway officials are not satisfied, and there
is a never-ceasing endeavor on all sides to advance
still further. The introduction of electricity as a
motive power, already heralded by the Baltimore
and Ohio in their Baltimore subway, and by the
line at Nantasket, Mass., is the first step in what
many able engineers believe will be an advance to
speed in comparison with which that of to-day will
seem as little as already does the "frightful velo-
city " of forty years ago, when a traveler held his
breath if the speed was greater than thirty miles an
hour.
A very natural query raised by the discussion of
speed on the modern railway is how it has been
accomplished concurrently with perfect safety. That
traveling is nearly as safe as remaining at home is
generally conceded, and in the United States espe-
cially fewer deaths are placed against the railroads
in proportion to the miles traveled than in any other
nation. Even with this favorable showing the laws
are so rigid in holding railroad corporations to the
strictest liability that nearly $2,000,000 annually are
awarded in death-claims and damages against them.
Spurred on by the strictness with which they were
held to account, and, little as it may be believed,
actuated also by humane motives, the railroads have
adopted every new and improved appliance tending
to increased safety.
Since the first use of the telegraph on the line of
the Baltimore and Ohio, everything tending to place
hundreds of miles of road under central and system-
atized observation and control has been adopted as it
appeared. The train despatcher, with his numerous
assistants, in the great union station, now directs
the movements of every train. Not a driving-
wheel turns but by his orders, nor a moment of lost
time is noted that is not at once explained to him.
The great switch-towers, where scores of levers
concentrate the directing force of acres of steel
network, are the development of the interlocking-
switch system. Air-brakes, torpedoes, flags, lights,
semaphores, electric enunciators, derailment guards
and split-rail switches, safety-bolts, and, last and
greatest of all, the block system, guarding both ends
of the flying express at once, are some of the meth-
ods and devices by which safety has been secured.
Of these, next to the block system, the air-brake,
which was first applied to passenger-trains in 1868,
is perhaps one of the most notable advances.
The evolution of the rolling-stock of the railroads,
particularly as it is connected with the passenger
service, began almost with the introduction of train
service. The English compartment coach was
quickly superseded by the so-called American car,
with its central aisle, side-seats, and undivided space.
The first sleeping-car, which was simply an ordinary
passenger-car fitted with rude wooden berths, was
run on the Cumberland Valley Railroad of Pennsyl-
vania from Harrisburg to Chambersburg in 1836.
Sleeping-cars continued of the same crude sort until
1864, when George M. Pullman built the first of his
modern coaches in the shops of the Chicago and
Alton road. This car, named the Pioneer, was both
too heavy and too wide for the roadways of that
day ; but a special car being required to convey the
body of President Lincoln after his assassination,
the Pioneer was taken, and the Chicago and Alton
altered its road to suit its dimensions. Later, when
President Grant traveled through the West, this car
was taken, and several of the other roads made the
changes necessary to its passage over their lines.
Thus the Pullman car was introduced, and the
Pullman Car Company was organized in 1867.
The Wagner palace-car was also early in the field,
especially on the Vanderbilt lines. The first hotel
or buffet car was built in 1867, and the Delmonico,
the first Pullman dinner-car, was ran on the Chicago
and Alton road in the year following. The vesti-
bule, making a safe passageway between the cars
of a moving train, was first suggested by a sort of
canvas diaphragm used to connect cars on the
Naugatuck Railroad in Connecticut in 1857, but it
was not until 1887 that the first vestibuled Pullman
train was operated. To-day a vestibuled limited
express has several luxurious sleeping or chair cars,
a dining-car, smoking-saloon, library and writing-
room, with stenographers and type-writers in atten-
dance, bath-room, and barber-shop. The old-time
method of tickets issued by each line separately,
110
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
involving change of cars and several payments of
fare, is now done away with by the system of
coupon tickets, in regulation of which the passenger-
agents department of the different railroads has
assumed a complexity of detail second only to that
in the freight department.
The government's use of the railroad for the con-
veyance of the mails is too generally understood to
require more than a brief mention. Congress, on
July 7, 1838, constituted every railroad in the
United States a post-route. For this service a stip-
ulated amount per pound has always been paid the
railroads as common carriers of freight mail-matter.
A special compartment in the baggage-car served
for many years for the mail; but in 1864 Colonel
Armstrong introduced the railway mail-car, as had
been suggested two years before by W. A. Davis, a
clerk in the St. Joseph post-office. The first fast
mail-trains were run in 1874 by the New York
Central, and a little later by the Pennsylvania.
The receipts from the mail service, together with
those from the express companies, etc., make up
about five per cent, of the revenues of the railroads,
and the passenger service contributes about twenty-
five per cent. ; while the transportation of freight,
which is the bulk of the business, adds seventy per
cent, to the incomes of the railroad corporations.
The rolling-stock necessary to the transaction of
this business, as apportioned among the different
branches, is as follows :
Passenger-cars 27,909
ge, mail, and express cars 7>937
35.846
1,191,884
1,227,730
Freight-cars
Total cars
Locomotives 36,293
The freight service being, therefore, the most im-
portant function, financially and commercially, of the
railroads, it has attained an economic importance
of the first magnitude. In this phase it has already
been considered, but in its practical working there
has been developed a system of such far-reaching
scope and immense potentiality that it deserves de-
scription. The days when no road allowed its
freight-cars to leave its own tracks have long since
passed. The expense and delay incident to the
frequent transhipment of through freight became
insupportable, and the commercial world rebelled.
The adoption of a standard gauge and the accep-
tance of the principles of joint traffic began directly
after the Civil War, and have extended until they
have reached the present conditions. Freight is
now loaded in a car at New York and not unloaded
until it reaches San Francisco. Each line over
which the car travels on its journey charges its own
rates and receives its due proportion of the total
charges. The road owning the car in which the
goods are shipped receives in addition from three
eighths to three fourths of a cent per mile from the
other roads, for whatever distance the car may
travel on their lines. The theory is that the Eastern
car, when it reaches San Francisco and is unloaded,
is to be returned to its home line as soon as pos-
sible. Unfortunately in practice this results but un-
satisfactorily, despite the thorough organization of
the modern car-accountant's department. Delays
in unloading, reloading for a point on the home-
ward journey, reloading consigned to order, and
hundreds of other causes contribute to make more
than problematical the date of return of a car that
has once got out of home territory. Plans to remedy
the detention and "to order" abuses have been
proposed and tried in great number, the per diem
plan of demurrage or car rental, advocated by Mr.
Fink, and introduced for a short time on the trunk-
line roads in 1888, being about as successful as any.
The so-called fast freight lines are an important
feature of this branch of railroad transportation.
They are of two kinds. The first is simply the
development carried a little further of the system
already described — the application of the coopera-
tive principle among a number of roads. The sec-
ond is the operation of cars by a private corporation
deriving its revenue from the same mileage charge
with which the railroads compensate one another for
the use of their rolling-stock.
Through all these various channels the great vol-
ume of the country's traffic flows steadily back and
forth. If our system is not the best in point of
routine detail and administration, it is still easily first
in that far more important consideration of cost.
Nowhere in the world is freight hauled so cheaply
as it is in the United States. The average cost of
transportation per ton mile is, as has already been
stated, .8 cent. In Europe it is two and one half
times as much, or two cents per ton mile. The
difference amounts in the annual aggregate to mil-
lions of dollars, the greater part of which represents
an actual saving to the people of the country on the
standard articles of consumption and necessaries of
life. The actual value in dollars and cents which
this saving represents can easily be figured from the
totals given by "Poor's Manual" for 1895: the
number of tons of freight moved was 675,129,747,
and the average length of haul 121.89 miles, giving
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in
82,289,400,498 ton miles. Estimating the average
difference between American and European rates at
1.2 cents, the difference in total charges, accruing
as a clear saving to the public, is $987,472,805.97.
The strikes and labor troubles from which the
railroads have ever suffered are scarcely to be dis-
cussed within the limits of this article. The first
great strike appears to have been that on the Balti-
more and Ohio in 1857, and the last was the
uncalled-for and disastrous Chicago riot of 1894.
It is scarcely possible to measure in money the
damage done, since, apart from the losses sustained
by either party to the dispute, is the loss to the
business interests of the country through impeded
transportation and obstruction of the mails. Any
one branch of business that employs, as the railroads
do, 2,000,000 people is, of course, liable to labor
troubles ; but in view of the relations held by the
railroads to the general interests of the country, it
is scarcely reasonable that the conveniences and
necessities of nearly 70,000,000 should be disre-
garded, even if the interests of the other 2,000,000
were being thereby advanced, which is by no means
so certain as labor leaders would make others think.
The growth of the railroads of this country, coin-
cident as it has been with Western development,
has witnessed a steady march of the mileage center
in the direction popularly supposed to be taken by
the star of empire. This advance, together with the
relative growth of railroad mileage of the different
groups of States, is shown by the following tables :
MILEAGE CENTERS.
1840 25 miles west of Mauch Chunk, Pa.
1850 25 miles northwest of Williamsport, Pa.
1860 60 miles south of Mansfield, O.
1870 Paulding, O.
1880 30 miles northwest of Logansport, Ind.
1888 90 miles south-southwest of Chicago, 111.
MILEAGE INCREASE BY GROUPS OF STATES.
1850.
i860.
1870.
1880.
1890.
New England. . . .
2,507
3,660
4A94
5,982
6,831
Middle States
Southern States . .
Western States and
3,202
2,036
6,705
8,838
10,964
11,192
15,872
14,778
21,53°
29,209
Territories ....
Pacific States and
1,276
11,400
24.587
52-589
62,394
Territories ....
21
1.677
4,080
0,804
The last subject to be taken up in the discussion
of the American railroad falls more properly within
the domain of the financier. When it is remembered
that $5,075,629,070 capital stock and $5,665,734,-
249 of bonded indebtedness are represented by rail-
roads in this country, the importance of the financial
interests involved becomes readily apparent. Financ-
ing has come to be as essential a department of railway
management as any other, and is, generally speaking,
more complicated and less capable of explanation.
Historically considered, railroad securities, which
have been for years the most prominent feature of the
money market, have had numerous ups and downs.
In the very earliest days, when all roads made
money freely, and the field had not yet become
overcrowded, investors subscribed for railroad stock
almost as fast as it could be issued. The crisis of
1857, with its demonstration of the liabilities of
stock under the bondholders' mortgage, caused a
sudden and violent reversion of public sentiment in
favor of the latter class of securities. Here again
the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direc-
tion. It was a simple matter for unscrupulous men
to organize a company and pay in a small fraction
of the stock and float their bonds. The bonds once
floated, some favored construction company would
be given the contract to build the road at a price
from ten to forty per cent, in advance of its real
cost. Then the first reverse threw the road into
bankruptcy, and under their mortgage the bond-
holders would take possession, thus securing a road
worth far less than the face value of its bonds, and,
as shown, from ten to forty per cent, less than the
investment made at the price for which these bonds
had been floated.
The crisis of 1873 brought the abuses under the
bond system home to many, but the bitter days
during 1885 were necessary to fully impress the
lesson upon the public mind. Since then a better
understanding of conditions has prevailed, and under
responsible managements the securities of the rail-
roads have come to represent intrinsic values, reliable
and stable, except so far as all great interests are
subject to prevailing national conditions.
The present condition of the railroads of the
United States is thus summarized in a statement of
their revenues and expenditures in " Poor's Manual "
for 1895 :
STATEMENT OF RAILROAD CONDITION AND
REVENUES.
Capital stock $5,075,629,070
Funded debt 5,665,734,249
Unfunded debt 383,567,232
Current debt 440,669,656
Total liabilities $1 1,565,600,207
Cost railroad and equipment $9,789,1:43,001
Real estate, stocks, bonds, and other invest's. 1,167,879,162
Other assets 240,526,350
Current accounts 226,502,371
Total assets $11,924450,884
Excess assets over liabilities $358,850,677
112
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
STATEMENT OF RAILROAD CONDITION AND REVENUES. —
Continued.
Passenger-traffic earnings $276,031,571
Freight-traffic earnings 700477,409
Other traffic earnings 91,134.533
Elevated roads (New York) 12,661,502
All other receipts, including rentals received by
lessor companies 9^,477>443
Revenue $1,176,782458
Interest on bonds $237,620,367
Other interest 7464,971
Operating expenses 757>765,739
Dividends 85,278,669
Rentals, tolls, etc 60,900,454
Miscellaneous 38,220492
Payments $1,187,250,692
Excess of fixed charges and miscellaneous pay-
ments revenue $10468,234
Pacific coast roads were the heaviest sufferers. Con-
sumption had almost ceased in the articles which
were superfluous, or purely for ornament, and the
demand for other articles ceased as far as was pos-
sible. Under these circumstances manufacturers had
little to deliver, and merchants and dealers found
it impossible to pay for more than a moiety of what
they had required in previous years. In the face of
this tremendous decline in receipts the railroads set
themselves to a retrenchment of expenses that re-
sulted in reducing the net loss in earnings to a point
where, in some few notable cases, the net income
increased. How vast these economies were is best
shown in the following table, including a selected
number of the larger and better-known roads:
ECONOMIES OF RAILROADS, 1894.
RAILROADS.
DECREASE IN GROSS
EARNINGS.
DECREASE IN NET
EARNINGS.
ECONOMIES.
$12,794,499
$2, 44s, 120
$IO.74Q,77O
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa F6* (four roads)
7.Q6S.Q56
C, 706, 747
2,2s<),21?
6,841,605
I,4C7,727
5,787,882
Philadelphia, Reading, and C. and I
6,083,823
I,742,6l2
4.741,21 1
Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western (three roads) .
5,732,111
1,203,734
4. 528,777
Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul
{,386.656
1*457,7?^
7,Q77, 7OI
New York Central and Hudson River
4,913,080
7O4,t; 62
4,208,518
New York, Lake Erie, and Western
4,888,272
2.5 72, 717
2.3I5.Q55
Chicago and Northwestern
4,680,6^8
2,491,366
2,189,272
4,607,006
3.477,0 <; 7
1.120,040
Illinois Central
?,6oi;,6^8
2,311,809
1,383,829
Southern Pacific (six roads)
7,571,701
2,092,716
I,47Q.O75
Baltimore and Ohio (two roads)
3,485,692
1,245,263
2,240,420
Michigan Central and Canada Southern
3,478,000
767,000
3,115,000
Northern Pacific
7,046,726
1,520,518
1,526,208
2 604.000
i 087 <;is
I S2O tj8,l
Chicago and Alton ...
1.274.604.
247.2O2
I O27.4O2
Manhattan Elevated .
I.I4Q,6<Q
I O2I,7l I
I27.Qd8
The financial and commercial troubles of 1893
developed in the railroads a new phase of adminis-
trative excellence that is the highest tribute that can
be paid, in closing this article, to the men who are
in practical charge of the great railroads of the
country. By the report of the Interstate Commerce
Commission, the year ending June 30, 1894, wit-
nessed a shrinkage of $840 per mile in the gross
revenues of 570 roads, representing a total mileage
of 149,559. Dividends on these roads fell off
$3,999,169, and there was a total deficit in their
accounts of $28,255,121. The Southeastern and
To treat the vast subject of the history of Ameri-
can railroads exhaustively in an article the limits of
which are circumscribed by the exigencies of space
would be manifestly impossible. If I have succeeded
in conveying a picture to the mind, although set in
a small frame ; if I have succeeded in demonstrating
the importance of our railroad system as a matter in
which every patriotic and intelligent citizen is deeply
concerned ; and if I have, by telling what has been
done, foreshadowed the unlimited possibilities of the
future, I shall feel satisfied with my effort to cover the
ground of American railway history, however briefly.
CHAPTER XVII
AMERICAN CAR BUILDING
THE memory of men still living is sufficiently
elastic to stretch back to the beginnings of
steam-railroads in this country, and to com-
prehend the various changes by which the modern
railway has become a highly organized and elabo-
rately equipped mechanism. We borrowed the rail-
way from England, but developed it on our own
lines. The invention of the locomotive at first
simply furnished a mechanical power to transport
freight in cars that had formerly been hauled by
horses. Tramways were in use in the Hungarian
mines during the sixteenth century ; and Ralph
Allen's English stone-car of 1734, with its flanged
wheels and its hand-brake, is clearly the forerunner
of the freight-cars of to-day.
The term "railway" was invented in 1775, when
it was first used in Smeaton's reports on English
transportation, a quarter of a century before steam
was applied to locomotion. Thanks to the recent
researches of Mr. Clement E. Stretton, we now
know that the first persons ever conveyed by a
locomotive on rails traveled, on February 24, 1804,
behind Trevethick's locomotive on the Pennydarran
cast-iron plateway or tramroad to Merthyr-Tydvil,
in Wales, a .distance of nire miles. In order to
transport long bars of iron and timber, the cars were
made in pairs, coupled together by an iron draw-bar
having a joint at either end. The cars had no
sides, but in the middle of each was fixed a center-
pin upon which worked a cross-beam or bolster, and
upon this cross-beam the timber or bars of iron were
placed. On the occasion adverted to the trucks
were loaded with ten tons of iron bars, and seventy
persons stood on the iron. Here we have the origin
of the bogie or truck, the invention of which has
been claimed for this country, as we shall see here-
after. Also the capacity of the freight-car, fixed at
the beginning at ten tons, remained at that figure
for half a century or more.
In 1812, John Blenkinsop, of Leeds, had a pri-
vate car built to carry himself and his managers to
his Middleton colliery, while the workmen rode on
the coal-cars. On July 27, 1814, George Stephen-
son's first locomotive, Blucher, drew over the Kenil-
worth colliery line a passenger-car made by placing
the body of Lord Ravensworth's four-in-hand coach
on a wooden frame fitted with flanged wheels.
This car was used for twenty years. On Septem-
ber 27, 1825, the Stockton and Darlington Railway
was opened, and trains of coal-cars were run, with
one passenger-coach, named the Experiment. This
was the first passenger-car to be run regularly for
the use of the public. It was placed on four
wheels, and had a door at each end, with a row of
seats along either side and a long deal table in the
center. This car was operated ten days, until the
novelty was worn off; and then the faster stage-
coaches carried the passengers. It was not until
September 15, 1830, that the Liverpool and Man-
chester Railway opened its line with a train carrying
600 passengers, and immediately thereafter began to
run the first regular passenger-trains.
It is a striking fact in the history of car construc-
tion that the English invented both the truck and
the long passenger-car with the door at each end ;
and that these forms, once invented, were almost
immediately discarded in England, so that it was
left for this country to reinvent them and to make
them the distinguishing features of American car
building as contrasted with English construction.
Indeed, it has been with great reluctance that we
have ceased to claim them as original discoveries.
The fact that passenger-trains, by displacing
stages, threw out of use many of those vehicles,
coupled with the other fact that the stage owners,
submitting to the inevitable, often became railroad
promoters, furnishes a reason why the early masters
of transportation both used the stage-coach body as
a matter of economy, and also built their new cars
on the model in which the conveniences of travel
113
114
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
had been most highly developed. The first passen-
ger-coach used in Pennsylvania in 1832 was a stage-
coach slightly enlarged. To be sure, the early prints
show that in 1830 Peter Cooper's first locomotive
hauled an open boat-shaped car from Baltimore to
Ellicott's Mills, on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail-
road ; but this model must have been adopted for
economy's sake, because in 1833 that railroad placed
in service the Ohio, a stage-coach in shape, with seats
on top as well as inside.
As President Mendes Cohen well observed in his
address before the American Society of Civil Engi-
neers in 1892, the first important modifications in
car building were called forth by the speed devel-
oped in the locomotive. Naturally the wheels first
demanded attention. The names of four men
are connected with early wheel improvement. Mr.
Knight improved the shape of the tread and flange ;
John Edgar and Ross Winans developed the chilled
features ; and Phineas Davis further improved and
perfected the wheel by altering the disposition of
the metal in the tread and the angle of the flange,
and by introducing within the cast-iron wheel a
wrought-iron ring of five eighths or three quarters
of an inch round iron, which both perfected the chill
and also added strength to the wheel. Mr. Winans's
shops turned out thousands of these wheels for use
not only in this country, but also in Germany and
Switzerland. From 30,000 to 50,000 miles repre-
sented the capabilities of a Winans wheel.
With increased speed came the need for increased
steadiness, and it occurred to Ross Winans that by
adopting the device of the bogie, or swiveling truck
used in the transportation of freight, he could build
an easy-riding passenger-car. In 1833 Mr. Winans
constructed three long houses on wheels, each capa-
ble of seating sixty passengers. Having patented
his invention, he was confronted by the fact that the
principle he had used was one that had been utilized
frequently on tramways, and particularly on the
famous Quincy granite railroad, built to transport
stone for the Bunker Hill Monument. At the end
of protracted litigation the courts annulled the
patent.
We now know that prior to 1830 England had
three bogie-engines at work; that in 1831 Stephen-
son's John Bull, built for the Camden and Amboy
road, was made into a bogie after it reached this
country— a fact made patent by the famous run of
that engine from New York to Chicago in 1893;
that Horatio Allen used a bogie-engine on the South
Carolina Railroad in 1832, the same year in which
the bogie-locomotive Experiment was built for the
Mohawk and Hudson Railroad. Moreover, the
bogie principle was patented in England in 1812.
Yet, whatever may be the legal aspects of the case,
it is certain that the American passenger-car of to-
day originated with the three passenger-coaches
built in Ross Winans's shops in 1833. England
discarded the bogie principle for engines in 1830,
and did not return to it until 1876 ; and that coun-
try to this day has not adopted the bogie for passen-
ger or freight cars. In 1889, the Paris, Lyons and
Mediterranean Railway adopted the bogie for cer-
tain passenger-cars; and this year (1895) the Great
Western Railway of England has begun to experi-
ment with the bogie-truck. In America the Winans
passenger-coach almost immediately supplanted
everywhere the stage-coach form, which England
still retains in a modified shape, excepting only on
the Pullman cars, introduced into that country in
1874. With us not only the passenger-cars, but the
baggage, mail, and freight cars, all were placed on
swiveling trucks.
That the early railroads of this country were
designed to carry passengers rather than freight is
to be seen by their reports. The Baltimore and
Ohio road, from January i, 1831, to October ist,
carried over its thirteen miles of track 5931 tons of
freight and 81,905 passengers; and so late as 1839
the Camden and Amboy carried only 13,520 tons
of merchandise as against 181,479 passengers. In
fact, the railways as freight carriers could not com-
pete with the canals, which in those days were the
traffic routes. In 1831 the Tuscarora and Port
Carbon Railroad could not meet canal rates by
thirty-nine and one quarter cents per ton, the railway
charges being forty cents, plus a toll of fifteen cents
per ton, while the canal rates were ten and three
quarter cents, plus five cents toll.
Mr. John Kirby, describing from memory the
freight-car of 1848, says that it was the same square
box it is to-day ; its capacity was from six to ten
tons ; the roof was covered with cotton duck painted
and sanded. The hot sun cracked this covering and
let the water in on the freight, an annoyance com-
mon also to passenger-coaches of that day. Few
freight-cars were used in New York State at that
date, the Erie Canal being sufficient for summer
freight. Wood was the universal fuel, so there was
no coal transportation. Wooden brake-heads were
used, and it required three men to turn the screw
that pressed the wheels on and off the axles. The
ripping of planks was done by hand, as was also the
dressing up ; and when one man had tools to grind,
a fellow-workman turned the stone. Carpenters
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
119
and car builders of six years' experience commanded
$1.12^ a day wages.
Viewed from the standpoint of to-day, the passen-
ger-car of the early fifties, built at a cost of about
$2000, was a combination of inconveniences. The
cast-iron stove in the center of the car broiled those
who sat immediately around it, while the unfortu-
nates one seat removed from its satanic glare shivered
and froze. In summer the dust was intolerable, and,
notwithstanding elaborate devices for ventilation,
the dust problem did not begin to be solved before
the appearance of the monitor roof in 1860. Hot-
water heating and the abolition of the deadly car-
stove came with the Pullmans.
In 1856, Captain (now Sir) Douglas Gallon, of the
Royal Engineers, was sent to America to investigate
our railways. His report to the Lords of the Privy
Council for Trade gives a straightforward and un-
biased account of his investigations. Perhaps there
is extant no other report which so comprehensively
discusses the railway situation in the United States
about that date.
" The practice of constructing railways [in Amer-
ica] in a hasty and imperfect manner," says Captain
Gallon, " has led to the adoption of a form of roll-
ing stock capable of adapting itself to the inequalities
of ihe road ; il is also conslrucled on ihe principle
of diminishing ihe useless weighl carried in a Irain.
The principle is that the body of the car is carried
on two four-wheeled trucks, to which the body is
attached by means of a pintle in the center, the
weight resting on small rollers at each side. The
framing of the truck is supported on springs resting
on the axles, and the pinlle and rollers are fixed lo
a cross-beam, which is attached by springs to the
main framing ; so thai belween ihe body of ihe car
and ihe axles are a double sel of springs. India-
rubber springs are in general use, bul ihey oflen
become hard ; consequenlly somelimes sleel springs
are used, wilh greal advanlage. Any side move-
menl which mighl resull from Ihe slight play allowed
to ihe cross-beam is counteracted by springs placed
between its ends and the framing. An iron hoop
attached lo Ihe framing passes under Ihe axle on
each side, so as to support the axle in case it should
break."
The bearings Captain Gallon found nol unlike
those used in England, bul the use of oil as a lubri-
cator was novel. He was told that under favorable
circumstances the oil in an axle-box needed to be
renewed but once a month ; but thai it was difficult
to oblain good oil. The wheels were of cast-iron,
with chilled tires ; they were from ihirty lo ihirly-six
inches in diameter, weighed rather more than 500
pounds, and were without spokes. When made by
the best makers they would run from 60,000 to
80,000 miles before the tires were worn, and they
cost from ^3 to ^3 los. each. The iron used in
making wheels was of very superior quality ; and so
great was the practical skill required that but three
firms in the United Stales could be relied on to
furnish wheels of the firsl grade.
The mosl approved form of draw-bar was contin-
uous under the car, and was attached to the elliplic
springs, acling in both direclions. The iron shackle
was in general use, bul some railways preferred an
oak shackle eighleen inches long, two inches thick,
and six inches broad. This block was bound with
an iron band divided on each side at the center, so
thai a car on leaving Ihe rails would break the
shackle transversely.
Already the automalic coupler for freighl-cars
was prefigured in a device by which ihe pin in ihe
bumper of one of ihe cars was supported by means
of a ball, so that the shackle of Ihe on-coming car
pushed back Ihis ball and lei ihe pin fall inlo ils
place. All passenger-cars and most freight-cars
were supplied with brakes; and the Philadelphia
and Reading Railroad was endeavoring to anticipale
ihe day of train-brakes by an invenlion whereby
a sudden check in ihe speed of ihe engine applied
the brakes lo ihe wheels of all ihe cars. The
saloon, the car-stove, and ihe ice-water tank all had
established ihemselves in Ihe besl cars, and were
novelties to the visiting Englishman.
On the Illinois Central, between Cairo and
Dubuque, some of the cars were filled with com-
parlmenls in which ihe backs of seats turned up and
so formed two tiers of berths or sofas, for Ihe
accommodalion of persons who mighl wish lo lie
down and were willing to pay for the privilege.
The passenger-car had atlained a lenglh of sixty
feet, though the thirty and forty-five foot cars were
more common ; the baggage-cars, with their com-
partments for mail and express, were thirty feet long,
and the freight-cars from twenty-eighl to thirty feet.
In those days the freighl-cars were conslrucled more
strongly lhan were the passenger-coaches ; a Balti-
more and Ohio freight-car twenty-eighl feet long,
and with a capacity of nine tons, itself weighed six
tons.
In summing up the result of his observations as
lo ihe rolling slock in this country, Captain Gallon
notes thai ihe Americans appear to have taken their
ideas more from a ship than from an ordinary car-
riage, and to have adopted the form best calculated
116
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
to accommodate large masses, with a minimum of
outlay for first cost; and that while the cars had
been designed with a view to avoid every appear-
ance of privilege or exclusiveness, or of superiority
of one traveler over another, they had been con-
structed so as to secure to every traveler substantial
comfort and even privacy.
" There is but one class," he said ; " but as the
cars are designed with more regard to comfort than
English railway carriages, this class is much superior
to our second and third classes, and is inferior only
to the best first-class English carriages. Notwith-
standing the superior comfort of the American rail-
ways, the rates of fare averaged lower than the
second and sometimes even the third-class fares in
England."
Of necessity progress in car building had to wait
for the development of the railroads. The original
roads were not constructed as through lines between
the larger cities, but as the connecting-links between
natural waterways, answering to the portages or
carrying places of the old days when commerce was
conducted in canoes. Often built as the result of
local or State enterprise, a short line was sufficient
to use up the scanty capital available, or to exhaust
the willingness of the people to be taxed for public
improvements. The great systems of to-day repre-
sent survivals of the fittest early ventures, and de-
velopment according to environment. Thus the
various small roads which traversed the present
main line of the New York Central were not con-
solidated until 1853, and the same year the roads
between Philadelphia and Pittsburg came under one
control. So late as 1862 there were five separate
companies operating the lines between Lake Erie
and Lake Michigan ; and as each road had a gauge
of its own, it was regarded as a triumph in car con-
struction when freight-cars of compromise gauge
were built to run over all five roads. In 1869,
however, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern
lines came under a single head.
When, in October, 1865, a combination was
formed among eight railroads to establish a fast
freight line between New York and Boston and
Chicago, the maximum difference in the gauges of
the several lines was one inch ; and this was com-
pensated for by a broad tread-wheel. Each com-
pany contributed a number of cars proportionate to
its mileage, one car for every three (afterward in-
creased to one for every two) miles. In 1865 the
quota of the Lake Shore and Northern Indiana was
179 cars; while in 1894 that road's quota of Red
Line cars was 2200.
In 1862 the United States government conducted
the greatest railroad business known up to that time.
With headquarters at Nashville, the government
operated 1500 miles of road with 18,000 men,
whose monthly wages amounted to $2,200,000.
The rolling stock consisted of 271 engines and 3000
cars. No entirely new locomotives were built, but
the 3000 men employed in the locomotive repair-
shops pieced out fully equipped engines founded on
a serviceable boiler or a pair of sound driving-
wheels.1 Among the triumphs of the national car-
shops were, first, a headquarters car for General
Thomas, the car being fifty feet long, iron-plated,
and provided with a kitchen, a dining-room, a sleep-
ing apartment, and an office ; and, secondly, the
hospital-trains, in which the jars and jolts were
reduced to a minimum. It was during the year
1864 that General McCallum and Colonel Wyman
came to Detroit and summoned the managers of the
Michigan Car Company to stop all building then in
progress and to work solely for the government.
They gave a contract for a number of box and flat
cars to be operated on Southern roads; and inas-
much as the gauge differed from that of the North-
ern roads, the new cars were loaded on flat cars and
sent to Cincinnati. The government officials fixed
the price of the cars and made payment in certifi-
cates, some of which the company exchanged for
materials, and the remainder were held until money
could be obtained for them.
The enormous transportation business developed
by the war, together with the labor conditions and
the paper-money issues, combined to raise the price
of cars; so that the standard freight-car of 1864, a
car twenty-eight feet long and with a capacity of
ten tons, cost $1000 or more. To-day a car thirty-
four feet long, with a capacity of thirty tons, and
provided with automatic couplers, air-brakes, and
other improvements, can be purchased for about
$500.
When the war ended the managers of railways
were called on to face a heavy decline in both
freight and passenger traffic, due to the disbanding
of the armies. Money was not plenty, cars were
very expensive, and the mania for extending lines
into new territory had begun. Under these condi-
tions the roads began a system of borrowing cars
from the builders or from car- trust companies. My
impression is that the Michigan Car Company was
the first to make contracts on a car-loaning basis;
be that as it may, this company had at one time
1 " Development of Transportation Systems in the United
States," by J. L. Ringwalt (1888). p. 210.
JAMKS MCMILLAN.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
117
loaned to railroads between 6000 and 7000 cars,
payment being made according to the car's mileage.
With better times and better credit the roads began
to buy cars for cash or on long time, as was most
convenient ; and loaning freight-cars to railroads on
a mileage basis practically has been discontinued.
A majority of the refrigerator-cars, however, are still
owned by private parties, and are run on a mileage
basis. The recent reduction in the mileage rate from
three fourths to three fifths of a cent has practically
killed the business of private ownership, since the
new rate does not much more than pay for the re-
pairs.
The sleeping-car had its beginnings as early as
1838. The Baltimore "Chronicle" for October
jist of that year described one such car that had
been put on the line between Baltimore and Phila-
delphia. The enthusiastic reporter related that the
car had berths for twenty-four persons, and that for
a small consideration the weary passenger might
spend the six hours of travel between those cities
as pleasantly as if he were asleep in his own bed.
Nothing then seemed to be wanting except dining-
cars, and those were promised for the near future — a
promise, alas ! not fulfilled for many a long year.
Twenty years later, in 1858, George B. Gates
invested $5000 in two sleeping-cars to run between
Cleveland and Buffalo ; but passengers could not be
persuaded to use them. The same year the line
between Toledo and Chicago was equipped with
two sleeping-cars built by the Wason Company,
of Springfield, Mass., and owned by Mr. Bates,
of Utica, N. Y. These cars were fifty feet long,
with sixteen sections in summer and fourteen in
winter. When not in use, the bedding and curtains
were stored in an end section ; and a single wash-
basin and one saloon furnished the toilet conve-
niences for the forty-eight persons the car was
expected to carry. A sofa along the side of the car
formed the lower berth, the middle one was hinged
to the window-casing, and the upper berth rested
on cleats fastened to permanent cross-partitions.
It was while traveling in one of these cars, in 1858,
that Mr. George W. Pullman began to plan the
sleeping-cars that have revolutionized railway travel
in this country, and are making their way in Europe,
where comfort is less an essential to the traveler
than it is in America.
In 1859 Mr. Pullman transformed two Chicago
and Alton coaches into better sleeping-cars than any
others ; but it was not until 1 863 that the Pioneer,
the first Pullman, was placed on the road. The car
cost $18,000 — an astounding price in those days.
It was higher and wider than most roads could admit,
and it was not until President Lincoln's funeral that
the roads between Chicago and Springfield nar-
rowed their platforms and adapted their bridges so
as to allow the Pioneer, carrying the funeral party,
to pass over their lines. Shortly afterward General
Grant's trip from Detroit to Galena, 111., in the
same car, opened those lines to the Pioneer. After
that time progress was rapid. The Pullman Com-
pany was organized in 1867, and its success is too
well known to need comment here. From the
palace sleeping-car to the parlor and the dining-
room car is a short step. But a long jump was
taken in the vestibule, invented by Mr. Pullman in
1887, by which trains are made solid and the plat-
form is robbed of the last of its terrors.
In the winter of 1868-69 the &Kl Westinghouse
air-brake was used on the Steubenville accommoda-
tion train running on the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and
St. Louis Railroad. The Pennsylvania road adopted
it, and since the automatic feature was added, in
1873, it has come into almost universal use on pas-
senger-trains, while by far the larger proportion of
new freight-cars built are equipped with it.1 In 1887
a train of fifty freight-cars made a triumphal tour of
the great lines, and by repeated tests, under varying
conditions, proved that the Westinghouse brake can
stop a train in one tenth the space required by the
hand-brake. In 1867 Colonel Miller placed his pat-
ent platform, buffer, and coupler on three cars build-
ing in the shops at Adrian, Mich. ; and with great
rapidity the dangerous old platform, with its loose
link-coupling, disappeared. In 1860 the Post-Office
Department began to demand more room from the
railroad companies, and year by year the mail-cars
were increased from seventeen to twenty feet in
length, then to thirty-five, and finally to sixty feet.
The " Fast White Mail " now requires two trains
each way between New York and Chicago. Each
train is made up of six mail-cars, and the second
train leaves New York three hours before the first
train reaches Chicago.
The interchange of cars among the various roads
made it necessary to adopt standards in car con-
struction, in order to facilitate repairs to cars when
away from the home road. Some authority, too,
was needed to settle disputes between roads, arising
from charges for repairs ; to investigate new brakes
and couplers ; and, in general, to keep the work of
construction fully abreast of the times. The Master
Car Builders' Association, organized in 1867, amply
1 Out of 331,094 freight-cars fitted with train-brakes up to
June 30, 1894, 315,729 had the Westinghouse brake.
118
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
fills this need ; and the reports of its annual meetings
contain the latest word on all subjects relating to
car building. Its arbitration committee also acts as
a court of conciliation for the various roads.
Few railroads in this country build their own cars,
most roads finding it cheaper to buy of car com-
panies, and to confine their own work to repairs.
There are some exceptions. The Pennsylvania Com-
pany, which is a large purchaser, in 1894 built 1963
cars to replace its worn-out and damaged equipment,
besides repairing 66,437. The maximum capacity
of the Pennsylvania shops is twenty-eight cars a day,
or about one half that of the largest works not con-
ducted by a railway company.1 In June, 1 894, there
were in the United States 33,018 passenger and i,-
205,169 freight cars, besides 39,891 cars used in the
service of the roads, and also the privately owned
cars. Of the freight-cars, 25.20 per cent, are fitted
with train-brakes, and 27.23 per cent, with auto-
matic couplers.
Prior to the panic of 1873 all the car- works were
busy. That panic caused the failure of a large
number of new railroads, which, in turn, forced into
bankruptcy and eventual reorganization many car
companies. From 1873 to 1879 the car-shops
throughout the country were practically idle; but
with the revival of business in 1878-79 the car- works
again became busy, and, with the exception of a
slight dullness in 1883-84, did a large and profitable
business until 1893. The effect of the recent busi-
1 " Railway Car Journal," March, 1895.
2 These figures are only for cars built by companies re-
porting their output, and the statements, therefore, are com-
parative.
ness depression on car building may easily be seen
from the fact that in 1890, 103,000 freight-cars were
built by fifty companies ; in 1893 the output of forty-
three companies was only 51,216 cars ; and in 1894
the twenty-seven companies operating their plants
turned out 17,029 cars. Fifteen companies that
built 3000 freight and 300 passenger cars in 1893
built not a single car in 1 894.2 The seventh annual
report of the Inter-State Commerce Commission is
authority for the statement that the increase in the
total number of cars during the fiscal year 1 894 was
but 4132, as against 58,854 in 1893. With the re-
vival of business the car companies are again start-
ing up. The average life of a freight-car being from
fourteen to twenty years, at least 75,000 cars must
be built each year to repair the ravages of time ; be-
sides the cars required to make good the losses by
accidents and for the increase in mileage and busi-
ness.
The transportation of various kinds of products,
such as live-stock, dressed meat, oil, and timber,
has called into being cars especially adapted to each
class of freight, so that scores of different kinds of
cars are now constructed to answer the demands of
the shippers. Within the past year electricity has
been used as a motive power for both freight and
passenger cars, and possibly in the future each
freight-car will be equipped with an overhead trolley
whereby it can move independently of the train on
branch roads and for switching purposes. At all
events, if the future is to be judged by the past,
great changes in transportation are likely to come
suddenly, and to secure wide-spread adoption in the
minimum of time.
CHAPTER XVIII
AMERICAN SHIP BUILDING
THE revival of American shipping has been
scarcely more than a hope of the American
people for more than thirty years. By a
revival of this industry is meant the reappearance,
in frequent and constantly increasing numbers, of
American-built ships for our commerce with other
nations, rather than for our own internal or coast-
wise trade. This has been a theme, and more or
less a dream, for statesmen, capitalists, manufactur-
ers, and all patriotic citizens. All have recognized
that complete national independence without a mer-
chant marine proportionate to our standing as a
nation is impossible. All thoughtful citizens under-
stand that, so far as our foreign commerce is con-
cerned, we are to-day, as we have been for a long
time, practically in subjection to the trade impulses
of Great Britain. If England should place an em-
bargo upon us we should be practically helpless —
for a considerable time, at least — in our trade with
other nations. All agree that American shipping
should be revived. It is as to the best method of
reviving it that we disagree. There can be no
doubt that this disagreement has been a national
misfortune.
The creation of a new navy, or, strictly speaking,
the beginning of a new navy, and the recent build-
ing of two notable specimens of marine architecture
for the transatlantic trade, have caused many per-
sons to think, and a few to assert, that the revival has
come already. Every one wishes that this were
true. The fact is, these are simply indications of a
revival of this splendid art and trade. We have
shown most emphatically in the last ten years that
we can not only build ships equal to the best of
foreign construction, but actually superior to them,
ship for ship, in finish and in results. Moreover,
we have so wonderfully progressed in these ten
years that we can now actually build ships at only
a trifle more in first cost than the most progressive
of foreign ship builders.
Nevertheless we cannot say truthfully that Amer-
ican ship building has revived. As a people we
have risen to a height from which we can see the
promised land. We have yet to enter into it. Ex-
cept for the creation of this new navy, dnd for the
insistence of such men as Secretaries Whitney and
Tracy, of our Navy Department, that our war-ships
should be entirely of American make, notwithstand-
ing that at first they would cost more than if we had
them built in England, the ship-building industry of
this country for foreign trade would be practically
paralyzed to-day. The most, therefore, that can be
said is that we can now build our own ships, and
that manufacturers are ready at any minute to enter
upon the work. This of itself is a tremendous gain,
and is the first step — the one of greatest importance,
perhaps — toward the completion of our indepen-
dence of all other nations. The situation is, there-
fore, one of promise.
Ship building began in this country in the earliest
colonial times. It was fairly well established in
New England in 1640. It began on the Delaware
in 1683. The conflicts in Europe made it neces-
sary for the early Americans to build their own ves-
sels. The industry had its vicissitudes, like the col-
onists themselves, for a century. In 1 740, however,
New England had no less than 1000 sail in the
fishing trade. In 1770 Massachusetts built nearly
one half of the American ships. At the beginning
of the Revolution the American tonnage amounted
to 398,000. It comprised nearly one third of Great
Britain's entire tonnage. Philadelphia had then
come to be the leading center of the industry here.
The trade of this country was then largely with the
West Indies, and Philadelphia was a most accessible
port for the products of those islands.
In 1793 Philadelphia built double the number of
ships that any other place in the United States fur-
nished. In 1800 the tonnage of American shipping
was put down at 669,921. The War of 1812 caused
119
120
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
a sharp decline, but in 1815 there came a great re-
vival. It dropped in 1820, and recovered somewhat
in 1830. In 1835 it went lower than for any other
year of the century, but forthwith there came the
greatest time of prosperity in the industry, which
culminated in 1 8 5 5 . The tonnage for representative
years of these periods is recorded: 1820, 47,784;
1830,58,094; 1835,46,238; 1845,146,018; 1850,
272,218; 1855, 583,450.
Then came the decline for twenty years. It was
about as rapid as the increase for twenty years had
been. In 1855 we built 381 ships and barks, and
126 brigs. In 1875 we built 114 ships and barks,
and 22 brigs. In 1885 we built n ships and
barks, and no brigs. We built no steamers for for-
eign trade. The last census showed that there were
more than 1000 ship-building plants in the United
States. Most of them were small affairs. They
were occupied in building all sorts of craft for our
own waters, chiefly for the large landlocked com-
merce of our lakes, and, of course, scarcely enter,
so far as their product is concerned, into a consid-
eration of the revival of American shipping as it is
commonly understood.
There should be little need to recount the causes
for the decline in this country of this noble indus-
try. Nature intended us to be a seafaring people,
and for eighty years we were such. In the begin-
ning of this century we not only surpassed other
nations in the quality of our ships, but we could
build them cheaper than England could build her
vessels. We had splendid forests and hardy, fear-
less sailors. Year by year we increased our output
in this industry, so that when the decade from 1850
to 1860 was reached we were second in rank in this
industry, and in 1860 so close to England that there
was practically no difference between the two
nations. Soon after the year 1840, however, Eng-
land's forests had begun to show serious depletion.
It became necessary, after a time, for her to import
the greater part of her materials for building ships.
Tools were then invented for the working of iron
for ship building. She had plenty of iron in her
hills, and forthwith the iron ships began to appear,
slowly at first, but none the less surely and steadily.
There was no such incentive in this country for
iron ships, the feasibility of which had been demon-
strated for forty years or more. Our forests were
still plentiful and close at hand. Our experience
with wooden ships had been profitable. The indus-
try was increasing all the time. There was little
need for a drastic change in our system of manu-
facture. The gold fever was upon us, and the tide
of immigration was sweeping to our shores in a
mighty current. There was no time for any change
in our methods, even had we been inclined to make
one. From a fleet of 201,562 tonnage in 1789, we
had grown to a fleet of 5,353,868 tonnage in 1860.
In the latter year, the entire tonnage of the whole
British empire was only 5,710,968. Truly an im-
pressive showing was ours.
The Civil War came. For a time our shipping
showed no marked decline. Then it began to go
down. The Confederate privateers, built in Eng-
land, began to sweep the seas. American ships
with hundreds of thousands of tonnage sought the
English flag for protection. Year by year we built
fewer ships. When the war ended we had practi-
cally ceased to be a maritime nation. We were at
the threshold of a magnificent interior development
of our own country. Our capitalists could not begin
to furnish the money needed in this work. We
had to go to England, even as we have been doing
in recent years, to borrow money to build the in-
tricate and amazing network of our railroads. New
methods had come into the ship-building industry.
The business had become revolutionized. Eng-
land had taken full advantage of her opportunity.
She had fostered the industry by placing her govern-
ment work in private yards. Her plants had been
established on a broad scale, and a resulting cheap-
ening in cost of production had followed. The
United States was out of the race. Her forests
near the coasts were depleted. When we built our
first battle-ship, the New Ironsides, in 1 863, the tim-
bers used in her were cut within twenty-five miles
of Philadelphia. The great interior development of
the country had swept all such forest supplies away.
Labor was costly. This made the product of our
iron-mines most expensive, and as a people we found
that one of the results of the great Civil War was
the destruction of our shipping industry, and, de-
plorable as it well may seem, and not yet fully
understood by all our people, we were commercially
dependent once more upon Great Britain. The ris-
ing cloud of our internal prosperity hid this from the
eyes of most of our people, but fact it was and is
nevertheless.
England had become mistress of the seas. With
an eye single to her commercial interests — at once
the explanation of all her statecraft— she resolved to
maintain her supremacy. To-day she is as resolute
in her purpose as she was thirty years ago. Her
shipping is the sign whereby she conquers in the
mercantile world. It is the standing proof of her
national prowess and independence. With keen
CHARLES H. CRAMP.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
121
foresight she resolved that this conquering industry
should not become stagnant. She enrolled certain
of the steam-craft in the reserve force of her navy,
paying the yearly rate of twenty shillings per ton to
their owners. She established liberal subsidies for
carrying the mails. She recognized that a ship
carrying the British flag was something more than
the private property of the individual owner. The
nation had a share of ownership in every such
vessel.
Recognizing that this country could never have
complete national independence without a merchant
marine, American capitalists in 1870 decided to
make a start in bringing about a revival. Four
vessels were built for the transatlantic trade in the
Cramp shipyard. They were the Ohio, Indiana,
Pennsylvania, and Illinois. They were equal to any
vessels of their day, and a credit to the industry and
to the nation. England met their advent with in
creased subsidies. The American vessels had no
such aid, and had to fight their way in commercial
rivalry. It was not a winning fight. Ship building
here was confined thereafter to building coastwise
vessels. The industry sank to such a low stage that
when, in 1882, we started to build a new navy, the
English newspapers scoffed at the idea that we could
produce either hulls or engines. They finally ad-
mitted that we could build the hulls, but for us to
make the complex modern marine engine was out of
the question. Congress gave the Secretary of the
Navy power to get abroad what he wanted in this
respect, but Messrs. Whitney and Tracy resolutely
refused to take advantage of the privilege.
When we started in this work of building a navy
we had no mills in which to roll the plates, no
foundries to make the great castings, no forges to
fashion the shafts and gun forgings, no plants to
supply our armor. It had taken England thirty
years or more to equip herself with these appliances.
What have we done? In ten years, practically, we
have gone to the front. Our marine engines and
boilers are and for years have been confessedly the
best in the world. Not one of our new war-ships
has broken down when put to a test of four hours'
work at its maximum power, and none has been in-
jured in the slightest by such an enormous trial of
endurance. On the contrary, no English war-ship
has been equal to such a task. The English experts
freely admit that we have won supremacy in this re-
spect. Our ships are acknowledged to be superior
in finish. There is one simple explanation for this :
workmen in American shipyards get nearly double
the wages of workmen in English shipyards, and a
better-paid man always does better work. Our
designers have made distinct advances over their
English competitors. The Indiana class of battle-
ships proves this. With vessels only two thirds the
size of the English Royal Sovereign class, the Indiana
class has a greater fighting capacity and as much
speed and endurance. Moreover, the recent trial of
the Indiana herself demonstrated that she was a signal
success in the one respect where English ships fail
oftenest, the matter of stability. Lack of stability
has been the crowning fault of foreign battle-ships.
No steadier ships will float than these new battle-
ships of ours.
In addition to all this, we have produced the two
fastest war-ships of large size in the world, the Co-
lumbia and Minneapolis. England became aroused
by their appearance, and she answered our success
by ordering two vessels of stupendous dimensions,
the Powerful and Terrible, for the sole purpose of
outclassing them. The creation of this new navy
has stimulated ship building in many yards. On the
Pacific coast, in New England, in Maryland, even
on the Mississippi River, as well as on the historic
Delaware, we have proved our ability to compete
with all the world in the making of ships of every
kind. Our mills and forges and foundries cannot be
surpassed anywhere, and a striking triumph of our
skill is shown by the fact that Russia has recently
placed two orders for armor in this country, to the
exclusion of all the plants of Europe.
Our skill had become so thoroughly demonstrated
that three years ago American capital, encouraged
by legislation providing for a moderate compensa-
tion for carrying the mails, — much less than that
which England pays for the same work, — decided to
make another start in the revival of our merchant
marine. We admitted two vessels to American
register, — the New York and Paris, of the Inter-
national Navigation Company's line, — upon the ex-
press condition that two more vessels equal to them
in size and capabilities should be built in American
yards. Congress guaranteed a payment of $4 a
mile to these ships for carrying the mails to foreign
countries, upon the condition that they should show
themselves capable of maintaining a sustained speed
of twenty knots an hour. As a result of this the
St. Louis and St. Paul were built, and in October,
1895, the mail-carrying contract went into effect.
The St. Louis and St. Paul have shown, in the short
time they have been in service, their splendid worth ;
and the hearty reception given to them by the entire
country speaks well for the patriotism of the Ameri-
can people, and is of itself a most hopeful sign. The
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ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
St. Louis, on her official trial in Great Britain, made
an average of twenty-two knots an hour.
This, then, is the condition of our ship building
to-day. In ten years we have built, in round num-
bers, fifty most creditable vessels for the new navy,
and two fine specimens of ocean-going passenger-
craft. The reports of the Navigation Commissioner
show, as is pointed out by Mr. Chamberlain in an-
other chapter of this work, that, of the ten leading
countries of the globe, Italy and the United States
alone show a decline in this industry since 1875.
The tonnage of Great Britain for 1895 is placed at
27,885,806. That of Germany, now the second
maritime power, is 4,065,282. The United States
comes next, with a tonnage of 3,261,982, a decline
in twenty years of nearly 1,000,000 tons. In twenty
years Germany has increased her tonnage nearly
3,000,000 tons. Perhaps an incident in the experi-
ence of a young woman who several years ago made
a spectacular trip around the world for a New York
newspaper will illustrate the extent of the decline of
American shipping better than any set of figures.
The last instructions given to this young woman
were to make note of the number of times and the
occasions on which she might see the American flag
on vessels during her journey. When she came
back she reported that not once did she see a vessel
flying the American flag from the time she left New
York until she reached San Francisco. Nothing
more need be said, therefore, to show the complete
prostration of this industry, notwithstanding the fact
that we have built the nucleus of a new navy in ten
years, and are now in a position to build ships of any
kind and any speed within the limits of recognized
possibilities.
The great question, therefore, is, How shall our
merchant marine be restored? With no desire to
manifest a controversial spirit in these pages, I think
every one who has studied this question agrees that
national legislation of some kind is necessary. On
the one hand, some assert that the repeal of the navi-
gation law passed December 31, 1792, is necessary.
This act specifically closed American registry to
foreign-built ships, except those taken as prizes in
war. Its repeal would give us free ships. We could
buy vessels, if this act were removed from the statute-
books, at English prices. On the other hand, those
who oppose the repeal of this act assert that what
is needed is government aid similar to that which
England and most other nations give to their ship-
ping industries. These advocate the adoption of
one or all of three kinds of government assistance.
The first is special compensation to special lines of
steamships ; the next is a general bounty on tonnage
to all ships; the third is a liberal compensation to
our vessels, according to size and grade, for carrying
the United States mails.
Now, eliminating any question of partisanship in
discussing this matter, I think that no one will dis-
pute that probably the most powerful incentive to the
growth of the shipping of Great Britain has been this
matter of government aid. It will also be admitted
by all those who have examined the question histor-
ically that our law of 1792 was intended to promote
our national independence rather than to foster an
industry by a protective system. In those days the
industry needed no protection, because it was ad-
mitted, and had been proved beyond any doubt, that
we could build ships cheaper than any of our rivals.
In 1789, James Madison, then a member of the
House of Representatives, said that our capacity
for increasing the tonnage of our ships " gives us
a favorable presage of our future independence."
Moreover, there is conclusive proof that this navi-
gation law did not interfere with the growth of our
shipping. It has been in effect from the day it was
passed until now. When we were at the height of
our prosperity in shipping the law was in actual
operation, just as it is to-day, in the time of the
prostration of this industry.
It would seem, also, that we all ought to agree
that if this law were repealed these things would
happen : England, under our natural desire to buy
as cheaply as possible, would unload her poorest
vessels on us, and her shipyards would reap a bene-
fit in an enormous activity in building new vessels
for her own use. A new market would be opened
for the relief of the over-developed English ship-
yards, now sorely languishing because other nations
are beginning to build their own vessels. It ought
also to be admitted that in time of war England
would be able, by a series of sales easy to accom-
plish, to transfer her merchant marine to the Ameri-
can flag, and thus escape the terrible penalty that
must befall her in case she should enter into conflict
with any other nation. Her immense shipping is a
perpetual bond upon her not to engage in warfare.
If she could make an asylum of the American flag
temporarily she could resume control of her shipping
when hostilities were at an end.
As to the effect on the shipping industry of this
country, it is generally conceded that the repeal of
the navigation law would wreck the industry as at
present organized here. Those who favor this plan
see no reason why the government should foster any
single industry. Such vessels as England produces
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
she could build cheaper than we could build them.
The argument that our yards would be kept busy
with repair-work and building ships for the coast-
wise trade would fail, because repair-plants are of an
entirely different character from constructing plants.
If we could import ships for the foreign trade we
ought to have the same privilege for our coastwise
trade. A discrimination between the two kinds of
trade would be absolutely unjust to our mercantile
interests. Again, if we could get our ships at Eng-
lish prices, we should be confronted by the fact that
England, to retain her supremacy, would doubtless
continue to insist on her liberal policy of govern-
ment aid to her ships, and to hold her own would
probably increase that aid at once. It is difficult
to see how, under these circumstances, we could
compete with her in the commerce of the world.
By unloading her least desirable vessels on us she
would have better ships, and these, with favoring
legislation, would place us at once under a disad-
vantage.
It is for this reason that the advocates of govern-
ment aid have declared for a so-called bounty system
in this country. We use this system in our inland
commerce extensively. We pay large sums every
year to the railroads for carrying the mails. In that
case we call it a compensation. It is called a
" bounty " when we give such aid to ships. Why
should subsidies of land be given to the great
railroads and not to the ship-building interests ?
Enormous grants of land have been allotted by the
government to the great railway companies, and
these very roads, fattened on government patronage,
are now giving the preference of business at their
terminals to foreign bottoms, to the exclusion of
American ships, as is the case at Pensacola, New-
port News, New Orleans, and on the Pacific coast.
All the advocates of a general tonnage bounty, if
such a term is to be used, declare that within ten
years after the passage of such a law we should be
practically independent of every nation in the matter
of ships. Many such bills have been introduced in
Congress, but there seems little prospect at present
that any such law will be passed. Three years ago
we did adopt a scale of compensation for American
vessels carrying the mails to foreign countries. The
contract has just gone into effect. It requires from
two to three years to build ships such as the Sf. Louis
and St. Paul. The post-office authorities at first re-
ported that the new law seemed to have little effect.
By special legislation the New York and Paris were
admitted to American register, and now, for the first
time in our history, we are to have an actual trial of
123
the effect of this kind of government encouragement
of our shipping industry.
The system is to run for ten years. What the re-
sult will be time alone will tell, but this much can
already be said : it has added to our naval reserve
fleet four magnificent specimens of marine archi-
tecture, capable of immense use in time of war as
commerce destroyers. The money paid to them for
carrying the mails is much less than it would cost
us to keep actual war-ships of that grade in commis-
sion. It would take only a short time to equip them
as war-ships, and plans for that purpose have already
been drawn. If a general tonnage law cannot be
passed, we are assured of a fair trial of the mail-
carrying compensation system. Already in the build-
ing of the St. Louis and St. Paul it has had some
effect. It is doubtful if this system of itself will be
sufficient to restore the ship-building industry. The
fact that our capitalists are willing to try the experi-
ment is most encouraging.
If, however, the matter of government aid, as now
constituted, should fail, the future is not entirely
without hope. The period of enormous internal
development of our country seems to be ending.
Our railroads are practically built ; our mines are
developed. The time for amassing great fortunes
may be said to be past. Only in the line of the
development of real estate do opportunities for
making large fortunes seem to remain. In all
grades of mercantile interests there will be close com-
petition. Nevertheless the country has accumulated
a vast amount of wealth, and it is beginning to seek
investment. The fact of the appearance of the
St. Louis and St. Paul is proof of this. As time
goes on it must be that our wealth will increase.
As the margin of profits on present investments
grows less, new fields will be opened. If it can be
shown that a reasonable profit will follow investments
in ships, slowly but surely the industry will revive
without the stimulus of government assistance. This
must needs be a matter of extremely slow growth.
By the creation of a new navy our shipyards may
be kept in condition to build this new merchant
marine, if it shall come within a reasonable time.
Naval work alone, however, is not sufficient to re-
store our shipyards to complete efficiency. At best
there is very little profit in government work. It is
surrounded by such a system of slow and intricate
inspection and approval, of rigid rules and regula-
tions, that rapid work is impeded, and freedom to
make changes in the legitimate line of develop-
ment of the industry is prevented. Then, too, gov-
ernment work is intermittent in character. Although
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ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
it is inadvisable to fix a set program of naval develop-
ment, owing to vast and constant changes that are
being made in this branch of warfare, it is a fact
that to keep the ship-building industry as at present
constituted at its fullest capability there should be
a steady and comprehensive advance movement in
adding to our fleets. The argument that it is not
the province of the government to stimulate any
single industry to the exclusion of another and to the
private benefit of individuals loses its force when
we consider that a merchant marine is necessary to
the commercial independence of any country with
extended sea-coasts.
It is a fact that cannot be disputed that so timid
is capital that it will not invest in ships unless the
flag they carry is assured of complete protection by
a navy. England's naval policy is to be interpreted
alone on these lines. A navy capable of maintain-
ing the dignity of a nation is not a constant menace
to peace. It is the best guaranty to the develop-
ment of commerce that any nation can give. It
means, under proper conditions, the prophecy of a
merchant marine. The steady development of a
well-defined policy in naval construction, therefore,
means the maintenance to a certain extent of ship-
yards which will be ready to build a merchant
marine as soon as there are war-ships in sufficient
quantity to protect it, and money and government
aid sufficient to start it.
Under present conditions, therefore, the future is
one of promise. It may be several decades before
our flag is even partially restored to the high seas.
The revival of our merchant marine must surely
come in time if we continue in the rate of prosperity
that has marked our development for the last thirty
years. It will come sooner if liberal aid is given
by the government. So complex are the subsidiary
industries in the present condition of building ships
that the revival will affect not only capitalists along
the coasts and elsewhere, but will employ a vast
army of men in the interior as well as along the
seaboard. The probable completion of the Nica-
ragua Canal will cause, undoubtedly, an immense
stimulus to American commerce. Whether those
who oppose the system of government aid on gen-
eral principles, owing to their views as to the proper
function of a nation, are right or not, is it not worth
considering if it would not be well for especial rea-
sons to be ready to carry this coming commerce of
the United States in American ships? Once started
on the road to prosperity, who that knows the char-
acter of the American people can doubt the result?
A fine specimen of marine architecture is always
a standing lesson in patriotism. It is required to
display the flag of its country. As it passes from
port to port it is more than a mere floating vehicle
for commerce. It is a bit of its nation's soil.
Around its existence and its journeyings the ro-
mance of travel and the dignity of nationality center.
No other manufactured thing is so complex or
delicate. It tells a story of national progress such
as nothing else can tell. It speaks of home to the
citizen in foreign lands. It means prosperity for
those at home and abroad ; for every vessel added
to the fleet of any nation means more commerce,
more trade. No patriotic citizen should relax his
efforts to secure a revival of this industry in this
country in some form or other. We have the mills,
we have the men, we are just beginning to have the
money, and we have the materials in rare abundance.
The situation calls for the wisest statesmanship, the
loftiest patriotism, the noblest effort.
CHAPTER XIX
THE TELEGRAPH
THE first real manifestation of telegraphy as
an applied art dates from just one hundred
and one years ago, and to Claude Chappe, a
Frenchman, is due the discovery of it and its possi-
bilities. It was a visual telegraph or semaphore
that Chappe invented, and for the better part of
a half-century afterward it was the only quick mode
for communicating at a distance that Europe knew.
An ingeniously contrived signal-code and perfected
mechanical appliances made this semaphore-tele-
graph not only most useful, but very rapid, a des-
patch traveling at the rate of from fifteen to twenty
miles a minute on the main lines. It was introduced
in France in 1794, and, after the populace had de-
stroyed the signal-towers several times, it was finally
completed in time for the first message sent over it
to be the thrilling news of a French victory. " Conde
is taken from the Austrians," came the signaled
words from the frontier within three or four hours
after the event, and Paris went wild. Chappe was
as great an idol as he had before been an object of
hatred, and his telegraph became the wonder of the
day. Europe followed France in 1802 in introduc-
ing Chappe's idea, and England shortly afterward,
in 1823, made use of it at home and in India. It
was, in fact, the common telegraphic system of the
world up to the time when the invention of the
electric telegraph upset all previous ideas of human
limitations.
The germ of the idea which came, in Chappe's
hands, to full development was first seen in the sig-
nal used by the Americans during the Revolutionary
War. This consisted of a barrel on the top of a
high pole or mast, on which was, furthermore, a
movable yard or arm to which a basket was attached.
To each of the different positions of this arm a
meaning was given, and signals could be sent many
miles by these means. While it is certain that
Chappe never saw this contrivance, the similarity of
its elementary design with that of his telegraph gives
them a direct connection. The semaphore-telegraph
was in use, with an elaborate system of signals, in
this country for many years prior to 1850. It was
the means for communicating news of incoming
ships from the Highlands of New Jersey to New
York, where the signal-tower was located in the
dome of the old Merchants' Exchange, now the
custom-house.
Before entering upon the detailed history of the
modern telegraph, a brief diversion will be necessary.
No fitting idea of the glorious successes it has at-
tained could be conveyed were the earlier discover-
ies and experiments in electrical phenomena to be
omitted. Electricity is to the telegraph as steam
to the motive engine or gravity to the universe — the
force that makes it possible. The discovery that
amber (from the Greek name of which the word
" electricity " is derived) became electrified under
friction is an old one, but the reduction of this dis-
covery to anything like scientific analysis or classifi-
cation only dates from about the middle of the last
century. In the list of those whose discoveries have
borne the most important relation to the develop-
ment of this wonderful science the names of Ameri-
cans are at the head. Europe reverences the glory
of Galvani, Volta, Oersted, Arago, Ampere, and
Steinheil, while England vaunts her Cooke, Wheat-
stone, and Bain ; but above them all are written
the names of Franklin, Henry, and Morse.
It was in 1747, the year after the discoveries
which developed the Leyden jar and the principle
of the restoration of electric equilibrium, that Ben-
jamin Franklin first interested himself in the phe-
nomena of electricity. A letter from Peter Collinson,
fellow of the Royal Society of London, to the
Literary Society of Philadelphia, of which Franklin
was a member, interested the latter, and he then
began by his reply that interesting series of letters,
continuing for many years, in which he laid down,
and later proved, so many propositions, since be-
125
126
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
come axiomatic, but totally at variance with the
accepted European theories of that day. In 1749
he declared electricity and lightning identical, and
in June, 1752, proved it by the celebrated kite sent
up during a thunder-storm. Franklin was succeeded
in America by Professor Joseph Henry, in after
years connected so prominently with the Smithsonian
Institute. At the time when this distinguished sa-
vant was commencing his researches, and just be
fore, great discoveries were being made in Europe.
Coulomb in 1785 laid the foundation of electrostat-
ics. Galvani, of Bologna, in 1790 discovered by
accident that metallic connection between the crural
nerve and the legs of a frog caused convulsive
action. He ascribed it to animal electricity, and
all the physiologists of Europe adopted his theory.
The electricians, however, doubted, and in 1800
Professor Volta, of Pavia, demonstrated beyond a
doubt that the effect produced was through elec-
tricity generated chemically. In proving this he
brought out the voltaic pile, which was the first the
scientific world knew of any electricity other than
static or frictional. On this discovery of Volta,
affording, as it did, a current electricity, together
with the subsequent discovery of electro-magnetism
by Professor Christian Oersted, of Copenhagen, in
1819, is based the electric telegraph of to-day. The
voltaic pile, to which improvements were early
made by Cruikshank, Daniell, Smee, Bunsen, Grove,
Chester, and by many others since, is the battery
of to-day ; and Oersted's electro-magnetism, in the
hands of Schweigger, Arago, Ampere, Sturgeon, and
finally Henry, has afforded the electro-magnets,
giving the principle on which were based the old
English deflecting-needle telegraphs and the present
Morse instruments.
These discoveries in electrical science, the latest
of which was in 1825, left the field free for the pio-
neer who should carry forth the telegraph. Many
had already essayed this honor, but the man and the
time were not yet in conjunction. So early as 1749
Franklin had sent a current through a long wire
across the Schuylkill, and in 1753 Charles Marshall,
of Paisley, Scotland, had proposed a telegraph with
a wire for each letter.
Among the many who have originated forms of
electric telegraph are an Englishman named Lo-
mond, who in 1787 is said to have operated a short
telegraph line on his front lawn ; Reizen, who in
1794 invented the illuminated-letter telegraph by
the application of the broken current; Salva, a
Spaniard, in 1798, who used electrified pith-balls;
Samuel Thomas Sommering, who in 1809 first
applied the current from the voltaic pile to tele-
graphing; Ronald, in 1816; Gauss and Weber, of
Gottingen, who brought out the magnetic-movement
mirror and glass in 1833; and Steinheil, who in
1838 discovered the " earth-circuit," which did away
with the previously supposed indispensable return-
wire to bring the current back to the battery.
Steinheil also invented a system of telegraphy, and
ran his wires on poles with insulated attachments.
Across the Channel, William Fothergill Cooke, hav-
ing invented a magnetic-needle telegraph in 1836,
associated himself with Professor Wheatstone the
succeeding year, and introduced his invention to
general use. The needle-telegraph in various and
improved forms, and Bain's electro-chemical tele-
graph, continued to be the ones used in England up
to a late date, and were supplanted by the Morse
system only when the latter became practically
universal.
Of the early telegraphers there is one whose
name, too nearly forgotten, had almost been written
before that of Morse on the roll of fame. This
man was Harrison Gray Dyar, and the evidence is
strong that so early as 1827 he had erected and
operated, upon a certain Long Island race-track, a
telegraph line strung upon poles with glass insula-
tors. This telegraph communicated signals by the
discoloration produced by the electric current upon
a piece of moving litmus-paper, which had been
previously moistened. Dyar used only frictional
electricity, and was therefore unable to attain
results so eminently successful as those of inven-
tors after 1835, who could apply the wonderfully
improved device of the Daniell cell in supplying
their current. An attempt made by Dyar to intro-
duce his telegraph to general use encountered intense
prejudice, and, becoming frightened at some of the
manifestations of this feeling, he left the country.
Meantime, while all these claims were advancing,
the one preeminently great invention was rapidly
maturing on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. In
1832 the transatlantic packet Sully, bound for New
York from Havre, had on board among her passen-
gers a distinguished historical painter named Samuel
Finley Breese Morse. In the long evening talks in
the passengers' cabin the subject of electricity and
the electric current was brought up one night. A
well-known professor of sciences, Dr. Jackson, made
the statement that an electric current would manifest
itself at the distant end of a conducting wire in-
stantaneously. The remark, made in the course
of conversation, impressed Professor Morse deeply,
and going to his state-room, he commenced work on
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
127
the application of this space-annihilating current to
the transmission of intelligence. Before the Sully
readied her dock the thing was accomplished — in
the inventor's mind, at least ; and certain drawings
and explanations made by him at that time, and
sworn to by the captain, were later produced before
the Supreme Court during the suits by which the
validity, scope, and priority of the Morse patents
were fully confirmed.
On landing, Professor Morse constructed his first
machine, making the type himself for his famous
alphabet, which stands to-day as the most wonder-
ful piece of cryptography ever devised. Lack of
funds was a great drawback to the inventor, both
at this time and for many years to come ; but in
November, 1835, he successfully exhibited his tele-
graph in a large room of the New York City Uni-
versity, transmitting a message through a long wire.
Among those who witnessed this first exhibition of
the electric telegraph were Leonard D. Gale, D.
Huntington, O. Loomis, and Robert Rankin. The
following year the invention was on public exhibi-
tion in New York, and in February, 1837, when
Congress passed a resolution requesting the Secre-
tary of the Treasury to report upon some method
of electric telegraphing, the claims of Morse were
strongly presented, and in April, 1838, the Commit-
tee of Commerce of Congress made a unanimous
report of the most favorable tenor upon the Morse
invention. The chairman of this committee, Hon.
Francis O. J. Smith, characterized Morse's telegraph
as the " most wondrous birth of this wonder-teeming
age." So impressed was Mr. Smith with the great
possibilities of the telegraph that he resigned his
seat as a member of Congress and purchased a
quarter interest in the Morse rights. The other
members of Mr. Smith's committee, whose names
appear signed to the unanimous and earliest indorse-
ment of the value of Professor Morse's discovery,
were S. C. Phillips, Samuel Cushman, John I. de
Graff, Edward Curtis, James M. Mason, John T. H.
Worthington, William H. Hunter, and George W.
Toland.
The recommendation of this committee to the
contrary notwithstanding, Congress refused to ap-
propriate the $30,000 asked by Morse to construct
an experimental line. Mr. Smith and Professor
Morse accordingly sailed for Europe to attempt its
introduction there. Their mission proved a failure,
patents being refused them in England on the
ground that a partial description of the Morse
system had been published. In France a patent
was issued, only to be withdrawn. Returning to
this country, Professor Morse received his letters
patent in June, 1840, based on the specifications of
his application in April, 1838. In 1842 he again
presented his invention before Congress, asking an
appropriation of $30,000. The House promptly
passed it (see report on the debate, p. 46 1 of Prime),
but the session dragged along and the traditional
delay of the Senate kept the bill from reaching a
hearing. On the last night of the last day of the
session, March 3, 1843, Professor Morse waited in
the Senate corridors until late in the evening, when,
believing his cause hopeless, he returned to his hotel
almost broken-hearted. Had he but known it, one
of the last acts of the Senate during the very last
hour was to take up the Morse appropriation.
Singularly enough, no dignified questioner arose to
ask for information concerning the bill, which would
have required time and so proved fatal to it, but it
was straightway passed, and early the next morning
the news was brought to Professor Morse by Miss
Annie Ellsworth, to whom the overjoyed inventor
then and there promised the honor, which she
afterward enjoyed, of sending the first message when
the line should be completed.
The condition under which Professor Morse
received the $30,000 was that he should use it in
the construction of a line of electric telegraph from
Baltimore to Washington. He immediately com-
menced work on this line ; but his early efforts were
wholly useless, owing to a serious mistake in his
plans. He projected a subterranean line, and for
this purpose two copper wires covered with cotton
and gum lac were drawn through a lead tube. A
deep furrow was then made with a heavy plow, and
the pipe laid as far as the relay-house, nine miles
from Baltimore. (See Cornell's account in the
" Biography of E. Cornell.") It was then discov-
ered that an earth-circuit was formed and the wires
refused to work. The greater part of the appropri-
ation having been thus unsuccessfully expended,
Professor Morse was in great trouble ; but finally,
by withdrawing all the wire from the miles of lead
pipe and stringing it on poles above-ground, the
line was completed in May, 1844, and on the zyth
of that month the first despatch, " What hath God
wrought ! " flashed over the wires from Washington
to Baltimore, being sent by Miss Annie Ellsworth,
as long before agreed. Professor Morse's manipu-
lating assistants at this trial were Mr. Alfred Vail,
who in 1837 had invented and patented a printing-
telegraph, and Mr. L. F. Zantzinger. The electro-
magnets used on this line weighed 185 pounds, and
for some time after this Professor Morse believed
128
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
that the wire used in winding them had to be of the
same size as that on the line itself. The present
fine-wired, compact, and portable electro-magnets,
weighing less than a pound, and allowing a man to
carry a telegraph office in his pocket, so to speak,
were not dreamed of at that early day. This line
was also opened with the primitive system of com-
bined circuits, as first proposed by Professor Morse
in obviating the difficulties arising from lost strength
in the current on long distances. He speedily saw
a better way to accomplish this result, however, and
in that same year began the experiments which in
1 846 were crowned with success, and developed the
short circuits and relays which made possible the
great main lines and uninterrupted communication
of to-day. In 1844 he also invented the "key"
which is still in use. Without attempting the purely
scientific and technical aspects of telegraphy, we
will study at more length the practical and utilitarian
application of it to the world of American business
and every-day affairs.
The experimental line opened from Washington
to Baltimore with the $30,000 appropriated by
Congress having proved practical, it was declared
ready for public business on April i, 1845. Alfred
Vail was the Washington operator, and Henry J.
Rogers occupied a similar position at Baltimore.
The tariff was one cent for four characters, and the
first four days saw just one message transmitted.
Thus did the American people welcome the facilities
of the electric telegraph. About this time Profes-
sor Morse offered his interest in the invention to
the government for the ridiculously low price of
$100,000. A brilliant Postmaster-General, how-
ever, who saw no value in the invention, saved
Morse the loss he was so willing to incur ; so other
means had to be resorted to in bringing it before
the public. The proprietors of the patent at this
time were Morse, Vail, L. D. Gale, and F. O. J.
Smith. The latter struck out alone, taking the New
England States for his field, while the other three,
having selected Amos Kendall, formerly Postmaster-
General under President Jackson, as their agent, took
the remainder of the country. Kendall devoted
himself particularly to the South and Southwest,
although it was early decided to have the first line
run from Washington to New York. In carrying
out this plan it was decided further that the first
link should be constructed from New York to Phil-
adelphia. The excitation of the public interest in
the undertaking, and the consequent raising of cap-
ital, were intrusted to Ezra Cornell and his brother-
in-law, O. S. Wood. These two opened a small
office on Broadway, where they set up their instru-
ments ; and having obtained with great difficulty
permission to run a short wire over the neighboring
roofs, they began exhibiting the telegraph. Interest
was roused but slowly, however, and capital was
apathetic.
The sum needed for the construction of the line
from New York to Philadelphia was $15,000, and
it was only after the greatest difficulty, and the
granting of two shares for every one paid for, that
it was finally raised. There were about twenty-five
subscribers, and to them was issued $30,000 in
stock, while another $30,000 went to the patentees,
making the total capital stock $60,000. The com-
pany was organized under the name of the Magnetic
Telegraph Company, and its line was completed
from Philadelphia to Fort Lee on January 20, 1846.
The first New York office was at 16 Wall Street,
and later it was moved to Post's Building, behind
the Merchants' Exchange. The first clerk was
Charles S. Bulkley, and messages had to be sent
across the river by messengers, either for delivery or
transmission. The attempt to cross the North River
by cable failed in this year. Later a detour of 105
miles, by which the line went up the Hudson and
crossed on high masts at Anthony's Nose, proved a
failure. Various attempts to lay a cable were made,
but success was not achieved until February 12,
1856, when S. C. Bishop, the New York manufac-
turer, provided an armored cable insulated with
gutta-percha. The Magnetic Telegraph Company
formally organized on January 14, 1846, by the
election of Amos Kendall, president ; T. M. Clark,
secretary ; A. Sidney Doane, treasurer ; and B. B.
French, John J. Haley, John W. Norton, John O.
Sterns, William M. Swain, and J. R. Trimble,
directors. The line was extended to Baltimore,
June 5, 1846, on an issue of $10,000 more stock,
and later to Washington. Its cash receipts during
the year 1846 amounted to $4,228.77. Six years
later, even with the handicap of competing lines, its
annual receipts amounted to $103,641.42, which
indicates the increasing public favor shown to the
telegraph.
In the decade that followed 1845 and the first
telegraph, companies started and wires ran over the
country at an almost magical rate. Henry O'Reilly,
one of the most energetic promoters and builders
this continent ever produced, started westward,
leaving his lines of wires behind to mark his course.
From Philadelphia to Pittsburg he ran the Atlan-
tic and Ohio Telegraph Company, capitalized at
$300,000, and completed December 29, 1846.
THOMAS T. ECK.ERT.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
129
From Pittsburg to Louisville he built, in 1847, the
1'ittsburg, Cincinnati, and Louisville Telegraph
Company's line. It was over this wire that, in 1847,
using a House machine, O'Reilly sent the first
despatch ever transmitted by the printing system.
Still further did O'Reilly go, notwithstanding the
fact that a bitter legal battle was raging between
himself and F. O. J. Smith for the Morse patentees,
who claimed O'Reilly had infringed on their rights.
From Louisville he boldly struck out for New
Orleans via Nashville, and with a branch to Mem-
phis. This line was incorporated as the People's
Line, and was completed in 1849 ; but it was unsuc-
cessful from the start, and nearly ruined O'Reilly.
It was later consolidated with the Ohio and New
Orleans Telegraph Company; the two organized,
January 6, 1860, as the Southwestern Telegraph
Company, which was absorbed by the American
prior to that company itself being taken in by the
Western Union. Among the other early telegraph
lines were the following:
EARLY AMERICAN TELEGRAPH COMPANIES.
NAME.
DATE OF
ORGANIZATION.
New York and Boston Magnetic Telegraph Co. 1845
New York, Albany, and Buffalo Electro-MagneticCo
Lake Erie Telegraph Co 1847
New York State Printing Co. (House line)
Ohio and Mississippi Telegraph Co 1848
St. Louis and New Orleans Telegraph Co 1848
New York State Telegraph Co. (Bain line)
New York and New England Telegraph Co 1849
American Telegraph Co
Illinois and Mississippi Telegraph Co 1849
Erie and Michigan Telegraph Co 1848
New York and Erie Telegraph Co 1849
Cleveland and Cincinnati Co
Maine State Telegraph Co 1847
Vermont and Boston Telegraph Co 1848
New York and Washington Printing Telegraph Co.. 1848
North American Telegraph Co. (Bain line) 1848
Washington and New Orleans Telegraph Co 1846
Western Telegraph Co 1848
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois Telegraph Co 1849
St. Louis and Missouri River Telegraph Co 1850
Northwestern Telegraph Co 1856
Western Union Telegraph Co 1851
These companies, with the branch lines repre-
sented by them, comprised the bulk of the capital
invested in the telegraph of the United States prior
to 1855. The Magnetic Telegraph Company, as
the oldest and for many years one of the most suc-
cessful, was the first to perceive how essential uni-
formity was to an economical and at the same time
improved service. Under President William M.
Swain this company made many advances and also
many concessions to other companies to bring about
this condition of affairs. To several of the Western
and Southern lines it leased wires, thus allowing
them to compete for through business. To give
itself equal opportunities it leased the Washington
and New Orleans lines in 1856, the Western Tele-
graph Company's lines, including the Marietta and
Cincinnati branch, in 1858, and, under the Supreme
Court decision upholding the Morse patent rights as
against the Bain electro-chemical telegraph, it ab-
sorbed the North American Company.
The second great seaboard line and power for con-
solidation was the American Telegraph Company,
with the history of which the greatest telegraphic
undertaking ever known— the transatlantic cable-
is connected. In 1850 some thoughtful writer
pointed out that St. Johns, Newfoundland, being
the port for the speediest arrival of European steam-
ships, ought to be the center for the telegraphs of
America, in order that the earliest foreign news
should be obtained. Acting on this hint, Mr. F. N.
Gisborne in 1851 incorporated the Newfoundland
Electric Telegraph Company. A short cable was
brought from England, but the attempt to lay and
operate it was unsuccessful. In 1854, Mr. Gisborne,
having sunk all his property in the venture, came to
New York seeking capital. He was introduced to
Cyrus Field and laid the proposition before him.
Field not only grasped the idea, but he carried it
further— to its very end, in fact ; and then and there
he determined that the transatlantic cable should be
laid. He interested in the project his friends Peter
Cooper, Marshall O. Roberts, Chandler White, and
Moses Taylor, and on May 6, 1856, the New York,
Newfoundland, and London Electric Telegraph
Company was incorporated, with a capital of
$1,500,000. Both this government and that of
England made valuable concessions and grants to
the company.
In 1856 the cable to Newfoundland was success-
fully laid, and October 3ist of that same year the
first transatlantic cable was ordered from Messrs.
Newall & Company, and Glass, Elliott & Company,
of London. This cable was composed of seven
small twisted copper wires, surrounded by gutta-
percha covered with tarred hemp, and inclosed in
an iron armor of eighteen cords of small wire.
During this year the U. S. S. Arctic and H. M. S.
Cyclops took soundings along the proposed route for
the cable. The United States and England each
placed two vessels at the disposal of the company
for the purpose of laying the cable. The United
States ships were the Niagara, carrying one half the
length of cable, and the Susquehanna, which acted
as a tender. The English ships were the Agamemnon,
having the other half of the cable, and her consort,
the Leopard, acting as a tender. The shore end of
130
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the great cable was landed from the Niagara at
Ballycarberry Strand, in Valentia Bay, Ireland,
August 5, 1857, and two days later the fleet started
slowly away for the distant shores of Newfoundland.
The first three days all went well; but on the nth,
late at night, there was a sudden jar and shock, and
the cable was found to be broken. Three hundred
and eighty miles of it had been laid. The fleet
returned to England, and the remainder of the cable
was stored at Keyham docks for the winter. More
cable was provided, and on the loth of June the
succeeding summer the same little fleet left Plym-
outh, this time for mid-ocean, it having been deter-
mined to start both ships, paying out simultane-
ously. This plan was tried, and twice the cable
parted before more than a short distance had been
traversed. The third time 142 miles were paid out
before a break finally occurred. This time the ves-
sels failed to meet each other, and so returned to
Plymouth. Having thus got together again, a last
attempt was determined upon, and on July 2gth it
was made and was successful. Almost simultane-
ously the two vessels reached the shore and landed
the cable, on the afternoon of August 5th, the
Niagara at Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, and the
Agamemnon at Valentia Bay, on the Irish coast.
Two thousand and thirty-six miles of cable had been
laid, and on August i6th the first message was
flashed under the ocean, from the Queen to the
President of the United States. From the first this
cable suffered from defective insulation, and amid
world- wide grief it finally gave out, September ist,
after having grown steadily weaker from the moment
it was first tested.
The connection of this the first transatlantic cable
with the inception of the American Telegraph Com-
pany may not at first be seen ; but it is direct,
nevertheless, and to one who knew the late Cyrus
Field and his character, it should be clear. Mr.
Field from the first believed fully in his cable pro-
ject, and, so believing, he was far-sighted enough to
recognize the importance of a system of land tele-
graphs connecting the cable with the great centers.
For this reason, when David E. Hughes, who had
just invented an excellent printing- telegraph, was
introduced to Mr. Field's notice, that gentleman
was easily induced to purchase the idea, and despite
the fact that the transatlantic cable was still high
and dry ashore, he secured the incorporation of the
Boston and New York Printing-Telegraph Company.
Besides this company others were organized at this
time, notably the East and West and the Troy and
Boston. The Commercial Printing-Telegraph Com-
pany gradually replaced these, and when the Amer-
ican Telegraph was incorporated, May 30, 1858,
with $200,000 capital, it had no difficulty in leasing
this latter, together with other Eastern lines, such
as the Maine State Telegraph Company. The ex-
tension of the American Telegraph Company from
this time was rapid, and in 1865, when the Great
Eastern made the third, and unfortunately fruitless,
attempt to lay a cable, this company controlled
nearly every line on the seaboard east of the Hud-
son. On July i, 1866, its $4,000,000 capitalization
being replaced by an issue of $12,000,000 of West-
ern Union stock, the American was quietly absorbed
into that company.
Scarcely a month and a half later, on August
1 6th, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company, the
successor of the various other cable companies, suc-
ceeded in laying a cable from the Great Eastern
which has worked ever since. The failure of the
attempt made by the same ship the previous year
was also mitigated shortly after this by the suppos-
edly lost cable being found, grappled, brought up,
spliced, and successfully laid.
These momentous events in the story of trans-
oceanic telegraphy were being duplicated on land,
however. Five years before the cable of 1866 was
even wet by salt water a transcontinental telegraph
line was flashing the stirring news of that warlike
time from Washington to San Francisco. Hiram
Sibley is the man to whom much of the credit for
the accomplishment of this great feat is due. So
long before as 1857 he had become possessed by
the idea of the feasibility of this undertaking, and
had proposed it to the directors of the Western
Union Company. They were conservative, and a
transcontinental telegraph was no light thing in those
days. Nothing discouraged, Mr. Sibley laid his idea
before Congress, and obtained from that body in
1860 not only indorsement, but liberal concessions
as well. Armed with these, Mr. Sibley secured the
cooperation of the Western Union, and the Pacific
Telegraph Company was organized. The California
State Telegraph Company, learning of the plan,
agreed to take a share in it, and a company was
organized there to build the line as far as Salt Lake
City, which was to be the Western end of the East-
ern constructors. Everything seemed propitious, and
work was begun.
The public fully expected that two years was the
minimum time in which the line could be completed,
and many well-informed people believed it would
take longer. The surprise of the country can be
imagined, therefore, when just four months and
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
181
eleven days from the time work was commenced the
lines met and were joined at Salt Lake City, and
the first through message sent. This was November
15, 1 86 1. Since then the telegraph across, around,
lengthwise, or breadthwise of the land has stretched
its threads of steel. The blank refusal with which
the New Jersey Transportation Company met the
request of grim old Amos Kendall to run the first
wires of the Magnetic Telegraph Company along
their roadway was modified a year or two later,
when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad granted the
first of such permissions ; and to-day the railroad
and the telegraph are seen to be inseparable. The
insignificant sum — less than $5,000 — which repre-
sented the first year's receipts of the old Magnetic
Company has grown to dimensions where even mil-
lions have to be reckoned in hundreds.
Prior to 1866, the year that saw the transconti-
nental line opened, the many companies and small
lines divided the business of the country into so
many channels that the totals are not obtainable.
The advance of system and uniformity through
consolidation brought comparative order out of this
confusion, and in 1866 figures were made up giving
the total wire mileage of the American telegraphs as
75,686, covering an actual line distance of 37,380
mated for the country at large. There were 92,909
people employed in the telegraph business by all the
companies.
In the year ending June 30, 1895, the figures for
the Western Union Company had reached dimen-
sions scarcely conceivable as the result of a single
half-century's improvement. From a total wire
mileage in 1883 of 462,283, it had increased nearly
100 per cent., the total in 1895 being 802,651 miles.
These wires represented a line length of poles and
cables of 189,714 miles, joining in one complete and
organized system of communication 21,360 offices.
The number of messages transmitted during the year
was 58,307,315, or forty per cent, more than in
1883. The expenses of the company in transacting
this business were $16,076,629, leaving a profit of
$6,141,389. This return for one year's business is a
wonderful contrast to that modest little sheet which
set forth the first annual balance of the old Magnetic
Telegraph Company. The gradual advance by
which this tremendous volume of business has been
rendered possible is best shown in the following
table, giving the mileage of lines operated, number
of offices, number of messages sent, receipts, ex-
penses, profits, and average tolls and cost per mes-
sage, for selected years since 1866.
WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY, 1866 TO 1895.
MILES OF
AVERAGE
AVERAGE
YEAR.
POLES AND
OFFICES.
MESSAGES.
RECEIPTS.
EXPENSES.
PROFITS.
TOLLS PER
COST TO Co.
CABLES.
MESSAGE.
OF MESSAGE.
1866
«88o
75,686
2.2SO
1870....
54,109
112,191
3,972
9,157,746
$7,138,737.96
$4,910,772.42
$2,227,965.54
75-5
5'-2
1875....
1880. . . .
85^45
179,496
233-534
6,565
9,077
17,153,710
29,215,509
9,564,574.60
12,782,894.53
6,335414.77
6,948,956-74
3,229,157.83
5,833,937-79
54
38-5
35-2
25.4
1885....
1889...
1895 ...
147,500
178,754
189,714
462,283
647,697
802,651
14,184
18470
21,360
42,096,583
54,108,326
17,706,833.71
20,783,194.07
22,218,019.18
12,005,909.58
14,565,152.61
16,076,629.97
5,700,924.13
6,218,041.46
6,141,389.21
32.1
31.2
3°-7
24.9
22.4
23-3
miles. There were 2250 telegraph offices open. By
1870 the figures had increased to 112,191 miles of
wire, 54, 1 09 miles of line, and 3972 offices, which were
doing a business annually of 9,157,646 messages.
The year 1880 found an equally marked gain. There
were 253,534 miles of wire, 85,645 miles of line, and
9077 offices, while the number of messages annually
transmitted had increased to 29,216,509. Six years
later and the growth was astounding in its rapidity :
217 telegraph companies existed throughout the
country, 20,899 offices were ready to receive or
transmit messages, and 671,002 miles of wire, cov-
ering 226,308 miles of line, were at the service of
the operators. Of this great total the Western
Union Company was the chief quantity; 462,283
miles of its wires were included in the 671,002 esti-
The aggregate assets of this company are $125,-
966,171, and the capital stock outstanding is $95,-
370,000, of which $550,000 was added during the
last year for the purchase of the lines and property
of the American Rapid Telegraph Company.
To these statistics, in estimating the whole im-
portance of the telegraph in the United States,
must be added the business done by the Postal Tele-
graph-Cable Company, and a few small telegraph
systems in various parts of the country. I have at
hand no particulars of the amount of that business,
but it would, perhaps, be fair to say that the total
telegraph receipts in the United States for the year
1895 amounted to about $25,000,000.
The important part played by the telegraph in the
development of the world's commerce is so self-
132
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
evident as to need little demonstration. Facilities
for rapid transit such as we have to-day both on
land and water would of themselves have accom-
plished much, it is true, but they would surfer a serious
diminution of their usefulness were the vastly more
rapid transmission of intelligence impossible. A
grain broker in Chicago who had only the railroads
and the Atlantic liners as carriers for his queries
and the return information would be obliged to
wait two weeks at the very least before he could
hear from London. Business methods to-day pro-
hibit such delays. The buyer in California must
have instant communication with his New York
house, which in turn must be equally well aware of
what its foreign agents are doing. The telegraph
and the cable permit this. In 1840 the total exports
and imports of the United States amounted to but
$221,927,638. The year the first telegraph line
was built, and a year later, showed the totals even
less, $219,224,433 being their estimated amount.
Since then, while each decade has seen improvement
except the one which included the disastrous Civil
War, the subjoined summary will show the added
impetus given to commercial enterprise, first in the
decade between 1845 an<i I^55i when the telegraph
lines of the country sprang into prominence, and
secondly in the period between 1865 and 1875, when
the transatlantic cable became of every-day use.
EXPORTS AND IMPORTS, 1845 TO 1895.
YEAR.
TOTAL EXPORTS
AND IMPORTS.
'§45 $219,224,433
1855 476,718,21 1
l8,65 404, 774,883
"ZS 1,046448,147
'°85 1,319,717,084
I894 1,547,135,194
These figures, significant though they are, still fail
to show the greatest benefit accruing from the tele-
graph. This is in the money it saves. Every cause
and every happening that affect the community, its
business, its crops, its affairs, are instantly communi-
cated to the farthest comer of the earth. Nothing
need come as a surprise. The distant dealer is as
well posted as the trader on the ground, and he oper-
ates accordingly, with an intelligence that saves mil-
lions every month. All this is in addition to the
advantages obtained in social and family life through
it, as well as in those occupations which are not
primarily commercial.
Twenty-five billion dollars are to-day represented
by the internal commerce of this great nation;
$1,500,000,000 more are included in our trade with
foreign lands ; a merchant marine with a carrying ca-
pacity of 3,261,982 tons now flies our flag ; railways
with a mileage of nearly 180,000, or one half the total
mileage of the world, gridiron our continent ; and a
population more prosperous and more enterprising
than that of any other country or time is pushing
steadily onward. All these have come to fruition
since the birth of the telegraph. With their advent
and growth that of the great telegraph system of
the United States is inseparably linked by the inter-
dependence of a common cause and effect. Each
has rendered the other possible. The end, however,
is far from being reached ; and when the wonders
which one short century has worked are consid-
ered, the futility of setting limits to the progress of
the future is but too apparent. The movement is
all in advance, and daily improvements testify to
its earnestness ; but its ultimate results I must leave
to others the chronicle.
CHAPTER XX
THE TELEPHONE
THE word " telephone " in its original use was
not applied to the transmission of speech by
the use of the electric current. The word is
much older than the art to which it is now exclu-
sively applied. To an exhibition of the transmission
of musical vibrations through solids, given by Wheat-
stone as early as 1821, he gave the name of "tele-
phone concerts," and certain kinds of trumpets for
signaling, used as early as 1845, were called tele-
phones. Indeed, the name was at one time applied
by the Germans to the common speaking-tube.
The effort to transmit sounds, and especially musi-
cal sounds, suggested the possibility, and perhaps
encouraged the hope, of the transmission of articu-
late speech beyond the limits to which it may be
transmitted through the natural medium of its
propagation, the air ; but the hope was not realized
until the invention of Bell, described in his patent
of March 7, 1876. In that patent were described
and claimed a method of, and apparatus for, trans-
mitting sound by means of an undulatory current
of electricity. " This invention solved the problem,
long labored upon by inventors and scientific men,
of the transmission of human speech by the use of
the electric current, and laid the foundation of the
art of speaking-telephony, since widely introduced
throughout the world."
In 1836, Dr. Charles G. Page, of Salem, Mass.,
an examiner in the Patent Office and an electrical
inventor of note, while employing a rapidly inter-
rupted electrical current produced by the ordinary
vibrating spring-tongue circuit-breaker, found that
if this intermittent current was passed through the
coils of an electromagnet the latter gave forth a
musical note the pitch of which corresponded to the
rapidity of the interruptions; the law of acoustics
being that after air-vibrations have become rapid
enough to blend together as a continuous musical
sound, an increase in their number per second raises
the pitch of the sound. He published this discovery
under the name of "Galvanic Music." Although
not utilized in the speaking-telephone, this served to
attract the attention of many experimenters to the
electrical production of sound.
In 1854, Charles Bourseul, of the French tele-
graphic service, suggested that the circuit-breaking
tongue or plate might perhaps be vibrated by the
air-waves produced by the voice of a speaker.
Would the resulting sound at the distant receiver be
articulation? He inclined to doubt it; but he said
that our knowledge of the precise nature of articulate
sound was too meager to enable us to answer that
question a priori, and the subject was worth experi-
ment. In the same year, " Didaskalia," a periodical
of Frankfort-on-the-Main, published an abstract of
Bourseul's article, and Philip Reis, a schoolmaster
who lived at Frankfort-on-the-Main, then took up
the subject. For his circuit-breaking transmitter he
used the membrane diaphragm of the old lover's
telegraph or string-telephone, so mounted as to make
and break the circuit once at each vibration. For
his receiver he employed Dr. Page's singing-magnet.
He hoped to transmit speech, and his efforts at-
tracted much attention. But he found that musical
sounds or confused noises were all that came from
his receiver, and in 1863, having perfected his in-
strument, he put it on the market as a musical
telephone.
Reis's discoveries contributed nothing toward the
speaking-telephone, unless it be the suggestion that
the diaphragm of the lover's telegraph might be em-
ployed as a part of an electrical apparatus. Reis
attracted attention to the subject, however, though,
on the other hand, the failure of both Bourseul and
himself after ten years of experiment must have been
very discouraging to others. In 1862 Helmholtz
published his great work on sound. In this he
showed, by direct experimental proof, that each
articulate sound was a composite, made up of a
fundamental or principal tone which gave volume
133
134
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
and pitch to the whole, while the peculiar character,
or, as it is technically called, " quality " or " form,"
which distinguishes one articulate sound and its air-
vibrations from another, is due to the admixture of
a considerable number of much feebler tones, called
" overtones," of successively higher and higher pitch.
These materials — namely, the discovery by Helm-
holtz of what articulation is, and the proof by the
experience of Reis that the only plan thought of for
its transmission was a failure — were needed for the
creation of the speaking-telephone. But they had
been widely known for a dozen years without lead-
ing to that invention, when Alexander Graham Bell,
son of an Edinburgh professor of articulation, and
himself a teacher in Boston of articulation to deaf-
mutes, brought them to bear with success on this
problem. In his patent of March 7, 1876, Mr. Bell
stated the well-known fact that an intermittent cur-
rent, such as would be produced by a circuit-breaker,
would reproduce musical pitch. Then he showed
that a current which, instead of being interrupted,
was caused to vary as sound-waves vary, could
transmit and reproduce every kind of sound which
sound-waves could convey, including vocal sounds
and the utterances of the human voice. He denned
this current as a current consisting of " electrical un-
dulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air
accompanying said vocal or other sounds," whence
it took the short name " undulatory current."
An early and noteworthy public exhibition of
Bell's telephone was made shortly after the granting
of the patent, before the judges at the Centennial
Exhibition. One of these judges, a man of the
highest scientific repute, Sir William Thomson, now
Lord Kelvin, speaking to a fellow-scientist on
the evening of that day, said of Professor Bell's
invention, " What yesterday I should have declared
impossible I have to-day seen realized." And
later, addressing the British Association, after de-
scribing the telephone, he said, "Who can but
admire the hardihood of invention which devised
such very slight means to realize the mathematical
conception that, if electricity is to convey all the
delicacies of quality which distinguish articulate
speech, the strength of the current must vary con-
tinuously, and, as nearly as may be, in simple pro-
portion to the velocity of a particle of air engaged
in constituting the sound?"
Bell's improved instrument, which was put into
commercial use early in 1877, still remains the most
perfect articulator in the world. But as all the
electricity employed in it is such as the mere force
of the voice itself generates,— the current so pro-
duced is usually reckoned as not over 1 0 <}0 0 0 part
of that employed on an ordinary telegraph line, — its
sounds are feeble, its effects easily drowned out by
disturbances, and the instrument is therefore not
well fitted for ordinary commercial use as a trans-
mitting-telephone, where the listener is in a noisy
place, and the earth below and a network of neigh-
boring wires are full of other and more powerful
currents.
On April 14, 1877, Mr. Emile Berliner filed in
the Patent Office a caveat, and on July 20, 1877,
Mr. Edison filed an application, each of which de-
scribed what we now know as the speaking-micro-
phone. In this instrument the voice, acting to vary
the pressure between two electrodes in contact with
each other, molds the flow of electricity from a
battery into Bell's undulatory, speech-bearing cur-
rent. The microphone of Berliner, with the addi-
tion of carbon contacts, the value of which, as dis-
tinguished from metal contacts, was first discovered
by Edison, has become the universal transmitter of
the world. These inventions have been chiefly used
in the United States in the form of the Blake trans-
mitter, an instrument of beautiful organization and
construction, devised in the summer of 1878 by
Mr. Francis Blake, then, or not long before, in
charge of the electrical determination of longitudes
for the government. The receiving-telephone, made
by Mr. Bell in 1877, still remains the preferred in-
strument for that purpose.
The telephone was naturally first used over a sin-
gle wire connecting two stations ; but the possibility
of a wider use was immediately perceived, wherein
a number of such wires, practically unlimited, should
be so connected together that a person at any station
of such a system could hold conversation with per-
sons at any other station, and the " exchange " arose.
The exchange was, naturally, at first confined, or sub-
stantially confined, to the municipal limits of single
cities or towns. It spread rapidly, until in 1884
there was an exchange in every town or city of
10,000 inhabitants or over in the United States,
and of course in many towns of smaller population.
The connection of neighboring exchanges with one
another by trunk-lines, whereby the subscribers in
either exchange could talk with the subscribers in
any other exchange of the group, naturally followed,
and this in an ever- widening circle, until in 1892 it
had become possible for the subscribers to the ex-
changes in the city of New York to talk with the
subscribers to the exchanges in Chicago, and a little
later the system of exchanges in New England was
connected with New York, and thence to Chicago.
JOHN E. HUDSON.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
IH
The line from New York to Chicago was formally
opened to the public on the i8th of October, 1892.
The connecting of these cities, and the furnishing of
apparatus for personal conversation between them,
was such an addition to the facilities of business as,
by a sort of common consent, to be recognized as a
matter of public concern, and the formal opening
was made by a conversation between the mayors of
the respective cities.
As exchanges have grown and lines have been
extended, new questions have suggested them-
selves and new difficulties have arisen. At the out-
set, and for a considerable time thereafter, one wire
only extended from the central office to the premises
of each subscriber, the ground being used to com-
plete the electrical circuit, as in telegraphy. But
this opened the door to an amount of interference
from other currents, — the earth-currents, so called,
and currents like those from electric cars, discharged
into the earth, — which, owing to the extreme delicacy
and sensitiveness of the telephone, seriously impaired
the service, and often rendered conversation impos-
sible. This difficulty has been overcome by the use
of metallic circuits ; that is, by using two wires to
connect the central office with each subscriber's prem-
ises, and ceasing to use the ground as a "return."
It was found, however, especially in the longer
lines, that when a number of wires were strung on
the same poles, or when such wires were paralleled
by wires carrying electric light or power currents,
there were produced — by a subtle sympathetic effect
called induction — certain disturbances which con-
fused the speech and often rendered it unintelligible.
This was overcome by changing the relative posi-
tion of the wires in different parts of the line. As
has been explained, each circuit consists of two
wires. On each line of poles are a number of cir-
cuits. At certain measured distances, determined in
accordance with rules deduced from theory and
from experiment, each wire crosses over and changes
places with the others. The plan is that just as
much as one line influences another to generate
these counter-currents on one part of the route, just
so much shall another part of the same line influence
another part of that same other line to generate
counter-currents, but in a different direction, so that
these " induced " currents shall exactly neutralize
and destroy one another. If one will endeavor to
think out how, in a long line of fifty or a hundred
wires (for some of the larger routes carry that
greater number on the poles), each wire can at fre-
quent intervals be so transposed that each line shall
thus, by balancing, protect every other one, and
shall be itself protected from every other, some idea
of the difficulty of hitting upon a perfect plan will
be realized. When wires are made up into cables
the same result is obtained by twisting each pair of
wires together, and then " laying up " these twisted
pairs according to a rule which has been carefully
studied out to accomplish the desired result.
There was still another difficulty, experienced on
long lines especially. The telephone transmitter
produces in that part of the line where it is situated
Bell's speech-carrying variations of current. These
consist of alternate increases and decreases of cur-
rent exactly corresponding to the ever- varying sound-
waves ; and when these act upon the receiver the
spoken word is reproduced. These changes, neces-
sary for articulation, corresponding to what are called
overtones, succeed one another, in telephony, at the
rate of, say, 2000 to the second. Now it is found
in a long line that this change of electrical con-
dition takes place at the distant end with a cer-
tain sluggishness, so that before there has been time
for an increase to fully manifest itself there, the suc-
ceeding diminution comes along. Thus the rise and
fall of current at the end of a long line becomes so
insufficient or so inaccurate that the spoken words
are not clearly heard. This difficulty, which is due
in part to other causes, is known as "retardation."
In underground lines, as formerly constructed, the
difficulties from both induction and retardation are
increased from fifty to one hundred fold for equal
distances. To meet the trouble from retardation
the character of the lines must be changed, and
this has been done.
What the change should be was by no means a
simple matter to determine. Diminishing the sur-
face area of the wire per unit of length lessened the
evil of retardation, other things being equal. But
when a smaller wire was used other things did not
remain equal, because the smaller wire would not
carry as much electricity per unit of time, and this
aggravated the trouble. Proximity of the wires of
one circuit to other wires increases the evil ; close
proximity of the wires to the earth enormously in-
creases it. Wrapping the wires with any of the
usual insulating coverings increases it. But the
wires cannot be far apart on pole lines, and in a
cable the wires must be embedded in an insulator,
must be packed closely together, and must be laid
under water or underground. The capacity of iron
to become magnetized also unfitted it for use in
telephony. Balancing all these evils, advantages,
and necessities, the plan adopted has been to em-
ploy metallic circuits,— that is, two wires for each
136
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
set of instruments,— to use copper as the material,
and to take very large wire for aerial or overhead pole
lines, but, on the other hand, decidedly small wire
for cables. The size of the wire for overhead lines
varies with the length of the line. Thus, while the
copper wire used between New York and Boston
weighs 172 pounds to the mile, wire weighing 435
pounds to the mile is used between New York
and Chicago, so that each of the several metallic
circuits uniting Boston with Chicago contains more
than a million pounds of copper.
As wires have multiplied there has been a strong
public demand that they should go underground, at
least in the more thickly settled portions of the larger
cities. A beginning on underground work was made
in 1884. On the ist of January, 1885, there were
1225 miles of wire underground, and on the ist of
January, 1895, 149,592 miles of underground wire,
in some sixty cities. As already stated, the diffi-
culties experienced from retardation and induction
are greatly increased in underground work, and
hence the length of buried conductor that can be
used is limited.
Experience having made manifest the difficulties
which have been detailed, and the remedies having
been learned, they were at once applied. But before
they were learned much work had been done, and to
bring this up to the proper standard a very general
rebuilding was entered upon, not only of lines, which
had to be changed from iron to copper and con-
verted into metallic circuits, but also of switchboards
and other apparatus.
As there has been improvement of lines, there has
also been a steady improvement of apparatus, and
the result is that it is now possible from any properly
appointed station to talk north and east to Augusta,
Me., north to Concord, N. H., Buffalo, and Mil-
waukee, west to Chicago, and south to Washington,
Cincinnati, Nashville, and Memphis ; and of course
to the principal cities intermediate. This system of
telephonic intercommunication is by far the most ex-
tensive in the world. It may be interesting to note
that within that territory live and do business some-
thing more than one half of the whole population
of the United States, so that it is hardly a figure of
speech to say that one half the people of the country
are within talking distance of one another.
The development and present extent of the tele-
phone business are clearly shown by an examination
of its statistics. On January i, 1881, there were in
use in the United States, for telephone purposes,
29,714 miles of wire. Ten years later, January i,
1891, the wire mileage had reached 331,642 ; and
on January ist of the present year it had grown to
577,231. During the current year there has been a
further increase, bringing the total above 600,000
miles.
It will be remembered that the electric speaking-
telephone became known in the spring of 1876.
On December 20, 1877, 5187 had gone into use in
the United States. Ten years later the number had
increased to 380,277. The number in use October
20, 1895, was, approximately, 660,817.
On January i, 1881, the total number of exchange
subscribers was 47,880. On the same date in 1891
this number had grown to 202,931, and on January
ist of the present year it had still further increased
to 243,432.
Statistics as to the number of connections or
conversations by telephone between exchange sub-
scribers date back to 1884 only. During 1884 it
was 215,280,000, the yearly rate being based on
daily use. January i, 1895, the estimated number
of exchange connections daily in the United States,
made up from actual count in most of the ex-
changes, was 2,088,152, or at the rate of about
670,000,000 per annum. Not only has there been
an increase in the number of subscribers to the
telephone, but there has also been a steady increase
in the average daily use by each subscriber. The
average number of calls per subscriber per day
was, in 1885, five and one half; in 1895, eight
and one half.
With these statistics it will be interesting to com-
pare the statistics of the larger features of the busi-
ness as it has been established in the principal foreign
countries. There are in the United States about
250,000 subscribers. The British Isles, with more
than half our population, have less than 75,000.
France, with a population of 38,000,000, has but
25,000 subscribers, or about as many as New York
and Boston combined. Germany makes a better
showing, having 90,000 subscribers in a population
of 50,000,000 ; but this is less than one half the num-
ber she should have to bring her up to our standard.
Austro- Hungary, with 40,000,000 people, has but
20,000 subscribers ; and Russia, with over 108,000,-
ooo inhabitants, only 9000.
CHAPTER XXI
THE EXPRESS
r I AHE familiar picture of the old-fashioned
stage-coach and horses standing in front of
L an ancient tavern, ready to transport pas-
sengers and merchandise to some distant place,
with the driver perched high on the first seat, and
seemingly conscious of his individual prominence as
the conductor of a very essential method of convey-
ance, quite clearly brings to view the manner in
which the general intercourse of this country was
chiefly transacted during its early years ; and it par-
ticularly suggests, through the personality of the
driver, the means by which small parcels were sent,
and the various errands or commissions he performed,
for they were then customarily intrusted to that
channel of communication between localities. The
vessels then engaged in the carrying trade along the
coast and on the lakes, rivers, and canals likewise
afforded a further method of transportation between
districts which were more readily accessible by water
than by land, and to the masters of such vessels
were confided duties similar to those required of the
stage drivers.
Such methods sufficed until there came into oper-
ation a series of railways, which, with their greater
speed and convenience, necessarily displaced the
stage-coach lines ; and the obligations theretofore
assumed by the stage drivers were naturally trans-
ferred to the conductors of the railway trains.
Many of those conductors had been stage drivers,
and they were employed by the railways because of
their general acquaintance with the people, and their
familiarity with traffic between the cities and towns.
The advent of the railways had given an unusual
impetus to the commercial relations of the country,
so that, on the opening of a through route by water
and rail from New York to Boston, the merchants,
bankers, or others who wished to send small parcels
enlisted the services of not alone the railway and
steamboat employees, but the assistance of their
friends traveling between those cities; for New
York and Boston were then two of the most impor-
tant places in the country, their interchange of busi-
ness was large, and no opportunity was neglected to
secure its prompt transaction. The general demand
thus made upon the time of the railway and steam-
boat employees ultimately necessitated a division of
their labors ; and eventually they were required to
make a choice between acting as agents of the pub-
lic or as servants of their respective companies.
One of the earliest railways to enforce this distinc-
tion was the Boston and Worcester Railway, of
Massachusetts. That road had in its service a con-
ductor by the name of William F. Harnden, who
was one among the many conductors employed by
it and the public as agents in the transaction of their
various interests. Harnden thought best to sever
his relations with the railway, came to New York in
1838, and met James W. Hale, then proprietor of
a reading-room in Wall Street, which was largely at-
tended by merchants and travelers. With him Harn-
den discussed the advisability of separating from
the general railway traffic the business of carrying
parcels and fulfilling orders, and converting it into
an individual enterprise. Harnden's previous expe-
rience in a similar respect enabled him to perceive a
fair opening for his own benefit and for that of the
public in the establishment of an independent ser-
vice between New York and Boston ; and, with the
encouragement of Hale, the express business, as
now conducted, then and there had its conception.
Acting on that determination, Harnden promptly
effected arrangements with the railroad and steam-
boat companies forming the through line via Provi-
dence, and on February 23, 1839, published adver-
tisements in the New York and Boston newspapers
announcing that on March 4th ensuing he would
begin personally to conduct an " express " service
between the two cities, which service would embrace
the purchasing of goods, collection of drafts, notes,
and bills, and the carriage of small parcels. The
137
138
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
trip was made from Boston to New York as out-
lined, and was then followed by a regular service
three or four times a week.
Thus the first express, actually known by that
name, had its birth. And here it should be stated
that, although Harnden was first to start an express
between Boston and New York, there were at the
same time others engaged in a similar occupation
throughout New England, having been attracted to
that new field of industry by the opening and ex-
tension of railway lines. Among those who then
embarked in the business was Alvin Adams, who
came from Vermont to Boston early in 1840, and
shortly afterward determined upon the introduction
of a route between Boston and New York, via the
Norwich line. Adams duly advertised his purpose,
and on May 4th in that year began the express which,
under his name, has since become so widely known.
In a short time the express routes between New
York and Boston had attracted considerable atten-
tion, their facilities were regularly utilized by the
general public, including the financial institutions of
both cities, and the transportation companies cheer-
fully assisted in their operations, for the enterprise
had relieved their employees of extra labor, and
materially added to their revenues, besides taking
from them a large amount of responsibility. The
readiness with which the services offered by Harn-
den and Adams had been accepted, and the confi-
dence displayed in intrusting to them valuable
packages and large sums of money for transmission,
are particularly noteworthy facts, as those men at
the inauguration of the business were almost un-
known in mercantile affairs. It was evident they
had no financial resources with which to meet losses
to property in their care, and their only stock in
trade consisted of the special privileges which each
had obtained from the railroad and steamboat com-
panies for the transaction of their business ; but they
soon earned a reputation for efficiency and integrity
that was aptly described in the proverbial phrase,
" with the promptness and fidelity of an expressman."
The success of those lines naturally led to the
formation of others, and from 1840 to 1845 express
routes were opened from New York to Albany,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Buffalo, Pitts-
burg, Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, St.
Louis, and New Orleans, connected with which were
such other expressmen as William B. Dinsmore,
Henry Wells, Edwards S. Sanford, Samuel M. Shoe-
maker, Johnston Livingston, and William G. Fargo.
At that time there were few railroads in the East,
and none beyond Pittsburg ; and transportation be-
tween prominent localities in the West was almost
wholly conducted over the great waterways of the
Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers, with their
tributaries, which included canals then recently
completed in several of the States to connect those
rivers with the lakes. These formed the most
frequently traveled routes of communication between
the West and the East, and the express was duly
established thereon. Within the next few years rail-
road lines were rapidly constructed throughout the
country, and by them the express was likewise car-
ried, so that its scope was thus steadily enlarged in
all directions. The great trunk-lines which now
cover the United States had not then been projected,
and such railroads as were at that time in operation
consisted of local and independent routes, widely
scattered, and without connection except that which
might be had by steamboat or stage. The express-
men, observing the necessity for through and contin-
uous facilities from point to point, however distant,
arranged to give the public that very essential ser-
vice ; and in bridging these intervals they for a time
called themselves " forwarders," in analogy to the
forwarding business as theretofore conducted, and
which had been the receipt and delivery of merchan-
dise between two carriers not otherwise connected.
The important manufacturing interests, as well as
the largest firms, principally located in the Eastern
and Middle States, were during this period forward-
ing supplies for the country in general by railroad
freight and by vessel — such supplies being most
frequently sent to large cities, particularly in the
South and West, for further distribution ; but with
the inauguration by the express of continuous lines,
those shipments were made directly from point to
point, so that the outlying sections of the country,
which had not theretofore had any considerable
business relations with the important cities, were
brought into close touch with them. In then
endeavoring to increase its business the express
naturally became not only solicitor, purchasing
agent, and forwarder, but was, in a degree, respon-
sible for any commercial credit that might thus be
extended through its influences. The express also
undertook the carriage of letters ; and the public,
quick to appreciate such service, very promptly
availed of it in preference to that of the mail ; but
the venture met with opposition on the part of the
government, and was ultimately abandoned.
Soon after the discovery of gold in California in
1848, when great numbers of people went there to
assist in developing the resources of that region,— in
which the whole country was interested, — the express
LEVI C. WEIR.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
readily anticipated their necessities for prompt and
reliable commercial intercourse with the East by
opening agencies in San Francisco, and at the vari-
ous mining camps on the Pacific coast, for the trans-
mission of packages, money, and gold-dust, and for
the transaction of a banking business.
For several years just previous to 1854, the tend-
ency of the principal expresses had been toward
consolidation of interests, as it was believed that
much better, more prompt, and less expensive service
could be rendered by such association. Accord-
ingly, in that year, through the efforts of Adams,
Dinsmore, Sanford, and others, the routes of Harn-
den's Express, the lines of several minor concerns in
the Eastern States, and those on the steamers run-
ning from New York to Charleston, Savannah,
Mobile, and New Orleans were combined with the
express of Adams & Company, under the title of
the Adams Express Company. Alvin Adams be-
came president, William B. Dinsmore vice-president,
and a board of directors was formed, of which
Edwards S. Sanford, Samuel M. Shoemaker, Johns-
ton Livingston, and others were members. In this
year, also, Wells, Livingston, Fargo, and Butterfield,
through a similar incorporation of lines extending
from the East, via Albany, Buffalo, and the lakes,
to the far West, organized the American Express
Company, with Henry Wells as president, John
Butterfield vice-president, William G. Fargo secre-
tary, Johnston Livingston and Alexander Holland
directors, and Daniel Butterfield, James C. Fargo,
and Charles Fargo superintendents. Likewise in
1854 the United States Express Company was
formed by Kip, Barney, and Marsh, to operate an
express over the then recently completed line of the
New York and Erie Railway, and other routes
extending farther into the West. D. N. Barney
was made president, H. Kip became superintendent,
and T. B. Marsh treasurer. About that time, also,
Wells, Livingston, Fargo, Barney, and others intro-
duced another express on the Pacific coast, under
the title of Wells, Fargo & Company, to form a
through connection, both overland and by water,
with the East. During the next few years several
expresses operated stage lines, and the famous
" Pony Express," between St. Louis and San Fran-
cisco, Wells, Fargo & Company, however, being the
most prominent among them ; and in 1858 that con-
cern, through an association with such lines, formed
the Overland Mail Company, which until the comple-
tion of the Union Pacific Railroad exclusively carried
the United States mails between the Missouri River
and the Pacific coast. In 1855, under the title of the
National Express Company, there were organized
several express routes which had been operated be-
tween New York, Albany, Troy, Saratoga, White-
hall, Rutland, and Montreal. D. N. Barney was
made president, J. A. Pullen general manager, and
E. H. Virgil superintendent. Some time thereafter,
Johnston Livingston and L. W. Winchester, previ-
ously identified with other companies, became active
in its management.
These consolidations of routes, which connected
the principal sections of the country and brought
together in a common enterprise such bright and
energetic men as those mentioned were known to
be, laid the foundation for the thoroughly organized
service of the express as it exists to-day. The
express had then become a recognized necessity in
the commercial and individual transactions of the
country; its lines had ramified in every direction,
until nearly the whole United States was traversed
by them ; it had attracted to itself sufficient capital
to place it on a firm financial basis, and obligations
to insure the safe and speedy transmission of mer-
chandise, valuables, and money were readily as-
sumed, so that when loss or damage did occur, due
reparation was promptly made; and it is current
history, extending from that time until to-day, that
whenever goods or valuables in the care of the
express have been tampered with or stolen, it has
been swift, sure, and untiring in its pursuit of the
offenders until adequate punishment was effected.
In 1 86 1 the Southern Express Company was
organized to operate in the Southern States, and
Henry B. Plant became its president.
Upon the breaking out of the War of the Rebel-
lion the express was the only means of communi-
cation between the soldiers in the field and their
friends at home. For certain of the States it acted
as the gatherer of the soldiers' votes, and transmitted
them to the capitals of such States. The new
securities of the government, which were so largely
purchased by our people, were forwarded by the
government through the express — a choice made
with full knowledge of the fact that the express
afforded greater safety than the mail. The inter-
course thus established was, at the solicitation of
the government, continued after the war had ceased,
and at its further request a contract was made with
the Adams Express Company, acting for itself and
the other express companies, by which the trans-
mission of all the securities and moneys of the gov-
ernment was confided to the express. This function
of the express was especially noted in the award
which was made at the Columbian Exposition to the
140
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Adams Express Company, and the testimonial con-
cluded thus: "The Adams Express Company has,
by the faithful performance of every trust reposed
in it, and the discharge of duties devolving upon it,
enlarged its business to the grand dimensions it now
enjoys, and has achieved the enviable position of a
pattern and guide for all similar corporations."
The further development of the express is remark-
able for the introduction and perfection of a number
of facilities necessary to meet the constantly increas-
ing demands of our 70,000,000 people, — features
of transportation and attendant services that are
peculiarly its own, — and chief among which may be
mentioned its wagon service, now to be found on
almost every avenue or street of our cities, towns,
and villages ; and, in conjunction therewith, its em-
ployment of special cars or trains for transportation
of express matter at high speed between the princi-
pal cities. It has to a great extent created the busi-
ness of transporting varieties of game, poultry, fish,
oysters, fruit, and vegetables to localities where they
are not usually obtainable ; it has originated a novel
method of selling goods for merchants, by collecting
on delivery the amount of the invoice and returning
the cash to the shipper ; it has improved the methods
of collecting the proceeds of negotiable paper, and
assumes therewith the responsibility of an indorser;
it has created and affords the only efficient means
for the safe transportation of moneys and valuables
intrusted to it by the general public, the banks, the
railroads, and the government, and, as indicating
the general recognition of this specially important
feature, it may be stated that during a recent year
there were sent through the express $2,500,000,000,
and similarly shipped by the government $1,500,-
000,000, making a total carriage of $4,000,000,000
in money, no part of which was lost in transit ; it
has introduced at 40,000 agencies the express money-
order system, which thus meets almost every citizen
of the United States at his residence or place of
business, and there affords him a handy and safe
means for transmitting his money to any locality,
such money-orders being universally convertible into
cash — a convenience not otherwise obtainable, for
postal money-orders are only purchasable and
redeemable at large and important offices. This is
an accommodation also impossible for the banks to
render, as they are located at less than 8000 points.
The express has improved the facilities for immedi-
ate transportation of foreign goods from the port of
entry to destination, by accepting and carrying them
under heavy bonds to the government.
These are some of the features of the express
which distinguish its services from mere acts of
transportation, and indicate that its facilities cover a
much wider range of operations than originally de-
signed, particularly such as are not afforded by any
common carrier, and which necessitate the assump-
tion of obligations and liabilities not contemplated
by any other agency of commerce.
The great lines of railway communication are a
necessary adjunct to the successful conduct of the
express business, but they are an adjunct only.
Were the express dissolved the railway lines could
not supply the needs of the public. There is an
interval between the act of transportation and the
demands of the public which railway companies do
not fill, and were not organized to fill, and which
renders the express so essential to the general wel-
fare of the community. The express, in its turn, is
among the most efficient supporters of the railway
systems ; it purchases the right of transportation at
wholesale, and sells it at retail to the public, at prices
fairly remunerative and universally accepted.
In round numbers, the routes of the express now
cover 200,000 miles of railroad, steamboat, and
stage lines ; the number of packages of merchandise
annually carried is over 100,000,000; the number
of money packages transported is 20,000,000 ; the
number of money-orders issued is 7,000,000 ; it em-
ploys 50,000 men at 40,000 agencies, uses 15,000
horses and 6000 vehicles, and it has an aggregate
capital of over $60,000,000.
And now, when consideration is given to the
prominence achieved by the express in the history
of this country through the services it has rendered,
not alone to the people at large, but to the United
States government, there will be no hesitation in
acknowledging that its usefulness may not be mea-
sured by any ordinary standard of comparison ; it has
constantly aided commerce by opening new markets
for the sale, purchase, and distribution of the pro-
ducts and manufactures of the country, and has
promoted individual communications and financial
transactions to an extent not attainable by any other
means ; it is distinctively of American birth, and
not elsewhere are there similar instrumentalities so
combined in one efficient and complete system.
CHAPTER XXII
THE STREET-RAILWAYS OF AMERICA
IT is not necessary to turn back the pages of his-
tory a century to present a complete account of
the inception and development of street-railways
in the United States or the world. The first horse-car
ever known appeared upon the street in New York
as late as 1832, but the idea of conveying people in
vehicles over iron rails was put to very little practi-
cal use until nearly twenty years later. The history
of street-railways in America, therefore, is practi-
cally confined to the last half-century; and yet there
are now in the United States nearly 1000 street-rail-
way systems, with a total mileage of nearly 14,000,
and a capitalization exceeding the enormous sum
of $1,300,000,000. These simple figures, of such
magnitude as to be almost impossible of compre-
hension, are sufficient to indicate the growth and
extent of the street-railway service of this country.
This extraordinary development of the idea, con-
ceived by John Stephenson, of placing the wheels
of an omnibus upon iron rails instead of dragging
them over cobblestones, may be divided into three
parts : First, street-railways operated with horses as
separate organizations; second, the substitution of
mechanical traction by means of a cable ; third, the
inauguration of electricity as a motive power, with
all that the adaptation of this wonderful agency to
practical uses conveys both for the present and the
future.
Sixty-five years ago, there lived in New York a
man who had served his apprenticeship and begun
work for himself as a builder of carriages. He was
only twenty- four years old. His name was John
Stephenson. That he built strong and handsome
coaches while engaged in that occupation is evi-
denced by the world-wide reputation which he
subsequently acquired. That he was not content to
pursue that occupation in the stereotyped manner of
his predecessors is shown by the fact that before
reaching the age of twenty-five he conceived the
idea of transporting passengers, as millions are
transported to-day, over rails laid upon the pave-
ments of city thoroughfares.
The immediate development of this conception
was the inauguration, in 1831, of the New York and
Harlem Railroad, which obtained a charter to oper-
ate a street-car line through Fourth Avenue in the
city of New York. This road was constructed and
opened in November, 1832, Stephenson building the
first car drawn over the track. If a duplicate of that
car should be made to-day, and placed upon the
street of any city in the Union, it would attract no
less attention than a Roman chariot. Prior to that
time there had existed only two forms of public con-
veyance. One was the English railway-coach ; the
other was the American omnibus. Stephenson's car
was a combination of the two. Outwardly it resem-
bled the omnibuses used on Broadway until a few
years ago, when they succumbed to the more con-
venient and comfortable street-cars. Its exterior was
divided hito three compartments, after the English
idea, and it accommodated, when full, thirty passen-
gers, or ten in each compartment, besides affording
seats to perhaps a dozen more upon the roof. Over
the second door was painted the name of the car,
"John Mason," after the gentleman of that name,
who was then the president of the new railroad, as
well as of the Chemical Bank. Upon the panel of
the first door appeared the words " New York " ; upon
the second, " Yorkville " ; and upon the third, " Har-
laem," then spelled in the good old Dutch way ; and
in very modest letters, upon one of the steps be-
tween the wheels of this extraordinary vehicle,
" Stephenson Patent."
Although this first of all street-cars would proba-
bly seem to-day quite as ridiculous as the famous
" one-hoss shay," it would be unjust to assert that it
was not an exceptionally good beginning. Judging
from the picture now before me, there certainly was
141
142
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
a dearth of springs ; but it must be borne in mind that
springs were not so common in those days as they
are now, and that passengers were far less exacting.
Moreover, the outward appearance of the car, al-
though cumbersome, was certainly handsome. The
upholsterings were also said to be of the finest ma-
terial, and conducive to a sense of luxury. Alto-
gether, therefore, it must be admitted that John
Stephenson's first car, considered by itself, was a
success. Practically, however, it proved a failure
for the time being. Steam had just then begun to
be used as a motive power, and all other agencies,
including this wonderful car, were superseded by it
wherever it could be employed to advantage.
In 1837 horse-car service on Fourth Avenue was
abandoned for steam-cars, and was not resumed un-
til 1845, and then in a very tentative and unsatis-
factory manner. In 1852 a French engineer, named
Loubat, revived the idea in New York city, and a
road was constructed upon a portion of Sixth Ave-
nue. During the next eight years about thirty roads
for horse-car service were constructed in the United
States. Of these probably the most important was
the one built from Boston to Cambridge. The com-
pany which undertook this project made use of the
old omnibus cars that had been used on Fourth Ave-
nue in New York. As the traffic increased they af-
forded additional facilities by placing upon tracks the
omnibuses which they had formerly used upon the
road from Boston to Cambridge. It soon became
apparent that the new form of conveyance was
destined to achieve general popularity, and one im-
provement after another was adopted until there
were produced really very comfortable and attrac-
tive cars, exactly balanced upon the best of springs
and handsomely finished, such as are in use in all
of the large cities of to-day.
Aside from the personality of the inventor there is
little that is not commonplace in the history of street-
cars operated with horses. They served their pur-
pose as a process of development, but that was all.
As a rule, they were operated by separate companies
over short lines, and afforded comparatively little
convenience to the public. The transfer system,
which has since attained such great importance in
the large cities, was unknown, because of the sepa-
ration and, in many cases, antagonism of the various
companies. The owners of the roads were not pro-
gressive, and instead of endeavoring to afford the
public the best possible accommodation, they exerted
every effort to obtain the largest revenue from their
properties. This short-sighted policy produced the
inevitable result of popular dissatisfaction. Never-
theless, there soon appeared in New York a striking
illustration of the fact that street-cars had become,
and would continue to be, a most important factor
in municipal life.
When the elevated railroads were built in this city,
many people believed that the end of the surface car
had come, but in reality the companies operating lines
directly under the elevated structures suffered com-
paratively little loss even at the beginning, and within
a few years they had regained their former traffic,
which has since increased, year by year, until it is now
larger than ever before in their history. The chief
cause of this was undoubtedly the increase in popu-
lation, but another, hardly less potent, lies in the im-
provement of service, the change of motive power,
and a natural tendency of the public to prefer sur-
face transportation to any other method, above or
below. The first great change, and the first really
progressive step in street-car service, however, came
with the substitution of mechanical traction for
horses, and this brings us to the second chapter of
our history.
The first cable railroad in the United States was a
direct result of physical conditions in the city where
it was constructed. If all cities in the country had
been built upon marshes and bogs like Chicago, St.
Louis, and New Orleans, or even upon moderately
level ground, like New York, Philadelphia, and Bos-
ton, it is entirely within the range of probability that
strands of wire would never have been used for the
purpose of drawing street-cars. But there existed in
San Francisco a physical configuration of ground
which made it impossible to transport people from
one part of the city to another, from the wharves to
Nob Hill, by means of horses. Necessity, therefore,
became the mother of this invention, as of most
others, and the native Californians, being both quick-
witted and enterprising, were not slow in the exercise
of ingenuity.
To Andrew S. Hallidie belongs the credit of adapt-
ing the theory of cable traction to successful practical
use. In 1872 he obtained a patent upon a cable grip.
Meanwhile he had prepared plans for the building of
a cable road, and far-seeing capitalists of San Fran-
cisco had pledged the requisite financial support for
its construction. The work was pushed forward with
the energy characteristic of the far West, and in Sep-
tember, 1873, the pioneer cable railroad of the world
was put into operation on Clay Street, San Francisco.
Many doubted the success of this new method, and
more questioned its safety. The road was only about
a mile in length, and yet rose from a low level ter-
minus to a height of nearly 300 feet. It is said the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Ml
first gripman who operated a car over this road
alighted at one stage in its descent and insisted that
he could not, in justice to his family, proceed further
unless there should be attached to the car a steel rope
above the surface of the ground which he could actu-
ally see and rely upon to save a corporation from the
payment of his life-insurance. This difficulty having
been overcome, either by the attachment of the rope
or by persuasion and threats — upon which the his-
tory of California is less specific than might be de-
sired— the car continued without accident, and after
a few days a service was given of sufficient regularity
to make certain the success of the experiment.
This result accomplished one immediate effect. It
proved beyond a question that heavy cars loaded
with people could be drawn by cable up and down
the steepest grades, without the expenditure of an ex-
traordinary amount of money, and without menace
to the lives of passengers. Unfortunately for the
quick development of the new idea, this was the
only problem solved by this first cable road. It was
a perfectly straight track, containing none of the
curves, depressions, and tortuous routes necessarily
used or followed by street-car lines in the majority
of large cities. For this reason the experiment at-
tracted no more interest than that which for several
years naturally attaches to a novelty ; but the people
of San Francisco, daily seeing and understanding the
merits of the new system, appreciated its advantages
over the old, and in 1876 supplemented the Clay
Street road with another on Sutter Street, and three
years later with one on Union Street.
In 1882 Chicago, either from jealousy of another
western city winning the laurels of a first effort in any
direction, or from the reputed far-sightedness of its
capitalists in taking advantage of public needs, in-
augurated a cable railroad considerably more pre-
tentious than the one which had been built in San
Francisco. Charles T. Yerkes was the leading spirit
in this enterprise, achieving not only a success for
the city, but a fortune for himself. A year later,
slow-going Philadelphia followed the lead of Chi-
cago and built a cable railroad two and one half
miles in length, which has since given way to the in-
vincible power of harnessed electricity.
New York, more conservative than any of its sister
cities, and notoriously jealous of experiments upon its
streets, finally accepted the tests in San Francisco,
Chicago, and Philadelphia as satisfactory, and au-
thorized the construction of the present cable rail-
roads on Broadway and Third Avenue. Here, for
the first time, was introduced the duplicate system
which has since become a practical necessity upon
lines where traffic is heavy, and where an interrup-
tion, even for the fraction of an hour, is extremely
costly to the operating company.
Other cable railroads were built in every section of
the country except New England, and there are now
in operation in the Eastern States, 157 miles; in the
Central States, 252 miles; in the Southern States, 6
miles; and in the Western States, 2 1 7 miles; — making
a total of 632 miles of cable railroad now in opera-
tion, although soon, in my judgment, to be super-
seded by the more tractable, more economical, and
less objectionable electricity. If this prediction should
prove to be correct, it is obvious that the invention and
use of the cable as a motive power deserves no more
attention than it has received, for the reason that it
will have been only tentative and a filling of the gap
between the quadruped and the magic fluid.
Far more important than the success, however
great or small, of this method of traction, was the
fact that its discovery led directly to the consolida-
tion of distinct street-railroad companies in such a
way as to enlist more capital, more brains, and more
energy in the development of street-car service. Just
as the primary credit for introducing the cable-system
belongs to Mr. Hallidie,so does the yet greater credit,
so far as practical results are concerned, of working
out the idea of efficient consolidation, belong to
Henry M. Whitney.
There were at that time innumerable street-car
lines in Boston, operated, as in all other cities, as sepa-
rate organizations, and affording accommodations
wholly inadequate to the demands of the public. Mr.
Whitney conceived the idea of a general consolida-
tion of all these companies in such a way as to make
possible the substitution of a better form of motive
power, more direct routes, and a general improve-
ment in every direction. His first intention, when
he had accomplished the great work of uniting the
many adverse interests involved, was to introduce
the cable, but before he had fully succeeded in his
primary undertaking to such an extent as to warrant
reconstruction, the most important event in the his-
tory of street-railroads took place.
Electricians had believed and asserted for years
that the wonderful power to the adaptation of which
to practical uses they had given much intelligent
study, could be utilized directly in the drawing of
heavy loads. Edison built the first electric road in
America at Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1880, and
three years later the same great inventor, cooperating
with Stephen B. Field, built a similar road for tem-
porary use at the Chicago Exposition in 1883. Leo
Daft at the same time was making similar experiments
144
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in Baltimore, Pittsburg, and other places; and Charles
J. Vandepole was doing likewise in Toronto. None
of these, however, had reached such a point that its
practical value was demonstrated beyond a doubt
at the time when Mr. Whitney engaged in his work
of consolidation in Boston. But, in 1888, Frank J.
Sprague, first among the younger electricians of
America, obtained sufficient capital to make an actual
test upon a street in the city of Richmond, Virginia.
He brought together the best features of all the sys-
tems which had then been devised, applied to motive-
power the fundamental principles which he had
learned in building electric-light plants and estab-
lishing stationary motors; added new and simple,
but effective, methods of motor-control and suspen-
sion, and in general worked out a well-defined system,
the essential features of which have not been changed
in the seven years which have elapsed since he in-
stalled the first practical electric railroad in the
United States.
His work in Richmond naturally attracted the at-
tention of men engaged in the street-railway business,
and scores visited the famous old Virginia capital to
behold its actual operation. Among these were Mr.
Whitney and Messrs. Widener and Elkins of Phila-
delphia. They appreciated at a glance the possibil-
ities of the new invention, and after making most
thorough examinations personally, as well as through
expert engineers and electricians, did not hesitate to
adopt, expand, and improve it in every possible direc-
tion. Mr. Whitney at once abandoned the idea of
laying a cable under the streets of Boston, and began
forthwith to lay the foundations of the great West
End system, which is now the largest in the world in
point of carrying capacity and revenue. Mr. Widener
and Colonel Elkins proceeded with no less vigor to
consolidate and electrify the principal lines of Phila-
delphia, and within three years after the Richmond
road was inaugurated, there were hundreds of miles
of overhead trolley-lines in successful operation in
the streets of nearly every large city in the Union.
Since that time the work of changing old horse-car
lines into modern electric railways by the overhead
system has progressed so rapidly that there are now
in actual operation in New England 1392 miles ; in
the Eastern States, 3189 miles ; in the Central States,
3578 miles; in the Southern States, 743 miles; and
in the Western States, 1461 miles ; making a total of
more than 10,000 miles of overhead trolley-lines now
in actual operation, against less than 2000 operated
by horses.
It will thus be seen that the development of the
overhead trolley system has been one of the most
rapid ever known, in a change so radical and in-
volving so many untried elements. This has been
due no less to a spirit of competition among rival
electrical companies than to the public demand for
improved facilities for local transportation. The
two or three large companies engaged in the busi-
ness of furnishing electrical supplies so thoroughly
appreciated the possibilities of the new method, that
they invested millions of dollars, not merely in the
building of extensive plants, but in the perfecting of
their individual systems. The inevitable result has
been the concentration of an abundance of ability
and energy in solving the difficult problems involved
in the adaptation of electrical power to this most
practical of uses.
Under this stimulus improvement has followed
improvement so rapidly that little apparently re-
mains to be achieved. Cars are now run in hun-
dreds of cities by devices so simple that skilled labor
is no longer essential to their operation, and they
are both lighted and heated by the same current
which propels them. Moreover, all this is done far
more economically than was ever possible through
operation with horses or by cable. Chief among
the important effects of electrical operation has been
the building of roads of a very few miles in length,
which, despite their limitations of both district and
patronage, can be and are conducted at so small a
percentage of gross receipts, as to produce a fair
profit upon the investment.
It was formerly supposed — and the supposition,
while horses and cables afforded the only means of
motive power, was correct — that street-car service
could be used to advantage only within the limits of
a city or village. But since the introduction of elec-
tricity has widened the possibilities and increased
the diversity of such traffic, it has been found
distinctly profitable to connect municipalities and
towns having common interests by the new sys-
tem. A notable illustration of this fact is afforded
by the great success of the trolley road connecting
Minneapolis and St. Paul. Before this line was es-
tablished the steam railroads operated scores of
trains of cars between the two cities daily, for the
sole purpose of accommodating the local traffic. As
soon, however, as the trolley road was put into suc-
cessful operation, the demands upon the steam rail-
road decreased rapidly, and have gradually been
reduced to such a point that nearly, if not quite, all
of the steam-railroad trains formerly operated for
this purpose have been taken off. A more recent
but hardly less striking illustration of the same tend-
ency is afforded by the new trolley lines connecting
HERBERT H. VREELAND.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Ufi
Newark, Elizabeth, and Jersey City. Indeed, it is
now an established fact, that on distances not ex-
ceeding ten miles, the steam-road cannot compete
with the trolley because of the more frequent, more
cleanly, cheaper, and more pleasant accommoda-
tions offered by the latter.
The most recent development of the trolley idea
has been the creation of an entirely new traffic,
namely, that of riding upon street cars for mere
pleasure. Few people appreciate the extent of the
demand for this branch of street-car service; but
an instance is afforded by the fact that so-called
" trolley parties " during the past summer added
more than seventy thousand dollars to the receipts
of Philadelphia companies alone. Street-car man-
agers themselves have only begun to appreciate the
magnitude of business which may be created by
offering exceptional accommodations for pleasure-
seekers, and the development of the idea has, con-
sequently, only begun. That it will become a de-
cided factor in the operation of trolley lines, espe-
cially in suburban districts, is now beyond question.
There have been, and always will be, objections
to the overhead trolley. Some are founded upon
reason, but more upon fancy, and it is a fact that
in the great majority of cases, where the introduc-
tion of the system was most bitterly opposed, its
removal now could by no possibility obtain the as-
sent of the public. Only in the largest cities, where
overhead wires of any description are objectionable
because of the density of population and the serious-
ness of placing any obstacle in the way of extin-
guishment of fires, is there any good reason for
opposing its introduction and use. These objec-
tions, and the natural conservatism of the commu-
nity, have prevented the adoption of the new
method in New York city. The direct result of
this condition of affairs has been the inauguration,
during the past few months, of an experimental
railroad, operated by electricity, conveyed through
wires strung in a conduit beneath the surface of the
ground. For this experiment, which now bids fair
to achieve success, the far-sighted directors of the
Metropolitan Traction Company are entitled to full
credit. They saw the necessity of overcoming the
objections to the overhead system, and at the same
time of superseding both horses and cables.
With this object in view they sent to Budapest,
where an underground system had been in opera-
tion for several years, Mr. F. S. Pearson, one of the
most capable and resourceful electrical engineers in
the country. Mr. Pearson made a careful examina-
tion of the system there in use, studied the condi-
tions, climatic and otherwise, which would make
necessary certain changes, and finally worked out
a plan which he submitted to the directors of the
Traction Company, with an assertion of his belief
that, if tried properly, without an attempt to save
money in making the experiment, it would prove
successful. The road was constructed upon the
lines thus suggested, and has been in operation
several months under my direction. During this
time no accident of any kind has taken place, and
no money has been required or expended for main-
tenance or changes. Although far more expensive
in construction than the overhead trolley, it is also
far more satisfactory in operation when once built.
It only remains to be seen whether this system, the
success of which in fair weather has already been
demonstrated, will be found capable of defying the
severe storms of the winter and spring months in
northern American cities. If so, it will undoubt-
edly become the favorite system in large cities, as
it comprises all the advantages, with none of the
disadvantages, of the overhead trolley over cables
and horses. Storage-battery systems have been
tried at various times in various places, but so fai
have met with so little success that, although afford-
ing apparently the ideal system, they have not yet
reached the point of efficiency which warrants se-
rious consideration.
It is not of the future, however, that I am sup-
posed or would presume to write, and regarding
the past, all has been said in detail that can be said
within limits which would not trespass upon the
patience of the reader. In summarizing, I can only
add that there have been four great events in the
history of the street-railways of America during the
past seventy years. The first was the invention of
the primitive street-car by John Stephenson. The
second was the use of the cable by Andrew S. Hal-
lidie. The third was the harnessing of electricity
to the street-car service by Frank J. Sprague. The
fourth, and most important of all in actual result,
has been the outgrowth of Henry M. Whitney's
idea of consolidation, which has resulted in a benefit
to the American people so vast as to be incalcu-
lable, and in the investment of hundreds of millions
of dollars in an industry which could never have
been created or imagined in any age other than that
in which we live. As an interesting and valuable
summary of the magnitude of the street-railway busi-
ness of the country, I present the following tables,
obtained from the census reports of 1890 and from
other equally reliable sources of a much later
date:
146
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
COMPARISON OF STREET AND STEAM-RAILWAYS IN 1890:
STREET-RAILWAYS.
STEAM- RAILWAYS.
PER CENT. OF
TOTAL STEAM-
RAILWAYS.
e 78-5 4.7
Length of line (miles) .
K7.7S8.83
3 67
25,665.00
126 «
70,764.00
Employees
704,743,00
10.04.
2 O23,OIO,2O2.OO
Passengers carried
472.171,34.3.00
A2o 4X
DIVISION OF THE MOTIVE POWERS OF STREET-RAILWAYS IN 1890:
ITEMS.
ALL MOTIVE POWERS.
DISTRIBUTION.
ANIMAL.
ELECTRIC.
CABLE.
STEAM.
Length of line (miles) ...
Length of all tracks (miles)
5»783-47
8,123.02
32.505
70,764
2,023,010,202
$389,357,288.87
4,061.47
5,661.44
22,408
44,314
1,227,756,815
$195,121,682.50
914.25
1,261.44
2,895
6,619
134,905,994
$35,830>949-63
283.22
488-31
5,089
11,673
373492,708
$76,346,618.23
524.06
711.30
2,113
8,158
286,854,685
$82,058,038.51
Employees
Passengers carried
Total cost .
NUMBER OF PASSENGERS CARRIED BY STREET-RAILWAYS IN SIXTEEN OF THE PRINCIPAL
CITIES OF THE COUNTRY IN 1890 :
CITIES.
POPULATION.
PASSENGERS CARRIED.
AVERAGE NUMBER
OF RIDES PER
INHABITANT.
Baltimore, Md
434,439
574,232
806,343
255,664
1,099,850
296,908
106,713
132,716
161,129
242,039
i,5 '5,301
1,046,964
343>904
45i,77o
298,997
230,392
40,659,982
I29.°38,563
147,500,399
16,685,983
180,326470
37,905,370
21,281,584
38,000,978
21,535,735
30,510,662
449,647,853
165,117,627
46,099,227
67,800,252
80,619,005
31,032,187
94
225
183
l8;3
164
128
202
286
I32
126
297
I58
'34
150
270
135
Boston (including Lynn and Cambridge), Mass
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Buffalo, N. Y. . . .
Chicago, Ills
Cincinnati, Ohio
Denver, Col
Kansas City, Mo
Louisville, Ky
New Orleans, La
New York, N. Y
Philadelphia, Pa
Pittsburgh, Pa
St. Louis, Mo
San Francisco, Cal
Washington, D. C.
COST OF CONSTRUCTION PER MILE OF LINE OF STREET-RAILWAYS IN 1890 :
ITEMS.
ANIMAL.
ELECTRIC.
CABLE.
STEAM.
MIXED AND
INSEPARABLE.
Total cost of construction and real estate . . .
Miles of line to which this cost pertains ....
Cost of construction and real estate per mile.
Total cost of equipment
$99,812,886.27
2,388.48
$41,789.29
$22 34A.28 Z Id.
$14,074,049.13
463-70
$30,351.63
$33,374,627-39
166.48
$200,472.29
$35»777»l87-o8
350-3I
$102,130.08
$65,583,242.72
734-12
$89,335.86
Miles of line to which this cost pertains ....
Cost of equipment per mile
2,473-56
$Q OT? 2C
464.93
$8 33 r 46
361.83
855-43
Total cost per mile
$50,822 50
H>**,J»37J'^5
The above table gives a comparative summary
of the cost of each five classes of roads making
completed reports. It will be noticed in this table
that cost of road is given in two principal items,
viz., "Total cost of construction and real estate,"
and " total cost of equipment."
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
147
THE CAPITAL STOCK, FUNDED DEBT, AND ACCRUED INTEREST OF THE STREET-RAILWAYS
OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1890:
ITEMS.
CAPITAL STOCK
ISSUED AND
OUTSTANDING.
DIVIDENDS
DECLAEED.
RATE or DIVI-
DENDS DECLARED
(PEE CENT.).
FUNDED DEBT
ISSUED AND
OUTSTANDING.
INTEESST
AcCHUED.
RATE or IN.
TE«EIT PAID
(PE* CEKT.I.
All motive powers
$163,506444.50
$11,600,334.54
7.09
$103,494,259.99
$5,870,7I0.7a
$.67
$62,415,614.50
$4,390,519.54
7.03
$34,361,904.99
$1,977,664.92
«.8i
Electric
4,034,900.00
225,697.00
5.59
3,230,300.00
187,505.00
;.8o
Cable
6,437,900.00
653,587.00
10.15
4,076,000.00
2l8,l6o.OO
C.7C
Steam
25,917,180.00
1,561,512.00
6.03
19,326,200.00
1,181,512.00
Sin
Mixed and inseparable
64,700,950.00
4,769,019.00
7-37
42499.855-°°
2,285.868.80
5.38
The above table covers only those roads report-
ing the payment of either dividends or interest, as
the case may be.
Now, turning from the facts and figures, as given
by the census reports of 1890, the following data,
compiled from other equally reliable sources, are
of more recent date, covering the years 1892, 1893,
and 1894. But before entering upon the details of
the same, it may be well to make some additional
general comparisons between the street-railways and
the steam-railroads of the United States. The former
represent about seven and one-half per cent, of the
mileage of the latter, and in passenger receipts,
about forty-five per cent. The total capitaliza-
tion, bonds, and stocks, of the steam-railroads in
the United States, is about $11,000,000,000, and
of the street-railways, about $1,300,000,000, the
latter being about eleven per cent, of the former,
while the profits of the steam-railroads were $332,-
000,000, and of the street-railways, about $43,000,-
ooo, thus making the latter about thirteen and one-
half per cent, of the former.
Of the 976 operating street-railway companies
reported in "American Street- Rail way Investments,"
109 have been first selected as presenting the most
complete reports for the past three years. They
represent about twenty-two per cent, of the total
mileage of the country — their capital stock amount-
ing to $200,497,681, their funded debt to $193,-
844,145, and their gross capital liabilities to $394,-
341,826. Their capitalization is about thirty per
cent, of the total capitalization of American street-
railways. The report of these roads is as follows :
1893. 1893. 1894.
Gross receipts $56,119,612 $63,165,976 $57,232,545
Operating expenses 36,787,919 40,010,812 35,863,607
Earnings from operation. $19,33 1,693 $23,155,164 $21,368,938
Fixed charges 8,834,282 10,373,510 11,118,217
Net income $10497411 $12,781,654 $10,250,721
Per cent, operating expenses to gross
receipts
Per cent, fixed charges to gross re-
ceipts
Per cent, net income to gross receipts.
Per cent, net income to capital stock . .
189*.
65.6
»5-7
18.7
5-2
1193.
63-3
1*94.
62.7
16.4 19.4
20.2 17.9
6.4 5.1
The combined reports of 146 street-railroad com-
panies, representing capital stock, $240,477,324;
funded debt, $231,091,645; capital liabilities, $471,-
568,969 — or thirty-six per cent, of the total liabili-
ties of the country — make the annexed showing for
the years 1893 and 1894:
1893. 1894.
Gross receipts $71,847,580 $65,791,187
Operating expenses 45,697,130 41,205,904
Earnings from operation 26,150450 24,585,283
Fixed charges 12,281424 13,329,765
Net income $13,869,026 $11,255,518
Per cent, operating expenses to gross receipts .
Per cent, fixed charges to gross receipts
Per cent, net income to gross receipts
Per cent, net income to capital stock
1893-
63.6
17.1
19.4
5-8
1894-
62.6
20.2
17.2
4-7
The combined operating report of 232 Amer-
ican street-railway companies — representing capital
stock, $316,762,149, funded debt, $278,995,755,
and capital liabilities, $595,757,904, or about forty-
six per cent, of the total capital liabilities of the
American properties — make the showing as below
for the financial year ending June 30, 1894 :
1894-
Gross receipts $84,664,338
Operating expenses 53.I75.278
Earnings from operation $31489,060
Fixed charges 19,387,729
Net income $12,101,331
Per cent, operating expenses to gross receipts 62.8
Per cent, fixed charges to gross receipts 22.9
Per cent, net income to gross receipts 14-3
Per cent, net income to capital stock 3-8
The mileage, cars, capital stock, funded debt,
and capital liabilities of the street-railways in the
148
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
United States — some 976 in number — made at the
beginning of the present year, make the following
showing :
Aside from the accommodation afforded the resi-
dents of the territory through which the roads run,
it is a source of profit to the railroad companies.
GEOGRAPHICAL
DIVISION.
NUMBER OF
ROADS.
MILES OF TRACK.
No. OF CARS.
CAPITAL STOCK.
FUNDED DEBT.
CAPITAL LIABILITIES.
bj
u
K
3
•
(j
MISCEL.
TOTAL.
TOTAL.
ft! *
TOTAL.
PER MILE
TRACK.
TOTAL.
M
TOTAL.
u
•I
New England States (i)
104
305
278
in
178
168
567
555
214
410
I,3Q2
3,l8g
3,578
743
1,461
157
252
217
189
J34
213
'43
1,560
4,102
4,5i9
1,176
2,231
5,5i9
16,001
16,936
1,930
4,359
3-54
3-90
3-74
1.64
1.95
$ 53,778>3o°
348,194,073
222,641,025
90,245,083
$34,500
84,900
49,3oo
28,200
40,300
$ 43,546,000
249,318,505
173,567,500
23,578,900
62,114,600
$27,900
60,800
38,400
20,100
27,700
¥ 97,324,300
597,512,578
396,208,525
56,734,625
152,359,683
$62,400
145,700
87,700
48,200
68,000
Southern States (4)
Western States (5)
976
I»9I4
10,363
632
679
13,588
44,745
3.29
$748,014,206
$55,000
$552,125,505
$40,600
$1,300,139,711
$95,6oo
(i) Includes M:
District of Coir- v!-
(4) North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tei
Texas, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon, and California.
As to the recent innovation — involving the pla-
cing of postal-cars upon street-railways — the St.
Louis and Suburban Railway Company of St. Louis
was the first of the kind in this country to make the
movement in this direction, by running from the
business part of the city to the choicest residence
and suburban portions of the town of Florisant,
distant sixteen miles from the center of the city.
This began several years ago, and was followed by
Brooklyn, over the Atlantic Avenue line to Coney
Island, in August, 1894; by Boston, in April or
May, 1895; by Philadelphia, to Chestnut Hill and
Passayunk, June i, 1895, and to Manayunk, Oc-
tober i, 1895; and by New York, over the Third
Avenue line, October i, 1895. For these mail-cars,
the railway companies furnish conductors and mo-
tormen, while the Post-Office Department supplies
the mail-clerks.
The cars are built especially for the purpose,
equipped with their own motors, and furnished with
the necessary desks, cases, racks for mail-bags, etc.
This mail service has now been in operation, as
already noticed of St. Louis, for about three years,
and new features are being constantly added to it.
The question as to whether or not such mail ser-
vice is called for, depends almost entirely upon
local conditions, — the length of the road, the ter-
ritory through which it runs, the proximity of de-
pots and post-offices to the line of the road, and
many other considerations. An advantage, inde-
pendent of any financial return, and one which is
regarded by many as the one reason for street-
railways embarking in this service, lies in the pres-
tige of the government's name. This point was
never so thoroughly illustrated as in the late troubles
in Chicago in the transmission of the United States
mail, which has precedence or right of way above
all else. As the Second Assistant Postmaster- Gen-
eral governs all transportation of the mails, the
street-car postal service is within his province,
and has now become part and parcel of the pos-
tal railway system of the country. The fuller de-
velopment of this system is only a question of time,
and its progress will be viewed with more or less
interest until it becomes a permanent and wide-
spread factor in the distribution of the mails in
the larger cities to their suburbs.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE HOTELS OF AMERICA
" There is nothing that has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or
inn." — DR. JOHNSON.
" Shall I not take mine ease at mine inn? " — SHAKESPEARE.
" Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn." — SHENSTONE.
IN old colonial times many of the inns in the
towns and scattered along the few routes of
travel bore such names as " King's," " Queen's,"
"Red Lion," and the like; but the revolt of the
colonies produced a change, and these names gave
place to those in harmony with the spirit of the
time. The portrait of Washington replaced that
of George III. on the swinging signs, as these once
quiet taverns became the meeting-places of patriots.
Clustered about many of them are historic memories
of special scenes and events, and of the men of the
Revolution and of the formative period immediately
following. Washington was a guest of the City
Tavern, Philadelphia (1775) ; the Bunch of Grapes
Tavern, Boston, where he enjoyed "'an elegant din-
ner provided at the public expense, while joy and
gratitude sat on every countenance and smiled in
every eye" (March 28, 1776); the True American
Inn, Trenton (1777) ; Arnold's Tavern, Morristown ;
Sufferin's Tavern, Smith's Clove, New York; the
Buck Tavern, near Philadelphia (after the battle of
Brandywine) ; Smith's Tavern, Smith's Clove (1779);
the tavern at East Chester, New York, where he
was ill (1780) ; the Fountain Inn, Baltimore (1781) ;
Day's Tavern, Harlem (with Governor Clinton,
'783); Fraunces Tavern, New York, where in the
assembly-room he bade farewell to the faithful men
who, with him, had achieved the liberties of the
States ; Mann's Hotel, Annapolis, from which he
proceeded to the Congress and resigned his com-
mission ; and the City Hotel, Alexandria, where he
was entertained by the Alexandria Lodge, of which
he was a member. The tavern where Washington
stayed during an illness at East Chester was built
early in the seventeenth century, and now stands
within the New York City limits. The room occu-
pied by him remains as he left it. Lafayette was
entertained there later. For a season the house was
in a sense the seat of government, when President
John Adams sojourned at East Chester during the
yellow-fever epidemic at the then capital, Philadel-
phia. There was also the Catamount Tavern, Ben-
nington, Vt. ; George Burns' Coffee-House, New
York, the lounging-place of British officers, .and at
the same time privately frequented by the Sons of
Liberty during the British occupation ; the Tun
Tavern, Philadelphia, in which the first masonic lodge
in America was organized ; the Rose Tree Inn, at
Media, Pa. ; the City Tavern and the Bird in Hand,
Richmond ; and many others. From the memories
that haunt these ancient hostelries our literature has
drawn much of its inspiration. The red Wayside
Inn at Sudbury inspired the thought that it was
" Built in the old colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality."
In 1795 our inns were kept on the "American
plan," which embodied a fixed price for a day and
for each fraction of a day. One dollar a day was
then considered a good round price. As a rule the
taverns were small ; one containing twenty rooms
was regarded as a commodious house. The rooms
were comfortable and the furniture plain and strong ;
carpets were rarely found. The meals were served
at fixed hours, and at the summons of gong or
149
150
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
bell, to which all guests were expected to respond
promptly. The cooking was done by the " land-
lady " and her assistants. The table was abundantly
supplied with palatable and substantial dishes, among
which meats predominated. Game was compara-
tively more abundant than now ; and as the Western
regions, especially, were opened to settlement, some
taverns kept their hunters. Vegetables and fruit
were plentiful in New York, but in most localities the
variety was limited, many coming into use since that
date— tomatoes, for example, about 1840, and celery
still later. Fresh sea-fish could not be carried far
inland without deterioration, and transportation to
a distance of the salted sea products was expensive.
In the towns ice came into early use,— in wide con-
trast with the custom in foreign countries, — and ices
appeared on the tables in 1793. In some districts
it was difficult for a time to get good milk, owing
to the repulsive flavor given it by the wild garlic
and other grasses. Decanters of liquors were upon
many hotel tables, from which the guest could serve
himself freely. The favorite wine of the period was
Madeira, the others used being mainly port and
sherry. There were no bills of fare, the food being
placed on the table, and any information desired
concerning it being given by some person at hand.
In the Southern States the landlord frequently
called out the names of the dishes in a loud voice,
and each guest — whom the landlord usually knew
personally — would then express his wish. In the
main these taverns were generously conducted for
the " entertainment of man and beast " ; and a bar,
a ball-room, and a stable were necessary adjuncts.
The first Congress met in New York, then the capi-
tal of the Republic, in 1789, and the members were
mostly accommodated at private boarding-houses,
which were relatively more important than now.
Talleyrand, as well as other distinguished travelers,
made use of these houses. They were located at the
Battery, lower Broadway, Cedar Street, and Maiden
Lane. Their number increased with the times, and
330 licenses were granted the year of the first Con-
gress. People from other places complained of the
high prices of the New York taverns and boarding-
houses, as " board of the Congressmen was paid out
of the common treasury, to which every citizen of
the United States contributed his share." This wail
was met by the statement that " board ranges from
three to seven dollars a week " ; and one of the
houses was cited as furnishing " from seven to nine
dishes a day, with four sorts of liquor."
In 1795 the taverns of consequence were in New
York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore. Those
in New York were Fraunces (first opened in 1762 as
the Queen Catherine), which was the largest during
the Revolution, containing about thirty rooms ; the
City Hotel, erected in 1793, on the site of George
Burns' Coffee-House (upon which the Boreel Build-
ing now stands), where the fashionable City Assem-
bly met, and which was frequented by the so-called
" Three Hundred "—not " Four Hundred "—of that
day ; Bunker's ; Washington Tavern ; and the Ton-
tine Coffee-House in Wall Street. It was at the last-
named house that the historic dinner was given to
John Jay, May 30, 1795, in honor of his return
from concluding the first commercial treaty between
the United States and Great Britain ; and here the
" Century of Commerce " may almost be said to have
been initiated.
In 1809 the two-hundredth anniversary of the dis-
covery of Manhattan Island by Henry Hudson was
celebrated at the City Hotel, in a manner which at-
tracted universal attention, there being " a banquet
in keeping with the historical spirit of the occasion,
all modern delicacies having been rigidly excluded."
In December, 1812, at the same hotel, 500 gentle-
men attended the banquet in honor of the naval
heroes, Hull, Decatur, and Jones. De Witt Clin-
ton presided, with Decatur on his right and Hull
on his left. The banquet-hall " had the effect of a
great marine palace," and " other surprises of the
most novel and stirring character enraptured the as-
semblage." The following month Decatur's gallant
crew were dined at the same place, amid the same
decorations. It was here, also, that Lafayette was
sumptuously entertained in 1824.
In the first quarter of the present century the lead-
ing men of the larger towns seem to have realized
that the hotel, as a rule, was the index of the place
of its location. A good hotel meant a prosperous
town, and a public-spirited town would have a good
hotel. When the general government became per-
manently established at Washington, the regular
journeyings to and fro of public officials, members
of Congress and their families, and foreign ministers,
resulted in the appearance of good hotels for their
entertainment in the principal towns and along the
various routes of travel. These were graced by the
familiar presence of the eminent Northern and East-
ern statesmen, from the time of Hancock, Adams,
and Otis to that of Webster and others, on the route
from Boston ; and of Jackson, Clay, Benton, and
Cass along the old Government Road over the
mountains from the Ohio River. It was at a hotel
in St. Louis— the Missouri— that the first governor
of the then new State of Missouri was inaugu-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
101
rated in 1821, and that the legislature convened and
elected Benton Senator. The increasing desire for
more commodious and comfortable hotels — for the
pretentious ones were now all called hotels — con-
tinued to manifest itself. The National Hotel was
opened in Washington in 1827, and at once became,
and continued for a whole generation, the home of
eminent public men, and is rich in memories of
events of vast national interest. The principal tav-
erns in Boston were Doolittle's City Tavern, the
Eastern Stage House, and the Lamb Tavern. The
Tremont House was opened there in 1829 by
Dwight Boyden, and was the grandest hotel in
the land. It was even claimed at the time to be
the largest and most elegant hotel in the world, and
certainly there was nothing equal to it in England.
It was about 1830 that Delmonico introduced in
New York the high-class restaurant. Previous to
that there had been great monotony in the dishes
served at the better restaurants, and the flavoring
was limited. Delmonico used new flavors ; gave
new " fancy " dishes ; brought into more general use
claret, champagne, and the light wines of Germany
and France ; and served bread and coffee superior
to anything before known in America. In 1833 the
United States Hotel, New York, — now standing in
Fulton Street, — was opened. In 1834 the Louisville
Hotel, and in 1835 the Gait House at Louisville,
were opened, and their names are perpetuated in
fine houses. In 1835 the United States Hotel was
opened in Boston, and has since been greatly en-
larged. At about this period the old Washington
Hotel, Portland, Me., which opened before 1823,
took the name of the United States, and has also
been enlarged from time to time. The Rocking-
ham at Portsmouth, N. H., once the palatial home
of Governor Langdon, was opened in 1834, and
came into high repute. It has recently been rebuilt.
Up to 1836 there were few hotels in the world that
could accommodate 200 people.
In 1836 New York opened its rival to the Tre-
mont, the Astor House, built, like the former, of
massive granite. This became at once the resort of
the wealthy and of men in public life. For a time,
under Coleman & Stetson, it was the one place in
which to meet distinguished people, and it is still
prosperous. Barnum's Hotel at Baltimore opened
about this date, and eclipsed the hitherto important
houses there— the Washington, Eutaw, and the rest ;
although the United States Hotel still held the
patronage and friendship of Webster and others.
The most important hotel event of 1836 was the
opening of the St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans, in
the center of the " American town," fronting upon
three streets, with its stately portico in the style of a
Corinthian temple, the vast rotunda surmounted by
dome and cupola,— next to the Capitol at Washing-
ton the most imposing structure in America,— finely
appointed for that day, and accommodating more
than 700 persons. Rich planters of vast estates then
dominated the South, and with their families and
retinues of valets and maids came from their coun-
try houses in winter to the Southern cities. New
Orleans was the metropolis, and the St. Charles be-
came themost famous hotel in thecountry — thronged
throughout the season by tourists from abroad,
Northerners in search of health or a milder clime,
and by the intellect, wealth, and beauty of the
ancient glory of the Southland. This fine hotel
was destroyed by fire in 1851, rebuilt in 1852 with
all the former exterior grandeur except the dome,
and with more interior splendor, and continued a
career of increased popularity and charm until the
outbreak of the Civil War. It was again burned in
1894, and a new St. Charles is now about to open.
In 1839 tne Charleston Hotel was opened at Charles-
ton, and burned on the same day. It was rebuilt
and reopened in 1840. It was the frequent resort
of Calhoun and his great Southern compeers, and
continues to be the leading hotel of the city. In
1841 the Planters' House, St. Louis, was opened,
being the "largest hotel west of the mountains,"
and equal to any east in furnishing and appoint-
ments. It had 215 rooms, a classic ball-room, a
floor-space "8911 square feet more than the cele-
brated Tremont House in Boston " ; the china and
cutlery were made in England, and the name of
the house "fired on the china." Dickens stopped
there in 1842, and even spoke favorably of it in his
"American Notes." A magnificent new Planters'
House now occupies the old site. The house was
opened by Stickney & Knight, who came from Bos-
ton. It is well, perhaps, to say here that New Eng-
land was the nursery of a very large majority of the
prominent hotel men of this country. The Massa-
soit House, Springfield, Mass., one of the celebrated
New England houses, opened in 1843. The name
reminds one not only of the Indian chief, but sug-
gests the fact that much might be written of the spe-
cial dishes of certain hotels, prominent among which
would appear the old Massasoit " waffle." The New
York Hotel was opened about this period, and soon
became, and continued for many years, the favorite
summer resort of the people of wealth and distinc-
tion from the Southern States. The Delavan House
at Albany was opened in 1845.
152
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The year 1847 will ever be remembered in hotel
annals as the date of the opening of the Revere
House, Boston, by Paran Stevens. It immediately
took the first rank and commanded the best patron-
age of the country. The gathering there at the time
of the funeral of President John Quincy Adams in
1848 was the most notable assemblage, up to that
date, ever seen in the country outside of Washing-
ton. Mr. Stevens here introduced his advanced ideas
of a system of management so liberal, so thorough
in its details, and so comfortable, pleasing, and even
luxurious, that the Revere became the pattern for
American hotels ; and his subsequent achievements
in connection with several of the great hotels of
the country, upon the same broad and careful lines,
justly caused him to be regarded as the most emi-
nent man of his vocation. The principal hotels in
Philadelphia in 1830 and later were the Mansion
House, United States, Washington, City, and others.
In 1850 the Girard House was opened, and con-
tinued to be the principal house for ten years. In
the same year was opened the Burnett House at Cin-
cinnati, with its 250 bedrooms, large drawing-rooms,
and spacious corridors and public conveniences.
The Eagle Hotel, Richmond, of high repute, where
Lafayette was entertained in 1824, was burned in
1840, and about 1850 the Exchange and Ballard's
were opened. The same year the Clarendon was
opened in New York on the European plan, and
the Irving House was in successful operation. The
first Tremont House, Chicago, soon appeared on
the lists, and was for some time the leading hotel
there ; and at the same time Colonel McMicken, of
musical voice, continued to call out his bill of fare
in the large dining-room of the Washington Hotel
at Vicksburg. In 1852 the Battle House, Mobile,
was opened by Messrs. Darling & Chamberlain,
Paran Stevens being interested with them. It was
here that Mr. Darling successfully introduced for the
first time on a large scale in the American hotel the
system of serving breakfasts cooked to order. The
house was admirable in its management, the social
life was akin to that of the St. Charles in its palmy
days, and it was here that the gracious courtesy of
Madame Le Vert and her fair coterie was exercised.
The popular St. Louis Hotel, New Orleans, was then
in successful operation, under the genial Colonel
Mudge. About that time (1852) the St. Nicholas
and the Metropolitan were opened in New York, both
very large houses, upon a more expensive scale, in
some respects of furniture and decoration, than any
that had preceded them, introducing " bridal cham-
bers " and other novelties, and being sought by the
best patronage. In 1854 the Brevoort and Everett
were opened, on the European plan, and, like the
Clarendon, were of a high order; and in 1855 the
famous Parker House, also on the European plan,
was opened in Boston.
In 1859 the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Madison Square,
New York, was opened by Messrs. Stevens, Darling,
and Hitchcock (Hitchcock, Darling & Company).
The building covers eighteen city lots, and every ad-
vanced idea in construction was availed of — heavy
subdivision walls of brick every twenty-five feet
from foundation to roof, with two inches of cement
on every floor, flush from wall to wall, making it
practically fire-proof. As to the exterior, an eminent
author on architecture, writing of Roman palaces,
remarks : " The best type of palatial structure is the
Farnese Palace. The edifice is a classic, a standard,
the very perfection of house building, and in style
it looks familiar to us. It is not unlike the Fifth
Avenue Hotel." The same classic spirit pervades the
interior of the hotel in its architecture, decoration,
and furnishing. Among things deserving special
mention, it was here that the first passenger-elevator
in the world was erected (" Tuft's vertical railway "),
and shortly succeeded in the same place by a later
one by the same inventor. A noted writer says of
the Fifth Avenue : " It is unequaled in the number
and spaciousness of its corridors, halls, and public
rooms, and the commodious character of its guest-
rooms. Beginning with the Prince of Wales in 1 860,
a never-ending procession of the great men of this
and other countries has marched through its corri-
dors. No other single hotel in the world has ever
entertained so many distinguished people as have
been received at the Fifth Avenue — Presidents of
the United States, United States Senators, Con-
gressmen, governors, judges, generals, admirals, em-
perors, princes, foreign ambassadors, untitled men
and women of renown ; the list would fill a volume.
The London ' Times,' in speaking of the gathering
at Grant's funeral in 1885, said that it was the most
noted assembly of distinguished Americans ever
brought together; and the same description would
apply to many another occasion there. Through-
out its entire career it has been identified with the
most notable and brilliant local and national events
of the generation." In 1860 the Continental Hotel,
Philadelphia, similar in many respects to the Fifth
Avenue, was opened under the auspices of Mr.
Stevens, and has had an eminent career. The out-
break of the Civil War (1861) found Willard's Hotel,
Washington, the very focus of thrilling scenes and
events that in intensity have had scarcely a parallel
HIRAM HITCHCOCK.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
103
in American annals. The Lindell Hotel, St. Louis,
was opened in 1863, and the Southern Hotel in the
same city in 1865. They have since been destroyed
by fire, and rebuilt and reopened on a larger scale
than before. The opening of the Albemarle, Hoff-
man, St. James, and Grand, all in New York, came
within this half-decade. The Arlington, Washing-
ton, was opened in 1869, has been recently greatly
enlarged, and is the present hotel center of the
national capital. The Gilsey House, New York,
was opened in 1871, and at once took the first rank
among houses on the European plan. In 1873 the
Windsor Hotel, New York, commenced its success-
ful business career, and at about that date the Buck-
ingham also opened. In 1874 the Brunswick was
opened in Boston. At this time the large and at-
tractive hotels of Chicago, the Palmer House and
the Grand Pacific, were deserving their enormous
patronage.
The year 1875 is noted for the opening of the
"largest and most magnificent structure ever dedi-
cated to the needs of the traveling public," the Pal-
ace Hotel, San Francisco. The immensity of the
building as a whole ; the grand court, a vast amphi-
theater as it were, occupying 12,000 square feet of
surface, with its charming accessories, sheltered by a
roof of nearly 150 feet elevation ; the immense pala-
tial apartments for various functions, in such admi-
rable arrangement and effect; and the roominess,
comfort, and convenience of the private apartments,
all conspire to make this hotel justly preeminent.
In the last two decades of the century there has
been an uprising, as it were, — those that lacked the
earth seeking the sky, — of splendid hotels, as well as
an enlarging and beautifying of those already built,
all over the land — from the Vendome and Young's at
Boston ; the Narragansett at Providence ; the Grand
Union, Park Avenue, and Murray Hill at New
York ; the Lafayette and Stratford at Philadelphia ;
the Rennert at Baltimore ; the De Soto at Savannah ;
the Kimball at Atlanta ; the Iroquois at Buffalo ; the
Hollenden at Cleveland ; the Grand at Cincinnati ;
the Cadillac and Russell at Detroit ; those almost
without number, including the grand Auditorium, at
Chicago ; the Plankinton at Milwaukee ; the Ryan
at St. Paul ; the West at Minneapolis ; the Coates
House at Kansas City; across the plains to the
Brown Palace Hotel at Denver ; " over the range "
to the great houses of the Pacific ; away north to the
Portland at Portland, Ore., with its accommodations
for a thousand guests ; and beyond to the Tacoma
at Tacoma, Wash. In this brief article outlining the
growth of the hotel business it is impossible to name
all of the houses worthy of mention. It should be
remembered that there are less pretentious house*
that are special types of excellence, each in it* way,
in nearly all the large cities ; for example, the Sin-
clair, Continental, and Ashland in New York. There
are large houses poorly managed; and also small
houses scattered throughout the country whose
names are synonymous with real comfort. Within
the last few years the Plaza, Imperial, Savoy, Hol-
land, Waldorf, Netherland, and Majestic, all splen-
did hotels, have opened in succession in New York.
The Waldorf, when its proposed extension is com-
pleted, will outrank all in size, if not in magnificence.
Of these last creations an enthusiastic writer says:
"Tessellated pavements, marble columns, groined,
fluted, and quartered ceilings, veneerings of precious
stones, statuary and paintings, Pompeian conceits in
color and subject, tapestries superb enough for an
Oriental queen, and a glitter of gold and silver and
crystal, are all baptized in a flood of delicate colors,
as a thousand jets of flame glow softly through col-
ored glass, and flash their splendors through over-
hanging pendants and candelabra." As we are
closing this paper the Jefferson at Richmond, con-
sidered by those who have seen it to be the loveliest
of all, is opening its ample portals to " fair Virginia "
and the world.
The watering-place hotels are a very distinctive,
important, attractive, and rapidly increasing part of
the business, and are of grades to suit all tastes and
purses. In 1795 there were ordinary country tav-
erns at Saratoga, Ballston, and at some of the Vir-
ginia springs. The first tavern at the White Moun-
tains was built by Crawford in 1803, and "sheltered
the scattering tourists." The Catskill Mountain
House was built in 1822. At that date there was
no tavern at Sharon, and only very primitive ones
at Niagara and Rockaway ; but by 1840 these were
improved and houses were opened at Trenton Falls
and the Delaware Water Gap. Twenty years later
(1860) there were large hotels at Newport, Nahant,
the White Mountains, Saratoga, Lake George, Niag-
ara, Cape May, Old Point Comfort, and at the Vir-
ginia springs ; but it was not yet customary for great
numbers of our active population to " go away " in
summer for relaxation, nor to indulge the taste for
natural scenery. Long Island was almost a terra
incognita, the beauties of the Adirondacks were un-
discovered, the coast of Maine unexplored, and the
Rocky Mountains seemed an eternal barrier between
the Atlantic and the Pacific. But now in summer,
with conditions of greater wealth and leisure, the
whole world appears to be traveling. Great hotels
154
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
stand out as sentinels at the Isles of Shoals and Block
Island ; and others have arisen as by magic— from
the great houses on the northeastern coast, and on
Long Island, where scores of thousands go daily,
and along the Jersey shore, where their number is
legion, away down to the Princess Anne at Virginia
Beach. At Jekyll Island the scene is renewed, cul-
minating in Florida in that remarkably beautiful ex-
ample of Spanish architecture, the Ponce de Leon,
in the Royal Ponciana, and in the grand Tampa
Bay. So numerous and resplendent are our seaside
resorts that yachtsmen cruising along our eastern
shores in summer are ever in view of the sheen of
their hundred lights. But even these palaces are ex-
celled on the Pacific by the perfection and liberality
of the appointments of the Del Monte at Monterey,
" in the center of a beautiful garden — the finest, the
most gorgeous, the richest, the most varied in all the
world ;" and by the splendid Hotel del Coronado at
Coronado Beach, covering nearly eight acres. In
the interior of the country, at the springs, — Poland,
Saratoga, Sharon, Richfield, all through Virginia,
Waukesha, and Hot Springs, Ark., — there are vast
establishments which are thronged in the " season "
with health and pleasure seekers. The many inland
lakes and the rivers are bordered with summer hotels,
of which the Champlain is most "beautiful for
situation." Sunny skies are at Lake wood, and over
Aiken and the Bon Air in the midland South ; and
the White Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Cats-
kills, the unique resorts of the Shawangunk range,
the great Appalachian chain away down into North
Carolina, are alive with hotels that illumine the night
with lights that cluster into beacon-fires. In the
Rocky Mountains — the great continental range, so
vast in its scenes of grandeur, of beauty, and of
charm — there is many a fine house at spring and on
mountain-side.
In many parts of the country, when railroads were
first built, and long afterward, the hotels at the sta-
tions, in their imitation of city houses, were vastly in-
ferior to the old taverns along the public highways.
In later years some of the great railway lines across
the sparsely settled continent have rendered the trav-
eling public a real service in opening and managing
hotels of merit. In some marked instances houses
of great magnitude and cost have been erected far in
advance of population, to aid in the opening of vast
tracts of land and the building up of railway systems.
Much might be said, did space permit, of historic
rooms in American hotels : the colonial dining-room
of Governor Langdon at the Rockingham ; " P " at
the St. Charles ; Daniel Webster's room at the Astor ;
the famous " D. R." at the Fifth Avenue, and others
of similar interest. One could dwell with interest,
also, upon long terms of management, like that of
the Cataract at Niagara, which has been in the same
family for three generations, and Downer's Tavern
in Vermont, which he has kept for fifty-three years.
The American plan— a fixed price per day, includ-
ing room, meals, and service— generally prevails at
the watering-places, and to a considerable extent in
the cities and towns ; but the European plan, which
is of comparatively recent introduction, — a special
price for each room and for each item on the bill
of fare and for service, — has come to be very largely
patronized in the cities. In some instances both
plans are combined. The practice of tipping has
greatly increased with the introduction of the Eu-
ropean plan, and also liveries and coats of arms
have in some cases been introduced. There are
hotels for all conditions and nationalities of men,
and at all prices, from that of a plain room off from
the great thoroughfares, and of meals where they
serve " ten thousand a day at an average of thirty
cents " (in the manner of Pattinson and Sweeny in
1832), up to princely apartments where every dish
means dollars and every tap of the bell a pour-boire.
The different departments of trade and commerce
and their representative commercial travelers are
catered to, as well as tourists and men in public life,
as are also the various clubs and associations of
gentlemen and of ladies. The charges of the best
hotels now are about twice those of the correspond-
ing class in 1850. It may be said in passing that
the modern apartment-house or flat has lessened
somewhat the need for private houses, but has not
met the requirements of a "travelers' home." In
the general prosperity, as large fortunes have been
created and the number of persons of wealth and
leisure has multiplied and travel extended, the re-
quirements and wishes of many patrons of hotels
have increased in a most marked degree ; and at
times nothing seems too lavish, sumptuous, and
palatial for the novelty of the hour. Yet the great
majority of patrons seek those "home comforts"
which gratify refined taste and leave no tinge of care.
During the century great changes and improve-
ments have been made in hotel construction, ap-
pointments, and management. We now have run-
ning water with set basins, water-closets and baths
with exposed plumbing, open grates and steam-heat,
improved ventilation, more numerous stairways, fire-
escapes, fire-proofing, elevators for passengers and
baggage, electric bells, and telephones ; and the
laundry and other machinery which was the wonder
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
1M
of the Astor in 1836 was primitive compared with
that of to-day. There are now single hotel struc-
tures that are valued at three or four million dollars
and rented for one fifth of a million. The com-
plete furnishing represents an outlay of several hun-
dred thousand dollars, in which variation in style, re-
production of old patterns, special designs in china,
glass, etc., carpets and hangings, pictures, bric-a-brac
and gilding, with elaborate fixtures and decorations,
all conspire to rival a palace in a golden age. The
industrial arts and appliances have fairly reveled in
hotels ; utensils and machinery have multiplied ; oil
and candles have been succeeded by gas, and that
by electric light, with (in some cases) its special
plant ; water is sometimes distilled on the premises,
and the ice-machine is at times the companion of
the many wonderful preservative and economical
results of cold storage. Among the now necessary
conveniences and adjuncts are reading, writing, and
music rooms, coat, package, baggage, and boot
rooms, barber-shop, billiard-room, church directories,
railway and steamship announcements, telegraph,
telephone, and various ticket offices, book and news
stands, stenography and type-writing, and carriage
and messenger service.
The general purveying for a great hotel is most
varied and important. For the table alone the
markets of the entire world contribute their many
and choicest foods, nectars, and spices, which are
placed in stores representing scores of thousands of
dollars in value. The cuisine, of infinite variety,
has perhaps attained the highest possibility in gastro-
nomic art ; and the almost hourly service, at times
enlivened by music, approaches perfection. The
fastidious guest, with ever-developing tastes, requires
all that the world can provide, and the most con-
stant and immediate attention. The host, in turn,
by his alluring and tempting novelties, creates a
demand for newer luxuries; and daily a feast is
spread of viands so delectable that a Lucullus might
envy.
The hotel business has grown to enormous pro-
portions, its growth stimulated recently by million-
aires of other occupations who have erected palatial
houses regardless of cost. It is impossible to give
correct statistics and financial results, and any at-
tempt to do so would be unwise and misleading.
Under favorable conditions houses prosper; but at
present, in most of the large cities, the supply of first-
class houses exceeds the demand.
There is no business more complex and exacting
in details, or that requires greater ability in manage-
ment. The proprietor has " all sorts and conditions
of men " to deal with ; he must know human nature
in its varied phases ; and he must solve race and class
problems with delicate tact. He must have a fair
knowledge and conception of trade, and of every-
thing that meets and supplements the wants and
desires of mankind. In all this he is a helpful factor
in the commerce and industries of the world. He is
aided in caring for hundreds of guests by the several
important heads of departments, from the clerk who
receives the guest, through all the intricate working
of the establishment, to the head porter who gives
the final sign of departure ; and by (in some cases)
several hundred servants, including skilled artisans
engaged in manufacture and repair. Too much can
never be said of the aid, influence, and encourage-
ment of woman, from time immemorial, in bringing
to pass splendid successes; and there are rare in-
tances in the hotel business of her sole management,
such as furnished by Mrs. Alvord's most excellent
houses in Colorado. The local and State hotel asso-
ciations (originating in New York) and the Hotel
Men's Mutual Benefit Association are of great ad-
vantage to the business in many ways ; the newspa-
pers and magazines published in the interest of hotels
are able and influential ; and the publications en-
titled " Hotel Red Book " and " Where to Stop "
are of much value. On the other hand, the busi-
ness is greatly hampered by legal restraints, is sub-
ject to the whims of legislation, and is a sufferer from
pilfering thieves.
The life of the host is one of constant watchfulness.
His responsibilities for and in behalf of his guests
are as continuous for the full twenty-four hours of
each and every day as the swinging of his ever-open
doors. He is responsible always for the safety,
oftentimes for the respectability and conduct, and
constantly for the comfort of his household. To
his guest he has the opportunity of being a friend
and a guide. He makes him feel " at home," is his
banker, tells him of the shops, galleries, churches,
libraries, places of interest and amusement, and in-
forms him of forthcoming events and routes of
travel. He is ever ready in felicitation and always
at hand in the hour of trial. He calls in the coun-
sel, goes on the bond, witnesses the will, summons
the physician and the clergyman, and aids in the
last sad rites. It is not strange, therefore, that the
realized hope of Archbishop Leighton was that he
might die at an inn.
The taverns of 1795 were the "fountains of
news." The hotels of to-day are closely related to
the public welfare; statesmen and men of affairs
meet in them to consider the public weal and for-
156
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
mulate policies of state ; and in the hour of national
peril or elation it is to the center of public sentiment,
the hotel, that the citizen goes for the latest infor-
mation and the truest measure of the public mind.
And in the presence of great events the host is a
not unimportant factor, and with the historian of
old he can say, " All of which I saw, and a part of
which I was."
In the future it is hoped that proprietor and guest
will take serious counsel together, and that faulty and
mixed architecture and florid and meaningless deco-
ration and furnishing may be avoided, and correct
taste and practical methods followed. Health and
cleanliness are of the first consideration. A hotel
should occupy ample space and not be uncomfor-
table in elevation. The plumbing, ventilation, and
sanitary arrangements should be perfect. A hotel
contains a large and daily changing population from
all places under the sun, and as far as possible all
wall-stuffs and hangings, those pestilential resorts of
disease-germs, should be avoided. Safety, respecta-
bility, and comfort are the three hotel graces ; all else,
in comparison, is "sounding brass and a tinkling
cymbal." In this spirit the host will stand at the
gateway of commerce and welcome all her votaries
on their journey.
" The world 's an inn, and death the journey's end."
DRYDEN.
CHAPTER XXIV
AMERICAN THEATERS
IN order to convey to the reader a fair under-
standing of the progress of the American
theater since 1795 it is perhaps necessary to
state something about its beginnings, which, in-
deed, previous to 1750, are involved in much ob-
scurity. Tony Aston, an English stroller of some
celebrity, visited the Southern and Middle colonies
about 1730, and gave entertainments at New York
and perhaps other places ; and there is some evidence
that a company of comedians acted plays in New
York in 1732; but it was not until 1749 that an
organization came into existence of which we can
form any definite judgment. This company at-
tempted to open a playhouse in Philadelphia, and
Addison's " Cato " was actually performed ; but the
performers were arrested and admonished by Re-
corder Allen to give up the undertaking. Thomas
Kean was the principal actor in both tragedy and
comedy, and one Murray seems to have been asso-
ciated with him in the management. Finding Phil-
adelphia too inhospitable, the players went to New
York, where they were advertised as the company
of comedians from Philadelphia, and gave the first
theatrical season of which we have any connected
account. The performances were given in a " con-
venient room " in a house belonging to Rip Van
Dam in Nassau Street, and extended over a period
of more than a year — from March 5, 1 750, to July 8,
1751. The first play was " Richard III.," in which
Kean played Richard. So far as is known, the
company appeared in fifteen plays and nine farces.
Although Mr. Kean formally announced his with-
drawal from the stage to resume his business of writ-
ing, he was with a company called the " Virginia
Comedians" at Annapolis in the summer of 1752,
when Lewis Hallam and his London players arrived
at Williamsburg, Va. Besides Mr. Kean there were
other members of the New York company among
these " Virginia Comedians." Perhaps this disposes
of the claim usually made for Hallam's company
as being the first regular theatrical organization in
America.
Lewis Hallam, who brought a company of come-
dians from London in 1752, was not an actor of any
consequence in England, nor is it likely that his wife,
known to the American stage successively as Mrs.
Hallam and Mrs. Douglass, was an actress of recog-
nized ability there. William Hallam, who is reported
to have furnished the money for the American
venture, was not the manager of the theater in
Goodman's Fields where Garrick made his d6but,
but of a theater of no .importance or reputation at
the Wells in Lemon Street, Goodman's Fields. It
was at this house that Mrs. Hallam, the wife of
Lewis, played leading parts between 1746 and 1751.
In the latter year she had a benefit at which she
played Desdemona, with her husband, Lewis Hallam,
as Roderigo. At the time of this benefit the Amer-
ican venture was in preparation, and one Robert
Upton was sent to New York to prepare for the
coming of the players. He proved false to his
trust, and attempted to establish a theater on his
own account, but met with little encouragement and
had disappeared before the Hallams came to Vir-
ginia.
The Hallam company reached Yorktown in June,
1752, and began playing at Williamsburg on the 5th
of September following, the opening pieces being
" The Merchant of Venice " and " Lethe." The only
other play the Hallam company is known to have
performed at Williamsburg was " Othello," November
9, 1752. From Williamsburg Hallam went to New
York, where he arrived in June, 1753, just one year
after the arrival at Yorktown. The New York sea-
son lasted from September 17, 1753, until March
1 8, 1754. Mrs. Hallam played the leading parts
in both tragedy and comedy, while her daughter,
Miss Hallam, was put forward in farces. Hallam
157
158
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
seldom appeared. The great Shakespeare rdles
were divided between Malone and Rigby, the former
playing Shylock and Lear, and the latter Richard
and Romeo. From New York the company went
to Philadelphia, where the engagement was limited
to twenty-four performances and one night for the
benefit of the poor. The season began April 15,
1754, and closed in June. This ended the theatrical
campaign of Lewis Hallam the elder, who retired
with his family to Jamaica, where he died soon
afterward.
A year or two after Mr. Hallam's death his widow
married David Douglass, who organized a theatrical
company in Jamaica in 1758 for another American
campaign, with Mrs. Douglass as his chief attraction.
Besides his mother, young Lewis Hallam was the
only member of Mr. Douglass's company who had
previously appeared in the New York and Philadel-
phia theaters. He had already become a full-fledged
tragedian, although he was only in his twentieth
year, sharing the leading parts in tragedy and
comedy with Mr. Harman, as Rigby had previously
shared them with Malone. Mrs. Harman, who was
a daughter of Charlotte Charke and a granddaughter
of Colley Gibber, was also with the company, and
next in consequence to Mrs. Douglass. The low
comedian was Owen Morris, who was identified
with the American theater for a full half-century —
1759-1809. After his arrival in New York, Doug-
lass had much difficulty in obtaining permission to
open the theater that he had built on what was called
Cruger's Wharf, and it was not until December 28,
1758, that he began his season with the tragedy of
"Jane Shore." The season was a very brief one,
closing February 7, 1759.
During the following spring and summer Mr.
Douglass built a theater at Vernon and Smith streets,
in Philadelphia, which he opened June 25, 1759,
and maintained with considerable regularity until the
close of the year. He had obtained authority to
act from Governor Denny, and the compact was
kept, although the opposition to the theater was so
great in the province that an act prohibiting plays
was passed by the Assembly to go into effect Janu-
ary i, 1760. After Philadelphia was closed against
him, Mr. Douglass went to Annapolis, where he
played an engagement extending from March 3 to
May 12, 1760. The company also performed in
other Maryland towns, and then invaded Rhode
Island, playing engagements at Newport and Provi-
dence in 1761. In the autumn Mr. Douglass built
another theater in New York, in what was then
Chapel (now Beekman) Street, where he gave per-
formances from November 19, 1761, to April 26,
1762. This ended his first attempt to achieve the
mastery of the colonial stage. In his few years of
management Douglass had become an actor of con-
siderable authority, attempting such parts as Sir John
Falstaff in " King Henry IV.," and Mercutio in
" Romeo and Juliet." In the latter young Hallam
played the lover to his mother's Juliet. In the last
New York engagement, Mrs. Hallam, the wife of the
youthful tragedian, was seen in a few parts, but the
pair separated soon afterward.
It has always been understood that after his retire-
ment from New York, in 1762, Mr. Douglass did
not venture upon the continent again until 1766,
when he built the Southwark Theater in Philadelphia.
On the contrary, he appeared in Charleston in No-
vember, 1765, and remained there until the follow-
ing April. Lewis Hallam was not with the com-
pany, and, with the exception of Mrs. Douglass and
Miss Hallam, the performers were all new to the
stage. Only three of the new players were still with
Douglass when he reached Philadelphia — Messrs.
Woolls and Wall and Miss Wainwright. With the
opening of the new theater in Southwark, Philadel-
phia, began the theatrical organization afterward
known as the " Old American Company." Lewis
Hallam was once more in the lead. Mr. Morris
and Mrs. Harman were again with the company.
On the opening night Miss Cheer appeared as
Katherine in " Katherine and Petruchio," and sub-
sequently succeeded to most of the parts previously
filled by Mrs. Douglass. Mr. Woolls and Miss
Wainwright were the principal singers. During this
season a so-called comic opera, "The Disappoint-
ment," said to have been written by Colonel Thomas
Forrest, afterward a distinguished officer in the
Revolutionary army, was announced for production,
but it was withdrawn because it contained " local
reflections." As a recompense for its withdrawal,
"The Prince of Parthia," by Thomas Godfrey, Jr.,
was produced April 24, 1767. This was the first
tragedy written and played in America. The season
lasted from November 21, 1766, to July 6, 1767,
and was followed by a supplementary season of
two months, September 24 to November 23, 1767.
The latter was noteworthy for the first appearance
in America of John Henry, who was the partner of
Lewis Hallam after the Revolution in the manage-
ment of the Old American Company.
While the company was playing in Philadelphia,
Mr. Douglass built a new theater in John Street,
New York, which was the second of the permanent
theaters in the colonies, the Southwark being the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
I.Y.
first. The first season at the John Street house
lasted from December 7, 1767, to July 2, 1768.
The company alternated between these two theaters
down to the time of the Revolution ; but Mr. Doug-
lass found the patronage of the two cities inadequate
as early as 1770-71. In the latter year he made a
tour to the southward as far as Williamsburg, Va.,
playing at Fredericksburg, Suffolk, and other towns,
and building a theater at Annapolis, where the
company played an engagement in the autumn of
1771. In 1773 Douglass also built a theater at
Charleston, S. C., which was the last of the many
buildings he erected for theatrical purposes between
1758 and 1774. The company played at Charles-
ton from December 22, 1773, to May 19, 1774. It
was the manager's intention to reopen the New
York theater in the autumn, and Mr. Hallam em-
barked for England from Charleston for the purpose
of engaging recruits for the company ; but in Octo-
ber the Continental Congress passed a resolution
forbidding theatrical performances, in view of the
impending Revolution, and the organization was
disbanded. Hallam remained in England, where
he appealed to the London public at Covent Garden
Theater as Hamlet in 1775. His mother, Mrs.
Douglass, died in Philadelphia at the close of 1774,
and Mr. Douglass returned to Jamaica, where he
became a magistrate.
It is an interesting fact, showing the theatrical
activity before the Revolution, that while the Amer-
ican Company was acting in New York and Phila-
delphia in 1766-69 there was a company in the
South giving performances at Annapolis and Wil-
liamsburg. This company was known as the " Vir-
ginia Comedians" in 1768, when it gave a long
season at the Virginia capital; but it assumed the
name of the " New American Company " when it
was at Annapolis from January to June, 1769.
The leading spirits of the Virginia Comedians were
Messrs. Verling and Bromadge, and Mrs. Osborne,
who had played with Douglass at Charleston in
1765-66, and Mr. Godwin, who was with the Amer-
ican Company at the Southwark in Philadelphia in
1766-67. All these were with the New American
Company, with the exception of Mr. Bromadge.
A number of bills of the Virginia Comedians at
Williamsburg in 1768 have been preserved.
The most important annals relating to the Amer-
ican stage that have escaped the destroying hand of
time are a collection of playbills made by Thomas
Llewellyn Lechmere Wall— Mr. Wall of Douglass's
company. These cover forty years of the theatrical
life of the actor, and are especially valuable for the
complete information they afford in regard to the
Baltimore Company, organized by Wall and Lindsay
in 1782. Wall was perhaps the only member of the
American Company who remained behind when
Douglass returned to Jamaica in 1774. He was
also the only manager who undertook to produce
plays before the close of the Revolution. In 1781
he was at Annapolis giving entertainments with the
assistance of his wife and daughter when the French
army was on the march to Yorktown. For one of
his performances at that time he succeeded in secur-
ing the services of the band belonging to the regi-
ment of Count de Chaleur. Later in the year he
went to Baltimore, where he repeated his Annapolis
entertainments, and in conjunction with Adam
Lindsay, a tavern keeper at Fell's Point, built a
theater, of which Lindsay and Wall were the nom-
inal managers, with Wall as the stage director. The
company was formed on what was afterward known
as the "commonwealth plan." The theater was
opened January 15, 1782, and continued open with-
out important interruptions until the gth of July —
forty-two nights. In all nineteen plays and fourteen
farces were produced, and the total receipts for the
season were ^£2841 17^. 5<£, an average of .£69
5^. \od. per night. With the exception of the Walls
the players were all new to the American stage, and,
it may be assumed, were all amateurs.
The second season at the Baltimore theater ex-
tended from September 13, 1782, to February 7,
1783 ; but the house was closed from October 18 to
November 15, 1782, when the company was at
Annapolis. The receipts for ten nights at Baltimore
were ^896 6s. -jd., an average of ^89 i 2S. 6d. ;
and for seven nights at Annapolis, ^£688 25. id., an
average of ^98 6.?. id. On the third night of the
season at Baltimore, Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Ryan
appeared in " Douglass," the former as Young Nor-
val and the latter as Lady Randolph. Ryan domi-
nated the company from the outset, and when Wall
retired from the management, February 7, 1783, he
assumed the reins, keeping the theater open from
February nth to June gth. From Baltimore Ryan
carried his company to New York and opened the
theater in John Street, June igth, keeping it open
until August 1 6, 1783, although the city was still
in the occupation of the British. Wall was with
Ryan's company, which remained until the evacua-
tion, giving two performances in October, 1783
while the military players gave a performance for
Mrs. Ryan's benefit. In the winter Ryan again
opened the Baltimore theater, the season extending
from December 7, 1783, to February 14, 1784.
160
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The only noteworthy event of this season was the
first production of the " School for Scandal " in
America, February 3, 1784, with Mrs. Ryan as
Lady Teazle. After the close of the Baltimore season
in 1 784, Ryan took the company to Richmond, where
he played a long engagement. Mr. Heard, who
was the original Sir Peter Teazle in this country,
joined the forces of Hallam and Henry, while other
members of the organization found professional
employment in the South during the rest of the
century.
After the Revolution both Lewis Hallam and
John Henry sought to control the theaters that had
been built by Douglass ; but Hallam was the first to
present a company of comedians to the New York
public, opening the John Street Theater August 24,
1785. None of his players had ever appeared
under Douglass's management. The Old American
Company had passed into Henry's control in Jamai-
ca, and while Hallam and his feeble forces were
playing their New York engagement Henry arrived
with a number of the old favorites, ready to renew
operations in the United States. The company in-
cluded Mrs. Henry, — previously known to theater
goers as Miss Maria Storer, — Mr. and Mrs. Morris,
and Mr. Woolls. Besides these were Thomas Wig-
nell, an excellent low comedian, afterward one of
the managers of the New Theater in Philadelphia,
and Miss Tuke, who subsequently became Mrs.
Hallam. Confronted by the returning players,
Hallam proposed a partnership with Henry, and the
firm of Hallam & Henry, which ruled the American
stage during the next seven years, came into exis-
tence. The John Street Theater reopened under
their management, November 21, 1785. This
company played alternately in New York and
Philadelphia, with an occasional visit to Baltimore
and Annapolis, without any important changes
in its composition until 1792, when Wignell se-
ceded, carrying with him Mr. and Mrs. Morris.
Hallam had agreed to send Wignell to England to
engage recruits, but it was afterward determined
that Henry should go instead. The quarrel that
resulted was very bitter, but its final consequence
was the establishment of the theater in America on
new foundations. Henry engaged a number of
capable actors and actresses whose names are part
of the history of the American stage, while Wignell
not only succeeded in building in Philadelphia the
first really handsome and complete theater in the
United States, but put into it the best company of
players that had as yet been tempted to cross the
Atlantic.
The only incident of the Hallam and Henry
partnership, previous to the reorganization of the
company, that needs to be noted here is the produc-
tion of the first American comedy, " The Contrast,"
by Royall Tyler. This piece, which was first pro-
duced in New York April 18, 1787, was written for
Wignell, who wished to play a Yankee character.
Wignell's Jonathan deserves remembrance as the
forerunner of the long series of stage Yankees that
afterward became popular with American audiences.
The comedy was printed in Philadelphia, and was
often played by strolling companies before the close
of the century.
The only really important recruits engaged by
Mr. Henry in England were Mr. and Mrs. Hodg-
kinson, of the Bath and Bristol theaters, and Mrs.
Wrighten, who had long been a favorite singer and
actress at Drury Lane. Hodgkinson was a man of
great talent and versatility, and the best actor seen
in America up to that time and for many years
afterward. He made his d6but as Don Felix in
"The Wonder," at Philadelphia, September 26,
1792, succeeded Henry as one of the managers of
the Old American Company in 1794, and was active
as actor and manager in New York until after the
opening season at the New Theater in 1798. Mrs.
Hodgkinson, known at Bath and Bristol as Miss
Brett, was an actress of merit, and in this country
eclipsed both Mrs. Henry and Mrs. Hallam, the
wives of the managers by whom the Hodgkinsons
were engaged. Mrs. Wrighten was known in
America as Mrs. Pownall. She died at Charleston
in 1796, after introducing her two daughters to the
stage in this country. One of them, Caroline, mar-
ried Alexander Placide, who had been a rope dancer
in England. She was the mother of the famous
Placide family of actors. It was during this period
that William Dunlap became prominent as a dram-
atist and adapter of plays. His first comedy, " The
Father," was produced at the old John Street
Theater, September 7, 1789. Dunlap became as-
sociated with Hallam and Hodgkinson in the man-
agement of the New York company in 1 796, and
he was afterward for a brief period the sole manager
of the New Theater, better known as the Park.
After leaving the Old American Company, in the
beginning of 1792, Thomas Wignell associated him-
self with A. Reinagle, a musician who came to
America in 1786, in the project of building the New
Theater in Philadelphia, afterward known as the
Chestnut Street Theater. The house was modeled
after the theater at Bath, and was completed early
in 1793 ; but owing to the yellow-fever epidemic it
ALBERT M. PALMER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
was not opened by the company of players engaged
by Wignell until February 17, 1794. Among the
actors and actresses comprising the Philadelphia
company were Mr. Fennell, a young tragedian of
much promise ; Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock, the latter a
sister of Mrs. Siddons ; and Miss George, who was
the wife of Sir John Oldmixon, and was known to
our stage as Mrs. Oldmixon. This company re-
mained intact without any important changes or
additions for three years, playing alternately in
Philadelphia and Baltimore, with an occasional visit
to Annapolis; but in the autumn of 1796 Mr. Wig-
nell brought three important recruits from England
— Mrs. Merry, the famous Miss Brunton of Covent
Garden Theater, who had become the wife of
.Robert Merry, the Delia Cruscan poet ; Thomas
Althorpe Cooper, then a young man of twenty, but
destined to be the manager of the New York
theater for many years ; and William Warren, who
had been a strolling player in England, and who
became the successor of Wignell in the management
of the Philadelphia theater. Mrs. Merry became
a widow in 1798. She soon afterward married
Wignell, and after his death she became the wife of
Warren, who survived her many years.
A fortnight before the formal opening of the
Philadelphia theater by WignelPs company a new
theater in Boston, scarcely inferior to the Philadel-
phia house, was opened by an English company
engaged and brought over by Charles Powell. This
theater was in Federal Street, and was built by sub-
scription. It was destroyed by fire in 1798. Pow-
ell's company was a feeble one, and he was com-
pelled to relinquish the management upon the close
of his second season in 1 795. Powell was succeeded
by Colonel John S. Tyler, a brother of Royall Tyler,
the author of " The Contrast," who managed the
house on behalf of the stockholders from January to
May, 1796. The season proved a failure; but the
theater was reopened in September by John Brown
Williamson, an English actor, whose wife was pop-
ular in London as Miss Fontenelle ; but neither he
nor his wife, nor a stronger company than had as
yet been seen in Boston, availed to make the season
successful. One reason for this was that a new
theater, known as the Haymarket, had been built
through the exertions of Charles Powell, and opened
by him for the first time December 26, 1 796. Among
Powell's English recruits for the Boston Haymarket
were Mr. and Mrs. Giles L. Barrett, the parents of
the famous New York comedian, George H. Barrett ;
Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, afterward New York favor-
ites ; and Mrs. Simpson's three daughters, the Misses
Westray, of whom Juliana became Mrs. William B.
Wood ; Eliza, successively, Mrs. Villiere and Mrs.
Twaits ; and Ellen, Mrs. Darley. Powell again failed
at the Haymarket, and the house passed into the
control of Hodgkinson, Hallam, and Dunlap, under
the personal direction of Hodgkinson. The New
York company occupied it in the summer of 1 797,
after which it was abandoned. The Haymarket de-
serves to be remembered for the production of two
American war plays—" Bunker Hill," by John Daly
Burke, February 20, 1797; and "West Point Pre-
served," the first of the Andre" pieces, by William
Brown, on the I7th of April following. Dunlap's
"Andre"" was not produced in New York until
March 30, 1798.
This epoch, 1792-98, was also remarkable for
theatrical activity in the South. Not only had the
Baltimore company, including Mr. and Mrs. Ryan
and Mr. Wall, played a long engagement at Rich-
mond as early as 1784, but in 1790 John Bignall
and Thomas Ward West were the managers of a
company called the " Virginia Comedians." This
organization maintained its existence for many
years, its circuit extending from Richmond and
Norfolk to Charleston. Bignall, who was held by
his Southern admirers to be the best actor on the
continent, died in 1 794. His real name was Money-
penny, and he had been a stroller in England in the
same company with William Warren, of the Phila-
delphia theater. After Bignall's death West became
the sole manager of the company, and piloted it
over the Southern circuit for a number of years. In
1795 there was a rival theater in Charleston, con-
ducted by Mr. Jones, who had been previously at
the Boston Theater. His principal actress was Mrs.
Whitlock, who had just retired from the Philadelphia
company. A Frenchman, Mr. Sollee, succeeded to
the management of this theater, and organized a
company in Boston to play in Charleston for the
season of 1 795-96. Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock, Mr. and
Mrs. Placide, and Mrs. Arnold — afterward Mrs. Poe
and the mother of Edgar Allan Poe — were in the
company.
The prosperity which had given to America three
splendid theaters within five years — the Chestnut
Street in Philadelphia, the Park in New York, and
the Boston Theater in Federal Street, Boston, rebuilt
immediately after its destruction in 1798 — was fol-
lowed by a period of depression that was severely
felt over all the country. At the close of the century
Wignell was in jail for debts incurred through the
Philadelphia theater, and Dunlap, who had under-
taken the sole management of the New York theater
162
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
to retrieve previous losses in New York and New
England, lost his entire private fortune in the ven-
ture. Mr. Barrett was induced to undertake the
management of the new Boston Theater in 1799,
but he failed dismally.
In all these cities theatrical enterprises were ex-
perimental for several years, but in every case a man-
ager was finally found in the local company who suc-
ceeded in placing the theater on a sound business and
artistic basis. Mr. Warren, after he became Wig-
nell's successor in Philadelphia, associated with him-
self in the direction of the Chestnut Street Theater
a popular young member of the company, William
Burke Wood. This partnership lasted until 1825.
In New York the young tragedian Cooper retrieved
the fortunes of the Park Theater and made the
house a paying one for a number of years. In
Boston, Snelling Powell, a brother of Charles Powell,
secured control after other attempts had failed, in-
cluding the assumption of the management of the
Boston Theater by Charles Whitlock in 1800. John
Bernard, an English actor of some repute who
joined the Philadelphia company in 1797, was for
a while Snelling Powell's associate in directing the
Federal Street Theater ; but for many years Powell's
partner was Mr. Dickenson, who was an actor of
moderate ability, but a man of sound judgment and
an excellent manager. These were the dominating
theaters in the United States during the first quarter
of the century, and their influence in giving tone
and character to theatrical enterprises in the country
was felt down to 1850.
The Old American Company was designed to be
permanent in organization, but all the early man-
agers, from Douglass to Wignell and Hodgkinson,
aimed at controlling a circuit of playhouses modeled
after the provincial circuits in England. The build-
ing of the new theaters in Philadelphia, New York,
and Boston resulted in giving companies that were
permanent in organization permanence of home.
These were the real stock-company days, but a
tendency toward the star system was manifested
almost from the outset. As early as 1796 Mrs.
Whitlock played what was essentially a star engage-
ment at the Boston Theater ; it was limited to twelve
nights, for which she was paid $450 and allowed a
benefit. Hodgkinson played star engagements in
all the leading cities between 1798 and 1805, and
Cooper followed Hodgkinson's example, and was a
star from youth to old age. But the first star to
shine with extraordinary effulgence in the American
theatrical firmament was George Frederick Cooke.
He was the first English actor of great reputation
who came to America to play the leading roles of
tragedy and comedy with the stock companies in
the principal cities. In view of this the star system,
as it ruled in the American theaters for the next
half-century, may be said to date from his appear-
ance here in 1810-11.
Simultaneously with Cooke's performances in the
theaters of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston
were the star engagements of our own "young
Roscius" — John Howard Payne. Cooke played
three engagements in Philadelphia — in all thirty-nine
nights. His highest receipts for any one night were
$1475, his lowest $474. His average for his last
Philadelphia engagement of twelve nights in 1811
was $807.50. Payne played to an average about
the same time of $442, while Cooper's Philadel-
phia average was $509. Young Payne's popular-
ity rapidly diminished, and in 1812 he performed
to receipts that fell as low as $255. After Cooke
the next English star to appear in America was
Holman, in 1812 ; but he came at a time of serious
depression in consequence of the war with Great
Britain, and the impression that he made fell far
below his expectations. Then came Incledon and
Phillips as musical stars, and after them the Wai-
lacks, Henry and James W., and finally, to close the
first decade of the star system in America, 1810-20,
Edmund Kean. The great English stars who came
to this country during the next three decades were
Junius Brutus Booth and William Charles Macready,
1820-30; Fanny Kemble and her father, Charles
Kemble, and Charles Kean, 1 830-40 ; and Tyrone
Power, James R. Anderson, and Macready, again in
the fullness of his fame, 1840-50. This long period
had developed only two American stars of sur-
passing brilliancy — Edwin Forrest and Charlotte
Cushman.
The century opened with about half a score of
theaters in the leading American cities, only three
of which, as already described, were worthy of the
name or of the drama. Between 1800 and 1850
about twenty theaters were built in New York, none
of them superior to the Park, and only one, the
Bowery, in any sense its rival, until Burton estab-
lished himself in Chambers Street in the last decade
of the epoch. The only new theaters of importance
in Philadelphia during the same period were the
Walnut Street and the Arch Street theaters, the
former erected for a circus in 1808 and fitted up for
theatrical uses in 1820, and the latter built in 1826.
The theaters built in Boston in these fifty years were
the Tremont, the American Amphitheater, — after-
ward the Warren and National,— Kimball's Museum,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
103
the Eagle, and the Howard Athenaeum. Baltimore
had nothing better than the old Holliday Street
Theater during this epoch, and Washington was
without a place of amusement worthy of the drama
until 1835. The theater builder of the period in the
South and Southwest was James H. Caldwell. He
built the American Theater in New Orleans in 1823,
and afterward erected the Camp Street and Charles
Street theaters. Mr. Caldwell also built theaters in
Cincinnati, St. Louis, Natchez, Huntsville, Nash-
ville, and Petersburg. Another manager, John S.
Potter, was concerned in building as many, or more,
theaters in the South and Southwest ; but, after all,
the theatrical activity of a century resulted in an
approximate number of theaters in actual use at its
close not exceeding fifty.
The figures that show the periods of prosperity
and the intervening periods of depression are not
easily obtainable, those that are in existence being
widely scattered through books and newspapers or
in private hands. The losses were sometimes heavy
even in the early enterprises. The Philadelphia
company in 1797 played fourteen weeks in New
York with a loss of $2350 ; but, on the other hand,
Caldwell, in 1818, cleared $10,000 in four months
at Petersburg, Va. The receipts of the Park
Theater, New York, for the season of 1832-33
reached nearly $150,000, Fanny Kemble and her
father drawing $56,000 for sixty nights, an average
of $933 per night. In 1833-34, when the receipts
at the Park fell to $135,000 for the season, the
Kembles averaged $732 per night; but in 1834-35,
without the Kembles, the season's total was over
$160,000. At this time the star system was at its
height of favor, with both managers and the public ;
but its effects were disastrous in cities where there
were rival theaters outbidding one another for the
best stars. This was especially true of the managers
of the three rival theaters in Philadelphia, who for
nearly twenty years continued to cut one another's
throats for the benefit of stars of no great magnitude.
Wood, in his " Recollections," cites an example of
the effects of the system. One of Fanny Ellsler's
engagements in Philadelphia yielded $10,869.25,
out of which the danseuse received $6436. The
money paid to the other dancers, the ballet, and for
the ordinary expenses of the house brought the ex-
penditures up to $11,826, involving a loss to the
manager of $1000 for ten nights. This system
finally culminated about 1846, when nearly all the
theaters in the country were ruined. But it was
divided patronage as well as the excessive percen-
tages of the stars that made the theaters in Philadel-
phia, New York, and Boston unprofitable ; for in the
South, where Caldwell had a monopoly in his own
field from Richmond to New Orleans, the profits
were very large, notwithstanding the frequent en-
gagement of stars like Cooper, Booth, and Forrest.
This contrast receives additional emphasis from the
fact that Caldwell was the only manager produced by
the first century of the American theater who died rich.
The century that will close with this decade has
witnessed a partial revival of the old stock compa-
nies in their purity and simplicity, without the inter-
vention of great stars, and it has also witnessed the
nearly complete abolition of this form of theatrical
organization. In the theaters managed by William
Wheatley, John S. Clarke, and, for a time, by Mrs.
John Drew in Philadelphia, by James H. Wallack
in New York, and by Moses Kimball in Boston,
stock companies were maintained. Later on, Lester
Wallack, Augustin Daly, M. H. Mallory, Daniel
Frohman, Charles Frohman, and the writer of this
article in New York, and R. M. Field in Boston,
kept together for years organizations which were
managed upon the pure stock system. Only one or
two of these companies remain. Throughout the
country generally the theaters for a while employed
stock companies, but mainly for the purpose of sup-
porting traveling stars. This lasted until after the
close of the war between the States, when the im-
petus given to business enterprises of all kinds was
felt in renewed theatrical activity not only in the
cities, but over all the country. What is known as
the combination system (that is, a traveling com-
pany made up of a star and a supporting company),
which began about 1869 and reached its highest
development before 1876, involving the destruction
of the stock companies in all except a few theaters,
was the consequence of this theatrical revival.
Nearly every inland town and city from Maine to
California built a theater, with the expectation that
traveling companies would occupy it at intervals.
The demand thus created could be supplied only by
the combinations.
One of the first results of this new state of things
was the banishment from the managerial office of
all, or nearly all, the actor-managers. Their places
were filled by business men, who, while they may
have lowered, in a sense, the artistic character of
the theater, have raised its financial standing to a
point which, during the first century of its existence,
seemed beyond its reach. The theater in America
is no longer a haphazard thing, living from day to
day on uncertainty. It is a business conducted on
the principles which govern other forms of commer-
164
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
cial enterprise, and is as stable, as sound, and as
certain of adequate rewards as any. Indeed, so
abnormal has been the development of the business
character of the theater that it has excluded from
general managerial attainments everything else.
Very few of the managers throughout the country
ever undertake the original production of plays, or
take the trouble to acquire the artistic knowledge
requisite for this kind of work. New York chiefly,
and in a lesser degree Chicago and Boston, are the
play-producing centers. A few New York man-
agers and the play-producing stars select and bring
forth all the plays and gather together all the com-
panies which, supplemented by the imported attrac-
tions, keep the theaters of the country supplied with
entertainment during the season. The advantage
of this system is that playgoers everywhere are
furnished with well-trained and perfectly equipped
companies, appearing in plays which have been tried
and found to be worthy. The local manager, free
from the worries and cares incident to stage-work,
devotes his time and attention to the comfort of his
patrons at the front of the house, and to the strict
conduct of business there. The results are well- s
regulated and comfortable auditoriums and good
order in all the business departments of the theater.
A remarkable aspect of the American theater,
from a commercial point of view, is the enormous
profit it has yielded and continues to yield to home
and foreign celebrities. Among American actors,
Edwin Forrest acquired and left behind him a great
estate, from the remnant of which was established
the Forrest Home, near Philadelphia, a retreat for
aged actors, noble in its purpose and efficient in its
benefaction; Charlotte Cushman, resting for long
periods in England and Italy, left a fortune of
$600,000 ; Edwin Booth, having made and lost
more than one competency, renewed his financial
successes in his declining years, and left $750,000
to his heirs, after having founded the Players' Club
at a cost of $200,000 ; Mary Anderson retired from
the stage after a few seasons of brilliant and unin-
terrupted triumph, to enjoy a happy marriage in her
youth, her labors having brought her a fortune of
$500,000 ; Joseph Jefferson, blessed with that con-
tinuous vitality often found among the children of
the stage, still reaps the harvest of his well-earned
popularity, and should he retire now he would real-
ize in his fortune of $1,000,000 that the public he
has served so long and so well is, to say the least
of it, not ungrateful; while Lotta Crabtree, Fanny
Davenport, Maggie Mitchell, Francis Wilson, and
many others of diverse gifts are in the list of for-
tune's favorites. Among foreign actors, William C.
Macready owed to America the realization of his
dream of retirement from a profession he affected
to loathe; Sara Bernhardt acquired here a fortune
which enabled her to defy the authority of the house
of Moliere and to establish a theater of her own in
beautiful Paris; Tomasso Salvini, adding his great
earnings here to his modest ones in other lands, be-
came the richest actor Italy has ever known; and
Henry Irving has found in his frequent visits to our
country a public eager and willing to fill his coffers
to overflowing with the rewards so justly due to his
unequaled managerial achievements and to his un-
doubted genius as an actor.
The list of the well-rewarded favorites of the
public might be greatly extended, but this glimpse
of results is sufficient to make clear the profits and
prosperity of the American stage, and to indicate
the extent of its commercial advancement during
the century.
The development of the theater in all its depart-
ments, especially since 1860, has been vast. From
not more than 100 in 1800, and fewer than 800 in
1860, the number of actors and actresses in the
United States increased so immensely that in 1888
it was estimated at 4500, and now probably exceeds
7000. This number represents only the performers
engaged in presenting the drama in its higher forms.
It does not include the managers, who number several
hundred, as compared with 25 or 30 in 1850 and 6
or 8 in 1800. If the exponents of variety and vaude-
ville and the other employees in the amusement busi-
ness are added, the number of people who gain a live-
lihood by giving public entertainments will not fall
below 1 2,000 ; including stage hands and all the per-
sons who derive their support from the theater, the
number may be roughly estimated at 50,000. This
vast army of workers is well organized, generally well
paid, and reasonably prosperous. It has numer-
ous charitable and social organizations, which are
models of their kind. The Actors' Fund, the Actors'
Order of Friendship, the Players' Club, the Profes-
sional Women's League, are institutions of which
any profession might well be proud ; and there are
numberless others of equal merit supported by the
amusement makers of the United States. There are
as many as 400 regularly organized theatrical com-
panies on tour through the United States during the
season, and the number of theaters of all kinds is
not fewer than 4000. The cities of New York and
Brooklyn have at the present moment first-class the-
aters in greater number than either Paris or London.
The improvement which has taken place in the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
165
construction of theaters in America within the past
twenty years is worthy of especial notice. The
tragic disaster in Brooklyn on the night of December
5, 1876, awakened the attention of managers and of
the public authorities in the different States to the
flimsiness of construction which marked even the
best theaters of the period. The result was the
passage of new and most stringent laws, involving
requirements which, while they seemed onerous,
perhaps, have resulted in giving to America the
best and safest theaters in the world. Even the
older theaters, built before the new regulations, have
been so altered under the direction of the authorities
that they are now comparatively free from danger.
In New York, where these regulations are perhaps
the strictest, there is a larger number of absolutely
safe theaters than in any city in the world ; while for
beauty and convenience combined with safety it is
impossible to find elsewhere such theaters as the
Garden, Abbey's, the Empire, the American, and the
Metropolitan Opera-House. As the older houses
pass away they must be replaced by absolutely fire-
proof structures if replaced at all, and before the end
of the next two decades it is almost certain that
there will not be a building devoted to amusement
in the Greater New York which will not be a model
of safety, convenience, and comfort.
Perhaps the most marked change that has taken
place in the American theater during the century,
however, is in the character and number of its pa-
trons. Attendance upon the theater was looked
upon even fifty years ago by at least seven tenths
of the people of the United States as almost a sin.
The fashionable ungodly and the lowest and most
depraved made up the audiences. We have seen
how, in the Revolutionary period, theaters were
closed by act of Congress, doubtless because, in
those days of danger, the fathers of our country
felt that they would help their cause by propitiat-
ing the Almighty, who was supposed to frown upon
godless amusements. But in the last two decades
this unreasonable prejudice against the most enjoy-
able and least harmful of all forms of amusement
has so materially lessened that it is estimated by a
good authority that not more than three tenths of
the people refuse to patronize the theaters as a mat-
ter of principle. It is true that a clergyman now
and then inveighs against the stage in the old-
fashioned, puritanical way ; but his words, in all
likelihood, fall upon ears that the night before were
listening to the sorrows of " Camille " or were tak-
ing in the laughter-provoking catch-lines of "The
Private Secretary." Indeed, the element of moral
usefulness in the theater is no longer successfully
derided. In 1878 there was established in the city
of New York a theater the avowed purpose of which
was to produce plays of a moral tendency, and to
which religious persons might go. This effort suc-
ceeded. The theater was thronged for several years
by a new class of theater goers. I do not hesitate
to give it as my opinion that one of the most pow-
erful agencies in breaking down the barriers which
intolerance had raised between the better people in
our community and the theater was this effort, so
honorably put forth and so brilliantly carried out by
the gentlemen who established the Madison Square
Theater. Their influence was far-reaching. Their
plays were given in almost every city and town and
hamlet of the United States, and everywhere they
had the same attractiveness ; and thus they increased
to an extent which can hardly be estimated the vol-
ume of theatrical patronage.
It is almost impossible to forecast the future of
the American theater; but we may hope, I think,
that as the past century has witnessed such a marked
increase in its material prosperity, the next century
will be marked by a distinct progress toward higher
forms of art, toward a clearer appreciation of its
mission by its patrons, and toward the creation of a
national drama. Considering the brief history of
the stage in the United States, and the vast future
of this people, what the managers and the literary
artisans are now doing is but the beginning, holding
the promise of great achievements ; the material
greatness of our stage, already greater than that of
any other country, must eventually find a corre-
sponding elevation in its literature, upon which its
prosperity will so largely depend.
CHAPTER XXV
AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS
NEVER in the history of the world has there
been a time when ideas were so necessary
for progress and success as now. Right
here I want to record the fact that the first journalist
in America had an idea two hundred and five years
ago which would be a very popular feature for any
newspaper to-day. On the 2$th of September, 1690,
in Boston, he issued the first number of " Publick
Occurrences, both Foreign and Domestick." In
his salutatory he stated that there were many false
rumors constantly circulated in the town of Boston
which did a great deal of harm. He asked his read-
ers to send him the names of people who started
these stories, and he would print the list in his next
and succeeding issues. Briefly, he proposed to pub-
lish regularly a list of the liars of the town. That
is an idea which I think would certainly sell well to-
day; but alas! the authorities of that day had no
sooner read this announcement than they promptly
suppressed his newspaper. The name of that origi-
nal journalist was Richard Pierce. I now cheer-
fully embalm him in this history. I really believe
that if he were now alive, in his prime, in any lead-
ing city, his contemporaries would find him an ex-
ceedingly lively and original journalist.
The first regular American newspaper was also
born in Boston, the Boston " News-Letter," which
was started by James Campbell, the postmaster, in
1704, eighty-two years after the first newspaper ap-
peared in London. The first French journal was
earlier than the first newspaper in England by seven-
teen years. Germany preceded all other countries,
having made several ephemeral attempts at journal-
ism in the last years of the sixteenth century.
Here are what I regard as the stages of American
journalism, and its principal distinction at each
stage :
1. A mere abstract of European newspapers.
2. Employed by the agitators of the Revolution
for printing appeals to the people.
3. The puppet of the politicians in the first years
of fierce party conflict under our new government,
and usually edited by imported adventurers who
had worn out their welcome everywhere else in the
world ; often men of flashing wit, but never men of
sober purpose.
4. The vehicle of an editor's oracular and often
eccentric opinions on politics. The press was now
emancipated from the control of politicians ; it was
free, courageous, and influential, but was narrow in
its field, and intolerant. It was not yet a newspaper,
and it still excluded from its interest and support
seven tenths of the people, including all the women
and young people. To them the newspaper of
1815-35 was as forbidding as any political tract is
to-day to women and children.
5. At last the News paper! It gives the news for
the first time ; it has vindicated and illustrated its
name ; it is more educational than ever, though less
dogmatic ; it is freer than ever, because it has become
too vast a concern to be the mere instrument of
any single personality or any single clique, however
powerful ; it has become a property instead of a play-
thing ; it is devoted to the public interest and is more
clearly the representative of the public, because it
is too great to live on the favor of a few, as it once
did ; it is more independent and fairer in politics,
because to attain the first rank it must have the re-
spect of people of all parties. No mere organ of
any party is a leader among the newspapers of any
city to-day. The press is more scrupulous and con-
servative in all respects than ever before, because an
immense capital is always at stake. It is more influ-
ential than ever, not only because it is more widely
read and more varied in its interests, but also because
its opinions carry the weight of business sagacity and
success, as well as intellectual acumen.
Until the time of the Revolution the newspapers
of the country were very small affairs. After we
became an independent nation the politicians and
166
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
167
political parties did much to develop the press on the
lines I have indicated ; but the News paper came with
the advent of the New York " Sun " and " Herald,"
in the early thirties. Still the great development of
the century has been since the early years of our
Civil War. Since then the progress in journalism
has kept pace with the marvelous advance which
has been shown in other lines of life. Indeed, since
that time journalism itself has come to be regarded
as a profession, and is properly considered by many
as the " first " rather than the " fourth estate."
Let us consider cold but interesting statistics.
Perhaps the average reader can get a good idea of
the progress of one hundred years by a statement
of the increase in the number of newspapers during
that period, and the volume of the business which is
annually transacted. There was no census of news-
papers in the earlier years of our government.
Thomas says that in 1800 there were at least 150
publications, and in 1 8 1 o the number had increased
to 360, more than 20 being dailies. The dailies of
that time (1810) were, in New York, the "Gazette,"
" Evening Post," " American Citizen," " Public Ad-
vertiser," "Columbian," "Mercantile Advertiser";
in Pennsylvania, the "Daily Advertiser," "True
American," " Gazette of the United States," Phila-
delphia " Gazette," " Aurora," " Political and Com-
mercial Register," " Freeman's Journal," " Demo-
cratic Press," " Evening Star " ; in Alexandria, the
" Daily Advertiser " ; in Baltimore, the " Federal
Gazette," " Whig," " Federal Republican," " Even-
ing Post," " American " ; in Charleston, the " City
Gazette," " Times," " Courier " ; in New Orleans, the
' Gazette " and the " Courier." There were then no
dailies published in Boston, Albany, or Cincinnati,
although one had been issued in Boston as early as
1796.
The statistics in 1 8 1 o were :
NUMBER OF NEWSPAPERS PUBLISHED IN 1810.
NUMBER OF NEWSPAPERS PUBLISHED IN 1810.— ContinutJ.
STATE OR TERRITORY.
TOTAL,
DAILY.
SEMI-
WEEKLY.
TRI-
WEEKLY.
WEEKLY.
New Hampshire
12
12
Massachusetts
12
27
Rhode Island.
7
I
Connecticut
12
12
Vermont
1C
1C
New York
«
6
C2
New Jersey
i
J8
Pennsylvania
73
8
7
I
61
Delaware
7
•5
Maryland
District of Columbia. .
Virginia.
North Carolina
21
6
23
IO
5
i
I
I
6
5
3
i
IO
I
16
IO
South Carolina
IO
2
e
Georgia
¥7
2
i
IO
Kentucky . .
17
17
STATS OK TMRITOBY.
TOTAL.
DAILY.
SEMI-
WEEKLY.
T«i-
WlEXLY.
WEEKLY.
Tennessee.
6
«4
I
i
4
10
6
>4
I
I
4
2
I
Ohio
Michigan Territory. . .
Indiana Territory. . . .
Territory of Orleans .
Territory of Louisiana.
2
a
4
Totals
366
25
36
«s
290
The American " Newspaper Directory " for 1895
gives this table, showing the number and frequency
of issue of newspapers and periodicals published in
the United States :
NUMBER OF NEWSPAPERS PUBLISHED IN 1895.
STATE OR TERRITORY.
DAILY.
WEEKLY.
MONTHLY.
QU'TEHLY.
TOTAL.
Alabama
Alaska
21
'S3
3
33
223
447
209
26
36
237
jo
1,060
£
810
220
108
343
439
7i
16
265
41
1,127
156
119
783
90
'43
921
39
90
227
&
%
181
III
141
467
32
16
i
"18
78
44
5
19
12
42
I
241
I
80
5§
28
10
47
77
56
9
119
3
200
4
276
z«3
146
3»
57
i,532
39
791
979
707
296
173
184
210
657
74>
554
177
937
29
114
37°
52
1,993
200
139
1,146
III
189
1,433
70
119
264
275
H
272
225
"I
38
IO
2O
97
35
43
5
5
15
26
3
141
2
120
68
3§
28
'7
'7
16
£
60
40
8
89
12
33
IO
13
49
'18
10
15°
12
17
197
14
IO
'9
4
12
54
5
I
I
6
District of Columbia
Florida
4
Georgia
I
Idaho
Illinois
20
Indian Territory . . .
Indiana
I
5
3
i
"i
24
i
3
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
Missouri
9
i
New Hampshire . . .
14
39
i
I
New Mexico
New York .
North Carolina ....
North Dakota
Ohio
53°
«7
«i
7
21
234
II
6
H
33
32
7
13
44
22
12
37
47
I
H
i
«4
I
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
3
i
Texas
Utah
Virginia
4
I
2
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wvominer.
Total
i,956
14,096
2,548
IS2
"9-530
168
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The total includes 37 tri-weeklies, 301 semi-
weeklies, 5 tri-monthlies, 79 bi-weeklies, 272 semi-
monthlies, 5 semi-quarterlies, 49 bi-monthlies, and
182 quarterlies.
From reliable sources the following list of news-
papers, which were started prior to or during the year
1800 and which are still in existence, was compiled :
Portland
MAINE.
. Advertiser
Keene
Portsmouth . . .
Rutland
Windsor
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
.New Hampshire Sentinel .
Cheshire Republican
New Hampshire Gazette . ,
Journal
1785
1799
1793
1756
1793
VERMONT.
.Herald
.Vermont Journal. .
MASSACHUSETTS.
Greenfield Gazette and Courier 1 792
Haverhill Gazette 1798
Newburyport . . . Herald (weekly) 1793
Northampton .... Hampshire Gazette (weekly) 1 780
Pittsfield Berkshire County Eagle (weekly). . 1789
Sun 1800
Salem Gazette and Mercury 1768
Register 1800
Worcester Spy '77°
RHODE ISLAND.
Newport Mercury 1758
CONNECTICUT.
Bridgeport Republican Farmer 1 790
Hartford Courant 1 764
New Haven Connecticut Herald and Journal . . . 1766
Norwalk Gazette 1800
Norwich Courier 1 796
NEW YORK.
Ballston Spa Journal 1 798
Cambridge Washington County Post '798
Catskill Recorder 1792
Hudson Gazette 1785
Newburg Register 1796
Owego Gazette 1800
Troy Northern Budget 1797
Utica Herald and Gazette 1793
New York City. . . Commercial Advertiser 1 797
Shipping and Commercial List and
New York Prices-Current 1795
NEW JERSEY.
Newark Sentinel of Freedom 1796
New Brunswick . .Times 1792
Trenton State Gazette 1792
PENNSYLVANIA.
Chambers burg . . . Franklin Repository 179°
Gettysburg Star and Sentinel 1800
Greensburg Westmoreland Democrat 1 798
Lancaster Intelligencer 1794
Norristown Herald 1799
Philadelphia .... North American 1784
Pittsburg Commercial Gazette 1786
Reading Adler (German) 1 796
York Gazette 1796
DELAWARE.
Wilmington Delaware Gazette and State Journal . 1 784
MARYLAND.
Annapolis Maryland Gazette 1745
Baltimore America 1773
VIRGINIA.
Alexandria Alexandria Gazette 1 784
GEORGIA.
Augusta Chronicle 1785
OHIO.
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette 1 793
The total number in 1810 was 290; in 1850, 2526 ;
in 1860, 4051 ; in 1870, 5871 ; in 1880, 11,314; in
1890, 17,616 ; and in this year (1895), 19,530. The
circulation of any one daily newspaper did not, in
either 1795 or 1810, go beyond 900, and that of the
ordinary weekly or semi-weekly did not reach more
than 600. Supposing that there were 13 dailies in
1795, issuing 310 times a year, 18 semi-weeklies
and 7 tri-weeklies, sending out as many copies as a
weekly, and 150 weeklies, the circulation for the
year would be 9,985,400, and the value of the paper
used $62,410. The total number of copies issued of
all kinds of newspapers in 1880 was 2,067,848,209,
which might perhaps have been worth, as white
paper, $12,500,000. North states it at $15,131,-
603.84. The amount received for these papers was
probably not less than $50,000,000. While the cen-
sus attempts to make some estimates, it rarely does
so with entire accuracy. The total receipts in 1880
were stated at $39,136,306 for advertising and
$49,872,768 for subscriptions, making a grand total
of $89,009,074. Thus it will be seen that the adver-
tising brought in 44 per cent, and the subscriptions
56 per cent, of the total receipts.
The amount received from advertising in 1890
was $71,243,361, and from subscriptions and sales
$72,342,087, making a total of $143,585,448. The
advertising forms 49.62 per cent, and the subscrip-
tions and sales 50.38 per cent, of this amount. The
gain in advertising between 1880 and 1890 was about
82 per cent., and if, in the five years since then, the
ratio has been maintained, which I see no reason to
doubt, the advertising for this year will amount to
$100,000,000. The increase in the sales and sub-
scriptions was about 43 per cent, in ten years, and if
the same ratio has been maintained during the last
five, the receipts this year from that source will be
about $90,000,000. The steady gain of the adver-
tising is noteworthy, as the per cent, this year is
likely to be 52.63, and 47.37 from circulation.
Of the total quantity of paper consumed in print-
ing newspapers and periodicals, according to the
census of 1890, 59.08 per cent, was used on the
CHARLES H. TAYLOR.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
dailies; 30.79 per cent, on the weeklies, semi- week-
lies, and tri- weeklies ; and 10.13 Per cent, on the
monthlies, quarterlies, and all others. The aggre-
gate number of copies of papers printed during the
census year of 1890 for all classes of newspapers and
periodicals was 4,681,113,530, distributed as fol-
lows: dailies, 2,782,282,406, or 59.44 per cent.;
weeklies, 1,492,460,587, or 31.88 per cent.; semi-
weeklies, 57,637,353, or 1.23 per cent. ; tri-weeklies,
7>634>35°> or °-16 Per cent.; monthlies, 232,617,-
133, or 4.97 per cent.; quarterlies, 32,479,100, or
0.70 per cent.; all others, 76,002,601, or 1.62 per
cent, of the aggregate.
The patent insides, or papers printed partly in
some considerable city and partly in the town of
publication, played an important part in establishing
the country weekly press, which has been the kinder-
garten of the American newspaper public. Now the
stereotype-plate firms, which are making daily news-
papers possible in every town of 7000 or 8000 in-
habitants, instead of competing with the newspapers
of the larger cities, are really helping them, because,
while they satisfy the demand for local news, they
stimulate a desire for general news, which only the
big newspapers can satisfy.
When Max Maretzek was once asked if there
was any money in Italian opera, he said he knew
there was because he himself had sunk $300,000 in
it. Still money is made in opera, as in journalism.
Many millions have been made in American news-
papers, and many have been sunk. In New York,
for instance, in 1840 there were 18 daily newspapers,
with an aggregate circulation of 60,000. Since that
time no have been started. To-day there are 29
or 30 daily papers, each having a circulation fifteen
or twenty times greater than was enjoyed in 1840.
The late Erastus Brooks once told my friend, William
B. Somerville, of the Western Union Telegraph Com-
pany, that during his lifetime he had seen 67 daily
newspapers born and die in the city of New York
alone.
In Boston in 1846 there were 14 daily newspapers.
Now there are 10, and yet the average circulation
of the latter must be fifteen or twenty times greater
than that of their predecessors of 1846. During the
last twenty years I have seen more than $2,000,000
sunk in old and new daily papers in Boston.
Perhaps I may here properly consider the value of
a newspaper property. We do not seem to have any
fixed standard in this country. In England a news-
paper property is supposed to be worth the aggregate
of its net income for five years. So much depends
upon the personality and ability of the head of a
newspaper that this is considered a fair valuation.
In this country very poor properties have brought
very high prices, and very good properties have fre-
quently sold for low ones. The New York " Sun "
was sold as early as 1849 for $250,000. During the
management of Mr. Charles A. Dana ten times that
sum has been refused for it. At both periods there
were profits to warrant a good price. Mr. Joseph
Pulitzer, on the contrary, in 1883 paid $350,000
for an "opportunity" when he bought the New
York "World." The paper had lost from $50,000
to $100,000 a year for a great many years before
he bought it. The price paid at the time was ridicu-
lously high, as by the sale Jay Gould simply un-
loaded a liability. But it was the merest trifle when
one considers the possibilities which Mr. Joseph Pul-
itzer has developed in this paper, and the fact that
he has made it one of the greatest and most profitable
newspaper properties in the world.
The improvement in the methods for the quick
transmission of news has, of course, been one of the
most important factors in the progress of journalism,
and the great growth here has been since our Civil
War. Before the days of the telegraph there were
three quick methods :
1. Pony expresses, with frequent relays of fast
horses.
2. Carrier-pigeons were used almost exclusively in
getting European news to Boston and New York
from the steamship at Halifax, after the Cunard
Line began its trips, that being the nearest port to
Europe.
3. Special engines were often employed in the
early days of railroading.
In addition to these, steamboats were used, par-
ticularly between New England ports and New York,
and Albany and New York.
Henry J. Raymond, when a reporter for the
"Tribune," brought printers and type-cases with
him when coming to Boston to report a notable
speech by Webster, and returned by boat. In a
vacant room frames were set up, the cases upon
them, and then as fast as he could write a sheet it
would be put in type ; thus it was ready for instant
publication on arrival in New York. The New York
" Journal of Commerce " and the " Herald " intro-
duced the scheme of owning a swift-sailing yacht
with which to meet European vessels and get news
of the Old World.
One of the conspicuous enterprises of the cen-
tury was the overland express from New Orleans to
Baltimore which was established by Mr. A. S. Abell,
of the Baltimore " Sun." It comprised sixty blooded
170
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
horses. During the Mexican War he not only led
all other newspapers, but beat the government mails
by thirty hours. The government received its war
news from the " Sun " many hours ahead of its own
despatches.
In 1846, when the country was in a great war ex-
citement over the question of the Oregon boundary
line between Great Britain and the United States,
and the cry was " 54 40 or fight," there was a com-
bination of newspapers which sent a swift pilot-boat
to England. Obtaining its news, then highly impor-
tant, it hastened back. The cost was great, but not
greater than the popular approval won by this early
instance of newspaper enterprise. In the decade of
the first general extension of the railway and the in-
vention of the telegraph, which was between 1840
and 1850, American newspaper circulation increased
more than twofold, New York printing and selling
more papers than London. The newspapers were
the first to seize upon the telegraph in 1844, ^45,
and 1846, and they so crowded one another on the
few wires then strung that by 1850 they were forced
into press associations. These press associations
would gather all the news along the lines of tele-
graph, some one at the end of the lines reading
the newspapers from farther back in the country.
From these the important news was clipped and
sent with the rest. So it was with the cable, when
finally established in the latter sixties. The Boston
"News-Letter" in 1719 flattered itself because,
whereas general European news had been a year
late in its publication here, it had reduced the delay
to five months. The Franco- Prussian War in 1870
was lavishly reported by cable by special war cor-
respondents sent from the United States, and was
the first important cable news. W. W. Story, of
the Chicago "Times," while cable rates were yet
high, caused 8000 words of the New Testament, at
the time of its revision in England, to be cabled to
him ; and when the New Version reached New York
on the steamer, he had it telegraphed to him in its
entirety over twenty-one wires.
The extension of the telegraph lines, the increase
in this business, and the lowering of the rates which
has taken place within a few years, and the introduc-
tion of special wires, have made it possible for news-
papers to get an almost unlimited news service. The
New York Associated Press was formed in 1849, but
it made very little use of the telegraph until 1861,
partly because the public had not been accustomed
to it, and partly because the rates were so high.
Even as late as 1879 the night rate between San
Francisco and Boston was ten cents a word, between
Chicago and Boston five cents a word, and between
Washington and Boston two cents a word. Now
the rate between San Francisco and Boston is one
and three quarter cents a word, between Chicago
and Boston one half a cent a word, and between
Washington and Boston one third a cent a word.
The rates have actually been reduced sixty-six per
cent. The average rate paid by press associations is
about fourteen cents for 100 words, regardless of the
number of papers to which the matter is delivered.
In 1879 the Western Union Telegraph Company
handled 28,000,000 words of specials, at an average
rate of one and one half cents a word. Last year the
same line handled 212,000,000 words, at an aver-
age rate of one half a cent a word. Mr. Somerville
estimates that last year between 1,500,000,000 and
1,600,000,000 words were handled over the Western
Union lines for the newspapers, and by the leased
wires of the press associations. This year it will
probably be very much larger. The Postal Telegraph
Company handled about 82,250,000 words for the
press during the year ending July 31, 1895. This
does not include leased wires.
In July, 1866, the cable rates were $100 for twenty
words to newspapers and the public. The rate to
newspapers now is ten cents a word for day or
night service. The New York Associated Press,
which was established in 1849, — much of its effi-
ciency being due to Mr. James Gordon Bennett, —
was followed by other associations. Various changes
have been made from time to time, but the official
list now embraces the United Press, the Associated
Press, the New England Associated Press, the Maine
Associated Press, the New York State Associated
Press, the Southern Associated Press, the Trans-
Mississippi Associated Press, and the Union Asso-
ciated Press.
But promptness in gathering news would count
for little indeed if not coupled with equal prompt-
ness in its distribution. Fortunately the facilities
for rapid and wide-spread circulation of newspapers
have grown with the growing facilities for getting a
paper together. It is hardly more than thirty years
ago since the Boston publishers, at least, depended
upon boys or at most a wheelbarrow to carry their
papers to the railway stations and outlying news-
stands. But now a well-equipped and prosperous
newspaper must have the use of dozens of delivery
wagons. Moreover, where twenty-five years ago
there was one train leaving any of our great centers
of population, there now are a dozen trains to speed
each edition of the newspaper hot from the press to
the remotest hamlet of the contributary territory. But
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
171
even yet there are not trains enough, and the more
prosperous newspapers find it necessary to charter
specials of their own on Sundays and on days fol-
lowing important elections. One special newspaper
train in New England, for example, makes a run of
303 miles every Sunday morning during the summer
months.
The improvement in presses has, of course, had
much to do with the progress of newspapers. The
old idea that any shabby, insignificant, dirty building
would do for a newspaper has been exploded, fortu-
nately for the employees and the newspaper makers.
A newspaper building should serve two purposes : it
should be a credit to the city in which it is located,
and it should also be large enough, as a factory, to
produce an unlimited number of papers with due re-
gard to the health and comfort of the employees.
See how we have progressed in presses. The old
flat press of the colonial period, worked by a screw,
could print 50 papers an hour. The compound-lever
press came next, with a capacity of 2 50 an hour. The
revolving-cylinder press in 1814 brought the capa-
city up to 1000 an hour. The London " Times " first
achieved this " velocity." But in 1827 the " Times "
had a double-cylinder press that printed 2000 an
hour. In 1835 all American newspaper presses were
worked by hand, and popular papers actually could
not meet the daily demand upon them. Hoe's
lightning steam-press, patented in 1847, was the first
fast press obtained in the United States. It was
made at first with four, but finally with six, eight, and
even ten cylinders, the capacity of the latter being
30,000 an hour, printed on a single side. In 1865
the Bullock perfecting press was made in Philadel-
phia. This press made it possible to print a paper
from plates, both sides at once, at the rate of from
6000 to 10,000 an hour. In 1871 R. Hoe & Com-
pany completed a perfecting press which printed
from 10,000 to 12,000 eight-page papers an hour.
Then followed the double press, the quadruple press,
and now the sextuple, with a working capacity of
from 60,000 to 75,000 eight-page papers an hour,
and with attachments by which from four to forty-
eight pages may be printed. An octuple press is
now building. It will have the capacity of eight
single presses and will print from four to sixty-four
pages. Within a few years color-presses have been
made by R. Hoe & Company, and there is also the
Scott press for rapid color-work. The Hoe press
will print from 16,000 to 20,000 four-page papers
an hour, producing several colors at once. In 1861
the New York " Tribune " began stereotyping. Up
to that time a paper with a large circulation had to
go to press earlier than its lesser rivals, and thus was
at a great disadvantage in news.
Type-setting machines have at last come into gen-
eral use among all the leading papers of the country.
On these an expert operator can do the work of at
least three men, as compared with hand-work. Some
type-setting machines give a new cast of type each
day, and all permit a large increase of product at a
reduced cost. The machine most in use in the lead-
ing daily papers of the country is the Mergenthaler
linotype, while the Thome machine is used among
a great many of the smaller newspapers and in book
offices.
I have referred to the color-press, for now there
are newspaper offices actually equipped for printing
every hue of the rainbow. Yet excluding one tran-
sient illustrated daily in the late seventies, I am sure
it cannot be fifteen years since any newspaper at-
tempted regularly to illustrate its news even in sim-
ple black and white. Although the most ancient
journals printed what are called "stock cuts" in
their advertising columns, the process of cut making
was not adapted to the swiftness required by the
daily press until a time much more recent than we
can realize when we look at the profusely and often
admirably illustrated newspapers of to-day. Only
twelve or thirteen years ago the woodcut was the
only possible illustration, and since two and three
days were required to make such a cut, its unavail-
ability for newspaper uses is obvious. But with
present methods, still in a comparatively undevel-
oped state, midnight happenings are often pictured
in the regular morning editions of our papers.
No great progress was made in Sunday news-
papers until the time of the Civil War. This natu-
rally suggests a brief discussion concerning the size of
newspapers. It is the size of the Sunday newspaper
that is most extensively criticized, but this criticism
is beginning to be applied to the large daily papers
as well. The large newspaper is the only bargain
of which people complain that they are getting too
much for their money. It was only twenty years ago
that the then leading Sunday newspaper of Boston
increased its size from four to eight pages. On
the day following many very intelligent and eminent
citizens called at the office to express their indigna-
tion, and to insist that the paper was much too large,
and, in fact, larger than the people would stand. The
criticism has increased steadily with the growth of
the papers. In my opinion this is as absurd as it is
unjust. Equally idiotic is the carping against what
are called the large blanket sheets. People sigh for
the small compact newspaper of the olden times. If
172
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the publishers should give them a sample of that
kind of newspaper for a week there would probably
be indignation meetings in every city, and a falling
off in circulation which would bankrupt most of the
newspapers. The newspaper, and especially the Sun-
day issue, covers so much ground to-day that people
who have not carefully analyzed the situation have
no conception whatever of the necessity for the en-
largement which is coming year by year with the
natural growth of American journalism.
While I was preparing this article the great inter-
national yacht-race for the America's cup was in pro-
gress in New York. Every live newspaper in the
country was giving it pages each day, with illustra-
tions. The accounts were so accurate and faithful,
and the illustrations so correct, that a person who
could not attend the race (and this was only possi-
ble for a small fraction of the people) could follow it
from day to day as well as an actual spectator of the
contest. I had a curiosity to inquire how much space
the American press gave to the race in which the
yacht America first won this cup. The race occurred
August 22, 1851. The first news printed in Amer-
ica was in telegrams from Halifax in the issues of
September 4th, in the Boston and New York papers,
thirteen days after the race. The New York " Sun "
had 500 words about the race tacked on the end of
three quarters of a column about the markets and the
harvests and miscellaneous European news. On Sep-
tember 6th the " Sun " had 500 words copied from
the London papers. The " Tribune " of September
4th had a list of the passengers on the steamer which
arrived at Halifax, the summaries of the market,
labor notes, etc., followed by 250 words about the
contest, there being only eight lines devoted to the
actual description of the race. On September 1 5th
the "Tribune " gave a column about the race, clipped
from the London " Times." On September 6th the
New York " Herald " published three quarters of a
column from the London " Times." The " Evening
Post" of September 4th had 200 words about the
race at the end of a European despatch of a column.
On September i2th the "Post" gave about 500
words descriptive of the race from its correspondent
at Cowes.
In Boston the descriptions were even more meager.
On September 4th the " Journal " printed one and
one half inches about the race. The " Herald " had
half an inch on its second page, without a heading.
The "Post" had two and three quarter inches on
its second page, among other foreign news, with no
mention of the race in the heading. The " Adver-
tiser " had two despatches, one on the first page, at
the bottom of the cotton market, half an inch in
length, while on its second page it had three inches
or more in a general despatch beginning, " The news
from Europe is of little importance." The next
day, when the English mail had arrived in the office,
the " Advertiser " gave two thirds of a column, the
" Journal " two inches, and the " Herald " three
and one half inches. This gives one a good idea of
the small compact paper of the old days, for which
some people pretend to sigh. How would it answer
to-day ?
When Brooks assaulted Sumner, in 1854, 1 believe
the longest despatch in any Boston paper on this
startling and historic episode was less than half a
column, that being printed at the bottom of the
page.
Even as late as 1860, when Lincoln was nomi-
nated for the presidency at Chicago, one operator
at the Wigwam sent out all the press matter that
was offered to him in regard to it. In 1892, at the
convention in Chicago which nominated Mr. Cleve-
land, the Western Union line had 100 operators at
the convention hall, and in addition had a pony
express to carry matter to the main office. It also
sent from Chicago to newspapers throughout the
country, during the days just previous to the conven-
tion, about 17,000,000 words of press matter. This
was in addition to what the press associations sent
over numerous leased wires, and the work of the
Postal Telegraph Company. Did any one complain
that the convention was over-reported? And what
would have been done in newspaper offices with small
newspapers when a proper share of this avalanche
of news was received?
I cite these few examples ; I might give hundreds.
Do the people who criticize the size of newspapers
realize what it means when they are told that the
possible few hundred thousand dollars received in
1 8 10 for advertising will amount this year to nearly
$100,000,000 ? Where are you going to put all
this advertising in small compact newspapers ? If
a Sunday newspaper has from eight to twenty pages
of advertising to start with, how in the world are you
going to have a small compact newspaper ? These
pages of advertising are fully as interesting to many
thousands of readers as the news and miscellaneous
columns are. The fact is that the newspapers have
simply kept pace with the development of the coun-
try. Whatever the critics may think or say, the peo-
ple have indorsed this form of progress by buying
their newspapers in constantly increasing numbers.
The events that are covered now are numberless.
I have not the room to enumerate them. Further-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
173
more, the newspaper has the best talent among the
story writers of the world, and among professional
men of all kinds, and gives an immense mass of most
entertaining, interesting, and instructive reading in
addition to the news.
On the enterprise in giving news I need not dwell.
Shall we go back to the old days when a Boston re-
porter told his editor that Daniel Webster was going
to make an important speech in a town near by, and
asked if the paper had better send a man out to re-
port it ? The editor said he thought not, because
somebody would send in something about it within
a few days.
The realm of journalism is enlarging so constantly
that even the most enterprising and active men in it
can hardly comprehend its limits or possibilities. If
any thinker in any part of the world has a new idea
of importance, is not his greatest aim first to reach
the people through the universal press ? A news-
paper on Sunday, or even daily, is not meant to be
devoured as a whole by each reader, any more than
the guest at a hotel is expected to eat every dish on
the bill of fare. Men, women, and children find a
list of contents, and select to read that which inter-
ests them the most. That their wants are met with
intelligence and success is best shown by the fact
that millions more newspapers are circulated in every
year of our history.
After all, a jury decides most questions out of the
court as well as in it. The American people form
the jury which every newspaper and every business
man has to meet. It may be claimed that papers
print much matter which is useless and worthless.
Any newspaper which does this very soon finds itself
left behind in the race, and the people decide what
they want and will have. A man who likes a com-
mon-sense shoe for comfort frequently wonders why
the manufacturer should put a pointed toe shoe on
the market. As soon as he sees millions of them
worn in the streets the wonder ceases. Newspapers
simply meet the demand of the age in size and in
quality. I think that every person in this country
can certainly make up his mind that newspapers will
steadily grow larger instead of smaller. When the
limit will be reached no man knows.
The controllers of newspapers are frequently criti-
cized for what they print, and for the damage that
they do in the community. Journalists have a much
greater responsibility than other professional or busi-
ness men. I fully believe that they appreciate it.
They reach their ideal as nearly as they can. I be-
lieve firmly that the journalists of this country are
just as loyal and patriotic citizens, just as true men,
just as anxious to build up their communities, just
as eager to uplift and broaden and improve the peo-
ple, just as anxious to carry sunshine rather than sor-
row and grief into the families which they visit, as
are the same number of men in any other profes-
sion or any other line of business in these United
States.
ctVfl, Jaju^atr
CHAPTER XXVI
THE AMERICAN TRADE AND TECHNICAL PRESS
ONE of the most surprising of recent develop-
ments of the press in America is the growth
of trade and technical publications, which
now far surpass in number and value those of any
other country. Every line of trade, every science,
every art, has its organs, in many cases wielding a
large influence among the most enterprising and
active classes of the community, and enjoying a
degree of respect and prosperity commensurate with
the importance of the interests which they represent.
This great development which has taken place,
not within the century under review in this book,
but more properly within the life of even the younger
men of this generation, is one of the natural conse-
quences that have followed the enormous extension
that has taken place in almost every branch of pro-
duction and industry, coupled with the division of
labor, and the specialization which is characteris-
tic of all the industrial arts and sciences.
The general newspaper keeps the public informed
of the happenings in every country in the world,
bringing men into one great community. So the
technical press brings all professional and scientific
men, as it were, together in one vast university,
where the results of the thought, investigation, and
experiment of all are made available for the common
good. This is one principal reason why science
and the industrial arts are advancing at a rate never
before seen. The suggestion of a theory sets
thousands of minds in distant countries and different
environments instantly at work, and the theory is
soon either established or overthrown. An inven-
tion or discovery which is destined to modify, per-
haps revolutionize, a great industry, would probably
have little interest to the general public, and the or-
dinary newspapers would be unwilling, even if they
were competent, to treat it intelligently and fully.
The technical press, however, brings it to the atten-
tion of those interested, and is glad to devote the
necessary space to its discussion and illustration.
Every great trade has its organs which gather
from the principal markets at home and abroad all
that can throw light on its present and forecast its
future condition, usually giving extensive tables of
quotations which are inaccessible to the trade in any
other way. They inform their readers of the bear-
ing upon the trade of improvements in processes of
manufacture that may cheapen production ; they
describe and illustrate the changes in style that play
so large a part in many lines; they discuss public
questions bearing on their trade with a knowledge
of details and a grasp of the subject to be found
nowhere else; they chronicle in many cases the
gossip of the trade, and all strive to make each
issue a compendium of everything of interest re-
lating to the line with which they are concerned.
The editorial standard of the best technical and
trade papers is very high. Their readers are ex-
perts in the topics of which they treat. They must,
therefore, be edited by experts, and their contribu-
tions are often written by the ablest men in the
business. Their readers will rebel against any in-
accuracy of statement; and errors of judgment are
not forgotten. A mistake in a quotation may entail
loss on very many people, and will not be pardoned.
The best trade papers employ a large corps of re-
porters who must be skilful and enterprising to as-
certain the tendencies of the market before they have
become apparent. They have, very generally, con-
fidential relations with the leading minds of the
trade. They must, above all, avoid being the dupes
of interested persons. When a paper has established
a reputation for a broad-minded, accurate knowledge
of its trade, its influence is very great, and the lead-
ing dailies will quote it as the highest authority
when discussing the subjects of which it treats and
of which, in the nature of things, they cannot have
so intimate a knowledge. Even when they do not
quote it, they usually derive their information in
large part from it. It will be studied in the com-
174
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
170
mittee rooms of Congress, and statesmen will form
their opinions from its information, and fortify their
arguments by quotations from its pages.
As a medium for advertising, the trade and tech-
nical press occupies a unique position. The adver-
tiser can select the publication which goes to the class
he desires to reach, whether in Maine or California,
and he knows that each issue will be carefully con-
sulted and read, the advertisements not being neg-
lected, for its readers use it for business purposes,
and are as eager to buy the best, the newest, and
the cheapest, as he is to sell. As a result the lead-
ing journals of this class have always a large line of
advertising, and it is, I believe, more generally profit-
able to the advertiser, if he use care and judgment,
than that addressed to the general public in the
ordinary newspapers.
The two fields, however, do not conflict. To
reach the public it is necessary to use the publications
they read; to reach a particular class, the special
journal. But the advertiser must be sure the publi-
cations he spends his money in can really render
him the service he pays for. The majority of the
candidates for his business will, upon examination,
prove to be but little worthy of it. If from the total
were deducted those which are unsuccessful efforts
to compete with the leading journals, and those
which can only be properly characterized as traps,
designed in fraud, to catch his advertising, the num-
ber would be very much reduced. If he has no
sufficient knowledge himself of the field he desires
to reach, his only safety lies in investigation and
consultation with those who are in a position to in-
form him. " Claims " must go for nothing. I know
of one weekly publication which enjoyed a large ad-
vertising business for years, and was very profitable,
under a claim of 15,000 circulation, when they never
had as many as 250 subscribers.
The growth of the American trade and techni-
cal press has been largely coincident with that of the
trade and industry of the country. The early news-
papers of America were devoted entirely to politics,
war, and foreign news. The editors of that day did
not know how to pick up the interesting news which
was at their doors. Rarely was anything published
in a commercial way, and only three or four times a
year was the market price of country produce given.
In the "New York Gazette" of March 4, 1739,
there were quotations of flour, rum, wheat, corn,
molasses, tea, and sugar, and it stated that cotton,
wool, turpentine, and indigo were not in the market.
Other newspapers gave brief reports occasionally in
the same way. They rarely extended to twenty
lines. This continued to be the rule up to the end
of the Revolutionary War, and for some years after,
although a larger tabulated market list, sometimes
one or two columns in length, was given toward
the end of this period by some daily journals.
Among others which did this was the " New York
Diary," published by Samuel Loudon, and the
" United States Gazette," published in Philadelphia
by Enos Bronson.
The desire to have this information in detail, and
to have it every week, was the occasion of the found-
ing of the " Shipping List " and of the " Price Cur-
rent," at the beginning two distinct publications.
These were afterward consolidated in the " Shipping
and Commercial List and New York Price Cur-
rent," the oldest commercial paper in America, and
of which this volume celebrates the centenary.
They were not absolutely the first in date, but were
preceded by others of the same kind. Frederic
Hudson, in his comprehensive book entitled "Jour-
nalism in America," states that the " Boston Prices-
Current and Marine Intelligencer, Commercial and
Mercantile," the publication of which was begun on
the sth of September, 1795, was the first regular and
legitimate commercial paper issued in this country.
It preceded the " New York Price Current," begun
on December 21, 1795, a little over three months.
It did not, however, continue as a commercial paper
later than 1798, when it embraced politics, and a
year or two afterward changed its name. Each
of these journals was small, and required little time
on the part of the printer, who was still the only
editor. Several other price-lists of this kind were
begun in early years and were maintained for a long
time; two are still existing — one in Philadelphia
and one in New York.
Meager and insufficient as they were, they sup-
plied the needs of the public until the advent of the
" Journal of Commerce," in 1827. This newspaper,
although reasonably well conducted, was not suc-
cessful until two new men — Hale and Hallock —
took it. The latter was the editor, and Hale was
the manager. It speedily became more utilitarian,
paying great attention to all that could interest com-
mercial men, and its markets were well reported.
It was as good as could be expected until New
York grew greater, until something of modern meth-
ods was known in journalism, and until improve-
ments in machinery rendered possible the produc-
tion of a newspaper easily and at a moderate cost.
David M. Stone began reporting the money mar-
ket about forty-five years ago. His previous expe-
rience on newspapers had been small, and he was
176
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
chiefly known as a writer of poems and light
sketches. When he began his reporting of Wall
street, he did it at much greater length than his pre-
decessors and rivals had ever attempted, and it was
followed up with extreme thoroughness. Little had
been given relating to the stock market as far back
as 1830 ; the first newspaper which made a specialty
of this line being the " New York Herald," at its
beginning in 1833. The "Boston Post" shared
with the " Journal of Commerce " and the " Her-
ald " in the thoroughness of its ship news. The
" Philadelphia North American " and the " Balti-
more American " devoted much attention to these
topics. Many general commercial weeklies have
since been begun, covering every field.
Something more, however, was needed than this.
However good a general journal may be, it can only
cover the whole field incompletely. The last busi-
ness directory of New York gives nearly three thou-
sand occupations sufficiently large to be carried
on in trade or manufactures in an office or shop
apart from other business. It might be thought by
a superficial observer that these callings could be
classed together, and that they might be grouped
somewhat as they are in the census, under manu-
facturing, commerce, etc. But the commerce in
naval stores, for instance, is entirely different from
that in dry-goods; and the manufacture of shoes
bears no analogy to that of Bessemer steel. The
maker or dealer desires chiefly to know what is go-
ing on in his own calling; what others are doing in
it; what new things are coming out; what competi-
tion he is likely to meet ; what the prices are for the
goods he handles, and what the price of the raw
material he needs may be, together with general
news of the commercial world. This he requires to
be given with fullness and particularity. No weekly
or daily can be so planned that it can include this
special information among other topics, for the jour-
nal would be too large for convenience, and the
subscriber would care nothing about the remainder
of its contents.
It was not until 1830 that any newspaper was be-
gun bearing exclusively upon one commercial subject.
It was the " American Railway Journal " of New
York. A few others appeared and disappeared
in the interval which succeeded before the first
specialty commercial journal which still exists was
founded in 1846. Conditions were not favorable,
and it was only after long struggles that what is now
the " Dry-Goods Economist " was at last on firm
ground. The previous journals were weak and in-
efficient, and of no particular use either to him who
sought for abstract information, or to him who de-
sired to increase his sales or purchase his goods
more cheaply. This periodical began in the
largest trade — one which now in its subdivisions
prints many journals ; but it then had difficulty in
making both ends meet, or in attracting the atten-
tion of either buyers or sellers. The next impor-
tant journals were those in the hardware trade and
in leather, now known as the " Shoe and Leather
Reporter" and "The Iron Age." After some
years of struggle their position was secure, and their
value was perceived, not only by those in the same
occupation, but by those in other callings, and similar
journals soon began to multiply.
The philosophy of such a journal is that it masses
together the information of the day in a way to ren-
der it pecuniarily profitable to the reader, if in the
trade. It is of importance that the merchant or
manufacturer should know the cost of his raw com-
modities, and the fluctuations in the value of all
that enters into them. The price of coal affects the
woolen manufacturer, for he must buy large quanti-
ties of it. A war in the East Indies between Hol-
land and England affects the canned-goods manu-
facturer, for it sends up the price of tin ; and a series
of earthquakes in Sicily enhances the price of many
chemicals, for it makes sulphur more difficult to ob-
tain. Trade at the present day is carried on with
more accurate knowledge of the sources of supply,
the quantity which may be expected, the prices at
which an article is selling, the cost of transporta-
tion, and the probable amount of competition which
will be met, than it was half a century since.
Every source of competition and supply must be
watched by the commercial man of to-day, if he is
to be more than a mere retailer, and the knowledge
is most surely and amply obtained through a trade
journal. How else can he know what is going on ?
Suppose the French government publishes a book
on the diseases of grapes, all information being gath-
ered by experts. Will the grower in America know
of this unless his trade journal tells him of it ? It is
in French, and he cannot read it even if he hears
of it; but his journal gives a summary of its facts
and shows its conclusions. This may be worth
many thousands of dollars to him ; but he could have
no knowledge of such facts without a newspaper.
Much of the advancement of American science
is owing to the technical press. What the ancients
knew upon any subject has to a great extent been
lost to us because their writers had no means of
supplementing or aiding each other. A discovery
in history, art, or science was made, but was not
DAVID WILLIAMS.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
177
specifically recorded in some book. There was no
method of giving bare announcements, of com-
munkuting interesting facts to those engaged in
the same studies, or of preserving trifles. This con-
tinued to be the case to a less extent long after the
discovery of printing, although there was, then, of
course, an opportunity of publishing a pamphlet,
and there were universities in which many branches
were taught. Such was the only course open to
Americans until the advent, in 1818, of Professor
Silliman's periodical, the " American Journal of
Science," in New Haven, and the " Journal of
the Franklin Institute," in Philadelphia, in 1825.
Soon medical journals sprang up in Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia, and are now to be found
everywhere. A little later druggists' journals were
begun. In law, a periodical was founded in New
York eighty years ago, but legal journals were not
common until nearly half a century later. The
"Scientific American" was founded in 1847. Since
1840 some scientific or semi-scientific journals have
been begun each year, and various professional
journals, which have had no relation to science,
have also been originated.
No means exists for finding out the exact posi-
tion of the trade and technical press in 1860 or
1865, for no newspaper directory was then pub-
lished. It may be estimated, however, that there
were in 1860 about twenty trade papers and fifty
other technical papers. In 1872 there were in the
United States 124 trade papers and 132 other tech-
nical papers in forty-one different lines. Among these
are not included religious, agricultural, educational,
or sporting journals, although these are also class
journals of a certain kind.
The rate of multiplication has not ceased since,
the total number of technical journals now being
over seven hundred, and of trade papers over a
thousand. The wide field they cover will be seen
by the following list of subjects :
Architecture, anthropology, astronomy, the army
and navy, agents, art trade, advertising, banks,
botany, brewing, building, building and loan asso-
ciations, butchering, brickmaking, books, book-
binding, bookkeeping, blacksmithing, carpentry,
carriages, carpets, cabinetmaking, clocks and
watches, chemistry, collecting (objects of art or
science), commerce and finance, china decorating,
clothing, coal, catering, confectionery, crockery,
cemetery management, cooperage, cordage, crops,
corporation reports, credits, custom house news,
drugs, dry-goods, dentistry, the deaf, dumb, and
blind, electrotyping, engineering, exporting, express
business, elevator and grain trade, entomology,
economics, electricity, furniture, fruit, fire protec-
tion, fish, fancy goods and notions, furnishing
goods, fashions, gas, groceries, glassware, geology,
hardware, hops, hosiery, hotel keeping, hairdress-
ing, history, hats and caps, iron and steel, insurance,
ice trade, jewelry, law, ladies' wear, lumber, leather,
lithography, laundrying, manufactures, mathemat-
ics, mechanics, mental philosophy, machinery,
microscopy, mining, mineralogy, metals, milling,
music, nature, nursing, numismatics, newspapers,
optics, oology, ornithology, produce, printing, pa-
per, plumbing, provisions, patents, postal matters,
paints, power, photography, philately, philology,
psychology, popular science, railroads, real estate,
storekeeping, stationery, street-railways, soap mak-
ing, sugar manufacturing, slate trade, spirits, science,
saving-banks, shoes, shipping, social science, sanita-
tion, statistics, stocks, tanning, trade-marks, tobacco,
tailoring, textile manufacturing, upholstering, un-
dertaking, weaving, woodenware, wine, wall paper,
weather, and whaling.
Every important field has several publications.
For example, there are thirty-seven now in gro-
ceries, although the first was not begun until 1869;
and there are probably fifty in printing, although
no printers' journal appeared before 1855.
It is too soon to tell what the future of the trade
and technical press will be, but it is apparent to
those who are most conversant with its history, and
who have devoted the largest study to its details,
that the development of the past will be continued
in the future. Every group of thinkers, every line
of trade, every one interested in certain kinds of
knowledge, will require better means of commu-
nication, a more thorough analysis of facts, and
more certain methods of chronicling the occur-
rences of the day. Many new lines will doubtless
be represented in the press, while it is not unlikely
that the increasing demands of both readers and
advertisers will drive out of the field many of the
weak and questionable publications which are now
parading under the banner of the trade and techni-
cal press. The pace will be a hard one, and only
those can keep it up whose business is based on a
substantial foundation and managed with unflag-
ging energy, intelligence, and enterprise.
CHAPTER XXVII
AMERICAN MINES
A)ENTURY seems but a brief period in the
history of an industry in this old world of
ours, and though mining, next to agricul-
ture, has been an occupation from the earliest times,
when Tubal-cain was " an instructor of every artifi-
cer in brass and iron," nevertheless, when we con-
sider mining as an " industry," in the modern accep-
tation of the term, a few hundred years reach far
back toward its commencement, even in the older
countries. But a single century ago an American
mining industry had not been born, though gold
was then produced in this country in an irregular
and unsystematic manner, and bituminous coal,
which had been known to exist in Illinois as early
as 1670, and in Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Penn-
sylvania certainly as early as 1770, or a century
later, and anthracite, which had been discovered in
Pennsylvania in 1768, were mined, though in very
small quantities, for the use of blacksmiths, at various
points throughout the country.
The American mining industry may be said to
have commenced about three quarters of a century
ago (1820), when Virginia was producing nearly
50,000 tons of bituminous coal a year, and all the
rest of the country perhaps 15,000 tons more, and
when the output of anthracite in Pennsylvania
amounted to 1965 tons, of which 365 tons were
shipped that year down the Lehigh River to Phila-
delphia, a shipment which is generally assumed to
have been the commencement of the anthracite trade.
From this modest and recent beginning the Ameri-
can mining industry has advanced with a marvelous
rapidity, until in 1 894, a year of unprecedentedly low
prices, its products in their first marketable form had
a value of $553,356,499, a sum which, though less
by ten per cent, than the value of a smaller output
the previous year, was still much greater than the
value of the mineral production of any other coun-
try in the world.
This marvelous growth of the industry, and the
fact that nearly every mineral and metal is now
produced in this country at a cost as low, and in
most cases lower than in any European country,
while the wages of the workmen who produce them
here are far higher than in any other country, must
be recognized as demonstrations of skill, knowledge,
and enterprise without equal in any other part or
age of the world. It is natural, therefore, that the
eyes of the whole industrial world should be turned
toward the American mining industry for instruc-
tion in the arts that have produced these standing
miracles.
TABLE OF PRODUCTS, BY DECADES.
YEAR.
COAL.
MET. TONS.
PlG-lRON.
GROSS TONS.
LKAD.
GROSS TONS.
COPPER.
GROSS TONS.
QUICKSILVER.
FLASKS OF 76^
LBS.
GOLD.
Oz. FINE.
SILVER.
Oz. FINE.
PETROLEUM.
BARRELS OF 42
GALS.
1820
67,000
409,000
2,OOO,OOO
7,500,000
13,000,000
29,940,607
66,813,453
141,589,080
154,229,383
1830
165,000
347,000
563.755
821,222
1,665,178
3.835.!9°
9,202,702
6,657,388
7.163
15,000
19,500
14,000
15.919
87,344
126,888
H3.332
1840
40,000
2,418,965
2,225,447
2,418,965
1,741,500
1,923,619
25,000
3«-673
116,019
12,375,360
30,320,000
54,SI7,440
49,846,875
1850
650
7,200
I2,6oo
27,000
119,000
161,510
7,723
IO.OOO
30.077
59,926
22,926
30440
i860
5OO,OOO
5,200,000
26,286,123
45,822,672
4S,527-336
1870
1880
1800 ..
1804
178
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
179
Let us glance at the course of the industry as
outlined in this table, and call attention to a few of
the elements that have characterized its marvelous
story.
Coal mining commenced in this country in Vir-
ginia, where, as has been said, the output as early
as 1820 was about 50,000 gross tons a year. The
rest of the country is estimated to have added to
this 15,000 tons of bituminous coal, and the anthra-
cite trade commenced with an output of 1965 tons.
At that time we were sixth in the list of coal pro-
ducers. Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Ger-
many, and Great Britain exceeded the United States
in output. Ten years later, in 1830, the total pro-
duction of coal here exceeded 400,000 tons, and
we had already passed Austria-Hungary, and then
ranked fifth. In 1840 our output had nearly
reached 2,000,000 tons, the demand for iron making
and steam-engines having greatly stimulated the
production. In 1850, with an output of about
7,500,000 tons, we had already passed Belgium,
France, and Germany, and held, as we have since
done, the second place. Great Britain was then
producing about 54,000,000 tons, or more than
seven times as much as the United States ; but we
have since gained so rapidly on her that it seems
certain that by the close of the century, or in the
year 1900, the United States will, with an annual
production of about 200,000,000 tons, pass Great
Britain, and hold from that time forward the first
place as the producer of this " foundation of mod-
ern civilization."
In attaining this enormous output the mines have
grown to great extent, though they have reached
but moderate depths, no coal-mine in the United
States to-day having a vertical depth of 2000 feet.
Yet, with even this depth, some of our mines are the
most "fiery" or gaseous in the world, and have
called for a perfectionment of mine ventilation
probably unequaled in any of the older countries.
It is no uncommon thing to find a Pennsylvania
anthracite mine circulating 250,000 cubic feet of air
per minute through a single fan. This is done with
a very low water-gauge, thanks to the large sectional
areas of the airways which are possible in our great
coal-beds.
Though in no other coal country do the mines
produce such enormous amounts of explosive gases,
yet in none are serious explosions so rare, because
the mines are so thoroughly ventilated by enormous
fans and by skilful distribution of the air in the
workings. Half a century ago there was scarcely
any systematic ventilation, and there was no official
inspection of mines until after the " Avondale dis-
aster" in the Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, in
1 868, when 1 1 o men were suffocated in the mine
by the burning of a shaft and shaft-house, the fire
having been caused by a ventilating furnace in the
mine. This " accident " enlisted attention, already
directed by the mining journals, to the need of better
ventilating appliances, and the writer of these lines
then aided in drawing up for the Pennsylvania leg-
islature the first law enacted in America requiring
efficient ventilation of mines and the appointment
of State inspectors of mines to see to its enforce-
ment.
Fires in mines are sometimes caused by powder-
blasts (the use of explosives being necessary in the
hard anthracite), but they are quickly extinguished
by the wonderful skill that constant practice has
engendered. Water is led down the shafts and
through the mine in pipes and hose, so that when
such a fire occurs, water under the pressure of many
hundred feet head is instantly thrown on it. In
pumping machinery great improvements have been
made, until now the old Cornish standard of 100,-
000,000 pounds of water raised one foot high by
the expenditure of 1 1 2 pounds (one hundredweight)
of coal has been far surpassed.
The system of mining in universal use in the
anthracite mines, and in general use in the bitumi-
nous beds, is what is known as chamber and pillar
work, " chambers," " rooms," or " stalls " being ex-
cavated in the coal, the intermediate portions of the
bed being left as pillars to support the roof or rock
over the coal. In a few — too few — places the " long-
wall " system, under which the whole of the coal-bed
is excavated and the roof allowed to fall, has been
adopted. No radical improvements have been made
in the systems of coal mining, which, especially in
the anthracite fields, are extremely and disgracefully
wasteful of coal. It is estimated that the coal and
coal-dirt wasted in the culm banks in the anthra-
cite fields since the mines were opened amount to
thirty-five per cent, of the entire production of the
mines, or to some 400,000,000 tons. At present
this loss is smaller, but it may be counted at thirty
per cent, of the coal shipped to market. Timber is
still used for props, and in all the anthracite and in
most of the soft-coal mines powder is used for
breaking down the coal. In mechanical appliances
vast progress has been made. The tools of the coal
miner are better and lighter here than in any other
country, and auger-drills in the anthracite, and coal
cutters of various designs in the bituminous mines,
are now in common use.
180
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Underground haulage is done on roads laid with
heavy steel rails, and with one or other of the fol-
lowing means : mules or horses, steam-locomotives,
wire ropes, and, more recently, electric motors.
Hoisting is effected with abundant power and at
comparatively high speeds, though, since none of
our coal-mines yet attains a vertical depth of 2000
feet, very rapid hoisting cannot be practised. It is
in the handling of the cars that the greatest econ-
omy is shown. Most of the coal is hoisted to the
surface in the mine cars. In the anthracite mines
Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, in one month of
which the details are at hand. This shaft has a
hoisting depth of 470 feet. During the month of
October, 1891, this colliery was operated twenty-
four days and one and one half hours (ten hours
constituting a day), and it shipped 70,152 tons of
coal, to which we must add, as already mentioned,
about thirty per cent, for coal and coal-dirt sent to
the waste or culm banks. This would give us a
total of 91,150 tons hoisted from the shaft in the
month, or 3798 tons a day, or nearly 380 tons an
Tons
500
400
300
200
100
18
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RODU'CTION OF COAL PER ANNUM
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where vertical shafts are used a single car (from 80
to 100 cubic feet capacity) is raised at a time on the
cage. In some cases the cage with the car on it is
dumped automatically, but in more cases the car is
pushed off the cage and run some distance to the
breaker, where it is dumped. The time occupied
in changing the cars, taking an empty car off and
putting a loaded one on at the bottom, and the re-
verse at the top, of the shaft, — that is, from the time
the cage emerges from the shaft until it disappears, —
is about seven seconds only, and this wonderful speed
is kept up hour after hour through the day.
I may cite as an example of this almost incredible
work the hoisting at the Nottingham shaft, in the
hour. Each car (eighty-six cubic feet), therefore,
carried about 2.88 tons in addition to its own
weight, which was 2250 pounds. In all 3.88 tons
were moved at top and bottom of shaft within about
seven seconds. Since there were two hoistways in
the shaft, one car going up while the other went
down, and the average hoist per day of ten hours
was 1318 cars, or 132 cars an hour, a single trip
was made in about fifty-four and one half seconds,
including the changing of the car at the top and
bottom, and the time required to hoist the 470 feet.
The whole of the 70,152 gross tons shipped (or 91,-
153 tons hoisted) came through this one shaft. To
show that this was not merely a spurt for a month
RICHARD P. ROTHWELL.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
181
it is sufficient to say that in June of the same year
the average hoist through the month was 1305 cars
a clay, and shipments were 66,714 tons in twenty-
three days and three and one half hours ; in July,
in twenty days and eight and one half hours, 57,-
145 tons were shipped, 26,468 cars being hoisted;
in August eighteen days and nine hours were worked,
and 23,527 cars were hoisted and 51,031 tons of
coal shipped. This record is believed to far exceed
anything ever done in any other country in the
world, though it has been almost equaled in other
collieries in Pennsylvania.
It is by such extraordinary speed— rendered pos-
sible only by the adoption of ingenious mechanical
and labor-saving devices — that the output per man
in the American coal-mines exceeds that in any
other part of the world, as shown in the diagram on
the preceding page ; and that, in spite of the pay-
ment of much higher day wages, the cost of coal is
less than anywhere else in the world.
The anthracite coal is all broken in rolls and
sized in various classes in screens for the trade — a
custom which, while rendering its use much more
convenient, adds to its cost and to the waste of the
coal, as already stated.
The economy with which coal is mined in this
country may be illustrated by a certain colliery
which produces about 1800 tons of bituminous coal
per day of ten hours. The miner is paid twenty-
five cents per ton for mining and loading in the mine
car, and the total cost delivered on the railroad cars
is about forty-five cents per gross ton. A total cost
of forty cents per ton is reached at some of our
other collieries, and a selling-price of sixty cents per
gross ton has enabled certain mines to pay very
handsome dividends for a number of years past,
though miners earn from $1.50 to $2.25 a day.
The actual average selling-price of all the coal
produced in the States of Pennsylvania and West
Virginia in 1894 was only seventy cents per ton,
while in several other States it averaged seventy-five
to eighty cents per ton ; and the average selling-
price of all the bituminous coal mined in the United
States in 1894 was only eighty-eight cents per short
ton, or say ninety-six cents per ton of 2240 pounds.
In Great Britain the average price of coal at the
mines in 1894 was $1.59 per ton, and in 1893 it
was $1.63 per ton. The average wages paid to all
men working in the coal-mines of Great Britain in
1894 were $5.50 per week, as compared with about
$12 per week in Pennsylvania. It is quite evident,
then, that the cost of mining coal, as well as other
minerals, depends much more upon other things
than on the rates of wages of the workmen. With
wages fully twice as high in the United States, the
selling-price of coal at the mines is just about one
half as great as that at English mines.
Anthracite is, of course, much more costly than
bituminous coal to mine and to prepare for market.
Nevertheless it is mined and prepared at a total
cost of from $1.20 to $1.40 per gross ton, as against
about $1.40 to $2 per ton at the same mines in
1830. Miners earn now from $1.75 to $2.25 per
day, and laborers $i to $1.75 ; while wages at the
anthracite mines in 1830 were $i per day for min-
ers and eighty-two cents for laborers. It must also
be remembered that in 1830 the mines were all
working above water-level, requiring neither pump-
ing, hoisting, nor much ventilation. The progress
made in coal mining is thus shown in an actual
large reduction in cost, while the difficulties and
many of the elements of cost, including wages, have
greatly increased.
The production of coal and the growth of the in-
dustry in the United States as compared with that
in other countries are shown graphically in the dia-
gram on the following page.
The mining of other minerals than coal has
shown a progress both in economy and in extent of
production which is, in some respects, still more
wonderful than that shown in the coal industry.
The iron-ore industry probably commenced with
the shipment of ore from Jamestown, Va., to Eng-
land in 1608, and was continued with the produc-
tion of iron in this country. The mining of iron ore
in the early years was confined to a small and inter-
mittent output from open-pit work on brown hema-
tite or bog-ore deposits, requiring no mining skill.
Iron was produced solely in bloomeries previous to
1724 ; and after that pig-iron was produced in blast-
furnaces. The cost of mining ore in open pits, and
with the low wages prevailing in those days, was
much higher than it is to-day, when in the red-ore
mines of Alabama thirty-five cents per ton is a com-
mon cost figure, and in the great Mesabi iron-ore
mines of Minnesota, where the average cost of min-
ing several million tons of ore that will run sixty to
sixty-two per cent, in iron will this year probably
not exceed fifty cents per ton ; and there are mines
where, after the stripping of the bed has been done,
the actual cost of mining is at present less than ten
cents per ton. The industry, which was formerly car-
ried on laboriously by hand labor and wheelbarrows,
with an output of a few tons a day, now employs
steam-shovels and railroads in open pits, and the
output per shovel per day (ten hours) is 1500 to
182
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
2000 tons, and there is a record of 3200 tons of ore have been made. The system of mining now most
having been loaded into the railroad-cars by a single in favor where the ore is not very hard is the work-
steam-shovel in ten hours. The influence of the ing in chambers, which are kept full of ore as the
METRIC TONS
180,000,000
160,000,000
150,000,000
140,000,000
130,000,000
120,000,000
J.10,000,000
100,000,000
90,000,000
80,000,000
70,000,000
60,000,000
_^ \
/ \ ' M.ETRIC TONS
we
RLD'S PRODUCTION
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rate of wages on the cost of mining in such cases is excavation goes on. Thus no timber is required,
infinitesimal. and when the chamber is opened through to the
In regular underground mining in the iron-mines mined ground above it, the ore is drawn out from
of Michigan and Minnesota great improvements it, the roof allowed to fall, and then the pillars are
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
183
worked out from the top down by what is known as
the " caving system." In other cases the whole of
the ore is worked by the caving system in horizontal
slices, commencing at the top, the roof being allowed
to fall as the ore is mined out. By these methods
and other improvements ore that only a few years
ago cost over $2 per ton is now mined at a cost of
seventy-five cents to $i per ton. The average value
at the mines of all the ore mined in the United States
in 1894 (nearly 12,000,000 tons) was but $1.10 per
ton. A large proportion of the 14,000,000 tons of
ore which will be mined in this country in the cur-
rent year (1895) will be quarried or mined in open
pits as described above, as is all the limestone used
for flux in the blast-furnaces.
The cost of quarrying stone has been so greatly
reduced that contracts for rock-work on the great
Chicago drainage canal, where the sides of the ex-
cavation are cut down in smooth vertical walls by
channeling-machines, are made at only seventy-three
cents per cubic yard, or say thirty-seven cents per
ton.
Lead-ore mining is carried on for the most part
for the winning of silver as well as lead, and the
cost of lead is therefore affected by the values of the
other metals gained. Nevertheless in Missouri and
Kansas, where ores are mined for lead alone, this
has been mined, concentrated, smelted, and sold
with profit even below three and one quarter cents
per pound of lead, though the grade of the rock
scarcely exceeded six per cent. Where the ore is
somewhat richer it is estimated that the mines can
compete in cost with Spanish mines, which are oper-
ated with labor costing about one third as much as
here. The reductions in cost of both lead and zinc
are, however, due rather to improvements in metal-
lurgy than in mining. The price of pig-lead, which
in 1820 was 6.36 cents per pound, was in 1894 but
3.29 cents per pound.
Perhaps in no other department of the mineral
industry has progress been so rapid or so great as
in copper mining and metallurgy. Though the
existence of great deposits of native copper in
Michigan was known to the early Jesuit mission-
aries, yet copper mining as an industry had its
modest beginning about 1846, or just half a cen-
tury ago, when Michigan produced 26 tons of the
metal, and all the rest of the country produced only
124 tons. In 1850 the total output of the United
States was only 650 tons, and in 1880 it was 27,000
tons. Since then there has been an enormous de-
velopment of this industry, the output going up at
a wonderful rate; in 1890 it had already reached
the enormous figures of 119,609 gross tons, and in
1894, 161,510 tons, or almost equal to the aggre-
gate production (163,349 tons) of all the other
countries in the world, as shown in the diagram on
the following page. This country has, indeed, now
become the great source of supply for Europe, and
the regulator of the copper markets of the world.
The reduction in the cost of copper, as in that of
every other mineral product in the United States,
has been due to increased skill, knowledge, and
economy in administration, and has been almost
everywhere accompanied by higher wages and a
general betterment in the condition of the workmen.
Lake copper, the standard brand, which in 1860 was
worth 22.25 cents per pound, in 1870 was sold at
20.74 cents; in 1880 it was worth 20.12 cents per
pound; while in 1890 it brought 15.75 cents per
pound, and in 1894 only 9.55 cents per pound, all
in New York. Yet with these prices the output
constantly and rapidly increased, and the producers
made handsome profits, even greater with the lower
prices of recent years than with the high values of
the earlier days. What these profits have been may
be judged from a few examples. The Quincy Cop-
per-Mine, in Michigan, has a capital of $200,000
paid in, and has paid in dividends no less than
$7,690,000. It has for many years paid from
$200,000 to $450,000 a year, or from 100 per cent,
to 225 per cent, a year on the money invested.
The Calumet and Hecla Mine, with a paid-in capi-
tal of $1,250,000, has already divided dividends
to the amount of $43,850,000, and pays regularly
about $2,000,000 a year, or 150 per cent., on the
capital invested.
The copper-mines in Michigan are the best ex-
amples known of skilful and economical mining.
They are much the deepest mines in the world ;
the new Calumet and Hecla shafts are now more
than 4800 feet in vertical depth, while the Tama-
rack shafts are 4400 feet, and the new Tamarack
shafts will be 5000 feet.
We may take the Atlantic Mine as affording per-
haps the best illustration of what the art of mining
has attained in this country. This mine, which in
1874 produced 69,728 tons of ore, produces now
more than five times as much, or 315,626 tons of
ore a year. The cost of sloping has been reduced
from $17.33 per fathom in 1874 to $3.42 in 1894,
and drifting per foot from $14.42 to $4.23. The
introduction of rock-drills and high explosives was
not at once a great economy; but as experience
was gained, and as the contract miners made higher
wages by their use, the economy became more and
184
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
more apparent, and affected not alone the cost of has undergone a progress scarcely less important
breaking ground per foot or per fathom, but, through than that shown in drifting and sloping. More
the rapidity with which ground was opened and work per man per day is accomplished through the
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a given output was reduced, and the work in every
department was pushed with a degree of energy
heretofore unknown.
It would be absolutely impossible to attain the
great output of to-day by the old methods of work,
no matter how many men were employed. The
general conduct of the work in and about the mines
the high-pressure energy infused in every department
by the example of one department where men strive
to earn extra high wages by the use of improved
appliances. The great reduction in the cost of work
has been accompanied by an increase in the remu-
neration of the workmen from an average of $46 per
month in 1881 to $51 per month in 1891.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
186
Comparing the costs in 1874 and 1894, we find:
1874. 1894.
Tons stamped 69,728 315,626
Average yield of ore 98% 70%
Cost of mining and all surface expenses,
taxes, etc $2.32 $°-75
Transportation three miles to mill .18 .03
Concentrating .99 .23
Freight to market, smelting, selling, etc. .35 .18
Total cost mining expenses $3.82 $i. 19
When the work of mining a hard rock in a mine
nearly 2000 feet deep, the transporting of the rock
to a mill three miles distant, the crushing and con-
centrating of the ore, the smelting of the concen-
trates and refining the copper, the transportation
1 500 miles to market, and all the expenses of admin-
istration both at the mine and at the companies'
offices in New York, are done at a cost of $1.19 per
ton of ore milled ; and when an ore which carries
only fourteen pounds of copper to the ton can be
mined at a profit with copper selling at 9.55 cents
per pound, we have certainly reached the marvel-
ous. No other mine in the whole world can equal
this.
In gold and silver production the story has been
the same. The American miner invented the won-
derful " hydraulicking " process by which the work
of mining the gold-bearing gravels is performed by
jets of water under very high pressure, the water
being carried across valleys thousands of feet deep
in iron pipes, and carried around precipices in tim-
ber flumes pinned to the face of the vertical cliff in
a manner which for boldness and originality has
never been equaled elsewhere. Thus it is that
gravels containing gold to the value of only five
cents per cubic yard are worked at a profit. It is
to American engineers and metallurgists that the
greatest improvements in gold and silver milling are
due, a fact so universally reco'gnized that our engi-
neers are now found in charge of the most important
mining and metallurgical enterprises in every part
of the world, and their services are so highly valued
that they are paid in South Africa and in Australasia
from $i 5,000 to $50,000 a year salary. The United
States is the largest producer of both gold and silver
among the nations ; in silver, in fact, it produces
about thirty per cent, of the whole world's output.
The ore of the American quicksilver-mines is ex-
tremely low grade, having only about twenty pounds
per ton, as compared with about 200 pounds per
ton of ore in the Spanish Almaden Mine. Wages
paid in California are from $1.50 to $3 per day, or
four times as great as those paid in Spain. Never-
theless the American mines have been able to stand
the competition, and have even paid dividends,
though they seem now almost exhausted.
It is characteristic of the two countries that while
the average number of tons handled for each worker
in the Spanish mine was only 6.23 tons per year, at
the California mines just ten times as much, or sixty-
three tons, was handled in the same time per work-
men employed. It costs no more to extract and
reduce rich ore than poor, and were the American
ores equal in richness to the Spanish, the production
of the American mines would be ten times as great,
and the cost would be $2.64, or, including flasks,
$3.64 per flask, as against $7.10 in the Spanish
Almaden, notwithstanding the difference in wages.
We may extend the review of work done, of
great increases in output and diminutions in cost,
until we exhaust the entire list of mineral products,
and we will find substantially the same story; but
this is unnecessary. In 1840 our mineral industry
was summed up in four items : coal, 2,000,000 tons ;
pig-iron, 347,000 tons; lead, 15,000 tons; all other
minerals valued at $238,980 and employing 728
men.
The table (given on page 186) of the mineral and
metal production in the United States in 1 893 and
1894, or fifty -four years later, adding up to a value
of $553,356,499, tells the story of the present. What
language can more eloquently describe the progress
of this industry?
For this table, as well as for the diagrams com-
paring the world's production of coal and copper,
and for much of the other data used in this paper,
I am indebted to the volumes of " The Mineral In-
dustry : Its Statistics, Technology, and Trade in the
United States and Other Countries."
The achievements of the American mining indus-
try are indeed marvelous, and have never been
approached by those in any other country. It was
argued, and not so very long ago, that though na-
ture had munificently endowed this favored land
with the richest of her mineral gifts, yet the high
prices of wages (which average from two to five
times as much as in European countries), enhancing
the cost of production, and the enormous distances
which our coal, iron, copper, lead, zinc, and other
minerals and metals would have to be transported
to tide-water ports, would forever prevent the
United States from competing in the markets of the
world with the old European countries, or, as it is
sometimes expressed, from competing with the
" pauper labor " of Europe or of China and Japan.
Glorious achievements have triumphantly answered
186
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
No.
PRODUCTS.
CUSTOMARY
MEASURES.
1893.
1894-
QUANTITY.
VALUE AT
PLACE OF
PRODUCTION.
QUANTITY.
VALUE AT
PLACE OF
PRODUCTION.
CUSTOMARY
MEASURES.
METRIC
TONS.
CUSTOMARY
MEASURES.
METRIC
TONS.
I
2
3
4
8
9
10
II
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
3°
31
32
33
34
37
3«
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
M
57
58
lo
61
62
*3
64
§
S
69
70
NON-METALLIC.
Abrasives :
1.747
IjS20
45.340
155
I.35I
i.9°3
96,000
850
1 20
36,500
20,100
3.490
3L404
26,632
11,041
9,199,000
348,399
7.445.95°
673,989
3,214,989
30,183
'47.355.387
128,826,364
8,939,961
3.894
17,862
54,000,000
1,629
17,000
9,700
882,912
1,691
330,231
* 60,000,000
I.I43
9.150
679,000
6,500
130,000
1,585
1.379
4LI33
141
1,226
1,726
87.093
771
109
33."3
18,235
3,166
28,489
27,067
11,222
4.173
158
1,013,238
9L7I5
2,9l6,5OI
27,382
42,960,116
116,869,397
8,110,245
2
16,204
24,492
1,646
17,274
8,800
40O
1,534
299,582
5,443,164
1,037
3
59
$140,589
55,8oo
345,920
2,359
25,625
89,550
2,880,000
41,000
6,000
337,625
366,825
68,682
H4,752
133,160
55,205
689,925
87,100
5,010,958
1,052,173
4,822,483
205,667
74,605,885
123,899,415
14,706,544
5.452
134,520
1,822,500
16,000
85,000
63,070
39.731
8,996
927,615
30,000,000
8,000
60,000
29,522
5.478
7,600
14,000,000
726, 160
40,000
9,469,500
1,875,000
32,223,505
3,434,690
540,000
200,000
285,000
4.945.583
678,064
330,824
2,956,895
475,681
12,500
450
2,250,000
2,087,758
28,759
2 38,000,000
1,220
1,000
37,400
297
1,802
1.735
72,000
165
250
39,600
21,044
4,198
34.199
23,758
10,732
13,140,589
379,444
7,895.259
738,196
3,375,738
24,552
1 52,010,433
117,950,348
8,495,295
6,55°
14,897
2 60, 000,000
2,653
23,280
9,000
770,846
165
287,517
2 56, 750,000
1,370
".735
829,500
9,9<»
750,000
1,106
907
33,922
269
1,634
1.574
65.304
150
227
35.917
19,087
4,080
31,018
24,141
10,908
5,962
172
1,074,179
100,352
3,061,794
22,246
47,183,345
106,953,311
7,706,846
3
13,5"
27,215
2,697
23,655
8,165
349
150
260,834
5,148,326
1,243
11,924
377
4
34°
$109,500
35,000
335,800
4,447
36,687
84,450
2,160,000
9.075
3.75<>
396,000
401 , 892
75.654
148,120
95,032
42,928
919,841
98,655
4,397,407
1,080,644
4,050,885
185,169
80,879,404
103,842,467
12,654,558
8,843
104,100
2,016,000
35,125
116,400
64,000
34,689
1,252
849,925
28,375,000
4.864
74,899
35,957
11,103
45,000
11,000,000
662,262
45.600
8,445,174
I.7".275
40,762,962
2,856,455
607,500
250,000
466,466
4,608,275
788,681
347,951
2,551,259
499.578
..
,1
Tripoli and infus. earth
,|
,t
,|
(l
Asbestos and Talc :
tl
II
Asphalt
II
ft
Long tons
Pounds
Cement, natural hydraulic
Cement, Portland
Bbls., 300 Ibs.. .
Short tons
ii
M
Coke
(1
Cobalt, oxide
Copperas
Pounds
Short tons
Pounds
Long tons
Short tons
Graphite
Pounds
Bbls., 200 Ibs ..
Short tons
Manganese ore
Long tons
Pounds
ii
Paints, mineral
Short tons
44.709
88,500
25,000
50,349,228
981,340
200,000
40.559
80,286
22,679
7,043,857
997,140
203,814
38,801
41
87,242
22,814
48,527,336
952,155
225,000
35,2oo
37
78,155
20,697
6,788,974
967,485
228,622
i<
ii
Petroleum (crude)
Bbls., 42 gals...
Marls
Pyrites
Lon g tons
95,000
9,703,419
1,935,642
300,000
803,887
4,138,920
2,500
90
3,750,000
5,639,681
2,175
96,529
1,232,392
245,838
304,814
237,014
2,268
82
3,810,375
429,399
166
107,462
9,161,053
2,341,922
3i5,53i
693,944
5,099,791
109,192
1,163,508
297,438
320,610
204,656
Salt, evaporated
Salt, rock
Bbls. 280 Ibs ...
Long tons
Silica, sand and quartz
Slate, roofing
Squares
Slate, other manufactures
Square feet
Stone, limestone (flux)
Long tons
3.544.393
5,681,766
1.450
3,601,458
433.093
no
2,126,636
2,177,280
29,000
1 30,000,000
Stone, marble
Cubic feet
Stone, onyx
Other building stones
Total, non-metals
$377,517,086
$353.760,877
490,56o
39,200
33,540,489
39,764,708
71,966,364
10,585,048
METALS.
312,000
350
327,255,788
1.739.323
7,043,384
166,678
25,893
30,164
60,500,000
76,255
'42
»318
148,441
3 54,093
7,157,782
152,080
3 11,745
1,046
'1,881,731
69,178
202,800
63,000
35,179,997
35.955,000
93,888,309
12,434,178
12,429
1,108,527
47,311,000
6,214,782
817,600
220
353.S04.3i4
1,923,619
6,657,388
160,867
371
205
160,392
359,824
6,764,572
145,906
Copper ,
Pounds
Gold
Troy ounces . . .
Long tons
Iron, pig
Lead, value at New York
Nickel, fine
Quicksilver
Flasks, 76% Ibs.
Troy ounces . . .
Short tons
30,44°
49,846,875
74,004
1,056
3 1,550,387
67,135
1,095,840
31- 403,531
5,209,882
Silver, commercial value
Zinc spelter
Total metals
$232,370,022
6,000,000
$ 194,095,622
5,500,000
Est. products unspecified
Grand total
$615,847,108
$553,356,499
' Bituminous coal includes brown coal and lignite. The anthracite production is the total for Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and Colorado.
> Estimated. 3 Kilograms.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
187
these timid economists. True, our wages have re-
mained far higher than in any other country, and
have actually advanced, except in our far Western
mining camps; and even there the net earnings
have increased by reason of the cheapening of the
cost of living. True, also, the miles- to tide-water
are many ; but distance disappears when railroad
freights are much less than a cent per ton mile.
To-day we are producing coal, iron, copper, gold,
silver, and many other metals and minerals cheaper
than anywhere else, and have already demonstrated
our ability to compete successfully in the markets
of the world with any other producer. Moreover,
strange as it may appear, it is with the product of our
highest-priced labor, that is, with fine machinery and
high-class goods, that we defy competition in prices
and are most successfully competing with Europe.
To whatever department of the mineral industry
we turn we learn the same lesson : that the unit cost
of most mineral products is lower in the United
States than elsewhere, and that the labor cost of
producing nearly everything is less here than in any
other country, while our rates of daily wages are the
highest paid in the whole world. The explanation
of this apparent paradox is neither difficult nor
doubtful. The self-reliance engendered by our free
institutions, the intelligence, industry, and enterprise
which are stimulated by the possibility of earning
not only a competence, but wealth and luxury, and
the wants which larger means and better conditions
create, all tend to make our labor more efficient
than that of the older countries, where traditional
conditions limit wants and cause life to the workman
to be without inspiration and almost without hope.
Moreover, the scarcity of workmen and the high rates
of wages have necessitated economy in the use of
labor, and have led to the invention of wonderfully
ingenious and practical labor-saving devices, and
have encouraged the adoption of every improvement
discovered or introduced elsewhere. The outcome
has been that these contrivances and improvements
have increased the efficiency of labor here beyond
the increase in wages, and have thus actually lessened
the labor cost of producing nearly everything, and
especially in the higher classes of products, in which
the proportion of cost of labor is greatest, to a point
below that in producing the same articles in coun-
tries where the fetters of custom retard the intro-
duction of improvements, and where lack of incen-
tive lessens the efficiency of the workman.
Magnificent natural resources, intelligence and
industry in the workmen, knowledge of what all the
rest of the world is doing, and enterprise to adopt
whatever is advantageous, are the solid foundations
on which this marvelous development of the Amer-
ican mineral industry is based. Technical and trade
periodicals, technical schools, and technical societies
have been the efficient aids in this progress and pros-
perity.
Time was when the supremacy of a nation was
determined by the sturdy wielding of the sword ;
to-day the nation that makes cheapest and best the
material from which sword-blades are fashioned is
strong. It is preeminence in the ennobling arts of
peace that now renders nations invincible and their
people prosperous and contented.
CHAPTER XXVIII
AMERICAN QUARRYING
IF it is true, as is claimed by many, that the pros-
perity and growth of a country can be traced in
the character and stability of its buildings, then
it must be that the United States in the original plan
of creation was given advantages far superior to those
of other countries. The natural resources of this
land, fast being developed by American ingenuity
and skill, have at no time been more apparent than
during the past twenty years, as is shown in the
quantity and quality of stone buildings which have
been erected. As wood in building has given way
to brick, and brick in its turn has given way to stone,
so have American quarries, out of barren pasture-
ledges supposed to be worthless, been worked and
developed until last year they yielded a product of
more than $37,375,000, distributed among the
different kinds of stone as follows: Granite,
$10,029,156; marble, $3,199,585; slate, $2,790,-
324; sandstone, $3,945,847; limestone, $16,512,-
904; bluestone, $900,000. I know that figures and
statistics are as a rule dry and uninteresting, and yet
there is nothing that will show the growth and pres-
ent volume of the quarrying business more quickly
or eloquently than the few here given. In 1889
the capital invested in this industry, represented
by 4257 quarries, was $89,688,133, which proba-
bly is not far from the amount at the present
time. Employment was given to upward of 83,000
men, to whom was paid nearly $31,000,000 in wages.
There were produced 235,264,351 cubic feet of stone
for building, monumental, and mechanical purposes ;
about 75,000,000 cubic feet (principally limestone)
for street and bridge work ; nearly i ,000,000 squares
of roofing slate, and 18,474,668 barrels of lime.
The census statistics just completed by Dr. Day
show that in actual output of stone for every purpose
Pennsylvania takes the lead, with shipments last
year of over $5,245,507; with the Buckeye State
second, its output being a little over $3,500,000. If,
however, we exclude the amount used for lime, flux,
and road-building, Vermont would be at the head of
the list in actual production of stone for building
and monumental purposes, with shipments in 1894
of $3,053,602. Although stone suitable for at least
rough building purposes is largely distributed (the
census returns being made up from the productions
of forty-four different States), and will, I believe, in
time be extensively worked everywhere, yet at the
present day the different marketable products are
limited to a few places, so much so as to give the lo-
calities where found a world-wide reputation. The
great bulk of the granite output comes from the
eastern coast of the United States; slate from Penn-
sylvania and Vermont; sandstone from Ohio, and
marble from Vermont, Tennessee, Georgia, New
York, and Massachusetts, the product from the three
latter States being used largely for exterior building,
while that from Tennessee is employed principally
for interior decoration.
One hundred years ago stone-quarrying in this
country was practically unknown. There were iso-
lated places where the native rock was used spar-
ingly in buildings, or rough slate or marble slabs had
been hewn out to mark a grave, but quarrying as
such cannot be said to have begun until many years
later, and then only in a very meagre and small way.
The total output, even fifty years ago, would have
been no more than wealthy men to-day put into a
private residence for themselves. Nothing shows
the comparatively recent growth of this industry bet-
ter than the gain made from 1880 to 1889, the pro-
duction in 1880 being a little over $18,500,000,
while for 1889 it was nearly $53,000,000.
It is impossible in the course of this article to trace
with any degree of detail the history of the quarry-
ing interests up to the present time. In some of the
oldest cemeteries in New England you will occasion-
ally find a slate slab bearing an inscription that
188
REDFIELD PROCTOR.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
180
shows it was erected previous to 1795, one even
bearing an inscription as far back as the seventeenth
century. But any such slabs came from Wales as bal-
last. As early as 1785 a marble-quarry, although it
could hardly be called such at the present day,
was opened at Dorset, Vt., from which were taken
stones for fire-jambs, chimney-backs, and lintels.
Their beauty was such that people came from a long
distance for these pieces, and something of a trade
was done in them. About the year 1800, at Marble-
dale, Conn., Philo Tomlinson was at work quarrying
and sawing marble into slabs, and two years later
Newell & Clark erected a stone saw-mill at Stock-
bridge, Mass. The next year Johnson & Stephens
took a contract for 33,000 cubic feet of marble for
the front of the New York City Hall, and for sev-
eral years thereafter the quarrying of marble for
buildings was more or less actively carried on in this
neighborhood. In a general way, however, with the
exception just noted, it may be safely said that but
little was done previous to 1830. From then on,
marble, granite, slate, and limestone — but more es-
pecially granite, owing to its proximity to the sea-
coast — came into gradual use, but lack of proper
railroad facilities within reasonable access to the
stone were a bar to their active development until
many years later.
Sandstone was first put upon the market about
sixty years ago, in the form of a grindstone, by Mr.
John Baldwin, the founder of Baldwin University.
These stones were turned out by ox-power, and
hauled by him into Cleveland, O., by ox-teams;
and from that modest beginning the industry has
grown to such proportions that one firm alone in
Ohio last year furnished sidewalk slabs (that being
merely one department of their business) sufficient
to lay a walk from New York City to Albany.
The first slate quarry in Vermont was opened in
1845, by Colonel Allen and Caleb Ranney, at Scotch
Hill, in Fair Haven, and its prosperity may be judged
from the fact that land which they leased for sixty
dollars an acre was ten years later sold to Boston
parties for $50,000. This same quarry is, I am
told, in operation to-day, and purple slate quarried
from it can be found in the treads and landings in
almost any public building or business block in any
city. In 1847, the production of roofing slate be-
gan, and developed rapidly. The first year but 200
squares were produced ; eight years later the output
in the same locality had increased to 45,000 squares.
The granite industry had its beginning in New
England, at Quincy, Mass. This was about 1820,
although King's Chapel, in Boston, the first build-
ing of any architectural pretensions from Quincy
granite, was erected in 1752. It was from these
ledges that in 1827 the stone was blasted out for
Bunker Hill monument, and it is recorded that the
first railroad in America owes its origin to these
quarries and the monument, a road having been
built under a Massachusetts charter to transport the
stone from the quarries at Quincy to the Neponset
River, the iron rails resting upon granite sleepers.
The road was, to be sure, but two miles in length, but
it is said to mark the beginning of railroading in the
United States. The growth of granite for building
purposes, owing to its proximity to the sea-coast
and consequent low freight rates, was gradual and
steady, so that, in the year 1880, the output of gran-
ite for all uses amounted to a trifle over $5,000,000.
In the next nine years, however, its development
was phenomenal, the output nearly trebling, and in
that year it furnished 62,000,000 paving blocks
alone.
The process of quarrying any of these stones, ex-
cept marble, is a comparatively simple and in-
expensive operation, and as a natural result the
number of quarries from which stone is taken is
extremely large. Occasionally, in the case of gran-
ite, top rock has to be removed, owing to imperfec-
tions in it, but, as a rule, fairly marketable stone is
found even at the surface. I am speaking now of
all but marble. That is so different that I will men-
tion it separately later on. The stone is all removed
by blasting, with the exception of sandstone, where
the beds are thin, and some of the limestone quar-
ries, particularly adapted to building purposes,
where channeling machines are extensively used
for cutting up the stone into strips. The funda-
mental idea in this style of quarrying is to remove
the largest and best-shaped blocks possible, with
the minimum of expense, and the skill of the quarry
foreman is shown in so arranging his blast-holes as
to take the best possible advantage of any natural
cut or fissure in the rocks. Large blocks freed from
the other rock by blasting are then split up into the
sizes required, by wedges driven into small holes,
drilled a little way into the rock, in the direction in
which it is desired to make the break. Ordinarily,
in quarrying of this kind, the blast-holes are filled
with but a small amount of powder, the purpose
being merely to loosen the rock without shattering
it. Sometimes, however, the formation of the stone
is such that very large blasts are fired, Dr. Day,
in his report on mineral resources, instancing one
case where 32,700 pounds were used in a single
charge. Improvements in methods in these quarries
190
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
have not kept pace with development in other lines.
Steam or compressed air gadding drills take the
place of a wedge and sledge-hammer, and the
steam-derrick and crane have in most places sup-
planted the old horse-sweep for lifting the blocks
from the quarries, but otherwise the process of getting
the stone from the ledge has been changed but little.
While any of the stone comprising the quarrying
industry in some form can be used for building
work, for monumental purposes one is restricted to
either granite or marble. Although limestone is
widely distributed, marble, which is really a lime-
stone in such a crystalline condition as to be sus-
ceptible of a high polish, is found only over a limited
area, and then in such shape that its production is a
matter of much greater expense than attends the
quarrying of any other stone.
Nathaniel Chipman, the ablest of Vermont's early
jurists, in a letter written July 25, 1792, from Rut-
land, Vt, says : " There are also in this part of the
country numerous quarries of marble, some of them
of superior quality. Machines may easily be erected
for sawing it into slabs by water, and in that state it
might become an important article of commerce."
Yet it was not until 1836 that even a small begin-
ning was made to take advantage in any degree of
what Judge Chipman foresaw forty-four years before
was destined to give world-wide reputation to the
State. Six years later, William F. Barnes, the real
pioneer in the working of Rutland marble, began
labor upon the quarry of West Rutland, which, in
connection with others on the same belt, has given
this marble its reputation.
Quarrying in those days was all done by hand-
labor, and scores of men with their long steel drills
struck away at the rock from morning until night,
cutting deeper and deeper with each stroke until
finally the point was reached from which the rock
could be raised from its bed, and hoisted from the
quarry. For some time attempts had been made to
do away with this hand labor, and have the channel-
ing done by steam. In 1863 the first channeling-
machine, invented by George J. Wardwell, of Rut-
land, Vt., was tried upon the Sutherland Falls
Quarry. This single-gang machine, nicknamed the
" Posey," and used upon this same quarry, I believe,
for about twenty years, was the beginning of the use
of machinery, in a short time destined entirely to
supplant hand labor in marble quarrying. The in-
troduction of American marble for monumental pur-
poses was a hard and up-hill fight, owing to the
strong prejudice in favor of the Italian product.
The Census of 1870 credits Vermont with marble
sales that year of less than 131,000, while the im-
portations amounted to $479,337. That the tide
finally had to turn was shown in 1889, in which year
there was shipped from Vermont stone worth $2,-
169,500, while the total importations for the same
year, mainly from Italy, were but $701,518. Of all
the marble produced in 1889, for whatever purpose,
Vermont furnished more than sixty-two per cent., and
of the marble used for monumental purposes alone it
is probably safe to say that at least ninety per cent,
was quarried among the Green Mountain hills. Al-
though the deposit extends through a considerable
portion of the State, it is only in a comparatively
small part of it, Rutland county, that the most val-
uable quarries are found. It is a curious fact that
towards the north of this county the stone is much
finer grained than in the south, evidently having
been subjected to greater pressure, and in conse-
quence it is very seldom that sound marble is ob-
tained. So finely grained and beautiful is this stone
that numerous attempts have been made to quarry
it, the result being financial disaster in every case.
Towards the south the reverse is true, the marble
proving more sound, but gradually becoming so
coarsely crystallized that it is suitable only for build-
ing purposes. The deposit known as Rutland mar-
ble is all contained within an area of less than half
a mile. The hills embracing this deposit were so
barren and poverty-stricken in appearance that the
story goes that the entire tract was traded for an
old horse to the man who first opened the quarries
there. Be that as it may, the spot from which are
now taken annually from 15,000 to 20,000 blocks,
requiring, to reduce to merchantable shape, the em-
ployment of a small army of men, was at that time
considered practically valueless.
In the Rutland deposit some fifteen different lay-
ers have been uncovered to date, varying in thickness
from two to ten feet, and varying also in color, tex-
ture, and value ; nor is it unusual to see the same
layer produce several different varieties and colors
of stock. At the surface the marble lies at an angle
of about forty-five degrees, but after reaching a
depth of from 150 to 200 feet it suddenly turns and
is found lying almost flat, so that one can readily
see that at that depth, to get the same marble that
was found at the surface, it is necessary to tunnel far
into the hills. The tremendous stone roof which is
thus formed is supported at regular intervals by enor-
mous piers left for that purpose as the quarry pene-
trates deeper and deeper. Marble worth the sawing
is very rarely found until- a depth of from twenty to
thirty feet has been reached, and it does not then
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
191
follow that the quarry may have any real merit;
heads, cracks, tight cuts, and a predominance of
inferior stock may all develop, and thus make it nec-
essary to dump the blocks even after being quarried'
Throughout the marble region it is not an infre-
quent sight to see abandoned quarry openings into
which thousands of dollars have been poured by
people carried away with the stone craze.
If an outcropping of marble is found that looks
favorable for a future quarry, it is first bored, as a
rule, with a machine specially constructed for this
purpose, to ascertain if the deposit has any depth,
and is of suitable quality and color. The soundness,
however, of a deposit can be proved only by open-
ing, and the opening of a marble quarry is laborious
and expensive. From $40,000 to $75,000 has been
spent upon several of the West Rutland openings
before stock that would even pay to saw has been
taken out. A quarry is first stripped of its top-rock
by means of small blasts, great care being taken
that the charge does not penetrate into the marble.
Channeling machines, operated by steam or com-
pressed air, are then put on to cut the layers into
strips of the requisite size. The quarry being cut
up into strips, a cut is made at each end, and a set
of key-blocks, as they are termed, are cut and re-
moved. This gives a chance to get at the bottom
of the layers that have been cut. Steam-drills are
then used to bore holes into the bed of the layer at
intervals of eight to twelve inches, and into these
holes steel wedges are driven. In this way the en-
tire floor is freed from its bed, and it is not unusual
to see a strip of rock, fifty feet or more in length,
raised in this manner. By the same process the
strip is cut into blocks of the size desired.
No powder is used in quarrying marble, although
it is sometimes very sparingly used in removing
scales and scalps when the layer has not raised
evenly on its bed. Where the marble lies at an
angle tunneling is resorted to, instead of removing
the immense amount of top-rock that would other-
wise be necessary. Powder is used for this purpose.
To avoid shattering the marble in any way, a chan-
nel is cut into the side of the rock, and just above
the good marble to be taken out a large number of
small blast-holes are put in. The cut which has
been made prevents the powder from shattering the
marble below, and a sufficient space is thus made
upon which to place a machine to cut the underlying
layers. It is not usual to tunnel during the winter
months, because, although quarrying is carried on
throughout the entire year, it cannot be done so
cheaply or satisfactorily as in summer.
Let us glance for a moment at the methods in
vogue in Italy. Almost surrounding the city of
Carrara, and within a few miles of it, is a high
mountain range, bare of trees or vegetation, con-
taining the marble quarries of Italy. These quar-
ries, some 400 in number, are scattered through the
mountains, beginning near the base and extending
up the sides from 3000 to 3500 feet. So inaccess-
ible are many of them, that the descent into some
is by means of ropes, and in others the men do all
the work while suspended in mid-air. The entire
quarrying process is most primitive, no machinery
of any kind being employed. Hand-drills are used
to cut a hole in the face of the ledge. This is filled
with powder, the charge exploded, and the quarry-
ing is done. Unless unusual care is taken, huge
blocks are frequently detached, and go tumbling
down the mountain side. It often happens that the
blast only detaches pieces that are too small to be
of any use, and even in the huge boulders the pow-
der that has been used is very apt to penetrate and
check the stone, so that it is worthless, although the
damage it has done may not be discovered until
years after, when the marble has for a long time
been exposed to the action of the weather. The
boulders that have been tumbled out in this way
are next put into shape by men with a hammer and
chisel picking them over and knocking off the rough
pieces. Blocks of unusual size are divided by saw-
ing. An iron saw operated by two men, much after
the manner we saw logs, except that there are no
teeth in the saw, is used. Sand and water are ap-
plied, and gradually the implement wears through
the block. The blocks are next transported on huge
wagons, drawn by half a dozen yoke of poor, ill-
kept oxen, to the railroad or the harbor, a few miles
behind. The life of these laborers is, indeed, a hard
one. Many start for work at sunrise, and leave only
when darkness makes it necessary, and for their
work receive from twenty-five to forty-five cents a
day, a pittance so small, that it is a wonder how
they live. Such, in brief, is the Italian quarrying
industry. Compare it with the same kind of work
carried on in Vermont, and how quickly is noted
the difference between the results of American in-
genuity and push, and of Italian adherence to anti-
quated methods.
<=*,
cAr\
J s
CHAPTER XXIX
POWDER AND EXPLOSIVES
IN order to gain a just appreciation of the pro-
gress of the manufacture of explosives in the
United States during the last 100 years, it will
be necessary to consider in a cursory manner the
condition of the manufacture in the old world prior
to 1795.
This review must of course refer to " black pow-
der" only, as it is called, as this was the only ex-
plosive then manufactured. Very few others were
known, most of the chemical explosives being dis-
covered during the present century. Gunpowder,
as is well known, is composed of three ingredients —
saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal. In the prepara-
tion of these, their purification, their incorporation,
and the subsequent finishing of the product, con-
sists the manufacture of powder. From remote
times it has been the custom to granulate gun-
powder in some way. The original method of
manufacture was very simple, and consisted of pul-
verizing the ingredients in a mortar and forming
grains of it by working the damp material through
a sieve. The grains thus formed were hardened by
final drying. At first the pestle of the mortar was
worked by hand, then by means of a rope passing
over a pulley, and afterward by mechanical means,
as in the stamping-mill. This mill was a series of
mortars excavated in a block of wood, a battery of
pestles being raised and let fall in them by means of
pins in a revolving shaft. The use of stamping-
mills dates from the latter part of the seventeenth
century. In 1794, the separate pulverization of the
materials was adopted because of the frequent ex-
plosions of the stamping-mills. These explosions
were said to destroy one sixth of the whole number
of stamping-mills in France annually. The process of
pulverizing in drums was first made use of in France,
both for the separate comminuting of the ingredi-
ents, and for the intimate mixing of them. For the
latter purpose was used a cylinder made of rawhide
stretched upon a frame of wood, and containing
zinc balls. This form of apparatus was imported
into the United States, and is still in use to a limited
extent. About the middle of the eighteenth century
incorporating-mills were first used in France. Some
time before this they had been introduced into
Sweden. The wheel-mill is now the standard in-
corporating-machine, and is used in almost all
powder- works of importance.
At the end of the last century the art of gun-
powder-making had been brought to a high degree
of perfection in France, having received the direct
personal care of men of the best abilities in this line.
Some of the processes used at that time have not
been improved upon since. There were two fac-
tories at Essone under the personal care of Antoine
Laurent Lavoisier, the great chemist and the discov-
erer of oxygen. An English writer says of him :
" He improved the manufacture of gunpowder so as
to add one third to its explosive force, thereby re-
versing the previous superiority of English over
French ordnance."
Associated with Lavoisier was a young man who
must be mentioned as the pioneer in improved gun-
powder-making in the United States. Eleuthere
Irene'e du Pont, son of Pierre Samuel du Pont de
Nemours, a statesman of reputation, came to this
country in 1801. Having occasion to use some
powder of native manufacture, he was struck by its
very poor quality. Immediately his thoughts turned
to the business he knew so well, and he conceived
the idea of starting a manufactory here. Returning
to France, he secured the capital required, and came
again to this country, bringing his machinery with
him. As soon as the necessary preparations could
be made he started his works. His name still lives
in connection with the establishment he founded.
His coming marked the advent of improved methods.
Before the importation of the French machinery, the
192
FRANCIS G. DU PONT.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
103
art of gunpowder-making had been in a rudimentary
state. A few small mills in which the old methods
of manufacture prevailed were all that then existed
in the United States. The names of the mills have
passed away, but the location of one is remembered
because it was upon the Brandywine Creek at a
point not far from the site of the largest powder-
manufactory at present in the country. This small
factory was entirely destroyed by a freshet in the
stream about the year 1800. From what has been
said it may be understood how poor the quality of
the powder was which was supplied by the domestic
mills before the beginning of this century. The im-
portation of the French methods gave the proper
start, at once improving the powder made. With
the right start made, it may be safely said that the
progress since on this side of the Atlantic has been
upon lines independent from those in Europe.
During the war of 1812 our forces were supplied
with gunpowder of domestic manufacture. In the
period which had elapsed from the beginning of the
century the mills had been increased to such an ex-
tent as to render this possible. At the beginning of
hostilities the United States found it a difficult mat-
ter to obtain saltpeter, as it was principally imported,
and our coast was blockaded as far as possible by
the British. Recourse was had to the old process
of " nitre beds." These were masses of organic mat-
ter, animal and vegetable remains, mixed with cal-
careous earth to render the mass porous and to
afford a base with which the acid formed could com-
bine. The beds were placed in shaded situations.
Nitric acid, being formed by the decomposition,
united with the lime and magnesia present in the
earth. The beds were afterward lixiviated with
water, and the solution treated with water from
wood ashes, the potassium carbonate of which pre-
cipitated the earthy salts as carbonates, forming in
their stead potassium nitrate or saltpeter. This was
afterward crystallized from the water of solution.
Only a few years ago the plant of one of these nitre
manufactories, constructed during the second war
with Great Britain, was in a fair state of preservation
in the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the dry atmos-
phere of the place having kept the wood of the vats
and pipes from decay.
In the period from 1802 to 1840 two large gun-
powder-factories were established in the United
States, as well as a few smaller ones. During that time
the building of canals and mines caused a consider-
able demand for powder for use in blasting. This
became so marked that to meet it the manufacturers
placed blasting-powder upon the market, which was
simply a powder of ingredients less pure and less
carefully incorporated. It was not, however, until
1856 that blasting-powder, as now commonly known,
was made. For some years the idea of using sodium
nitrate had obtained, but its deliquescent property
hindered its introduction. In 1856, however, its
preparation was begun on a large scale by the prin-
cipal manufacturers, a result due to American enter-
prise alone. It was found that the difficulties which
were supposed to be insurmountable were capable of
being overcome, and the great blasting-powder in-
dustry of the present was the result. Indeed, the
introduction of the sodium nitrate into the manufac-
ture of powder may be considered a turning-point in
its history. Not only did it revolutionize the indus-
try, but its use so reduced the cost of the production
of nitric acid that its influence was felt on the high
explosive manufacture which came in a few years
later. It gave to the United States the great bene-
fit of a cheap nitrate which it could not otherwise
have had.
Gunpowder made from the Chilian nitrate, as the
sodium nitrate was at first called, has become one
of the articles of prime necessity to our modern civil-
ization. By its means have been developed the great
mining operations of the United States, and as yet
nothing is known which is capable of taking its place.
Its introduction stimulated the extension of the older
manufactories and the building of new. When the
Civil War began, the gunpowder-factories of the North
were in a condition to furnish all the powder that
was required by the forces in the field and the vessels
afloat. It was the older establishments, however,
that were instrumental in supplying the needs of the
government, as their experience and financial stand-
ing gave them preeminent ability. It must be said,
however, that the requirements of the government at
the time of the outbreak of the war were simple
enough to admit of their being complied with with-
out much difficulty. Had the necessities of modern
guns formed the standard attempted, the task would
have been different. The supplying of the govern-
ment with the powder needed during the war called
for the exercise of patriotism as much as did the du-
ties of the camp and field. Great lack of skilled
labor existed with which to operate the mills. The
danger from emissaries of the enemy and lawless per-
sons was always present, and constant vigilance was
required to prevent their entrance to the works. It
has never been ascertained whether the enemy did
cause any damage to the powder-factories of the
North during the war; but it is a fact that there were
many disastrous explosions, which make the record
194
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of the four years of the war the most unfortunate in
this particular ever known. Just before the battle of
Gettysburg there was a plan on the part of the enemy
to destroy the nearest powder-works. This plot was
disclosed after the war by the officer who had been
instructed to carry it out. The owners of the works,
expecting an attack, had everything in readiness to
destroy the finished powder, as well as that in fabri-
cation, together with their mills, rather than let them
fall into the hands of the enemy.
The Civil War acted as a stimulus to most of
the industries of the United States, but there was
a different reason for its effect upon the manufacture
of powder than for the impetus given elsewhere.
While, of course, this industry partook of the general
increased activity, it was on account of the improve-
ment in the ballistic conditions of guns that the time
of the war was a turning-point for gunpowder. In
1860, General Rodman began his celebrated experi-
ments, upon which it may almost be said were founded
the modern theories of heavy ordnance; for he did
what had never been done before, he measured the
pressure in the bore of a gun at the moment of dis-
charge. Immediately upon this followed the prepa-
ration of powder of a larger granulation than had
heretofore been used. This change proved of much
value; so that it was again due to American ability
that new light was thrown upon the subject of explo-
sives. This invention marks the close of the old and
simple methods of manufacture and proof, and ushers
in the more expensive, difficult, and exacting manu-
facture, and the more scientific proof. Prior to the
time of this invention, the test that was universally
applied to gunpowder was that of the "6prouvette"
mortar. This was a mortar having about a six-inch
bore, with a chamber at the bottom holding one
ounce of powder. When the mortar was elevated to
forty-five degrees the distance to which the round
ball was thrown was the test of the efficiency of
the powder. The required distance was 300 yards.
It was a very imperfect test, as it showed the quick-
ness of the powder only. No knowledge of the
pressure or of the velocity imparted to a given
weight of ball was sought or required. The ball-
istic pendulum was also used. This was a pen-
dulum to which a rifle was securely fastened, be-
ing free to swing in the direction of the line of fire.
The bullet was received in a metal case filled with
sand, covered with a thin board. This case was
hung upon another pendulum, also free to swing in
the line of fire. The amount of swing of these two
pendulums, registered by suitable devices, was the
index of the value of the powder for use in the rifle.
To General Rodman belongs the credit of inventing
the pressure "plug." This was a piston, the head of
which was capable of being acted upon by the gases
of explosion in the bore of a gun. The end of the
piston carried a knife, which had a curved cutting
edge resting upon a block of soft copper. The gases
at the moment of explosion acting upon the known
area of the piston caused the knife to make a certain
cut in the soft copper. The length of this cut is the
indication of the pressure upon the end of the piston
acted upon by the gases in the bore. The length of
the cut made with a known weight applied to the
knife is compared with this, and an accurate result is
obtained. Sir Andrew Noble in England substituted
a cylinder of soft copper for the knife, and measured
the amount of its compression. This form is in use
to-day, and is sometimes called the "crusher gauge."
The importance of this invention can scarcely be
overestimated, for it was a step toward the success
of modern gun practice, without which improved re-
sults would be impossible. The velocity of the ball
was measured early, and the two combined made
effective the adaptation of the powder to the gun.
Benton's chronograph was used for a short time in
this country. In it the velocity was measured by
the crossing of the swing of two pendulums, which
were let fall by electro-magnets, the one by the cut-
ting of a wire in front of the muzzle of the gun, and
the other at a measured distance from the muzzle.
This form of chronograph was superseded by the Bou-
lenge chronograph, in which a plummet is dropped
by the cutting of the muzzle wire, and another by
the same at the target, the second by means of a
spring making a nick on the side of the first while it
is falling, the distance of which mark from the mark
made when both plummets are dropped together
being the index of the velocity of the ball while
traversing the distance from the muzzle to the target.
These two instruments are of prime importance in
the testing of powder for guns, but there are many
other requirements as to density, susceptibility to
moisture, and other matters. American ingenuity
and enterprise has long been employed in the pro-
duction of powder for large guns. Here our dis-
coveries have antedated or run parallel with those in
foreign countries. Hexagonal, sphero-hexagonal,
cubical, and prismatic granulations of powder are all
American inventions, the latter in all but its form.
The United States has ample supplies to command in
the manufacture of domestic powder in event of
war.
Soon after the manufacture of nitro-glycerine began
abroad it was imported into this country, but as this
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Hi.-.
substance was then in the form of a liquid, several
terrible explosions were the result of its transporta-
tion. After Nobel's discovery that it could be safely
handled when held by an absorbent, works were es-
tablished in the United States for its manufacture.
On the Pacific coast particularly was its use encour-
aged, the hard quartz-mining being a most desirable
field for its operation. Hercules and Atlas powders
are the most important forms of American high ex-
plosives. Judson powder, an American invention
also, is much used upon the Pacific coast. It com-
bines some of the advantages of black blasting-
powder with those of a mild form of high explosive.
Modern engineering works are now almost wholly
dependent upon the use of high explosives in some
form. Black powder still has its uses, and will hold
its own for years, but in hard rock there is need of
more power than is possible with this kind alone.
The detonation of the nitro-glycerine compounds
shatters the hardest rock in a manner which makes
its subsequent removal very economical. There are
two engineering works which indicate very well the
era of the introduction of high explosives in this
country. In the year 1870, the Nesquehoning
tunnel, near Wilkesbarre, was excavated in very hard
rock by the use of black powder only. The engineers
in charge were unwilling to introduce the then new
and untried explosive. The work was, however,
completed in good form and very quickly, owing
largely to the extensive use of compressed air-drills.
About the same time the Hoosac tunnel was com-
pleted, nitro-glycerine alone being used in the work.
This explosive was principally manufactured upon
the ground, and was much used in the liquid state.
This work was a greater one than the tunnel first
mentioned, but the two serve to mark the transition
period in the practical use of explosives. One of
the greatest of modern engineering works, the Chi-
cago drainage canal, is now being carried on largely
by high explosives. It is an example of the mag-
nitude of the work that is attempted with explosives.
Most of the American dynamite made by the older
manufacturers is very safely handled. One large fac-
tory is shipping the material by rail all over the
United States, and in thus transporting millions
of pounds not one explosion has ever happened in
transit. Frequently derailments and collisions have
occurred, the dynamite cars, and even the boxes,
being broken, and the cartridges scattered, but
without evil results so for as this explosive was
concerned.
Smokeless powder for small arms was in use in
Europe for some time before its introduction here.
Schultze powder was the first, but its use was re-
stricted to sporting purposes only. E. C. powder
was an English invention, and was imported to this
country soon after its use began in England in 1882.
Later a plant was built in the United States for its
production. Like the Schultze, it was employed for
sporting arms only. The idea of smokeless powder
for larger guns was first advanced by Viele, in his
Poudre B., and later by Nobel in ballistite, in 1886.
Ballistite was a combination of nitro-glycerine with
gun-cotton, and was the first use of the former
attempted in gun practice. As late as 1889 cord-
ite was patented by Sir Frederick Abel and Professor
James Dewar for the use of the English government.
It derives its name from the fact that it is made in
cords or strings, in which state it is used. In smoke-
less powders the United States is not behind the
European nations. An entirely original smokeless
powder for sporting purposes has been invented here
which is in many respects an improvement on the
older powders, and is meeting with success and
favorable notice. The adoption of the new .30
calibre rifle by the army and the .236 calibre by the
navy has stimulated the efforts of domestic ingenu-
ity, with the result that satisfactory powder can now
be procured in large quantity for both branches of
the service. In the production of smokeless powder
for the large guns the Naval Torpedo Station has
taken an important part, having just brought a long
line of experiments to a successful conclusion. It has
produced an excellent powder for the six-inch rifle.
Good smokeless powder has also been offered by
private manufacturers, but as yet the departments
have moved slowly in the adoption of any of the
new powders, being desirous of obtaining the best,
and also to be sure of the stability of the product
when subjected to the changes of climate necessary.
Gunpowder and explosives are manufactured in a
number of the States, Pennsylvania producing the
most, and being followed by Delaware, New Jersey,
Connecticut, Ohio, California, Iowa, Tennessee,
Massachusetts, and Maine. It is estimated that
$7,000,000 to $8,000,000 worth is produced an-
nually, the capital being about $20,000,000 and the
number of employees about 5,000.
CHAPTER XXX
AMERICAN LUMBER
TO describe the progress of the lumbering in-
dustry during the last hundred years is to
write of a class of sturdy people who have
carried the first germs of civilization into the deepest
wilderness of our vast forests, and who have fur-
nished one of the most essential materials for the
building up of our civilization and development in
all parts of the country. But it also means the re-
cording of a destruction and deterioration of natural
resources such as has perhaps nowhere else been
witnessed in so short a span of time. It is a record
of which those who have been engaged in making
it may be proud, because it required pluck, persis-
tence, and ingenuity on their part ; but the nation
and coming generations can only regret the wasteful-
ness with which seemingly boundless resources have
been exploited without regard to future needs, and
to the detriment of desirable reproduction.
Wood is, has been, and probably will always be
the most indispensable material for human civiliza-
tion ; and in no country, perhaps, has it played a
more important factor in the progress of material
development than in the United States. If, as the
imperfect statistics at our command indicate, the
per capita consumption of wood in all shapes at
present falls hardly short of 350 cubic feet, — nearly
nine times that of Germany and twenty-five times
that of Great Britain, — the probability is that one
hundred years ago it was even greater, when iron
and stone had not yet replaced the native timber in
building, and when coal had not yet been substituted
to any extent in the fireplaces of the fathers. While,
then, the consumption of wood has always been
large, and the exploitation of forest resources one
of the earliest occupations of the settlers in the new
country, the great lumber industry as we know it
to-day is a child of comparatively recent times —
hardly over fifty years old ; but in that short time it
has not only developed in all its parts to gigantic
proportions, from a commercial point of view, but
has also become an art distinctively American ; for
no other nation can compete with us in the expert-
ness of the axmen, loggers, drivers, and sawyers, in
the excellence of machinery and appliances, or in
the systematic methods used in this exploitation of
our great natural forest resource.
A hundred years ago logging was carried on only
along the coast and the Eastern river-courses. Beside
all convenient waters small sawmills, the common
accompaniment of all early settlements, were estab-
lished, the mill parts costing no more than from $60
to $500 at the most. These mills sawed to order for
home consumption or sent material to the mouth of
the river, to be carried by vessel to home and foreign
markets. They were often run in the manner of the
country grist-mills, — in fact, usually formed a part of
them, the log owner paying toll to the miller for the
sawing, and perhaps using the lumber to pay for
store goods. That this petty method of doing busi-
ness lasted until the middle of this century is evi-
denced by the census of 1840, which reports 31,560
lumber-mills, with a total product valued at $12,-
943,507, or a little over $400 per mill. The exports
of timber, also, although a comparatively important
item to the struggling colonies and States, rarely ex-
ceeded $5,000,000 per annum during these first four
decades of the century.
The getting out of timber, squared and hewn, was
then a much more important business ; and the con-
struction of wooden ships, then the only kind afloat,
furnished a good market for large and select timbers,
which constituted, no doubt, the bulk of the exports
of a century ago. Timbers worth $200 and more
apiece were often cut. " We saw brought in with four-
teen yokes of oxen a pine spar, eighty-three feet long,
seven feet in diameter at butt, bringing $250," re-
ports a writer from Belfast, Me. In this connection
it is interesting to note that such long timbers as
masts, spars, etc., were quoted by the inch on the
diameter, measured twelve feet from the butt, bring-
196
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
197
ing $1.50 and more per inch in the rough as late as
1850 in Philadelphia. There were then no lumber
markets, no prominent lumbering regions, where the
business was concentrated; and even in 1820, Wil-
liams, in his excellent history of Maine, while care-
fully enumerating her resources, fails to mention
the lumber industries of that State. Although a
considerable amount was exported from places like
Belfast and others, this lumber was brought to town,
like farm produce, by the rural population of the
neighborhood. Thus 300 to 400 sleighs arrived
loaded with lumber one Saturday in 1 8 1 6 ; and in a
single day in 1822 136,000 feet were brought into
Belfast by the numerous teams of the farmers.
To give an idea of the development of milling in
Maine the following example will serve. At Lewis-
ton, Me., the first sawmill, forming part of a grist-
mill, was erected in 1770, and destroyed and rebuilt
in 1808 and 1814. Not until 1851 was a new mill
started, at a cost of $7000; in 1865 one valued at
$60,000 found business with gang and circular saws ;
while in 1867 the Lewiston Steam-Mill Company
completed a $100,000 plant. Similarly we find in
Pittsburg, Pa., although large amounts of lumber
were handled at the place, no mention of the saw-
mill business in the enumeration of the trades for
1804, 1812, and even as late as 1837 ! 'n 1876 there
were enumerated thirty-four sawmills, at the head
of the list, showing their importance. Yet even then
the decline in supplies of certain kinds of lumber in
Pennsylvania and New York had already become
noticeable, as appears from the report of the Cham-
ber of Commerce of Cincinnati, which was supplied
by river from these States. We read in the report
for 1869 : " Receipts per river light, since the pine
of western New York and Pennsylvania is largely
exhausted." Prices of raft-run lumber were quoted
at this market in 1867 at $24 to $25, and 130,000,-
ooo feet were received. Three years later the chief
supply came from Michigan by canal and rail.
In 1838 the first large mills were erected at Wil-
liamsport, Pa. ; but the boom which afterward sup-
plied between forty and fifty mills was not finished
until twelve years later, in 1850. In 1834, Harvey
Williams, the well-known pioneer of Michigan, built
the first steam sawmill in the Saginaw Valley, and
in 1837 completed the Emerson mill, which was
considered the " crack " mill of the West. Yet the
great lumber industries which have made Saginaw,
Mich., famous all over the world were then men-
tioned only as "prospects," and the great pineries
of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota were still
unexplored. Even in 1857, while pine lumbering
was carried on as the principal business at Stevens
Point, Portage County, Wis., and on the Black,
Wisconsin, and Chippewa rivers, the great lumber
streams of later years were hardly mentioned. In
1854 a sudden increase in exportations to nearly
double the previous figures indicates a change of
methods, brought about, no doubt, by improved
means of transportation. The export of forest pro-
ducts from that time constantly increased until the
present average of $28,000,000 to $30,000,000
worth was attained.
Until 1819 the lumber supplies which found their
way into St. Louis, Mo., — then a mere trading-post,
now one of the greatest lumber markets in the world,
—were cut in the neighborhood, with whip-saws, at
rates of $3 to $3.50 per too feet; and in a retail
price-list of those times boards are mentioned as
"not in the market," pine boards coming from
Pittsburg, Pa., in flatboats, and selling at $8 per
100 feet. An accident in the breaking of the boom
on the St. Croix in 1843 led to the construction of
a log raft, which found its way to St. Louis, and
seems to have given an impetus to the growing log
trade in that direction, which in 1853 was changed
into lumber rafting, initiated by Schulenburg &
Boeckler, the extensive mill owners of the St. Croix
River. In 1858 a regular lumbering business began
at Alpena, Mich., when Archibalt & Murray put
in 1,000,000 feet of logs at $2 per 1000 feet,
board measure. This material was of a quality
which could not now be bought for less than $12
to $15. Later, in 1874, this place turned out 85,-
000,000 feet of lumber alone, not mentioning shingles
and lath.
After the war the settlements of the West grew
as if by magic, and with them the lumber industry of
modern times developed by rapid strides. In 1868
the " golden age " of lumbering in Michigan had
arrived; in 1871 lumber rafts filled the Wisconsin;
in 1875 Eau Claire had thirty, Marathon thirty,
Fond du Lac twenty sawmills, now all gone; and
La Crosse was cutting millions of feet annually from
the Black River and St. Croix. By 1882 the Sagi-
naw Valley had reached the climax of its production,
and the lumber industry of the great Northwest, with
a cut of 8,000,000,000 feet of white pine alone, was
in full blast, while even the Southern pineries were
filled with the hum and buzz of the circular saws,
Mobile and Florida ports alone sending over 300,-
000,000 feet, board measure, of lumber and hewn
timber to foreign markets.
The enormous increase in railroad mileage, open-
ing up new territory and making virgin supplies
198
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
accessible to markets, had doubtless much to do
with this expansion of the lumber trade. It was
probably, also, favorable to the concentration of
this trade at great centers, and the establishment of
lumber markets with wholesale and retail yards, in-
dependent of the points of lumber production. Of
these, Chicago, the greatest lumber market in the
world, derived its supplies from the three great lum-
ber States, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota,
which for a quarter-century have furnished the bulk
Census figures are, as a rule, only approximations,
keeping generally below the truth ; and since the
method of enumeration is changed with each census,
the data do not permit of ready and reliable com-
parison. Yet the following compilation, taken from
the census for 1890, will be useful in showing the
rapid increase in lumber production during the last
three decades, and will exhibit the marvelous growth
of the lumber industry, especially during the last
decade :
COMPARATIVE SUMMARY, LUMBER AND SAWMILLS, 1870, 1880, AND 1890.
ITEMS.
1870.1
1880.
1890.
25,832
25,708
2 1, Oil
Capital
$114,794,586
$181,186,122
$496,399,968
149,997
i47,o<;6
286,197
$32,007,322
$•51,84 5.074
$87.7&ilAt1
$82,674,744
$146,151;, -581;
$23i.cc<u6i8
$168,127462
$233,268,729
$4O^,667.c;7;
$6,508
$9,073
$19,212
1 The amounts for 1870 reduced to gold basis.
of the lumber that has built up our civilization in
the West as well as in the East. The receipts at
Chicago from decade to decade best exhibit, per-
haps, the rapid growth of this wonderful industry.
In 1847 only 32,000,000 feet of lumber found its
That the increase in lumber production is mainly
due to home consumption will appear from the fol-
lowing table of exports, which, although showing
increases, exhibits no extraordinary growth of the
export trade.
VALUE OF EXPORTS OF FOREST PRODUCTS,! 1860 TO 1895.
TOTAL EX-
TOTAL EX-
TOTAL EX-
YEAR.
VALUE.
PORTS OF
DOMESTIC
YEAR.
VALUE.
PORTS OF
DOMESTIC
YEAR.
VALUE.
PORTS OF
DOMESTIC
PRODUCTS.
PRODUCTS.
PRODUCTS.
Per Cent.
Per Cent
Per Cent.
1860..
1870.. .
$10,299,959
14,897,963
3.26
3-27
1881.
1882. ..
$19,486,051
25,580,264
2.2O
3-5°
1889.. .
1890.. .
$26,997,127
29,473-084
370
3-49
$0 .: :
19,165,907
18,076,668
3-43
3-°4
1883. ..
1884 .
28,636,199
26,222,959
3-56
3.62
1891. .
1892.. .
28,715,713
27,957423
3-29
2.75
llll. :
19,943,290
17,750.396
3-H
2-5S
1885. ..
22,014,839
20,961,708
3-03
3-iS
1893.
1894.. .
2^,335,115
26,164,114
1879.. .
1880....
"6,336,943
17,321,268
2-34
2.II
1887. .
1888. .
21,126,273
23.99L092
3.01
3-Si
l«95 .
28,743,887
1 These figures include, besides lumber, timber, and logs, representing from fifty to sixty per cent., shingles, cooperage stock,
firewood, barks, and naval stores.
way to the then just budding metropolis; in 1855
this had grown to nearly ten times that amount, or
over 306,000,000 feet; in 1865 it had more than
doubled, the receipts being 647,145,734 feet, to be
nearly doubled again in 1875, with 1,153,715,432
feet; increasing to 1,744,892,000 feet in 1885, and
reaching a maximum in 1892 with 2,203,874,000
feet ; it then fell with the general business depression
in 1894 to 1,562,527,000 feet, board measure.
It is interesting to note that, next to England,
South America, Australia, and Africa are among
our best customers.
While the census figures above given refer to the
lumbering and sawmill business only, the other in-
dustries relying upon the same resource, the forest,
swell the values derived thence to at least double the
amounts, as the following table of estimates based
partly on census figures will show.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 198
AMOUNT AND VALUE OF FOREST PRODUCTS USED DURING THE CENSUS YEAR 1890.
CLASSES or PRODUCTS.
QUAHTITY.
ESTIMATED Cvsic CON-
TENTS or FOXEST-
GKOWN MATKHIAL.
VALUE.
I. Mill products :
Agricultural-implement stock feet, B. M.
Bobbin and spool stock do. . .
Carriage and wagon stock do ...
Furniture stock do
All other sawed lumber do. . .
Total sawed lumber do . .
Lath pieces.
Pickets and palings . . .'. do. . . ,
Shingles do . . .
Staves do ...
Headings sets .
Total lumber and cognate products, directly from logs
II. Railroad construction :
Ties pieces.
Round and hewn timber used for bridges and trestles .
Telegraph poles
X. Tanning materials :
Hemlock bark cords.
Oak bark do...
Hemlock and bark for extract do . .
Sumac leaves for tanning tons .
Sumac leaves for extract sets . .
Various materials not accounted for
XI. Maple sugar pounds. .
Maple syrup gallons . .
Total value of forest by-products
Total value of all forest products
Add 10 per cent, for omissions and underestimates
Total value of wood and forest products at original
place of production, estimated to have been used
during census year 1890
Cubic Feet.
30,000,000
49,000,000
66,000,000
94,000,000
27,630,000,000
27,869,000,000
2,365,000,000
1 10,000,000
9,276,000,000
1,178,000,000
183,000,000
80,000,000
Total
III. Exported timber not included in subdivision I. :
Hewn timber, 6,900,000 cubic feet
Logs and round timber
Rived staves, stave and bolts
IV. Wood-pulp:
300,000 tons ground-paper-pulp
80,000 tons soda-pulp
60,000 tons sulphite-pulp fiber
50,000 tons pulp for other purposes
V. Miscellaneous mill products other than lumber manu-
factured directly from logs or bolt
Total materials requiring bolts or log size
This last figure of " miscellaneous products" is a very consid-
erable underestimate, based upon census returns, and
we are entirely safe in rounding off the total of sizable
timber used and its value to.
VI. Fuel in the shape of wood . . .
In the shape of charcoal
VII. Wood used for dyeing extracts and charcoal for gun-
powder
Total amount and value of wood consumption .
QUANTITY.
VIII. Naval stores :
Turpentine barrels . . 346,544
Rosin do. . . . 1,429,154
IX. Wood alcohol gallons . . 2,000,000
Acetic acid in acetate of lime .
1,056,000
322,150
64,200
3-3°°
3.75°
32,952,927
2,258,376
4,000,000,000
200,000,000
300,000,000
175,000,000
4,675,000,000
400,000,000
80,000,000
5,000,000
485,000,000
9,000,000
2,500,000
500,000
12,000,000
75,000,000
80,000,000
5,327,000,000
5,500,000,000
18,000,000,000
250,000,000
16,200,000
23,766,000,000
VALUE.
$5459,115
2,413.757
1,750,000
360,000
6,925,000
2,783,500
r,5oo
8,000
112,000
74,000
* • */"•*
307,5
198,0
3,300,000
2,200,000
$582/100
688,000
1,306,000
M3S.°oo
310318,000
314^29.000
3,709.924
750,000
17,000,000
7,762,000
$348,984,924
$40,000,000
$1,230,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
$4,730,000
$3,550,000
20,765,000
$418,029,924
$450,000,000
450,000,000
7,000,000
437,ooo
$907,437,000
TOTAL VALUE.
$7,872,872
2,IIO,OOO
10400,000
5,500,000
$25.882,872
$933>3'9,872
93,33 '-987
$1,026,650,859
200
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Comparing similar estimates for the census years
since 1860, an increase in the consumption of forest
products at the rate of thirty per cent, more or less
can be asserted for every decade.
Imports of such a bulky material as wood are
naturally drawn chiefly from neighboring communi-
ties, except in the case of specially valuable woods.
With the exception, therefore, of fine cabinet and
dye woods of tropic origin, and other kinds which
we do not produce, we import lumber and timber
from Canada only. Although considerable discus-
sion has been raised over the tariff duties on Cana-
dian lumber, the importations from that country
represent hardly five per cent, of our lumber con-
sumption, ranging in total value for the last fifteen
years between $10,000,000 and $20,000,000 out of
a total importation of forest products ranging from
$15,000,000 to $30,000,000. Almost the entire cut
of the province of Ontario, tariff or no tariff, goes
to the United States, while over eighty per cent,
of the Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia
lumber goes to England.
At present, while sawmilling is, to be sure, car-
ried on wherever trees can be found to cut, the
staples of the market come from those regions where
supplies are still most abundant and, at the same
time, means of communication are well developed.
White pine, the king of the American forest, fur-
nishing the most useful lumber for building, as well
as for a great many other purposes, is, of course,
our greatest staple, forming more than one quarter
of our entire lumber output. The long-leaf pine of
the South, — the celebrated pitch-pine of the English
markets, the yellow or Georgia pine of our markets, —
unsurpassed for strength and combining most desir-
able qualities as timber, comes next in quantity of
production. Two other Southern pines, the short-
leaf and loblolly, — also known in the markets as
North Carolina and Virginia pine, although grow-
ing in all the Southern States,— help to replace the
waning supplies of white pine, spruce, fir, and hem-
lock ; and while their use is chiefly local, they form
a considerable amount in our lumber consumption.
Cypress and cedar also help in a limited way in fill-
ing the requirements for coniferous timber, of which
not less than 30,000,000,000 feet, board measure, are
needed annually. The magnificent timbers of the
Pacific coast, — the redwood, the Douglas spruce, the
sugar-pine, the Port Orford cedar, etc.,— of the most
excellent quality, and obtainable in sizes and clear
material found nowhere else, have hardly yet reached
the Eastern markets, the distance preventing profit-
able shipment. Most of this material goes by water
to foreign markets. Of hard woods, our oaks (some
ten or twelve marketable species), ash in several
species, and hard maple are superior to those of
other regions of the world ; the tulip-poplar and the
hickories have no equals of their kind ; sycamore,
walnut and cherry, birch and elms, furnish rich orna-
mental woods; and altogether the supply of wood
materials in the United States excels every other
region of the world in the combination of diversity
of kinds, quality, utility, and abundance.
Maine, once the white-pine State, has long ceased
to cut any appreciable amounts of that greatest sta-
ple of the American market, but supplies the bulk of
the spruce, with New Hampshire and the Adiron-
dacks in New York to help, and Boston, Albany,
and New York City for markets. The white pine
of Michigan is nearly all cut, and the supplies in
Wisconsin and Minnesota are beginning to show
signs of exhaustion ; so that the enormous output
of a round 10,000,000,000 feet per year will soon
be reduced, and that materially. Hemlock supplies,
despised twenty years ago except for the tan-bark,
are still abundant in northern Pennsylvania and the
neighboring counties of New York, but will not last
long.
With the waning of the Northern coniferous tim-
bers the Southern supplies are coming more and
more to the front. The coast regions of the Atlan-
tic, as well as the Gulf shore, furnish large quantities
of long-leaf, short-leaf, and loblolly pine, some
7,000,000,000 feet, board measure, of these being
cut annually, with eastern Texas probably still best
supplied. Cypress, long despised, is now a well-
established article, with main supplies in Louisiana
and along most of the river-bottoms of the Southern
States. Hard woods still abound in nearly all the
central portions of the country east of the Missis-
sippi, with St. Louis and Memphis as the principal
markets, although some kinds, like the ash, the tulip-
poplar, and the walnut, are more or less exhausted.
An attempt to estimate the standing supplies for the
lumber industry, based on rather slim and unsatis-
factory data, would distribute the same as follows :
STANDING SUPPLY OF LUMBER IN THE
UNITED STATES.
Southern States 700,000,000,000 feet, B. M.
Northern States 500,000,000,000 "
Pacific coast 1,000,000,000,000 '
Rocky Mountains, etc 100,000,000,000 "
2,300,000,000,000 feet, B. M.
Other estimates increase this amount doubtfully
by twenty-five per cent.
The present cut, based on somewhat more reliable
BERNHARD E. FERNOW.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
201
tl.u.-i furnished by census figures and other sources,
may be estimated at a round 40,000,000,000 feet,
board measure, including all material requiring bolt
or log size, valued at about $450,000,000. This cut
may be roughly estimated as distributed by regions
and kinds in the following manner :
and the systematic methods of handling the business.
If Germany has become the teacher of the world
in the matter of forestry,— that is, in the rational
reproduction and management of timber crops,— the
lumbermen of the United States of America have
become the most expert exploiters of the natural for-
LUMBER CUT BY REGIONS AND KINDS.
REGIONS.
FEET, B. M.
KINDS.
FEET, B. M.
New England and North Atlantic States .
6,000,000,000
White pine
12,000,000,000
5 ,000,000,000
13,000,000,000
Hemlock
1 0,000,000,000
4,000,000,000
Short-leaf and loblolly
3,000,000,000
2,000,000,000
Cypress
500,000,000
Redwood
500 ooo ooo
40,000,000,000
1 ,000,000,000
Oak
3,000,000,000
All other hard woods
7,000,000,000
40,000,000,000
One of the remarkable facts in connection with
the rapid development of the lumber industry is that
with the necessary decrease of natural supplies the
expected increase in price has not followed. This
is due to several causes, the competition especially
of the smaller mills, the increased facilities of trans-
portation to market, and the lack of appreciation of
the decrease of supplies being the most potent.
That this latter condition is, however, not entirely
lost sight of we find in comparing the price paid for
stumpage of white pine, the leading staple during
twenty-eight years, with that paid for the manufac-
tured lumber.
est resources. Methods of cutting, hauling, hand-
ling, sawing, marketing, and all the appliances and
tools employed have been developed to the highest
degree, and all means have been adapted to the end
which from the standpoint of private interest appears
desirable, namely, largest immediate profits.
These improvements, almost all put in practice
since 1850 and later, are to be found in the logging
appliances, the means of transportation of the logs
to the mill, the sawmill, and the handling of the
lumber. The ax of to-day, although much the
same in shape as of old, is of better material and
of superior workmanship ; the handle of hickory,
PRICES FOR LUMBER AND STUMPAGE OF WHITE PINE.
(COMPILED FROM REPORT OF SAGINAW BOARD OF TRADE.)
YEAR.
LUMBER, PER xooo
FEET, B. M.
STUMPAGE, PER 1000
FEET, B. M.
YEAR.
LUMBER, PER 1000
FEET, B. M.
STUMPAGE, PER 1000
FEET. B. M.
1866
$11 5O tO $12 OO
$i oo to $1.25
1877
$9.25 to $9.75
$2.25 to $2.75
1867
12 OO I2.5O
I 2? I <O
1878
0. ?O IO.OO
2.25 2.75
1868
12 OO 12 5O
I Co I 7C
1870
10.50 11.00
2.50 2.75
1860 ..
12 JO I3*OO
2 OO 2 50
1880
II.5O 12. OO
2.75 3.00
1870 .
12. OO 12 50
2 OO 2 50
1881
12.50 13.00
3.00 4.00
1871
12 50 17 OO
2 OO 2 50
1882
14.00 14.50
3.50 4.50
1872 .
13 OO 12 OO
2 OO 2 50
1883
13.50 14.00
4.00 5.00
1871
ii 50 ii oo
2 OO 2 50
1884
12.50 13.00
4.00 5.00
1874
1885
12.50 13.00
4.50 6.50
187?
2 21 27?
j886
12. W I'J.OO
4.50 6.50
1876 .
O OO Q SO
2 21 2 71
1887
12.50 I3.OO
4.50 6.50
That the stumpage value has increased sixfold,
while the lumber value has hardly increased at all,
points to a potent influence upon price, which can
hardly be accounted for even by increased competi-
tion and transportation facilities. We have to seek
it in the improvement of the tools, the machinery,
manufactured wholesale and sold cheaply, of a form
which permits best execution, has, even in conser-
vative Europe, supplanted the clumsy straight handle.
Since the fifties cross-cut saws have more and more
been used in felling, and in reducing the waste in the
woods ; the improvements in form, in the shape of
202
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the teeth, in the adjustable handle as well as the
superior workmanship, have made American saws,
and especially those of the firm of Disston & Sons,
Philadelphia, Pa., world-famous. Steam drag-saws
and tree fellers have been invented, but are not used to
any extent ; the application of the electric current in
tree felling has not yet been more than experimental.
One of the simplest yet most valuable aids to the
logger, the ingenious peavy or cant-hook, perfected
after 1870, excites the admiration of the European
woodsman by its effective adjustment and almost
elegant form.
The organization of the logging crew into swamp-
ers (road makers), choppers, sawyers, loaders, and
teamsters is, at least in the pineries of the North-
west, as perfect as that of any business concern in
New York. The timber estimators of large firms,
and the sealers using sealers' rules, a specifically
American invention of comparatively recent date,
are experts in their way. Log sleds and log wagons
with high wheels are essentially American inven-
tions, but have not changed much in the last thirty
or forty years. A mechanical steam-logger, which
makes its own ice-road, traveling through the woods
like a locomotive, skidding the logs, was put into
practical operation a few years ago, but seems not
to have been generally accepted. On the other
hand, the "pull-boats" used in the swamps of the
South, which, by wire ropes operated from the
steam-engine on the boat, skid the cypress logs for a
distance of two to three miles on either side of river
or canal, have proved a perfect success, cheapening
and simplifying the otherwise difficult logging oper-
ations in these swamps.
Railroads have not only brought distant lumber
centers within easy reach of markets, but they have
even penetrated the woods themselves, connecting
the mill with the sources of supply, reducing, al-
though not superseding, the river-drive. The tem-
porary tramway, broad or narrow gauged, reaching
out for fifteen, twenty, and more miles from the
mill to the cuttings, is a common feature of lum-
bering operations, especially in the Southern woods ;
while water carriage is still largely practised in the
North, and especially in the mountain country.
Here driving of logs is done as in times gone by,
both loose and in rafts ; but the orderly arrangement
of drives, booms, and boom companies, which act
as carriers of the log crop of many firms from the
woods to the mill, are in their present form an
American practice developed within the last forty
years.
The greatest improvements have been made in the
mills themselves. The water-mill, with its single
sash-saw, pulled downward by the water-wheel and
back by means of a large elastic pole, with its cog-
wheel feed, old-fashioned carriage and blocks, and
its independent dogs made by the blacksmith, which
was most common until well-nigh the middle of this
century, hardly exists to-day. It was superseded at
first by the circular or rotary saw, an invention of
an entirely new principle, which may be claimed by
Europe ; for S. Miller received a patent in England
for a saw of circular form — the description, however,
being doubtful — in 1777, and C. A. Abert obtained
patents in France in 1799 for a circular saw in sec-
tions, which in England was patented by Brunei in
1805. In the United States the year 1814 seems
the first in which a consignment of such saws was
received from England at Pawtucket, and the same
year one was manufactured by B. Cummins at Ben-
tonville, N. Y. But it is apparent from the many
patents for single and gang reciprocating saws that
until about 1830 the rotary saws did not find much
favor. They were, however, perfected gradually,
and improved in mounting, in plate and teeth (the
first insertible teeth, an American patent, was issued
to W. Kendall in 1826). The ease with which they
could be set up anywhere, and the rapidity with
which they did their work, favored their introduc-
tion, until in 1860 the great mass of lumber was
cut by them. Gang-saws were operated in the old
countries as early as the sixteenth century, and
muley-saws were also of early origin, although many
improvements were made in the United States ; and
with the growth of the lumber trade the gang-saws
for the manufacture of better-grade material kept
pace in their introduction with the rotaries.
The band-saw, the perfection of sawmill machi-
nery, although invented as early as 1808 by an Eng-
lishman, W. Newberry, and patented in the United
States by one Barker, seems to have been first put
into practical operation for log sawing — it had
hitherto been used only for scroll sawing — in 1872
by Hoffman Brothers, for cutting hard woods in
the Maumee Valley in Ohio. Into the pineries of
the North it found its way only in the eighties, the
difficult adjustment, especially for rapid work, being
against it ; but now all the best-equipped mills of
that region have discarded the rotary, and work with
band-saws, single and sometimes double, supple-
mented by nicely adjusted gang-saws, the band-saw
preparing the log for the latter rather than convert-
ing it into lumber. In hard woods, and in Southern
and Western mills, to be sure, the rotary, single or
with top and bottom saws, still prevails. Of the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
203
many improvements in the mill, covered, together
with those in saws, by over 2500 patents, over 700
of which fall in the decade from 1870 to 1880, and
over 800 in the last decade, I can only mention the
direct steam-feed, supplanting the rope and friction
appliances; the accurately adjusted setting-works,
head-blocks, and dogs; the steam-nigger, a most
remarkable log-turning device ; endless chains for
bringing the log into the mill ; and mechanical car-
riers for lumber and for refuse. The improved edger,
which converts the rough unedged board into com-
mercial shape, and the trimmer, with its complicated
system of levers and " lift " or drop saws, prevent in
the better mills much waste and a loss of millions.
With the improvements in the mill came improve-
ments in its adjuncts, the introduction of shingle,
lath, and slab saws reducing the waste and using up
inferior material ; planers, flooring, matching, and
molding machines, in connection with the sawmills,
refining the lumber at the original point of manufac-
ture. In the manner of sawing rift, or quarter-saw-
ing, is a notable departure, as it adds to the ornamen-
tal effect of certain kinds of lumber, as well as to the
wearing qualities for certain uses. The simple piling
of lumber to secure seasoning has been gradually
superseded, especially in the South, by artificial dry-
ing in kilns and other devices, all introduced since
1867, natural-draft and blower kilns being most
popular. This method of driving out the water from
lumber artificially is perhaps the greatest advance in
the lumber industry during the last fifteen years, in
its saving of time, material, and capital. Systematic
and uniform inspection or classification of lumber in
still rather undeveloped in this country, though lately
considerable attention has been paid to the subject
in the meetings of the lumbermen's associations, and
of the wholesale and retail yardmen.
That the lumber business has progressed to a high
degree of development is perhaps best attested by
the existence of at least thirty or forty associations
of manufacturers and dealers, of wider or narrower
scope, having more or less direct relation to the
lumber business. Besides the lumber departments
forming parts in general trade journals, there are fif-
teen or twenty publications specifically devoted to
the lumber trade, at least five or six of which will
compare favorably with the best trade journals of
other branches in make-up and contents.
With the end of the century the lumber industry
will have reached the climax of its development.
The white pine, the great staple, will then have been
reduced so as to be practically exhausted, and the
lesson of the need of economy with our forest re-
sources will then have been learned. The means of
economy will be found in more careful preparation,
and especially in more careful selection of material
for different uses ; many species now overlooked or
despised will be utilized, and inferior material will
satisfy the hitherto lavish taste ; finally, the cutting
in the woods will be done with more care, and they
will be managed for reproduction. In other words,
forestry, the art of producing wood crops, will have
become established as the basis of the lumber
industry of the twentieth century.
CHAPTER XXXI
PETROLEUM: ITS PRODUCTION AND PRODUCTS
EXPORTS OF PETROLEUM.
YEAR
ENDING
JUNE
30TH.
GALLONS
EXPORTED.
SCALE: ONE INCH PER 180,000,000 GALLONS.
l864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
'873
1874
I875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
j.xsi
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
23,210,369
25,496,849
50.987.34'
70,255,581
79,456,888
100,636,684
»3>735>294
149,892,691
145,171,583
187,815,187
247,806483
221,955,308
243,660,152
309,198,914
338,841,303
378,310,010
423,964,699
397,660,262
559.954.59°
505,931,622
513,660,092
574,628,180
577,781,752
592,803,267
578,351,638
616,195459
664,491,498
710,124,077
7i547i,979
804,337,168
908,281,968
=_
THE Historic Moment for petroleum was that
at which Drake "struck oil" on Watson's
Flats, near Titusville, Pa., August 28, 1858.
In less than forty years, therefore, petroleum produc-
tion and manufacture have grown to their present
proportions. To-day the exports already rank fourth
in the list for value, being surpassed by only cotton,
breadstuffs, and provisions. For the year ending
June 30, 1864, the total exports were 23,000,000
gallons; by 1869 they had grown to 100,000,000
gallons; by 1874 to 200,000,000 gallons; by 1877
to 300,000,000 gallons; by 1880 to 400,000,000
gallons; by 1882 to 500,000,000 gallons; by 1887
to 600,000,000 gallons; by 1891 to 700,000,000
gallons; by 1893 to 800,000,000 gallons; and last
year to 900,000,000 gallons. To-day a larger per-
centage of the oil product of the country is sent
abroad than of any other product except cotton.
The growth in exports of illuminating oil is still
more marked. Those for the year ending June 30,
1866, were three times those of 1864 ; those of 1868
twice those of 1866 and six times those of 1864;
204
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
those of 1871 twice those of 1 868 and twelve times
those of 1864; those of 1877 twice those of 1871
and twenty-four times those of 1864 ; those of 1891
twice those of 1877 and forty-eight times those of
1864. In other words, beginning with 1866, the
exports of illuminating oil were doubled in 1868,
again in 1871, again in 1877, and again in 1891.
Those of last year were more than sixty-two times
those of thirty years ago. The average exports per
week in 1894 were twenty-five per cent, more than
the total for the entire year 1864. While consider-
ing this great growth in business, a glance at prices
may be of interest. Export oil averaged in 1861
61^4 cents per gallon; in 1871, 23^6 cents per gal-
lon ; in 1881, 8 cents per gallon ; in 1891, 6j£ cents
per gallon ; in 1894, 5^ cents per gallon, or one
twelfth the price in 1 86 1 . But this decrease, great as
it is, does not represent the actual reduction in the
price of oil, as the cost of barrels is included in these
prices. A gallon of bulk oil cost, in 1861, not less
than 58 cents ; in 1894, not more than 2^ cents, or
less than one twentieth. The money that in 1861
was required to buy 1000 barrels of oil would have
purchased, in 1894, over 20,000 barrels.
Enormous capital and energy have been required
to establish an industry of such magnitude. Pipe-
lines aggregating 25,000 miles in length — a girdle
for the globe — and 9000 tank-cars — placed end to
end, an unbroken train extending three fourths the
distance between New York and Philadelphia —
helped in moving the products to the home mar-
kets ; while sixty-nine bulk steamers, not to mention
bulk sailing vessels and the fleet of steamers and
ships carrying oil in barrels and cases, transported
them to the most distant quarters of the earth.
Petroleum undoubtedly has a wider sale than any
other American product. Wherever commerce has
made its way it has found a welcome. " It is car-
ried wherever a wheel can roll or a camel's foot be
planted. The caravans on the Desert of Sahara go
laden with astral oil, and elephants in India carry
cases of standard white. Ships are constantly load-
ing at our wharves for Japan, India, and the most
distant isles of the sea."
The able special agent on petroleum for the
Eleventh United States Census estimated the value
of wells and land at over $155, 000,000, and showed
that the investment in plant employed in the pro-
duction of crude petroleum brings this sum up to
$229,000,000. This does not include the value of
pipe-lines, nor of tank-cars, nor of the great fields of
tankage for the storage of crude, nor of the costly
refineries, nor of the terminals and clocks at the sea-
board for export shipments, nor of the fleet of bulk
vessels carrying the product to foreign shores. The
census report gives the value of refineries as over
$77,000,000. We think it no exaggeration to esti-
mate the total capital required for the production,
manufacture, and transportation of petroleum and
its products at $400,000,000.
The sinking of Drake's well was an event so
momentous, starting the grand industry we are to de-
scribe, that the story is briefly repeated. The first
petroleum company organized in the United States
was the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, with a
nominal capital of $500,000, incorporated in New
York, December 30, 1854. The projectors were
George H. Bissell and Jonathan D. Eveleth, mem-
bers of a law firm in New York City. It chanced
that Mr. Bissell's attention had been directed to
petroleum by noticing a sample of it when on a visit
to Hanover, N. H., his native place. This sample
had been brought to Professor Crosby, of Dart-
mouth College, by Dr. T. B. Brewer, the son of one
of the members of Brewer & Watson, lumber mer-
chants at Titusville. Mr. Bissell's interest found
substantial expression in the purchase of 105 acres
of Watson's Flats, near Titusville, including an
island at the junction of Oil and Pine creeks. On
this island oil had been collected for eight or nine
years by means of a series of pits arranged like sepa-
rators, the water flowing away below, leaving the
oil floating on the surface, to be dipped up with
blankets. Some of the organizers of the company
resided at New Haven, Conn. At their suggestion
a quantity of the oil was sent to Professor Benjamin
Silliman, Jr., who made an exhaustive analysis and
an elaborate report. As it was most favorable, a
Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company was formed in
Connecticut, with headquarters at New Haven, and
the property held by the New York corporation
transferred to it. Mr. Bissell still retained, in 1857,
his interest in the Connecticut company. He hap-
pened, in 1856, to see an advertisement of " Kier's
Petroleum," a patent medicine owned by Samuel M.
Kier, a druggist at Pittsburg. The advertisement
showed the derrick of the brine- well from which the
oil was secured with the brine. It suggested to
Mr. Bissell that perhaps the crude, which was being
obtained in such limited quantities by means of sur-
face pits, might be found in paying quantities if
artesian wells were sunk. The Seneca Oil Company
in 1857 succeeded the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Com-
pany, of Connecticut, with a plan of drilling for the
oil. Mr. E. L. Drake — soon known as " Colonel "
Drake — was sent to Titusville the following year to
206
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
carry out this project. He was forced to invent
some new way of reaching the rock at which to
begin drilling, as the hole he tried to dig filled with
water and quicksand. It occurred to him to drive
a pipe down to the rock — a plan afterward adopted
not only in oil-well boring, but in all artesian drill-
ing. Drake's tool struck the rock at thirty-six feet.
Drilling then proceeded slowly, under the direction
of " Uncle Billy " Smith and his two sons, until the
bore had penetrated the rock thirty-three feet, when,
on Saturday night, August 27th, the drill dropped
into a crevice about six inches. The tools were
pulled out and put aside for the work to be resumed
on Monday. But Sunday afternoon Smith visited
the well, to make sure that all was safe, and saw
liquid within a few feet of the top of the pipe. He
dipped up a little and found it to be oil. They had
reached petroleum in the first sand, thirty-three feet
through the rock, and sixty-nine and one half feet
below the surface of the ground. When the pump
was started on Monday, the well produced at the
rate of twenty-five barrels per day, at that time an
incredible quantity. They had hoped for gallons,
and found barrels of the precious fluid.
It is impossible to state when petroleum was first
discovered. In some form it seems to have been
applied to the uses of mankind from the earliest
periods known to history. The " slime " of the Old
Testament, mentioned as the mortar used in con-
structing the Tower of Babel, 2200 years before
Christ, was probably partially evaporated petro-
leum ; and the " pitch " with which Noah coated
the ark, 250 years earlier, was doubtless a similar
product. The ruins of Nineveh and Babylon indi-
cate that the asphaltic cement used for their walls
and buildings was composed, in part at least, of
semi-fluid bitumen. Perhaps the first mention of
the use of petroleum for illuminating purposes is the
" Sicilian oil," described by Pliny and Dioscorides
Pedanius, the Greek botanist, as secured near Agri-
gentum, now called Girgenti, on the island of Sicily,
to be remembered as the site of the temples of Con-
cord and of Olympian Jupiter. This oil was burned
in lamps as early as the beginning of the Christian
era.
In America the Indians collected what was known
as " Seneca oil " from petroleum springs ; and the
indications are that, long before them, the mound-
builders, who worked the copper-mines of Lake
Superior, the lead-mines of Kentucky, and the mica-
mines of North Carolina, not only gathered the oil
that flowed from natural springs and appeared on
streams, but even dug numerous wells in Pennsyl-
vania Ohio, and Canada, and dipped up the petro-
leum that flowed into them. Trees now growing in
the earth thrown out in digging the wells, or in the
wells themselves, show that this work was done from
500 to 1000 years ago.
The success of Drake's well ushered in a period
of almost unparalleled excitement, surpassed only
by the gold fever of California, ten years before.
Western Pennsylvania, in 1859 and the next few
years, was the scene of indescribable activity and
speculation. Wells were sunk in great numbers
along Oil Creek, French Creek, and the Alleghany
River. Adventurers flocked thither from all parts
of the country. What was soon known as the " oil
region " was transformed from an almost unbroken
forest into camps and towns. Many of the wells
yielded nothing, others lasted but a short time, while
some gave enormous quantities of oil. As the pro-
ducing fields changed, the population shifted with
the fields, and the towns that had sprung from the
wilderness as by the touch of a magician's wand
vanished almost as quickly as they had grown. Pit-
hole City, for example, in 1865 next to Philadelphia
the largest post-office in the State, has now entirely
disappeared and the site of the city become a farm.
Elsewhere is given a table showing the quantities
of oil produced each year. From this it will be
seen that by the end of 1859 fully 200 wells were
in successful operation, and the production of crude
oil amounted to 2000 barrels. Phenomenal growth
then followed. The next year the production was
500,000 barrels, and in 1861 it had increased to
2,113,609 barrels. In addition to this amount, it
is estimated that at least 10,000,000 barrels ran to
waste because of lack of barrels to hold it or a
market to take care of it.
During the first two years after the success of
Drake the search for oil was restricted to the terri-
tory around Titusville, wells being sunk up and down
both sides of Oil Creek, and back on the hills that
form its banks. The drills were then tried on the
Alleghany River, and its shores were found to yield
abundantly. It was not unnatural, though not very
logical, for the petroleum seekers to feel that there
must be some connection between the trend of Oil
Creek and the Alleghany River and the underground
deposits of oil. As it happened, the oil-bearing
strata extended generally under these two streams ;
but a glance to-day at a map showing the location
of all the oil-fields that have been discovered will
demonstrate to the eye the fallacy of this belief, as
the fields in some instances stretch across the Alle-
ghany River at right angles. Up to this time all
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
207
of the oil secured had been lifted from the wells by
pumps. A new surprise was now in store for the
producers. The first flowing well was struck in
February, 1861, on the McElhenny farm, yielding
300 barrels per day. It flowed for fifteen months.
This surprise had not spent itself when the Phillips
well was struck, shooting forth ten times as much
oil per day as the first well, and was followed soon
by the Funk well, matching the Phillips in produc-
tiveness, giving 3000 barrels per day ; the Noble
well, with 3000 barrels per day ; and the Sherman
well, with 2000 barrels per day. The Noble well
produced upward of $3,000,000 worth of oil, and
the Sherman well flowed an average of 900 barrels
per day for two years.
Such a stimulus as the finding of these " gushers,"
or petroleum fountains, following one another in
quick succession, increased the production enor-
mously ; for not only did the large wells add to the
quantity produced, but the success in striking them
encouraged prospectors generally to renewed efforts
for obtaining capital for further development. The
production in 1861, a little more than 2,000,000
barrels, was increased fifty per cent, in 1862 — to
3,000,000. As a natural consequence prices rapidly
declined. Five cents per barrel was the price actu-
ally touched in November, 1861. A fresh surprise
was still in store for the oil operators when it was
found that productive territory need not necessarily
underlie the valleys and river-bottoms, but that the
high lands also covered the hidden treasure. In
1862 the drillers became crowded in following the
banks of the Alleghany River, and pushed back into
the adjacent country. They had already climbed
the hills bordering Oil Creek and the Alleghany
River, but now tested the high plateaus of Clarion,
Butler, Armstrong, McKean, and Warren counties.
In 1864 the Economy well and the surrounding
region in Warren County, and the Pithole division
in Venango County, became prominent.
Much of this extension of the oil region was car-
ried out on lines developed by C. D. Angell and
others, who formulated " belt theories " which they
thought would enable them successfully to locate
the subterranean deposits. Angell made a study of
the relative location of the largest wells. In the
Titusville group a narrow strip of country running
in a direction a little east of north took in all the
most productive ones. It is strange that the fact
had not been noticed before. When the lower coun-
try was discovered, he quietly mapped out a similar
field in Clarion and Butler counties, parallel to the
Titusville one, and secretly secured leases of much
of the territory. His success was patent, and others
were led to see that he worked with method, which
they soon copied. The plan was somewhat more
scientific than that which had been followed in de-
veloping the territory along Oil Creek and the Alle-
ghany River; and yet wildly tracing a line by the
direction of a compass, and hoping to find produc-
tive territory after passing miles of untested country,
almost suggests superstition. Even if the trend of
the oil-bearing strata has been found, and there is
reason to believe that the same strata extend under
untried territory, still, when one remembers that the
slightest variation from the true angle at the start
soon becomes an error of miles if carried to a dis-
tance, the futility of the plan is seen. Besides, na-
ture's lines are seldom straight. The oil-bearing
sands are undoubtedly deposited in curves and in
beds at intervals only. This is now recognized, and
the oil-leads are traced by means of the drill, with-
out any reference to the topographical conformation
of the surface.
A northern district next claimed from the middle
and southern a share of public attention when the
Bradford field was found. The date generally given
is that of December 6, 1874, when a well on the
Buchanan farm, two and one half miles from the
town of Bradford, was struck. In 1875 the pro-
duction was fully 25,000 barrels; in 1876 it had in-
creased to 380,000 barrels; in 1877 to 1,450,000
barrels; in 1878 to 6,500,000 barrels — as much in
a day as was produced in a whole year in 1875. In
the following year the production was again doubled,
and brought up to 14,200,000 barrels. In 1880 it
was 22,300,000 barrels; in 1881, over 23,000,000
barrels. The production of all the other Pennsyl-
vania fields in that year was only 4,238,000 barrels,
the Bradford production being six sevenths of the
whole. In 1876 the Bullion and Warren oils ap-
peared. The same year the Beaver district of Clarion
County became prominent. In June, 1879, oil was
found in the Richburg field in Allegany County,
New York, closely allied — so far, at least, as location
is concerned — with the Bradford territory. The first
well was put down as a " wild-cat " or test well, and
produced at the rate of four barrels per day, hardly
foreshadowing the enormous output soon to follow ;
for in 1 88 1 it had reached 600,000 barrels, and in
1882, 6,450,000 barrels. In 1880 the Clarion and
Warren productions became a feature in the calcu-
lations of the producers. In May, 1882, the Cherry
Grove oil made its appearance, of sudden growth
and of almost as sudden decline. Found in May,
it yielded in July over 24,000 barrels per day, but
208
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in October less than 9000, the average for 1883
being only 2000 barrels per day, which fell to 400
the following year. In September, 1884, the Thorn
Creek oil was secured ; the great Phillips well, the
largest flowing well ever opened in America, start-
ing at the rate of 10,000 barrels per day, which
gradually declined to 500 barrels.
In 1885 and 1886 the production in Washington
and Greene counties became prominent. During
these two years the number of wells put down was
greatly increased, the total for 1886 being 3478, the
largest number for several years. The stocks of
crude continued to be so large as to occasion gen-
eral alarm among producers. The largest stock on
record is that of August 31, 1884— a total of 39,-
084,561 barrels. The average stock of 1884 was
35.953.975 barrels; of 1885, 37,698,481 barrels; of
1886, 35,732,291 barrels. The early part of 1887
showed little decrease in production ; and prices,
with some minor fluctuations, steadily declined. In
August, 1885, crude was quoted at $1.04 per barrel ;
in January, 1886, it had declined to 90 cents. It
averaged for December, 1886, only 71 cents, having
several times during the year fallen below 65 cents.
The bottom price of 54^ cents was touched in July,
1887, the average for the month being only 59^
cents. A plan was formulated at this time by the
producers, looking to curtailing for a time the out-
put of the oil-fields. An agreement was drawn up
and signed by the members of the Petroleum Pro-
ducers' Association. By it about one quarter of the
production, or at least 17,500 barrels per day, and
as much more as possible, was to be " shut in " for
one year, beginning November i, 1887. The move-
ment was a success. The average daily production
of the three months ending October 3151 was about
64,000 barrels ; that for the following three months
only 41,000 barrels, a reduction of 23,000 barrels
per day. The agreement was to stop cleaning out
and torpedoing all wells for one year, and to shut
in a certain part of the production of other wells.
In 1888 the production was only 16,488,668 bar-
rels; while it had been, in 1887, 22,356,193 barrels.
The stock reported for October 31, 1887, of 30,662,-
583 barrels, was reduced to 18,995,814 barrels by
December 31, 1888 ; and the average price of cer-
tificates advanced from about 67 cents in September,
1887, to 93 cents in September, 1888 ; the average
for the year 1888 being 87 cents, as compared with
66S/8 cents for the year 1887. In 1889 production
was again resumed, and 5435 wells were completed,
as compared with only 1515 in 1888, and 1660 in
1887.
The phenomenal McDonald field appeared in
1891, but began to decline in the latter part of the
year and continued to decline through 1892. In
that year the production of the Sistersville field took
its place to a considerable extent. Since then the
production has steadily declined. In 1894 the pro-
duction of what is known as Pennsylvania crude
was 84,000 barrels per day, while the consumption
was 100,000 barrels per day. The stocks were re-
duced to 6,336,777 barrels at the end of the year.
Fortunately for the American industry, the Ohio
field appeared, to supplement the supply of the
Pennsylvania field. At the World's Columbian Ex-
position the display of petroleum, particularly that
offered by the Standard Oil Company, was impres-
sive and magnificent. Its cost was commensurate
with the magnitude of the industry it typified. The
judges made many awards, but one was unique in
the Mining Department, if not in the whole fair.
It was " a special award for the manufacture from
Ohio crude, known as ' Lima oil,' of the best illu-
minating oil ever made from any kind of crude oil."
The breadth of this statement arrests attention, and,
had we nothing else to signalize the Ohio petroleum-
field, this alone would make it worthy of careful
study. But a glance at the field's record shows
that, for other reasons, it should not be overlooked.
The total production of crude petroleum in the
whole United States in 1894 was about 49,000,000
barrels. Of this, 20,000,000 barrels, or more than
two fifths, came from the Ohio territory. For many
years — in fact, up to 1885 — the Pennsylvania field
was regarded as the undisputed source of supply of
petroleum for the world, and up to to-day its produc-
tion has aggregated 500,000,000 barrels — a quantity
so vast as to be almost incomprehensible. Yet the
Ohio territory, operated during only the past eight
years, has already furnished over 100,000,000 bar-
rels, or one fifth the quantity secured from the more
eastern field during its whole career of over thirty
years.
The finding of what is known as the Ohio field
. — which is not limited to the State from which it
takes its name, but, much like the Pennsylvania
field, stretches out into adjoining States — was a sur-
prise to both geologists and practical men. Expert
drillers and scientific geologists feared that the lim-
its of the American industry had been reached. So
high an authority as the late Dr. Charles A. Ash-
burner, the eminent geologist, who made the oil-
fields of Pennsylvania his life-study, wrote in 1885
that, in his opinion, the boundaries of the oil regions
were well established, and that there was no reason-
HENRY C. FOLGER, JR.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
m
able expectation that any new and extensive field
would be found. This was but another instance
to support the maxim of the practical driller that
"geology never filled a tank." Even while this
opinion was being written, the drill was penetrating
the rock at Lima to reach the oil reservoirs under-
lying so large a part of the State, and within a
few months the great Ohio territory was an assured
fact.
The production of Ohio crude in 1885 amounted
to 650,000 barrels; in 1886 it had grown to 1,800,-
ooo barrels. The following year it had grown to
10,000,000 barrels; the next year to 12,500,000
barrels ; and in 1890 to 16,000,000 barrels, the aver-
age production each year up to 1893, when it was
18,500,000 barrels. Last year it was over 20,000,-
ooo barrels. Until 1890 the Ohio crude had to
be marketed as fuel, the sulphur compounds it con-
tained rendering it impossible to refine it into illu-
minating oils ; but during the last few years enormous
strides have been made in the way of improvement
in handling this refractory product, until not only
satisfactory but even very superior oils are now
manufactured from this crude product.
One of the first problems which the oil producer
had to solve was that of transportation. The
market for his product was the refineries that had
been constructed in some of the large cities — par-
ticularly at the seaboard— for the production of
illuminating oil out of coal. The oil-wells along
Oil Creek and the Alleghany River were at first
many miles from a railroad, in a lumber district
where there were often no roads, or at best very
poor ones. Those who have traveled in the oil
region know that for several months of the year the
roads are rendered almost impassable by .the mud.
Their condition in the days when they were merely
trails up over the hills and through the valleys of
the sparsely settled country can hardly be imagined.
Oil City was the nearest shipping point, and Pitts-
burg the large distributing center. Crude oil was
put into barrels, loaded on trucks, and hauled to
Oil City. The loss was very great. The barrels,
being old, leaked freely as they made their rough
trip from the interior to the railroad. Barges were
soon called into use and the barreled oil loaded on
them ; or the barges themselves were made tank-
boats for holding the oil in bulk, and the load floated
down Oil Creek to the Alleghany River at Oil City.
But Oil Creek during most of the year was a shal-
low stream, and the novel plan of slack-water navi-
gation, known as a pond freshet or "pond fresh,"
was resorted to. The water in the streams tributary
to Oil Creek was held back by dams until sufficient
quantities had accumulated ; and then, at a fixed
hour, each body of water was in turn released, fill-
ing the main stream for a short time with a flood.
On this the barges of oil were carried down to their
destination, warning having been given so that the
boatmen along the stream might be ready to take
advantage of the tide as it passed. The body of
water was not large in extent, and considerable skill
had to be used in starting at the right moment, and
in navigating the boat during the trip. If the start
was made too late, the waters would pass ahead and
leave the craft stranded. If it was made too soon,
the barge might be caught in the boiling waters and
the power to guide it be lost. Losses were frequent.
The barges collided with one another or struck pro-
jecting rocks in their rapid trip. Therefore, when
boats were introduced for carrying the oil from Oil
City down the Alleghany to Pittsburg, larger and
stronger ones were constructed.
In the mean time, in 1862, the Atlantic and Great
Western Railroad was carried into the oil region.
In 1866 the Alleghany Valley Railroad was opened
up from Oil City, at the mouth of Oil Creek, to
Pittsburg, and a number of narrow-gauge lines con-
structed as feeders into the heart of the producing
country. At first the barrels were loaded on flat
cars ; but the water mixed with the oil dissolved the
glue used for coating the inside of the barrels, and
the leakage in consequence was so large that wooden
tank-cars were soon built, with two wooden tubs or
vats, each holding 2000 gallons, placed on an ordi-
nary platform-car. This was the forerunner of the
tank-car of to-day. In 1872 cars consisting of a
horizontal cylindrical tank of iron, mounted on a
four-wheel platform or railroad truck, appeared.
These were at first of no greater capacity than the
wooden cars they displaced, but have been gradu-
ally increased in size as their plan of construction
has been improved, until many of them are now of
8000 gallons' capacity each. There are between
8000 and 9000 tank-cars in use in the United States.
The magnitude of the petroleum industry made it
necessary to find some mode of transportation even
cheaper than a railroad. By force of circumstances
barges and tank-cars for oil in bulk displaced the
truck carrying oil in barrels. The pipe-line, in turn,
displaced the car and boat. The introduction of
this mode of transporting oil marks an era in the
petroleum industry. The freight by rail amounted
to five or six dollars per car from the region to New
York. It was most economical, therefore, to refine
the crude product near the wells, so that freight
210
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
need be paid only on the kind desired, and the
quantity to be moved reduced to a minimum. The
country around Pittsburg and Oil City was filled
with small works taking out of the crude the refined
oil needed for export. When the idea of allowing
the oil to flow from place to place through iron pipes
was put into practical form, the cost of transporta-
tion was so much reduced that a few enormous re-
fineries were built at the seaboard, near New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and on the shores of
Lake Erie, near Buffalo and Cleveland, to do the
work which the almost countless small refineries in
the oil region had heretofore done. This meant a
revolution in methods of manufacture and in costs.
Samuel Van Syckle, of Titusville, was the first to
put down a working line. It was only four miles
long, extending from Pithole to Miller's farm, and
carried but eighty barrels per day. It demonstrated,
however, the thorough practicability of moving oil
in this way. The difficulty up to this time had been
in making the joints of the pipe tight. Van Syckle
overcame this ; and, although his line faced an as-
cent of nearly 500 feet, the oil was delivered at the
further end practically without loss. This line, to-
gether with another laid in the same year by Henry
Harley from Benninghoff Run to the Shafer farm,
passed into the control of a corporation known as
the Alleghany Transportation Company, by which
it was operated. The owners and drivers of oil
wagons saw that this mode of transportation must
soon deprive them of occupation, and they did what
they could to retard the progress of the work. They
cut the lines, set fire to the tanks with which they
were connected, and even threatened the proprietors
and managers with personal violence. An armed
patrol and the arrest of the ringleaders by detectives
soon quelled this outbreak. The pipage of oil was
a great general improvement, and personal interest
had to yield. To-day the oil region is a network
of pipes; and great trunk-lines, pulsing with the
moving oil, supply the needs of New York, Phila-
delphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburg,
Chicago, and of many intermediate points.
The growth, however, was gradual. Lines were
first laid only to the refineries in the oil region, and
to the railroads taking the oil out of the region.
With the lengthening of the pipes and the increase
of pressure to force the liquid to greater distances,
men became more and more impressed with the
possibilities of the new mode of transportation, and
enthusiastic ones began to believe there was no point
short of the seaboard to which the oil might not be
sent. In 1875 an organization called the Pennsyl-
vania Transportation Company was granted a charter
with power to construct a pipe-line to the seaboard.
The only outcome of this venture was the building
of various lines within the oil region. Short lines
multiplied, and pipe after pipe from the producing
fields to the refineries and railroad shipping points
crossed and paralleled one another in every direc-
tion. Competing companies waged war upon one
another, cutting rates to the point where business
was done at an actual loss. When the producer
had run his oil into the storage-tanks of one of
these concerns he was not certain whether the cer-
tificate received (for they all issued certificates in-
stead of paying cash for oil) had any value ; yet he
must either send the oil through the pipe nearest to
him, or allow it to pass back into the earth from
which it came. The concentration of these badly
managed competitive companies into some central-
ized organization with systematic and economical
methods was a necessary consequence of the situa-
tion.
The United Pipe-Lines Association, first known
as the Fairview Pipe-Line, organized by Captain
J. J. Vandergriff and George V. Forman, became
the starting-point for such a movement. Into it
were merged from time to time the other local lines
— the Antwerp, Oil City, Clarion, Union, Conduit,
Karns, Grant, Pennsylvania, Relief, the Clarion and
McKean divisions of the American Transfer Com-
pany, the Prentiss lines, the Olean pipe, the Union
Oil Company's line at Clarendon, and the McCal-
mont line, with others too numerous to mention.
The first trunk-line was laid in 1874 from the lower
oil country to Pittsburg. It consisted of thirty-nine
miles of three-inch pipe, running from Carbon Center
in Butler County to Fairview, a suburb of Pittsburg.
The trunk-line to Cleveland next followed. Pipe-
lines now extend from the Pennsylvania oil-fields
to Cleveland, Buffalo, New York, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore ; and from the Ohio fields to Cleveland
and Chicago. It is probably not an overstatement
to say that the total length of these lines is 25,000
miles.
In a few instances petroleum has been obtained
from the earth of color and odor so good that it
could be burned for illuminating purposes in its
natural state. Again, in a few instances — somewhat
more numerous than those just mentioned, but still
limited in number — oils have been found, heavy in
gravity, and so free from both light ingredients and
paraffine that they are excellent lubricants in the
condition in which they come from the ground.
But these instances are so few that it can be given
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
211
as a rule that all the uses to which petroleum is put
require a manufactured article.
Below is given a table of the production of petro-
leum in the United States from the time of its dis-
covery through 1894. These figures are taken from
the records of the United States Geological Survey.
They show a total production of over 650,000,000
barrels, valued at not less than $500,000,000.
projects represented by these works had to be aban-
doned when the existence of Pennsylvania crude oil
became known, and the plants were sold at a great
sacrifice and rearranged for the distillation of petro-
leum. It was in such stills as those at the works
named, constructed originally for handling coal, that
refined oil was first manufactured in commercial
quantities.
PRODUCTION OF CRUDE PETROLEUM IN THE UNITED STATES.
(Barrels of 42 gallons.)
YEAR.
PENNSYLVANIA
ANC NEW YORK.
WEST
VIRGINIA.
OHIO.
INDIANA.
CALIFORNIA.
COLORADO.
KENTUCKY
AND
TENNESSEE.
ALL OTHER
STATES.
TOTAL UNITED
STATES.
1859
2.OCO
500,000
1861
2,113,609
1862
3,056,690
1863
2,611,309
1864
2,116,109
1865
2,497,700
3,597,700
1867
3,347,300
1868
3,646,117
1869
4,215,000
1870
5,260,745
1871
5,205,234
e 20? 27J.
1872
6,293,194
1873
9,893,786
o 80 7 786
1874
10,926.945
1875
8,787,514
^.OOO.OOO
1 2OO,OOO
1 175,000
12,162 5 14
1876
8,968,906
I2O,OOO
31,763
12,000
9.1 72 660
1877
13,135,475
172,000
13,000
17.7^0.767
1878
15,163,462
180,000
38,179
15,227
15,296 868
1879
19,685,176
180,000
29,112
19,858
1880
26,027,631
179,000
38,940
40,552
26,286 123
i8Si
27,376,509
151,000
31,867
99,862
27,661,238
1882
7o,o<u,eoo
128,000
7Q.76l
128,636
1 l6o Q77
1883
23,128,389
126,000
4.7.632
Id2 8?7
A 7CC
1884
23,772,209
90,000
90,081
262,000
A IJ.8
2 A 2l8 J7»
1885
20,776,041
91,000
650,000
•225 OOO
5164.
iSSo
25,798,000
IO2,OOO
1,782.070
377.14?
A 726
28 064 84 1
1887
22,356,193
145,000
5,018,015
678 C72
76 2QC
A 7QT
28278866
1888
16,488,668
I IO448
1 0,0 1 o 868
OQO 777
c 006
27 612 025
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
21487435
28,458,208
33,009,236
28422,377
20,314,513
19,019,990
544,113
492,578
2406,218
3,810,086
8445412
8.577,624
12471466
16,124,656
17,740,301
16,362,921
16,249,769
16,792,154
33,375
63,496
'36>634
698,068
303,220
307,360
323,600
385,049
47°,' 79
705.969
316,476
368,842
665^82
824,OOO
594*390
5I5»746
5400
6,000
9,000
6,500
3,000
1,500
2,O28
1,532
I>5°9
135
HO
42,867
35,163.513
45,822,672
54,291,980
50,509,136
48412,666
49,344,516
Total.
497,512,870
Z9,059479
113,782,343
6,955,532
5^75,419
3^58,843
221,013
48,181
656,713,680
1 Includes all productions prior to this year.
When Drake opened the way to an indefinite pro-
duction of crude petroleum there were many coal-
oil refineries in active operation ready to turn from
the distillation of coal or shale to this cheaper and
more tractable article. Two large refineries — one
built on Newtown Creek, almost at the site of the
present Kings County Oil Works, on Long Island,
by L. F. Cozzens, the West Point hotel proprietor,
and the original Delmonico; and the other, the
Empire Works in South Brooklyn, also on Long
Island — had just begun a successful career. The
The first great step forward in the art of refining
was the result of an accident. Crude petroleum
is made up of a great number of differently com-
pounded hydrocarbons. The earlier methods of
rapid running resulted in a simple fractional dis-
tillation, these compounds being separated from
one another as the degree of heat was increased,
and, beginning with the lightest, being vaporized and
passed over as a vapor into the condenser-coil, there
to be reduced to liquid form by being cooled. Such
a distillation produced a series of products following
212
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
one another in regular order from the lightest in
gravity or density down to the heaviest, until the
liquid in the still was all vaporized, and nothing was
left but the dry or burned oil on the sides and bot-
tom. " Cracking " is the technical term for destruc-
tive distillation, whereby the compounds of which the
crude substance is composed are separated not only
from one another, but to a degree into their com-
ponent parts, and new compounds are allowed to
be formed. The result is that vapors are thrown
over into the condenser-worm, and liquefy into
products of lighter gravity — in other words, of less
density; while the heavy vapors, being condensed
in the still before passing into the worm, fall back
into the liquid in the still, to be again and again
vaporized and decomposed. It was by accident
that it was discovered that the compound known as
crude oil could, by destructive distillation, be con-
verted into compounds of greater simplicity of con-
struction ; the lighter ones, which are more valuable
for the production of illuminating oils, being carried
over into the condenser-worm to be there liquefied,
and the heavier ones left in the still to be further
broken up or reduced to liquid residuum in the still,
or to a dry sediment or coke on its bottom. Allen
Norton Leet claims that the discovery was made
at a little works in Newark, N. J., in the winter of
1861—62. This increased the yield of burning oil
fully twenty per cent. By means of retarding the
distillation the same result in the way of destructive
distillation was secured as would have been reached
had the distillation taken place under pressure. The
heavy vapors struck the upper part of the still, were
condensed, and dripped back into the oil below,
which was at a higher temperature than the boiling-
point of the oil falling back. This produced de-
composition in the oils by superheating the vapors.
The discovery was soon known at all refineries, both
at the seaboard and in the region, and methods of
manufacture were revolutionized.
It is no exaggeration to say that 200 different
products are now made from crude petroleum. The
limits of this chapter will not, of course, permit even
mention of each, further than to outline some gen-
eral classification. The broadest that can be made
is to divide the products into those that result from
the distillation and those that result from the reduc-
tion of the crude article. Every product, we think
it safe to say, that has been obtained from crude oil
is secured by one or the other, or, in some cases,
by a combination of both of these processes. By
distillation is meant the converting of the crude by
heat into vapors, and the condensation of those
vapors back to a liquid, from which the manufac-
tured article is produced. By reduction is meant
the driving out of the crude petroleum by heat its
lighter portions, leaving the remaining product be-
hind, still in liquid form. Products of both classes
can be, and usually are, made by the same process ;
that is, while heat is converting one part of the
crude oil into products by distillation, — that is, turn-
ing them into vapor for condensation,— it is at the
same time converting the other part into a product
of reduction by driving off the very vapors that
make the distillate products. Again, both processes
are often resorted to in successive stages of manu-
facture to produce certain articles. A distillate
product is afterward reduced, and a reduced pro-
duct is afterward distilled, in some instances the
processes being repeated several times before the
finished goods are secured. This is particularly
true of the lighter and the heavier parts resulting from
the method of manufacture, aiming to convert the
major part of the oil under manipulation into some
desired product. These lighter and heavier parts
are therefore known to petroleum manufacturers as
by-products. As petroleum in its crude state is com-
posed of an almost indefinite number of differently
compounded hydrocarbons, — that is, combinations
of the chemist's elementary substances, carbon and
hydrogen, varying in volatility, — and as the manu-
factured products are almost countless in number,
it will be readily understood that the methods of
manufacture must be many, complicated, and deli-
cate. In the early days of the industry but one
product, refined oil, was sought for, and to-day the
staple article of manufacture is that same product,
secured, however, in many grades. But the possi-
bility of making other valuable products was soon
apparent, and each year experience and study in the
art have developed almost unlimited extension of the
uses of petroleum.
A considerable portion of our domestic trade in
refined oil, and some portion of the trade in lubri-
cating oils, has for many years been done in bulk.
By this is meant that no package is used for the
product as it passes from the refinery to the con-
sumer. Its course is somewhat as follows : When
finished at the refinery it is pumped into large stor-
age-tanks. From these it is delivered in bulk to
barges or tank-cars. These carry it to the stations,
where it is pumped, again in bulk, into tanks, from
which it is delivered to tank wagons. These serve
it in bulk to the dealers' tanks, to be by them deliv-
ered to the customer, or, in some cases, direct from
the tank wagon to the consumer. But this mode of
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
213
transportation for export trade is of recent growth.
The change in the mode of transportation, when it
had once begun, was carried forward with startling
rapidity. In 1886 two steamers were fitted up, the
Crusader and the Andromeda. The former was filled
with a large number (forty-five in all) of cylinder-
tanks of different sizes, averaging in capacity 125
barrels, making the total capacity of the ship about
275,000 gallons. The Andromeda was provided with
rectangular tanks, seventy-two in number, making
the total capacity about 685,000 gallons. Neither
of the steamers made many voyages. But when the
thought was once fairly presented it soon became
apparent that it was only mechanical construction
which stood in the way of making the change. Sail-
ing vessels carried from 5000 to 8000 barrels each,
and made about two and one half to three trips per
year ; bulk steamers could be built to carry 20,000
to 30,000 barrels, or three times as much as a sail-
ing vessel, and make seven to nine trips per year,
or three times as many as a sailing vessel. The re-
sult has been that last year as many as sixty-nine
different -tank steamers carried oil from the United
States abroad, and fully ninety per cent, of the total
exports of crude and refined oil, other than those in
cases, was made in bulk.
Some of these steamers are " converted " — that is,
turned — into bulk boats, although built for other
uses. They can generally be distinguished by the
fact that their boilers and engines are amidships.
In the case of the vessels built for this trade the
boilers and engines are placed aft for greater safety.
Many of the tank steamers are constructed espe-
cially for this service. They are models of marine
architecture. They are built entirely of iron, the
decks included. When loaded the whole body of
the vessel is filled with oil, the ship's structure form-
ing the necessary receptacle, the liquid occupying
all the space to the " skin " or iron of the sides and
bottom. This is a great improvement over such a
form of construction as that of the Crusader and the
Andromeda, already referred to, decreasing the cost
of transportation by increasing the carrying capacity
of the vessel, there being no unoccupied space be-
tween the tanks, and decreasing the risk of fires and
explosions, as these empty spaces gave room for the
accumulation of gas. Both these objections held
true against the style of construction adopted later
of a double bottom, the bottom of the oil-tanks being
elevated a short distance above the actual bottom
of the ship. The tank-ships, as now built, have a
longitudinal and numerous transverse bulkheads,
which, with the stringers and beams put in to pre-
vent the slightest straining, make them, from a
structural point of view, undoubtedly the strongest
and safest vessels in the mercantile marine.
The change from barrel to bulk transportation
means large economies in many ways. Before it
was made, oil was filled into barrels, each package
weighed by itself, then rolled to the clock front and
hoisted up over the side of the ship, lowered into
the hold, and stowed away. Each operation re-
quired considerable manual labor. The sailing
vessel, for a month or six weeks, was then exposed
to the delays and vicissitudes of an ocean voyage,
arriving at length at its destined port. Here she
was unloaded, a barrel at a time, and the oil stored
away in packages to be held until used, subject to
loss from leakage and serious damage in appearance.
By the new method of transportation a steamer
comes to the wharf, and the oil is pumped from the
refinery storage into her tanks with great rapidity,
the largest of the ships being loaded in from twelve
to fifteen hours, even though they hold four or five
times as much as the sailing vessels of a few years
ago. A voyage of two weeks and a few days, per-
haps, the time being subject to very close calcula-
tion, brings the cargo to the foreign port. Here it
is unloaded with the same despatch that was used
in loading, the oil being pumped into large storage-
tanks on shore, in which it is held without loss or
damage until needed, the steamer starting immedi-
ately on her return trip. Not a moment is lost, and
no item of unnecessary expense incurred.
It seems scarcely credible that the exports of
petroleum, which have now attained such enormous
proportions, could have begun only thirty years ago.
Messrs. Lockhart & Company, of Pittsburg, have
been generally considered the pioneers in the export
business, having the distinction of sending the first
American oil abroad — some 400,000 gallons, in 1862.
But Mr. Allen Norton Leet claims that James Day
sent 1000 gallons of refined oil to Australia in 1859 ;
and that Colonel A. C. Ferris, in the same year,
made shipments to South America, Germany, and
Italy. However this may be, there were no exports
worthy of the name before 1863 or 1864 ; so that it
is not an overstatement to say that the export trade
in petroleum has reached its present proportions in
the short space of thirty years.
The following tables show the annual exports of
illuminating oil from July i, 1863, to June 30, 1895,
and the average price in barrels each year. The
graphical table at the beginning of this article shows
the total petroleum exports, aggregating for thirty-
one years the enormous quantity of 11,830,068,888
214
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
gallons, valued at not less than twelve hundred
millions of dollars ($1,200,000,000).
EXPORTS OF ILLUMINATING OIL.
YEAR ENDING
JUNE 3oTH.
GALLONS.
YEAR ENDING
JUNE 3oTH.
GALLONS.
1864
I2.7QI Cl8
l88o
767 72C 827
1865 ..
12 722 OOS
1881
•24..2CC.Q2I
1882
3jyB03*J*5
1867
62,686 657
1883
1868
67,000 06 1
1884.
i860 ..
84. 4O7.4.Q 2
1881;
1870 . .
Q7.QO2.1OC
1886
1871 .
W ? o° **
I32,6o8.oc<
1887
1872 .
122, S7Q, 1:71:
1888
l87t
I ^8.102,4.14.
1880
CQ2 2 5 7.4 S >J
1874
217,220,504
1800
1875
IQI,'!CI.Q7.3
1801
S7i i IQ Sot;
1876
204,814,673
l8Q2
^64. 806 6«
1877
262,44.1,844
l8qs
d.2.2 ;o 816
1878
28q,2I4.,C4I
1804.
77O.368 626
1879...
9 4 1. Cab dA2
i Sot;
Many subsidiary industries have sprung up, based
upon the value of oil as an illuminant and as a
material to give heat. There are very few houses
west of the Alleghanies, in cities of moderate size,
where an oil-stove is not to be found ; many are also
used in the East, but not in as great a proportion.
The manufacture of these goods is carried on in
Cleveland, Chicago, and New York. Oil-lamps
afford employment to the manufacturers of lamp-
chimneys, lamps, and lamp-stands. By discoveries
in the methods of supplying oil and air to lamps in
a better way than formerly, these can now be made
of a brilliancy far beyond those of twenty years ago.
It may be said that those produced in 1860 did not
generally exceed four candle power and those of
1876 twenty candle power, but now it is perfectly
practicable to obtain, in any city of the country,
lamps giving from sixty to one hundred candle
power, larger ones also being manufactured.
AVERAGE EXPORT PRICES OF REFINED OIL,
IN BARRELS, AT NEW YORK.
YEAR.
CENTS.
YEAR.
CENTS.
1861 . .
6l%
1878
IO3/
1862
^644
1870
Si2
1863 .
4/lV
1880
°/8
1864
Vt74
65
1881
9
g
,865
(8V
1882
7i£
42 !4
1883
8
1867
m
1884
g i/
2Q1/
1885
8
i860
72 3/
1886
7 1/
1870
26^
1887
6¥
1871 ....
14 M
1888
om
7 '2
1872
2iM
1880
//2
7J/o
187-?
178
1890
7l£
1874
13
l8qi
(,7A
1875 . .
J7
1892
,876
10 U
1891
ei/
1877
15*
1894
ci/
N
CHAPTER XXXII
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
yi GRICULTURE is by far the chief industry
/\ of the United States. The agricultural pro-
L \. ducts of the country greatly exceed in
quantity and value any other class of products.
While the percentage of our population directly
connected with agriculture is steadily decreasing, it
is still much larger than that engaged in any other
calling, and this must long remain true. Agricul-
tural products, as produced, or as transformed by
processes of manufacture, are the basis for by far
the largest part of the trade and commerce of the
country, whether domestic or foreign. Averaging
one year with another, agricultural products consti-
tute about seventy-five per cent, in value of all our
foreign exports, and nearly or quite one half our
total imports.
The growth of the United States in population,
as in many other things, has been phenomenally
rapid, but the growth in agricultural products has
more than kept pace with the increase in population.
There are great fluctuations from year to year, but
the rule is that we not only feed and help clothe our
people, increasing at the rate of from 1,250,000 to
1,500,000 annually, but we have a larger surplus
each year to send to other countries. The total ex-
ports of merchandise from this country in 1795
amounted to less than $50,000,000. The average
value of the agricultural exports alone has been
nearly $650,000,000 annually during recent years.
This nearly or quite equals the rate of increase in
population.
There are no means by which we may determine,
with any approach to accuracy, either the area de-
voted to farm crops or the quantity produced in the
United States in 1795. The total population was
perhaps 4,500,000. The great majority of these
lived on farms or in villages, but the farms were
small and, as a rule, poorly cultivated. In a great
degree the agriculture of the country was simply
self-sufficing. There was a considerable surplus of a
few articles, as shown by the exports. Of these to-
bacco was chief. Even before the beginning of the
Revolutionary War as much as 40,000,000 pounds
of the weed had been exported in a single year.
Prior to 1795 there had been annual exports of some
millions of bushels of wheat and some hundreds of
thousands of barrels of flour; and the exports of
corn had risen to at least 2,000,000 or 3,000,000
bushels in favorable years. There was, however,
little incentive to the raising of agricultural products,
generally, beyond the needs of the people of the
country. The miserable roads, and the lack of
transportation except by means of wagons, further-
more made it practically impossible to send the sur-
plus to a seaport, except from neighborhoods near
at hand. Even had it been possible to market the
surplus, it was not possible to produce any great
quantities of most kinds of farm crops. Not one of
the great labor-saving machines now in use on farms
had reached any considerable advancement, and
very few had been invented or discovered. With
the exception of plowing and harrowing, nearly all
farm operations were performed by manual labor,
with the use of rude and relatively inefficient tools
and machinery. The plows in use were miserably
inefficient in comparison with those everywhere to
be found at the present time. Efforts were being
made to improve these tools. A patent was granted
in 1797 for a cast-iron plow. In 1798 Thomas
Jefferson wrote an essay in which he discussed the
best form and curvature of the mold-board of plows,
this being, so far as is known, the first attempt in
this country to apply scientific principles to such a
problem. Much of the effort of the farmers was
still necessarily expended in enlarging the cultivated
areas of their farms — cutting down the forests, re-
moving the timber or stones, etc.
It is obvious that the most persistent and intel-
ligent efforts, under such unfavorable conditions,
could not produce any great surplus of food pro-
215
216
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ducts over the wants of the people, and it must be
confessed that the majority of the farmers of the
country were far from being intelligent, enterprising
men. There were many exceptions, perhaps most
notably among the plantation owners of the South-
ern States ; but the rule was that the farmers were
poorly educated, very often not especially industri-
ous, and, of course, without any knowledge of what
is now known as scientific agriculture. A very
few associations for the advancement of agriculture
had been organized, but their influence was almost
nothing. The agricultural exhibition, the agricul-
tural paper, the agricultural meetings for discussion,
were still of the future. As a class the farmers were
very poor, only beginning to recover from the great
industrial depression caused by the Revolution and
the subsequent attempts to establish a stable govern-
ment. It is an interesting fact, however, that almost
every farm crop now produced in the United States
had been tried even prior to the Revolutionary War.
The chief exception is sorghum — not only the sac-
charine but the non-saccharine varieties, of which
large quantities are now grown as food for farm
animals. In comparatively recent years some plants
have been introduced which give promise of becom-
ing important farm crops, but no one of them is as
yet to be so classed.
This is not the place for the discussion of the
subject, but it may be said that the farm animals of
the United States were few in number and generally
quite inferior in quality a century ago. There
were more good horses, relatively, than there were
either cattle, sheep, or swine. It may also be
pointed out that efforts at improvement of the farm
live stock of the country may be said to have begun
about the commencement of the century — at least
so far as cattle and sheep were concerned. The
dairy industry of the country, so important in recent
years, and which has made such marvelous advances
within the last third of a century, was practically
unknown, except in so far as there were attempts
to supply each community with some butter and less
cheese from small farm dairies. It is the pleasant
duty of others to chronicle the marvelous develop-
ment of horticulture, but it may be noted that the
condition of this now great interest was even less
advanced one hundred years ago than was the
growth of farm crops or the rearing of farm animals.
As we look back one hundred years, then, we see
that 1795 was not only a day of small things, of
mere beginnings of the nation, but peculiarly was
it a day of small things in agricultural work. Com-
pared with the present time the farmers were few in
number, poor in purse, poor in implements and
machinery ; doing most of the farm work with hand-
tools of rude design ; with little or no idea of the
benefit of rotation of crops or the best utilization of
manures; with little incentive to produce more of
most crops than was sufficient to supply the neigh-
borhood demands ; and with the poorest of facilities
for transporting any surplus to relatively distant
markets in this country, or to seaports for export.
All honor to them for what they accomplished under
great difficulties ; double honor to many of them for
their perception of the need for improvement in
many lines, and the wise and persistent efforts to
secure improvement by the invention and introduc-
tion of improved machinery, better varieties of grains
and animals, better methods of culture and manage-
ment, and better facilities for transportation.
Turning now to the present, we find a really
marvelous development along many lines. Size is
not a proof of excellence, but we may well be inter-
ested in the vast extent of our agricultural domain
and its annual products. By the census of 1890
there were in the United States 4,564,641 farms,
containing 623,218,619 acres, or covering 973,779
square miles. Of these millions of acres, 357,616,-
755, or over fifty-seven per cent., were improved,
and produced farm crops in 1889 valued at $2,460,-
107,454. These farms, with machinery and live
stock, were valued at almost $16,000,000,000. In
the more than five years since the census was taken
there has been a large increase in these figures. In
the decade preceding 1890 there had been an in-
crease of 555,704 farms, and over 87,000,000 acres
of the farms of the country. The aggregate value
of the yearly product of these farms, inconceivably
large as the figures given are, does not include the
value of the live stock on the farms, although much
of the vegetable product was consumed by it. Of
the 357,000,000 acres reported as improved on the
farms of the country, not quite one half are in crops
which require plowing and cultivating each year.
A few great crops occupy most of this area. The
corn-field of the United States annually covers an
average of about 72,000,000 acres, the wheat about
37,000,000, the oats 27,000,000, and cotton some
20,000,000. From 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 acres
are devoted to the potato crop, about 3,000,000 to
barley, 2,000,000 to rye, less than 1,000,000 to
buckwheat or tobacco. The meadows occupy some
50,000,000 acres. Nearly all the remaining vast
area is used for pasturage, or lies practically uncul-
tivated, as no one other crop has, relatively, a large
acreage.
GEORGE E. MORROW.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
217
Mere numbers give little idea to most of us when
they reach into the millions ; but a few more may
be given here. Indian corn or maize is the chief
grain crop of the United States, as it was the most
valuable addition to the world's list of foods contrib-
uted by America. This country is far in advance
of all others in corn production. The average crop
is about 1,700,000,000 bushels. Twice in recent
years the official estimates exceeded 2,000,000,000
bushels, and the estimates of the crop of 1895 have
made it larger than in any preceding year. In sea-
sons favorable for this crop the product is at least
thirty bushels for each man, woman, and child in
the country. Corn is more largely used for human
food in the United States than in any other country ;
but the total so used is only a small percentage of
the whole crop. Nearly the entire product is con-
sumed in the country, however, as it is the chief
grain used in the production of beef and pork, and
is largely fed to all classes of farm animals. The
quantity exported is large actually, but very small
relatively, averaging less than four per cent, for the
last twenty-five years. In but one year (1890) did
the exports equal 100,000,000 bushels. Earnest
efforts have been made in recent years to cause an
increased demand from Europe for this grain. As
yet no striking effects have been produced, but there
is reason to hope that there may ultimately be a
large increase in our exports of this greatest of all
our farm products. Grown in every State and Ter-
ritory, by far the larger part of the crop is produced
in seven States, lying in the eastern central part of
the country — Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Mis-
souri, Nebraska, and Kansas. In a favorable year
a single county in one of the great corn-growing
States will have a much larger yield than will the six
New England States.
In area devoted to the crop and in value of the
product wheat has long ranked second among the
grain crops of the country. For a series of years
recently the average yield has been about 475,000,-
ooo bushels. The maximum crop was over 611,-
000,000 bushels, produced in 1891 from almost
40,000,000 acres. The rapid and continuous de-
cline in value of wheat, believed by many to be
permanent, has had a considerable effect in reducing
the acreage. As wheat is the great bread-food
grain of highly civilized races of men, as it has been
relatively little used as food for animals, and as five
to six bushels per inhabitant per year is a liberal
allowance, it is obvious that we have had a large
surplus for export year by year. The exports of
wheat and wheat-flour have long formed a large part
of our enormous exports of breadstuff s. In 1892
these articles to the value of over $236,000,000 were
sent abroad. It may well be doubted whether
wheat culture has not reached its maximum for a
series of years, but there is no reason to believe that
this grain will cease to be one of the most important
of our agricultural products.
Third in area, and of increasing importance
among the grain crops, are oats. The average crop
for the past six years exceeds 650,000,000 bushels;
the crop of 1895 being considerably larger than
that of any former year. The quantity of oats used
for human food in this country has greatly increased
in recent years, actually and relatively ; but the
grain is still chiefly used as food for farm animals,
and, as with corn, the crop is almost entirely con-
sumed in our own country, the quantity exported
being insignificant in comparison with that used
within the United States.
Among the most valuable of all the farm crops of
which any considerable percentage is directly sold
is hay. In 1893 the acreage devoted to this crop
was about 50,000,000, and the yield over 65,000,-
ooo tons, valued at $570,000,000. Much of this is
shipped considerable distances within the country,
but only a very small percentage is exported.
The great cotton crop will be separately treated,
and space will not permit even the briefest mention
of other crops important as some of them are. As
has been indicated, many of these crops are used
chiefly in the production of animals or animal pro-
ducts. These will be treated in another chapter.
One farm industry is so important and interesting
in its rapid spread and development that it deserves
at least brief recognition. No agricultural interest
of the country has had a more striking growth since
the Civil War than has the dairy. Prior to 1860,
while much butter and a good deal of cheese were
manufactured, dairying received special attention
in but few parts of the country. The methods of
manufacture were primitive, and much of the pro-
duct was inferior in quality. Associated dairying —
the manufacture of butter and cheese in large fac-
tories, which often receive the milk produced on
many farms — may be claimed as a system of Amer-
ican origin ; and its introduction and rapid spread
soon after the close of the Civil War probably did
more to cause prosperity and increased intelligence
among the farmers over large areas of the country
than did any other one thing in connection with our
agriculture. In quite recent years there have been
most important improvements in methods, and while
there has been serious decline in prices,— in part
218
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
caused by the introduction of substitutes for butter,
made from other animal fats, — it seems certain that
American dairying is to continue to advance in the
extent of the products and, if wise measures be
pursued, in the quantity of these exported. Already
the value of the dairy exports in a single year has
closely approximated $200,000,000. So large a
proportion of the milk given by the more than 16,-
500,000 dairy cows in the country is consumed on
the farms where produced that it is almost impossi-
ble even to approximate the total quantity.
As was the case with our government, so in
relation to agriculture it may be said that all that
had preceded the century under consideration was
but the preparation for a great and rapidly develop-
ing system. Our agriculture, like our government,
has characteristics which more or less sharply sepa-
rate it from that of other countries. The contrasts
between our agricultural systems and those of Great
Britain are especially striking. Most noticeable of
all is the vast extent of our agricultural domain and
the vast aggregate of our products. Agriculture is
here not only the basal but the chief industry of the
country. We export very much more of the pro-
ducts of the farm than we import. In the past,
and in large degree in the present, we have had
low-priced lands and relatively high-priced labor.
Naturally this has given great stimulus to the inven-
tion, improvement, and general introduction of agri-
cultural machinery, and we need not be surprised at
the fact that a larger percentage of farm work is
done with the aid of machinery over much of our
country than in any other land. Systems of manage-
ment are simple, not firmly established, and relatively
readily modified. Probably in no other country are
farmers more ready to take up the cultivation of new
crops or new varieties of plant or animal crops, new
machinery, new markets or methods of marketing.
The system of land tenure is still, as a rule, abso-
lute ownership of moderate-sized farms. The per-
centage of tenant farmers is, unfortunately but
perhaps inevitably, somewhat rapidly increasing as
the average price for farm lands advances in the
more newly settled regions; but more than seven
out of ten of the farms of the whole country are still
cultivated by their owners. The average size of the
farms, estimated at 137 acres, indicates that the
division has, as a rule, been for the purpose of
direct personal management by the owner, with
comparatively little hired labor. Of the 4,564,641
farms reported by the census of 1890, only 58,207
were returned as containing over 500 acres, while
there were over 2,000,000 containing between 100
and 500 acres, and over 1,100,000 with between 50
and 100 acres.
As has been noted, our agriculture is still expand-
ing ; the acreage in farms, and in a much greater
degree the acreage under cultivation, is steadily in-
creasing. This fact suggests an explanation of the
apparently uncomplimentary fact that the average
yields per acre of our great crops are below those
of some other countries with certainly no better
soils. In the past the abundance of low-priced
lands — much of them to be had almost for the ask-
ing— led to their occupation by many who had little
experience in farming, little capital, and too often
had more expectation of profit from an advance
in the price of the land than from the growth and
sale of farm crops. Much of the criticism passed
on American farming and American farmers has
not, however, been just. Compared with their fel-
lows in other lands, the actual working farmers of
the United States are more cosmopolitan, coming
from many lands, and changing location within the
country with too great readiness ; they have at least
equal intelligence and education, and more of abil-
ity to adapt themselves to new conditions and suc-
cessfully solve new agricultural problems.
Space will not permit an extended review of the
causes of the marvelous development of agricultural
products in the United States in the last century.
Mention may be made of some of the more notice-
able ones, however. Of course the most obvious
one was the existence of such almost immeasurably
large tracts of fertile soil, inviting tillage not only
by the descendants of the early colonists, but by
millions of immigrants from the more densely pop-
ulated countries of Europe. But until better means
of transportation were discovered than existed a
century since it was practically impossible that re-
gions distant from the seaboard or navigable rivers
should be settled. Few things have done more to
stimulate settlement and the cultivation of the soil
than the introduction of the steamboat, the canal,
and, most of all, the railroad ; but no student can
fail to realize that without the invention of improved
agricultural machinery it would have been absolutely
impossible to have grown, harvested, or prepared
for transportation one half of our present annual
farm crops.
These and like things well illustrate the great
truth, so often apparently forgotten, that no man,
and equally no class of men, lives to himself or for
himself. That graceful essayist and thoughtful
statesman, George William Curtis, well said, "The
test of national welfare is the intelligence and pros-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
219
pi-rity of the fanner." It is equally true that the
prosperity of the farmer depends on the prosperity
of the other workers of the nation. The govern-
ment, too, has officially attempted to aid and develop
agriculture in many ways. Without going into dis-
puted political questions or pronouncing on the
wisdom of all its efforts, it is obvious that the aid
granted to the building of railroads, notably the
offer of free lands to settlers, the establishment
of a national Department of Agriculture, of agri-
cultural colleges and experiment stations, were largely
or wholly designed to help agriculture and those
engaged in it.
We may not wisely attempt much of prophecy;
but the story of the past, with its alternations of
great prosperity and serious depression, always
tending, however, to advance when viewed for any
considerable series of years ; with its abundant illus-
trations of triumph over great obstacles and of the
solution of most perplexing problems, leaves no
room for pessimistic predictions. We are seeing the
beginnings of great changes in our farming systems ;
we are to see more severe competition with the
agriculture of other lands, narrower margins of
profit, the necessity for better preparation on the
part of those who are to be American farmers ; but
we need not fear that the agricultural products of
our country will decline in quantity or quality, and
so long as the nation endures we may confidently
expect agriculture to be our chief industry.
CHAPTER XXXIII
AMERICAN LIVE STOCK
THE tastes, habits, and character of a people
are indicated by the class of domestic animals
they breed ; and a nation's advance or de-
cline in civilization can readily be traced in the im-
provement or degeneration of the animals kept for
labor and pleasure, or raised to supply food and rai-
ment. This principle we see strikingly illustrated in
the horses and cattle brought to America by the
Spaniards in their invasion of South America. The
horses of Spain represented the best blood of Arabia
and the East, and her cattle that of Andalusia
and the Moors. These animals, left in a genial
climate, spread through Central America northward ;
but through the negligence and ignorance of the
Mexican the blood of Spain degenerated into the
wiry and stubborn Mexican pony. This, again,
passing northward into the colder regions of the
Indian tribes, became the ungainly and dwarfed
Indian pony of the plains, destitute of the style and
beauty of the elegant Andalusian, but with all his
spirit and hardiness remaining to tell of his Eastern
and royal origin.
The animals that came with the emigrants from
Europe and the British Isles gave America such a
mixed aggregation of traits and types as the world
has never before witnessed. From this rare gather-
ing of blood from every civilized land came our
native cattle, our wild horses, and the common hog
and sheep. From these the pioneers bred, and their
sons, in turn, improved by importation and by selec-
tion, aided by a temperate climate, fertile soil, rich
herbage, and grasses and grains such as no other
country had ever furnished for the foundation and
development of domestic animals. The mingling
of bloods from every nation has given us a class of
domestic animals called native or common stock,
which has been easily impressed by the use of males
of definite or fixed type. The result has been to give
to the United States in one century the highest type
and greatest number of high-grade and pure-bred
animals of any nation on the earth.
The intelligence of man has more to do with fix-
ing the type and character of the horse than has food
or climate. Jacob was the first color specialist of
history, and succeeded, by his skill in fixing color
and breeding from the strongest of the herds, in tak-
ing from his father-in-law the best that he possessed.
Darwin, in his " Domestication of Plants and Ani-
mals," shows that a damp climate does not favor
the development of the highest type of the horse.
Yet, notwithstanding this, under the courageous
and enterprising reigns of William the Conqueror
and Henry I., England bred a strong and fleet type
of horses for her cavalry, and under William we find
the first mention of the horse being used for the pur-
poses of agriculture. In the reign of James, English
racing was fostered by matches against time and trials
of speed and endurance that verged on cruelty. But
the pluck and push of Britain was tending steadily,
meanwhile, against the climate, ungenial as it was to
the horses brought from Spain and Flanders, to give
speed, courage, and weight to the horses of England.
So valuable proved this Eastern blood that the stud-
book was established in 1791, although the first vol-
ume did not appear until 1808. By judicious cross-
ing, training, and feeding, with the selection of the
fittest, was evolved the blooded horse, whose descen-
dants in America, under a more favorable climate and
brighter skies, have eclipsed the records of Arabia
or Barbary.
The type of the thoroughbred was heavier at the
beginning of this century than it is now, as the
blooded horse was then more used for the improve-
ment of the horses for cavalry and parade. In
America the horse has been bred more for business
than pleasure. The invention of the elliptic spring
and the use of American hickory in the production
of light vehicles for pleasure and business, together
220
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
221
with the invention of macadam and Telford roads,
turned the demand from the running to the trotting
horse. Up to that time the best horses were used
for the saddle, in parade, pleasure, sport, or war. It
needed a country devoted to business, and seeking
advancement by the arts of industry rather than
those of war, to evolve that purely American type,
the trotter. Until the present century the horse was
a minor factor in the uses of business and agriculture,
the ox, the ass, and the camel being more important
servants of the trades and the husbandman. The
first private coach was introduced into New York in
1745 ; but coaches were scarce until after the Revo-
lutionary War, and not until after 1840, when the
light one-horse vehicle came into use, did the
changed conditions of travel develop a harness-
horse for purposes of business and pleasure. The
attention of horse owners once attracted to the new
demands, a revolution was brought about in the busi-
ness of breeding and training horses. Along with
the change in vehicles incident to the evolution of
the trotter came as great a change in the style of har-
ness and trappings. The effect upon trade and com-
merce of the new lines of industry made possible by
the evolution of the trotter is not surpassed by the
changes now coming with the bicycle, trolley, and
electric motor.
About the beginning of this century there came
out from the lines of breeding of the thoroughbred,
traceable to such noted horses as Flying Childers,
Byerly Turk, and the Darley Arabian, a gray, stoutly
built horse, of wonderful power and stamina, with
a slashing, open gait, just fitted to found a race of
trotters. This was Messenger, foaled in 1780, and
he became the progenitor of the trotting families in
America. In 1793 Justin Morgan was foaled, sired
by one believed to be thoroughbred. Three of his
sons, Bulrush, Sherman, and Woodbury, became
noted as the sires of horses of intelligence, courage,
and speed, and the get of some of them excelled as
roadsters and stage-horses. From Black Hawk Mor-
gan, sired by Sherman out of a fast-trotting English
mare, has come the beautiful, useful, and courageous
line of Morgans. The original horse could trot in
2.40, and died in 1856 at the age of twenty-three.
In 1826 or 1827, James McNitt, of Washington
County, New York, purchased in Montreal a large
dapple gray, "a strong, active, and fast trotter,"
which has since become famous through the Morse
horse, sire of Alexander's Norman.
In 1 849 was foaled Rysdyck's Hambletonian, the
founder of the most noted family of trotters. Ke
was sired by Abdallah, who traced to Messenger by
both the sire and dam, out of a dam by Bellfounder,
with Messenger crosses on the dam's side. As early
as 1876 the interest in breeding and rearing trotters
had become so great that fabulous prices were paid
for colts, simply on the strength of their breeding.
Two fillies, untrained, sold for $13,000. A lot of
thirteen young colts sold for $41,200. The three-
year-old colt Steinway was sold for $13,000 in 1879.
After the animals had proved their high quality
prices still further advanced, and Governor Sprague
sold for $27,000 as a five-year-old. Maud S.,bred
at Alexander's noted stock-farm in Kentucky, was
sold to Mr. Bonner for $21,000 when four years
old, with a record of 2.10^, and the title "Queen
of the Turf." Smuggler sold for $40,000, Pocahon-
tas for $45,000, Goldsmith Maid for $36,000, Dex-
ter for $36,000, and so on, until we come to Axtell,
who sold for $100,000 after he had eclipsed the time
of all stallions, and retired to the stud, where his ser-
vice fee was $1000.
As an illustration of the wealth invested and the
possible earnings of a successful breeding establish-
ment we may state that " the money value of the sons
and daughters of Rysdyck's Hambletonian that have
beaten 2.30 can scarcely be computed. The stal-
lion himself was purchased with his dam for $125,
and earned in the stud $205,750. Thirty-six of his
get have trotted in 2.30 or better, and the prices for
which they could have been sold in their best days
amounted to $3 2 5 ,000. Among them were Sentinel,
George Wilkes, Jay Gould, and Administrator, all
noted sires. Their united progeny was worth many
thousands for stud and track uses. Some of his sons,
without a 2.30 record, became successful in the stud.
Alexander's Abdallah was sold for about $3500, but
he got Goldsmith Maid, which made arecord of 2.14,
and won on the turf close to $250,000; Almont
sired twenty-two 2.30 trotters ; Belmont got nine with
records better than 2.30. So the descendants of
Alexander's Abdallah have been worth to their own-
ers hundreds of thousands of dollars." Volunteer
was another who ranked among the most success-
ful of the noted Hambletonian sires, having to his
credit twenty-three 2.30 performers.
Electioneer, bought by Governor Stanford, proved
to be a noted sire, getting the fastest yearling,
2.36^ ; the fastest two-year-old, 2.21 ; the fastest
three-year-old, 2.19^ ; and the fastest four-year-old,
2.18^. The bracing climate of Palo Alto, and the
methods of handling peculiar to Governor Stanford's
breeding farm, aided in these accomplishments.
These are but a few of the thousands of good horses
that owe success to the Hambletonian blood. It is
222
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
not strange that the enthusiasm among lovers of the
trotting horse has led many beyond the limits of safe
business methods, and that a reaction should follow
and prices decline. The value of trotters has been
measured largely by their speed, taken as a measure
of ability to win future races, or as evidence of blood
lines that will make the animal valuable in the stud.
Success in campaigning is undoubted evidence of
pluck and stamina; and the breeding and training
of the trotter, and his contests on the track, have
developed these qualities in so high a degree that
no other class can equal him. The evolution of the
trotting horse has also shown the value of a training
peculiar to America as a factor in breeding. Scien-
tific handling, joined with reinforced lines of trotting
blood, has led to a gradual reduction of time since
the first record was made at Haerlem race-course, the
following notice of which appeared in the " Connec-
ticut Journal," New Haven, June 19, 1806, copied
from the New York " Spectator " :
"Fast Trotting. — Yesterday afternoon the Haer-
lem race-course of one mile's distance was trotted
around in two minutes and fifty-nine seconds by a
horse called Yankey, from New Haven — a rate of
speed, it is believed, never before excelled in this
country."
The following table shows how, under skilful
breeding and tireless training, the trotting and pac-
ing records have been reduced from year to year :
TROTTING AND PACING RECORDS, 1806 TO 1895.
YEAR. HORSE. TIME.
1806 Yankey (saddle) 2.59
1810 " A horse from Boston " (saddle) 2.58^
1824 Top Gallant (saddle) 2.40
1830 Buster (saddle) 2.32
1834 Edwin Forrest (saddle) 2-3l%
1843 Lady Suffolk (saddle) 2.28
1852 Tacony (saddle) 2.26
1853 Tacony (saddle) 2.25}^
1856 Flora Temple 2.24^
1859 Flora Temple 2. 19 V
1865 Dexter 2.i8,£
1866 Dexter 2.18
1867 Dexter 2.17^
1871 Goldsmith Maid 2.17
1872 Goldsmith Maid 2.16%
1874 Goldsmith Maid 2. 14
1878 Rarus 2. 131^
1879 St. Tulien 2. 1 1 V
1880 Maud S 2.I03/
1881 Maud S 3.IOJJ
1884 Jay- Eye-See 2. 10
1884 Maud S 2.09 V
1884 Maud S 2.oqV
1885 MaudS 2.08^
1891 Sunol 2.08^
1892 Nancy Hanks 2.04
1894 Alix 2.03^
1895 No reduction.
From 1810 to 1824 the record was not reduced.
It is pertinent to notice that about this time run-
ning races had become common in the Middle and
Southern States, while a strong sentiment against
racing prevailed in the Northern States. In 1820,
Pennsylvania, for example, not only forbade racing,
but also enacted that no person should "print or
cause to be printed, set up or cause to be set up, any
advertisement mentioning the time and place for the
running, trotting, or pacing of any horses, mares, or
geldings," etc. A similar law was in the statutes of
Connecticut until within twenty years. New York
passed an act to prevent horse racing March 19,
1802, which was amended March 30, 1821, permit-
ting the " training of pacing, trotting, and running
horses" in Queens County for five years. The
sheriff was required to be on hand to witness these
"trials of speed," as called in the statute. This
amendment was reenacted April 3, 1826, without a
time limit. In 1825 the New York Trotting Club
was organized, with a view of " improving the speed
of road-horses." This track was probably the first
trotting course in the world. The Hunting Park
Association was formed in Philadelphia in February,
1828, and the next year a trotting club was organized
in Baltimore. These facts show a changing public
sentiment, and the records begin to fall. The keep-
ing of records became an established custom as early
as 1829, when the American Turf Register began.
The English had not then begun to keep records,
but the American custom has enabled us to mark
the development of speed and establish well-defined
breeds during the threescore and more years it has
been in use. Wallace's American Trotting Register
was started in 1871 by J. H. Wallace, New York,
since which time the business of breeding trotters has
increased, until now it is estimated by good authority
that the number of registered standard-bred trotters
exceeds 120,000. In the early history of the record
many animals were admitted to registry that are not
now classed as standard-bred. The term "standard "
indicates to-day ability of one or more ancestors to
trot within 2.30.
The lovers of the Morgan horse have organized an
association to publish a stud-book and to breed Mor-
gan horses to meet the growing demand for stylish-
going roadsters with the sense and stamina character-
istic of the Vermont Morgans early in this century.
Except the produce and incidental benefits to
other breeds from the use of the blooded horse of
England, no nation or age has produced a race of
horses that exemplifies so forcibly the intelligence,
pluck, enterprise, and thrift of a people as the full his-
tory of the evolution and successes of the trotting
horse shows the character of the Americans. He
has won his way against the prejudices of every
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
nation and rival, until we find the English, French,
German, and Russian are buying the American trot-
ter for the uses of pleasure, business, and breeding.
Before the days of macadam roads and light
vehicles, saddle-horses were as common as trotters
are to-day. They were of no particular breeding,
but traced to the thoroughbred, the Narragansett
pacer, or the Scottish Galloway. Herbert suggests
that they were of Spanish origin, their ancestors com-
ing from Cuba. They were not only of general use,
but were shipped in large numbers from New Eng-
land to Cuba and the Southern coasts. There is now
a revival of interest in the saddle-horse as a luxury,
the demand being beyond the supply. A stud-book
has been started, and some breeding farms, especially
in Kentucky, are engaged in breeding and training
saddle-horses of high excellence. The originators of
the stud-book hope to establish a breed of American
horses of this class that shall combine the highest
intelligence with great style and ability to go in any
of the acquired gaits, and not to be limited to the
walk, trot, and canter. From the ideal set up, and
the success that has thus far attended these efforts,
it is safe to predict that an improved breed of Ameri-
can saddle-horses will soon have its representatives in
every horse show or fair that will give them a class.
Prior to the introduction of railroads Vermont had
what Herbert called a distinct breed of cart-horses.
He described them as " the models of what draft-
horses should be, combining immense power with
great quickness, a very respectable turn of speed,
fine show, and good action." They had " none of
the shagginess of mane, tail, and fetlocks which indi-
cates descent from the black horse of Lincolnshire,"
and none of the curliness of mane and tail which
marks the Canadian or Norman blood. " The pecu-
liar characteristic of these horses is the shortness of
their backs, the roundness of their barrels, and the
closeness of their ribbing up." The only other breed
of American horses we have to notice is the Cones-
toga, which before the days of the Pennsylvania
Railroad was common on the farms and highways
of Pennsylvania. It seems to have descended from
the stock brought by emigrants from Flanders, Den-
mark, and Germany. It was a mixture of several
breeds, resulting in a large, patient burden bearer,
held in high esteem by the Germans of that State.
Although we have not originated and permanently
established any American breed of draft-horses, the
number of heavy horses has greatly increased, and
the quality has improved. The increasing heavy
business of factories, jobbers, importers, and transfer
and express companies in our well-paved cities has
called for a great number of powerful horses. This
demand has led to the importing of heavy horses
from France, England, Scotland, and Germany. The
Vermont cart-horse and Conestoga draft-horse ex-
celled the types of foreign heavy horses, as a rule ;
and, with the start thus made in such breeds, it is to
be regretted that our pride in American animals has
not led our people to perpetuate and further develop
these useful horses.
Tens of thousands of dollars have been sent abroad
since the fad of importing heavy elephantine horses
became common in the Western States. The enter-
prising importers took advantage of the American
love of a big thing, and scoured France, England,
Scotland, and Germany for the heaviest animals.
They imported more than they could sell, and then
adopted the plan of leasing stallions for a term of
years. Since 1 890 there have been many disastrous
failures among this class of importers. There were,
however, several importers who had truer ideals, and
who imported the best type of the draft and heavy
coach breeds to be found abroad, establishing breed-
ing farms not excelled in the world. These men will
weather the storm and disseminate some of the best
blood of the Old World.
The earliest importer of high-class draft-horses was
Edward Harris, of Moorestown, N. J. In 1839 he
imported two mares and the stallion Diligence, who
was in many respects similar to the McNitt horse,
but heavier and more compactly built, being a little
over fifteen hands high. He left an impress upon
the stock of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania
which has been of great value. The next valuable
importation was made by Charles Fullington, of
Union County, Ohio, in the spring of 1851. He
bought and brought home from France the famous
Louis Napoleon, a "short-legged, closely ribbed,
blocky, and compact gray, three years old." The
style of the horse was ridiculed by horsemen of that
region. In 1853 he was sold to A. P. Cushman, of
De Witt County, Illinois. After his colts in Union
County proved his worth, a company was formed for
importing other horses of his type. The author of
the " Percheron- Norman Stud-Book " says of him
that he was undoubtedly the best-known and most
popular French horse ever brought to America.
Thus the French blood was introduced into the
fertile plains west of the Alleghanies.
The first importations west of the Wabash were
made in 1868 by W. J. Edwards, of Chicago, in the
great stallions Success and French Emperor. The
latter went to Iowa as the property of Hon. J. B.
Grinnell. Success was sold to the Fletcher Horse
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Company, of which M. W. Dunham, of Wayne, 111.,
was an active member. In 1874 he purchased the
entire interest of the company, establishing his cele-
brated importing and breeding farm at Wayne. Of
the great horse Success it may be said he was truly
named. His colts at the average age of two years
and eight months sold at the average price of $450
per head, and in 1874 alone the sales of his get
amounted to $36,000.
The Clydesdale has been the strong rival of the
Percheron-Norman at the horse shows and fairs.
This breed is popular in Canada, and has its most
numerous representatives in the Northwest. The
secretary of the American Clydesdale Association,
Alexander Galbraith, says : " No importations into
the United States appear to have been made until
about 1870 and 1872, when John Reber, of Lancas-
ter, O., and the Fullingtons of Union County, began
the work. From that date small importations were
made by various parties, the most prominent being
the Powell Brothers, of Shadeland, Pa. Importations
steadily increased up to 1888. To-day the largest
breeder in America is Colonel Holloway, of Illinois ;
N. P. Clarke, of Minnesota, and R. B. Ogilvee, of
Wisconsin, coming next. These three breeders have
among them about 175 brood-mares, and have the
very cream of Scotland both in blood and individ-
ual merit. As high as $10,000 has been paid for
one Clyde. Eight volumes of the ' American Clyde
Stud-Book' have been published, containing 8000
entries."
The Shire horse is little esteemed in Canada, but
in the American craze for heavy horses he finds ad-
mirers. There is an American stud-book of three
volumes, with 4100 entries, 3500 of which represent
imported horses.
Of the foreign coach-horses the French and
German have creditable representatives in the West,
where Mr. M. W. Dunham has imported many high-
grade specimens of the French, and some other firms
have introduced the German breeds.
The hackney is gaining rapidly, and there are some
enterprising breeders and importers who are dili-
gently introducing them at the present time. As the
importation of heavy draft-horses wanes, farmers
and horsemen are becoming interested in breeding
horses of more action and style, so that the hackneys
and foreign coach breeds are now receiving more
attention.
In the West and South the mule, as a draft and
farm animal, has long been of great service. Gen-
eral Washington, with his practical nature, appreci-
ated the mule as an animal suited to the plantations
of the Southern States. He was America's first suc-
cessful breeder of mules. Mr. Curtis says the king
of Spain presented Washington with a jack from his
royal stud in 1 787. General Lafayette also presented
him one which proved of great value, and which sired
Washington's favorite jack, named Compound. To
him he bred his best coach-mares, and produced such
valuable animals that the Southern planters began to
use their thoroughbred mares for raising mules. The
mule being more steady at a draft, less liable to in-
jury or disease, less subject to lameness, and being
able to endure heat and hardship better than the
horse, his price for heavy work has kept as high as
that of draft-horses. The number of mules in the
United States increased from 559,331 in 1850 to
2,295,532 in 1890. The number of horses increased
from 4,336, 719 in 185010 14,969,467 in 1890, which
gives one horse to every family in the Union, more
than is possessed per capita by any other nation.
We are still importing horses for breeding purposes
at the rate of 10,402 in 1890, at a cost of $2,881,-
657 ; and 37,675 horses for other purposes the same
year, valued at $1,882,976. The number exported
for breeding purposes is on the increase, as well as
for sporting and general service.
The quality of our horses will undoubtedly im-
prove more rapidly in the next decade. The pres-
ent low prices have forced the sale and destruction
of many thousands of inferior animals. The rapid
increase of the low grade of horses from the ranches
of the West and Southwest has tended to lower the
price of farm and common draft and street horses.
The rapid displacement of horses in street-car service
by the trolley has had its effect in lowering prices.
During the past year new avenues for disposal of
the surplus have been opened, as it has been found
that the price is now so low that horse-meat, cured,
can be shipped to Belgium and Germany at six
cents per pound. Fertilizer factories have been
known to buy cast-off horses as low as $2 per head.
The hide is worth, on an average, $3.25, the bones
$1.25, and the fat and tankage about as much more.
At these figures many unemployed and disabled
horses will find their way to fertilizer establishments,
and the land be doubly blessed.
In the salubrious and temperate climate of the
United States, with its various elevations and depres-
sions, and with the wealth of rich herbage of the
mountains and hillsides supplemented by the vari-
ety and abundance of grains throughout the valleys
and plains, we have conditions more favorable for
the raising of cattle than those enjoyed by any other
nation. Our herds have been singularly free from
LAZARUS N. BONHAM.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OK AMERICAN COMMERCE
any of the diseases which have swept off the cattle
of middle and southern Europe by the thousands.
Pleuropneumonia and anthrax have entered our
shores with cattle imported from lands where such
diseases have a hold, but in no case have any of
these plagues spread over any great extent of coun-
try. Under the efficient organization of our Bureau
of Animal Industry, outbreaks of any contagion have
speedily disappeared ; and while to-day the cattle
of the United States are spread from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, and from the everglades of Florida to
the plains of Dakota, numbering nearly 50,000,000,
every cargo of cattle leaving our ports carries with
it a clean bill of health. Every epidemic of conta-
gious disease that has ever visited our herds, if we ex-
cept the epizootic among horses, has been traceable
directly to a foreign source. In our herds is rep-
resented the blood of the choicest of the Devon, the
shorthorn, the longhorn, the Hereford, the Sussex,
and the Norfolk of England ; the Ayrshires, Angus,
and Galloway of Scotland ; the Kerrys of Ireland ;
the Alderney, Guernsey, and Jersey of the Channel
Islands ; with the Holstein from Holland, and the
cattle from highland and lowland of every land where
good cattle are produced. In the century just clos-
ing our enterprising farmers and dairymen have im-
ported every year cattle at a cost of many thousands
of dollars.
The first English colonial settlement on the James
River, we are told, brought cattle from England as
early as 1607. Succeeding colonies brought cattle
from the countries whence they emigrated. In 1625
the settlers of New York made an importation from
Holland, which was followed by further importa-
tions, each leaving its impress on the cattle of that
region. The English colonies in Massachusetts and
New Hampshire, the Dutch in New Jersey, the
Swedes in Delaware, and the Danes on the Piscata-
qua River, all brought cattle from the countries near-
est the ports from which they sailed. The cattle of
Normandy came in with the French around Quebec,
and the Spanish cattle from South America and
Mexico made their impress on the Southwest, as seen
in what are now called Texas cattle. From all this
motley and diverse stock have sprung the common
or native cattle of America, giving the foundation
on which we have builded. The shorthorns have
been more used, perhaps, than any other beef breed
for improvement of this native stock ; and the early
settlers were more interested in developing cattle that
could concentrate the wealth of grass and corn of the
fertile valleys into beef than into butter and cheese.
During the last quarter of the century great atten-
tion has been paid to the improvement of dairy cat-
tle. The importation of Channel Islands cattle and
Holstein-Friesians has been large, and even the dairy
qualities of shorthorns have attracted attention, some
of the milking families of the breed bringing ad-
vanced prices. The World's Fair dairy test of short-
horn, Jersey, Guernsey, and Ayrshire cattle, continu-
ing through several months, gave a new impulse to
the breeding of Channel Islands cattle and dairy
shorthorns.
Soon after the Revolutionary War a few short-
horn cattle were imported into Virginia. They were
well fleshed, and the cows gave as much as thirty-
two quarts of milk a day. In 1783, Matthew Patton,
Sr., of the South Fork of the Potomac, imported a
longhorn bull. In 1785 three of his sons moved to
Kentucky, taking with them some of the half-bred
heifers. In 1795 they sent back to Virginia and
Maryland for cattle known as " milk cattle." In
1803 the Pattons brought out the " milk bull " Pluto
825, which proved a noted breeder. Descendants
of this bull and another named Mars, and a cow,
Venus, found their way into the Virginia Reservation
of Ohio, and thus Mars, Pluto, and Venus laid the
foundation for future improvement of cattle in the
West.
In 1817, Lewis Sanders, of Lexington, Ky., im-
ported three bulls and three heifers from England,
which were of so good a quality that they laid the
foundation of many excellent herds. In 1818, Cor-
nelius Coolidge, of Boston, Mass., imported a heifer
and a bull. About 1820 several public-spirited men
in the neighborhood of Boston brought out at differ-
ent times a number of valuable animals, whose de-
scendants are still numerous in New England. In
1823, General Stephen Van Rensselaer, of Albany,
N. Y., imported the bull Washington and two heifers.
In 1824, Colonel John Hare Powell, of Philadelphia,
began to import shorthorns, and bred largely at his
estate near the city, selling them to go into Ohio
and Kentucky.
The first drove of fat cattle from the fertile Scioto
country and the Virginia Reservation crossed the
Alleghanies on the hoof in the spring of 1805. Of
the sixty-eight head, twenty-two were disposed of
at Morefield, Va. The remainder were driven on
to Baltimore, where they were sold at a net profit
of $31.77 per head. The problem of getting cattle
from the grazing lands of the West to the Eastern
markets was solved, and its effects were as great as
those of the successful shipment later of the first
cargo of fat cattle to England, or the first efforts of
Swift & Company in sending dressed beef from Chi-
226
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
cago to New England. In 1817 Mr. Felix Renick
took a drove of 100 fat cattle to Philadelphia, which
sold for $134 per head. In 1818 Joseph Harness
sent the first drove from the West to New York City.
The 100 were sold at $69 per head. From Ohio
and Kentucky, also, cows and oxen were driven to
Michigan as early as 1825-40, to supply the demands
of immigration into that State.
The Virginians of Ohio and Kentucky cooperated
in the exchange and improvement of their best cattle.
Not content, however, with the slow improvement
of cattle, ex-Governor Duncan McArthur, Felix Re-
nick, George Renick, and nineteen others from Ross
County, Ohio ; William Renick, S. S. Denney, and
fourteen others from Pickaway County ; M. L. Sul-
livan and two others from Franklin County ; and
seven others from Fayette, Highland, and Pike
counties, resolved " to try the experiment of direct
importation from Great Britain." A company was
formed on November 2, 1833, with ample capital
and unlimited public spirit, as no subscriber expected
any profit on the money invested. Mr. Felix Re-
nick, with E. J. Harness and Josiah Renick, were sent
to England to buy the best cattle they could find,
regardless of price. Their first importation consisted
of seven bulls and twelve cows and heifers. Further
importations, followed. In 1835 and 1836 Felix
Renick had charge of the company's business and
the breeding of the cattle, continuing up to the
closing sale in 1837, when those remaining were
sold at prices ranging from $425 to $2500. Other
companies were afterward formed in Kentucky and
Ohio. The success of this pioneer company led
also to heavier importations by the Eastern men;
and Mr. Whitaker, an English breeder, sent 100
head to Philadelphia, which were sold on the farm
of Mr. Powell, an extensive breeder and importer.
During the thirties, and even up to this date, the
Devons and Herefords had stanch admirers. Henry
Clay had been to England and imported Devons,
Herefords, and shorthorns, and in a letter to Gov-
ernor Trimble he advised the Ohio company to
bring out Devons and Herefords, as they were " bet-
ter for the yoke." The Devons were at that time
the favorites in New England. " The battle of the
breeds," spoken of by Cassius Clay, still wages. The
Herefords have been vastly improved in the prairie
States, and have been used in great numbers on the
plains, to the vast improvement of the range cattle
of the West. As beef-cattle they have carried off in
later years a full share of prizes with the shorthorns
at the Chicago fat-stock shows.
As the farms of the country became improved, and
cattle no longer wintered in the forests or open fields,
farmers found horns to be an expensive and unneces-
sary appendage, and a constant menace to the quiet
and peace of the herd inclosed in yards and sheds.
The shipper, too, finds the horns a source of loss in the
pens and the cars of the railroads. Buyers of feed-
ing cattle prefer those without horns, since they can
accommodate a greater number with peace and quiet
at the feeding racks and troughs. These causes have
led to the practice of dehorning cattle intended for
the dairy and feed lots. The polled breeds of Scot-
land and England have been imported extensively
within the last decade ; and the polled Durham, a new
breed of cattle originated in the Miami Valley, is so
far established that already the number of breeders
and their favorites are numerous, and the type so
well fixed that the first volume of the "American
Polled Durham Herd-Book " has been issued. At
present there are successful herds of polled Durhams
in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa.
We now turn from the hornless type to the long-
horned Texas cattle. These ungainly beasts are but
one remove above the buffalo. They doubtless are
of Spanish origin, introduced into Mexico, of which
Texas was then a part, about the year 1500. They
overran the plains of the Southwest, and were for
years killed for their hides and tallow. Before the ad-
vent of railroads into the Southwest, Texas was sup-
posed to have one seventh as many cattle as all the
other States and Territories. Until Kansas became
settled they were driven by trails into the North-
west, and made the base for founding the numerous
and extensive cattle-ranches which utilized the wild
grasses of government lands. These ranches made a
market for thousands of bulls from the older States.
The grade steers were a vast improvement on the
cattle of the Southwest, and came into competition
with the cattle of the States east of the Missouri, in
the Chicago and Kansas City markets. The set-
tlers have pushed west and taken up lands along the
watercourses of the mountain-ranges, and the ranch-
men have reluctantly retired before the plowmen.
The vast ranges of the Northwest invited millions of
capital from the States and from England and Scot-
land, until the boom in the cattle business burst, leav-
ing wrecked fortunes and a clearer field for the legit-
imate production and improvement of cattle on the
farms.
The necessity of greater attention to live stock,
and of plowing less and grazing more, is recognized
by the more intelligent. More capital and thought
have gone into the improvement of dairy cattle
within the last decade than were ever employed at
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
227
any other period in the history of the country. The
Jersey, Holstein, and Ayrshire can be found in every
community, and our milk records and dairy tests
show that our improved cattle and our methods of
breeding and feeding enable us to excel any records
made even in the countries in which dairy breeds
originated. Our experiment stations and agricultural
colleges are investing in dairy plants and employing
every means known to science for the fostering and
development of the dairy interests of the people.
The States of New York, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana,
and Ohio have their dairy schools and courses of
lectures, stimulating their residents to higher stan-
dards and more economical production.
Our foreign trade in dairy products is older than
the government. During a part of the first half of
this century our shipments of butter exceeded those
of cheese. This continued until about 1842, when
the introduction of cheese factories led to increased
exports of that product. Instead of our American
cheese growing in favor abroad, it deservedly lost
standing, because of the process of " filling cheese "
with lard, unmerchantable butter, etc. The history
of the dairy business in America is one of vast fluc-
tuations. The legitimate manufacturer has had to
cope with the most ingenious substitutes. The fats
of swine and cattle have come into competition with
butter fat, by the introduction of oleomargarine, lard
neutral, and filled cheese. The business has been
demoralized, and the reputation of American butter
and cheese impaired. There is no longer any mys-
tery about the character of oleo and filled cheese.
Some States have regulated their sale by law, com-
pelling them to be sold on their merits. The change
in the values of butter and cheese for the last thirty
years has been steadily downward, as shown by the
following table taken from the Department of Agri-
culture report, December, 1890:
BUTTER AND CHEESE, 1861 TO 1890.
PERIOD.
BUTTER.
CHEESE.
POUNDS.
PRICE.
CENTS.
POUNDS.
PRICE.
CENTS.
1861-70 .
1871-80 ...
1881-90....
13.398,053
15,245,288
18,820,780
2J.O
18.0
17.2
44,657,282
99,992,441
104,158,600
14-3
12.7
10.0
The fact that the average price of butter imported
into England was 23 cents, while our exports of but-
ter the same year averaged only 14.1 cents at ports
of shipment, is discreditable to American enterprise
and skill. The causes for this disparity of prices are
many, the chief being that our best butter and cheese
find a ready market at home, and only the lower
grades are shipped abroad.
As our dairy exports have declined with the qual-
ity of goods offered, our exports of beef-cattle have
increased, the quality of stock being improved in the
same ratio. One of the first attempts to export cat-
tle from the Southwest was made by a company of
ranchmen of Texas. It was before the days of re-
frigerator-cars and cold storage in vessels. Only
fifteen per cent, of a large cargo of the Texas long-
horns reached Liverpool. I believe the first cattle
exported for beef went to Glasgow about twenty-five
years ago. Only two consignments a week were first
sent out. The number increased to fifty per week,
but as the cost of export was $48.66 per head, ship-
ments were discontinued in 1874. Freights declin-
ing, the business was resumed, and has gradually in-
creased as the prejudice against American beef gave
way to enthusiasm in its favor. Freights have de-
clined to $ i o or less per steer. Since the first trials the
business of exporting beeves, either alive or dressed,
has grown to mammoth proportions. To Mr. East-
man, of New York, belongs the credit of successfully
inaugurating and establishing the business. He is
still the largest exporter, his weekly shipments run-
ning up into the thousands. His success has been
followed by the organization of other similar firms.
The effect of the transfer of the choicest beeves to
a foreign market has been to stimulate the price of
prime cattle. Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio for years
furnished the bulk of export cattle, but now Iowa
and Missouri also send many. Mr. J. R. Dodge has
estimated that the average value of beeves exported
by this country in 1861 was $19.65. In 1878 the
average value had risen to $46.68, and in 1894 to
$93.14; but this last estimate includes the export
of some of the finest breeding cattle sent to Great
Britain, twenty-eight head of which averaged $5850.
There was but a small surplus of cattle in this coun-
try prior to 1850. About that time grass-fed beeves
began to find market in Cuba. The real commence-
ment of our export business was in 1877, when the
improvement started in Ohio and Kentucky, and
worked westward, where cows and grass were abun-
dant and cheap. In 1877 50,000 head were ex-
ported to Great Britain, Cuba, the British West
Indies, Canada, and Mexico. More than half of
this number went to Cuba, and only 5091 to Great
Britain. The quality of cattle having improved,
the export trade to Great Britain in eighteen years
increased to 355,852, worth nearly $32,500,000.
France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands took
228
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
less than $2,000,000. The dressed-meat trade, fresh
and salt, represented in 1894 $28,259,863, which,
with live animals exported, makes an aggregate of
$61,721,785, mostly for animals of improved grades.
In 1877 the first shipments of fresh beef in refrigera-
tor-ships were made. In 1870 the value of all ship-
ments of beeves and beef products was $6,194,626.
In 1891 the total value was $65,533,564, taking more
than 1,000,000 of the choicest cattle from the cen-
tral corn-growing States. In 1870 an export beef
was worth $15.98. In 1891 the average price was
$81.26 each, showing that as quality improves
price advances. There is no longer any demand
for good cattle among country butchers, and the
farmer who formerly could fatten one to six prime
bullocks has now no market, hence has become a
dairyman or grain grower, to the injury of the land.
The receipts and shipments, as now recorded at our
principal markets, embrace, therefore, a large per
cent, of the actual production of the country, the
bullocks, pigs, and lambs being all bought up to-
day by the country shipper, and in promiscuous lots
dumped into the great stock-yards.
The hog crop of America is most closely related
to the corn crop. The States in the corn belt west
of the Ohio River furnish the surplus pork for ex-
port and for home consumption in States where corn
is not largely grown. Hogs came with the Cavaliers
and Pilgrims, and in the common hog of the country
was early found a mixture of types and races from
every country where pork was produced. This mon-
grel was the base, easily impressed by the blood of
the China, Neapolitan, Berkshire, Tamworth, and
other breeds, known as early as the second quarter
of the century. After the settlement of Ohio and
Kentucky improvement in hogs was marked. The
corn in the valleys and the mast in the timber fur-
nished food in such abundance that the energies of
the early settlers were bent upon producing pork
and cattle to utilize the superabundance. The West
Indies furnished a market for all surplus pork of the
Eastern States, and under the stimulus of this trade
heavy hogs were produced along the Delaware, be-
fore the development of the interest in the country
around Cincinnati. The production of hogs in Ohio,
Kentucky, and eastern Indiana increased so rapidly
that Cincinnati early became the packing center of
the West. As the Wabash, the Illinois, and the Mis-
souri valleys and the prairies became vast corn-fields,
and the railroad pushed westward, the center of pork
production also moved west. Ohio is no longer the
leading corn and hog State, being now the seventh ;
and Cincinnati is excelled as a packing city by
Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, St. Louis, and
Indianapolis.
The China and Berkshire, along with the Russian
and Irish grazer, were earliest used to cross upon the
common hog. In New Jersey the red hog formed
the foundation for the large hogs to furnish the
heavy meat for the West Indies and the Carolinas.
In Chester County, Pennsylvania, the white hog was
the favorite, and was improved, and the type called
Chester white was established. In the Miami Val-
ley the China, Berkshire, Woburn, Russian, and
Irish grazer blood mingled with that of the common
hog, and the Poland China breed was evolved and
improved to meet the wants of the packer and feeder.
In northern Ohio, in the dairy districts, where the
conditions of feed, soil, and handling were very
different, the white hog of Pennsylvania has been
improved, and we find a breed known as Todd's im-
proved Chester whites. The red hog of New Jersey
has come West into a land of plenty, and has filled
out, and is taking on the plumpness and refinement
of bone, ear, and head peculiar to the breeds in a
corn-growing country. In northern Indiana we find
a breed of white hogs called Victorias, finer in type
than the Chester whites, and of more growth than
the small English breeds.
The above-named American breeds have become
so well fixed and established that each has its record.
The Poland China holds about the same relation
to other breeds of swine that the short horn does to
other breeds of cattle. Pigs of this breed have been
shipped to Germany, Russia, Australia, the Argentine
Republic, Cuba, and Canada. The improvement
of the swine of America has been greater than that
of its horses, cattle, or sheep, and with a far smaller
outlay for imported animals for breeding purposes.
Swine are raised in every State in the Union and on
almost every farm. The cotton States consume more
pork than they produce. The States producing the
surplus are Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Indiana,
Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Kentucky,
Minnesota, and Michigan, and their rank is about
in the order named. It has been estimated that
ninety-five per cent, of the exports of pork, eighty-
six per cent, of the exports of lard, and ninety-three
per cent, of the total exports of hog products from
the United States come from the surplus of these
States.
Our unequaled system of transportation is one of
the prominent factors which have helped to the re-
markable development of the pork business. Pork
products are carried from Chicago or St. Louis to
New York for only about one third of a cent per
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
pound, a distance of 900 miles. The ocean charge ports to 651,109,020 pounds in 1882, but they shortly
from New York to Bremen is about the same, ranged up again 10853,298,881 pounds, and by 1890
Direct consignments from St. Louis or Chicago to had reached 1,205,814,813 pounds. In other words,
Bremen have been shipped for a little more than half foreign demand has taken about 6,000,000 hogs per
a cent per pound. Lard production has suffered annum of our surplus, which is less than one fifth of
somewhat since the discovery of the process of util- the entire hog product of the United States. The
izing a waste product of cotton. Cotton-seed oil lowest price of pork per 100 in thirty-three years
has now come into such extensive use as a substitute was $2.85 in 1878-79, and the highest $11.46 in
for lard and lard-oil, for culinary and manufacturing 1864-65, when gold was at its highest premium,
purposes, that its present annual sale is estimated to The specified imports and exports of the various
exceed the equivalent of 70,000,000 pounds of lard, pork, cattle, and dairy products, together with live
The production of oleo from beef suet has also fur- stock, for 1890 are given in the subjoined tables:
nished the by-product of stearine, which enters largely
into the manufacture of lard substitutes, to give body EXPORTS AND ™™*^°F H°° PRODUCTS
and consistency to imitation lard. This adulteration _J
of lard has brought American lard into disrepute in EXK»T». IMPORTS
foreign markets, and reduced the demand. The sur-
plus of pure lard continues great, and its extent fixes Hogs $909,042
the price. Sausage casings 697,772 $484^58
The healthfulness of American pork, like that of Bacon"' ..................!! 39,«49$3S
our beef, has been a distinguishing feature of our Hams 7.9°7.I2S
Fresh pork 15406
meat products. Our herds have been singularly free Salt pork 4,753488
from disease ; and the superior quality of our pork g*- r<ji 33455>520
products, and their low cost compared with that of Grease 753409 132,089
European products, gave us an immense and grow-
ing trade abroad, furnishing a wholesome and cheap Total $88,304,740 $2,242,444
meat-supply to the densely populated districts of
Germany and France.
., , T QQ ,, ^ EXPORTS OF CATTLE PRODUCTS IN 1890.
On the 25th of June, 1880, the German govern-
ment issued an edict prohibiting the importation of Catt^'ND' ftriji6r
" chopped, or in a similar manner divided or pre- Bones 271,533
pared, pork, and of sausages of all kinds, from Hides , g^ft
America." In the following February France gave Canned beef 6,787,193
, , ... Fresh beef 12,862,384
a blow to our rapidly growing trade by prohibiting ga]t beef 5,250,068
the importation of all hog-meats from the United Cured beef 9,223
States. Our pork trade in 1 89 1 with France was oieo .......... \'..[l'.... I......... '.'.'...... 6476^258
$267,804, and in 1883 $4,987,673. Germany not g^" t»W
only prohibited the use and sale of American pork, Milk '303,325
but prevented our using the free ports of Hamburg Grease 7534Q9
and Bremen in shipping to other countries. And yet Total $83,912,312
these blows have not paralyzed us, as the improve-
ment of our swine and sales of pork go bravely on, IMPORTS OF CATTLE PRODUCTS IN l8*>-
and the farmers of America look upon the porker as ^ND- ^24*
their mortgage lifter and taxpayer. The census enu- Butter . 13,679
merations for the past fifty years show the increase ^fe '"471^29
in the number of hogs raised as follows : 1850, 30,- Grease 132,044
354,313; 1860, 33,512,867; 1870, 25,184,569; llta1::;:;;;;;';;::::;;;:;;;;;;;;":;:
1880,47,681,700; 1890,57,409,583. Hide cuttings, etc o
,-. .. , o . , . Hoofs, horns, etc 236,648
Importations as early as 1872 increased to an Preserved meats 203,579
encouraging degree, amounting to over 500,000,000 Other meats
pounds, and continued to increase until more than oil .... . ..'.......'......'.'.'.'.'.'..'. 3-'2.?5
1,000,000,000 pounds were shipped in 1881. The Unenumerated 37'.795
edicts of exclusion, referred to above, reduced ex- Total $28468,547
230
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Adding the values of 3501 horses exported in
1890, amounting to $680,41 o ; of 3544 mules, $447,-
108; of 67,521 sheep, $243,077 ; and of all other ani-
mals and fowls, $97,360, making the grand total of
exports of live stock and animal products for 1890,
$175,986,750. Our total exports of animals, bread-
stuffs, cotton, and articles made from these three
leading classes of farm products are $627,216,656.
The value of all exports other than of animals and
farm products is $218,087,172, thus making the
percentage of agricultural products exported 74.2,
as compared with the total exports, and the percen-
tage of animals and animal products 80, by the same
comparison.
The inhabitants of the United States are singularly
rich in horses, cattle, and swine. For every i ooo in-
habitants we have 239 horses, 264 milch cows, 557
neat cattle, and 917 swine. Great wealth has grown
up with our herds, and vital interests surround them.
In many parts of the country dairying and animal
production have driven out the growth of wheat
and oats or other cereal crops, and although the
population is not as dense in those regions as else-
where, the inhabitants seem more prosperous, their
houses and outbuildings are larger, and the annual
profits are as great. In her live stock America has
done more during a century than many older nations
have accomplished in ten times that period. Her
rise has been rapid, her achievements great, and her
future may safely be predicted to bring forth results
far more wonderful than those I have been attempt-
ing to review.
. . . ,.,...
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T T T ¥ T ' T
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^A * * + + + + * + + + *+ * + + ^ * * * * ** *A *A ** *A* *A* *A
CHAPTER XXXIV
AMERICAN COTTON
THE introduction of the Whitney cotton-gin
laid the foundation for the cotton industry,
the present magnitude of which may be
judged from the statement of Mr. Thomas Ellison, of
Liverpool, the leading authority on cotton statistics,
who has said : " The cultivation of the cotton-plant,
the manufacture of its fiber, and the distribution of its
product afford employment to a much larger amount
of capital and labor than any other branch of me-
chanical industry." Mr. Ellison adds : " And yet, so
far as Europe and America are concerned, this vast
agricultural and manufacturing system has been built
up almost within the limits of the past century."
A number of cotton-machinery inventions made a
few years prior to Whitney's had brought about an
increasing demand in England for cotton for manu-
facturing purposes, and there was considerable
anxiety on the part of mill-owners in Great Britain
as to whether production throughout the world
could be so stimulated as to cause it to keep pace
with consumptive requirements.
While it is supposed that the cotton-plant is in-
digenous to America, and it is known that it was
cultivated in Virginia as early as 1620, its produc-
tion was very limited until after the invention of the
saw-gin. The total crop in 1791 is estimated to
have been 2,000,000 pounds, equal to 4000 bales,
of which about 200,000 pounds, or 400 bales, are
supposed to have been exported to Great Britain.
A shipment of eight bags had been made to Liver-
pool in 1784, though there are reports of trifling
shipments prior to that date, but these are supposed
to have been of West India cotton exported via
Charleston. This shipment, however, was sold to
an English firm, in whose mill was employed at the
time Samuel Slater, who in 1790 built in Pawtucket,
R. I., a mill for Messrs. Almy & Brown, of Provi-
dence. It is supposed that the first mill built in
the South was in the same year (1790), and that it
was in South Carolina. An old report states that a
mill was established in South Carolina in that year,
231
"driven by water" and having "spinning-machines
with eighty-four spindles each." Though Slater is
regarded as the father of the New England cotton-
mill business, cotton manufacturing to a limited
extent had been carried on for some years prior to
his coming to America, especially household manu-
facture, Thomas Jefferson having " employed two
spinning-jennies, a carding-machine, and a loom
with a flying shuttle, by which he made more than
2000 yards of cloth, which his family and servants
yearly required."
In 1739 it was testified in an English court
that " cotton grows very well in Georgia, and can
be raised by white persons without the aid of
negroes." When the colonies undertook to en-
courage the manufacture of cotton goods the home
government did everything in its power to hinder
the progress of the industry, with a view to com-
pel them to confine their attention to the produc-
tion of food and raw materials and to purchase
their manufactured goods from Great Britain. At
the request of English merchants, who were dis-
turbed by the efforts of American manufacturers to
export their goods, an act of Parliament was passed
imposing a fine of ^£500 for every offense of ex-
porting such goods, and, this not proving effectual,
a law was enacted forbidding the exportation of
textile machinery from Great Britain, in order to pre-
vent American manufacturers from getting cotton
machinery. Despite all these disadvantages, how-
ever, more and more attention was given by Ameri-
cans to the study of methods to develop the cotton
industry. Massachusetts especially took active steps
to encourage cotton manufacturing, and in 1786 the
legislature gave .£200 to two brothers to help them
establish carding and spinning machinery. Later
,£500 was granted to assist another factory, and
afterward ^2000 to another. Up to this time the
progress in cotton cultivation and manufacture had
been very slow, and it was felt that some improved
method of ginning cotton must be invented before
232
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the cotton business could attain much larger propor-
tions. This was a subject of frequent discussion.
In 1792, Eli Whitney, a native of Massachusetts,
while in Georgia, had his attention called to the
need of a machine to separate the seed from the
lint, and succeeded, in 1793, in perfecting a gin
which did this.1 With the introduction of the gin
the cotton business in all branches advanced with
leaps and bounds. The South's crop jumped from
2,000,000 pounds in 1790 to 10,000,000 pounds in
1796 and to 40,000,000 pounds in 1800, or only
four years later; while the yield of 1810 was 80,-
000,000 pounds, and that of 1820 160,000,000
pounds.
The rapid increase in the demand for cotton, and
the profitableness of its cultivation, caused a con-
centration of the energy and capital of the South in
planting ; and other industrial interests which had
been flourishing declined under the craze for cotton
raising. According to Donnell's " History of Cot-
ton," in 1816 the tariff on cotton goods was largely
increased, the measure being strongly supported by
the South on the ground that it would promote the
consumption of its cotton, and opposed by some of
the Northern States because of their large shipping
interests — another illustration of how tariff sentiment
changes as conditions change. From a crop of about
400,000 bales in 1820, production rapidly increased)
the growth of this industry probably surpassing in
extent and wide-reaching importance any other crop
in Europe or America. The energy of the South
was turned into cotton raising, and production really
increased in advance of the world's needs. Other
1 As there has been much discussion as to who is really
entitled to the credit of the invention of the cotton-gin, the
following extract from a pamphlet entitled " Cotton as a Fac-
tor in Progress," by Mr. D. A. Tompkins, who has made a
careful investigation of the subject, is of interest :
" It appears to be commonly believed that the successful
production of large cotton crops in the United States is due to
the invention of the gin alone. While this has been an essen-
tial element in the problem, yet Egypt, India, and South
America, which have the advantage of perfected gins, due to
the inventions made in America, produce cotton neither so
cheaply nor in such quantities as the United States. I am
far from wishing to take from Mr. Eli Whitney any of the
credit that attaches to his name for the invention of the cotton-
gin. He stands in my estimation at the head of the list of all
those whose inventions have been of benefit to mankind. In
the invention of the cotton-gin there is glory enough to im-
mortalize Whitney's name, with plenty to spare for the credit
of others who did valuable and essential work in the develop-
ment ot what he produced.
" When Mr. Whitney first visited Savannah much had al-
ready been accomplished in the way of creating conditions for
the more economical production of cotton. A commission had
agricultural interests were not, however, neglected.
Diversified farming was the rule, and the South was
more nearly self-supporting in the way of foodstuffs
— corn, bacon, etc. — than it has been since the war.
In general, prices were well maintained for forty
years, though gradually tending downward after the
beginning of this century. In 1801 the average
New York price was forty-four cents a pound, and
from this it slowly declined, often with an upward
spurt for a year or two, to thirteen and one half
cents in 1839.
With prices ranging from thirteen to forty-four
cents, and averaging for forty years, from 1800 to
1839, a fraction over seventeen cents a pound,
cotton cultivation was so profitable that it is not to
be wondered at that the disposition of the people of
the South was to concentrate their efforts more and
more on cotton cultivation to the exclusion of other
industrial interests. Beginning with 1840 there
came a period of extremely low prices, and the
cotton States suffered very much from this decline.
In that year the average New York prices dropped
to nine cents, a decline of four cents from the pre-
ceding year ; and this was followed by a continuous
decline until 1844-45, when the average was 5.63
cents, the lowest average price for a year ever
known to the cotton trade. Moreover, in 1844-45
the seed was without market value, while now the
sale of seed adds largely to the value of the crop,
transportation being also very much cheaper than
in 1845. In 1847 the crop was short and prices
advanced sharply, only to drop back to eight and
then to seven and one half cents, the average for the
been appointed by the State of Georgia, charged with the duty
of causing a machine to be devised for the separation of the
lint of the cotton from the seed. Mr. Josiah Watkins had in
operation a crude machine similar in many respects to the
more nearly perfect gin which Whitney constructed. The
substitution of the saw for wire spikes seems to have been
first made by Colonel O. A. Bull, of La Grange, Ga., and a
little later, but independently, by Hogden Holmes, of Fair-
field County, South Carolina ; and it was this improvement,
more than any other one thing, that put the cotton-gin in
shape to become such an important factor in the development
of the cotton interest.
" While the times were ripe for the invention of the cotton-
gin, and many persons were working at the problem, and
while the gin would probably have been invented even had
Whitney never gone to the South, he was just the right man
quickly to take up the suggestion of the Georgia State commis-
sion. He saw the Watkins machine, worked on the problem
himself, heard of Holmes's improvement and went to see it,
and to his own ideas and work he added the best of what he
gathered from various other workers on the same problem.
The result was the Whitney gin."
Whitney realized comparatively little from this invention.
RICHARD H. EDMONDS.
ONK HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
tlr< ,xle from 1840 to 1849 being the lowest of any
ikrade in the history of cotton.
These excessively low prices brought about a re-
vival of public interest in other pursuits than cotton
cultivation ; and the natural tendency of the people
to progress in other industrial matters, as evidenced
by the history of the Southern colonies prior to the
Revolution, but which had long been dormant, was
again aroused, and for some years there was a very
active spirit manifested in the building of railroads
and the development of manufactures. With 1850
a period of much higher prices was ushered in, and
for the next ten years the average was about twelve
cents. Then came the war, with its accompanying
scarcity of cotton, prices rapidly advancing until
1863-64, when the New York average was 101^
cents. When the war ended the world was bare of
cotton. The demand was pressing, and the prices
continued very high. But the South was bankrupt.
It had no capital on which to operate ; its planters
were burdened with debt ; their houses and fences
were destroyed ; their labor system was disorganized ;
and in this condition they were in no position to buy
foodstuffs, live stock, and agricultural implements.
Money lenders, however, were ready to make ad-
vances on mortgages on unplanted cotton, but not
on other crops. Most of them were factors or com-
mission merchants who would agree to advance a
certain sum of money, or rather to grant a certain
amount of credit at their stores for merchandise of
all kinds, for every acre planted in cotton. Under
these circumstances diversified agriculture had to be
abandoned, and the planter was forced to buy West-
ern corn and bacon from his commission merchant.
By the time he had paid nearly double the cash
values for his supplies, and had paid commission,
storage and drayage, and insurance on his cotton
when marketed, the planter usually ended the year
in debt to his factor. The profits of the factor,
though, were sufficiently large to justify him in con-
tinuing his credit, and by doing so the farmer was
kept in debt from year to year. The negroes and
the tenant class of whites could borrow money on
cotton in the same way, and this developed a ten-
antry system for raising cotton which prevented any
attention being given to the improvement of the
land. Year after year the farmer was forced into
cotton raising to the exclusion of everything else,
until it became only too true that " the South kept
its corn-crib and smoke-house in the West."
After 1880, although the Southern farmers were
still heavily in debt, they commenced to give in-
creased attention to the cultivation of grain and to
the raising of early fruits and vegetables. The pro-
gress made since then has been very remarkable,
but, despite this great increase, the production of
corn in the central cotton States does not yet equal
the average prior to 1860. In the mean time the
cotton crop has increased rapidly, rising from
5,456,000 bales in 1881-82 to 9,900,000 bales
in 1894-95. Summing up in tabular form the
statistics of the cotton crop since 1840, we have :
COTTON SINCE 1840.
YEAR.
CROP.
BALES.
CONSUMPTION
IN U. S.
BALES.
EXPORTI.
BALES.
AVERAGE
PRICE
PER I .B.
IlDDLINC
UPLANDS
N N. Y.
CENTS.
1840-41
1841-42
1,634,954
1,683,574
267,850
267,850
I,3>3,500
1465,500
9.50
7.85
1842-43
2,378,875
325,129
2,010,000
7-25
1843-44
2,030409
346,750
1,629,500
7-73
1844-45
2,394,5°3
389,000
2,083,700
5-63
1845-46
2,100,537
422,600
1,666,700
7.87
1846-47
i i778,6s i
428,000
1,241,200
II. 21
1847-48
2,439,786
616,044
1,858,000
8.03
1848-49
2,866,938
642485
2,228,000
7-55
1849-50
2,223,718
613498
1,590,200
12.34
1850-51
2454,442
485,614
1,988,710
12.14
1851-52
3,126,310
689,603
2443,646
9.50
1852-53
3416,214
803,725
2,528400
n. 02
1853-54
3-074.979
737,236
2,319.148
10.97
1854-55
2,982,634
706417
2,244,209
10.39
I855-56
3,665,557
777-739
2,954.6o6
10.30
1856-57
3,093,737
819,936
2,252,657
i3-5»
1857-58
3,257-339
595-562
2,590455
12.23
1858-59
4,018,914
927,651
3,021403
12.08
1859-60
1860-61
4,861,292
3,849469
978,043
843,740
3-774,173
3,127,568
11.00
13.01
1861-62!
f 31-29
1862-63!
1863-64 f
War Period.
War Period.
War Period.
1 67.21
1 101.50
1864-65]
1865-66
2,269,316
666,100
1,554,664
I 83.38
42.30
1866-67
1867-68
2,097,254
2,519,554
770,030
906,636
1,557-054
1,655,816
3>-59
24.85
1868-69
2,366467
§26,374
1465,880
29.01
1869-70
3,122,551
865,160
2,206480
23.98
1870-71
4,352,317
1,110,196
3,169,009
16.95
1871-72
2,974-35"
1,237,330 I«fS7,3>4
20.48
1872-73
3,930,508
1,201,127 2,679,986
18.15
1873-74
4,170,388
i,305>943
2,840,981
17.00
1874-75
1875-76
3,832,99'
4>632,3I3
M»g°S
i, 35 '-870
2,684,708
3,234,244
15.00
13.00
1876-77
1877-78
4474,069
4,773,86s
1428,013
1489,022
3,030,855
3,360,254
n.73
11.28
1878-79
5,074,I55
1,558,329
3481,004
10.83
1879-80
5,761,252
1,780,978
3,885,003
I2.O2
1880-81
1881-82
1882-83
1883-84
1884-85
1885-86
6,605,750
5456,048
6,949,756
5-713,200
5,706,165
6,575-691
1,938,937
1,964,535
2,073,096
1,876,683
i,753,'25
2,162,544
4,589,346
3,582,622
4.766,597
3,916,581
3>947>972
4,336,203
II.34
12. 1 6
10.63
10.64
10.54
9.44
1886-87
6,505,087
2,111,532
4445,302
10.25
1887-88
7,046,833
2,257,247
4,627,502
10.27
1888-89
6,938,290
2,314,091
4,742,347
10.71
1889-90
7,307,281
2,390,959
4,955-931
"•S3
1890-91
1891-92
1892-93
i%-94
8,652,597
9-035-379
6,700,365
7,549,817
2,632,023
2,876,846
2481,015
2,319,688
5.»47.'9'
5.933437
4402,890
5,287,887
9-03
7.64
8.24
7.67
1894-95
9,901,251
A study of the foregoing figures will show that
during a period of seven years, from 1885-86 to
234
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
1891-92, there was an annual increase in production,
a continuous growth unprecedented in the history of
the cotton trade. It is doubtful if any leading crop
raised can show such an unbroken increase for seven-
years. Jumping from 5,700,000 bales in 1884-85
to 6,500,000 bales in 1885-86, there was practically
no halting, as the variations in two years were too
small to be noticeable, to 9,035,000 bales in 1891-
92, a gain of 3,300,000 bales, or nearly sixty per
cent, advance in seven years. After this came two
smaller crops, but the following year (1894-95) gave
a yield of 9,901,251 bales. Moreover, the average
weight of the bales that year was considerably above
that of preceding years. Based on the same average
weight per bale, the crop of 1894-95 was equivalent
to 10,089,000 bales of 1893-94 weight, and to
10,099,000 bales of the weight of the next largest
crop, that of 1891— 92 ; so that as a matter of fact
the yield of 1894-95 was equal to 1,064,000 bales
in excess of the largest previous crop.
The average total value of crop and average yield
per acre of late years have been as follows :
COTTON AVERAGES, 1875 TO 1894.
YEAR.
ACRES.
TOTAL VALUE
OP CROP.
NET LB.
PER ACRE.
BALE
PER ACRE.
1875-76 • . .
1876-77 . .
1 1,635,000
1 1,500,000
$399,445.'68
252,602,340
177
«7i#
0-39^
o-39
1877-78 .
11,825,000
255,768,165
181*
°-4°tt
1878-79 . .
12,240,000
236,586.031
•8S*
°-V!4
1879-80 . .
I2,68o,OOO
313,696452
206-4:
0.45^
1880-81
16,123,000
356,524,911
188^
0.41
1881-82 . .
16,851,000
304,298,744
i4S#
0.32^1
1882-83 .
16,276,000
327,938,137
200#
0.42^
1883-84 . .
16.780,000
288,803,902
'57K
0-34
1884-85 . .
17,426,000
287,253,972
«5°^
°-33
1885-86 . .
18,379,444
313,723,080
•6SK
0.36
1886-87 •
18,581,012
298,504,215
162,54
o-35
1887-88 .
18,961,897
336>433.653
'73^
o-37
1888-89 .
19,362,073
344.069,801
167^
o-35¥
1889-90 . .
19.979,040
373.'6:,83i
'73^
0.36^
1890-91
2o,5«3,935
429,792,047
200%
0.42
1891-92 . .
2o,555.3»7
391,424,716
209#
0.44
1892-93 .
18,057,924
284,279,066
176
°-37
l893-94 • •
19,684,000
294,495.7"
182
0.38
In the nineteen years from 1875-76 to 1893-94
cotton brought into the South over $6,300,000,000,
a sum so vast that the profits out of it ought to have
been enough greatly to enrich that whole section.
Unfortunately, however, the system (which was de-
veloped by the poverty following the war) of raising
cotton only and buying provisions and grain in the
West left at home but little surplus money out of
the cotton crop. The West and North drained that
section of several hundred million dollars every year,
because it depended upon them for all of its manu-
factured goods, as well as for the bulk of its food-
stuffs. Hence, of the enormous amount received
for cotton, very little remained in the South. The
increase in diversified farming, the raising of home
supplies, the development of truck farming, and the
building of factories are now all uniting to keep at
home the money which formerly went North and
West.
The importance of cotton in our foreign trade re-
lations can be appreciated from the simple statement
that from September i, 1875, to August 31, 1895,
our exports of this staple were valued at over
$4,200,000,000, while the total exports of wheat and
flour combined for the same period were $2,610,-
000,000, showing a difference of $1,600,000,000 in
favor of cotton. Moreover, during the same period
we exported over $200,000,000 of manufactured
cotton goods, making the full value really $4,400,-
000,000. Compared with the exports of wheat,
flour, and corn combined, the value of which for the
period named was a little less than $3,200,000,000,
there is a difference in favor of cotton of $1,200,-
000,000. Going back to 1820, it is found that the
total value of flour and wheat exported for seventy-
five years was $4,000,000,000, or $400,000,000 less
than the value of the cotton exported during the
nineteen years from 1875 to 1894.
The growth of the cotton manufacturing industry
in this country has not kept pace with the increase
in production, nearly three fourths of the crop being
annually exported to Europe. With an annual yield
of from 7,500,000 to 9,900,000 bales, the total con-
sumption by American mills is a little less than
3,000,000 bales a year. Nevertheless this industry
has grown rapidly, and the capital invested aggre-
gates in round figures about $400,000,000. The
census returns, being compiled for fiscal years end-
ing with June, always differ somewhat from the
commercial reports which cover crop years ending
with August. It is necessary, therefore, to bear this
in mind.
The number of spindles at present is estimated at
about 17,000,000. The "Textile Manufacturers'
Directory" of 1894-95 reports this number, and
credits the leading cotton manufacturing States with
the following: Massachusetts, 6,755,000; Rhode
Island, 2,000,000; New Hampshire, 1,350,000;
Connecticut, 1,088,000; Maine, 945,000; South
Carolina, 720,000; North Carolina, 703,000; New
York, 673,000 ; Georgia, 569,000 ; New Jersey,
419,000; Pennsylvania, 424,000; and Alabama,
240,000.
The progress of cotton manufacturing in the
United States from 1830 to 1890, according to the
census reports, was as follows :
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMENCE
SIXTY YEARS OF COTTON MANUFACTURE.
236
YEA*.
CAPITAL
EMPLOYED.
NUMBER or
SPINDLES.
COTTOK CON-
SUMED.
REDUCED TO
BALES or 400 UBS.
HANDS
EMPLOYED.
WAGES
PAID.
VALVE or
PBODVCT*,
1830
$44,914,941
1 ,246, coi
184,000
62,208
$12 I CC 727
I&1O
;i,loj,;;o
2,284,631
•340.000
72.1 1O
i8w
74,W>,qlI
1,611,601
721.101
92,286
iggo
giUSuag
?,O}?.7o8
1,056,762
122,028
1870
140,706,291
6,621,571
QQC.77O
1 1C. ?6o
1880
208,280,746
10,768,516
I,87?,8w
I 74.6 CO
1800
•K 4,020,841
14,088,103
2.704.864
221. C8<
60.480 272
During the last two years this industry has made
rapid progress in the South, and that section promises
to dispute New England's supremacy within a com-
paratively few years. In 1880 the Southern States
had 667,000 spindles, representing a capital in cotton
manufacturing of $21,900,000. By 1890 this had
increased to 1,712,000 spindles and $61,000,000
capital. In September, 1895, the South had 3,000,-
ooo spindles, representing an aggregate investment
of about $100,000,000; and the mills under con-
struction would add about 800,000 spindles to this
number. The annual report for 1895 of the New
Orleans Cotton Exchange gives the relative growth
of consumption of cotton in Northern and Southern
mills of late years in commercial bales (as dis-
tinguished from 4oo-pound bales) as follows:
MANUFACTURING IN THE NORTH AND SOUTH.
CROP YEARS.
NORTHERN
MILLS.
SOUTHERN
MILLS.
1804-0?
2,081,819
862,838
1801 -04 . .
1,601,173
718, cie
1802-91 . .
1,687,286
TA7.9JB
1891-92
2,190,766
i3zxJ^
686,080
1890—91
2,027,362
604,661
I.7QQ.2C8
546.804
1888-80
i.78;.Q7o
47Q 78l
1887-88
x .804.00 1
4^6.000
1886-87
1,710,080
4OI 4C2
Under the activity prevailing in cotton manufac-
turing interests during 1894-95 Northern mills re-
gained most of the loss of the two preceding years,
but their purchases were still 107,000 bales less than
in 1891—92, while during the same period Southern
mills increased their consumption 176,800 bales
compared with 1891-92. The " Commercial and
Financial Chronicle " distinguishes between the tak-
ings or purchases and the actual consumption, and
makes the figures as follows :
CROPS AND CONSUMPTION.
CROP YEARS.
ACTUAL CONSUMPTION.
NORTHERN
MILLS.
COMMERCIAL
BALES.
SOUTHERN
MILLS.
COMMERCIAL
BALES.
1889-00 ..
1,800,000
1,925,000
2,025,000
1,950,000
1,675,000
1,840,769
519478
605,916
681,471
733.701
723.329
853.352
1890-91
1891 -92
1802-9? . .
1801-04 . .
1804-05
According to these figures the actual consumption
in Northern mills, while larger, of course, than during
the panic year 1 893-94, was less than for any year
since 1890-91, having been 85,000 bales smaller than
in the latter year, and 185,000 bales smaller than in
1891-92. Southern mills, on the contrary, gained
nearly 250,000 bales compared with 1890-91, and
172,000 bales compared with 1891-92. In 1890-91
the South consumed less than one third as much
cotton as Northern mills ; last year Southern con-
sumption was nearly one half as much as Northern.
The Cotton Exchange report gives the following
comparison in commercial bales, since 1850:
COTTON TAKEN BY AMERICAN MILLS.
YEAR
ENDING
NORTHERN
MILLS.
SOUTHERN
MILLS.
TOTAL BALES
COMMERCIAL
AUG. 31 ST.
BALES.
BALES.
1850 ....
475,702
87,067
562.769
2,171,706
1870 . .
8o6',6ao
178,107
90,000
964.628
896,890
4,823,770
3,154,946
l880 ...
«.573,997
221,337
« ,795,334
5,701,252
l800
1,789,258
546,894
2,346,152
7.3»,392
1892 ...
2,190,766
686,080
2,876,846
9.035.379
1895 ....
2,083,839
862,838
2,946,677
9901,25'
The figures of Southern mills represent actual
consumption ; those of Northern mills the takings
or purchases for the year.
CHAPTER XXXV
AMERICAN WOOL
FOOD is essential to human existence ; clothing
is a concomitant of civilization, and an abso-
lute necessity for mankind outside of equa-
torial limits. The use of animal food for our race
has the sanction of Holy Writ, general usage, and
adaptation to support life, impart vigor, and secure
health. The science of dietetics has demonstrated,
and experience proves, that mutton is generally bet-
ter adapted to satisfy a cultivated taste, furnish nu-
trition, and insure health than any other meat-food.
Sheep furnish wool for the making of clothing, which,
for sanitary reasons, durability, and economy, is su-
perior to that manufactured from other fibers or
materials. The food and clothing thus provided are
suited to every climate and latitude, and sheep, in
their numerous species, find a suitable habitat in all.
These considerations add to the Ideological evidence
that all things are ordered by divine wisdom and
power, and that sheep husbandry, which in the pas-
toral state preceded, and in many localities exists
even without agriculture, is of universal utility, and
deserves the favor of mankind and of governments.
The antiquity of sheep, wool, and woolen goods
is attested in history, sacred and profane. "Abel
was a keeper of sheep," and Abraham gave sheep
to Abimelech. The sacred record testifies of woolen
garments also. The purple robes of the Roman
emperors were woven from the merino fleece. The
Roman conquest of England brought to that
country the first knowledge there of the use and
manufacture of wool, which grew in importance
until early in the nineteenth century, when English
wool manufactures were unsurpassed in perfection.
This result was aided by legislation. In 1261, Eng-
land by statute prohibited the export of wool, or the
wearing of foreign woolens. This was followed by
other more stringent statutes having the same ob-
jects, up to that of 1660, which remained substan-
tially in force until 1824, when wool was admitted
free of duty.
The western hemisphere had no sheep when
European discoverers and conquerors first visited it.
The first mission established in California, in 1697,
found two varieties of animals (the Ovis montana,
" or a species closely allied to it "), one the Rocky
Mountain goat, the other the Rocky Mountain sheep.
Their bodies were covered with coarse hair, under
which was a coat of fur-like fibers, corresponding
with noils in our present varieties of sheep. This
fur was fine, and adapted to the manufacture of
clothing. A subspecies of these animals is found
in Alaska — the Ovis montana dalli. Spanish sheep
were introduced into California in 1773, under the
care of the Catholic priests, and woolen manu-
factures of coarse varieties were produced soon
afterward. In South America the European dis-
coverers found " four forms of the genus Auchenia
— the guanaco and vicugna, in the wild state, and the
llama and alpaca, known only in the domesticated
state." These animals furnished fibers used in
making clothing.
The mouflon (Ovis artes), even yet found wild in
the mountains of Sardinia, Corsica, Barbary, Greece,
and Asia Minor, with short, coarse fleece resembling
hair quite as much as wool, is the parent stock from
which all our various breeds have been produced by
domestication and breeding. The effect of breeding
and feeding is shown in the increase of the weight
of fleeces in the United States, as follows : " Weight
of fleece, 1840, 1.9; 1850, 2.4; 1860, 2.7; 1870,
3.5; 1880,4.8; 1887, 5.1; 1891, 5.5; 1893, 5.3;
l894. 5-33; l895> 6-37S pounds."
The first importation of sheep was made from the
Canary Islands by Columbus, on his return voyage
to the New World, to stock the island of Hispaniola.
Other importations followed from Spain to the same
island and to Cuba. Woolen cloth was made in
New Spain in 1560. These Spanish sheep "were
the progenitors of the immense herds in Mexico,
New Mexico, Utah, and Texas. In 1736 there
236
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
237
were over 1,500,000 sheep in the Mexican State of
Nuevo Leon." These are the parent stock from
which came the common coarse, or so-called native,
Mexican sheep. Spanish sheep were subsequently
imported into South America. Prescott recounts,
in his " History of the Conquest of Mexico," that
Cortes imported large numbers of merino sheep
into what is now Central America. From all of
these early Spanish importations sprang the immense
flocks of Mexico and all the southwest territory.
Wool manufacturing developed rapidly, even the
Indians learning to weave. By 1750 sheep raising
was the principal business in Mexico.
The first sheep introduced into the American
colonies were brought from England to Jamestown,
Va., in 1609. In 1633 a few sheep were brought
from England to Massachusetts. In 1625, and
again in 1630, the Dutch brought some sheep to
the New Netherlands. In 1663 a Swedish colony
in Delaware imported eighty sheep. In 1645 and
1656 Massachusetts passed laws encouraging the
raising of sheep. In 1657 Virginia, by statute,
prohibited the export of sheep, and in 1662 a stat-
ute prohibited the export of wool, and provided a
bounty in tobacco for every yard of woolen cloth
made in the colony. In 1664 looms were estab-
lished by the General Assembly, and provisions
made for weavers in each county. In 1682 a statute
affixed heavy penalties against the export of wool,
hides, and iron. Other colonies, by local statutes,
encouraged sheep husbandry.
The Parliament of Great Britain passed an act
providing that "after the ist of December, 1699,"
no wool produced in the colonies should be ex-
ported to the mother country, the preamble to the
act reciting that the colonial industry would "in-
evitably sink the value of land " in England. Other
hostile legislation followed, but space will not per-
mit a statement of the details.
In 1798 Hon. William Porter, of Massachusetts,
is said to have smuggled from Spain two ewes and
a ram, worth, each, $1500, which he presented to a
friend, Andrew Craigie, who, in ignorance of their
value, consumed them as mutton. They were the
first merino sheep introduced into the United States.
Seth Adams, at Dorchester, Mass., founded a flock
of merinos from a single pair imported from France
in 1801. He removed to Zanesville, O., in 1807,
and there bred merinos. In 1802 Hon. R. R. Liv-
ingston, American minister to France, sent two pairs
of French merinos to his New York farm. In the
same year Colonel David Humphreys, of Connecti-
cut, United States minister to Spain, sent twenty
merino rams and seventy ewes to this country. In
1803 Dr. James Mease, of Philadelphia, imported
two black Spanish merinos. In 1807 Dr. Muller
imported a few merinos from Hesse-Cassel. In
1809 William Jarvis, United States consul at Lis-
bon, sent to the United States 3850 Spanish
merinos. In 1823 Saxon merinos were imported.
Since then the increase in the number of sheep has
been too great for such specific mention.
In January, 1895, the sheep in the States and
Territories of the United States were as follows :
SHEEP BY STATES AND TERRITORIES, 1895.
STATES AND TERRI-
TORIES.
NUMBER.
AVERAGE
PRICE.
VALUE.
2<S 1, i :;
$1 O7
New Hampshire . . .
106,23^
2 2O.Q "l8
'97
I 6O
208,Q6l
4Q.383
Rhode Island
1 1 .2 7Q
™' y&
71 /ifi8
•37.034
32<
New York
moo. coo
2 27
3"3
50,662
I.I78.7QC
12,877
«•»
138 .174
.£.04
AAQ -JC7
2 1*7
North Carolina ....
South Carolina ....
Georgia
357494
78,384
402,946
1.64
1.33
400*472
128,863
C37.C3O
Florida
110,627
il
I 72.7 C 7
326,640
1.4*
474.8O4
Mississippi
79O.QO4
1,24
484 111
178,74.1;
1.37
244.1 12
Texas
7,778.117
1,21
4.^41 8l2
Arkansas
212,725
I 36
288,278
Tennessee
407,782
I.**
767.63 1
West Virginia
6-? <;,C7?
I.7O
1. 137 734
Kentucky
1,046,788
1.81;
I.Q34.O46
Ohio
•7,1:77,4.10
6.I3O Q24
Michigan
1 ,96 1 ,946
I 88
3,6O7 OQI
876,217
I.8q
i.eSi 4<\4
8c7,77O
2.O4
1.747.831;
Wisconsin
805,71:6
1.65
1,47-1,4.14
Minnesota
48Q,IQ2
1. 70
876.241
627.03O
2.06
1,292,028
860,820
1.67
1,401,587
274,887
i.uj
1.67
4^8,808
183,448
i. 8«
33O.783
South Dakota
727.482
I.*5
*;32.Q6Q
North Dakota
367^71
2,808,717
1.68
Hi
6l6,7OI
4,227,4OO
1,222,538
1.64
2.OO4,IO7
1^05,980,
I.*2
i .084.01; 8
3 008,824
.QO
2,692,898
746.^46
1. 21
901,081
Utah
2 0^0.226
1.47
2,008,88*
C44.O77
2.42
1,316,667
010.861;
1. 41
i,20Q,77o
74.8,8? 7
1.74
1.304,360
Oregon
2,^20,750
••/j
1. 16
2,04^,005
US3&341
1.65
5,817,052
Oklahoma
22,778
2.80
63,760
Total
42,204,064
$i.q8
$ 66,685,767
In January, 189 5, there were in the world 5 7 1,163,-
062 sheep. The wool product of 1894 was 2,692,-
986,773 unwashed pounds, or something less than half
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
this amount clean. The sheep, January, 1895, were,
in North America, 48,129,537 ; in Central America
and the West Indies, 505,825 ; in South America,
101,308,583; in Europe, 192,080,003; in Asia,
74,245,090; in Australasia, 119,204,376; in Africa,
35,689,648.
The production of wool throughout the world for
the first fifty years of the present century was
32,360,881,950 pounds, and the yearly average for
the first fifty years, 647,217,639 pounds.
The following shows the world's production of
wool, in pounds, from 1810 to 1890 inclusive, to-
gether with the increase in population :
The sheep in the United States are owned by
about 1,000,000 flock-masters. In January, 1893,
there were 47,273,533 sheep, of the value of $125,-
909,264, with a wool product of 348,538,138 pounds.
The decline in numbers, value, and product in two
years is great. That this decline is not the result of
a diminished consumption is shown by the following
statement, which gives the annual consumption of
wool during the last five fiscal years. (See Table i,
on following page.)
Our annual consumption was equal to nearly
one fourth of the world's wool product, and more
per capita of population than in any other nation.
WORLD'S WOOL PRODUCT, 1810 TO 1890.
YEAR.
POPULATION. '
YEARS.
PRODUCTION.
POUNDS.
YEARLY AVERAGE.
POUNDS.
1810
269,400,000
1801-10
5,109,663,200
1820
298.9x10,000
1811-20
5,427,612,600
1810. . .
337,450,000
1821-30
C.7C7.QO4..2OO
1840
384,060,000
1831-40
6,867,524,000
686 7^-Aoo
1850
4^C,22^,74O
1841-50
9.IO2.I77.CKO
OIO 217 7Qi;
480,800,450
1851-60
I I.O"?<C.t;84.,4.OO
I TO'? ZA.8 CAO
1870
C'H.lS^SO
1861-70
14,883,648,300
1.488 ?6j. 8^0
641,858,085
1871-80
17 080 l6l,AQQ
1800. . .
729,591,430
1881-90
1QA<Q2.O17,O2O
Total
1 The population in this table includes eighteen nations of Europe. In America: the United States, Mexico, the Argentine Republic, and the
Dominion of Canada. In Africa: the Cape Colonies. In Australia: the whole continent. In Asia: India and Turkey.
PRODUCTION OF WOOLS IN THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, AUSTRALASIA, AND ASIA FROM 1800
TO 1890, FOR YEARS STATED.
YEAR.
ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.
AUSTRALASIA.
ASIA.
1800
Pounds.
I,20O,OOO
2,8oo,OOO
3,750,000
5,940,000
. 14,965,250
24,864,300
55-885,760
166,987,500
259,824,840
360,000,000
376,700,000
443,000,000
Pounds,
No returns.
No returns.
No returns.
2,860,650
13,860,780
42,958,645
69,964,320
179,459.780
345,010,338
400,879,240
550,000,000
581,000,000
Pounds.
52,498,150
56,993,200
68,837,420
70,571,200
85,149,270
104,941,500
121,910,890
134,507,120
135,095,140
264,860,050
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1800...
1891 .
1894
TABLE SHOWING NUMBER OF SHEEP ON
DIFFERENT DATES.
YEAR.
COUNTRY.
NUMBER OF
SHEEP.
1871
1891
do
1892
i860
1870
. . . do
1880
... do
1887 ...
do
1891
.... do
1888
Of the wool product of 1894, about 47,000,000
pounds were "pulled wool," the residue, fleece
sheared.
Continuing still further, the following figures,
which are from official sources and have the ap-
proval of the National Association of Wool Manu-
facturers, show clearly the comparative consumption
of wool in the United States since 1840. It will be
seen that while our population has increased four-
fold, our consumption and production is more than
eightfold. (See Table 2, on following page.)
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
TABLE i.
239
TOTAL CONSUMPTION OF WOOL ro»
YEARS ENDING JUNK 30.
1891.
ll*.
isn.
i*M-
a*.
Domestic wool (clip of the pre-
Pound*.
309474,857
129,303,647
123,180,240
Pound,.
307,101,507
148,670,652
106,697,637
I'ounds.
330,01840?
172-433.838
114,145,545
Poundt.
364,156,666
55,152,558
55,318,050
PmauU.
328437,858
206,181,890
109,627,188
Wool imported in shape of goods,
shoddy, rags, and waste
Total
561,958,744
562469,796
616,597,788
474,627,274
644,246,936
Estimated total consumption for fiscal year ending Tune 30, 1895 .
Estimated average total consumption for the past five fiscal years
644,246,936 Ibs.
571,980,107 Ibs.
Estimated increased consumption for 1895 over the average of five years 72,266,829 Ibs.
TABLE 2. — WOOL CONSUMPTION, 1840 TO 1896.
YEAR.
IMPORTS OF
WOOL ENTERED
FOR CONSUMP-
TION, YEAR END-
ING JUNE 30.
POUNDS. 1
HOME PRODUC-
TION OF WOOL,
YEAR ENDING
JANUARY i.
POUNDS.
DOMESTIC
EXPORTS.
POUNDS.
NET SUPPLY.
POUNDS.
IMPORTS OF
WOOL MANUFAC-
TURES, ALLOWING
3 POUNDS OF
WOOL TO THE $i
IN VALUE.
POUNDS.
TOTAL
CONSUMPTION.
POUNDS.
PER CAPITA
CONSUMPTION
OF WOOL.
POUNDS.
I&1O
2 Q,8ll,2I2
3C,8o2,II4
45,615,326
31,095,276
76,710,602
4.49
1850
18,695,294
52,516,969
35,898
71,176,365
58,178,613
129,154,978
5.58
26,125,891
60,264,913
1,055,928
85,334,876
128497,923
213,032,799
0.80
1870
18,614,067
162,000,000
152,892
200481,175
105,289422
305,770,597
7-93
99,372440
232,500,000
KIT, cut
331,680,889
05,501,641
427,184,530
8.52
1800
109,902,105
295,779479
21I.O42
405,450,542
162,496,269
567,946,81 1
9.07
1801 .
119,390,280
309474,856
291,922
428,571,214
129,706,230
558,279444
1802 . .
134,622,366
1O7,IOI,5O7
202456
441,521417
107,378,718
548,000,135
1801.
175,636,042
7 •15,018,40!;
91,858
508,562,580
110,061,712
619,526,301
1804.
dS, 726,01:6
148,518,118
(120,24.7
1Q1, 741,047
58,784,262
452,528,209
3 206,133,906
12? ,2IO,7I2
4,270,100
527,065,500
109,627,188
636,692,697
1806
2Q4.2Q& 72O
Quantities for 1840, 1850, and 1860 are imports less reexports. 8 Year ending September 3oth.
3 Gross imports ; imports for consumption not yet reported.
Other interesting figures bearing on this point,
taken from the United States census, give us a com-
parative statement of domestic and imported wool
manufactures, with per capita value and percentage
of total consumption :
The financial panic which commenced July, 1893,
reduced consumption of wool in the fiscal year
1894, and this in turn necessitated increased con-
sumption in the fiscal year 1895. The imports of
wool in the fiscal year 1893 were 172,433,833
DOMESTIC AND IMPORTED WOOL MANUFACTURES, 1820 TO 1890.
DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES.
(CENSUS.)
VALUE PER
CAPITA.
PER CENT.
OF TOTAL
CONSUMPTION.
NET IMPORTATIONS.
(AVERAGE FOR TEN
YEARS.)
VALUE PER
CAPITA.
PER CENT.
OF TOTAL
CONSUMPTION.
YEAR.
VALUE.
VALUE.
1820
$4413,068
14,528,166
20,696,999
49,636,881
80,734,606
217,668,826
267,252,913
337,768,524
$0.46
"•13
1. 21
2.14
2 57
5-65
5-33
6.30
1
60
79
P
11
$6,859,702
8,290,862
13.950.772
13,005,852
31-333,273
33,046,521
39.537,694
43,345-981
$0.71
0.64
0.82
0.56
1. 00
0.86
0.79
0.69
61
36
40
21
28
13
«3
II
1810 .
1840
1850
i860
1880
1890
240
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
pounds, but in 1894 the imports fell to 55,152,588
pounds. In 1895 the imports, with the first two
months under the tariff act of 1890, and the last ten
months under the free-wool act of 1894, were 206,-
181,890, at an import value of $25,556,421, besides
rags, noils, and waste.
The total value of imports of wool manufactures
for fiscal years specified, with the pounds of raw
wool therein, were as follows :
YEAR.
VALUE OF
WOOL IMPORTS.
POUNDS OF RAW
WOOL IN
MANUFACTURES.
l8qi
$41,060,080
123,180,240
1802
«,?6?.87g
106.607,637
iSa-i .
USyQd&ClK
114,145,545
1804
10,430,372
58,318,116
189";
36, 142. 3Q6
109,627,188
Total
$170,656,242
511,968,726
In the fiscal year 1894, the last under the tariff
act of 1890, the imports of shoddy, rags, waste, mun-
go, flocks, and noils were only 143,002 pounds of
the import value of $47,522. For the fiscal year
1895, and almost wholly during the ten months of
the tariff act of August, 1894, 14,066,054 pounds of
similar adulterants, of the import value of $1,980,-
464, were imported — an increase of over 1000 per
cent. However, it is not within the province of this
chapter to discuss the political aspects of wool tariff
legislation,nor consider the economic questions grow-
ing out of sheep husbandry.
The condition in which wool is marketed depends
considerably upon the section of country where it
is grown. Wools produced west of the Mississippi
River are generally sold unwashed ; east thereof
much of it is washed on the sheep's back. The
average shrinkage in scouring of the fleece-wool of
1894 is estimated at 59.71 per cent. ; of the pulled
wool, 40 per cent. ; the product of all in scoured
pounds, 140,292,268. The average weight of fleece
in the grease was 6.395 pounds; of the year's pro-
duct as marketed, "washed and unwashed," 5.33
pounds.
In 1870 the wool product was 163,000,000
pounds, of which there were marketed, washed on
sheep, tub-washed, and pulled, 130,000,000 pounds,
and 33,000,000 unwashed, from California, Oregon,
Nevada, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and
sundry Southern States. At that time only twenty-
six per cent, of the sheep, or 7,418,000, were west
of the Mississippi River; but in 1893 there were
west of that river 27,614,699 sheep, or fifty-six and
one half per cent, of all, leaving 19,658,854 east of
it. With the development of the new States and
Territories, with their cheap pasturage, the wool in-
dustry westward " took its way," and a compara-
tively small part of wool is now marketed unwashed.
Fleece-wool is marketed as (i) "unwashed,"
that is, as shorn from the sheep; (2) "washed,"
that is, washed in cold water on the sheep ; and (3)
"scoured," that is, cleaned ready for manufacture.
" Pulled wool " is that pulled from pelts. " Tub-
washed " includes fleeces broken and washed more
or less by hand or machinery. " Unmerchantable "
is wool partially washed on the sheep's back, but
not sufficiently so to be classed as " washed." After
the year 1870, in order to evade the full effect of
the wool tariff of 1867, Australasian wool was im-
ported " skirted " ; that is, with the belly, head, and
breech wool removed from each fleece, thereby
adding to its value.
The wool product for the last ten years has been :
FLEECE AND PULLED WOOL IN THE GREASE.
YEAR.
POUNDS.
DECREASE.
INCREASE.
1886. .,
323,O3I,O26
1887
3O2.l6Q,OlO
2O,86l,O76
1888
301,876,121
293,829
1889
6 006 64.2
iSgO
17.600 377
1891 .
307,401,107
2,073,34.0
I8Q2 .
333,018,401
25,606,898
ISO-? .
348,138,138
11.110,731
l8Q4. .
321,210,712
23,327,4,26
1891;. .
204,206,726
30,013,086
SCOURED WOOL.
YEAR.
POUNDS.
DECREASE.
INCREASE.
1886
140,361,621
1887 ....
i4O.ii6,68s
8,808,940
l888.
ia6.COI.OC4
3.064,730
l88O.
134 7Q1.31O
1.706.60 IN
I800
136,628 22O
4,832,87O-
1801
130.326,703
301,117
1802
14.1. -2OO 3l8
1,073,611
1803
TCI IO3 776
1,803,418
1804
140 292,268
10,811,508
l80l
121. 7I8.6OO
14,173,178
The clip this year is the smallest since that of
1889, which was again smaller than that of any
preceding year since 1881. These figures may aid
in illustrating results under the wool tariff acts of
1883, 1890, and 1894.
The following is the estimate of the National As-
sociation of Wool Manufacturers, for years specified,
of the wool product of the United States :
WILLIAM LAWRENCE.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
WOOL PRODUCT OF THE UNITED STATES CLASSIFIED, 1893 TO 1895.
241
1805.
««94.
*•».
STATES AND TERRITORIES.
WOOL, WASHED
AND UNWASHED.
POUNDS.
AVERAGE
WEIGHT or
FLEECE.
SCOURED WOOL.
POUNDS.
FEE
CENT, op
SHRINK-
AGE.
WASHED AMD
UNWASHED.
WASHED AND
UNWASHED.
1,657,116
6
<VM,ee.e.
41
1,880,040
710,8-18
7
58
7686of
1,612,462
TA
MMM
to
2 Ol6.Il8
950,930
Massachusetts
211.Ol8
6
I7O.1 71
di
7O1 7O8
Rhode Island
65, 508
6
17.740
O4.224
215,518
6
I2O,7OI
44
272,1 12
New York
6.2 1O 1Q2
6
3 ooo 188
12
^'^OVj
245,455
I
127,417
48
2 74.OOO
5,899,867
at
2,772,077
tl
8*664, 1 44
9,S • ' t ji ,
70,801
\%
l8,217
46
68,888
661,165
j
343,8o6
48
600. IQC
dSi "-7
1,052,455
i
1,112,899
2,7.61,170
1,662,320
c
847.781
40
I 802 520
;'>-', i ^
1
I OX) 174
.Ml
777 O21
1,494,120
fa
866,592
42
I,772,t;iO
I.O4.7 641
Florida
485,6155
|
276,823
43
1 7Q.O2 1
S72M7C
1.251;. 280
4'/z
7je cio
M 81,808
1.661.205
C8l.7J.Q
11
I 862 936
630,970
C
328,104
$
876,220
QCQ 7C-I
Texas
22,669,809
6'A
6,800,041
70
21.520.155
10, 141 8^7
1,198,806
6
479,522
60
I,20O,4o8
Tennessee
2,011,150
4'A
I,O57,2l8
48
2,440,320
2.O77 O4O
West Virginia
2,149,393
VA
1,139,178
47
4627887
Kentucky
5,272,312
5j£
40
(,'ogg'gSo
6.805 150
Ohio
18,1; 74,610
s'A
8806011
52
2O,O9O,O3I
2I.8oi 625
12,140,524
(>>/*
5,34I,8lI
56
I5,!94,3l6
I6.17O 5 16
4,701,210
6A
2,585,666
45
5.580,042
6482,208
5,271,968
f>*A
2,615,084
CO
6465,914
7,7I7,6l8
5,202,552
67
2,601,276
ID
6,199,908
7,l80.OlO
2,841,228
6
1,136,491
60
1,OI548O
2,999,646
Iowa
4,219,691
7
1,603,483
62
5,247,480
1.S17.1CI
4,906,674
6
2,451,117
5O
5.811,550
6,509,688
Kansas
2,296,785
S'A
757,010
07
2,515472
1,117,016
1^.75,103
»'/2
542,531
7°
2,421,522
2-152,518
21, 1 i;i,Q56
8,566,964
61
26,275,158
26,808444
19,610,688
g
6471,527
67
19,853,552
19,648,616
Nevada
4,152,6l6
8
1,349,311
69
4.O47,Ql6
4441448
Colorado
8,233,609
65/
2,881,763
65
8,861,328
0,216,110
6,678,603
Q
1,801,221
71
6,221,214
5,227,911
North Dakota
2,097,282
6
8l7,04O
61
2,243,825
2440,000
South Dakota
1,869,078
6
757.611
60
1,916,628
1,994,000
Idaho
6,747,210
7'A
2,026,570
67
5,788,140
6,114.006
Montana ...
19,031,866
7
6,66l,I51
65
1 7,642,079
17,696,686
New Mexico
1 1,048,007
43/
6,277,008
55
1 1,l8o,094
12,285,369
Utah
11,391,114
r1
4,100,801
64
11,756,043
14,823,039
Washington
5,158,125
1,650,600
68
5,655,131
5,766.775
Wyoming-
9,747,300
&'A
1,IiO,Il6
68
9,86l,8ll
10,187,820
Oklahoma
•5S.'4i
7
SLI97
67
i27»SS4
Total
254,296,726
6.lV
101,718,690
60
278,210,712
301,538,138
Pulled Wool
40,000,000
24,000,000
40
47,000,000
47,000,000
Total Product
204.206,726
125,718,690
325,210,712
348,538,138
The average weight of fleeces is 6.375 pounds.
The London " Meat Trades' Journal " shows that
of the world's sheep nearly one half are of merino
blood— so-called "fine wools." A change has re-
cently set in in favor of the long-wool or mutton
breeds. The 16,000,000 sheep which Australia has
added to her flocks during the last five years have
been chiefly " fine wools." Of the total 1 22,000,000
sheep in Australasia, 110,000,000 are merinos. In
South America the increase of the merino has been
phenomenal during recent years. Of the sheep in
the Argentine Republic not fewer than 45,000,000
are merinos ; of the 28,500,000 sheep in Mexico,
Chili, Peru, and Brazil, 16,000,000 are merinos; of
the sheep in the United States more than three fourths
are merinos. In Europe there are said to be nearly
65,000,000 merinos. Spain has more than 12,-
000,000 merinos ; and France, Germany, and Russia
each have almost as many fine-wooled sheep as
Spain ; while the merino either predominates or is
bred extensively throughout every other European
country outside of the British Isles. Asia and
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Africa, with 78,000,000 sheep, have at least 15,-
000,000 merinos. In addition to these there are
various other breeds which have one or more
crosses of the merino in them. The British Isles
and Canada grow the mutton breeds almost exclu-
sively. The merino is the oldest of all the breeds
now known. Its origin is completely lost in the
night of antiquity. After the merino the Cotswold
can be traced farthest into the realms of the past.
With the exception of the Southdown, all our dark-
faced mutton breeds are of recent origin. The fol-
lowing estimate of the different kinds of sheep in the
United States in 1894 will be found substantially re-
liable : Pure merinos, 5,000,000 ; registered merinos,
1,000,000; other merino grades, 17,000,000; cross-
breeds (got by merino ewes and rams of English
blood), 15,000,000 ; pure-bred English blood, 2,500,-
ooo ; registered of English blood, 500,000 ; natives
and inferior grades, 3,000,000; scrubs, 1,000,000.
The classes of sheep in different countries are
somewhat variously reported. The census report of
1890 on "Agriculture," differing a little from statis-
tics in the Department of Agriculture, gives the
number of sheep in this country as follows:
Sheep on farms 3S.93S.364
Of these merino " fine wool " (one-
half to full blood) . 16,725415
English breeds, long or medium wool
(one-half to full blood) 7>435>47I
All others 11,774,478
Total of these 35,935,364
Sheep on ranges, breeds not desig-
nated, but to a large extent merino 6,828,182
Total of all 42,763,546
The magnitude of the sheep and wool interests of
this country can be best presented through the me-
dium of figures. The wool industry was estimated
in 1893 as representing capital, product, labor em-
ployed, and wages paid as follows :
Capital in sheep $120,000,000
Capital in farms and barns for sheep $400,000,000
Number of flocks and flock-masters 1,000,000
Number of men employed a portion of the year 100,000
Wool produced, pounds 329410,542
Value $80,000,000
Number of sheep 45,000,000
Value of sheep sold for pelt and food $35,000,000
Amount paid in wages $25,000,000
Value of services of flock -masters $50,000,000
Cost of washing and shearing sheep $5,000,000
Total amount paid for labor $80,000,000
Here is an aggregate capital invested of $520,-
000,000, giving partial employment to more than
1,000,000 people, with wages and value of services
$80,000,000, and with a total product of $115,000,-
ooo annually. This is an underestimate of the value
of sheep, based too much on assessors' returns for
taxation.
These figures give a correct view of sheep hus-
bandry now, except as the number and value of
sheep and the product and price of wool have de-
clined since 1892, and especially since the tariff act
of 1894.
The imports of sheep in the fiscal year 1895
were, for breeding purposes, 1942, of the value
of $30,885; for mutton, 288,519, of the value of
$651,733-
MulhalPs " Dictionary of Statistics " (London,
1892) gives the annual production, in tons, of
mutton as follows :
PBRIOD.
UNITED
KINGDOM.
CONTINENT.
UNITED
STATES.
COLONIES,
ETC.
TOTAL.
1831-40. .
1851-60
1874-84. .
1887
480,000
430,000
390,000
365,000
1,320,000
1,390,000
1420,000
1,480,000
I7O,OOO
22O,OOO
310,000
390,000
8o,OOO
163,000
350,000
474,000
2,050,000
2,203,000
2470,000
2,709,000
The wool tariff acts of 1867 and 1883 placed
wools in three classes : First, " clothing," including
the various types of merino and " Down clothing " ;
second, "combing," the wools of the "mutton breeds,"
including Leicester, Cotswold, Lincolnshire, Down
combing, Shropshire, Canada long wool, and simi-
lar types ; third, " carpet," including Donskoi, na-
tive South American, Cordova, Valparaiso, native
Smyrna, China, Scotch black-faced, and similar
wools. To this third class belongs our American
" common wool " — that from the so-called native
Mexican sheep. These classes or designations are
preserved in the London wool sales, the advertise-
ments frequently specifying twenty-four varieties of
clothing, thirty-two of combing, and seventy-seven
of carpet.
Under the tariff act of 1890 the Secretary of the
Treasury collected 234 samples of foreign wools and
other animal fibers used in manufactures, each differ-
ing more or less from all others in quality or condi-
tion. This act omitted the designations " clothing,"
"combing," and "carpet," and substituted instead
" class one," " class two," and " class three," because
by improvements in machinery much of the merino
is now combed in manufacturing, and many of the so-
called carpet wools are used in the manufacture of
clothing goods. The wools of Montana, New Mex-
ico, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona,
North and South Dakota, Idaho, Washington, and
Wyoming are frequently designated in market re-
ports as " Territory " wools.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
•i.i
Certain terms are used to denote various kinds of
wool, so that it has a language of its own. Thus
" X and above " means wool of full merino blood ;
the designations "X," "XX," " XXX," respectively,
indicate variations in quality produced by breeding,
care, or local influences. " No. i " means three-
fourths blood merino ; " No. 2," half-blood merino ;
" No. 3 and coarse," one-fourth to one-half blood.
These include wools of merino blood with crosses of
other bloods, such as English and native Mexican.
" Medium " includes wools of mixed blood, neither
finest nor coarsest in staple.
The merino wools grown in the United States are
the best in the world— especially those grown east
of the Mississippi River. Thus in Switzler's " Wool
Report " of 1888 it is said : " In 1851, at the World's
Exhibition in London, four prize medals were
awarded to American sheep ; and at the Interna-
tional Exhibition of 1863 at Hamburg, where all
the finest flocks of Europe were represented, two
first-class prizes were awarded to merino sheep from
Vermont."
It has been conclusively shown that under proper
conditions this country can produce all wools of
every kind needed for consumption therein. This
would require an increase to about 110,000,000
sheep for existing conditions, with a prospective in-
crease which would more than double the present
capital and the wool and mutton product. Among
the benefits accruing through such increase would be
the achievement of national independence in peace
and war for wool supplies ; the enlargement of tax-
able wealth, resources, and power; an increased
demand for labor, pasturage, hay, and grain, and
thus profits to farmers ; the means of preserving the
fertility of lands ; the utilization of mountain and
other regions now waste ; the retention of gold
otherwise exported to buy foreign wools; and
other considerations, all elsewhere amplified. (See
U. S. Senate Mis. Docs. Nos. 35, 77, and 124, 53d
Congress, 2d Session.)
The annual mutton supply would, with an ade-
quate number of sheep, reach 20,000,000, of a farm
value of $80,000,000. A great benefit that would
result directly, also, from this advancement in sheep
husbandry would be the supply of healthful meat-
food it would furnish. The statistics of Denmark
and Germany show that in the four years from 1890
to 1893, inclusive, there were slaughtered at Copen-
hagen 132,294 cattle, of which 33,305 showed evi-
dence of tuberculosis; in 185,755 calves, 339 were
more or less tuberculous; in 8292 swine slaugh-
tered 1272 were tuberculous ; while in 337,014 sheep
slaughtered there was but one in which tuberculosis
was found. The figures at Berlin for one year, cov-
ering parts of 1892 and 1893, show that in 142,874
cattle slaughtered 21,603 showed signs of tuber-
culosis; in 108,348 calves 125 had tuberculosis;
in 518,063 swine 7055 were tuberculous; in 355,-
949 sheep slaughtered there were but 1 5 in which
there was any sign of tuberculosis.
No less than twenty-five acts of Congress have
prescribed, modified, or regulated tariff duties on
wool, commencing with the Calhoun act of April 27,
1816, and ending with that of October i, 1890, re-
pealed by the act of August 28, 1894, which, after a
period of seventy-eight years of wool duties, placed
wool on the free list. The four acts of March 2,
1867, March 3, 1883, October i, 1890, and August
28, 1894, mark eras in sheep husbandry. The act
of 1867 imposed the heaviest duties. Under it the
sheep and wool product was as follows :
YEAR.
NUMBER OF SHEEP.
POUNDS WOOL PRODUCT.
1870
28.477.5QI
IOO.IO2 387
1884
50,626,626
1-J7.COO OOO
The act of 1883 reduced duties somewhat.
Under it the sheep and wool product was as
follows :
YEAR.
NUMBER OF SHEEP.
POUNDS WOOL PRODUCT.
1884 .
50,626,626
177,1:00,000
1890 . .
AAt 736,0 72
"?OQ,474,8s6
The act of 1890 increased wool duties. Under
it sheep and wool were:
YEAR.
NUMBER or SHEEP.
POUNDS WOOL PRODUCT.
1800
AA -376.O72
309474,856
1807 .
47 277.5C7
348,538,138
The act of 1894 placed wool on the free list.
Under it the following statistics appear:
YEAR.
SHEEP IN
U.S.
WOOL
PRODUCT.
POUNDS.
VALUE OF
SHEET.
1893, January
1895, January
47-273.553
42,294,064
348,538,138
294.296,726
$125,909,264
66,824,621
Decline
4,070,480
54,241412
$59,084,643
244
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
These are statistical facts, without a consideration
of the effect of legislation, or other causes, if any,
operating to produce them.
The wool tariff of 1867 was the outgrowth of a
The "Wool Book" of 1895, by S. N. D. North,
secretary of the National Association of Wool Manu-
facturers, gives the number, average price, and value
of sheep on farms in the United States, 1810-95, as
meeting of wool growers and wool manufacturers of follows :
STATISTICS OF AMERICAN SHEEP, VALUE AND WOOL PRODUCT, 1810 TO 1895 INCLUSIVE.
FROM THE ANNUAL REPORTS OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE.
POUNDS OF WOOL GROWN.
DEPARTMENT
OF
AGRICULTURE.
1867 TO 1885 ESTI-
MATED BY JAMES
LYNCH, NEW
YORK ; 1886 TO
1891, BV J. P.
TRUITT, PHILA-
DELPHIA.
DATE OF REPORT.
NUMBER.
AVERAGE
PRICE.
VALUE.
POUNDS.
POUNDS.
1810
IO,OOO,OOO
$3-37
2.52
2.17
2.28
2.80
2.96
2.61
2.79
2.60
2.27
2.25
2.07
2.21
2-39
2-37
2-53
z-37
2.14
1.91
2.OI
2.05
2.13
2.27
2-5|
2^66
i 98
1.58
13,000,000
14,100,000
17,829,000
35,802,114
52,516,969
60,264,913
160,000,000
168,000,000
180,000,000
162,000,000
160,000,000
150,000,000
158,000,000
1 70,000,000
181,000,000
192,000,000
2OO,OOO,OOO
208,250,000
2II,OOO,OOO
232,500,000
240,000,000
272,000,000
290,000,000
300,000,000
308,000,000
302,000,000
285,000,000
269,000,000
265,000,000
276,000,000
285,000,000
294,000,000
303,151,055
287,105,930
294,296,726
1820
1830
1840
19,311,000
21,723,000
22,471,275
39,385.3»6
38,991,912
37,724,279
40,853,000
31,851,000
31,679,300
33,002400
33,938,200
33,783,600
35.935-300
35,804,200
35,740,500
38,123,800
40,765,900
43.576,899
45,016,224
49.237.29i
50,626,626
50,360,243
4^,322,331
44.759.3H
43.544.755
42.599.079
44,336,072
43,431,136
44,938,365
47,273.553
45,048,017
42,294,064
1850
1860
1867'
$132,774,660
98,407,809
82,139,979
93.364433
74,035,837
88,771,197
97,922,35°
88,690,569
94,320,652
93,666,318
80,892,683
80,603,062
79,023,984
90,230,537
104,070,759
106,596,954
124,365,835
119,902,706
107,960,650
92443,867
89,872.839
89,279,926
90,640,369
100,659,761
108,397447
116,121,270
125,909,264
89,186,110
66,824,621
160,000,000
177,000,000
162,250,000
163.000,000
146,000,000
160,000,000
174,700,000
1 78,000,000
193,1 00,000
198.250,000
208,250,000
2II,ooo,OOO
232,500,000
264,000.000
290,000,000
300,000,000
320400,000
337,500,000
329,600,000
323,031,026
302,169,950
301.876,121
295.779.479
309,474,856
307,101,507
333,018,405
348,538,138
325,210,712
1868
lS6p
1870
l87I
l872
1871. .
1874..
187=:. .
1876
1877
1878
1879 ::::.::: ::::
icSSi
1882
1883
1884
j88s
1886
1887
1888
1889. .
1800
1891
1892
iSg-i2
1894
1891; 3
1 The figures previous to 1867 are from the United States Census Reports.
2 See U. S. Senate Mis. Doc. No. 77, sid Congress, ad Session, chart, p. 54; Senate Mis. Doc. No. 35, sad Congress, ad Session, p. 81
3 Estimate of National Association of Wool Manufacturers.
sundry States at Syracuse, N. Y., December i, 1865,
at which a committee representing these two inter-
ests was appointed, which drafted a bill, subsequently
passed by Congress with modifications, especially re-
ducing the proposed rates on so-called carpet wools.
("Special Rep. Dept. Agriculture on Sheep In-
dustry," 1892.) It is a part of the history of this act
that President Johnson had decided to veto the bill,
but was finally prevailed on by Hon. Henry Stan-
berry, his attorney-general, to approve it. The wool
tariff of 1883 was the result of the report of the
Tariff Commission under the act of Congress of
May 15, 1882.
But it has been shown that the foregoing is not
accurate as to number of sheep prior to 1871. Ac-
cording to the census statistics the sheep were as
follows :
NUMBER OF
YEAR. SHEEP.
'840 19,3' J.374
1850 21,723,220
1860 22471,275
1870 28477,951
1880 35,192,074
Statistics prior to 1810 are not obtainable.
The free-wool provision in the tariff act of August
28, 1894, was first inaugurated in the annual report
of the Secretary of the Treasury, December 6, 1 886,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Ml
indorsed by President Cleveland's message to Con-
gress, December 6, 1887, repudiated by the people
in the presidential election of November, 1888, but
by a change in political parties finally carried into
effect and made law in the act of 1894.
The ravages of dogs, wolves, coyotes, and foxes
have been a serious obstacle in the way of rearing
sheep. In many States legislation has attempted to
remedy this by placing bounties on scalps of wolves,
coyotes, and foxes, by making the owners of dogs
liable for sheep killed, and by taxes on dogs, creat-
ing a fund from which to pay for sheep killed. In
1894 the loss of sheep in the United States from all
causes was estimated at five and one half per cent.
For some years prior to 1892, the loss by dogs in
Alabama was estimated at twenty per cent, annually
of the sheep. Legislation against dogs has en-
countered much opposition in many of the States,
especially the Southern. Shepherd dogs of five differ-
ent kinds have been successfully used in herding
sheep in many of the States.
Sheep husbandry has diffused its wealth in every
State and Territory. Apart from the wool, mutton,
pelts, and fertilizer directly produced, it affords an
economy of natural resources in the utilization of
lands and vegetation otherwise waste. Concerning
the single article of wool an eminent authority says :
"The value now of the world's wool clip is easily
$250,000,000 in first hands; any status which seri-
ously and permanently influences that value cannot
safely be ignored." The value of the clip in the
United States can be ascertained with comparative
accuracy by computation of pounds produced in
specific years, with prices. The number of sheep
and amounts of wool produced in the United States
from 1810 to 1895, inclusive, have been heretofore
stated.
There is a difference between farm value and the
usually quoted prices at Boston and other Eastern
cities, where most of the wool is manufactured and
finds its ultimate market. The difference between
farm value and the Eastern prices is affected by
cost of shipment to market, and other considerations.
A reliable authority says of wool freights: "From
London [to Boston] freight rates are one third of a
cent per pound. From the Western plains it costs
from two and one half to three cents a pound to bring
wool to Boston ; and this difference is practically so
much against the Western sheep growers as against
the prevailing prices in the London market."
Freights from Melbourne to Boston cost no more
than to London. The freight to Eastern markets,
local wool buyers' profits, commissions of wool
brokers, etc., from Ohio, reach three cents per
pound, and from the Rocky Mountain region still
more. (Senate Mis. Doc. No. 35, sjd Congress, 3d
Session, pp. 66, 249, 250, 353, 271, 373, 339, 379,
380; see Senate Mis. Doc. No. 77, passim.)
Wool purchased in large lots at the London wool
sales costs but little for commission. In addition
to freight charges the wool growers of the United
States lose the profits of local wool buyers ; some-
times, too heavy discounts, for difference between
wool in the grease and scoured ; the commission
of Eastern wool brokers, insurance, and other ex-
penses. The London price fixes that for the whole
world, and forms the basis on which purchases are
made, except as values may be enhanced by wool
duties. The prices of wool in London and Boston
from 1824 to 1895 are given in official documents.
(See Special Rep. Dept. Agriculture Sheep Industry,
1892, pp. 569-574 ; U. S. Senate Mis. Docs. Nos. 35,
77, and 124, 53d Congress, 2d Session ; Bulletin Na-
tional Association Wool Manufacturers, June, 1895 ;
House Mis. Doc. No. 94, 52d Congress, 2d Session,
being Treas. Dept. Rep. Chief Bureau Statistics,
1894.)
On the basis mentioned the Boston and the farm
values of the wool clip of the United States have
been estimated by an eminent authority — Theodore
Justice — for specified years as follows:
YEAH.
POUNDS WOOL.
FARM AND
RANCH VALUE.
BOSTON VALUE.
1880....
1890 . .
1895...
264,000,000
309474,856
294,296,726
$80,000,000
73,000,000
28,000,000
$90,000,000 under tariff.
84,000,000 " "
37,000,000 free wool.
For a decade prior to 1893 the average annual
farm value may be estimated at $70,000,000; farm
value of mutton sheep at $35,000,000; value of
pelts, chiefly in hands of butchers, at $7,000,000;
the fertilizers, farm value, at $4,000,000 ; or a total
of all, $116,000,000. Theodore Justice, in a let-
ter of September 19, 1895, estimates that the wool
values above given for 1880 and 1890 are probably
too small by $8,000,000. Mr. Justice adds : " Our
estimate of the scoured value of wool in 1 880 would
be not less than seventy-five cents per pound nor
over eighty cents per scoured pound. Our estimate
for the scoured value in 1890 would be not less
than sixty cents nor over sixty-five cents, and we are
quite confident that for 1895 thirty-five cents scoured
is nearly correct." This is Philadelphia value.
The total product exceeds the average annual
value of that of all the gold and silver mines of the
246
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
country during the same decade, which was $919,-
964,000, or an annual average of $91,996,400. In
the calendar year 1893 our gold-mines produced
1,739,323 fine ounces, of the value, in round num-
bers, of $35,955,000. The silver product of 1893
was, in round numbers, 60,000,000 fine ounces, of
the commercial value of $46,800,000, and of the
coinage value of $77,575,757. And as the domestic
production of wool is now less than half the needs of
the American people, the product of our flocks can,
under proper conditions, be more than doubled.
The price of wool has been gradually declining in
all the markets of the world since 1860, because of
(i) the vast increase of sheep; (2) the increase of
wool in fleeces; (3) the extension of wool growing
into Australasia, South Africa, and Argentine, where
pasturage costs but little and winter feeding is rarely
required ; (4) the extension of wool growing in the
new States and Territories, with much of the graz-
ing free on public lands; (5) since 1873 the de-
monetization of silver in most of the states of
Europe, depressing prices generally (see Vol. U. S.
Coinage Laws, 1 894, 4th Ed. Government Print) ;
and finally (6), in the aggregate, over-production—
the world's supply exceeding the world's demand.
Hence in the " Annual London Report " on wool for
1894 of Helmuth, Schwartze & Company it is said :
" The value of wool, though starting from about
as low a level as had ever been known, has yet in the
course of 1894 suffered a fresh fall of ten to twelve
per cent. ; and a bale of colonial wool, which during
the preceding decade was worth £14. on the aver-
age, and in former times (1871) £21, was last year
barely worth £11%, and on the basis of the clos-
ing sales of the year only £ioft. The process of
depreciation has during the past five years been
continuous, and, though more prominent in merino
than in coarse descriptions, has not affected one
class of wool to the exclusion of another, but has
extended to all." (See Bulletin National Association
Wool Manufacturers, June, 1895, p. 116.)
This is shown by the following statistics :
IMPORTATION OF COLONIAL WOOL
INTO EUROPE AND AMERICA FROM i860 TO 1894, WITH APPROXIMATE AVERAGE VALUE PER BALE.
IMPORTS PER SEASON.
YEAR.
AUSTRALASIAN
BALES.
CAPE
BALES.
TOTAL
COLONIAL
BALES.
AVERAGE
VALUE
PER BALE.
TOTAL VALUE.
, ^7,000,000
f Period.
£11,000,000
Period.
• Year of
^ Transition.
^20,000,000
Period.
,£26,000,000
Period.
i860..,
187,000
2I2.OOO
227,000
242,000
302,000
334.00°
351,000
414,000
483,000
504,000
546,000
573.000
554.000
571,000
659,000
720,000
769,000
835,000
801,000
826,000
869,000
957,000
993,000
1,054,000
1,112,000
1,094,000
1,196,000
1,207,000
1,315,000
1,385,000
1411,000
1,683,000
1,835,000
1,775.000
1,896,000
79,000
84,000
82,000
94,000
113,000
109,000
128,000
135,000
156,000
153,000
152,000
186,000
189,000
176,000
170,000
197,000
167,000
186,000
169,000
189,000
219,000
204,000
197,000
199,000
191,000
188,000
236,000
237,000
289,000
310,000
288,000
322,000
291,000
299,000
256,000
266,000
296,000
309,000
336,000
415,000
443,000
479,000
549,000
639,000
657,000
698,000
759,000
743,000
747,000
829,000
917,000
936,000
1,021,000
970,000
1,015,000
1,088,000
i, 161,000
1,190,000
1,253,000
1,303,000
1,282,000
1432,000
1444,000
1,604,000
1,695,000
1,699,000
2,005,000
2,126,000
2,074,000
2,152,000
£2$%
23#
22#
22%
24#
23%
2^/2
20%
i8'A
15^
16^
20^
26</2
24#
23*
22#
i»M
18^
'8^
16^
20#
'7#
n 'A
16^
16
14 ,
*3'A
«4''
*3'/2
*S'/2
14^
I3K
12
12%
11%
^6,850,000
6,882,000
7,030,000
7,644,000
10,271,000
10,521,000
11,735,000
11,392,000
11,822,000
10,348,000
11,691,000
15,560,000
19,690,000
18,115,000
19,274,000
20403,000
17,550,000
19,144,000
18,187,000
16,748,000
22,032,000
20,027,000
20,825,000
20,988,000
20,848,000
17,948,000
19,332,000
20,216,000
21,654,000
26,272,000
25,060,000
27,067,000
25,512,000
25,925,000
24,748,000
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868 . . .
1869
1870
1871 .
1872
1873
1874 .
1871;
1876
1877. ...
1878
1879
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885 ...
1886
1887
1888...
1889
1890
1891 . .
1892
1893
18^4 :;
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
247
The average weight of the Cape and Natal bales
is about 3 1 5 pounds, and the average weight of an
Australian is about 365 pounds. But this is an
aggregation of greasy and scoured wools and of
wools from colonies, which vary in the weight of
wool bales. The bales given above, therefore,
mean the actual number received in the London
market, without reference to their weight. It is
impossible, therefore, to compute from the bales
any average value per pound. Still the value of
bales from 1860 to 1894 sufficiently shows the de-
cline in prices.
But notwithstanding this decline in price, sheep
husbandry was fairly remunerative and prosperous
under the operation of the wool tariffs of 1867 and
1890, under conditions then existing. The cost of
producing wools in the several States and in foreign
countries has been elsewhere fully shown. (U. S.
Senate Mis. Doc. No. 35, 53d Congress, 2d Session,
pp. 83, 293 ; Bulletin National Association Wool
Manufacturers, June, 1895, p. 117; Senate Mis.
Docs. Nos. 77 and 124, ad Session, 53d Congress.)
A contrast of the cost of production and the Amer-
ican farm values, or rather prices of wools based on
London sales, will form a basis for judging of the
reasons for the decline in numbers and value of sheep
and wool in the United States, and the necessity for
legislation in aid of the wool industry.
The South Carolina Agricultural Society, the
pioneer of its character in the United States, was
the first to offer a premium for the introduction of
merino sheep, in 1785. In 1796 the Massachusetts
Society for Promoting Agriculture urged the impor-
tance of improving the breeds of sheep. The Penn-
sylvania Society for Improving the Breeds of Cat-
tle organized at Philadelphia in 1809, and offered
1 The reader will find valuable matter on the subject of
this chapter in the documents therein referred to and in the
following: North's " Wool Book," Boston, 1895; Bennett's
"American Shepherd's Year Book," 1895 ; Tariff Hearings be-
fore Committee of Ways and Means, 5 1st Congress, 1st Ses-
sion, 1889-90, p. 216; U. S. Senate Finance Committee,
Rep. 2332, 5Oth Congress, 1st Session, 1888, Part 3, p. 1984;
U. S. Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 3, 53d Congress, Special Ses-
premiums for sheep. In November, 1809, a so-
ciety was organized at Georgetown, D. C., for the
purpose of encouraging home manufactures and the
rearing of domestic animals, including sheep.
The Ohio Wool Growers' Association was organ-
ized in 1863. The National Wool Growers' Asso-
ciation was organized at Syracuse, N. Y., December,
1865, with the Hon. Henry S. Randall, LL.D., of
Cortlandt, in that State, president ; William T. Greer,
of Ohio, secretary ; and Henry Clarke, of Vermont,
treasurer. Its first work was at its organization, on
conference with representatives of the wool manu-
facturing industry, .to formulate a wool and woolen
goods tariff bill to be presented to Congress, and
which resulted in the act of March 2, 1867.
The subsequent presidents of the association were
Hon. A. M. Garland, of Illinois, a member of the
Tariff Commission of 1882 ; Hon. Columbus De-
lano, of Ohio; and since October 5, 1893, William
Lawrence, of Ohio, with Hon. John T. Rich, of
Elba, Mich., and governor of that State, vice-
president ; William G. Markham, of Avon, N. Y.,
treasurer; and a board of directors. (Senate Mis.
Doc. No. 35, 53d Congress, 2d Session, p. 324.) The
association has rendered effective service in aid of
sheep husbandry, and has been fully heard on all
legislation affecting it.
Among all the American industries none is more
important or more useful than sheep husbandry. It
feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, gives health,
vigor, and happiness to mankind, adds to industrial
and national wealth, independence, and power. It
has never been allied with any evil ; it never united
with any conspiracy against personal or public right.
Its purpose and effect have been to elevate and bless
mankind.
sion, March, 1893; Senate Ex. Doc. No. i, 53d Congress,
ist Session, March, 1893 ; Senate Mis. Doc. No. 149, 53d Con-
gress, ist Session, p. 42 ; " The American Wool Interest"
(Lawrence), New York, 1892; Switzler's Special Rep. on
Wool, U. S. Treasury Dept., 1887; Tariff Hearings before
the Committee of Ways and Means, 53d Congress, ist Ses-
sion, 1893, p. 929; Rep. of Tariff Commission, 1882.
CHAPTER XXXVI
AMERICAN HORTICULTURE
THE pursuit of horticulture, that department
of the science of agriculture which relates to
the cultivation of gardens, including the
growing of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, is the most
ancient and honorable of callings. It was Bacon, I
think, who remarked that "God Almighty first
planted a garden," and he further emphasizes his
respect for the gentle art of gardening by saving " a
man shall ever see, that, when ages grow to civility
and elegancy, men come to build stately sooner
than to garden finely; as if gardening were the
greater perfection." Dr. Johnson treated the sub-
ject humorously when he remarked to one of his
friends : " If possible, have a good orchard. I know
a clergyman of small income who brought up a
family very reputably which he chiefly fed on apple
dumplings."
In looking over the field of our own literature of
horticulture for the past one hundred years, we en-
counter, with few exceptions, nothing very coherent
or comprehensive until we open Downing's " Treat-
ise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gar-
dening adapted to North America" (1841), together
with his " Rural Essays." From that time an occa-
sional American milestone in horticultural literature
is passed and rapidly noted until we come to Peter
Henderson's first published work. In 1858 Freder-
ick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux issued a " De-
scription of a Plan for the Improvement of Central
Park." In 1859 came Copeland's " Country Life,"
and Charles Follen's " Suggestions on Landscape
Gardening." "The Art of Beautifying Home
Grounds of Small Extent," by F. T. Scott, appeared
in 1870. H. W. S. Cleveland's " Landscape Archi-
tecture as applied to the Wants of the West " was
published in 1873, as was William Hammond Hall's
" The Influence of Parks and Pleasure Grounds."
In 1 88 1 Mr. Olmsted published " A Consideration
of the Justifying Value of a Public Park." In 1889
"The Garden's Story," by George H. Ellwanger, was
told, and the " Report of the Metropolitan Park
Commission of Boston" appeared in 1893.
In addition to these landmarks of the science of
horticulture, its progress has been marked by the ap-
pearance of other useful books from time to time.
One of these was " Elliott's Fruit Book, or the Amer-
ican Fruit Grower's Guide in Orchard and Garden,"
published in New York in 1857. Notwithstanding
the publication of so much valuable matter upon the
subject by such writers as Coxe, Lindley, Downing,
and Thomas, Elliott's work was welcomed as a use-
ful addition to the literature of the art. This branch
of horticulture is a subject so boundless in a country
of such extent and capacity of soil and climate as
ours that it can only be lightly touched on here. It
will doubtless surprise the casual reader to learn that
in this little book, published nearly forty years ago,
upwards of 1050 varieties of apples alone are enu-
merated and described as having been the object of
experiments.
The student of American horticulture, in delving
into this branch of the subject, will have his task
lightened by keeping in mind a few of the pioneers
who have helped in a large measure, by their labors
and investigations, to bring the time-honored pursuit
to its present state of importance. In Massachusetts
they were M. P. Wilder, C. M. Hovey, Boston ;
Samuel Walker, Roxbury ; B. V. French, Braintree ;
Robert Manning, J. M. Ives, Salem. In New York,
Peter Henderson; Charles Downing, Newburgh; S.
B. Parsons, Flushing; P. Barry, George Ellwanger,
Rochester; John J. Thomas, Macedon; David
Thomas, Aurora. In Pennsylvania, W. D. Brinckle,
Philadelphia; Thomas Meehan, Germantown. In
New Jersey, Thomas Hancock, Burlington. In
Ohio, George Hoadley, J. P. Kirtland, Cleveland;
A. H. Ernst, J. A. Warder, Cincinnati ; M. B. Bate-
ham, Columbus. In Michigan, Daniel Cook, Jack-
248
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
| i-.t
son. In Indiana, John C. Teas, Raysville. In Wis-
consin, F. K. Phoenix, Racine.
It is somewhat remarkable that in a pursuit like
horticulture, so largely regarded as a luxurious one,
and in a country so young as ours, we should find as
far back as 1728 an account of the establishment of
a botanic garden in Philadelphia by John Bartram.
We of New York were later in the field, although as
early as 1 750 places were advertised for sale on Long
Island, in which, among the inducements offered to
purchasers, it was stated that they had " flower gar-
dens attached." In 1756 others were offered as hav-
ing " greenhouses filled with tropical plants."
To show beyond question that at that early period
there was some general taste in regard to the culti-
vation of flowers, we find that in 1751, at White-
stone, L. I., a pottery was under way which
advertised that " any persons desirous may be sup-
plied with urns and flower-pots to adorn their gar-
dens."
In 1767 William Prince, of Flushing, N.Y., offered
for sale a large variety of fruit trees, " so packed that
they can safely be sent to Europe." He was an en-
thusiast in all departments of horticulture, and at the
opening of the present century had added to his
nursery a greenhouse department which contained a
very full collection of plants for that time.
American horticulture must always remain greatly
indebted to Mr. Prince, who was the pioneer nur-
seryman in the New World, and laid the foundations
of the business here.
In 1 80 1 Dr. David Hosack originated the Elgin
Botanic Garden in New York. Its curator in its
earlier years was a Mr. Dennison, who began busi-
ness as a florist in 1814 at a point near where the
Fifth Avenue Hotel now stands. Mr. William Wil-
son was the author of a book on " Kitchen Garden-
ing," and was, with Dr. Hosack, one of the
originators in 1818 of the first Horticultural Society
in New York. Another prominent horticulturist of
that day was Mr. Thomas Bridgman, who was the
author of "The Young Gardener's Assistant," to
which hundreds of European gardeners, coming here
unacquainted with the American climate and plants,
were much indebted. To enumerate the various
magazines and periodicals devoted to horticulture
from an early period of the century up to this time
would be of no special interest, although most of
them have done yeoman service in diffusing horti-
cultural knowledge all over the land. But I must pay
a passing tribute to such pioneers in the art as
Charles M. Hovey of Boston and Robert Buist, Sr.,
of Philadelphia, both of whom in their day were ac-
knowledged high priests of American horticulture.
Later on, towards the middle of the century, came
such kindred spirits as Patrick Barry, Peter B. Mead,
A. S. Fuller, E. P. Roe, and many others of less
prominence.
No review of horticulture would be complete
without a reference to its real culmination in land-
scape-gardening, and the history of that branch of
the art in America is most interesting. The first and
unquestionably the greatest American landscape-gar-
dener was A. J. Downing. His book on the subject,
published in 1841, sprang Minerva-like into the arena,
and it remains to this day without a superior, or even a
competitor, worthy of the name. A true genius in his
calling, it remains a great pity that he did not live long
enough to complete his labors. In addition to this
work on landscape-gardening, he had in course of
preparation a book on the fruits and fruit trees
of America, which was left unfinished, but which was
completed by his brother Charles. The influence of
A. J. Downing on American ornamental horticulture
cannot be overestimated ; in fact, it might not be too
much to say that he created it. He had a worthy
pupil in Frederick Law Olmsted. It was the latter
who took charge of the improvements in Central
Park, and practically created that grand pleasure-
ground upon what had been a barren waste of rock
and swamp. Only this summer, the city of New
York set apart, in Bronx Park, a large area of land
for the establishment of a Botanic Garden, with an
appropriation of $500,000 which has been increased
by public-spirited citizens to $750,000.
Another potent factor in developing ornamental
horticulture has been and is still an institution which
is peculiarly and distinctively American — the rural
cemetery. To Jacob Bigelow of Boston is due the
original conception of this idea. He agitated the
question in 1825, and soon the Massachusetts Horti-
cultural Society lent its aid to the movement, the
result being the formation of the Mount Auburn
Cemetery Association at Cambridge, Mass. This was
the forerunner of Greenwood, Woodlawn, Forest
Hills and the numerous park-like cemeteries which
now dot the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
where nature, softened and subdued by man's cun-
ning touch, lends beauty and repose to what would
otherwise be only a place of harrowing memories.
Every cemetery has its cluster of florists, who derive
profit from the sale of plants, with which loving
hands make beautiful the last resting place of those
dear to them.
By 1840 commercial horticulture had come to be
liberally patronized, and nurseries, greenhouses, and
250
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
market-gardens had been established in Long Island,
New Jersey, and New York Island, so that the mar-
kets were fairly supplied with fruits, flowers, and
vegetables ; but scantily, however, compared to the
present time.
In 1866 a most important epoch in a century of
the art was reached when Peter Henderson sent forth
his earliest work, " Gardening for Profit," the first
book ever written on market-gardening in this coun-
try. This work brought a national reputation to its
author, and its value to the United States is beyond
computation. Its appearance just after the close of
the war rendered it of special and inestimable value
to the Southern States. The enormous market-gar-
dening or trucking interests which have been for
years and are to-day such a factor in the prosperity
of the South, owe their birth and subsequent devel-
opment entirely to the teachings of " Gardening for
Profit." Stimulated by the success of his first book,
Mr. Henderson in 1868 issued his " Practical Flori-
culture," written to show how flowers and plants could
best be grown for profit. This book did for esthetic
gardening what its predecessor had accomplished for
material horticulture, and established thousands of
people in a pleasant, safe, and profitable business.
In 1875 Mr. Henderson's prolific pen produced
" Gardening for Pleasure," a work intended to meet
the wants of those desiring information on gardening
for private use. In 1884 he published " Garden and
Farm Topics," a series of interesting and instructive
essays; and also, in 1884, he, with Mr. William Cro-
zier, wrote " How the Farm Pays." Finally, in 1889,
he finished just before his death his most pretentious
work, " Henderson's Hand-Book of Plants."
Besides his published works, Mr. Peter Henderson
was for thirty-five years previous to his death, in 1890,
a constant contributor to the leading American horti-
cultural and agricultural papers. His name is in-
separably linked with commercial gardening and
floriculture in the United States. Not only by his
teachings, but through his wonderful business success,
by precept and example, he blazed the way for com-
mercial horticulture, and stands in the same relation
to it that A. J. Downing does to its ornamental
branch. He it was who saw the possibilities of our
varied soils and climate in the production of many
plants, seeds, and bulbs which, previous to his time,
had been imported from Europe. In the one item of
tuberoses alone he changed the current of trade, so
that, instead of importing, we now export, thousands
of dollars being thus saved to the country annually.
He it was who predicted "that California before fifty
years will be the great seed and bulb-growing coun-
try of the world, as it has the exact conditions of cli-
mate necessary for their growth." His prophecy is
being fulfilled, and bids fair to be realized even sooner
than he anticipated.
When " Practical Floriculture " was issued, florists
were few and far between, and their establishments
were crude and insignificant in comparison with those
of to-day. There are no trustworthy statistics to be
obtained of the number engaged in the trade at that
time, or the extent of glass in operation; and even
now exact information is unobtainable, as the last
census is obviously imperfect. Through information
gleaned by the Society of American Florists and
from private sources, it is safe to estimate that there
are in the United States to-day, say, 10,000 florists,
the principal ones owning a glass area ranging from
50,000 to 100,000 square feet; while the least among
them would own, say, 1000 square feet. After care-
ful consideration, I estimate that there would be a
grand average of 5000 square feet to each florist,
making a total area of 50,000,000 square feet of glass
devoted to commercial floriculture, a small portion
being used for raising vegetables during the winter
months. Estimating the average yield at one dollar
per square foot, we have a total output of $50,000,000
in plants, flowers, and vegetables. Many florists also
use the space under the greenhouse benches to grow
mushrooms, an industry which is rapidly assuming
importance.
In addition to the above, the private conservato-
ries, greenhouses, and fruit houses, and the green-
houses in connection with public gardens, cemeteries,
and experiment stations, should be considered in
estimating the amount of glass devoted to plant and
flower-culture. These combined would probably
amount to one fourth of the commercial area, or
12,500,000 of square feet; and their contents are of
equal value proportionately.
The interest of the people of the whole country in
horticulture cannot be better shown than in the per-
fection to which that marvelous flower, the chrysan-
themum, has been brought, and the remarkable
exhibitions that take place annually in every city
and town of any importance. To show the strides
that have been made in greenhouse structures, I
may say that I doubt if there was previous to 1845
in all the United States a greenhouse in use for
commercial purposes having a fixed roof; and at
this point it seems pertinent to give a short history
of the rise and growth of greenhouse construction in
the United States. The first one, as far as my re-
searches have been able to discover, was erected
early in the last century for Andrew Faneuil in Bos-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
281
ton. The credit of having owned the first green-
house in this country is generally given to James
Beckman, the claim being made that it was erected
for him in New York in 1764. Be that as it may,
however, we have authoritative proof by Gardiner,
Hepburn, and McMahon, that greenhouses were in
existence in 1804 and 1806, and also that Dr. Ho-
sack had extensive greenhouses in his botanic gar-
den in 1 80 1. Many of these early structures had
very little, if any, glass in the roof, and it is the
wonder of modern horticulturists how the gardeners
in those days were able to grow plants with such
crude facilities. It would seem ludicrous now to
attempt it in one of the greenhouses described by
McMahon as a "modern" structure. "One third
of the front side of the roof, for the whole length of
the house, to be formed of glass-work"; and so as to
get all the light possible, he stated that "to have as
much glass as possible, the piers between the sashes
are commonly made of good timber from eight to
ten inches thick according to their height ; the width
of the windows for the glass sashes may be five or
six feet. The panes of glass in the roof should be
six inches by four, this size being not only the
strongest, but much the cheapest, and they should
lap over each other by half an inch." Compare this
with our modern greenhouse structure, its glass
1 6 x 20, and even larger, its light iron purlins and
supports, its light sash-bars, the pitch of the roof —
everything calculated to get the greatest amount of
light possible, so that flowering plants may get the
needed carbon to maintain them in health, and en-
able them to perfect their blossoms. It is little won-
der that perpetual spring and summer seem to reign
in the modern home when we have such facilities for
the propagation of nature's choicest products. The
first published advocacy of the fixed-roof system was
made by Mr. Peter B. Mead in the " New York Hor-
ticulturist" in 1857. Before that all greenhouse struc-
tures for commercial purposes were formed of por-
table sashes, and nearly all were constructed as
"lean-to's," with high back walls, and none were
connected. All were separate and detached, being
placed at all angles, without plan or system. Then,
too, the heating was nearly all done by horizontal
smoke-flues, or manure fermenting, although there
was a crude attempt at heating by hot water by some
private individuals as early as 1835. The first use of
heating by hot water on anything like a large scale,
however, was in 1839, when Hitchings & Co., of this
city, heated a large conservatory for Mr. William
Niblo of New York ; and yet for nearly twenty years
after this time heating by hot water was almost ex-
clusively confined to greenhouses and graperies on
private places, as few professional florists in those
days could afford to indulge in such luxuries.
All this is changed now. The use of steam, hot
water under pressure, and the gravity system of hot-
water heating are almost universally in operation, the
hot-air flue having been relegated to the past. The
best evidence of progress is in the fact that the flo-
rist has not waited for the tradesman, but has brought
about these improvements himself. In many places
to-day the florist puts up his own heating apparatus,
and there are many men in the trade who are com-
petent to give learned dissertations on the various
systems of greenhouse-heating. It may not be out
of place here to refer to the " blue-glass craze "
launched upon the country by the late General
Pleasanton. Absurd as it seems now, yet there
were many hard-headed, practical men among the
gardeners and florists who adopted it to a limited
extent. In many of the private places it may still
be seen, at Newport and along the Hudson River,
the owners being either too uninterested to remove
it, or perhaps still having a lingering faith in the ex-
ploded "fad." In weak imitation of the "blue-glass
theory " came the era of " blue whitewash," but that
also has disappeared. One thing worthy of record
is the great advance made in producing glass in this
country. Up to within a very short period all the
glass for greenhouses was imported from France
and Belgium, the American product being so full of
" blisters " that it was useless for the purpose. The
consumption of glass in greenhouse structures, both
old and new, is something enormous, and undoubt-
edly stimulated the American manufacturers to bet-
ter efforts. The result is that for the past few years
our American natural-gas-made glass is used exclu-
sively, and is found to be superior to the foreign
article.
While we have undoubtedly made great strides in
the past thirty years in every department of horti-
culture, perhaps the most wonderful advance of all
has been in the construction of cut flowers into bou-
quets and other designs. The late Mr. Henderson
used to relate that in 1844 he was an assistant in one
of the largest floral establishments then in New York
City. If a wreath was to be made its base was usu-
ally a piece of willow or a barrel-hoop. If a cross,
two pieces of lath formed the groundwork, and the
work when done was usually such as to reflect but
little credit on the " artist." The wire-design-man
did not put in an appearance until twenty years
later. Bouquets in the forties were usually flat, one-
sided affairs. Occasionally a round bouquet was at-
252
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
tempted by some artist of local fame, but with a re-
sult that must have done violence to the feelings of
the flowers that were used in the structure.
The growth of the use of cut flowers at funerals
in elaborate symbolic designs is one of the features
of modern horticulture. At first it was confined
chiefly to the realms of wealth and fashion, but it
spread quickly into all ranks. When a public offi-
cial or popular man in private life died, the offerings
of friends and acquaintances in the shape of wreaths,
crosses, crowns, anchors, broken columns, gates ajar,
etc., etc., were something enormous ; in fact, during
the early seventies, it is safe to say that " funeral
work" was the sheet-anchor of the flower stores.
But a change occurred about twenty years ago;
exaggeration and bad taste had brought great floral
displays somewhat into disfavor. What Murray Hill
frowned upon, however, was taken up enthusiasti-
cally by Cherry Hill, and a man's popularity during
life was soon gauged by the number of " set pieces "
sent to his funeral by admiring friends. New de-
signs were created to meet the demand, and a florist
on the Bowery — an artist in this particular line —
showed much originality in inventing symbolic de-
signs to express the grief of the sender. Lettering
on designs came into greater prominence under his
re'gime, and many a good story, tragic and ludicrous,
has he told of the composition of these expressions
of regard for the dead. One of his best is about a
young man who in life belonged to several East
Side social organizations. Each club was anxious to
outdo the other in the matter of flowers, and great
was the display of designs at his funeral. One com-
mittee, who ordered a pillow, wanted some original
lettering on it. The florist showed them his book of
set phrases, " At Rest," etc., etc., but to no purpose.
They retired and held a long consultation, and at
length ordered the words " He was a Brick " to be
lettered on the pillow. It was in vain that the florist
mildly suggested a change; and the young man went
to his last resting-place with the inscription " He was
a Brick" boldly staring out from the pillow in purple
letters on its snowy ground of flowers. It was, no
doubt, incidents such as this which turned many
people against the use of cut flowers in designs at
funerals; but the practice, under certain restrictions,
must always be appropriate.
There has been a radical change in the character
of the flowers used for cut-flower purposes. Fifty
years ago camellia flowers retailed freely for a dollar
each, and during the holidays Philadelphia used to
send thousands to New York florists, getting $500
per 1000; while roses then went begging at one
tenth these figures. Now, the rose is queen, and
the poor camellia finds none so poor to do her rev-
erence. Decided as the change has been from one
class of flowers to another — a vagary of that erratic
jade, Dame Fashion — the evolution in the rose itself
is more pronounced. As I write, there stands on
my desk a vase of roses, Bon Silene, Safrano, The
Bride, Catherine Mermet, Maman Cochet, Souvenir
de Wootton, La France, Bridesmaid, Perle des Jar-
dins, Sunset, Belle Siebrecht, Meteor, Papa Gontier,
Niphetos, Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, Mme. Cusin,
Mme. Caroline Testout, Mme. Hoste, Mme. de
Watteville, and, crowning all in regal splendor,
American Beauty ; the latter name, by the way, is a
misnomer, as the variety is not of American origin.
Paltry, indeed, appear the Bon Silene and Safrano
in comparison with the others, and yet, twenty years
ago, they were the leading roses grown for the New
York market, and they sold, too, around the holi-
days, at eighteen to twenty-five dollars per 100.
During the holiday season of 1894-95 the first one
was rated as being worth two to three dollars per i oo,
and the second was not even given the poor honor
of being named in the market list ; American Beauty,
during the same time, sold at from $30 to $150
per 100; the others, except Belle Siebrecht and Mrs.
Pierpont Morgan, which have yet to go through
the season — having made their ddbut this year —
were quoted at from five dollars to twenty dollars
per i oo, the difference between the quotations being
entirely due to quality, showing the varying skill of
the growers.
Only five of the above roses are of American ori-
gin : Sunset, a " sport " from Perle des Jardins, which
originated with and was introduced by Peter Hen-
derson in 1883; The Bride, a "sport" from Cathe-
rine Mermet, which originated with James Taplin
and was introduced by John N. May in 1885 ; Sou-
venir de Wootton, — named in remembrance of the
visit of the Society of American Florists to Wootton,
the home of G. W. Childs, — a seedling raised by J.
Cook and introduced in 1889; Bridesmaid, a "sport"
from Catherine Mermet, which originated with F.
L. Moore, and was introduced by him in 1892;
Mrs. Pierpont Morgan, a " sport " from Mme. Cusin,
which originated with F. W. Miles of Plainfield,
N. J., in 1895. All the others are of European
origin. I confidently believe that the time is not far
distant when we shall compete seriously with the
foreign grower in the production of new varieties of
roses. In the realm of garden varieties of the ever-
blooming class, which is separate from the winter-
forcing section, we have already produced many fine
ALFRED HENDERSON.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
253
sorts, which, being raised under the conditions in
which they must live, are, for the most part, better
adapted to our climate than many imported sorts
which are magnificent on their native heath. Amer-
ica can, however, claim the honor of having given
to the world one of the greatest classes of roses, viz. :
the Noisette class, originally produced by M. Noi-
sette at Charleston, S. C., in 1817, and sent to his
brother in Paris, by whom it was introduced into
European gardens; thus the latter is commonly
credited with the honor of having originated it.
Among the many famous roses belonging to this
class are Marechal Niel, Cloth of Gold, Wm. Allen
Richardson, Gloire de Dijon, and Lamarque. These
grand roses festoon the walls and verandas of South-
em and Pacific Slope homes, as well as in France and
England; and along the Riviera millions of their
flowers breathe incense, telling to the American trav-
eler, in their mute way, that his country has done
something for rose culture of which he may be proud.
Our prairie roses have been improved greatly ; such
fine sorts as Baltimore Belle, Prairie Queen, Gem
of the Prairies, and others adorn walls and fences in
our Northern States, where the Noisette roses would
not survive the winters. The culture of tuberoses
came a little later. The books of Peter Henderson
& Co. show that in 1865 their receipts from a house
of tuberoses, lox too feet, were $1500; now they are
rarely grown under glass, being mostly a summer
crop, and but few are sold in New York, except to
the poorest classes.
The increase in the sales of all products of flori-
culture in the past fifty years has certainly kept pace
with most other industries. In 1844 the sales at re-
tail of a New York florist on New Year's Day footed
up the sum of $200, and yet this florist did nearly
the entire business of the city at that time. In spite
of the general depression of business, which, of
course, bears heavily against the sale of cut flowers,
in all probability the sales at retail on the first of
January in 1895, in New York City, reached $500,-
ooo, and the aggregate for the past year would
run up in the neighborhood of $5,000,000, probably
double that of any European city of its size. The
greater profits in cut-flower-growing, with compara-
tively less labor than in general plant-growing, at-
tracted capital, hence the great advance made.
With competition has come a cheapening of the
product, an advance in its quality, and a consequent
shrinkage in the profits of the grower; but up to the
present time there has been no apparent check to the
growth and sale, but rather the reverse, as on all sides
new structures for growing cut flowers are going up
and old ones are being remodeled to adapt them
for this use.
A few years ago nearly all the growers for the
large cities sold their own product by sending men
from store to store with the day's cut, but this is no
longer possible, the output being too great for such
a primitive method. Then came the commission
dealer and the cut-flower exchange, and now an
association of cut-flower growers has been organ-
ized in New York City for the sale of their product
at wholesale to retail dealers. It is a company, and
it claims to control $750,000 worth of flowers.
Probably twice as much will be sold by the com-
mission dealers and the cut-flower exchange, amount-
ing to perhaps double what it was ten years ago.
The growth around New York, although more
pronounced than elsewhere, is not exceptional, as
every large city and town throughout the country
has felt the stimulus and advanced accordingly.
Taste has advanced as well. The day of huge
wads of flowers, by courtesy termed bouquets —
bare stems and wires, coarse garden flowers and
arbor vitse for green — has given way forever to the
light, graceful bunch, long, natural stems with foli-
age, of fine roses, lilies, carnations, violets, orchids,
etc., etc., with maiden-hair fern and filmy asparagus
fronds for garnishing.
Of the many remarkable developments in com-
mercial floriculture during the past ten years, there
is one that stands out prominently above all others,
being the expansion of the trade in decorative plants
— palms, ferns, and allied plants. The use of palms
and decorative plants has been general in Europe for
many years, and even now the American grower
draws heavily on Europe for his supplies. From
the present outlook, however, the day is not far dis-
tant when we shall produce all we need ourselves.
It is difficult to give trustworthy figures showing the
development of this branch, and we must depend on
comparative showings to get near the true result
It may be safely stated that ten years ago it was
a rarity to see a group of palms in the average flor-
ist's establishment, and equally rare was the sight of
a palm in the windows of dwelling-houses. Even
five years ago, it was the exception to find them in a
commercial florist's greenhouses, yet to-day there is
not a florist doing a general plant trade, be it large
or small, who does not keep some in stock and buys
constantly. In all the large cities and towns palms
are found in the homes of people of taste and re-
finement, and even in country hamlets the catalogues
of the large seed and plant houses do their mis-
sionary work, and young palms, of which one firm
254
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
makes a specialty, are there found growing. Not
a ball, wedding, or social function of any pretension
is complete now without a decoration of palms.
Large greenhouse establishments are devoted ex-
clusively to their culture. Florida and the extreme
Southern States have their palm establishments, and
palm nurseries have been established in Trinidad
and Jamaica by American florists, in order to keep
pace with the growing demand for their product in
this country.
When an industry of any kind assumes imposing
proportions, one of the first things that occurs is
that it becomes broken up into departments, or spe-
cialized. American horticulture to-day is no ex-
ception to the general experience, for within the last
ten years, whether in practical work, in its different
associations and societies, or in its literature, the
tendency is to specialize. Not only have we ex-
clusive rose-growers, carnation-growers, and those
who devote themselves entirely to the cultivation of
the chrysanthemum or the violet, but even in the
representative national association, the Society of
American Florists, the minor divisions at their an-
nual meetings devote their time almost entirely to the
consideration of some particular plant, in whose cul-
tivation or management they have an absorbing
interest.
Up to this point I have dwelt but lightly upon
one division of American horticulture which, from
a financial point of view, far exceeds in importance
the ornamental department of the business. I refer
to market-gardening, or, as it is now known in the
Southern States, the trucking interest. For thirty
years previous to 1875, market-gardening was a
most profitable business in and around New York.
Thirty years ago the New Jersey market-gardener,
mainly located in Hudson County, grew better
vegetables than the Long Island men, but their
limited area of land becoming less and less annually,
in consequence of the inroads made for building
purposes, the Long Islanders forged ahead. The
Long Island men, however, have not had it all their
own way, for of late years a formidable competitor
has been met by them in the large truck-gardens of
the South. While this competitive factor has cer-
tainly lessened their profits, even at the lower prices
that prevail to-day there is still a fair profit in the
business for them, certainly more than in ordinary
farm crops.
It is a matter of regret that only a hurried addi-
tional reference can be made to that other great
branch of horticulture, fruit-growing. The truck-
gardener of the South has a valuable field for profit
in strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries. Flor-
ida owes much of her prestige to her orange groves,
and California is more indebted to her fruits than to
her gold-mines for her prosperity. All over the
length and breadth of the land are felt the beneficent
results arising from a variety of fruits. Our export
of apples is no mean item. This industry really be-
gan in 1845, when a trial shipment was made from
Boston to Glasgow. The season of 1880 and 1881
saw a total exportation to Europe of 1,328,806 bar-
rels, and in the season of 1891 and 1892, 1,450,336
barrels were exported. The history of the American
grape would of itself be sufficient for a separate arti-
cle. American horticulturists have taken our native
grapes and produced the fine named varieties now
known. The American grape has been the salva-
tion of European vineyards by providing stocks for
their vines which successfully resisted the phyllox-
era, and it has supplied us with cheap and whole-
some native wines; it has given employment to
thousands, and has taken millions of acres out
of idleness. Its usefulness is growing, and will
strengthen with the years. However brief this
sketch must be, I must refer to the debt of grati-
tude the country owes to John Adlum for his work
in connection with our native grapes. He it was
who first saw with accurate vision that it was ab-
solute folly to continue using the varieties imported
from the old country and to follow the methods of
culture practised there. To him, above all others,
is due the credit of rescuing our native grapes from
the danger of destruction by advancing civilization,
and the utilization of them to develop the fine va-
rieties of to-day after crossing with the imported
varieties. To establish his theory on a basis of fact,
he started an experimental vineyard at his own ex-
pense on Rock Creek, in the District of Columbia,
after vainly applying to the national government
for aid. He planted a complete collection of im-
ported and native sorts, and finally discarded the
imported varieties. The lessons of the past are
not fully understood, or else many who should
know are ignorant of them, and, as a consequence,
English and continental planters in the Southern
States since John Adlum's time have gone on
planting imported varieties, and in nearly every
case failure has resulted. Read what he said:
" The way is to drop most kinds of foreign vines
at once (except a few for the table), and seek for
the best kinds of our largest native grapes, and if
properly managed there can be no doubt but we
can make as much wine, if not more, than any part
of the world on the same space of ground, as far
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
255
north as the forty-third degree, if not farther north,
and of good quality." In 1823 he published the
first book on indigenous-grape culture, and stated
that his only desire was to be useful to his country-
men. He has an additional claim to gratitude
from the people of to-day in the introduction of
the Catawba grape. He laid the foundations for
Rogers, Ricketts, Haskell, Rommell, Jaeger, Moore
and others, and, like Bull, who introduced the fa-
mous Concord grape, and who died very recently
a dependent on public charity, poor Major Adlum,
prodigal of his substance for the benefit of others,
passed away practically unnoticed, except for the
grateful recognition accorded to him by Rafi-
nesque, when he named our beautiful " mountain
fringe" Adlumia in his honor. The peach, also, has
found a congenial home here, and has added mill-
ions to the wealth of the nation. The blackberry,
although indigenous to this country, has been
greatly improved by American horticulture. Its
possibilities were foreseen many years ago by Down-
ing, when he wrote: "The sorts (blackberries) are
seldom cultivated in gardens, as the fruit is pro-
duced in such great abundance in the wild state;
but there is no doubt that varieties of much larger
size, and greatly superior flavor, might be produced
by sowing the seed in rich garden soil, especially if
repeated for two or three successive generations."
As showing the wonderful diversity of our soil and
climate, the same authority remarks that many of
the so-called new varieties of fruits, especially from
the West, prove to be old and well-known kinds,
altered in appearance by new soil and different
climate.
The outgrowths from the results of successful
horticulture are many, and I am compelled, for
want of space, to pass many of them by in silence.
There is one, however, that is far too important to
be ignored, however brief the sketch may be. It is
the canning industry. What the metallic cartridge
is to the breech-loader and vice versa, canning may
fairly be considered in relation to small-fruit and
vegetable-growing; this must be obvious to the
most casual observer. This method of preserving
fruits and vegetables is credited to a Frenchman;
but it first became an assured and recognized suc-
cess in this country. To Ezra Daggett and Thomas
Kensett, in 1819, is due the credit of having first
canned fruits and vegetables, and in 1825 Presi-
dent Monroe signed patents to them to protect them
in that industry. Its growth has been marvelous and
far-reaching in its benefits. At the present time it is
estimated that there are twenty thousand factories
in North America employing directly or indirectly
over a million hands during the canning season, a
result entirely traceable to the advance in American
horticulture. Following the process of canning came
drying fruit by fire heat ; then came the Alden drier,
about 1870; then Williams and others brought in
the " evaporated " product, now a staple article of
commerce and the salvation of the California fruit
grower.
In a brief summary of matters upon which the
exigencies of space will not permit me to enlarge, it
may be stated that auction sales of plants and flow-
ers were started in New York about 1847.
America has led the way in improving garden and
farm-tools, and bettering the methods and systems of
horticulture, and as a result, while we pay more
wages and live better, the cost of trees and plants is
on an average less in America than in Europe, where
they still cling to slow and cumbersome methods.
This is noticeable in many important details, but
in none more than in packing plants for shipment,
the system in vogue here being of the simplest kind,
differing entirely from the European method, and
being a result of the necessities forced upon us by the
higher price of labor. In the old country the ball
of soil is generally wrapped in moss and then tied
round and round with string, the plants when so
prepared being laid in layers and each layer fastened
with a cleat — a process unnecessarily slow and ex-
pensive. With us, when the ball of soil is suffi-
ciently firm and well protected with roots, we wrap
it in paper, leaving the top uncovered. This wrap-
ping in paper not only serves to keep the ball of
soil intact, but it also, to some extent, relieves the
pressure of the plants upon each other. In packing
the plants in a box, they are placed alternately in
layers, with an inch or two of " excelsior " between.
In cold weather the boxes are lined with heavy felt
paper, with two inches of sawdust on the bottom,
sides, and top ; and rarely is there any injury from
frost even in the coldest weather. In spring and
summer light baskets and open boxes are used, and,
contrary to the European custom, no charge is made
to the customer for either boxes or packing. Mr.
Peter Henderson, in "Practical Floriculture," relates
how he sent some fifty plants to a London florist, in
a basket packed in the American style, and only two
plants failed to live. A return shipment of about
the same quantity was sent by the florist referred to,
packed in hampers, each one of itself weighing forty
pounds, without the contents, and three-fourths of the
plants were dead when received, due, he states, en-
tirely to the cumbrous manner of packing. The ad-
256
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
vancement in our gentle art has been phenomenal in
America, and there is no symptom of halting. Both
national and State governments have recognized the
importance of horticulture, and special legislation has
been enacted to foster it. The scientific researches
which the business man could not undertake are ac-
complished at the experiment stations, founded on
the Federal law known as the Hatch Act, which went
into effect in 1887. There are now fifty-five of these
stations in the United States, constantly making tests
of new varieties and methods, as applied to agri-
culture and horticulture. They issue bulletins, which
have a free circulation, as often as necessary, and pub-
lish annual reports. In 1892 and 1893 these stations
issued 564 bulletins and reports, of which no were
devoted to horticulture. The agricultural colleges
lend valuable aid in this work, and there are a dozen
scientific bureaus and divisions connected with the
Department of Agriculture at Washington, three of
which are purely horticultural.
To attempt to record in a space as brief as this the
history of horticulture for a century must necessarily
result in an inadequate and imperfect account. At
the best I have only been able to touch upon what
seemed to me to be the most prominent features in
the history of the craft. Still, we who man the ships
composing the horticultural squadron of to-day, as
we look back over the billows of the past, have some
right to feel proud of the great development the
"most ancient of professions " has attained in the last
100 years. At the same time, we doubt not the
chronicler of our art in 1995 will have a still grander
record of progress to relate, for, paradoxical as it
may seem, the dawn of American horticulture is
only fairly above the horizon as the sunset of the
nineteenth century fades away.
CHAPTER XXXVII
AMERICAN SUGAR
THE history of the sugar industry in this
country forms one of the most interesting
chapters in the development of its resources
and growth. Sugar, which was known to the
ancients as a product of the far East, reached
Europe as an article of commerce in the fifteenth
century. Spain, in its colonies, was the first to
engage in its cultivation ; but for centuries it was
regarded as a luxury, and so slowly did it find its
way into general use that in England the consump-
tion for the year 1800 was but a little more than
100,000 tons, and in 1837 but 216,000 tons, or six-
teen pounds per capita, whereas the consumption in
England to-day is over seventy pounds per capita.
The first cultivation of the sugar-cane in the West
Indies was in St. Domingo, where it was found at
the close of the fifteenth century, and for a long
time the Europeans derived their principal supplies
from that island. By the beginning of the eighteenth
century the culture had been largely established in
the West Indies, as also in Central America, Mex-
ico, and the northern countries of South America.
In the earlier history of the United States the very
small amount of sugar consumed was imported chiefly
from the Spanish colonies and the West Indies.
Sugar-cane was first introduced into Louisiana by
the Jesuits in 1751, but they failed to produce a
merchantable article of sugar. In 1779 better
results were obtained, but it was not until 1795 that
sugar was successfully made in any considerable
quantity, fitienne Bor6, of that State, having suc-
ceeded, meanwhile, in developing an improved
method of extraction. At the end of seven years
more, in 1802, the entire crop of the State of
Louisiana amounted to about 2500 tons. The
mills which produced the cane were driven by
horse or cattle power, and even at so late a date
as 1882 there were over 150 of such mills in oper-
ation in the State.
The success of Bor6 attracted general attention,
and additional capital was soon invested in the new
industry. Steam-mills were introduced, and thence-
forward the progress of the industry was rapid.
Planters from other States migrated to Louisiana
and engaged in the sugar culture, and the business
steadily increased. In the year 1816 a duty was
imposed upon imported sugars of three cents per
pound, which still further stimulated the production,
the crop of 1832 reaching 40,000 tons. In that
year the duty was reduced to two and one half cents
per pound, which apparently checked the sugar
production; but after the panic of 1837 it revived
again, and in 1840 the number of sugar plantations
was estimated at 525, the production of that year
being 50,000 tons. In 1850 it reached 104,000
tons. From this time on, with a growing demand,
the yield steadily increased, notwithstanding a re-
duced protection against imported sugar, until, in
1 86 1, with a tariff of only one-half cent per pound,
the crop reached 240,000 tons. The outbreak of
the Civil War nearly obliterated the sugar produc-
tion of Louisiana, which in three years fell to less
than 6000 tons.
A generous protection from 1861 to 1870, in the
form of import duties equivalent to more than three
cents per pound, furnished an opportunity for the
rebuilding of the sugar industry in the South. The
increase of the crop, however, in view of these fa-
vorable conditions, was very slow, the entire amount
of cane-sugar raised in the United States in 1875
being only 75,000 tons ; and in 1880, with an average
protective duty of two and one half cents per pound,
was less than 1 2 5,000 tons. In 1 890 the import tax on
raw sugars was abolished, and a law passed giving
the planters a direct bounty equivalent to something
more than two cents per pound for fifteen years.
Under this stimulus large amounts of capital were
immediately invested in sugar culture, and the crop
of cane-sugar in the year 1894-95 is stated as being
more than 315,000 tons.
257
258
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
It remains to be seen what the effect will be of
the repeal of this bounty law in 1895, and the sub-
stitution of an import tax affording a protection to
the planter of about one half the amount. The
representatives in Congress of the Louisiana planters
insist that this industry cannot survive without a
larger protection in the form of import duties or
direct bounties, inasmuch as, in addition to the
danger from drought or floods, they are also con-
stantly in peril from early frost. Even in the most
favorable seasons it is necessary to cut and windrow
the cane before it matures, to save it from freezing,
thus reducing by a considerable amount what would
be its normal yield if the climate would admit of its
maturing in the field. The culture of sugar-cane
has been practised to some extent in Texas, and,
under the recent bounty law, gave promise of a
considerable development. The only other of the
Southern States in which any attempt has been made
to raise the sugar-cane is in Florida, where thus far,
however, it has not been commercially successful.
During the war repeated experiments were made
in different sections of the country — principally in
the West — with the hope of producing sugar from a
species of cane called sorghum. These experiments
were fostered by the government, and the reports
of the Agricultural Department from 1875 to 1877
promised practical results on a large scale. Facto-
ries were established in Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas,
and, on a smaller scale, in New Jersey and several
other States ; but after several years of experiment
the attempt was practically abandoned, the sugar
made being of inferior quality, and the cultivation
carried on at too great cost to make it commercially
profitable. Small amounts of sorghum-cane are still
raised in some districts, but the product is generally
used by the local community in the form of syrup.
There are but few facts to be obtained concerning
the production of maple-sugar in the United States.
In 1860, as nearly as can be ascertained, this pro-
duct amounted to over 50,000,000 pounds, supplied
by the New England States, New York, Pennsyl-
vania, Ohio, and Michigan. In 1870 it was less
than 30,000,000 pounds. The production has been
steadily diminishing, and it has ceased to be an
important factor in the sugar-supply of the country.
The extraction of sugar from the beet-root was
begun in France in the time of Napoleon I. The
production, fostered by the imposition of high duties
on foreign sugars, rapidly increased, until in 1838 it
reached about 40,000 tons. The cultivation of
sugar-beets extended to Germany, Austria, Belgium,
and Russia; but so recently as 1858 this industry
amounted to only 400,000 tons. Under the patron-
age of those governments, in the shape of bounties,
enormous strides have been made in beet-sugar cul-
tivation in Europe, until in the year 1894 the crop
amounted to 4,842,000 tons, or fifty-eight per cent,
of the entire sugar production of the world.
Fifty years ago attempts were made to introduce
the sugar-beet in this country, and during succeed-
ing years these efforts embraced several Eastern
States, Illinois, and Wisconsin ; but, owing to unfa-
vorable soil or climate, the results were unsatisfac-
tory, until the tide of experiment reached the Pacific
slope, where, at Alvarado, Cal., after repeated fail-
ures, the first approximation to success was reached
in 1887. This was followed by the erection, by
Glaus Spreckels, of a large factory at Watsonville,
Cal., in 1888. The Oxnard Beet-Sugar Company,
in 1 890, after a careful analysis of soil and climate,
established a large and well-equipped factory at
Grand Island, Neb., and, later, one at Norfolk, in
the same State. These factories have been yearly
in operation since that time, as has been for the last
three years, also, a factory located at Lehi, Utah.
The only place, however, where beet-sugar cultiva-
tion has been commercially successful on any con-
siderable scale up to this date is in California, a third
factory having been erected in that State in 1891
by the Oxnard Company, at Chino, which, in addi-
tion to those above named, is now in successful
operation. The entire output of the beet factories
in the United States during the year 1 893 was about
20,000 tons.
In the earlier history of the country the sugar
consumed was almost entirely what is known as raw
sugar ; that is, sugar as made from the cane-juice
on the plantation. This varied in color from a
dark brown to a light straw-color, but, owing to the
imperfect processes of manufacture then known, con-
tained more or less of syrup and a large amount of
impurity. Such refined sugar as entered into con-
sumption was imported in the shape of loaves,
which were counted a great luxury and were corre-
spondingly expensive.
The raw sugar came principally from the West
Indies and South and Central America, and was
imported in great tierces and hogsheads, weighing
from 1 200 to 2000 pounds, in which form it was
delivered to the grocers. Before it could be weighed
out to the customer it was necessary to run it through
the grocer's hand-mill to break the coarse lumps,
and as the bottom of the hogshead was reached the
proportion of " foots " or syrup settlings increased.
This sugar was sticky and dirty, but sweet, and, in
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ignorance of the insectivora and impurities it con-
tained, our forefathers consumed it with avidity.
Molasses, the drainings of the sugar in the plantation
sugar-house, being somewhat cheaper than sugar,
entered also largely into consumption, and was used
to sweeten tea and coffee, as well as to serve many
culinary purposes for which only sugar is now used.
Early attempts at sugar refining were crude in the
extreme. The first was made in England in the
sixteenth century. Melting in solution, removal of
some of the foreign matter by the laws of gravitation
assisted by the coagulation of bullocks' blood, filtra-
tion through linen bags for the purpose of separating
the floating particles, and boiling to the point of
recrystallization, constituted generally the tedious
and, compared with present methods, far from
effective process. For, while it is true that melting,
filtration, and recrystallization remain to-day the
fundamentals in the art of sugar refining, the means
of accomplishing them have greatly changed. Dis-
coveries from time to time improved the product of
the refinery in one respect or another. Seventy
years ago the claying process, which consisted in
washing the refined crystals in molds, produced a
very good quality of white sugar. Up to fifty years
ago the difference between the cost of the raw and
the refined sugar was ten cents per pound.
The first refinery in this country was probably
Rhinelander's, which stood on the present site of the
Rhinelander Building, at the head of William Street,
in New York City. The growth of population and
the increase of the per capita consumption were much
more rapid than the increase in the refined product,
and profits were large ; the result being competing
refineries, which, with new machinery, greatly re-
duced the time of refining, improved the quality of
the product, and augmented the capacity of the
plants, thereby reducing the cost of operating. In
1838 steam for heating purposes established itself
as a factor. The vacuum pan, for crystallizing the
sugar at a low temperature, — a most important in-
vention,— was adopted about 1855, the charcoal filter
at a somewhat later date, and the granulating-
machine, for drying the damp white sugar and re-
ducing the grain, in 1848. In 1860 the centrifugal
machine, for separating the syrup from the crystal-
lized sugar, introduced a new era in sugar refining,
and the really active competition in the business
began.
But more radically important even than improve-
ments in machinery were the improvements in
methods which began to show themselves shortly
after the war. SoleiPs polariscope, a French inven-
tion, made its appearance in this country about
1870, and exerted the most marked influence upon
the art and business of sugar refining. With a
single flash of light this wonderful little instrument
designated in accurate figures the commercial value
of any grade of sugar to a fraction of a degree.
The result was that the attention of the more pro-
gressive refiners was at once turned to the chemical
possibilities involved in the industry. The exact
proportion of crystallizable sugar, scientifically des-
ignated sucrose, and uncrystallizable, or glucose,
being determined by the polariscope, attention was
directed to methods of treatment which would
accomplish at once the preservation of the former
and the utilization of the latter. Improvements in
machinery had reduced the cost of operating,
enhanced the grade of the product, and greatly
increased the capacity of the refinery ; but the pos-
sibility of wresting from chemistry her long-kept
secrets brought new methods into prominence as a
factor in the art of sugar refining.
It soon transpired that, with equal advantages in
the matter of machinery, one refiner, by the discov-
ery of some simple fact and its application in the
matter of method, obtained a decided advantage
over another. Instead of two weeks, the usual time
for the refining process, the time was reduced for
" soft " refined sugars to sixteen hours, and for gran-
ulated sugar, of which by far the greatest quantity
is sold, to but a few hours longer. Sugar refining
became a thing of mysteries, each refiner seeking to
discover for himself the method of treatment which
would enable him to improve upon that of his com-
petitor. These changes of methods involved the
practical remodeling of the older refineries, and so
great was the advantage of the more modern houses
that the older and weaker ones were driven to the
wall.
Among the earlier firms engaged in the sugar-
refining industry the more prominent were those of
R. L. & A. Stuart and the Havemeyers. The
Stuarts, who had flourished and acquired great for-
tunes under the old conditions, when the margins in
the business were large, found themselves, through
the advent of new methods and the fierceness of
competition, unable to contend with their younger
rivals ; and, rather than attempt the remodeling or
rebuilding of their refineries, they went out of the
business.
The house of Havemeyer was founded in New
York in 1805 by A. & D. Havemeyer, in a little
building on Vandam Street, twenty-five by forty
feet ; four or five employees, with the proprietors,
260
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
being sufficient to manufacture and deliver their
product. In 1828, William F. Havemeyer, after-
ward mayor of the city, and his cousin, Frederick
C. Havemeyer, who were sons of the original
Havemeyers, entered into a partnership in the same
business, and continued until 1842. F. C. Have-
meyer resumed business in 1851, and in 1861 the
firm of Havemeyers & Elder was formed. This firm
up to 1887 were the largest refiners in this country.
In 1875 there were forty-two refineries in the
United States, with an estimated aggregate output
of about 25,000 barrels per day. The margin be-
tween raw and refined sugar was reduced from ten
cents per pound in 1838 to three cents per pound
in 1876, at which time raw sugar costing eight cents
per pound was sold for eleven cents refined. The
forty-two refineries in existence in 1875 dwindled
to twenty-seven in 1880. Of these, twelve were
located in New York and vicinity, five in Boston,
four in Philadelphia, two in New Orleans, two in
San Francisco, and one each in Portland, Me., and
St. Louis, Mo.
It now became a question of the survival of the
fittest. The first movement in the direction of self-
preservation was made in the winter of 1882, when,
by mutual agreement, the refiners in New York and
Boston adjusted their meltings from week to week
to the demand of the market. This agreement was
in the nature of an experiment only, and necessarily
but temporary. It was repeated from time to time,
but at last found to be utterly futile. The move-
ment toward community of interest, in which direc-
tion only lay the possibility of permanence of coop-
eration, did not crystallize until the summer of 1887.
The number of refineries had been further reduced,
and the unequal war of methods and means had still
further reduced the margin between raw and refined
sugar, until the losses of the refiners brought rumors
of impending disaster to hitherto prosperous con-
cerns. Finally nineteen of the refineries, after
months of laborious negotiation, were brought into
an agreement by which they were capitalized on the
basis of $50,000,000, under the designation of the
Sugar Refineries Company.
Under this organization the autonomy of each of
the refineries was preserved, but all the capital stock
of the several companies was held by a board of
trustees, who issued against it certificates of com-
mon interest. These trustees, as the stockholders,
elected the directors and managers of the several
properties, thus insuring unity of action ; and, through
economy of management and prevention of over-
production, the financial results were eminently
satisfactory. The success of the company, and the
then popular notion that all combinations were of
necessity inimical to the public interest, led to
attacks upon it, the result being that the form of
organization was adjudged illegal by the courts in
the State of New York, on the ground that it was
a combination of corporations ; whereupon a new
company was incorporated under the laws of the
State of New Jersey, and in January, 1891, the
entire business of the Sugar Refineries Company
was transferred to The American Sugar- Refining
Company, with the same amount of capital. Under
this new organization the business was still further
unified, there being but one board of directors and
one set of officers, the result being still greater
simplification and economy in management.
At this time there were four independent refineries
in Philadelphia, two of them being of large propor-
tions. In 1892 all these refineries were acquired by
The American Sugar-Refining Company, its capital
stock being increased to $75,000,000. Under this
great corporation the American consumer is supplied
with the purest and best refined sugar made in the
world. At the same time, by new and improved
processes, the cost has been lessened, until the aver-
age margin at the present time between raw and
refined sugar is less than one cent per pound, as
against three cents per pound in 1876 — a net gain
to the consumer of two cents per pound.
The supplies of the refineries are drawn from all
parts of the world, wherever they can be purchased
to the best advantage. The lowest forms of crude
sugar from Jaggery and the Philippine Islands, as
well as the higher grades of the Dutch East Indies,
Hawaii, the West India Islands, South America, and,
in addition, a portion of the beet crop of Europe, are
put under contribution to supply the 1,500,000 tons
annually required for the consumption of this country,
in addition to the domestic crops of cane and beet
sugars, of which, also, about one half pass through
the refineries before going to the consumer.
The refineries of The American Sugar-Refining
Company are the largest and most complete in the
world. The collateral industries dependent upon
the business are themselves of great magnitude. In
the item of cooperage alone there are consumed
annually for barrels 200,000,000 staves, with corre-
sponding hoops and heading. This material fur-
nishes over 5000 car-loads of freight to be transported
by the railways from the Western States to the
refineries. Not less than 800,000 tons of coal are
annually consumed in the manufacture of refined
sugar. Fully one mile of the water-front in Brook-
JOHN E. SEARLES.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
lyn, N. Y., is occupied by these mammoth refineries,
their cooperage establishments, and the railway
terminals which have been constructed solely with
a view to handling their product. Other vast estab-
lishments are located in Jersey City, Philadelphia,
Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, and San Francisco.
Each succeeding revision of the tariff laws has
witnessed a reduction of the protection to American
refiners against foreign refined sugars, until at the
present writing, with a forty per cent, ad valorem
duty on all grades of sugar, the discrimination in
favor of refined is but one eighth of a cent per
pound, as compared with one half to six tenths of
a cent under the McKinley law of 1890, and three
quarters to one and one half cents per pound under
the previous law. This has largely stimulated the
production of foreign refined sugar for the American
market. Under conditions existing prior to 1887
the American refining industry would be obliterated
by this law. It remains to be seen whether, with
the advantages growing out of large facilities in the
purchase of raw sugars, and the economies possible
only to so great a corporation, The American Sugar-
Refining Company, and the independent companies
which live under its lee, will be able successfully
to compete with the refined product of Germany,
where a direct bounty is paid on the exportation of
unrefined sugars to this country.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
AMERICAN RICE
RCE is the greatest of grains and the prin-
cipal diet of one half of the human kind, a
statement which cannot be made of any other
edible. It stands preeminent as regards the number
of persons who consume it, the area devoted to its
culture, and the amount annually produced. This
holds especially true in the far East, where its merits
are more thoroughly appreciated. In China and
its dependencies, with a population of 400,000,000,
or twenty-five per cent, of the total population of the
world, rice is the principal food-supply. The same
may also be said of India with its population of
275,000,000, and Japan with its 40,000,000. In ad-
dition to these, it is a chief article of diet with
other peoples of Asia and Africa, whose population
is estimated to amount to 100,000,000. The total
reaches 815,000,000, or, as above stated, over fifty
per cent, of the total population of the earth, which
is estimated (1890) at 1,500,000,000.
The foregoing enumeration does not include the
Americas, Europe, or Australia, for while the cul-
ture of this grain receives considerable attention in
these sections of the globe, and rice is there largely
consumed, it cannot be said to be the most promi-
nent of their food supplies in comparison with wheat,
rye, maize, and other grains. In the United States
there is a growing appreciation of its value, yet the
amount at present consumed seems insignificant in
contrast with the older countries of production. Our
annual consumption, measured by the receipts of
milling centers and trade for the past five years, was
4.7 pounds per capita. There is good reason to be-
lieve, however, that the amount is considerably
larger than the figure indicated, as that which is
grown throughout all parts of the South for local
use fails to appear in the commercial movement, and
is consequently not included in the commercial esti-
mates. The consumption per capita in Bengal and
the central provinces of India is placed at about
one pound a day, and in the presidency of Bombay
and Sind at half a pound. Higher figures are given
for Burmah, with an intimation that their trustwor-
thiness is impaired by several sources of possible
error. Official figures, however, for Japan, for the
five years 1887 to 1891, indicate an annual average
of 308.75 pounds per capita. The consumption per
capita in European nations is as follows: France,
3.8 pounds ; Germany, 5.9 ; Great Britain and Ire-
land, 9.6; Italy, 13.7.
The value of rice as a food has for many years
been a subject of lively discussion, some scientists
and economists claiming that it is lacking in poten-
tial energy or fuel value. Investigation and experi-
ments disclose that one pound of rice contains 3.12
per cent, more nutriment than corn or rye, 3.45
more than wheat, and 11.97 more than oats. When
compared with potatoes or meats, the difference is
still greater in favor of rice as an article of food ; a
pound of rice yielding more than four times as much
nutriment as a pound of potatoes, three times as
much as lean, and almost twice as much as fat beef.
Dr. Frankland,in his " Comparative Value of Foods,"
places them in the following order of excellence,
both as to economy and effect : Rice, oatmeal, flour,
bread, potatoes, and lean beef. In corroboration of
this scientist's conclusions are noted the famous
porters of Constantinople, who are veritable Titans
in burden-bearing, and live almost exclusively on
rice; alsoa recent report (1895) received from Dr. J.
Talmage Wyckoff, stationed at Basrah, at the head
of the Persian Gulf, who states that there are no finer
specimens of human physique to be found in the
world than are characteristic of a tribe (the Tele-
kafe) living in the vicinity of ancient Nineveh. Many
of them earn a livelihood as laborers on the light-
draft steamers plying on the river Tigris from Bag-
dad to Basrah. They carry the heaviest burdens
from boat to shore, bales of Manchester cottons
262
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
263
weighing from 500 to 1000 pounds being an ordi-
nary load. Their food is entirely rice, and practically
attests that it is indeed " strong meat " for the work-
ing man ; possessing not only every requisite essen-
tial to general health and well-being, but in an
unusual degree those elements which create and
conserve physical strength.
In the South, rice is upon the table every day, it
taking the place of potatoes and bread. It can be
served in a variety of ways; as the Frenchman re-
marked in commendation of the egg, "there are
250 culinary combinations in which it may play a
prominent and advantageous part," but it is espe-
cially adapted for use at the breakfast hour as a
cereal or at dinner as a vegetable in lieu of potatoes.
Good digestion will wait on both, thus contributing
health and comfort to the " inner man." One reason
perhaps for its limited use in the country at large is
because of ignorance in the matter of cooking. How
often rice appears, a repulsive, sodden mass, whereas
it should be a dish tempting to the eye and inviting
as food, each snow-white grain being separate and
distinct. To sum up the merits of rice, its digesti-
bility is unchallenged, its assimilative qualities un-
equaled, and the waste, as a consequence, is less than
with any other food consumed by human kind.
Whether in retrospect or prospect, the rice indus-
try within our own borders may be regarded with
satisfaction. The beginnings were ndeed small, but
the results have been great, and there is fair reason
to expect that the production of this cereal in the
United States will ultimately surpass that of wheat,
and a fair possibility of its outcome equaling that
of all other grains combined. While not indigenous
to the Western Hemisphere, it took promptly to our
congenial soil and climate. Possibly due to the
high latitude, the initial attempt at rice culture by
Sir William Berkley in Virginia in 1647 failed to
have satisfactory results, its practical introduction
not taking place until 1694 in lower Carolina. Its
incoming was due to an accident. A vessel bound
for Liverpool from Madagascar, blown out of her
course and in need of repairs, put into Charleston.
Before starting on the homeward voyage the cap-
tain, in exchange for courtesies received, gave Land-
grave Thomas Smith a small parcel of rough rice,
suggesting that it might possibly grow and afford an
additional article of food. Being of good seed, cast
on good ground, the gift proved valuable, for it in-
creased at biblical ratio, soon becoming adequate
for the immediate territory, and early in the follow-
ing century it began to furnish a considerable amount
for export. In 1707 seventeen ships left Carolina
with cargoes of rice. During the years 1730 to
1739 the shipments to Great Britain and other portt
were 223,787,200 pounds. In 1754 the exports to
England were over 100,000 barrels of unhusked
rice (30,000,000 pounds cleaned), still leaving an
ample supply for home consumption. The yield
might have been much greater had the system
of water culture now in use been practised at that
time, but this was not introduced until 1 784. With
sparse population during the colonial period, and be-
cause of the natural trend of commerce toward the
Old World and the West Indies, most of the rice
went thither until the present century. The follow-
ing table will give an idea of the culture at the open-
ing of the century covered by this article, its progress
and present condition, together with prevailing tar-
iffs. For the purpose of brevity statistics are grouped
in periods of five years, with annual average :
PRODUCTION OF RICE IN THE UNITED STATES
FOR 100 YEARS, 1795 TO 1895, WITH TARIFF
RATES PREVAILING FROM 1789 TO 1857.
FIVE YEARS
PRODUCTION
FOR
AVERAGE PER
TAR IF
F ON RlCE.
ENDING
JUNE 30.
FIVE YEARS.
(POUNDS.)
YEAR.
YEAR
ENACTED.
RATE
AD VALOREM.
1800.
320,631,803
64,124,361
1789
5 per cent,
1805..
240,044,600
48,008,920
rA "
1810.. .
274,477,000
54,895400
'794
10 "
1815.
274,867,800
54.973.560
1800
12)4 "
1820. .
282,397,800
56479,560
1804
15 «
1825..
333.447.ooo
66,689400
1812
30
1830. . .
4i7.333.6oo
83466,720
1818
15 "
1835 .. .
457,282,200
91456440
1832
Free.
1840. .
429,585,600
85,917,120
1836
15 per cent.
1845.. .
481,669,200
96,333.840
1841
20 "
1850. .
543.494400
108,698,880
1857
15 «
1855.. .
483,279,600
96,655,920
1860.. .
545,592,600
109,118,520
1865.
115,738,680
23.«47.736
1870. . .
160,837,790
32,167,558
1875-- -
276,704430
55,340,886
1880.. .
415.332,000
83,066400
1885.. .
534,720400
106,944,080
1890 . . .
675.950400
135,190,080
1895..
762,698460
152,539,692
DUTY FROM 1861 TO 1894.
SPECIFIC
DUTY.
CLEANED
PER
POUND.
UN-
CLEANED
PER
POUND.
PADDY
PER
POUND.
FLOUR
GRANU-
LATED.
AD VALOREM
EQUIVALENT.*
Cts.
Cts.
Cts.
Cts.
Cleaned Rice.
1861..
I
K
41 per cent.
1862. ...
i'A
I
#
48 «
1864
*X
2
«#
94 «
1876....
Hawaiia
n Rice
Free
adval.
1883
2*
*X
I*
20%
specific
1 10 per cent
1890
1894
2
i'A
'I
S
I
H <<
* Ad valorem equivalent of specific duties imposed is given for purposes
of comparison. In explanation of the apparent disparity under sinnU:
tariff rates, the prime cost diminished and thus the ad valorem equivalent
increased. The per cents given cover the period during which the different
rates were in force.
264
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Even at the risk of being charged with national
predilections, it is due to this country to state that
it produces " the best rice in the world," for it has
here shown its finest development. This was true
of its main crop before the war, and the magnificent
quality grown by many planters to-day shows that
its culture is not a lost art. The high standard pre-
viously established was owing to a generous rivalry
among Carolina planters, who sought the best seed
and methods of cultivation. At the front in its day,
and of historic fame, was Ward's "long grain Caro-
lina " rice. Equal in grain to the largest Honduras
head, but of more crystalline character, it was
properly described as " an elongated pearl." Mr.
Ward made it a practice to gather the heaviest and
best-filled heads, and in the course of a few years he
possessed seed unequaled in the world. It paid
doubly, making him a prince among planters, as
well as yielding rich returns for his purse.
While the cultivation for local consumption was
carried on to a considerable extent in almost every
Southern State prior to the late war, only that of the
Carolinas and Georgia was of national importance.
The rice fields where the commercial crop is mainly
grown are reclaimed cypress swamps and tide-
water lands along the coast. Many of the best
plantations, however, are among the marshes higher
up the rivers and upon level tracts in the interior,
so situated as to be easily irrigated. Upon all of
these the system of water cultivation is generally
followed. The tide-water lands lie along the rivers
in such a position, above the meeting of fresh and
salt water, that they may be flooded by fresh water
at high tide, and drained when the tide is low.
They are protected by means of dikes from salt
water (always fatal to rice), coming from below, or
from freshets from above. These lands were for-
merly valued from $200 to $300 per acre, but ow-
ing to a cessation of culture during the war, the
difficulty of obtaining labor, and other adverse con-
ditions, are now obtainable at $20 to $30 per acre.
As incidental protection was derived from the tariff,
the rehabilitation of plantations at the close of the
war was undertaken with considerable vigor, but of
late years production has somewhat declined, owing
to a want of energy and economy on the part of
the planters.
The falling away in the culture along the Atlantic
Coast, however, has been more than made up by the
wonderful enlargement in the Southwest. That the
retention of the tariff and incidental protection were
beneficial and stimulating is demonstrated by the fact
that the total culture (including that of Louisiana),
which was fairly under way by 1870, was, in the de-
cade following, more than doubled, and at the end of
the second had quadrupled, as will appear by refer-
ence to the foregoing table. Since the war other
Southern States have exhibited an increased interest
in the cultivation of this product, but the growth out-
side of the old rice-growing States above mentioned,
excepting Louisiana, is still principally for local use.
The culture in Louisiana dates back to 1718, and it
continued of minor importance, principally confined
to the parish of Plaquemine, until after the close of
the Civil War. At this time planters were rich in
lands, but poor in purse, and the necessity of the
hour was for a crop requiring the least possible out-
lay, yet offering an assured and prompt return.
Sugar was out of the question, as the investment
required was large, and the outcome questionable
and delayed. As a result there was a general turn-
ing to rice, and this crop almost immediately sprang
from local to national importance. By 1875 Louisi-
ana furnished thirty per cent, of the total yield of the
United States, and in each of the five years follow-
ing, 1880, averaged forty per cent.; 1885, sixty per
cent.; and 1890, sixty-five per cent. In 1895 it is
seventy-five per cent, of the aggregate production.
The development during the past thirty years has
been so marvelous that it is worthy of statistical
illustration.
PRODUCTION OF RICE IN LOUISIANA.
FIVE YEARS
ENDING JUNE 30.
POUNDS.
AVERAGE PER YEAR.
1865 . .
9,667,080
I.Q13.dl6
1870
•5C 268 CQO
1875
1880
•3C -27« SnO
i88e
1800 .
1 80? .
Prior to the War, the annual product was about 1,000,000 pounds.
More recently the culture of the older localities
along the Mississippi River has been somewhat re-
duced because of the delusive sugar bounty, which
tempted planters from a good and profitable crop
into the growth of the saccharine exotic. In 1885
a new era was entered upon by the opening up of
the southwestern part of the State, and it now con-
tributes the largest portion of the entire product
of the United States. This section, known as the
" Calcasieu Country," extending from the Atcha-
falaya River on the east to the Sabine River on the
west, embraces several parishes containing thou-
sands of acres of land, in a virgin state, and most
JOHN F. TALMAGE.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
admirably adapted to the culture. Like the coun-
try chosen by Lot of old, the section is level, yet
well watered, rivers and bayous extending in every
direction, making irrigation an easy matter. In this
lies the secret of the gigantic strides made by the
culture in that part of the State. When once the
planter has his levees made, which can be done at a
small cost with the improved machines in vogue, they
can be kept up with slight expenditure, and good crops
raised almost every year beyond any contingency.
The streams also afford cheap transportation by
barges. Another reason for the great enlargement
of the culture in that locality is the fact that ma-
chinery can be employed from start to finish, the
cost of production being nominally the same as
wheat, while the yield per acre is manifold greater.
Up to 1820, as already suggested, the crop was
largely marketed abroad, but with an enlarging
population, home consumption became of prime
interest. New York was the main point for distri-
bution, and rice was largely used as a medium of
exchange between the North and South, finding its
way into the hands of dealers in dry-goods, boots,
shoes, machinery, etc., and these in turn jobbed the
product in a small way to the grocery fraternity.
Results were unsatisfactory to the producer, as they
bought supplies on long time, paying a long margin,
while in selling their product realized short prices.
This cutting on both sides of planters' interests
lasted until 1841, when the founder of one of the
oldest firms in the line took up rice as a specialty,
concentrated the receipts, and from a business of
barter made it one of cash, thereby enhancing its
value as a staple product. Even up to the time of
the War exports to foreign markets were large, but
since then the whole product has found a market
at home, and is inadequate to the demand. The
annual import of this grain is from 200,000 to 300,-
ooo bags, of two hundredweight each, as will more
exactly appear by the following statistics:
IMPORTS OF EDIBLE RICE.
FIVE YEARS
ENDING JUNE 30.
POUNDS.
AVERAGE PER YEAR.
1861;
2d.8 6^7 641
4.Q 711 SlS
1870
228 772 804
1875 .
2cl4.,t7'3.8<m
?O.874,77I
1885 . .
3DIj(K3.(4(
72.2IO.7OQ
1890
362,810,988
72.<62.IQ8
1895 ..
41 ^,421,0^7
8^.084.101
In addition to the rice required for eating pur-
poses, there is a large amount which enters into man-
ufacturing channels, to which that grown in the
United States contributes but an insignificant per
cent. The following table gives an exhibit of im-
ports for such special uses :
IMPORTS OF RICE FOR MANUFACTURING.
FIVE YEARS
ENDING JUNE 30.
POUNDS.
AVERAGE n* YEAE.
l86« . .
1870 . .
'
1875
855.350
6,833458
111,510,875
258,089,459
352,214,257
171,070
1,366,692
22,302,175
51,617,892
70,442,851
1885 . .
1890 .
1801; ..
Rice is a good crop, as the yield is more than
that of any other grain; the outcome under equal
conditions is quite double, and not infrequently is
three or four times greater than wheat. Good lands
yield from forty to fifty bushels per acre, and at a
low average price, say fifty cents per bushel, the
outcome in comparison with wheat will be quickly
appreciated. It is easily cultivated, any one ac-
quainted with other grains having the assurance of
success from the start. Occasions are not exceptional
when the outcome of a single crop has paid for the
farm, as well as given support to the farmer and his
household. In the immediate future southwestern
Louisiana is the most promising field. Here are
tracts of land nearly level, almost surrounded by a
natural levee, with an abundance of water for irriga-
tion, and sufficient elevation for ample drainage.
In the four initial items of rice farming, leveeing,
plowing, pulverizing the soil, and sowing, the aver-
age increase in the capacity of a man to do work
has been 500 per cent in the past five years. Ev-
ery process of rice cultivation has been changed
by the introduction of machinery. A decade ago
twenty acres of rice required as great an individual
expenditure of force, time, and money as 100 acres
to-day. There is no reason why the United States
should not produce the largest rice crop in the
world. There are millions of acres lying along the
Atlantic and Gulf coasts suitable for rice culture,
otherwise being of little value. When these waste
lands are brought under tillage the United States
will have an abundance for its own requirements
and will be a serious rival of the East in the markets
of the world.
CHAPTER XXXIX
AMERICAN FLOUR
IT takes about 2,500,000,000 bushels of wheat a
year to feed the race, most of this being ground
into flour. The flouring industry is older than
history. It is the first manufacture recorded in
American annals. Its annual product exceeds in
value that of any other manufacturing industry car-
ried on in this country. It employs more power,
with the exception of one, and supplies more home
demands and foreign markets, than any other indus-
try. During the past one hundred years our output
of flour has brought to our shores more European
gold, and redeemed from foreign hands more Ameri-
can indebtedness, than all other American manufac-
turing industries. The American miller has never
asked for government protection and support.
The first wheat was brought to this country by
Bartholomew Gosnold, and landed at an island in
Buzzard's Bay in 1602. Thence it came to Virginia
in 161 1. In 1648 Virginia had planted several hun-
dreds of acres of wheat, and was sending it to the
New England colonies. During the ten years just
preceding the Revolution, Virginia exported 800,000
bushels of wheat per annum. But in the memorable
year of 1776 the Hessian fly alighted upon our
coast, and made a more successful raid upon the
American wheat-fields than the Hessian soldiers
were able to make upon the American patriots, and
as a result practically drove the wheat industry
across the Alleghanies. As early as 1718 the first
wheat went into the Mississippi Valley. In 1746
the port of New Orleans received 600 barrels of
flour from the Wabash. In 1833 one Illinois county
raised 900,000 bushels of wheat. In 1836 the first
cargo of 3000 bushels went from Lake Michigan to
Buffalo, and two years later the first shipment of
thirty-nine bags went out from Chicago. For sev-
enty-five years the growing of wheat and the flouring
industry have been following lake navigation into
the Northwest, which is now the chief locus of the
world's bread-basket.
The first flour-mill mentioned in American history
was the hand-mill, which consisted of two small mill-
stones, one having a handle, rubbed upon the other.
In the year that Peter Minuit bought Manhattan
Island for $24, namely, in 1626, it is recorded that
Francis Molemacker built upon it a horse-mill.
Two years later Minuit erected two or three wind-
power grist-mills. About the same time the first
windmill in New England was erected near Water-
town. A " Dorchester mill " is mentioned in the
records of 1628. The first Van Rensselaer who
went up the Hudson took with him a millwright and
a pair of millstones. In a few years nearly every hill
on the Atlantic coast had its windmill, superseding
the hand-mill, ox-mill, and horse-mill, and the stone
and pestle of the Indians. The first water-mill in
New England is credited by history to Israel Stough-
ton, and was built on the Dorchester side of the
Neponset in 1634, thus being the prototype of the
water-wheels of New England industry. About the
same time John Jenney was granted leave to erect
"a mill for grinding and beating corn upon the
brook of Plymouth." In ten years Massachusetts
was sending wheat and mill-stuff to Portugal. In
1649 Virginia had four windmills, five water-mills,
and numerous horse-mills, and was exporting bread-
stuffs. In 1678 New York was doing a considera-
ble business both in the manufacture and export of
flour. At that time bolting was a separate industry,
in which New York enjoyed a charter monopoly.
When the charter was repealed in 1694, the cry was
raised that the withdrawal of the monopoly "hath
produced anarchy in the province, and destroyed
the reputation of New York flour."
Perhaps the most celebrated flouring-mills in the
period immediately after the Revolution were those
of Delaware, on the Brandywine. Twelve merchant
flouring-mills, with twenty-five pairs of stones, ground
400,000 bushels of wheat per annum. Wilmington
exported 20,000 barrels of superfine flour a year,
266
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in addition to the ship-stuff. There were 130 mills
within a radius of forty miles. It was then claimed
that " the manufacture of flour was carried to a
higher degree of perfection on the Brandywine than
in any State in the Union."
Baltimore, on the Patapsco, also came into early
prominence as a milling center. As early as 1769
Baltimore exported 40,000 tons of flour and bread,
made in the Baltimore district. Its flour ranked
high before the Revolution, and it was the first mill-
ing point to take up with the new improvements in-
vented by Oliver Evans. Up to 1785 the different
milling processes were separate and largely done by
hand ; but Evans, by the introduction of the eleva-
tor, conveyer, and other mechanisms, combined the
different steps into a continuous system, dispensing
with one half of the labor formerly required, and
enabling the miller by machinery alone to take the
grain through " from wagon to wagon again." The
Brandywine millers, conscious of their superiority,
were slow to take up with the revolutionary im-
provements of Evans; and thus the invention and
the milling development passed from the Brandy-
wine to the Patapsco. In 1787 there were 325
barrels daily made in Baltimore, the labor saving as
a result of Evans's improvements being estimated at
$4875 per annum, and the increase in value of pro-
duct being placed at $32,500. In 1840, within the
thirty miles in which the Patapsco fell 800 feet, there
were sixty flouring-mills, which ground several hun-
dred thousand barrels of flour per annum, finding a
ready market in South America and the West Indies,
and being in demand because of its high quality.
After the Brandywine and Patapsco came the
falls of the James, which made the mills of Rich-
mond celebrated in home and foreign markets up to
recent times. The fame of the Gallego and Haxall
mills is traditional. In 1845 a writer in the "Na-
tional Magazine and Industrial Record " says : " The
Gallego and Haxall mills are the largest in the
United States, the great mills at Rochester not
excepted, and the flour turned out from them com-
mands better prices than any other. It is almost
exclusively shipped to and consumed in South
America." There were twenty-one flour-mills at
Richmond in 1840, which made and shipped a large
quantity of superior product, regarding which the
government agricultural report of 1864 paid the fol-
lowing high tribute: "The flouring-mills of Rich-
mond are probably equal to any in the world, both
in the perfection of their machinery and in the
quantity and quality of flour produced." At that
time the Gallego mills had thirty-one pairs of burr-
stones and a yearly capacity of 190,000 barrels,
while the Haxall mills had a capacity of 160,000
barrels. The Richmond brands commanded fifty
cents to one dollar per barrel more than most grades
of flour, because of their peculiar quality of keeping
sweet on long voyages and in hot climates, thus
commanding Latin-American markets.
It is something over three quarters of a century
since Rochester and the Genesee Valley sprang into
fame as a region of wheat and flour production, and
obtained a name which was celebrated on two con-
tinents for half a century. The 2300 square miles
of the Genesee Valley were unsurpassed in alluvial
fertility, and its wheat took prize medals at European
exhibitions. Within the city limits of Rochester the
Genesee River had successive falls aggregating 268
feet. The Erie Canal, Genesee River, and Tona-
wanda Railroad brought to the Rochester mills not
only the famous wheat of the Genesee Valley, but also
that of Ohio and Canada. Rochester was not platted
until 1812, but in 1835 there were twenty-one Roch-
ester flour-mills, with ninety-five runs of stone and
5000 barrels' daily capacity. The Rochester brands
were on sale in all Atlantic markets. In 1860 there
were nineteen flouring-mills, with a yearly product
valued at $2,500,000. In 1865 the flour output was
800,000 barrels. In 1870 Monroe County had
thirty mills and a product worth $4,600,000 a year.
Rochester continued to be the " Flour City " of the
continent until, in recent years, the growth of the
nursery business caused the spelling of the name to
be changed to " Flower City."
During the present century the wheat and flour
industries of the United States have steadily pro-
gressed toward the lake region and Mississippi
Valley. The Western trend is shown in the fact
that, as early as 1840, the five States of Ohio, Ken-
tucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan had a total
of 1200 flouring-mills, which turned out 2,000,000
barrels of flour, or about thirty per cent, of the
country's product. In 1850 the milling product of
Ohio alone was greater than that of the New Eng-
land States, New Jersey, and Delaware. In 1860
the Western States produced more flour and other
mill products than the New England and Middle
States combined. Ohio was second only to New
York in value of flour product, while Illinois stood
fourth and Indiana fifth in the rank of flour-manu-
facturing States. Over one half of the flour of the
United States in 1860 was produced in the Missis-
sippi Valley and westward. The first trend of flour
production westward was down the Ohio River. A
steam flour-mill of 700 barrels' weekly capacity was
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
built in Cincinnati in 1815. Pittsburg had a steam-
mill with three pairs of burrstones in 1808. Barges
were floated down the Ohio to the Mississippi, and
thence to New Orleans, before the era of canals and
railroads developed the lake region and the upper
Mississippi. Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans
rejoiced in a flourishing business in breadstuffs when
Buffalo, Chicago, and Milwaukee were in their
cradles, and long before Minneapolis had its first
house. Cincinnati possessed ten steam flour-mills
in 1840 and thirty-one in 1860, when its mill pro-
duct reached about $2,000,000 a year. The flour
trade of New Orleans, which began with 600 barrels
in 1 746, was about one hundred times that figure in
1846, and exceeded 1,000,000 barrels ten years
later. Cincinnati's flour receipts rose from 200,000
barrels in 1846 to 500,000 in 1856; and its wheat
receipts in that period rose from 400,000 bushels to
1,000,000. But after 1856 Cincinnati began to ship
its wheat North and East, instead of to New Or-
leans, and the latter port rapidly declined as a
shipping port for breadstuffs. The delay, risk, and
uncertainty of river and Gulf navigation, and the
danger to flour and grain from warmth and moisture
in the Gulf and lower river climate, made the lake
region the natural channel of transportation, as soon
as the canals, lake ports, and Northern railway sys-
tem were equipped for the traffic. The receipts at
New Orleans during the past few years are about
700,000 barrels a year, of which only about 100,000
barrels are exported. St. Louis is the one point on
the lower Mississippi which has maintained its place
as a manufacturer and shipper of flour. Starting
with two flour-mills in 1840, St. Louis was turning
out 400,000 barrels a year in 1850, and 800,000 in
1860. The million point was passed in 1869, and
the two-million point reached in 1879. Since then
the output of the St. Louis mills has run from
1,600,000 to 2,000,000 barrels per annum. St.
Louis in addition receives over 1,000,000 barrels a
year from other points, and ships to Eastern and
foreign markets over 2,000,000 barrels per annum.
It was the leading flour-manufacturing center just
before Minneapolis forged to the front, and is still
among the first, being excelled in volume of product
by only Minneapolis and Superior.
The era of Northwestern development in flour and
grain production and trade dates from the comple-
tion of the Erie Canal, October 25, 1825. The New
York canals delivered 1,000,000 barrels of flour in
l83S> ar>d 3>°°o,ooo barrels in 1850 ; and of wheat
they took to tide-water about 700,000 bushels in
l835> and 19,000,000 bushels in 1860. Of all kinds
of grain the New York canals handled 11,000,000
bushels in 1850, and 41,000,000 in 1860. The
flour receipts of Buffalo grew from 139,178 barrels
in 1836 to 2,846,022 barrels in 1862; while the
wheat receipts mounted up from 304,000 bushels in
1836 to 30,000,000 bushels in 1862. Oswego and
Toledo were telling similar stories of growth. The
breadstuffs which were giving this enormous traffic
to the New York canals and shipping ports were
being produced by the rapidly multiplying popula-
tion which was pouring into the lake States. Michi-
gan, which in 1 8 1 8 did not have farmers enough to
supply the local grain demand, began exporting in
1835. Ohio was second only to New York as a
producer of wheat in 1845, an(i soon after stood
at the top of the list, with an annual product of
20,000,000 bushels and over. In 1860 the four
leading States in wheat production — Illinois, In-
diana, Wisconsin, and Ohio — were all northwest of
the Ohio River. The total grain product of what
were then called the Northwestern States increased
from 200,000,000 bushels in 1840 to 600,000,000 in
1860. Chicago began to ship wheat in 1838, and
Milwaukee in 1841. The Illinois and Michigan
Canal was constructed in 1848. The railway
mileage of Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois,
Ohio, and Indiana advanced from 1250 miles in
1850 to over 10,000 miles in 1860. The lake vessel
tonnage, mostly grain, increased from 76,000 in
1845 to 390,000 in 1860. The upper Mississippi
grain trade, beginning at about 1855, sent 6,000,-
ooo bushels of wheat to Lake Michigan in 1863.
Chicago's flour and wheat shipments grew from 78
bushels in 1838 to 22,000,000 in 1862. The wheat
and flour shipments of the St. Lawrence, for the
four years ending with 1871, as compared with the
four years ending with 1859, advanced 165 per
cent. Minnesota, which had no railways in 1860,
had 3000 miles in 1880, and has 6000 miles at the
present time. The Minnesota wheat crop has ad-
vanced correspondingly, from 1401 bushels in 1850
to 18,000,000 bushels in 1870, and to 60,000,000
bushels for the present crop year. The Dakotas,
which raised 945 bushels of wheat in 1860, and less
than 3,000,000 in 1880, have just harvested a crop
exceeding 100,000,000 bushels of hard spring wheat.
The above facts give eloquent evidence of the enor-
mous development of the Northwest in breadstuffs in
recent years, and indicate the resources upon which
rests the world's chief flouring industry. Chicago
entered upon the manufacture of flour in the forties.
In 1855 its flour output was 80,000 barrels; in
1865 it reached 288,000 barrels, going to 575,000
CHARLES A. PILLSBURY.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in 1885, and dropping to 444,000 in 1894. In flour
shipments, Chicago rose from 6320 barrels in 1844
to 3,7 14,000 in 1894. Milwaukee has been a prom-
inent flour-manufacturing point ever since the war.
Its product of 142,500 barrels in 1859 went to
752,000 in 1879, rising to 2,117,000 in 1892, and
stopping at 1,576,000 in 1894. Its receipts from
other points aggregate over 2,000,000 barrels more,
and its annual shipments are over 3,000,000 barrels.
Milwaukee vies with St. Louis and Superior for the
second place among flour-manufacturing cities.
The Minneapolis milling industry, which now
seems to be easily the first in the world in the
volume of its product, dates back to the first mer-
chant mill of 1854. It is a matter of interest, how-
ever, that the first grist-mill at the Falls of St.
Anthony was erected for the government by a de-
tachment of fifteen soldiers from Fort Snelling, in
1823. The plant was billed at $288, and consisted
of one pair of burrstones, some plaster of Paris, and
two dozen sickles. With this harvesting and milling
machinery was reaped and ground the first wheat in
Minnesota. The first custom grist-mill did not ap-
pear until nearly twenty years later. In 1859 oc-
curred the first shipment East, 100 barrels being
sent to Boston at a cost of $2.25 per hundred for
freight, which is $2 more than the present cost of
transportation. In 1865 there were six mills run-
ning, with an aggregate daily capacity of 800 bar-
rels ; and three years later there were thirteen mills,
which turned out 220,000 barrels of flour, valued at
$1,875,000. Down to 1870 the milling process in
the United States was that invented by Oliver
Evans, with some minor and gradual improve-
ments. From 1787 the nether and upper millstones,
the former stationary and the latter balanced to
rotate upon it, ground the flour of America. The
stones were set close together, to produce as much
flour as possible at one grinding. This produced
friction and heat, and often brought about chemical
changes which injured the color, taste, and quality
of the flour. In the early milling history of Min-
neapolis, when enterprising manufacturers rushed the
speed of the stones to secure a large product, the
flour came out dark, and so hot the hand could not
be held in it. The old Cataract mill of this city
cooled its flour with an old-fashioned water-cooler
having a circular pit thirty feet across, around which
traveled a double sweep. Minneapolis spring
wheat-flour then stood low in the scale, and was
sometimes branded, at the request of buyers, "St.
Louis flour from winter wheat." The hard spring
wheat, rich in gluten which made it tough, ren-
dered difficult the separation of flour from bran, and
thereby yielded a dark-hued flour which brought
a low price in the market. The soft and starchy
winter wheat, on the other hand, yielded readily to
the old low-grinding process; the bran was more
easily separated, and the flour was lighter in color
and less damaged by hard grinding. The color and
quality of spring wheat-flour were somewhat im-
proved in the best mills by a reduction in pressure
and speed and by scientific stone dressing ; but the
main difficulty remained. The difficulty in grind-
ing spring wheat by the old process was with the
middlings, or that part of the kernel between the
bran covering and the starchy central body. The
middlings, although known to be rich in the gluten
which gives wheat-flour its chief value with the baker
and pastry-cook, were associated with the bran ; and
the richer the wheat in gluten, as in the case of hard
spring wheat, the more difficult was the process of
separation, because the gluten was the cause of the
toughness. The first experiments were made with a
view to the purifying of middlings. In 1868, E. N.
La Croix, a French millwright, came to Faribault,
Minn., and experimented in making a middlings
purifier, like one he had seen in France. In 1870
he moved to Minneapolis and continued his experi-
ments. At length a machine was made, and a
sample batch of flour was sent to New York. Word
came back by wire that the new flour was selling at
fifty cents a barrel higher than other brands. The
La Croix machine was crude and in some respects
unsatisfactory, and George T. Smith went to work
and produced a superior machine, different in many
points, but retaining the same principle, and ob-
tained a patent. As a result of the new middlings
purification process the mills using it added fifty
cents a barrel to their profits in the first year, $i the
second year, and from $2 to $4 per barrel the third
and fourth years. Thereupon Mr. George H. Chris-
tian, representing the Washbum mills, a number of
head millers from other mills, and myself, represent-
ing the Pillsbury mills, went to Europe and made a
thorough study of the Hungarian " high-milling " or
gradual-reduction roller and middlings process. As
a result some of the Minneapolis mills adopted the
Hungarian process bodily, middlings purifier and all,
and in a few years were compelled to throw away
some of the complex machinery with which they
were loaded. The Pillsbury mills, however, adopted
only what seemed to be the best features of the
Hungarian process, such as the rolls, made modifi-
cations all along the line, and retained the Ameri-
can middlings purifier invented by Mr. Smith. We
270
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
found that the Hungarian system needed simplifi-
cation to increase its efficiency, to save labor, and
especially to avoid dangerous accumulation of mill-
dust. The new and improved high-milling system
of Minneapolis and Minnesota thus established made
the hard spring wheat of the Northwest the best
flour material on the globe, immediately added ten
to fifteen cents per bushel to its market value, and
gave Minneapolis flour the first place among the
cooks and bakers of the world. By the new process
chilled-iron and porcelain rollers gradually came into
use in place of the old millstones. The grain, in
place of being ground in a single pair of millstones,
was run through six or seven sets of rollers, being
sifted and graded after each breaking by the rollers.
The old process aimed to get as much flour as pos-
sible at one grinding ; the new seeks to get as little
flour as possible at the first two or three breakings.
The old millstones were set so close together that
the weight of the upper stone rested almost wholly
upon the grain. The first rollers in the new process
are set so far apart that the kernel is simply split for
the liberation of the germ and crease. The old pro-
cess sought to avoid middlings as far as possible, be-
cause they entailed loss of flour. The new process
seeks to produce as much middlings as possible,
because out of the middlings comes the high-grade
" patent " flour. In the handling of the middlings
the new process exhibits the highest art. The
gluten, which gives flour its " strength " or " rising "
power, is saved and made available to the baker, and
made a prominent source of profit both to the
farmer who raises the wheat, the miller who grinds
the flour, the baker who makes the bread, and
finally to the consumer, in whom it is transformed
into brain and muscle.
With the introduction of the new milling process
came the big mills which have made Minneapolis
famous, and the development of the spring-wheat
industry which has made the Northwest known
around the globe. In 1873 was erected the Wash-
burn " A " Mill, then the largest in the world, and a
few years later the Pillsbury " A," which since then
has borne the palm. In 1884 there were twenty-
three mills equipped with the new process machinery
and possessed of a daily capacity of 30,000 barrels.
In 1876 the flour shipments of Minneapolis were
1,000,000 barrels; in 1884 they were 5,000,000;
and at present are nearly 10,000,000 barrels per
annum. The output increased from 940,000 barrels
in 1878 to 9,400,000 in 1894. Dividing the fifteen
years from 1880 to 1894 into five three-year
periods, we find that the second period, 1883-85,
gained 6,214,000 barrels over the first; the third
period, 1886-88, gained 5,214,000 over the second;
the fourth period, 1889-91, gained 1,156,000 barrels
over the third; while the fifth period, 1892-94, in-
cluding the panic period, gained 7,572,998 barrels
over the three years preceding. The twenty-five
mills of the city now have a capacity of not quite
60,000 barrels a day, and grind about 50,000,000
bushels of wheat per annum. In the calendar year
of 1892 Minneapolis received 72,000,000 bushels of
wheat, of which 51,000,000 bushels were converted
into 9,750,000 barrels of flour by the Minneapolis
mills. During the week preceding this writing the
output was 298,900 barrels, which was something
more than double the combined outputs of the two
next largest milling centers in the United States.
Its heavy receipts as a primary wheat market, and
extensive shipments as a direct exporter of flour to
foreign markets, are prominent factors which have
contributed to the development of Minneapolis as a
flour-manufacturing center. In the past ten crop
years Minneapolis has received 492,000,000 bushels
of wheat, nearly double the receipts of any other
primary wheat market in the country ; and of this
has consumed in its mills 370,000,000 bushels. Dur-
ing these ten crop years Minneapolis has exported
to Europe 25,000,000 barrels of flour, or not quite
twenty-five per cent, of the flour exports of the
United States for that period. The wheat receipts
increased from 1,000,000 bushels in 1867-68, when
the first elevators were built, to 10,000,000 bushels
in 1880, when Minneapolis ranked eighth among the
primary wheat markets of the country. Four years
later Minneapolis was the leading primary wheat
market, a position which has been maintained during
the ten years succeeding. The first flour exports to
foreign markets were made in 1878, with an enter-
ing wedge of a little over 100,000 barrels. It took
considerable effort and time to overcome European
prejudice, but at the end of a dozen years Min-
neapolis was able to place 2,000,000 barrels of its
high-grade product in the hands of Europe's bakers
and housekeepers, and the trade is still growing.
American flour is used abroad both alone under its
own name, and also as an ingredient to mix with Euro-
pean flour. Contrary to the general habit here, Eng-
lish millers often mix one kind and grade of wheat
with another, so as to produce flour which shall be
adapted to their particular needs. Their climate is
moist, and their bread is baked in larger loaves than
those to which we are accustomed. Little bread is
eaten in the United States that is over thirty-six
hours old, while that which has been made twice
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
271
as long is frequent on British tables. There is little
consumption of flour there in biscuits, such as are
made by the ordinary American housewife in large
quantities. In spite of all these differences, flour
from this side is in great request abroad, and is now
essential to the English baker and householder.
The flour output and direct exports of the Minne-
apolis mills for eighteen crop years, ending with
August 3ist of each year, are given in the table
attached :
OUTPUT AND EXPORTS OF MINNEAPOLIS
FLOUR.
OUTPUT. EXPORTS.
BARRELS. BARRELS.
2,377,090
2,362,551
3,066,972
3,668,380
2,576,545
2,091,215
1,557,575
YEAR.
9,321,630
1892-93 9,349,6i5
1891-92 9,500,255
1890-91 7,434,098
1889-90 6,863,015
1888-89 5,740,830
1887-88 7,244,930
1886-87 6,375,250 2,523,030
1885-86 5,951,200 2,288,500
1884-85 5,221,243 1,834,544
1883-84 5,317,672 1,805,876
1882-83 4,046,220 1,343,105
1881-82 3,i75,9io 1,201,631
1880-81 3,142,972 1,181,322
1879-80 2,051,840 769,442
1878-79 1,551,789 442,598
1877-78 940,786 109,183
Superior, St. Louis, and Milwaukee, in the order
named, are the milling centers next in size, following
Minneapolis. Then follow Duluth, Toledo, Kansas
City, Indianapolis, Buffalo, and Niagara Falls ; the
next group being Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Peoria. Su-
perior has made the most remarkable progress dur-
ing the past two or three years, increasing its output
from 60,000 barrels in 1892 to 2,028,000 in 1894.
Superior and Duluth, the twin head-of-the-lakes
towns, have produced during the first nine months
of this year 2,387,375 barrels of flour, as against
1,969,135 for the same months last year, and 710,000
for the corresponding period in 1892. Toledo has
been showing marked advancement of late, having
pushed its 1892 output of 589,000 barrels to 869,000
barrels in 1894. Kansas City exhibits a still larger
advance, climbing up from 275,000 barrels in 1892
to 725,000 last year. The Buffalo and Niagara
Falls mills have a desirable location and have taken
rank as flour producers within the past few years.
Their production of the past two seasons, however,
has shown no increase. Buffalo's 729,000 barrels
of 1892 became 678,500 in 1894, and the outside
mills allowed their output to drop from 696,770 to
614,032. Cincinnati and Indianapolis, in the valley
of the Ohio, have shown recent increase in produc-
tion ; while the lake ports of Chicago, Milwaukee,
Detroit, and Cleveland have dropped somewhat, as
also have Baltimore, St. Louis, and Peoria. The
1894 products of the dozen chief milling centers
were as follows :
PRODUCTS OF TWELVE MILLING CENTERS.
PLACE. BAHHILI.
Minneapolis 9,400,535
Superior — Duluth 2,946,292
St. Louis 1,656,645
Milwaukee 1,576,064
Buffalo — Niagara Fall* 1,292,565
Toledo 869,500
Kansas City 7*5,390
Indianapolis 690,096
Chicago 444,000
Baltimore 420,373
Cleveland 402,000
Cincinnati 335,821
The flour export trade of the United States is al-
most as old as the flour industry. It dates back
over two hundred years. Virginia and New York
were exporting breadstuffs and building up a trade
with Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies a century
before the Revolution. The New England colonies
were sending flour to the West Indies in 1720-30.
In 1729 Philadelphia exported 35,438 barrels of
flour, together with enough bread and wheat to
bring the export value of breadstuffs for that year to
$300,000. In 1865 Philadelphia's exports of bread-
stuffs reached the value of over $2,000,000. In
1771 that city's flour exports were 252,000 barrels.
When, in 1770, the total flour exports of the
colonies reached 458,000 barrels, Lord Sheffield
announced in Great Britain that he doubted that
this country would ever be able to exceed that figure.
Edmund Burke, in his speech of 1 774, paid the flour
export trade of America the following exuberant and
ponderous tribute : " For some time past the Old
World has been fed from the New. The scarcity
you have felt would have been a desolating famine
if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety,
with a Roman charity, had not put the full breast of
its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its exhausted
parent."
Just one hundred years ago this year the flour
exports of the United States were 687,369 barrels,
and the breadstuffs comprised about one third of the
total exports. In the first year of the present cen-
tury the flour exports passed the million-barrel point,
and in 1811 passed a million and a half. But the
export trade was extremely fluctuating, and did not
pass the two-million point until forty years later.
During the twenty-five years 1820-44 the average
value of flour exports per annum was about $5,000,-
m
OXE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ooo, which was about ten per cent, of the value of
afl exports. In 1844 oar J"p"*"^ of breadstufis,
mostly floor and bread, to Latin America were not
quite $7,000,000, which exceeded the exports of aD
other manufactures, and was more than one third of
oar total Latin-American exports. Daring the first
half of die century, flour, next to cotton, was oar
Then there was a sad-
den and radical dropping off in the flour trade, with
twenty-are
no signs of recovery during the
years.
The reason why, from 1850 to 1875,
lost its foreign trade in flour, and shipped its
for European mflk to grind, was
that period was making rapid piugieae. on die other
side of die ocean, while we were sou clinging to the
old process of 1800. Asearhr as 1810, Ignaz Panr,
of Austria, invented a muMTnni^ punner. Expert-
ments began with the roDer-nuH in Paris, Vic
and Switzerland in 1820. Pesth and half a
other mining centers soccessfuDr used rofler-mflk
before 1840. Ten years later rofler-mfll
was exhibited at die London Exhibition, and
thereafter used in Great Britain. Gradual
ments were made down to 1873. This development
in die art and science of European milling called
European miDs, and gradoaDy shot oat American
flour from European markets. In 1854 our miHers
sent 1,846,000 barrels to Great Britain; while in
1865 they sent only 200,000 barrels to all Europe,
the fire years ending with 1830, 99.5 per
ot Bfrf ^-tEntc OK T^ocstf JTt*Ti flour y^p^ **^v V25
r; in the fire years ending widi 1835, floor con-
stituted 97.5 per cent, of die total value of wheat
and floor exports; and in die ten years ending with
1 845, still 92.5 per cent, of die total wheat and flour
OE European mulcfs for
2.900,000 bushels in die fire years ending widi
1845, tneT increased dieir demands to 21.864.000
for die five years closing widi 1855, to 178,000,000
for 1860-65, an<i to 296,000,000 bushels for die
five-year period 1870-75. The percentage of flour
exports dropped to 43 per cent, in 1860-70, and
finally to 27.8 per cent, for die five years ending
with 1875. The percentage of floor in die total
wheat and flour exports had declined over 70 per
mit in forty years.
But die improved miDing process and die hard
wheat of die Northwest have in a measure retrieved
oar lost ground in die European floor market. Our
flour exports to die United Kingdnm hare risen
from 1,231,324 barrels in 1875 to 9,987,179 in
1894, and our exports to die Continent have been
fluiKZDuCu bv nttv. ZDCZC8SU&C rtn* ^**pynTiM*«inf' ?i —
718 barrels of 1875 to 1,853,156 bands in 1894.
Daring die past two fiscal years, ending June
30, 1895, this couiUiy has exported $120,000.-
ooo of floor, as against $103,000,000 of wheat.
In other words, *fr^ percentage of floor exports to
wheat has about 4irsJ4ril since the new among pro-
cess was rttahfahrd m die hard-wheat region twenty
years ago. We hare shipped to die United King-
dom daring die past two fiscal years $73,000,000 of
floor, as against $63,000,000 of wheat. To Latin
America and die Orient floor is die chief export in
breadstafis, being about $5,000,000 for die Orient
and $23,000,000 for Latin America daring die two
fiscal years. Whh the Biffing dries of tbe Pacific
coast to supply die Orient, where, indeed, diey are
now bnilding up a good trade ; die floor nm»iifa«--
tnrers of Baltimore, Richmond, St. Louis, and die
vaDey of die Ohio to supply die Latin- American
uwukets, as diey are now doing widi success; and
enters of toe buoc FCIEIOO ^fMi opjjicr
to meet die demands of Europe, the
United States is in a fair way to take care of die
worlu s liUHgiy That our euutis m this nne are
not rain is shown by die fact diat die exports of die
milling •••»<•• tij ucailj equal aO die exports of f^1^
Unal 1890 the floor industry fed all other manu-
facturing industries in rt«^ value of its annual pro-
duct. In 1890 it was exceeded only by die
packing industry. The floor i
a product greater in vahie than that of die iron and
steel industry, die foundry and machine, die 1
clothing, or *t"" ttut of aD the trwtJIf in
The annual product of the flour industry was vahied
at $135,000,000 in 1850, at $223,000,000 in 1860, at
$444,000,000 in 1870, at $505,000,000 in 1880, and
at $513,971,00001 1890. The iron and steel indus-
try follows, widi a product valued at $430,000,000 ;
die foundry and nm-hm^ industry, widi a $41 2,000,-
ooo product ; lumber, $403,000,000 ; and dodring,
$378,000,000. The total value of tfwttlf product,
mdndmg cotton, woolen, sOk, and hnen goods, is
about $500,000,000. The slaughtering and meat-
packing industry, in 1890, tops all others in die
value of its product, which is placed at $564,000,-
ooo ; although it is represented by only 1367 estab-
orer 18,000 floor
and grist nous.
Until 1890 New York was die leading State in die
aggregate value of its floor and (net OMB product-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
273
New York's mill product was valued by the gov-
ernment census bureau at $16,900,000 in 1840;
$33,000,000 in 1850; $35,000,000 in 1860; $60,-
000,000 in 1870; $49,000,000 in 1880; and $52,-
000,000 in 1890. It is noticeable how radically
New York's product fell in the ten years between
1870 and 1880, when the new milling process was
being adopted in the hard spring-wheat region, thus
changing the seat of the flour industry from the
winter- wheat States to the Northwest. In 1890
Minnesota rose to the place formerly held by
New York. In 1840 Minnesota made no flour; in
1850 the value of the product was $500; in 1860
the State is credited with a product worth $1,300,-
ooo ; in 1870 the product is still worth only $7,500,-
ooo ; but in 1880, with the new process successfully
established, the product suddenly rises to $41,-
500,000, and in 1890 to $60,000,000. New York,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Wis-
consin, and Michigan follow in the order named,
with products running from $52,000,000 down to
$22,000,000.
The part which the American flour industry has
had in redeeming the country's indebtedness and in
bringing to our treasuries European gold appears in
the fact that during the one hundred years ending
with June 30, 1895, this country has exported some-
thing over $1,700,000,000 worth of flour, which is
about ten per cent, of the entire flour and grist mill
product of the United States for the century.
CHAPTER XL
AMERICAN GLASS INTERESTS
THE products of the glass-furnace, according
to the ancient records, date back from four
to six thousand years. Rawlinson states that
glass was known in Egypt in the pyramid period,
which he places at 2450 B.C. ; and from that period
down to the Christian era there is no doubt that the
art had reached a high state of perfection, from the
beauty of the specimens that are still in existence.
Glass making has always attracted much attention,
and had made much progress in Europe before the
discovery and settlement of America. One of the
first articles manufactured in this country was glass.
Mr. Joseph H. Weeks, who has had charge of the
glass interests for the census of 1880 and 1890, says,
in a carefully prepared history of glass making in
this country, that the first American glass was made
within a mile of Jamestown, Va., in 1 608. The hope
of sudden wealth from the discovery of gold and sil-
ver was doubtless the chief cause for the formation
of the London Company and its first attempt to
colonize Virginia. It was, however, a commercial
venture with the hope of profit ; and, with the shrewd-
ness characteristic of the English merchant not only
of that but of other periods, this company did not
forget the possibilities that were near at hand in its
search for what it believed would be greater ones in
the near future. The vessel which carried Captain
Newport on his second voyage in 1608 brought out
also eight Poles and Germans to make pitch, tar,
glass, mills, and soap-ashes, and the first exports of
manufactures from what is now the United States
were the results of the trials made at the first furnace
erected in this country. It is said the works were
destroyed at the massacre in 1622.
In 1795, the time from which this record is to be
made, there is no record of any glass-works in Vir-
ginia. In the census of 1810 Virginia does not ap-
pear as a glass-making State. In the census of 1820
a glass-works is reported in Brooke County. It made
thatyear$2o,ooo worth of glass; had $12,000 capital;
paid out $8000 for wages and $12,000 for materials
and contingent expenses, or exactly the value of the
product. It employed 14 men and 12 boys in 1827.
It is reported that glass decanters of great beauty
were made at these works, and white-flint and green-
glass wares were made that rivaled the foreign. At
the Tariff Convention in 1831 there were two flint-
furnaces, with twelve pots, reported in operation in
Wellsburg, and one, with six pots, at Wheeling, Va.
Two window-glass furnaces were also reported at
Wheeling. In 1840 one glass-works is reported in
Brooke County (the Wellsburg), and three in Ohio
County (the Wheeling).
The first mention of a glass-works in Pennsyl-
vania is found in a letter written by William Penn, in
August, 1 683, to the Free Society of Traders. In this
letter he alludes to their tannery, sawmill, and glass-
works. Where these works were located, or what
kinds of glass they made, is not known. In 1795
there was doubtless some glass made in Pennsylvania.
A glass-house was sold on March 6, 1 800, to Joseph
Roberts, Jr., James Rutlans, and James Rowland, for
$2333, subject to $i 5 ground-rent. They carried on
these works under the firm name of James Rowland
& Company, and in 1801 had their store at 80 North
Fourth Street. The works were afterward carried
on by several parties, and finally, in 1833, were sold
to Dr. Thomas W. Dyott. In eastern Pennsylvania,
prior to 1831, a number of attempts seem to have
been made with but little success, and the works
carried on by Dr. Dyott were evidently looked upon
as being of national importance. It is stated that
President Jackson visited this establishment, which
in 1833 consumed 15,000 barrels of rosin for fuel.
From 250 to 300 men and boys were constantly em-
ployed ; five furnaces were operated, which used both
wood, coal, and rosin, melted 8000 pounds of batch
a day, and produced about 1 200 tons of glass a year,
which was blown into apothecaries' vials, bottles,
and shop-furniture. Dr. Dyott failed in 1838, and
274
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
275
the works passed into other hands, and at this time
are operated in the manufacture of green glass, and
have quite a reputation for the making of demijohns.
Of early glass making in western Pennsylvania full
accounts are given. It is claimed that Albert Gal-
latin commenced the first glass-works there at his set-
tlement of New Geneva, ninety miles south of Pitts-
burg, on the Monongahela River. It seems to be
generally accepted that the works were started in
1797, and were used for the manufacture of window-
glass. The furnace was a small one, with eight pots,
using wood as fuel and ashes for alkali. The glass-
house was forty by forty ; three sides frame and one
side stone. One man could lift the pots, while now
it would require four men to lift the pots used in
window-glass works. The title of the firm was Gal-
latin & Company, but was afterward changed to the
New Geneva Glass-Works. It is said that for a
time this enterprise was exceedingly profitable, there
being but two or possibly three other window-glass
works in the country, most of the glass for that pur-
pose being brought from England. The glass was
sold at $14 per box of 100 feet, but was doubtless
of inferior quality. A works at New Geneva was
reported as late as 1832, but when they were finally
abandoned Mr. Weeks was not able to learn.
In 1796 Major Isaac Craig and Colonel James
O'Hara erected the first glass-house in Pittsburg. It
is claimed that these were the first works west of the
mountains to make glass, and they are said to have
started a month before those of Mr. Gallatin. These
were the first works to use coal as a fuel, and were
located at the south side of the Monongahela River,
just above where it unites with the Allegheny to form
the Ohio. The site, or part of it, has been continu-
ously occupied as a glass-works, Thomas Weightman
& Company occupying it until quite a recent date.
The use of coal was an innovation, and even as late
as 1810 this fuel was not used in any of the glass-
works in the United States other than those in Pitts-
burg. Messrs. O'Hara and Craig were the pioneers
in its use, and to them should be given the credit.
As was the custom in window-glass factories in those
days, one or more of the pots were used for the mak-
ing of bottles, and among Colonel O'Hara's papers,
found after his death, was a memorandum in his
handwriting, stating : " To-day we made the first
bottle, at a cost of $30,000."
As in all new enterprises, and particularly the
making of glass, it is only men of perseverance and
determination who succeed; and had not Messrs.
Craig and O'Hara been men of that character the
venture would have fallen the first year. As a rule,
the men who are secured from old-established gla*s
factories are really not the best men ; and not only did
the early manufacturers suffer from a lack of experi-
ence, but also from the fact that their employees were
not always capable of doing the work they were
engaged to do. And it may be said that at the
present time no new works, established in a location
in which glass has not been made, can make a profit
of any moment the first two or three years ; and the
first year must invariably be counted as a losing one.
Major Craig wrote to Samuel Hodgson, of Philadel-
phia, August 5, 1803: "With respect to our glass
manufacturing, the establishment has been attended
with greater expense than we had estimated. This
has been occasioned partly by very extensive build-
ings necessarily erected to accommodate a number
of people employed in the manufacture, together with
their families, and partly by the ignorance of some
people in whose skill of that business we reposed too
much confidence. Scarcity of some of the mate-
rials at the commencement of the manufacturing was
also attended with considerable expense. We have,
however, by perseverance and attention, brought
the manufacture to comparative perfection. Dur-
ing the last blast, which commenced at the beginning
of January, and continued six months, we made on
an average thirty boxes a week of excellent window-
glass, besides bottles and other hollow ware to the
amount of one third the value of the window-glass,
eight by ten selling at $13.50, ten by twelve at $15,
and other sizes in proportion."
In the fall of 1807, Mr. George Robinson, a car-
penter, and Mr. Edward Ensell, an English glass
worker, commenced the erection of a flint-glass
works in Pittsburg, on the banks of the Mononga-
hela, under the firm name of Robinson & Ensell.
They appear, however, to have lacked capital, and
were unable to finish the establishment, which, with-
out being completed, was offered for sale. In
August, 1808, Mr. Thomas Bakewell and his friend,
Mr. Page, who were visiting Pittsburg at the time,
were induced to purchase this plant, on the repre-
sentation of Mr. Ensell that he thoroughly under-
stood the business. This was the beginning of the
firm of Bakewell & Page, which by itself and suc-
cessors continued in the manufacture of flint-glass
until some time after the census of 1880. Mr.
Bakewell experienced the trouble usual in a new
business. The difficulties he met with would have
disheartened a less determined man, and the lack of
skill on the part of his workmen, and the inferiority
of the materials, interfered at first with his success.
His furnace was badly constructed; his workmen
276
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
were not highly skilled, and would not permit the
introduction of apprentices ; and his materials were
received from a distance at a time when transporta-
tion was difficult and expensive, pearl-ash and red
lead coming over the mountains in wagons from
Philadelphia, and pot-clay from Burlington, N. J.
The sand was obtained near Pittsburg, but was yel-
lowish, and up to that time had only been used
for window-glass and bottles. The saltpeter came
from the caves of Kentucky until 1825, when the
supply was brought from Calcutta. These difficul-
ties in time were overcome ; good clay was procured
from Holland, and purer materials were discovered,
and Mr. Bakewell rebuilt his furnace on a better
plan, competent workmen being either instructed or
brought over from Europe. Through his energy and
perseverance the works became eminently successful,
and there is no doubt that Mr. Bakewell is entitled
to the honor of erecting and operating the first flint-
glass works in this country. The furnace built or
completed in 1808 held six twenty-inch pots; this
was replaced in 1810 by a ten-pot furnace, and in
1814 another furnace of the same capacity was
added to the works. The establishment was burned
down in the great fire of 1845, but was immediately
rebuilt. The site is now occupied in part by the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot.
During the last one hundred years Massachusetts
has played a very important part in the production
of glass, which was manufactured as early as 1639
at Salem. But, from all the records that exist, the
history previous to the Revolution was one of fail-
ure. Shortly after the Revolution Boston again
commenced the manufacture of glass, which for
many years was one of the leading industries of
Boston and Massachusetts. The new enterprise,
the Boston Crown-Glass Company, which was
really the first successful glass-works in this coun-
try, was greatly helped by the liberal action of the
State. In July, 1787, Messrs. Whalley, Hunnewell,
and others received from the legislature a charter con-
ferring upon them the exclusive right to manufacture
glass in Massachusetts for fifteen years, and imposing
a fine of $500 upon any one infringing on this right.
The capital stock was exempted from all taxes, and
the workmen from all military duty. To counteract
the effect of the bounty paid by England on the ex-
portation of glass from the kingdom, a bounty was
paid for every table of glass made. Owing to the
many difficulties incident to the starting of a new in-
dustry, the operation of making glass did not com-
mence until 1792. The company commenced with
the manufacture of crown window-glass, and in 1 798
produced glass to the value of $82,000 per annum.
This concern was incorporated in 1809, and under
the influence of the State bounty the proprietors were
encouraged to continue their efforts, and became
very successful. The glass was said to be superior
to the imported, and well known throughout the
United States as "Boston window-glass." These
works were continued until 1826, when the company
failed, from bad management. This early establish-
ment led to the commencement of many others, but
none of them could be considered successful. Many
attempts have since been made in Massachusetts to
establish the manufacture of window-glass. In 1 860
a large establishment was erected for the manufac-
ture of sheet window-glass, but its operation proved
unprofitable, and at this time there is only one win-
dow-glass works in the State, which is located in
Berkshire County, in the western part.
The manufacture of flint-glass grew out of the
Essex Street works. Mr. Thomas Caines, who was
an employee there, was also a skilful blower and
metal mixer. He prevailed upon the management
to allow him to build a small six-pot furnace in a
part of their works at South Boston. This furnace
was fully employed during the War of 1812, and
was the beginning of the flint-glass industry in Mas-
sachusetts; but it was compelled to cease work,
and although several attempts were made to operate
it between 1820 and 1840, they all failed. About
the time this furnace was started, the Porcelain and
Glass Manufacturing Company was incorporated,
and built a factory at East Cambridge. The furnace
was a small one, containing six pots. Workmen
were brought from abroad, but it proved a failure.
The plant in 1815 was leased to a firm of workmen,
Emmet, Fisher & Flowers ; but they failed to agree,
and in 1817 the Porcelain Company sold the prop-
erty at auction to the New England Glass Company.
This was the beginning of one of the most success-
ful glass companies in this country. The works,
when they commenced, had a small six-pot furnace,
the pots holding about 600 pounds ; 40 hands were
employed, and they produced glass to the value of
$40,000. It was really the foundation of the flint-
glass industry in the United States. The manage-
ment was broad and liberal from the beginning ; for
fifty years they led in the production of flint and
colored glass of all varieties. Workmen were brought
from abroad, and every means employed that capi-
tal and skill could compass to produce results equal
to anything in the world. In 1865, which was prob-
ably the highest point reached in their history, they
operated five furnaces of ten pots each, each pot
JAMES GILLINDER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
277
holding 2000 pounds; 500 hands were employed,
and glass to the value of $500,000 was produced
yearly. The influence of the New England Glass-
Works has been felt all over the land, as many of
their employees and managers have been the means
of establishing the industry in other parts of the
country. Fine-blown, cut, and pressed glass were
made in great variety. The works are not now in
existence.
When the Western manufacturer commenced to
make lime-glass with bicarbonate of soda and lime,
in place of lead and pearl-ash, the thought in the
minds of the management of the New England
Works was that its success would be only temporary,
and they failed to meet the changed condition. A
very large proportion of their production at this time
was pressed glass, and for several years, in the at-
tempt to meet the competition of the cheap products
of the Western manufacturers with their more costly
products, the works were run at a loss, which
amounted during the last year they operated to
more than $40,000. In 1879 they ceased operation,
after a successful career of sixty-two years, and were
then leased by William L. Libbey & Son, and oper-
ated by them until August, 1 888, when they moved
to Toledo, O., and the old works were dismantled.
In 1825 a plant was established at Sandwich, com-
mencing in a small way, with one eight-pot furnace,
and melted 7000 pounds of glass. In 1865 it had
been increased to four furnaces, ten pots each, and
a melting capacity of 100,000 pounds weekly. It
was in these works that the modern invention of
pressing glass was first successfully introduced, in
1827. Of this I will speak later on. The same
cause that brought about the failure of the New
England Glass Company caused their failure, and in
1888, after several years of financial loss, the com-
pany suspended operation. They had built up quite
a town at Sandwich, and up to 1865 had been pros-
perous and successful, employing for sixty-three
years a large number of people, and making a fine
line of cut, blown, colored, and pressed glass.
During the period in which these two Massachu-
setts factories were in existence they were in the
lead, and while a number of others had been estab-
lished, none had reached the success of these two
noted works, which are now only a part of the record.
Quite recently an attempt has been made to oper-
ate one of the furnaces at Sandwich, the success of
which is yet to be demonstrated. At this time there
are only four flint-furnaces operated in Massachu-
setts, two of them being at New Bedford, one at
Somerville, a suburb of Boston, and one at Sand-
wich. There are, besides, the window and part-plate
works at Berkshire. So that Massachusetts, that in
1860 led the flint-glass industry in this country, has
almost ceased to be a factor at this time.
Maryland was quite an important State in the
early production of glass, and the records show that
the attention of Congress was called to the value of
the industry by Mr. John Frederick Amelung, who
petitioned Congress to extend its patronage to his
works at New Bremen. A motion was made in
Congress by Mr. Carroll to loan him not exceeding
$8000, on his giving security for its repayment. The
motion was debated for several days, during which
was brought out the fact that Mr. Amelung had
spent over ^£20,000, and brought over from abroad
over 200 workmen, in his attempts to establish the
industry. The motion was defeated. We have an
after record that in 1794 Mr. Amelung, with Mr.
Whalley, of Boston, presented a petition for an in-
crease of duties. These works appear to have been
built at Fredericktown, but were afterward moved to
Baltimore. They were not a success, and it is prob-
able he crossed the mountains and helped to start
the flint-works at Pittsburg. According to Howard,
a plant was established for the making of window-
glass in 1 790, known as the Baltimore Glass-Works.
These are the window-glass works operated by Baker
Brothers- until quite recently, and said by them to
have been established in 1790. They have operated
them since 1852. Maryland, however, since that
period, has been quite a glass State. Window-glass
and green and flint bottles have been made to a
greater or less extent, and according to the census
of 1 890 the State has eleven works, producing wares
to the value of $1,256,697, and employing 1363
hands.
One of the earliest glass-works in this country was
located at Allowaystown, in Salem County, N. J.
It was the beginning of the glass industry in that
State, and was built about the year 1760 by a Ger-
man named Wister, who carried on the works until
his failure in 1775. The workmen then went from
this place to Glassboro, and established the indus-
try there. Plenty of pine-wood for fuel was found
in this locality, and a very fair grade of sand, which
was good enough for bottles, jars, vials, and the com-
mon kinds of green glass made by them. Glass mak-
ing has been carried on at this place ever since that
time. The first establishment commenced with a
six-pot furnace, but gradually extended until a town
surrounded the works, and they now report a capi-
tal of $1,106,499.95, and manufacture from 50,000,-
ooo to 60,000,000 bottles each year. A member
278
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of the present firm, Mr. John P. Whitney, is said to
be a descendant of one of the original workmen who
established the works.
Up to 1870 there were glass factories erected at
thirty-seven different localities. Many of them ran
for only a short period. The cheapness of wood and
sand no doubt led to the building of many, and the
fact that expensive buildings were not required, most
of them being frame structures built of the cheapest
materials. With the exception of a flint-works at
Jersey City and one at Camden, the glass made in
New Jersey was bottles, jars, vials, and window-
glass, and in 1880, according to the census, New
Jersey produced bottles, jars, and vials, under the
head of green glass, to the amount of $1,681,015,
the largest amount produced by any one State;
window-glass to the amount of $729,155 ; and glass-
ware, under which head come flint-glass bottles, val-
ued at $400,000.
New York is now losing ground as a glass-pro-
ducing State, but during the past one hundred years
large quantities of glassware have been made, and
some of the works have had a national reputation.
In January, 1785, Leonard de Neufville and his asso-
ciates, the proprietors of a glass factory located ten
miles from Albany, at Dowesborough, in the midst
of a well-wooded pine forest, applied to the legisla-
ture for aid in the undertaking, giving as a reason
that ^30,000 annually was sent abroad for glass.
In 1793 the legislature of New York voted to loan
them $3000 for eight years without interest, and five
years at five per cent., but by this time the works had
passed out of the De Neufville family. The history
of glass making in New York State shows that up
to 1850 there had not been much headway made in
establishing it on a permanently successful basis.
Many factories were started, but ran for only a
short time, and none of those in operation in 1850
are now in existence.
In 1820 some workmen left the New England
Glass- Works at East Cambridge and built a factory
in New York City, under the firm name of Fisher &
Gilland; but in 1823 the partnership was dissolved,
and Mr. Gilland removed to Brooklyn, where he es-
tablished what were known as the South Ferry Flint-
Glass Works. Mr. Gilland up to 1850 was evidently
very successful. He had the reputation of making
the finest flint-glass made in this country, and at the
London Exhibition in 185 1 took a medal for the best
flint-glass on exhibition. He afterward failed, and
the works are not now in existence. In the census
of 1880 New York had nine window-glass works,
producing glass to the value of $1,157,571; nine
green-glass works, producing glass to the value of
$722,322. This record shows that the establish-
ments were not very extensive, as they average only
a little more than $75,000 per factory.
From all the information obtainable, glass had
been made up to this time in fifteen States in the
Union. In Maine and Connecticut there is no glass
made at the present time. It is impossible, owing to
the imperfect state in which the census was taken, to
get anything like an accurate account of the value of
the product, or the number of people employed, pre-
vious to the census of 1870. Like other industries
in the United States, the history of the glass business
was, between 1850 and 1860, one of great depres-
sion. Fine glass was made in New England and in
New York and in one or two factories in Pittsburg,
but the bulk of the product was of poor quality, and
the window-glass did not in any way measure up to
the imported glass. During this period, however,
a great impetus was given to the flint-glass business
by the making of coal-oil from coal and the later
discovery of petroleum. The demand for lamps and
lamp-chimneys was very extensive. One of the first
to make a specialty of glass for lighting purposes was
Christopher Dorflinger, who started with a capital of
$1000 in 1852, in Concord Street, Brooklyn. The
furnace held five small pots, and was afterward in-
creased to hold seven, until in 1861 he was operat-
ing four furnaces. The first year his sales amounted
to $30,000, and he employed eighty-five people.
When he left Brooklyn in 1865 his sales amounted
to $300,000. The factories increased in Brooklyn,
from 1858 to 1865, from two to fifteen, mostly mak-
ing the same class of ware, which was principally for
lighting purposes — lamp-chimneys, gas-globes, and
lamps. In 1865 Mr. Dorflinger moved to White
Mills, and established what is now one of the best-
known and largest of the manufactories of cut glass,
while at the same time the reputation of the Dorf-
linger cut glass is second to none. Mr. Dorflinger
has a record of forty-three years in the manufacture
of flint-glass.
In 1860, from the best records we can get, the
product of the glass factories did not exceed $7,000,-
ooo. 1 86 1 and 1862 were off years. The excite-
ment incident to the commencement of the war pro-
duced great depression, but from 1862 until 1870
the increase in production was very great, and the
census showed 154 establishments, with 15,367 em-
ployees, producing glass to the value of $16,470,507,
with a capital invested of $13,826,142. It was dur-
ing this decade that great improvements were made
in the making of pressed glass. The modern dis-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
covery of pressing glass was an American invention,
and the credit is given to the Sandwich Glass Com-
pany, who, at the solicitation of a carpenter, in 1827
made a mold to press an article he wanted made.
After that the mold increased rapidly in favor, but
was used only for the commoner class of goods for
many years, until the New England Glass Company,
by a series of expensive molds, had produced some
very fine effects in pressed glass. The triumphs of
pressed glass in this country, however, came from
Pittsburg. James B. Lyons & Company, of the
O'Hara Glass-Works, Pittsburg, made for many
years pressed glass only, and in 1867 made an ex-
hibit at the Paris Exposition, and took the first prize
for fine pressed glassware. Goblets and wine-glasses
were made almost as fine and delicate as those made
by the old mode of blowing and cutting. Prior to
1864 the pressed glass was either made of flint-glass,
the ingredients of which were the best of sand,
pearl-ash, refined saltpeter, and oxide of lead, and
was a very good crystal glass, or from what was then
known as German flint or lime glass, the ingredients
of which were soda-ash, lime, nitrate of soda, and
sand. This latter made a very inferior glass, apt to
crack, and very poor in appearance. It was used
principally in common tumblers and some lamp-
chimneys.
In the winter of 1 864, Mr. William Leighton, Si.,
of the firm of Hobbs, Brockunier & Company, of
Wheeling, made a series of experiments with bicar-
bonate of soda, with pure sand, lime, and refined
nitrate of soda, and produced a very clear, brilliant
glass, at a cost for the batch of not more than one
third that of the lead-glass or flint batch. The re-
sult was a complete revolution in the pressed-glass
business. It was impossible for the manufacturer
making flint-glass to compete, and the result was
that all had to adapt themselves to the change, and
some were driven out of the business. Up to this
time (1870) there had been very little change in the
furnaces, which were mostly the old-fashioned type
of round furnace, with the coal fired over the bench,
or the Frisbie bucket-teaser, where the coal was
pushed up from below. But the close competition
and the desire for increased production led to the
effort to get better results from the furnaces, and be-
tween 1870 and 1880 larger furnaces were built, into
which, by a series of flues, hot air was introduced
to the combustion-chamber, and much greater heat
secured with much less fuel. Many of the furnaces
also hold from thirteen to fifteen pots, and many of
the pots each hold two tons of glass.
In 1880 the census reports show that the number
of establishments had increased to 2 1 1 , employees to
24,177, production to $21,154,571, and that the in-
dustry was divided among sixteen States. It was
during this decade that the Centennial Exhibition
held in Philadelphia gave a large impetus to so many
industries. One of the great attractions was the
glass-works operated by Gillinder & Sons, of Phila-
delphia. It was a complete establishment, showing
the processes of melting, blowing, pressing, cutting,
etching, and annealing. The furnace held six pots,
and melted double the amount of glass made by the
first flint-glass works operated in this country by
Bakewell & Page, in 1808. This was the first time
anything of this kind was attempted in an inter-
national exhibition. The product was sold as
souvenirs, and realized $96,000. Over $14,000 was
paid to the Centennial Board of Finance as com-
mission on the sales.
At the close of 1 880 the glass trade was in a very
prosperous condition. Prices were good, and the
outlook looked promising for the future ; and it is
from this period we must date the wonderful progress
of plate-glass making in this country. In 1880 there
were but four plate-glass works in this country, and
only three in operation. They were located at New
Albany, Ind., Jeffersonville, Ind., Crystal City, Mo.,
and Louisville, Ky., the latter plant being idle. The
first attempt to make plate-glass was made in 1852,
when Messrs. Tilton, Pepper & Scudder started a fac-
tory at Williamsburg, now part of Brooklyn, N. Y.
The works were under the management of Cuthbert
Dixon, a plate-glass worker from the Thames Plate-
Glass Works, London, England. They produced a
good quality of rough plate, but, owing to the ruin-
ous competition of the English and German manu-
facturers, at the end of two years they were com-
pelled to close. There is some dispute as to where
the first plate-glass was made in the United States,
but there are existing proofs that the Williamsburg
works were the first, based upon the records found
in an old diary of the late William S. Dixon, of
Pittsburg, who was employed there as pot maker,
his father being the manager.
Attempts were made to make plate-glass at Chesh-
ire, Mass., Lenox Furnace, Mass., and at Green-
point, L. I., previous to 1 860. There are records of
polished plate-glass being made at Lenox in 1865,
but it was not continued. The successful founder of
the plate-glass industry in this country is Mr. James
B. Ford, of Pittsburg. In the year 1869 Mr. Ford
conceived the idea of making polished plate-glass,
and with this in view visited the works at Lenox,
gathered what information he could from the work-
280
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
men who had been imported from abroad, and re-
turned to New Albany with the determination to
make plate-glass. Machinery for this purpose was
imported, and the new plant was speedily success-
ful so far as the production of plate-glass was con-
cerned ; but, like all new enterprises of the kind, it
was not profitable, and in 1872 Mr. Ford withdrew.
The factory was continued by William C. de Pauw
until his death, and afterward by his heirs. To the
indomitable will and perseverance of this gentleman
this country is indebted for the early success of the
industry, as he demonstrated, after a hard struggle,
that polished plate-glass could be made here at a
profit. Mr. Ford afterward built a factory at Louis-
ville, Ky. It had two twelve-pot furnaces and was
equipped with the old-style French machinery. He
ran these works for two years and sold out, remov-
ing to Jeffersonville, Ind., where he built a plant
that he operated until he moved to Creighton, Pa.,
in 1881.
Shortly after the building of the New Albany plant,
Mr. E. B. Ward, of Detroit, and others, attracted
by a very extensive deposit of sand of fine quality,
originated the American Plate-Glass Company, with
a capital stock of $250,000, and began in 1872 the
erection of works at Crystal City, Mo. The capital-
ization was increased in 1874 to $500,000, and the
works were operated until 1876, producing some
glass of good quality ; but, owing to lack of experi-
ence, the management failed to make a profit. In
1877 the works were reorganized, new capital was
secured, Mr. A. E. Hitchcock, of St. Louis, president
of the old company, continuing in charge. Mr. G. F.
Neal, a practical plate-glass manager, took charge of
the works, and a Siemens furnace was erected. The
works have been largely increased, and plate-glass is
made in Crystal City equal to any found in Europe.
This was the condition of the plate-glass business
when Mr. Ford built the Creighton Works in the
midst of a rich gas-coal country. He built a factory
with a capacity of 70,000 square feet per month. It
was equipped with two sixteen-pot furnaces, eight
grinding and sixteen polishing machines. This was
really the first plate-glass works in this country that
paid for the large investment required in its estab-
lishment.
While the success of these works was very largely
helped by the experience that Mr. Ford had gained
from his previous ventures, a new factor was in-
troduced that had never been used in the making of
plate-glass before. This was natural gas, which it
was found could be used as a fuel. The Rochester
Tumbler Works had used it in their leers, and par-
tially in their furnaces, as far back as 1875 ; but not
having sufficient for the furnaces, it was not a suc-
cess. At about the time Mr. Ford was starting at
Creighton, wells had been drilled that promised in-
exhaustible quantities of the new fuel. For glass
making it is impossible to conceive of a more per-
fect fuel — no labor required for firemen, no dirt, no
ashes, and a uniform heat, or just what was required.
Natural gas was a great factor in the success of these
works, which were sold by Mr. Ford to the Pitts-
burg Plate-Glass Company, who enlarged them in
1883, and increased the output from 70,000 square
feet to 110,000 square feet finished product. Hav-
ing a great desire to own and operate his own works,
Mr. Ford, in 1884, commenced the building of a
plant at Tarentum, Pa., with a capacity of 150,000
square feet per month. Before it was completed the
Pittsburg Plate-Glass Company made him an offer,
which he accepted, and the Tarentum plant became
part of the Pittsburg Plate-Glass Works. The suc-
cess of their plants resulted in the building of plate-
glass works at Butler, Pa., in 1886, and at Cochran
Station, Pa., in 1889.
Natural gas had been discovered in Indiana. A
large plant was built at Kokomo, Ind., under the
name of the Diamond Plate-Glass Company. The
gas being in abundance, this same company erected
another large factory twenty miles away, at Elwood,
in 1891 ; and the extensive works at Charleroi and
at Irwin, Pa., were erected the same year. The
Pittsburg Plate-Glass Company in 1887 commenced
the erection of what are now the largest plate-glass
works in the world. The company bought 480 acres
of land, and a town was laid out, and named Ford
City, in honor of Mr. J. B. Ford, who is one of the
largest stockholders. Under his personal supervision
the works were built, which have a monthly capacity
of 400,000 square feet.
In 1891 the De Pauw Plate-Glass Company built
a small plant at Alexandria, in the heart of the gas
belt, in Indiana; but the panic of 1893 caused its
suspension, and it has not been operated since.
The works mentioned have an aggregate monthly
capacity of 1,785,000 square feet, or an annual maxi-
mum production of 21,420,000 square feet, while the
consumption in this country has never exceeded
14,000,000 square feet; 3,075,491 square feet were
imported in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1895.
This great over-production, with a reduction in the
tariff, has caused greatly reduced prices, in conse-
quence of which several of the factories have re-
mained idle and none has operated to its full capacity
since 1 893. In 1 894 a movement was made by some
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
281
of the companies for self-preservation, which re-
sulted in the outright purchase by the Pittsburg Plate-
Glass Works of all the plate-glass works in the United
States, with the exception of those at Butler and Irwin
Station and the De Pauw plants of Indiana.
The total number of furnaces is forty-three of
twenty pots each, and two of sixteen pots each.
Of this number there are in operation at this time
only twenty-three furnaces, containing 460 pots.
Plates of glass are made containing 1 80 square feet,
or, say, twelve by fifteen feet. The success of the
plate-glass business, which really dates back only
twenty years, is one of the wonders of our age.
Much credit must be given to Mr. J. B. Ford, and
especially when we consider that when the factory
at Creighton was started he was over seventy years
of age, and had to impress upon the capitalists his
own faith that the business could be made to pay.
So far as Pennsylvania was concerned it was an en-
tirely new venture, the census of 1880 showing that
no plate-glass was then made in Pennsylvania;
while in this year (1895) Pennsylvania has capa-
city enough, including the 3,000,000 feet imported, to
supply the whole country. The imports of 1894-95
are fifty per cent, more than the imports of 1893-94.
Mr. Ford is now trying to make us independent
of other countries in soda-ash, and at eighty-four
years of age is demonstrating that soda-ash can be
produced in this country at a profit. He erected a
factory at Wyandotte, Mich., for the production of
fifty-eight per cent, alkali. After a very large ex-
penditure of money and a loss of $i 50,000 it proved
a flat failure ; but, not discouraged, he started again
and almost entirely rebuilt the plant, and now has
much better success, and is producing fifty tons per
day of as good soda-ash as ever was imported.
He is now adding to this plant, to increase his
output to 100 tons per day. He has since purchased
143 acres of land to erect a factory to produce 150
tons more, and he says when this is done his ambi-
tion will be complete. It is to men of like ambition
and character that this country is indebted for its
commercial greatness.
From the year 1880 may be dated also the great
success of window-glass making. Prior to this time,
with few exceptions, the old furnaces and flattening-
ovens that had been in use for fifty years were still
prevailing. Fully twenty-five per cent, of the win-
dow-glass used in this country was imported. For
many years the workmen have been organized into
a union, which not only takes in the blowers, but the
gatherers, flatteners, and cutters ; these last two being
practically unskilled labor, and paid as such in
European countries. Then, to mend matters and
make the competition worse, the manufacturers of
Belgium and England had adopted what is known as
the tank-furnace ; no pots were required, a more uni-
form quality of glass could be depended upon, and
a much larger production. Mr. James Chambers, of
Pittsburg, who had succeeded his father in the manu-
facture of window-glass, was in 1887 operating four
furnaces, with thirty-six pots, using natural gas in his
furnace and flattening-ovens. He had the improved
flattening-ovens, but he came to the conclusion that
something had to be done to put the window-glass
business upon a better basis. He made a trip to
Europe, obtained all the information possible, came
back to Pittsburg and organized the Chambers &
McKee Company, and, as president, planned, built,
and operated the plant at a place on the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad, twenty-seven miles east of Pittsburg,
called Jeanette. The foundation of the tanks was
laid in 1888, and in the spring of 1889 they com-
menced making glass. Glass workers and manu-
facturers all over the country, with few exceptions,
had predicted that the tanks would be a failure, and
that window-glass could not be made that way ; but
the tanks were a success from the first.
Mr. Chambers had associated with him in the
building of these tanks Mr. George F. Moore, after-
ward general manager of the works ; W. D. Hartupe,
as engineer ; and H. L. Dixon, a furnace builder, in
charge of the construction of the tank-furnaces, leers,
ovens, etc. Their furnaces at that time were the
largest tank-furnaces in the world. Each furnace
holds 800 tons, has a melting capacity of 30 tons
for every twenty-four hours, and turns out 480
boxes of single and 250 boxes of double strength
every twenty-four hours. There are three of these
furnaces at Jeanette that are 20 feet wide and 120
feet long, inside measure. Owing to financial dis-
agreement, Mr. Chambers withdrew from the Cham-
bers & McKee Company, and in 1892 formed a com-
pany and erected a factory at New Kensington, nine-
teen miles from Pittsburg, on the Allegheny Valley
Railroad, and built two continuous tanks that are
said to be the largest in the world. They are 25
feet 6 inches wide, 130 feet long, inside measure;
each furnace will hold 1000 tons of molten glass,
and has a melting capacity of 35 tons, turning out
600 boxes of single and 300 boxes of double strength
every twenty-four hours. This is said to be the
largest and most complete establishment in the world
for the manufacture of window-glass.
Although it has been only six years since the first
window-glass tank-furnace was started in this coun-
282
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
try, other manufacturers, quick to see its advantages,
have adopted the system, and now sixty per cent,
of all the window-glass made in this country is made
in tanks, and it needs no prophet to say that in the
year 1900 there will be very little window-glass made
in pots. The total capacity of the country is 1664
pots, of which Pennsylvania has 12 tank-furnaces,
with capacity of 532 pots; Indiana, 7 furnaces,
capacity 282 pots; New York, i furnace, capacity
36 pots ; New Jersey, i furnace, capacity 48 pots ;
Ohio, 2 furnaces, capacity 54 pots ; or a total of 952
pots made in tank-furnaces. Some idea of the size
of these large furnaces at New Kensington can be
obtained by considering that previous to 1880 the
largest window-glass pots held but 1200 pounds,
and a furnace of ten pots 12,000 pounds or six tons,
and then comparing these figures with the tank-fur-
nace at New Kensington, holding 1000 tons.
Mr. Weeks gives the value of the product of win-
dow-glass in 1893 as $10,500,000. This was a cal-
culation based on the works operating January i,
1893, before the depression came. The imports of
the year ending June 30, 1895, amounted to $837,-
730, which is the smallest amount imported for many
years, and is doubtless caused by the increased facil-
ities and cheapening of the products of our tank-
furnaces.
The discovery of natural gas, and its application
to the glass-furnaces, has led to a very great increase
in the building of flint and green-glass works, and
the census of 1890 gives the relative value of the
products of each branch of the industry :
1880. 1890.
Plate-glass $868,305 $4,869,494
Window-glass 5,°47,3I3 9,058,802
Glassware 9,568,520 18,601,244
Green and black glass $1670,433 8,521,464
Total $21,154,571 $41,051,004
From these figures it will be seen that in this period
the industry has almost doubled its production, the
largest increase being in plate-glass and glassware.
Glassware covers all the glass used for lighting pur-
poses, such as lamp-chimneys, gas-globes, and shades,
globes and bulbs for electric light, table-glass, both
pressed and cut, flint-glass bottles— in fact, every-
thing that is made in crystal or fancy colored glass.
In this branch of the industry, in 1880, 73 estab-
lishments were reported, with a capital of $6,907,278.
In 1890, 125 establishments were reported, with a
capital of $15,448,196, an increase of 123.65 per
cent. It is impossible to go into detail as to all the
works, and I will confine myself to a few of the
notable ones in the different lines.
Probably the largest flint-bottle works in the
world are those of Messrs. Whitall, Tatum & Com-
pany, located at Millville, N. J. They have thirteen
flint-furnaces, in addition to five green-glass furnaces
and a green-glass tank, and employ from 1500 to
1900 employees, according to the demand for their
goods. This business has been principally built up
since 1860.
The Rochester Tumbler Company, at Rochester,
Pa., was organized in 1872, and commenced making
glass in July of the same year. They commenced
with one ten-pot furnace and ninety employees, mak-
ing a specialty of tumblers, and with a capacity of
12,000 dozen per week. At present they operate
seven furnaces with eighty-eight pots, with a capa-
city of 75,000 dozen per week, or 150,000 tumblers
each day. The melting capacity of the furnaces is
120 tons of sand per week. The pots are very large,
and over 1000 hands are employed. When they
first commenced they made only common tumblers,
but now they make every kind of tumblers, with a
cutting, engraving, and decorating department. The
works cover over seven acres of ground. They make
their own barrels, boxes, and machinery, and almost
everything used for the manufacture of glass. All
the fuel used is natural gas. They do some ex-
port trade, — probably more than any other concern
in this country, — and without question have the
largest plant in the world making a specialty of
tumblers.
The discovery of natural gas was the means of
largely stimulating the erection of flint-glass furnaces,
and many small towns offered land and a bonus
in money to have a glass-works established in their
boundaries. By this means many works were started
by parties who had little knowledge of the business,
so that the business was largely overdone, and prices
in 1891 were such that little or no profit could be
made. Labor was high, and, in view of there being
so much demand for it, was aggressive and unrea-
sonable in its claims, being backed up by its labor
organizations. A number of manufacturers met to-
gether and formed a stock company under the name
of the United States Glass Company, which com-
pany bought up fifteen of the largest and most com-
plete press manufacturers in the country, located in
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. The fif-
teen establishments had a capacity of twenty-nine
furnaces. The company afterward erected a plant
at Gas City, Ind., with three fifteen-pot furnaces, to
get the benefit of the natural-gas fuel. The capital
stock of the company is $4,158,100, $640,000 of
which is preferred and $3,518,100 common stock.
<\
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
m
The first year of its existence as a corporation the
sales amounted to very nearly $3,000,000. With a
view of consolidating the plants the company bought
500 acres of land on the Monongahela River adjoin-
ing McKeesport, Pa., and have erected two fifteen-
pot furnaces, and propose, as opportunity offers, to
finally move all their plants to this one point. It is
without question the largest flint-glass works in the
world, and is almost able to supply this country with
table-glass, if all the furnaces were in full operation.
Quite a number of flint-glass works are operated
in the making of glass for lighting purposes — arc-
globes, gas-globes, and shades for electric lighting.
There are six leading companies making these goods,
four of them located in Philadelphia, Pa., one at
Monaca, Pa., and one at Brooklyn, N. Y.
Gillinder & Sons, of Philadelphia, were the first of
these works established, and operations were com-
menced in 1 86 1 by William T. Gillinder, the father
of the present owners. Their works have two fur-
naces, with twenty-three pots, and have a capacity
of production to the amount of $400,000 per annum.
It is impossible to continue further to enumerate spe-
cial plants, but I think I have established the fact
that so far as glass making is concerned we are prac-
tically independent. We have sand in almost every
State of the Union fit to make glass. The sand of
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Missouri is equal
to, if not better than, any other sand in the known
world. Soda-ash and other chemicals are being
made, and when the beet-sugar industry is fully
established we shall be able to get pearl-ash from
the ashes of the beet, so that it will not be necessary
to import our potash from Germany. We have fire-
clay for furnaces, which is found in many States of
the Union, notably in New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsyl-
vania, and Missouri. The pot-clay found near St.
Louis, Mo., has been used for more than forty years.
It is a very superior clay, and for the making of
glass-house pots is unsurpassed. It is capable of re-
sisting a very high degree of heat, and will stand the
changes of temperature much better than the most
celebrated clays of Europe.
The census report of 1890 gives number of fac-
tories, 294; product, $41,051,004. A carefully pre-
pared statement by Mr. Weeks shows that in 1893
we produced :
GLASS PRODUCTION IN 1893.
Plate-glass to the amount of $7,600,000
Window " " " 10,500,000
Flint " " " 20,000,000
Green and black glass to the amount of 9,500,000
Our imports for the year ending June 30, 1895,
amounted to $6,541,661. Owing to the environ-
ment of the glass-works abroad there will always be
some glass imported, but the time will come when
the amount brought over will be very much reduced.
Our exports of glass have never been very large.
EXPORTS FROM 1826 TO 1895.
YEAR. EXPORTS.
1870 $530.654
1880 749,866
1890 882,677
946,381
A total of $47,600,000
YKAK. EXPORTS.
1826 $44,557
1832 106,855
1842 36,718
1850 136,682
1860 277,948
We can get no data that will give the kinds of glass
exported. Window-glass is credited with $i 1,140 ;
all others, $935,241. This shows that we can ex-
port but little window-glass under existing condi-
tions. The statistics from the Treasury Department
show that in 1894 we exported to British America
$345,199, and to Mexico $108,988, making a total
for both of $454,187. Thus it appears that these two,
our near neighbors, took about one half of our ex-
ports. Cuba took $82,931 ; France, $18,267 ; Eng-
land, $44,076 ; and British Australia, $54,973. The
balance was distributed among forty-nine other coun-
tries, no one of which took more than $26,576. Our
principal export was pressed glass. There is no
other glass we can sell cheaply enough to compete
with the cheap-glass producers of Europe, and this
demonstrates that the markets of the United States
are worth more to us, fifty times over, than the
markets of the whole world.
In the preparation of this article I have been aided
very much in the early records by the " History of
Glass Making in the United States," prepared by
Mr. Joseph D. Weeks ; and for information in regard
to the various improvements in furnaces and leers,
by H. L. Dixon, of Pittsburg, who for the past fif-
teen years has been identified with the building of
many of the improved furnaces that have taken the
place of the old furnaces. What the future one
hundred years will produce in the product of our
furnaces none can tell. Had any one said one hun-
dred years ago that the United States in 1895 would
produce glass to the value of $47,600,000, he would
have been deemed insane ; or that a furnace would
be constructed that would hold 1000 tons of molten
glass, and make 900 boxes of window-glass every
twenty-four hours ; or that a single plant would make
75,000 dozen tumblers per week; but such are the
facts. The distribution of this product in the various
States of the Union is shown in the subjoined table,
taken from the census of 1890:
284
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
GLASS PRODUCT BY STATES IN 1890.
Pennsylvania $r7,i79,'37
Ohio.
New Jersey . . .
Indiana
New York ....
Illinois
Maryland
Missouri
West Virginia
Massachusetts .
Kentucky
Georgia
Wisconsin
California
Colorado
Delaware
Michigan
5,640,182
5,218,152
2,995.409
2,723,019
2,373,01 1
1,256,797
1,215,529
945-234
43L437
1,065,397
$41,051,004
The uses of this material in new ways have won-
derfully increased during the past century. Dr.
Muspratt says, that without speaking of the econom-
ical uses of this compound, and considering it only
with reference to its application in the study of na-
tural phenomena, it is impossible to doubt the singu-
lar influence it has exerted on the progress of science.
It is chiefly by its aid that astronomy has attained
a perfection so wonderful. By it also naturalists
have been enabled to study under the microscope
a host of phenomena which have before escaped
notice. But perhaps of greater importance is the
use made by chemists in their experiments. It re-
quires no profound chemical knowledge to recog-
nize the fact that to glass is chiefly owing the present
advanced state of the sciences so fruitful in mar-
velous applications.
With increased capital and the intense competition
of the age there must be still greater improvement,
and with her many advantages the United States in
the future will be the great glass-producing country
of the world.
CHAPTER XLI
AMERICAN POTTERIES
THE potter, with his wheel, is the oldest artisan
of whom we have any record. In fact, the
potter antedates history. His was one of
the arts earliest known to man, and in the face of an
inscrutable antiquity the date of its origin can scarcely
be established by the evidence of the oldest records,
which are those of the Chinese, ascribing the inven-
tion of pottery to their Emperor Hoangti, about
2700 B. c. It might be said, that no people known
to history have been without evidences that they
made, and used, earthen vessels in some form.
The Hindoo and the Hebrew knew the art, and
practised it, as did the Egyptian bond-master of
the olden times and the Roman conqueror of the
later day. When, in its turn, Rome fell, and its civi-
lization sank beneath the barbarian flood which
rolled in from the north, the potter disappeared from
Europe. With the invading Moors he returned to
Spain, however, and during the fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries the wonderful art of the Italian
Middle Ages had adopted him, and masters such as
Raphael were designing the decorations for his
wares, and the priceless majolica of the modern col-
lector was being produced. In the latter century,
also, potteries for the manufacture of the famous
Delft ware were established by the Dutch, at the
town of that name in Holland. The Dresden pot-
teries were opened in 1751, those at Sevres in 1754,
and, a little later, Josiah Wedgwood had so mas-
tered the art in England that he was able to produce
copies of the famous Portland Vase of such excel-
lence and beauty that very high prices were readily
obtained for them.
The Greek potters, also, in early times, produced
many beautiful forms in pottery, decorated in refined
taste. Many are the rare and beautiful specimens
of ancient production that have become historical
and are of fabulous value. In early Colonial days
small potteries were established from time to time,
as needed, in nearly if not all the American colonies,
to supply the demand for the commonest kinds of
pottery ware. Since the remotest times pottery, or
earthenware, has been an American product. The
Mound Builders in the prehistoric era, and the In-
dians before the white man, both made and used it.
The first manufactory for white ware in America of
which we can find any record was established by
Dr. Daniel Coxe, of London, at Burlington, N. J.,
in 1685. Dr. Coxe was one of the West Jersey pro-
prietors. The extent to which the undertaking had
been carried by 1688 is best related in an inventory
of that date, offering the works for sale, as follows :
" I have erected a pottery at Burlington for white
china ware. A great quantity, to the value of 1 200
pounds, has already been made, and vended in the
country and neighbouring colonies and ye islands of
Barbadoes and Jamaica, where they have been in
great request. I have two houses and kilns with all
necessary implements, diverse workmen, and serv-
ants. Have expended thereon about 2000 pounds."
That the ware turned out from this pottery was
china is scarcely to be credited, inasmuch as yellow
and cream-colored were the only wares known, even
to the English potters, except, of course, porcelain,
which came from China, whence the name of "china-
ware " was derived.
To Mr. Edwin Atlee Barber the writer is indebted
for much information regarding the early pottery at-
tempts in this country. From his recent work on
" Pottery and Porcelain of the United States," I
make the following interesting abstract :
"A patent was taken out, in 1744, by Edward
Heylyn, of the Parish of Bow, in the County of
Middlesex, merchant, and Thomas Frye, of the Pa-
rish of West Ham, in the County of Essex, painter,
for the manufacture of China ware, and the following
year they enrolled their specifications, in which they
state that the material used in their invention is an
285
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
earth, the produce of the Cherokee nation in Amer-
ica, called by the nation ' Unaker.' The specifica-
tion of the patent is of startling interest. Who would
have thought, until Mr. Jewett unfolded this docu-
ment to modern light, that the first English china
that we have any knowledge of was made from
American china clay? Let our American cousins
look out for and treasure up lovingly specimens of
the earliest Bow-ware after learning that. This
' Unaker,' the produce of the Cherokee nation in
America, is decomposed granite rock, the earth or
clay resulting from the washing being the decom-
posed feldspar of that rock. It is curious that it
should have been imported from among the Chero-
kees, when we have mountains of it so near as Corn-
wall, unknown, however, to any whom it might con-
cern until Cookworthy discovered it, twenty-four
years later than the date of the above patent."
There are records of a pottery enterprise started
in South Carolina in 1765, which maintained a very
brief existence, and of which but little is known; the
results of which, however, seem to have seriously
alarmed the greatest of English potters, Josiah
Wedgwood, who, writing to a friend, shows his
anxiety regarding the establishment of the pottery
industry in America. This letter runs as follows :
The bulk of our particular manufactures are, you
know, exported to foreign markets, for our home con-
sumption is very trifling in comparison to what is sent
abroad ; and the principal of these markets are the con-
tinent and islands of North America. To the continent
we send an amazing quantity of white stone ware and
some of the finer kinds, but for the islands we cannot
make anything too rich and costly.
This trade to our Colonies we are apprehensive of
losing in a few years, as they have set on foot some Pott-
works there already, and have at this time an agent
amongst us, hiring a number of our hands for establish-
ing new Pottworks in South Carolina, having one of
oui insolvent master Potters there to conduct them.
They have every material there equal, if not superior,
to our own, for carrying on that manufacture, and as
the necessaries of life, and consequently the price of
labor amongst us are daily advancing, it is highly prob-
able that more will follow them and join their brother
artists and manufacturers of every class, who from all
quarters are taking a rapid flight, indeed, the same
way. Whether this can be remedied is out of our sphere
to know, but we cannot help apprehending such conse-
quences from these emigrations, as make us very uneasy
for our Trade and Pottery.
It is said that Wedgwood, for several years, used
considerable quantities of these Carolina clays, and
also those from Florida.
There is mention of a pottery at Germantown,
New Quincy, Mass., as early as 1760. Some sam-
ples of its ware were said to be almost vitreous.
There is but little information to be found concern-
ing it.
There seems to have been a " China Factory "
built on Prince Street, Philadelphia, in 1769, which
ended in failure in a very short time, and was
abandoned.
There was a serious attempt to establish works
about the same time in Philadelphia, as will appear
by the following announcement in a newspaper in
the year 1769, which I quote from Mr. Barber:
" Notwithstanding the various difficulties and
disadvantages, which usually attend the introduc-
tion of any important manufacture into a new
country, the proprietors of the china works, now
erecting in Southwark, have the pleasure to ac-
quaint the public they have proved to a certainty
that the clays of America are productive of as good
porcelain as any heretofore manufactured at Bow,
near London, and imported into the Colonies and
plantations, which they will agree to sell upon very
reasonable terms, and, as they propose going
largely into the manufacture as soon as the works are
completed, they request those persons who choose
to favor them with commands, to be as early as
possible, laying it down as a fixed principle to take
all orders in rotation, and execute the earliest first.
Dealers will meet the usual encouragement, and
may be assured that no goods under thirty pounds
worth will be sold to private parties out of factory
at a lower advance than that from their shops.
All workmen skilled in the different branches,
throwing, turning, modeling, moulding, pressing
and painting, upon application to the proprietors,
may depend upon encouragement suitable to their
abilities, and such parents as are inclined to bind
their children apprentices to either of these
branches, must be early in their application, as
only a few of the first offerings will be accepted
without a premium. None will be received under
twelve years of age, or upwards of fifteen. All
orders from the county or other provinces, en-
closed in letters, post paid, and directed to the
China Proprietors in Philadelphia, will be faith-
fully executed, and the ware warranted equal to
any in goodness and cheapness hitherto manufac-
tured in or imported from England." The pro-
prietors were Gousse Bounin, probably from Bow,
and George Anthony Morris, of Philadelphia. In
1771 their financial needs impelled them to seek
assistance from the Colonial government, in which
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
287
they were not successful. Being unable to with-
stand the competition with the manufacturers in
Europe, Mr. Bounin ceased his labors, and the
pottery was closed.
The year 1795, with which we begin the dis-
cussion proper of the pottery trade in this country,
saw a goodly number of potteries in operation, but
their output was comparatively small. Everything
was made with the hands and feet by the use of the
ancient potter's wheel, to which, in those days, the
power was applied by the thrower's foot. The
thrower's wheel in these early days was called a
"kick wheel." The potter's wheel is still used,
and nothing new can take its place. Better ware
can be made in the ancient manner of throwing
and turning than in any other way. The text of
Scripture which says that the clay is in the hands
of the potter is still as true as when it was first
written, for nothing can take the place of the hu-
man hand as applied to the clay on the thrower's
wheel. The only advancement made in the throw-
er's wheel, from the most ancient times to the
present, is, that the rotary motion is now given to
the wheel by steam-power instead of foot-power,
thus allowing the operative potter to give his whole
attention to the clay on the wheel.
Abraham Miller, for many years, had a pottery
in Philadelphia, succeeding his father, who com-
menced, before 1791, making common earthenware,
fire-brick, etc. He seems to have been one of the
most intelligent potters of his day. He was one
of the earliest to make fine porcelain, and produced
some very superior ware; but, for some reason,
did not undertake to make it a practical business,
probably for the reason that, while there was a
profit in making common ware, the disadvantages
in making porcelain in competition with foreign
goods of the same character were so great, owing
to an insufficient tariff, that profit was impossible.
It is known that there was a " china " factory
in existence in 1800, in Philadelphia, near Fourth
and Chestnut streets, probably making plain white
ware, as such ware seems to have been called
chinaware at that time, but little is known of it.
The Columbian Pottery in 1808 was making
queensware — as crockery ware was then and now
is sometimes called. Alexander Trotter was the
proprietor, and he continued the business until
about 1813. This pottery claimed to produce ware
of a quality equal to any made in Staffordshire,
England. But little can be learned of it.
The Jersey Porcelain and Earthenware Com-
pany of Jersey City was incorporated in 1825,
with George Dummer, Timothy Dewey, and others,
as incorporators. The next year, the Franklin In-
stitute, of Philadelphia, awarded to its exhibit a
silver medal as "the best china from American
material." The making of porcelain was, however,
of short duration. In 1829 the establishment
passed into the hands of Messrs. Henderson, who
in a few years organized the American Pottery
Manufacturing Company, with a capital of $150,-
ooo, and commissioners were appointed by an
act of the Assembly to receive subscriptions.
The ware produced by this company was of very
good quality, but was confined to special articles,
no general line of crockery ware being made. The
pottery afterward fell into other hands, and con-
tinued making a similar class of goods under the
name of the Jersey City Pottery. After various
other changes and vicissitudes of fortune, Rouse
& Turner became the proprietors, still making
druggists' wares and specialties. It existed until
after 1861, when it gradually changed its products
into a general line of crockery, and continued in
existence until a recent date, having maintained
a checkered existence of upward of sixty years.
One of the most determined attempts in the
first half of this century to establish a pottery enter-
prise for the manufacture of a full line of goods
was commenced in Philadelphia in 1825, by Wil-
liam Ellis Tucker, after experiments made for sev-
eral years previously with American materials.
The location of the pottery was at the corner
of Schuylkill Front — now Twenty-third Street — and
Chestnut Streets. From the beginning he seems
to have met with serious troubles, as the follow-
ing extract from a paper read before the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania, in 1868, graphically nar-
rates: "We burned kiln after kiln, with very poor
success. The glazing would crack, and the body
blister, and, besides, we discovered we had a man
who placed the ware in the kiln who was em-
ployed by some interested parties in England to
impede our success. Most of the handles were
found in the bottoms of the seggers after the kilns
were burned. We could not account for it until
a deaf and dumb man in our employment de-
tected him running his knife around each handle,
as he placed them in the kiln. At another time,
every piece of the china had to be broken before it
could be taken out of the segger. We always
washed the round O's, the article in which the
china was placed in the kiln, with silex ; but this
man had washed them with feldspar, which, of
course, melted and fastened every article to the
288
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
bottom. But William discharged him, and we got
over that difficulty."
The committee of the Franklin Institute on
awards, in 1827, when considering pottery wares,
made a report from which the following extract
is taken : " This is a manufacture of great impor-
tance to the country, as most of the capital ex-
pended is for labor, the materials being taken out
of the soil in great abundance and purity. The
highest credit is due to Mr. William E. Tucker
for the degree of perfection to which he brought
this valuable and difficult art. The body of the
ware appeared to be strong, and sufficiently well
fired, the glaze, generally, very good, the gilding
executed in a neat and workmanlike manner. Some
of the cups and other articles bear a fair compari-
son with those imported." A silver medal was
awarded. In 1829, Mr. Thomas Hulme, of Phila-
delphia, became a partner in the enterprise and put
in additional capital, and the firm became Tucker
& Hulme. The quality of the goods rapidly im-
proved. The partnership was of short duration, as
Mr. Hulme withdrew shortly thereafter. Financial
support seems to have been needed; application
was made for government aid, and among other
public men communicated with on the subject was
Andrew Jackson, as the following letter from him
indicates :
WASHINGTON, April 3, 1830.
Sir: I have had the honor to receive your letter of
the 3rd of March, and since, the porcelain, which it
offered to my acceptance. I was not apprised before,
of the perfection to which your skill and perseverance
had brought this branch of manufacture. It seems to
be not inferior to the finest specimens of French porce-
lain. But whether the facilities for its manufacture
bring its cost so nearly to an equality with that of the
French as to enable the moderate protection of which
you speak to place it beyond the reach of competition
in the markets of the world, is a question which I am
not prepared to answer.
If Congress could be made acquainted with the ex-
periments on the subject, and they should confirm your
favorable anticipation, there would be scarcely a doubt
of its willingness to secure the important results of the
manufacture. I do not see, however, any mode by
which this can be effected on any other principle than
that of protection.
You would probably have a right to a patent for the
discovery, but this right would have to be determined
in the usual way.
Congress has refused to make a donation to the heirs
of Robert Fulton for the national benefits resulting
from his discovery, upon the principle that the consti-
tution does not provide any other reward for the au-
thors of useful discoveries than that which is contained
in the article in relation to patents. The same objec-
tion would of course defeat your application for $20,-
ooo as remuneration for this discovery, as a reward for
its free communication to the world.
It will give me much pleasure to promote the objects
you have in view, so far as they are within my constitu-
tional sphere. There is no subject more interesting to
me than that which concerns the domestic economy of
our country, and I tender you my sincere thanks for an
example of its success so creditable to yourself.
With great respect, believe me,
Yr. Obt. Svt.,
ANDREW JACKSON.
MR. WM. ELLIS TUCKER,
Philadelphia.
Mr. Tucker's scheme for gaining congressional
help proved unsuccessful. He continued the busi-
ness, receiving a silver medal from the American
Institute of New York for an exhibit of his wares
in 1831.
Judge Joseph Hemphill, of Philadelphia, who
had recently become interested in the subject of the
manufacture of china while abroad, just before the
death of Mr. Tucker, had obtained a pecuniary in-
terest in the pottery, and the firm became Tucker
& Hemphill in 1832.
Just previous to the death of Mr. Tucker, another
appeal to Congress was made for a tariff of protec-
tion to the industry from foreign competition, which
brought the following letter from Henry Clay :
WASHINGTON, June 23, 1832.
Gentlemen: I received your favor of the 2ist inst. on
the subject of your manufacture of porcelain. I had
been previously aware of its existence, and had seen
some beautiful specimens of its production.
When the Tariff Bill shall be taken up in the Senate,
I will take care that its attention shall be called to it.
Such is the state of parties here, however, the friends
of protection combating against the Treasury bill, sus-
tained by the whole weight of the Administration, that
it is extremely difficult to anticipate results on any part
of the tariff. With great respect ,
I am your ob. svr.
H. CLAY.
Mess. TUCKER & HEMPHILL,
Porcelain Manufacturers, Philadelphia.
After the death of the founder of this pottery,
William Ellis Tucker, his brother, Thomas Tucker,
managed the business in the name of Joseph Hemp-
hill, who associated with him his son, the late Mr.
Robert Coleman Hemphill, of West Chester, Pa.
Remarking upon the appeal for greater protec-
tion to the pottery industry above mentioned, it
-
JOHN MOSES.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Ml
may not be out of place to mention the fact that in
1833 a tariff bill was passed decreasing instead of
increasing the tariff generally, which no doubt to
some extent had its influence on the few years' ex-
istence which this pottery still maintained. Under
Joseph Hemphill's ownership a more pretentious
style of decorations was introduced, and foreign
artists were imported for the purpose. The ware
was extensively sold to the wealthy classes of Penn-
sylvania and New Jersey, and many prominent
families had dinner sets made to order for their use.
Some very interesting pieces are still to be seen in
various parts of the country. Several exhibits of the
ware were made in Philadelphia and New York,
and it was very highly spoken of and admired for its
quality and decorations. The business continued
until 1835, when the American Porcelain Company
was incorporated, but this company amounted to
little, and in 1838 it ceased operations altogether.
Thus, after an existence of thirteen years of varied
experiences, this enterprise went down in the con-
test with foreign competition, after making the most
determined effort to establish the pottery industry
ever attempted up to that time in the United States.
The prices asked for china during the days of
this early factory were such as the buyer of to-day
would scarcely care to pay. Without going into
the matter at too great length, it might be inter-
esting to note what was asked at the factory for a
few of the more common articles of daily use, in
the plain white undecorated wares. Teapots sold
at from $1.00 to $1.25 each; coffee pots, $2.00;
pitchers, $1.00 to $1.50; butter-coolers; $1.00;
fruit-baskets, $2.00; sugars, $0.75; creams, $0.37^;
gravy-boats, $.50; plates, $2.50 to $4.00 per doz.;
saucers, $1.50 to $2.00 per doz.; cups, $1.50; cake-
stands, $1.00; and salads, $2.00 each. During the
period covered by the operation of the Tucker &
Hemphill china factory, and the years immediately
succeeding, the trade was growing rapidly in stone-
ware, yellow and Rockingham, and other colored
wares throughout the country at large. Perrine's
stoneware works were opened at Baltimore in 1827;
Homer & Shirley commenced the making of flint-
ware at New Brunswick, N. J., in 1831; John Han-
cock started his first yellow-ware factory at South
Amboy in 1828; in 1837 Charles Cartlidge began
to make porcelain hardware trimmings at Green-
point, Long Island. During the forties William
Bock & Brother established a pottery in the same
line of goods. In 1829 the Lewis Pottery was in-
corporated at Louisville, Ky., for making queens-
ware and china. The owners, at that time, of a
small pottery were induced to join the company.
The plant was moved from Pittsburg, and they
commenced making C. C. ware. The business was
continued until 1836, when it was abandoned.
About this time a Mr. Clews, an experienced Eng-
lish potter who had been manufacturing for years
large quantities of goods for the American market,
appeared. He had been successful in his American
trade. His goods had been very popular, and he
was known as a successful pottery manufacturer.
Among his various decorative designs were Ameri-
can scenery in dark blue, noticeably the views of
the Hudson River, the " Landing of Lafayette at
Castle Garden " in 1824, etc. He was soon en-
gaged in inaugurating a pottery enterprise at Troy,
Ind., situated on the Ohio River. The location
was considered favorable as being a good shipping
point, and was well situated regarding proximity to
suitable materials. In 1837 the Indiana Pottery
was incorporated by an act of the Legislature, with
James Clews and others as incorporators. The
company began business with the brightest antici-
pations. After a short time considerable money
was lost, the company changed its management,
and after a checkered career it disappeared in 1846.
Bennington, Vermont, which was one of the
towns where the old stone and earthenware pot-
tery was earliest established, came again to the front
about 1846, when C. W. Fenton, Henry D. Hall,
and Julius Norton commenced making Rocking-
ham, yellow and white wares in the old stone-
ware pottery of Norton & Fenton. After several
changes in the personnel of the firm, the estab-
lishment, in 1849, became the " United States Pot-
tery," and for many years afterward ranked as one
of the most progressive of American potteries. It
produced the first Parian, and also excelled in a
peculiar ware, patented by Mr. Fenton, somewhat
resembling majolica and called flint enamel. White
granite and soft paste porcelain were also turned
out by them, and so great was their success, that
in 1853 their works were enlarged and six new
and improved kilns built. Difficulties arose, how-
ever, and the factory closed in 1858. The other
potteries of that day, so far as can be recalled,
were those of Ralph B. Beach, in Philadelphia;
William Wolfe, in Sullivan County, Tenn.; George
Walker's Temperance Hill Pottery, at West Troy,
N. Y.; Sanford S. Perry's stoneware works at the
same place; Moro Phillips's on the James River;
James Carr's Swan Hill Pottery, at South Amboy —
Mr. Carr is still living, and, I believe, the oldest
living potter in America; T. D. Wheeler's, at
290
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
South Norwalk; the American Porcelain Manu-
facturing Company's, at Gloucester, N. J.; Hough-
wout& Daily's decorating establishment, at 561-563
Broadway, N. Y.; and the Southern Porcelain Com-
pany, in Aiken County, S. C., whose kaolin factory
was the only one in the South turning out white
and porcelain ware during the war. East Liver-
pool, Ohio, the other great home of the trade, owes
the foundation of its prosperity to the discovery of
clay in its neighborhood by James Bennett, an
English potter, who, in company with Anthony
Kearns, erected the first works there in 1839. In
1854 Isaac W. Knowles and Isaac A. Harvey
started a one-kiln factory for the manufacture of
yellow ware. Earlier than this, also, Salt and Mear
were making yellow and Rockingham wares in
1841, and Woodward and Vodrey in 1848. Other
cities where pottery interests have had well-known
representatives are Cincinnati, Baltimore, Wheel-
ing, Peoria, Pittsburg, Boston, New York, Steu-
benville, Ohio, Greenpoint, Long Island, and many
others.
The foregoing brief review of the personnel of
the pottery trade in the earlier days summarizes
briefly those beginnings upon which all our later
success and artistic excellence have been reared.
Trenton, the foremost pottery center of the United
States to-day, built its first factory in 1852, Messrs.
Taylor, Speeler & Bloor being the proprietors.
The following year William Young & Sons
erected the second Trenton pottery for the manu-
facture of common ware and Rockingham. Situ-
ated most advantageously as regards transportation,
either by rail or water, the Trenton potteries were
enabled to extend the previous searches made for
material, and, in addition to the native clay de-
posits, Maryland and Pennsylvania were drawn
upon for flint and china-clay, and Maine, Con-
necticut, and North and South Carolina for feld-
spar. To-day the ground feldspar or flint can be
shipped from much greater distances and still
handled profitably, owing to improved methods of
running and grinding. Trenton, in common with
the rest of the country, scarcely considered her
pottery interests as her greatest industry until some
time after Messrs. Taylor and Speeler had fired
their first kiln. It was not, indeed, until the first
real protection by tariff ever accorded the potter-
ies was enacted, as a war measure, that the Amer-
ican maker found himself able to enter the field
against the English potter, especially in the two
staple lines of white granite and C. C. The pre-
mium on gold, doubling, as it did, the increased
duty, gave the potters the long-needed opportunity,
and new establishments sprang up in Trenton dur-
ing the decade succeeding the war at a rapid rate.
By 1880 the potteries of the country were turning
out a product valued at about $9,000,000. Only
ten years later, from the 707 establishments of the
country, an annual product of no less than $22,057,-
090 was being turned out, of which Trenton alone
produced a little over $5,000,000. From a gen-
eral production by all makers twenty years ago
of a few staple lines, Trenton potteries now turn
out a product that ranges from the daintiest of
decorated porcelain to the heavy earthenware of
the sanitary factories.
For some years previous to 1861 the tariff rate
was twenty-four per cent, on white granite, etc. By
the tariff legislation of that year the rate was in-
creased to forty per cent, on white. The legislation
made the tariff rate on some other articles, needing
no more protection than pottery wares, double that
amount. This was due to the fact that the large
pottery industry, as now known, was not in exist-
ence at that time, and had no representatives to
fairly and fully urge its needs before the committee
who prepared such legislation. In no industry in
this country is labor more largely represented in
the cost of its production, it being ninety to ninety-
five per cent, of the entire cost, the other five per
cent, being represented as the value of the mining
right on the materials in the ground; the ninety-
five per cent, being labor in mining, preparation,
grinding, transportation, and the whole amount of
wages paid in the potteries. The wages paid by
American pottery manufacturers are fully double
those paid by English manufacturers, as is so ac-
curately shown on page 14 of the Report of
the Tariff Commissioners. It has been claimed
by the enemies of the pottery industry that the
cost has been largely reduced by the use of im-
proved machinery, as has been the case in other
industries. This statement is not true. The only
use for improved machinery that yet has been found
practical is in the mixing and preparation of the
clay, flint, and spar for the use of the workmen, and
the substitution of steam for hand-power, for the
benefit of but a limited number of men in the pottery.
No article can be made fully complete, in the clay
state, and no large part of any, can be made by
machinery. No machinery has ever been invented
to work automatically, and none can work without
the guiding hand of the potter. The yielding na-
ture of the clay is such that, now as in the earlier
days, it must be formed and molded by the hands
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of the potter, savage or civilized. A new era
opened to the manufacturing industries of the
United States by the protective legislation of 1861,
the design being to increase the revenue and pro-
vide protection to American labor. While the
tariff bill of that year was under consideration, the
representatives of the established industries ap-
peared before the committee regarding the rate of
duty necessary for their respective needs. As be-
fore stated, there was no adequate representation of
the pottery interest. Instead of receiving a rate
of duty as high as any other industry, as its needs
required, the tariff rate was made forty per cent.
This rate was totally insufficient to encourage its
establishment, as I have remarked before. The
premium on gold soon began, but not until 1862
did it reach a point that induced the establishment
of one pottery for the manufacture of W. G. and
C. C., and the change of two or three others from
yellow and Rockingham to W. G. and C. C.
During the year 1863 several new potteries were
started, and other changes made in the potteries al-
ready established for Rockingham, yellow ware, etc.
In 1866, eleven potteries were making W. G. and
C. C. wares, and one continued making yellow and
Rockingham ware. The number has grown from
time to time, until they now number twenty-nine,
all told, in the city of Trenton, all making deco-
rated wares in addition to white, and some making
large quantities of underglaze printed ware as well.
The first pottery was started at East Liverpool,
Ohio, in 1839, to make Rockingham and yellow
ware, and during the following fifteen years five or
six more had been built making the same class of
goods. After this a few other potteries were built
from time to time, all making the same class of
goods. Clay suitable for making this ware hav-
ing been found in the neighborhood, made East
Liverpool a peculiarly fitting place for this branch
of the industry, and especially so as they had close
at hand coal suitable for their use. Soon after the
tariff legislation of 1863, they began, one after an-
other, to change their products to the better class
of crockery ware, the W. G. and C. C., and each
added a decorating department to its establish-
ment. New potteries also were rapidly built, until
the pottery establishments, all told, were twenty or
more in number. Trenton and East Liverpool are
the principal centers of the pottery industry.
There are also scattered about the country a con-
siderable number of potteries, in all making a total
of about one hundred in the United States, includ-
ing those making floor tile, etc., producing white
and decorated wares, annually, of the value of from
$8,000,000, to $9,000,000, employing nearly an
equal amount of capital, and from 9000 to 10,000
operatives. Fortunately for the industry, the gold
premium which furnished the additional protection
to the tariff continued for several years, and, grad-
ually diminishing, did not disappear until 1879.
Thereby a remarkable development had been at-
tained, the difficulties and discouragements incident
to most new enterprises had been well overcome,
and the consumers of the country had realized the
fact that American pottery wares were equal in
quality to foreign wares for household use. Thus
were the American potters generally able to with-
stand the strain caused by the entire disappearance
of the incidental protection of the gold premium
on the resumption of specie payments in 1879.
No one, with any knowledge of the manufacture
of fine pottery, can question the fact, when it is as-
serted that as a branch of industry it is surrounded
on all sides by dangers peculiar to itself. Every
piece of white goods, from the smallest to the great-
est, must pass through the hands of upward of
thirty different operatives in its growth from the
materials into the finished piece of ware. It will
readily be seen, then, that neglect, carelessness, or
ignorance on the part of any one individual can only
be detected when the piece of ware passes through
the two fires at white heat. It is then often found
to be absolutely worthless, in spite of the skilled
labor of the number of men that has been expended
upon it. This is true of all general pottery wares
for domestic use, but it is also true in a far greater
degree in the manufacture of porcelain, or china,
and the still finer Belleek or egg-shell china now
being made in this country. We have several fac-
tories devoted solely to the production of porcelain
goods for table use, and these goods successfully
compete with the French and English of the same
class. Again, there are a number of factories that
produce the finest possible grade of Belleek and
egg-shell china, surpassed in quality by none. The
extreme delicacy and fragility of these goods multi-
ply the dangers to which they are exposed in the
process of manufacture. Notwithstanding the fact
that only the most skilfully trained workmen are
employed in this branch of the industry, it is yet
impossible to prevent great loss by carelessness, ac-
cident, etc.
The United States Census reported that "there
were four hundred and eighty-four potteries in the
United States in 1850." The potteries named were
scattered all over the country, making common
292
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
stoneware, red earthenware, gas-retorts, drain-pipes,
terra-cotta ware, fire-brick, etc., to all of which the
twenty-four per cent, tariff then existing seems to
have been sufficient protection on account of the
goods being cheap and bulky, and because they
were manufactured where used. With the excep-
tion of a few goods of the commonest kind of white
ware, known as cream colored, or C. C., no white
crockery ware was made in 1850. Between 1850
and 1860 a number of potteries started making yel-
low and Rockingham ware in Trenton, East Liver-
pool, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other places;
and even in 1860 the making of white tableware
had but barely commenced. Between the years
1860 and 1865, and after the stimulating effects of
the rapidly-increasing gold premium had been felt,
the substantial growth of the pottery industry be-
gan, and at the expiration of this decade in 1870,
the annual production of white ware reached $4,-
000,000. During the succeeding decade the num-
ber of potteries decreased, the growth of the indus-
try having been checked by the steady decline in
the gold premium and its final disappearance.
The facts regarding the industry as shown by the
tariff commissioners' report are as follows :
AMERICAN POTTERIES, 1850-1880.
POT-
TERIES.
CAPITAL.
PRODUCTION.
AVERAGE
CAPITAL.
AVERAGE
PRODUC-
TION.
1850 . .
484
$ 777,544
$1466,063
$1,606
$3,028
1860 . .
660
i,7°«,774
2,706,681
2,578
4,100
1870 . .
1880..
777
686
5,249,398
6,380,610
6,045,536
7,943,229
6,813
9,301
7,780
11,578
Thus showing the ratio of increase of capital em-
ployed and of production to be as follows (these
statistics include all kinds of clay productions, brick,
terra-cotta, pipe, tiles, stoneware, flower-pots, red
earthenware, etc.) :
amount of capital and production per pottery in
1860 shows that the status of the potteries had not
then materially changed. In 1870, however, the
increase is very marked, and in 1880 the figures
show the growth to have been greatly retarded by
the gradual decline and final disappearance of the
gold premium. The last quarter of a century,
within which so many advances have been made
in the pottery trade proper, has also seen an ex-
tension of the industry along lines previously un-
developed. The potter has contributed largely to
the accomplishment of many of those latter day
conveniences known as " modern improvements."
The extensive sanitary and plumber's-ware trade is
a branch as important and generally recognized
to-day, as the older lines, and it is steadily growing.
The porcelain bath-tub is among the latest of the
luxuries of American life ; but the end is not yet,
and the next decade will probably witness many
innovations.
Pottery, literally speaking, could scarcely be con-
sidered to include brick and tile, and yet both
of these, and especially the latter, now approach
very closely in the processes employed and the ar-
tistic results obtained to the proper craft of the
potter. The glazed and ornamental kinds of brick
which have become so common during the last de-
cade are all made by machinery, turned out by
specially constructed model presses, burnt in con-
tinuous kilns, and treated with the utmost care.
The enameled brick is ordinary pressed brick
treated with a soft glaze and re-fired, or, in some
cases, is a fire-brick body on which the enamel is
originally placed and the whole burnt at one firing.
This is the English process, and while used by a
few of our larger manufacturers, the composition of
the enamel, or glaze, has been kept a profound
secret.
Tiles, and architectural terra-cotta work, are also
important branches of the pottery trade. Abraham
CAPITAL
PER POTTERY.
INCREASE
PER POTTERY.
PRODUCTION
PER POTTERY.
INCREASE
PER
OF PRODUCTION
POTTERY.
18^0
$1,606
2,578
6,813
9,3°'
Increase,
over 1850 ... 60 per cent.
" 1860 . 164 "
" 1870 ... 37 "
$3,028
4,100
7,780
11,578
Increase,
over 1850 ... 36.7
" 1860 . 89.7
" 1870 . . 48.8
per cent.
«
1860
1870
1880
From the above figures it will be seen by the
very small amount of capital employed and the
production, in 1850, that the potteries were then
very insignificant affairs, and that no white ware
could have been produced. The small increase in
Miller, mentioned earlier as one of the pioneer pot-
ters of the century in Philadelphia, was the first, in
1838, to make tile other than the old terra-cotta
roofing tiles, known in 1740. The first tiles for in-
laid flooring were turned out by the United States
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Pottery at Bennington, Vt., in 1853, and the man-
ufacture, after this factory closed in 1858, was largely
of an experimental nature until during the seventies,
when the damp-dust process succeeded that of the
wet clay, and works sprang up all over the country.
The artistic excellence which this branch of the
working of clays has now attained is too well known
to need description. The modeler with his plastic
sketches, reliefs, intaglios, and ambitious panels, has
already won a place well up in the ranks of art, and
closely akin to that of the sculptor. Through him
and his work, supplemented by the cunning of the
potter, America has achieved and holds the proud
distinction of leading the world in this branch of ce-
ramic production. Of the many processes and effects
by which the beauties of the art tile are thrown into
fuller relief or accentuation, want of space forbids
mention. The mechanical branch of tile-making,
however, has kept pace with the increased demands
of artistic endeavor, and clays, glazes, and coloring
are now handled with a precision and certainty never
before known. Terra-cotta, seen to-day in nearly
every building of any pretensions to architectural
elegance, is, comparatively speaking, an innovation
in building materials in this country. The first at-
tempts made to introduce it, about 1853, were com-
pletely unsuccessful, and it was not until 1870 that
the Chicago Terra-cotta Company, having intro-
duced the English method of manufacture, succeeded
in turning out a product that became immediately
popular. Apart from the beauty and finish of this
material, it is, also, one of the most enduring
known, and as it has considerable range in color, its
use is steadily increasing. There are many manu-
facturers of terra-cotta throughout the country to-
day, and at least a score of them are producing work
of a highly artistic nature. Roughly speaking, an
equal number may be said to be engaged in the
manufacture of ornamental art tiles.
The relations borne by the pottery trade to the
national commerce have, unfortunately, been alto-
gether one-sided in their character. American goods
have never sought a foreign market, but there is
scarcely a port of entry along our seaboard where
earthen, stone, or chinaware does not figure more
or less prominently in the customs returns. Since
the old days, when every village that could boast a
clay-pit had its own pottery and drew from it the
household-supply, the domestic product has never
been dominant in the market except during the pe-
riod of the Civil War and the protection then received,
which lasted, although far less effectively, until 1884.
In this year European goods were pouring in again,
and by the next year, 1885, the total importations of
pottery amounted to $4,837,782. Since then, the
increasing volume of this trade has continued with
scarcely a break until the last year, when it has de-
clined slightly, owing to the depressed business con-
ditions since 1893, together with the impending
tariff changes at that time in contemplation.
The figures giving the imports since 1885 are as
follows :
IMPORTS.
YEAH.
EARTHEN,
STONE, AND
CHINAWARE.
YEAR.
EARTH KM,
STONB, AND
CHINAWARE.
1885
$4,877.782
1800 . .
$7.O to. "JO I
4.Q47 O2 1
1801
8 381 388
1887
?,7l6,027
1802
8,7o8,cq8
1888
6.4IO.87I
ISO"?
1880
«>*M","/»
6.476.2OQ
l8Q4
Between these years the exports, of course, fluc-
tuated slightly, but the total variation has been tri-
fling and unimportant. From $135,385 in 1885 the
exports by 1894 had fallen to $127,437,3 difference
inconsequential in itself, but significant by compari-
son with the greatly increased imports.
The present year has witnessed, so far as the re-
turns up to date can show it, a still further increase
of importations. Coincident with this, of course, has
been more or less depression of the domestic pottery
interests ; but that is merely temporary and, in its
effects, will operate to force upon those concerned a
realization of certain vital principles which are at the
base of all American industry. There are too many
millions of dollars and thousands of working men
bound up in the welfare of the pottery-trade to-day
for its interests ever to suffer more than temporary
repression. The people of no country in the world
has at its very feet a more bountiful supply of the
raw material than Nature has given to us. The
finest materials for the manufacture of china are
found, so far as I know, in every State in the Union.
The native genius and persevering spirit have
overcome, so far, every obstacle placed in their path.
Recognition is already coming for the prolonged
patience of the potter, and whoever shall have to
write of pottery in the annals of the coming indus-
trial age will speak of it as one of the greatest of the
American trades, and one which has ever been ex-
pansive to the increased demands of our modern
wants.
In the foregoing account I have endeavored to
give, in a condensed form, some account of the early
struggles, disappointments, and disasters connected
294
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
with the history of the pottery business in this coun-
try, but who can describe the anxious but disap-
pointed hopes of men such as Bernard Palissy and
thousands of others unknown to history, who, like
him, ventured their all on the chances of fire — a
god or demon, as the result turned for good or evil
— lifting them into ecstasies of delight, or plunging
them into the depths of despair, want, and misery,
broken in fortune, health, and spirit ? In America
the development of the pottery business for some
years was phenomenal; but this growth of late
years has been checked, and, I might say, altogether
stopped. We do not make quite half of the domes-
tic crockery used in this country, and it can be truth-
fully said that the American potteries have not been
run up to their full capacity for several years. The
conditions of the business at the present time and
ever since August, 1894, are very discouraging, hav-
ing been caused by an unintentional and accidental
reduction of the tariff to the extent of twenty-five
per cent, more than was intended, making the re-
duction on plain white goods from fifty-five to thirty
per cent., and on decorated goods from sixty per
cent, to thirty-five per cent.
It may be thought that this statement is out of
place in this article, but it is a part of the history
of the pottery business, and one of the most trying
incidents. In writing this review of the trade I have
omitted the names of many prominent potteries be-
cause I could not fix the date of their first begin-
ning. Among them is a chinaware factory at Green-
point, Long Island, which for many years has been
successfully run by Messrs. Thos. C. Smith & Son,
making china after the French method. There have
been several large potteries built in the Ohio Valley,
a few of which have had a checkered experience.
Some have stopped, others have been in the hands
of receivers, been reorganized, and started up again ;
for the potters, as a rule, are plucky men, not easily
discouraged nor driven from their hopes of ultimate
success. One great difficulty that the foreign prac-
tical potters met with in their early efforts to estab-
lish the business in this country arose from the fact
that American materials are different from those of
England and other European countries, requiring
different treatment, different combinations, and a
greater amount of heat to produce the same results.
I am afraid that already more space has been occu-
pied by the writer than was intended, and will close
by expressing the hope that whoever lives to write
the history of pottery for the next one hundred years
will be able to show as much business success as has
been achieved during the past century in artistic
development of the potter's art.
CHAPTER XLII
AMERICAN GAS INTERESTS
yi CENTURY covers, with some margin, the
/ \ history of gas-lighting, not alone in the
^. JL. United States, but in the world. Late in the
eighteenth century, William Murdock of England,
and Philippe Lebon of France, investigated the pos-
sibilities of the manufacture and distribution of il-
luminating gas distilled from bituminous coal. To
which of these investigators should be accorded
the merit of priority in the application of coal-gas to
domestic purposes is one of the questions over which
English and French authorities are still disputing.
The first recorded instance of the illumination of
a house by artificial gas reported in the United States
fixes the date at 1806. In that year David Melville,
of Newport, R. I., lighted his house, and the street
in front of it, with gas manufactured upon his
premises. This was one year before the first public
gas-lighting in England, but it was four years after
a display made at the Soho factory of Boulton &
Watt, and nine years after William Murdock lighted
his premises in Old Cumnock with gas of his own
manufacture. Melville improved his apparatus from
time to time, finally patenting it in 1813. He intro-
duced gas for the lighting of a cotton-mill at Water-
town, Mass., and of a mill near Providence, and in
1817 employed it in lighthouse illumination. From
this small beginning the gas industry in America
grew at first slowly, and later, with the development
of improved apparatus and the acquirement of more
accurate knowledge of the physical laws involved,
much more rapidly. In 1816 a company was char-
tered in Baltimore, Md. In 1822 Boston adopted
gas-lighting. In 1823 a company was organized in
New York City. In 1825, Brooklyn, New York,
and Bristol, R. I., were lighted with the new illumi-
nant. In 1835 the New Orleans Gas-Light Company
was chartered. These were the pioneer companies
in the United States, and the number grew until in
the year 1859 there were, according to tables pre-
pared by the " American Gas-Light Journal," 297
companies, with a capitalization of $42,861,174,
supplying a population of 4,857,000 through 227,-
665 private meters.
From 1860 the growth of the business has been
rapid, until in 1895 the capital invested is, approxi-
mately, $400,000,000, and the annual output is,
approximately, 60,000,000,000 cubic feet, supply-
ing a population of 24,500,000, in 885 towns. The
number of plants named by the authority for the
above data (Brown's " Directory of American Gas
Companies ") is 999. Thus in thirty-five years the
number of companies has increased almost three and
one half times, the population supplied five times,
and the capital invested almost ten times. It is
probable that the sales of gas have increased twenty
times. It has been impossible to obtain a record of
the total sales for an earlier date than 1890.
While it is not possible to state the number of
premises at present supplied throughout the United
States, an idea of the multitude of people who in
their homes and places of business enjoy the con-
venience and security of this modern illuminant
may be gathered from the fact that in 1894 there
were 134,447 premises supplied in the State of
Massachusetts ; and in the city of Philadelphia, for
the same year, there were 153,546 premises supplied.
There can be little doubt that there are in the
United States to-day nearly 2,000,000 premises
supplied with gas.
The history of the gas-works in Philadelphia may
be taken as typical of the history of the earlier
plants erected to supply gas ; and this plant, being
operated by a city, has records which are available
for the scrutiny of the historian. Apparently the
earliest attempt to secure gas-works in Philadelphia
was made in 1815, when it was proposed to manu-
facture gas from wood. This attempt failed. In
the winter of 1826-27 there was a proposition made
295
296
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
to erect works and light the city lamps with gas.
This plan also failed. There was at this time a
strong opposition on the part of certain Philadel-
phians, many of them men of high standing, to the
introduction of gas, it being claimed that there was
danger to life, limb, and health from the erection of
gas-works and the distribution of gas. It was not
until 1835 that an ordinance for the construction and
management of gas-works was passed. This ordi-
nance provided for the issuing of stock to the amount
of $100,000. It was estimated that the lighting of
the entire city would require 20,000 burners, con-
suming an average of four feet per hour each. The
works were completed early in 1836, and in 1837
distributed 17,000,000 cubic feet of gas. The gas
was made from bituminous coal, and 6816 private
burners and 301 public lamps were supplied. The
growth of the business is shown by the following
figures :
PRODUCTION OF GAS.
YEAR.
GAS MADE.
FEET.
NUMBER OF
CONSUMERS.
PRICE PER THOUSAND.
1840
56,410,000
2.7Q7
$2.21;
1850
1860
1870
1890
182,016,000
639,578,000
1,241,485,000
2,173,010,000
^.•U I .(XX.OOO
9,216
41,200
66,943
99,035
I74,ccc;
2.25
2.25
$2.55 and $2.30
2.OO
1.50
1894
4,1x0401,000
'54,743
$1.50 (3 Mos.) and
$1.00 (9 Mos.)
In fifty-four years the sales have increased ap-
proximately seventy times, the number of consumers
about the same, and the number of burners from
6816, as given above, to nearly 2,000,000.
The history of one of the earlier companies, the
New Orleans Gas Company, shows a similar growth.
In 1836 the output was 7,300,000 cubic feet at $7
per thousand; in 1840 the business had grown to
20,075,000, at $7 per thousand. In 1850 the sales
were 53,562,000, at $5; in 1860, 132,418,000, at
$4.50; in 1870, 238,468,000, at $4. The panic of
1873 was very severe,on general business in New
Orleans, and a full recovery was not made until after
1880. The gas sales in that year were 230,296,000,
at $2.70. Between 1880 and 1890 the candle-power
of the gas, which had, previous to that date, been
about 16.5, was raised to thirty- three candles, and
the consumption fell away until in 1890 it was 181,-
497,000 feet. This falling off is due to the great
increase in the candle-power of the gas. In total
illuminating value the gas sold in 1 890 was equal to
363,000,000 cubic feet of the gas sold in 1880.
The New Orleans Company is one of the few at pres-
ent in the enjoyment of a legal monopoly.
The first movement toward furnishing a supply
of gas to the city of Cincinnati was based upon a
communication written by John Towne, a resident
of Pittsburg, Pa., under date of September 7, 1827 ;
but it was nearly ten years later — April 3, 1837 —
when seven public-spirited citizens procured a char-
ter for the purpose of making and vending gas.
Though they made active efforts to induce capital-
ists to advance the funds, and even secured cooper-
ative pledges from the city, all their efforts were
unavailing, and four years were consumed in fruit-
less endeavor. In the spring of 1841, a young
Englishman, John S. Conover, appeared upon the
field, and after much earnest effort induced the
municipal council to pass an ordinance, on the i6th
of June, 1841, granting to him and his associates
the exclusive use of the city's streets for the pur-
pose of laying mains, and also granting him certain
contract privileges in the way of supplying gas to
public lamps. He then purchased the charter of
the company previously organized, and proceeded
to comply with his contract obligations. While
blessed with untiring energy, he possessed but little
capital, and had a very hard time getting construc-
tion under way and fighting off the ceaseless attacks
of councilmen. He finally assigned to John H.
Caldwell, a capitalist of New Orleans, a half-interest
in the undertaking, and with the capital advanced
by Mr. Caldwell was enabled to turn gas into his
mains on or about January i, 1843. Two years
later he died at Bedford Springs, Pa. John H.
Caldwell then succeeded to the presidency and as-
sumed the management of the company. The capi-
tal of the company was nominally $100,000, though
probably not half this sum had been expended in
building the works and laying about six miles of
mains. The price then charged for gas was $3.50
per 1000 cubic feet. December i, 1846, the price
of gas was reduced to $3, and January i, 1854, to
$2.50. The company had, January i, 1847, 546
meters and 192 public lamps in use, supplied through
32,487 feet of main pipe from two to eight inches
in diameter. Dry meters were first introduced in
July,i847. By January i, 1848, the number of meters
was 738, with 289 lamps; and the largest "send-
out " in one day, 88,600 cubic feet. Clay retorts,
imported from Belgium, were introduced in Decem-
ber, 1861, and exhausters in October, 1863. The
following table represents the growth of the enter-
prise :
EMERSON McMiLUN.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
"'7
PRODUCTION OF GAS IN CINCINNATI.
YEAR.
CUBIC FEET.
CONSUMERS.
LAMPS.
IMS
7,947,300
<6l
181
tSrO
^J.O^Q.QOO
I.SQ3
486
l8« .
71,359,200
•I.I"1
1, 2 2O
i860
157,216,200
7,560
2,IO2
1865
245,441,200
9,893
2,780
1870
355,449,000
12,247
7,t28
187?
c 77.244.000
I3,OOO
C.OA2
1880
s I S, 3 16.000
13,828
O.QS7
l88<;
751,278,000
1 6, 60 1
7,488
1800
1,076,780,000
20.078
Q.6?6
The capital has been gradually increased, as ex-
tensions demanded, to its present requirements of
$8,500,000, with market value of $i 7,000,000. The
price of gas has been periodically reduced from the
initial price of $3.50 to the present price of $i per
1000 cubic feet.
Gas-lighting in the city of New York has increased
at a rapid rate. Efforts to obtain accurate data from
some of the larger companies failed to elicit a re-
sponse. It is safe to assume, however, that the
output for the year 1894 was, in round numbers,
12,000,000,000 cubic feet.
In the first days of gas-lighting in America the
material used was almost exclusively soft or bitumi-
nous coal. In some Southern cities rosin and pine-
wood were used, and during the war these materials
were very largely employed in towns which were un-
able, owing to the blockade, to obtain coal. The gas
made from soft coal had an illuminating value of
approximately fifteen to seventeen candles, and was
considered a brilliant illuminant in the earlier days,
when comparison was made with whale-oil lamps
and tallow dips. But the advent of kerosene-oil
and the improvement in oil-lamps marked the com-
mencement of an era of higher candle-power, and,
by creating a new factor in the competition for
urban lighting, promised to reduce the rapid growth
of the gas business. While its convenience and
safety would, in the face of any oil competition,
insure gas a large share of the lighting business of
cities, the quality of gas supplied in 1870 could not,
at 1870 prices, compete on the basis of cost per unit
of light with the oil-lamps of that day, and its value
as a cooking and apartment-heating fuel had not
been demonstrated. Its prospect was somewhat
dimmed. At this crisis in its history a Frenchman,
Tessie du Motay, and an American, Professor T. S. C.
Lowe, of aeronautic fame, were independently
experimenting in the manufacture of gas by the dis-
sociation of steam in contact with incandescent
carbon. The result of these experiments was the
development of the water-gas systems that bear the
names of the distinguished inventors— the cupola-
retort system of Du Motay, and the generator-
superheater system of Lowe, the most important of
all inventions affecting the manufacturing of gas.
The experiments of Tessie du Motay, as well as
of Lowe, were carried on in the United States, and
the development of the water-gas system is purely
American. The first plant of any magnitude under
the Tessie du Motay system was erected for the
Municipal Company, of New York City, by the
Continental Iron Works, of Brooklyn, N. Y. Under
this type may be included the Jerzmanowski and
Wilkinson processes. In all processes of this type
the non-luminous water-gas is generated in cupolas,
carbureted with oil vapor, and passed through re-
torts externally heated, the gas thereafter being
condensed and purified, as in coal-gas and other
water-gas systems.
The Lowe process, covered by patents dated
1872 and 1875, may be regarded as the basis of the
modern water-gas system. It covers, broadly, the
use, in connection with a generator in which non-
luminous gas is made, of a superheater, or fixing-
chamber, fired by internal combustion, the combus-
tible being the gases which are formed during the
process of " blowing up " ; that is, during and from
the passage of air through the fuel in the generator.
This air is blown through the fuel — hard coal or
coke — at a high velocity, for the purpose of raising
the fuel to a condition of incandescence, fitting it to
dissociate the steam admitted during the gas-making
period. The Lowe process further covers the intro-
duction of oil or other enriching substances into the
non-luminous gas, and the fixing of this oil by pas-
sage through the super heater. The first Lowe appa-
ratus was erected at Phenixville, Pa., in 1873. A
short time later one was erected by the inventor
himself at Conshohocken, Pa., and a third, also by
him, at Columbia, Pa.
The modern water-gas apparatus is undoubtedly
the double superheater or improved Lowe, a de-
velopment of the Lowe idea by the United Gas
Improvement Company, the owners of the Lowe
patents (now lapsed) for the greater part of the
United States. Many modifications of each of the
two water-gas systems have been made and patented
by their inventors, but none of these have been of
sufficient importance to command special attention
or to overshadow the original inventions. After
several years of neglect or bitter antagonism on the
part of the coal-gas interests, the water-gas processes
obtained a firm footing, and since 1880 the intro-
298
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
duction of water-gas has been rapid. In 1880 there
were in operation approximately 12 plants of the
Tessie du Motay type, and approximately 75 plants
of the Lowe type. By 1890 the number of Du
Motay plants in operation had grown to 30, and the
number of Lowe plants to 260. At this writing it
is estimated that there are in operation 40 plants of
the Tessie du Motay type and its modifications, and
350 plants of the Lowe type and its modifications.
There are about thirty-five companies operating
water, oil, and combined plants of various forms,
included in the above estimate. Every city in the
United States of over 400,000 inhabitants uses
water-gas, wholly or in part ; and all but six of the
cities of over 50,000 population by the 1890 census
have water-gas plants.
It is to be noted that among the largest water-gas
plants in the country are the Tessie du Motay plants
in New York City and Baltimore, and the Lowe
plants of Boston, Providence, Chicago, and the
Twenty-fifth Ward Works, Philadelphia. It is proba-
ble that at this date seventy per cent, of the illuminat-
ing gas manufactured in the United States is water-
gas, and by far the greater volume of this is made
under the Lowe process. Among the modifications of
the Lowe apparatus, but covered by the Lowe type,
are the Granger-Collins, Hanlon-Leadly, Springer,
Flannery, McKay-Critchlow, Martin, Pratt and
Ryan. These are all of the generator-superheater
type, variously modified according to the ideas of
the inventors.
There are several points of advantage in the
operation of a water-gas plant, each of which had
its weight in the argument that finally persuaded so
many coal-gas makers to adopt the water-gas pro-
cess. In its influence on the extension of the use
of gas, the particular point of advantage was the
candle-power. Water-gas is sold of candle-powers
varying from twenty-two, for a probable minimum,
to thirty-five candles in Pensacola, thirty-three in
New Orleans, and thirty in New York,with a probable
average throughout the country of twenty-five to
twenty-seven candles.
Americans are peculiarly fortunate in the quality
of gas supplied them. There is probably not five
per cent, of the gas manufactured and sold in Eng-
land that is above seventeen candle-power, and
some of the English companies are chartered to
supply gas at as low as fourteen candle-power.
When we remember that, with few exceptions, the
large cities of this country are supplied with gas of
above twenty candle-power, and that the far greater
part of the gas supplied to them is twenty-five
candle-power and above, while, with rare excep-
tions, the smaller cities (above 25,000 inhabitants)
are supplied with gas of twenty to twenty-five
candle-power, we can see how much more illumina-
tion the American is getting per 1000 cubic feet of
gas bought than is his English cousin. In the
matter of impurities in the gas the American is
equally fortunate. The English law allows twenty
grains of sulphur in forms other than sulphureted
hydrogen, and three grains of ammonia, per 100
cubic feet of gas. The average of sulphur per i oo
cubic feet of gas sold in the United States is cer-
tainly not above twelve grains, and the ammonia
may be truly said to be a mere trace. A long series
of analyses, extending over a period of ten years, in
one of the largest cities of the country, has shown
the gas to contain, approximately, ten grains of
sulphur per 100 cubic feet, with practically no
ammonia. The superiority of American coals, and
the pride that the American gas-engineer has in the
quality of his product, are sufficient explanations of
the smaller quantity of impurity in the American
gas than in the English gas.
The development of the water-gas process came
at a time peculiarly fortunate for the American gas
industry, which was just then threatened, as stated
above, by cheaper oils and improved lamps. A few
years after the invention of the water-gas processes,
and during their development, the electrician ap-
peared on the field as a competitor for the business
of city illumination. The effect of the appearance
of the new light on the value of gas shares was dis-
astrous. The general introduction of water-gas,
however, checked the fall in prices and enabled the
gas-man to hold his own. The high candle-power
of the water-gas made it a cheaper illuminant, unit
of light for unit of light, than the incandescent elec-
tric lamp ; and while the introduction of electricity
doubtless retarded the growth of the gas business, it
did not succeed in reducing the sales, or even en-
tirely stopping their extension. The fright that the
electric light gave gas-men has resulted in good to
the companies and to the consumer. Many gas man-
agers believed that their sole refuge from the storm
would be in the cultivation of other uses for gas than
that of illumination. This idea resulted in the de-
velopment of the gas-stove for cooking and heat-
ing, and of the gas-engine and many other me-
chanical devices for the utilization of gaseous fuel.
This branch of the business has grown enormously
within the last ten years, and there are now gas
companies supplying, during portions of the year,
fifty per cent, of their product for fuel purposes.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
This is a field in which electric energy has so far
been unable to compete; and the rapidity of its
growth, past and present, indicates that it will soon
be the larger branch of the gas business. In the
field of illumination, electric invention and the im-
provement of oil-lamps have made great advances
in the last decade, and have threatened again to
give the gas industry a close fight for supremacy in
this branch of its business. In this crisis, invention
again helps the industry of which I write, making
its method of illumination so much cheaper than the
incandescent electric lamp or the kerosene lamp
that it is apparently only a question of a brief period
until — except for special work — gas will be used al-
most exclusively for illumination wherever gas mains
are laid. This new factor is the Welsbach lamp,
the invention of Auer von Welsbach, of Vienna.
It develops an illuminating power of twenty candles
per cubic foot. This means that five feet of the gas
will give a light of 100 candle-power, making the
illumination, from a given quantity of gas, from six
to seven times greater than could be obtained with
the best burners known to the art thirty years ago.
The Welsbach invention has so cheapened gas-light
that it may be said — on the question of cost per
unit of illumination — that it has no competitor but
the heavenly bodies.
The convenience with which the electric arc is
lighted and extinguished gives it an advantage over
gas, even with the Welsbach burner, for the illumi-
nation of streets, large railway-stations, etc. ; but
even in these places the Welsbach light is making
progress in competition with electric light. The
rapidity with which the use of this burner has grown
within the past two years is one of the wonders of
the history of gas-lighting. It is estimated that
there are now in use, approximately, 1,000,000
Welsbach burners in the United States, and it is be-
lieved that the sales for the year ending June 30,
1896, will aggregate 1,500,000 burners.
For many years " gas logs " and gas-heating
stoves have been in use in a limited way. Neither
have met the popular requirement, either from an
effective or an economic view. About 1890 a com-
bination gas-heater and steam-radiator, the inven-
tion of Q. S. Backus, of Philadelphia, was brought
to the attention of gas companies and the public.
For three or four years it met with indifference, and
in many instances open hostility, on the part of gas
managers. During the past year, however, it has
rapidly grown in favor, and at present the demand
for these heaters exceeds the supply. It is by far the
most economical of any of the inventions for heating
by gas that have yet been offered to the public of
which the writer has knowledge.
The history of the gas-lighting industry in the
United States would not be complete without a
reference to the standing of the companies in the
communities in which they operate, their relation to
the municipalities, and the trend of legislation affect-
ing them. In the early days of gas-lighting monop-
oly franchises were commonly granted to companies
agreeing to stated and generally easy conditions.
The industry was regarded as hazardous, and legis-
lators, anxious to secure for their constituents the
possible advantages of the modern system of illumi-
nation, found that capital could be tempted into the
untried field only by the offer of a special conces-
sion. This ordinarily took the form of a franchise,
exclusive for a term of years estimated to cover the
time of development, and a period of profitable
operation in which to earn interest on the invest-
ment for the life of the franchise. The right to use
the streets and continue the business of supplying
gas was not ordinarily made to terminate with the
exclusive clause of the franchise. A few years of
experience demonstrated the safe and profitable
character of the business, and capital becoming
more willing, legislation became more exacting.
Exclusive franchises were less readily granted, and
conditions as to price and quality and amount of
investment were attached, and the right of muni-
cipalities to interfere in the conduct of the business
of established companies was asserted. This ten-
dency has grown with the century, until in its clos-
ing years exclusive clauses are almost unknown, and
many Western cities are attempting to fix the price
at which gas shall be sold within their boundaries.
Franchises are now commonly granted for a term
of years, the right to charter other companies being
reserved, and conditions as to price and quality of
the gas supplied being attached.
A number of attempts on the part of councils and
legislatures to fix prices at which gas and electric
light shall be sold and the business of the common
carriers conducted have of recent years been the
subject of judicial investigation and decision. The
tendency of these decisions is to limit the power of
regulation to the fixing of a reasonable rate, the ad-
jective " reasonable " being construed to be a rate
that should not result in the depreciation of the
value of the property of the company affected.
There is every reason to believe that gas companies,
in common with railroads and other corporations
serving the public, will be protected in their right
to earn an interest that shall be commensurate
300
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
with the investment, and with the risks of the
business.
Gas companies, because of their commonly en-
joyed monopolistic privileges, either actual only, or
actual and assured, and because of the fact that
their commodity is taken as wanted from a main-
tained supply, and paid for after use, have been
generally subjected to the suspicion of the unthink-
ing, and charges of extortion have been common in
the public prints. This feeling on the part of citizens
and officials that gas companies were getting more
than their deserts, and the belief that there are
fabulous profits to be earned in the gas business,
have resulted in some instances in the acquisition of
gas property by municipalities. The example set by
the city of Philadelphia, which in 1841 took over
the gas-plant, and has since continued it as a branch
of the city government, was followed later by Wheel-
ing, W. Va. ; Richmond, Va. ; Danville, Va. ; Char-
lottesville, Va. ; and Hamilton, O.
The result of municipal ownership and manage-
ment of gas properties has not encouraged other
cities to acquire works. It has been amply dem-
onstrated that it is better for the municipality and
better for the citizens that the gas-plant should be
conducted by private enterprise. With the single
exception of Hamilton, O., there has been no recent
instance of the erection or purchase of a gas-plant
by a municipality in the United States. The Ham-
ilton works were erected about 1890.
American gas literature contains but few books.
The American contributions have consisted prin-
cipally of papers read at gas association meetings.
Many of these papers have been of the highest
order, but for our more formal literature we have
been dependent upon Europe. There are three
periodicals devoted to the gas industry at present
published in America. In the order of their age
they are the "American Gas-Light Journal," of
New York ; " Progressive Age," of New York ;
and "Light, Heat, and Power," of Philadelphia.
For the purposes of the American gas-man they
are more valuable than the journals published
abroad.
The commercial importance of the gas industry is
indicated by the amount of money collected from
sales of the products of gas-works. While accurate
figures are not obtainable, enough information is at
hand to indicate that the receipts for gas sold in the
United States amounted in 1894 to between $70,-
000,000 and $75,000,000. It is probable that the
receipts for residuals of gas manufacture amounted
to an additional $5,000,000, making the total receipts
for the products of gas companies $75,000,000 to
$80,000,000.
In the first years of gas-lighting—indeed, up to
about 1870 — lime was the purifying agent of gas
manufacture, to the exclusion of every other mate-
rial. Since 1880, however, the use of oxide of iron
as a purifying agent has become popular, and to-day
it is probable that more than three fourths of the gas
purification in the United States is effected with
this material, with a reduction in the cost, and with-
out the nuisance attending the removal of the spent
lime.
The American gas business is to-day entirely in-
dependent of foreign countries. The New York
Gas Company, incorporated in 1823, made its first
gas from oil, using rosin later, and in 1860 was
distilling English coals for the manufacture of its
product. Most of the earlier companies imported
the material from which their gas was made from
England. Ultimately the opening of American
mines furnished them with a bituminous coal that
for gas-making purposes has no known superior.
In water-gas manufacture America took the lead
through invention, and will probably continue to
hold it, because of the fact that the materials from
which it is manufactured, anthracite and petroleum,
found in the United States, are superior in quality
to the products of any other country. Meters and
clay retorts were originally imported from England
and from the continent of Europe. At present
American meters and American retorts have no
superiors. For many years cannel-coal, for the en-
richment of coal-gas, was brought from Scotland
and Australia. Beds of cannel equal to any in the
world have since been found in the United States,
and cannel-coal has been shipped in quantity from
America to Europe.
It cannot be said that the business of gas manu-
facture in America has been made by any man or
set of men, or any corporation or set of corporations.
Gas is peculiar in that it must be manufactured in
the vicinity in which it is used, and, as a rule, local
enterprise is responsible for the erection of the local
plants. There has been, of late years, a tendency
to the formation of what are known as " parent " com-
panies ; that is, companies controlling and operating
a number of plants, situated in different parts of the
country. Of these the best known are the United
Gas Improvement Company and the American Gas
Company. Such combinations of capital have in
them nothing of the objectionable characteristics of
the much-abused " trust." Prices cannot be kept
up by such combinations. The gas for each city's
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
301
use must be made in, or close to, that city, and local
conditions control the prices. The tendency to-day
is toward further concentration in the ownership of
gas properties, and there can be no reasonable doubt
that such concentration as has taken place up to
this date has resulted in good to the investor and
to the consumer, chiefly through the introduction of
improved processes and apparatus, and the employ-
ment of more skilful management.
This is intended to be a history; prophecy is
foreign to the purpose of the publishers, and the
limit set for the story of the gas business has been
passed. Otherwise it would be interesting to specu-
late on the future of this great industry— the pro-
ducer and the distributer of the cheapest lighting
and heating agent of the present, and possibly of the
future. After passing through the recent financial
depression with practically no shrinkage in the vol-
ume of its business, it finds itself to-day in what
promises to be the most prosperous year of its exis-
tence, with new and superior appliances for manu-
facture and utilization to guarantee it a still more
prosperous future. " More, better, and cheaper
light " will be the demand of the dawning century ;
and, as in the nineteenth, so we have every reason
to believe in the twentieth cycle, gas will fill that
demand to the profit alike of its manufacturer and
its consumer.
In the preparation of this article the author is
indebted for data and assistance to the London
" Journal of Gas- Lighting," Brown's " Directory
of Gas Companies," the Gas Bureau of Philadelphia,
Shelton's " History of Water-Gas," the " American
Gas-Light Journal," "Progressive Age," "Light,
Heat, and Power," General Andrew Hickenlooper,
and above all to Walton Clark, general superinten-
dent of the United Gas Improvement Company, of
Philadelphia.
CHAPTER XLIII
AMERICAN PAPER-MILLS
ATIQUARIAN and philologist, seeking the
origin of paper, have always come alike to
the same beginning. By the banks of
Egypt's great northward-flowing river they have
found, green and tall, the papyrus growing. Here the
record ends, or rather begins, and with the seventh
century before the Christian era the tale of paper
making is commenced. Papyrus manuscript has
been found, it is true, of a seemingly far earlier date ;
but the authentic record begins with 670 B.C., in
which year a dweller by the Nile, named Numa, is
believed to have written several works upon this
paper. Later in the same century there were man-
ufactories of paper from this aquatic plant in Mem-
phis, papyrus being for many years one of the
products of the land of the Pharaohs, and an im-
portant article in the commerce of that ancient day.
Both Greece and Rome, despite the fact that parch-
ment from the skins of sheep and goats appeared and
went into common use during the second century
B.C., used much of the papyrus product every year ;
and as the supply could never meet the demand,
the price was always high.
The papyrus paper was formed from the thin,
separated films of the plant, superimposed upon
one another crosswise to the desired thickness, made
coherent by pressure, and smooth by drying and
polishing. Of the paper of to-day, the Chinese, who
seem to be credited with every art the beginnings
of which are sufficiently remote to be uncertain, are
believed to be the originators. A mandarin of the
palace in the year 95 A.D. is said to have been the
first to make a fibrous pulp from which paper could
be produced. In addition to the bark of the mul-
berry or bamboo this ingenious Oriental used cotton
and hempen rags, the paper thus obtained soon dem-
onstrating its superiority over anything then known
in the Flowery Kingdom. It is still made there to-
day, after much the same primitive methods as were
used at that time. From China to Tartary the art
of pulp making extended, and there the fiery Arabs,
when they humbled the Tartar hordes about 170 A.D.,
are supposed to have found and borne it home with
them to the West.
Paper made from a pulp of linen rags is first
known in an Arabic manuscript of the " Aphorisms "
of Hippocrates of the date noo A.D. Coincident,
almost, with the appearance of linen paper was the
final disappearance of the papyrus roll from general
use. It had been little used for centuries, parch-
ment taking its place. It was not until 1290 that
the first paper-mill was established in Germany.
Forty years later Italy followed suit, and France
and Austria came next after a few years. England
was among the last, the first mention of the art of
paper making in that country being late in the fif-
teenth century. During the next three centuries the
art became general, and Holland and France took
the lead over all other nations. In Holland wind-
mills were used instead of the water-mill elsewhere,
and the Dutch were also the first to use machines,
called Hollanders, or engines in macerating the rags
into pulp.
Colonial enterprise turned to paper making in the
New World among the very earliest of its endeavors.
The fringe of population from which was to grow
one of the mightiest and most numerous nations on
earth had scarcely stretched from the mouth of the
James River to Massachusetts Bay before the first
mill was started. William Rittinghuysen (now Rit-
tenhouse), a native of Broich, Holland, was the first
paper maker, and he had associated in partnership
with himself that celebrated old printer, William
Bradford. By the banks of a little stream known
as Paper-Mill Run, flowing into the Wissahickon at
Roxborough, near Philadelphia, the old Hollander
opened his mill in 1690, grinding up the rags of the
home grown and woven flax for pulp. For twenty
years this mill represented the American paper trade,
a second being established only in 1710 near the
302
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
303
first one, by William de Wees, a brother-in-law of
the original William Rittenhouse's son.
At this time all paper making was by hand ; and
until 1750, when the pulp-engine was invented in
Holland, and 1756, when it was introduced into
America, the rags were beaten into pulp by hand.
The pulp-engine accomplished a great saving in time
and labor. The effect of its introduction was seen
in 1770, when the three colonies of Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, and Delaware alone had a total of forty
mills, turning out an annual product valued at
_;£ 1 00,000. The process of manufacture in these
old mills, where everything was done by hand, and
still kept up to-day in the making of some special
kinds of paper, was very simple. The pulp floating
in great vats was dipped out by the workman on his
" mold," around the outer edge of which he formed
a rim by superimposing a thin frame known as a
" deckle." This kept the pulp from running off, as
the water drained away through the wire cloth of
which the bottom of the mold was made, and
allowed it to settle in a thin film or layer over the
surface of the mold. It was then passed to another
man, known as the " coucher," who dexterously ap-
plied the pulp-covered mold to a sheet of felt, where
the pulp adhered and the mold was removed. This
left a thin sheet of pulp evenly disposed upon the
felt. Another piece of felt was placed on the top
of this, and another mold applied, the process being
continued until the pile reached a certain height,
when it was called a " post," and removed to a press
where the water was expressed. The sheets were
then removed from the felt, pressed, and hung up to
dry over " tribbles " or lines in the drying-room.
When this was finished, the sheets, which were
rough and like blotting-paper, were dipped in size,
pressed, and dried again, coming out finally the
finished paper. This process, briefly described, is
that by which all paper was made prior to the in-
vention and perfection of the Fourdrinier machine,
during the first decade of the present century.
Neither this machine, nor any other, in fact, was
known in this country until several years after their
use had become common abroad. Despite this the
industry had progressed, and, after a great scarcity
of paper during the Revolutionary War, it was be-
ginning in 1795, when the century we are now to
consider opened, to make appreciable headway.
The first mill in the northern part of New York
State had only been erected the preceding year at
Troy by Messrs. Websters, Ensign & Seymour.
This mill turned out from five to ten reams daily,
using rags in making its pulp, as did all the others
at that time. The scarcity of rags was one of the
great difficulties with which these early manufactur-
ers had to deal. Stirring appeals to the ladies wen
constantly appearing in the public prints, beseeching
them by their patriotism to stand by American in-
dustries and save their rags. A further, if less lofty,
argument was made to this end in the offer of the
manufacturers to pay three pence per pound for
white, brown, blue, or checked rags, delivered at the
mill. The first mill in the United States to use other
than rags for pulp was one which was built this
same year by Matthew Lyon at Fairhaven, Vt., and
which made use of the bark of the basswood-tree in
the manufacture of coarse wrapping-papers. While
the exact number of mills in operation in 1795 is
nowhere stated, it is known on the authority of
Debrett, in his "Bibliotheca Americana," that six
years before the United States was producing paper
enough for its own consumption.
By the primitive methods of that time the Ameri-
can paper makers continued to abide even so far
into the present century as the latter half of the
second decade. During this time, in France and
England, there was being perfected one of the most
wonderful machines which the ingenuity of man has
ever devised. This was the so-called Fourdrinier
machine ; and while it was not an American inven-
tion, the history of paper making, whether here or
elsewhere, demands its mention. Despite its name,
it was originally the invention of one Louis Robert,
a workman in the mill of Frangois Didot at Essone,
France, who, in 1799, secured a patent for the mak-
ing of paper by an endless web-machine. The in-
ternal troubles of France at this time being highly
unfavorable to the development of any great indus-
trial undertaking, Robert sold his patent to Leger
Didot, who went to England in 1801, and in
association with John Gamble, and later Bryan
Donkin, attempted to perfect the invention. Didot's
funds were scanty, however, and in 1804, having
interested two wealthy London stationers, brothers
named Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, in the matter,
he transferred his interests to them. They erected
a plant at Boxmoor, and began a series of experi-
ments which, though finally successful in produc-
ing a practicable machine, ruined them financially.
Their sole reward, for all they did for the paper-
making industry, has been that the machine they
brought out has been named after them.
The Fourdrinier machine, as it was presented in
1806, revolutionized the making of paper. A
seven-vat mill, operated under the old system at an
annual expense of about $13,000, could run with a
304
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
machine for about $3600, an annual saving of
$9400. While the form of this machine has changed
often and greatly since 1 806, the essential principles
it then established are the basis of paper making to-
day, and its process is the one still in use. It con-
sists of an endless web of revolving wire cloth, upon
which flows evenly a stream of liquid pulp. As in
the hand process, the water drains away from the
pulpy mixture as the whole is borne on and up by
the running wire cloth, and the precipitation of the
pulp-sheet is completed just as the wire web meets
an endless belt of felt, which takes the fresh pulp
from the wire and carries it through large metal rolls,
where it is pressed and taken from the felt, in the
same condition as the hand-made product when the
"post" comes out from the presses; then it passes
over cylinders heated by steam, which dry the
paper, leaving it ready to be polished and cut into
sheets. This is substantially the process in use to-
day ; but the modifications and improvements now
employed would render it difficult to recognize the
early machine. To-day the pulp goes in at one end
of the Fourdrinier machine to come out at the other
finished paper, sized, dried, calendered, and cut into
sheets, or wound in immense rolls ready for the
modern press.
Besides this machine, a second was invented in
1809 by an English paper maker named Dickinson.
It was called the "cylinder-machine," and differed
from the Fourdrinier in having a hollow, perforated,
wire-gauze-covered cylinder placed directly in the
vat with the pulp-water. In motion this cylinder
drew out the water, leaving the pulp-sheet precipi-
tated on the wire gauze, by which it was carried to
the felt, which carried it through the couching-rolls,
and on as in the Fourdrinier machine. This machine,
or rather an American invention of similar nature,
seems to have been the first paper-making machine
employed in this country, one having been built and
operated by Thomas Gilpin & Company at Wilming-
ton, Del., in 1817. This machine of Gilpin's turned
out a sheet wider than any then made in this coun-
try, and of any length desired. The introduction
of the Fourdrinier or any other machine from Europe
did not occur until three years later, and it was ten
years after that, again, before they were commonly
used or their manufacture begun here.
Meantime the manufacture of paper was steadily
increasing. In 1810 there were 185 mills in the
country, turning out an annual product valued at
$8 1 1 ,000. In that year, owing to the insufficiency
of the supply from domestic sources, the importation
of rags was commenced. All paper-stock at that
time was made from rags, and the trade in them
was a large one. Rag-pulp is still used in many of
the more expensive grades of paper, and its manu-
facture is a distinct process in itself. The rags are
first cleansed and softened, by boiling in a strong lye
of caustic alkali or lime, from which they are trans-
ferred to a washing machine or engine, where a
heavy cylinder with knives partially macerates them,
and everything is removed except the vegetable fiber
itself. It is then treated with a solution of bleaching
powders ; the mass is placed in great stone bleach-
ing vats, and allowed to remain until the bleaching
process is complete. The water is then drawn off,
and the partially prepared stock, known as "half
stuff," is taken to the beating-engine, where it is
washed with water to remove the chlorine, and is
then reduced to pulp ready for the Fourdrinier ma-
chine.
In 1817, the first steam paper-mill in the country
was put into operation at Pittsburg, Pa. This mill,
which employed forty persons, consumed 120,000
pounds of rags yearly, and turned out a product
valued at $20,000. The coal required in generating
the steam necessary for running the sixteen horse-
power engine of this plant was 10,000 bushels
annually. Three years later the Gilpins, on the
Brandywine, began the introduction of foreign
machinery for making paper. There was at this
time an annual output of $3,000,000 from the paper-
mills of the United States, and 5000 persons found
employment in them. The popularity of the new
machines was far from immediate, as they were too
expensive. In 1822, John Ames, of Springfield,
Mass., produced a new cylinder-machine. It met
with some success; and in 1829, Isaac Saunderson,
of Milton, Mass., and Reuben Fairchild, of Trum-
bull, Conn., patented improvements based on it
which did much toward introducing it to general
fame. Culver and Cole, of Massachusetts, also
participated in the improvements brought out in this
year, and the cylinder-machine has been in general
and extended use ever since. During that year the
paper production of this country reached $7,000,-
ooo, and 10,000 men, women, and children earned
a livelihood in the mills. The same year (1829)
also saw straw and grass first utilized here in the
making of paper by machinery. G. A. Shryock, of
Philadelphia, was the manufacturer who accom-
plished this, and he claimed to be the first in the
world to do it, inasmuch as the straw paper made in
England by Matthias Koop, in 1801, had been hand-
made. The manufacture of Fourdrinier machines
in this country was begun in the next year (1830)
WARNER MILLER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
HI
by Messrs. Phelps & Spofford, of Connecticut.
They succeeded in turning out good machines, which
were capable of very fair work. The introduction,
in 1831, of chlorine as a bleaching agent, to whiten
and cleanse the pulp-fiber, helped in the advance
which the increasing use of machinery had brought
about. As an almost universal bleacher the new
chemical permitted the use for paper-stock, of col-
ored and dirty rags, hemp, tow, and many other
previously unavailable fibers. This of itself was a
great benefit to the paper trade, for the scarcity of
material for paper-stock was already causing seri-
ous inconvenience, and many were the experiments
made, in the attempt to find new and more plentiful
substances.
The history of the paper trade for the next three
decades is mainly a history of research and experi-
ment. All the expedients of ingenuity were em-
ployed to continue along on the old lines, and all
the invention of that same ingenuity was being
exhausted in the attempt to discover new lines, at
once more practicable and more profitable. Nearly
every substance known or believed to have the
fibrous qualities needed was experimented with more
or less successfully.
The first real and practical advance along the
lines indicated by these experiments was not made
until 1854. Many inventions were recorded, in the
mean time, for improving, simplifying, and expedit-
ing the processes of manufacture ; but until that
date the main object was still as far from being at-
tained as ever. The business had extended, though,
very greatly, and by 1842 it was estimated that
$15,000,000 represented the value of the annual
production. The capital invested in paper-mills was
placed at $16,000,000, and nearly 50,000 people
were dependent upon the employment it afforded
for a living. The consumption still kept ahead of
the domestic supply, and the paper exports for that
year were valued at only $69,862, as against imports
amounting to $92,771. The importation of rags
had increased during the thirty years it had been
going on, until in this year it amounted to nearly
$500,000. By 1850 these figures had still further
increased. A total capitalization, for 500 mills, of
$18,000,000 was turning out an annual product of
$17,000,000. The importations of rags had in-
creased to $750,000, and the imports of paper itself
amounted to $496,563. There were at this time
only five mills in the country still turning out ex-
clusively hand-made paper, and the paper-machine
had been improved the previous year to the point
where laid paper was being produced with it. A. H.
Laflin,of Herkimer, N. Y.,was the manufacturer to
introduce this improvement, although the machine-
papers had long had the water-mark, a small cylinder
with the desired impression nearest the couching-
rolls having been invented for this purpose many
years earlier.
A new era began for the paper makers in 1 854. In
that year, A. C. Mellier, a Frenchman, discovered the
process that has since borne his name, and which con-
sisted in the conversion of certain vegetable fibers,
notably straw, into pulp. The process consisted
in boiling the soaked and cleaned straw in a solution
of about four per cent, of caustic soda, and at a
temperature not less than 310° Fahrenheit. The
paper produced from pulp thus made was claimed
to be superior to anything ever yet brought out for
newspaper. The process was patented in 1857, and
the same year, J. B. Falser, an Englishman, of the
firm of Rowland & Falser, began the manufacture
of straw paper at Fort Edward, N. Y., and in 1859
secured patents for improvements on the process
that came later to be universally adopted. From
this time on, during the war, and for a few years
after, straw paper made by this process was the
staple of the market, and nearly all newspapers were
printed on it. The farmers of the country appreci-
ated their rye straw in those days, when the price
jumped almost at a bound from $6 to $20 per ton.
There were many objections to the straw paper,
however, and experiment was by no means ended in
the matter of pulp ingredients. The silicious nature
of the straw gave the paper a glassy, brittle surface
that wore out type at a rate direful for the news-
paper proprietor to contemplate. A dress of type
that on other paper would have worn a year, was
used up in three months. Furthermore, straw paper
would have been useless on the fast presses of to-
day, because it was neither soft nor absorptive, nor
could it, owing to its brittle surface, be printed from
the roll. Such as it was, however, the newspapers
were glad to get it ; and from twelve to twenty-six
cents per pound was the price they paid for it dur-
ing the war, an amount which to-day would make a
modern paper manufacturer a millionaire, and beg-
gar the newspaper publisher in a few months. We
find the 555 paper-mills of the country, in 1860,
turning out an annual product valued at $21,000,-
ooo, which exceeded that of either Great Britain or
France. During the next few years, while the Civil
War was raging, the demand for paper increased to
a very great extent, and new methods were demanded.
These were discovered, and have accomplished one
of the greatest results of the century ; for they have,
306
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
by the introduction of wood-pulp, made possible a
cheap and excellent paper, which gives to the Ameri-
can people cheap newspapers, periodicals, and books.
Thirty years ago newspapers such as we have in
New York to-day, with paper at twenty cents per
pound, would have cost the publishers for paper
alone no less than four cents apiece, where to-day
the cost is scarcely half a cent.
Wood-pulp and the changes it has brought, not
only to the paper trade, but to the world at large,
form the final chapter in the story of American
paper. Excellent and inexpensive paper has done
more than any one thing to develop the American
press, and the publishing business. No better evi-
dence of this could be desired than was given last
year, at Cornell, in an address delivered by a certain
far-famed New York editor, of the school which pro-
duced Raymond, Greeley, and the elder Bennett.
In discussing the wonderful advance made by news-
papers in late years, Mr. Charles A. Dana concludes :
" But the great revolutionary agent is the cheapness
we have reached in the cost of paper." With this
high testimony regarding its importance, we may pro-
ceed to a more detailed consideration of wood-pulp.
Many attempts to produce a pulp out of the softer
kinds of wood had been made, and many patents
had been issued for such processes both here and
abroad, prior to 1854. This year, the same one
which brought out the Mellier process, also saw the
first patent for a chemical wood-pulp that was prac-
ticable, secured by Watt & Burgess, of London.
This process, in a crude form, was the soda-pulp
that is still in extended use. It began by boiling
the wood in caustic soda lye, after which it was sub-
jected to the action of chlorine. Both this, and the
later and much-improved sulphite process, produce
in effect a more fibrous pulp than that to which the
name wood-pulp is more commonly and properly
applied.
The patent of Watt & Burgess was assigned by
them to Ladd & Keane, who secured a reissue in
1858. In the mean time, however, in 1855, Hugh
Burgess, of Roger's Ford on the Schuylkill, brought
out a similar process in this country, using the wood
of the poplar. His patent and that of Mellier were
later purchased and continued, in 1865, by the Amer-
ican Wood-Paper Company, of Manayunk, Pa., and
a considerable quantity of poplar-pulp turned out
by it.
While the manufacturer of the chemical pulp, or
wood-fiber, was thus slowly working here, the ground
wood-pulp was being developed abroad. A Ger-
man named Keller patented a wood-pulp grinding-
machine in 1844. He figures as the originator of
the process, but having no money he sold his inven-
tion to Voelter, who developed the grinding of the
wood by stones, and is usually credited with being
the discoverer. The ground wood-pulp was used
by Voelter in Germany, in large quantities, for the
manufacture of newspaper as early as 1847, and two
years later the process was introduced into France,
at Souche. In America the ground wood or wood-
pulp was first successfully made by Alberto Pagen-
stecher, at Stockbridge, Mass., and put into print-
ing-paper, in 1867, by Wellington Smith, William A.
Russell, and myself.
The prominence that the paper industry has
achieved since the introduction of wood-pulp, and
the extent of the trade relations arising therefrom,
are the best and most direct evidences possible of the
usefulness of the product. To-day paper figures,
either wholly or in part, in more diverse and numer-
ous articles than any other one substance known.
It is manufactured into boards, roofing, boxes, bar-
rels, pails, furniture, buttons, collars, tapestry, belt-
ing, car-wheels, carpets, canoes, and even at one
time, some few years ago, into coffins, which were
declared more enduring than those of lead, steel, or
wood. All these, and many more uses, seemingly
outside its ordinary and proper sphere, make paper
an article of the greatest demand. The great met-
ropolitan newspaper, consuming many tons a day,
needs a mill to feed it alone. The consumption is
something enormous, and will always be an increas-
ing one. When modern paper making from wood-
pulp was in its infancy, about 1869, and rags were
still largely used, the dimensions to which the paper-
manufacturing trade had grown were indicated by
the fact that, at New York alone, the importation
of rags amounted to $2,149,202. Besides this the
entire domestic rag product, as well as thousands of
tons of wood and straw, was being put into paper ;
and yet not only was it all consumed at home, but
a considerable quantity was imported in order to
supply the demand. The figures of exports and im-
ports of paper for this year (1869) are perhaps the
best indication of the condition of the trade at that
time. The imports amounted to a total of $355,-
511, of which $96,158 were credited to newspapers,
and $259,353 to fine writing-papers. Contrasted
with these figures were the exports, which for paper
manufacturers of all sorts amounted to less than
$20,000.
The growth that has come in this trade, during
the quarter of a century that has elapsed since then,
has been remarkable. The following year (1870)
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
307
the mills engaged in the manufacture of paper in this
country were estimated to number 669, with an
annual production of $48,436,935. Six years later,
despite the depressed condition of affairs resultant
upon the financial troubles of 1873, the number of
mills had increased by nearly 200, and their produc-
tion was sufficient not only to supply the home
market, but, still further, to lay the foundations for
a decidedly profitable export trade, which has re-
mained ours ever since. The paper exports for
1876 amounted to $96,138, while the imports, on
the other hand, had increased, although in less pro-
portion, to $1,218,159.
The year 1880 saw a still further addition to the
paper-manufacturing interests. Of paper-mills proper
there were 692, with a combined capital of $46,241,-
202, and an annual output of $55,109,914. Besides
these, the manufacturing interests in the coordinate
branches of the paper industry, such as paper bags
and boxes, envelopes, wood-pulp, and cardboard,
included 543 mills, with an aggregate capital of
$7,922,646, and a production of $18,684,127, mak-
ing the totals for the paper industry of the United
States for this year (1880) as follows: mills in
operation, 1235 ; total capital invested, $54, 163,848 ;
aggregate product, $73,794,041.
In 1886 the import and export trade showed an
increase for the ten years, particularly noticeable
in its exports. This tendency to a more equable
adjustment of the balance of trade indicates the
healthful condition of the industry. The exports
had made the extraordinary jump from $96,138 to
$1,106,616, while the imports had increased by only
about $600,000, their total value being given as
$1,838,822. In addition to this, the enormous
amount of $5,194,951 was represented in the impor-
tation of rags and crude paper-stock, which were
admitted free of duty, and swelled the total of im-
portations due to the paper industry to $7,033,773.
The number of mills in the country had increased
by 1890 to 1086, operated exclusively for the man-
ufacture of paper or pulp. Of their product an
amount valued at $1,226,686 was consumed in the
export trade, while of rags and crude paper-stock
from foreign countries the mills imported to the
value of $5,261,448. The general consumption of
the country further demanded imports of manufac-
tured paper aggregating $2,816,860, which, added
to the paper-stock importations, gave a total for this
year of $8,078,308.
In 1892-93, the mills of the country were turning
out annually considerably over 3,000,000 tons. Of
this enormous amount the news and book prints
consumed between 750,000 and 800,000 tons, which
was a third more than went into wrapping-paper.
The writing-paper consumed was estimated to be in
the neighborhood of 150,000 tons. At the present
time the available figures place the total number of
mills in the country at 1 101, with a daily production
averaging about 10,000 tons, in round numbers.
For the supply of these mills there was imported in
1894, crude paper-stock to the value of $3,048,094.
Imports in addition to this amounting to $2,628,351
were received during the same period, credited to
paper and its manufactures, making the total impor-
tations of the paper trade for that year $5,676,445.
The export trade also has increased, and so large
has it become with England, that that country has
recently ordered that in all reports of imports, ren-
dered by the customs officials, the paper and man-
ufactures of paper corning from the United States
shall be so specified and made a separate item ;
whereas they have always previously been included in
the lump sum given under the classification " From
all other countries." Last year, the total of the
paper exports from this country was $1,906,634.
The dimensions to which the domestic trade had
grown meantime are shown in the fact that the pro-
duction of news and book paper alone was more
than $45,000,000, or nearly as much as the total
production of the country for all grades, twenty-five
years ago. With this still so recent advance,
achieved in the last quarter of a century of endeavor,
it is perhaps a little improbable that the near future
will see any such pronounced changes as those which
have brought things to the present point. It is
rather more reasonable to expect that for some time
to come the progress of the paper industry will be
along the lines of a natural and healthy growth of
the present establishments. That this growth will
come is certain, as it is also that developments will
follow as fast as they are needed to keep the paper-
mills of America in the place they have won in the
front rank of the world's industries.
CHAPTER XLIV
AMERICAN PUBLISHING
WHAT is understood by a " publisher," in
the generally accepted meaning, is de-
fined as " one who, as the first source of
supply, issues books and other literary works, maps,
engravings, musical compositions, or the like, for sale ;
one who prints and offers books, pamphlets, engrav-
ings, etc., for sale to dealers or the public." This
definition — a comprehensive one — includes the pub-
lishers of newspapers ; but the business of journalism,
being distinct from that of book publishing, need
not be further referred to, save incidentally.
One of the differences which exists between the
book publication of the past and that of to-day is in
the primal source of derivation of the matter printed.
This change is due to the immensely greater distri-
bution of newspapers and magazines, and the im-
proved methods of intercommunication. Half a
century ago literary matter was usually issued or
published for the first time in book form, and with few
exceptions the text had never been read before;
whereas it is a common practice to-day for an author
to supply a magazine or a newspaper with his writ-
ings, which, widely read in daily, weekly, or monthly
issues, are afterward put in book form. As a volume
it is then, however, only a " first source of supply "
when considered in a material sense. Generally the
text collated in this way is republished in book form
by the firm in whose journal or magazine the text
originally appeared; but sometimes, by prior ar-
rangement with the author, this is not the case, for
in its book form the work may be published by
another house.
There have always been reprints of particular
books. A popular work of a past century, in the
one hundredth year after its first publication, is
often found to have been reprinted twenty times
by as many different publishers. Of the world's
great standards, hundreds, and in some cases thou-
sands, of editions have appeared. Old lamps are
made as good as new, and if they have served as
shining lights in the past, it is to the advantage of
mankind that they should be kept constantly lumi-
nous to-day. There is, nevertheless, a distinction
to be made — but not in the least of a disparaging
character — between the manufacturer of books who
takes old works and reprints them, and the publisher
who, selecting entirely fresh and original matter,
issues this in book form and for the first time.
" Robinson Crusoe," or some other standard
book, may appear as a two-cent pamphlet, muti-
lated by abridgment, on wretched paper, and with
blurry type ; or as an edition de luxe, a masterpiece
of typography and binding, with illustrations for
which the artist alone has been paid $10,000. Both
works are, in a sense, manufactured. In the cheap
book to be sold for two cents there is the minimum
of risk; in the costly Edition de luxe perhaps the
maximum of risk. But, as to risk, there never was
an original work published wherein the element of
uncertainty as to the pecuniary result did not exist
for the publisher.
The people of the United States are the greatest
readers and book-buyers in the world. By means
of inexpensive books there is presented the amplest
opportunity for instruction and recreation, and when
the text of these books is carefully selected, their pub-
lishers, in no small measure, cater to the general edu-
cation of our people. There are, of course, excep-
tions. In some cases there are, unfortunately, reprints
made of vile and vulgar books, and these are issued in
all parts of the country. It is not within the prov-
ince of this article to indicate the methods of sup-
pression.
The origin of the publishing business of the
United States may be thus briefly described : In the
year 1640 the first book, the "Bay Psalm-book,"
was printed by Steven Daye at Cambridge, Mass.
After its publication in the colony it was reprinted
in England, where it went through seventeen
editions, the last one bearing the date of 1754.
308
JOHN W. HARPER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
It was also a highly popular work in Scotland,
twenty-two editions having been printed there, the
last dated 1759. It is somewhat remarkable that
the first colonial book written and the first book
printed were both in verse. Sandys's translation of
Ovid's " Metamorphoses " was the first true " copy "
written here, although issued in Great Britain ; but
the " Bay Psalm-book " was the first book put into
type in this country. The first original American book
printed here was Mrs. Anne Bradstreet's " Poems,"
and this volume, issued in Cambridge, Mass., in 1640,
was republished in London in 1650. Cambridge
remained the only publishing town for a long time,
and for twenty-one consecutive years issued about
one volume per annum. In 1653 Samuel Green
published John Eliot's famous Catechism in the
Indian language, followed in 1659 by the Psalms
in Indian, in 1661 by the Indian New Testament,
and in 1663 by the whole Bible in the Indian
tongue. This was the first Bible printed in America.
William Bradford, who moved to New York from
Philadelphia in 1693, was the originator of the pub-
lishing business in that city. To Christopher Sauer, of
Germantown, Pa., the United States is indebted for
the first Bible printed in a civilized tongue, his German
Bible having been issued in 1 743. Benjamin Franklin,
in the first half of the last century, stood at the case,
worked the press with his own hands, first in Boston,
then in Philadelphia ; and he left an indelible impress
on this country, his " Autobiography " being the first
book of real importance in American literature.
It is interesting to note that the business of pub-
lishing has been identified generation after genera-
tion with certain families. Many of the best-known
firms of publishers in the United States to-day have
carried on their calling for over sixty years — in
some cases quite one hundred — through three or
four generations. The most notable instance is that
one of the direct descendants of Christopher Sauer
(established 1738), the publisher of the German
Bible in 1743, is still in the business of book pub-
lication in Philadelphia. It would be impossible,
within the limits of this article, to give any complete
list of publishing firms which are carried on to-day
by the descendants of those who established the
business several generations ago, but a few may be
named. For instance, in New York City : Harper &
Brothers, 1817 ; Baker, Voorhis & Company, 1820 ;
D. Appleton & Company, 1825; David G. Francis,
1826 ; D. Van Nostrand, 1830 ; Ivison & Company,
1831; John Wiley & Sons, 1832; John F. Trow,
1835 ; A. S. Barnes & Company, 1838.
In Philadelphia : Lea Brothers & Company, 1785 ;
Henry Carey Baird, 1785; J. B. Lippincott Com-
pany, 1835; Butler & Company, 1837.
In Boston: William Ware & Company, 1792;
Ticknor & Company, 1832 ; Little, Brown & Com-
pany, 1837.
In other cities : Northampton, Mass., S. E. Bridg-
man & Company, 1785 ; Cincinnati, O., U. P.James,
1831 ; Springfield, Mass., G. & C. Merriam, 1831 ;
Louisville, Ky., John P. Morton, 1825; Richmond,
Va., J. W. Randolph Company, 1831 ; Mobile, Ala.,
G. H. Randall, 1831 ; Montgomery, Ala., Joel White
& Company, 1833; Lancaster, Pa., John Baer"s
Sons, 1817.
Above the fireplace in the private office of one of
the publishers in New York are the following lines
by George William Curtis. They exemplify not
only the facts in that particular instance, but seem
further to apply to many firms of book publishers.
" My flame expires ; bat let true hands pass on
An unextinguished torch from sire to son."
With the great massing of the population of the
country in certain cities, the character of the pub-
lishing business has become more general, and the
convenience of the purchaser now presents itself as
a constant factor. If New York City is to-day the
largest book mart and the producer of the greatest
number of books, Philadelphia and Boston still hold
their own. With new centers of population arising
in the West, also, other elements are being intro-
duced, and to-day Chicago is fast becoming an im-
portant publishing center. Examining the list, which
includes 617 American publishers who issued books
in 1894, New York is found to have 187, Philadel-
phia 60, Boston 52, Chicago 51, San Francisco 12,
and Baltimore 9, the remainder being scattered over
almost every State in the Union.
The great bulk of the books are published by less
than one hundred firms in the four chief cities. The
conservatism of the trade is shown in this. Before
there were easy means of transportation, as in the
first third of this century, a newspaper office in a
small town would publish a book, and this business
has been retained in a lesser proportion until to-day.
In examining the number of books published by the
617 firms it is found that a large proportion of these
houses issue only one or two books a year. These
publishers of one or two books, however, are not all
to be classed as among minor producers of books.
In many cases a publisher may turn out but one
book in a year, but that single book may be of
paramount importance and may cost a very large
amount of money to produce.
310
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
In tracing briefly the history of book publishing
in the United States during the last one hundred
years various periods may be indicated. At the
conclusion of the War of Independence, with the
severance of the bonds which united us with Eng-
land, there sprang up a demand for books, prin-
cipally of a religious and educational character.
During this early period literary reputation was in
a measure dependent on the politician, and many
pamphlets on state and international topics were
published ; but books of theology were in the lead.
The second period of publishing owes its progress
in some degree to improved mechanical devices.
Stereotyping, first used in the United States in 1813,
soon became of universal application, and very much
cheapened the price of books, though it led to the
persistency of typographical errors, and prevented
revision and enlargement when a new edition was
called for. The prime material — paper — was, how-
ever, costly. The raw material — rags — was not
readily obtainable in sufficient quantity at home or
abroad, and to furnish the necessary paper for new
publications old books and papers were regularly
collected and sent to the paper-mills.
The third period is one of marked improvement,
and dates from about 1843. It was not alone an
awakening on the part of the publisher as to the
better manufacture of books, but he called in the
artist for illustrative aid. Harper's Bible, with
1400 illustrations, Verplanck's Shakespeare, with
1 1 oo illustrations, and many other works, with and
without illustrations, were published in parts during
the period from 1843 to 1850 inclusive. They found
their way into almost every family in the United
States. The many thousands of illustrations made
during that period gave employment to artists, es-
pecially to wood-engravers, and laid the foundations
for that school of American wood-engraving which
soon took its place in the first rank, and which,
within a generation, was acknowledged to be without
an equal.
From 1850 to 1855 the demand for books in-
creased rapidly. The estimated output in 1850 was
$10,500,000, and in 1855, $16,000,000, being an in-
crease of over fifty per cent., whereas the population
had not increased more than twenty per cent, during
the same period. The panic of 1857, the Civil War
from 1 86 1 to 1865, and the disturbed state of the
country during the reconstruction period did not
prevent a steady growth of the publishing interest.
About the year 1872 the publication of standard
works in pamphlet form at cheap prices was begun.
Within a very few years everything that had ever
appeared worthy of note in English fiction, together
with books in every other branch of literature, was
issued in enormous numbers. Millions of books
were put on the market at nominal prices, and the
supply exceeded the demand. As a result a change
was made in the form of these cheap editions, from
a quarto to a handy i6mo or 12 mo form; and, in
addition, these same books were then bound up in
cloth, and offered to the trade at a very slight ad-
vance over the cost of paper, printing, and binding.
There was a perfect flood of books. Whenever a
new book by a popular English author appeared it
was seized upon by publishers in every portion of
the country, and reprints were thrown on the market.
This very excess of books in time brought about its
own cure, however. Many of the publishers of these
very cheap books went out of business. Others
joined together in one gigantic company ; and this
company, in turn, disappeared. A demand arose
for an International copyright law, and resulted in
the passage of the law in 1891. This copyright
law, during the four years of its existence, has
proved to be equally advantageous to the public,
the author, and the publisher.
It is needless to state that on the intelligence of
a people depends the prosperity of the book pub-
lishers. It would be trite to remark that where
there are illiteracy and ignorance there can be no
demand for books. It is the mental activity exist-
ing in the United States which has had all to do
with the business of the publisher. There must be
interdependence between the author and his readers.
Literature belongs to the civilized world, and au-
thors are of all nationalities. Our own writers have
achieved signal success, and we may be said in a
measure to be freeing ourselves from foreign influ-
ence; but yet no one would insist, from patriotic
motives, that publishers should confine their issues
of books to those of an American origin. It is
worthy, then, of mention that the American reader,
through the medium of the American publisher, has
had brought to his notice on many occasions the
works of foreign authors whose powers had been
overlooked in their own country. In this way the
excellence of many foreign authors, by their popu-
larity in the United States, has been revealed to
European readers, and finally their reputation at
home has been fully established.
A selective power on the part of the American
publisher is one of the elements of his success.
Though the publisher must always strive toward the
production of the best books, he must bear in mind
how different are the ages of his readers and the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
311
variety of tastes. Nevertheless the imprimatur on a
title-page must be regarded as the flag covering the
merchandise. A discerning public at a glance de-
termines for the most part from the name of the
publisher the quality of the wares purchased.
To estimate the value of the total output of the
book publishing business in the United States is a
very difficult matter. There are in the United States
over 70,000 post-offices, and this gives some idea of
the vast field for the distribution of literary matter in
book form. According to a careful estimate made
six years ago there were engaged in the publish-
ing, subscription, and retailing of books, periodicals,
and stationery, in the United States, not less than
40,000 concerns. Their number has not diminished
during the last six years, but has increased, and it is
estimated that there are in the United States at least
50,000 firms which make the selling of books the
whole or a part of their business. The major part
sell the cheapest kinds of paper-bound books only,
their main business being the sale of periodicals or
stationery.
Studying the output in books of the year 1 894, and
counting the retail price of one copy of each book
published during that year, the total value amounted
to $i 1,000. As a great number of these books cost
less than fifty cents, an idea of the quantity may be,
in a measure, understood. Eleven thousand dollars
representing, then, the price of one copy of each
book, the number of these same books constituting
what is known as an edition must be borne in mind.
Sometimes very expensive books are limited to an
edition of 100 copies. On the other hand, there
are works of fiction of which from 20,000 to over
100,000 copies are sold within the year. Of school-
books, editions of 50,000 to 500,000 copies, in-
tended for one year's consumption, are not an un-
usual event. Messrs. D. Appleton & Company for
many years sold over 1,000,000 copies of Webster's
" Speller " every year ; and a Western house, W. B.
Smith & Company, of Cincinnati, O., was believed
to have sold over 1,000,000 copies of the Eclectic
Series during each year. If an edition of 1000
copies only be taken as an average of the books
published during the year 1894, their value would
be $11,000,000. This, of course, can be but a
small proportion of the total sales of books during
the year. The electrotype plates of school-books,
Bibles, prayer-books, hymn-books, and other books
of that nature, are very rarely changed, and enor-
mous quantities are sold every year.
Making the proper deductions for ages, the child
in the United States is a large consumer of books,
due to the public-school system. One other factor
often overlooked must be added, and it is that the
preparation of a large and increasing class of young
men and women for the higher professions is much
more extended as to time to-day than in the past,
and additional books have to be supplied.
Such books as the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " (of
which there are several editions in the market),
the " Century Dictionary," " Standard Dictionary,"
etc., are sold by subscription ; and the initial expense
of such books being enormous, before a single copy
of the book is made, the sales must be enormous
also. Then there are many "books which are not
books " — such as city directories, which are usually
published by a company devoted exclusively to the
publication of this one book ; State directories, lists
of dealers in each business, and commercial agency
reports (each of these agencies makes four revised
editions of their book each year, each book measur-
ing about eleven by thirteen inches, and containing
about 2500 pages of matter in close print). There
are innumerable genealogies, indexes, catalogues,
together with many other productions which are
truly books, but which cannot be called literature.
The records of American publications for the
twelve years ending in 1841 show an aggregate of
1115 works. Of these, 623 were original and 492
were reprints from foreign works. It is believed,
however, that the list of reprints is incomplete,
owing to the difficulty of obtaining complete data.
Possibly twenty-five per cent, should be added to the
number given. The population of the United States
in that year was about 17,000,000. In 1853, 733
new works were published in the United States, of
which 278 were reprints of English works, 35 were
translations of foreign authors, and the remainder
were original American works. The population of
the United States had reached about 25,000,000,
an increase of fifty per cent, compared with 1841.
The original American works published in 1853,
compared with the twelve years ending in 1841,
show an increase of about 800 per cent, in less than
twenty years. In other words, the publications of
the book trade seem to have advanced about fifteen
times as fast as the population.
In 1880, with a population of 50,000,000, the
new books published during that year amounted
to about 2000 — nearly three times more than in
1853, whereas the population had only doubled.
The total number of new books published in each
year, according to the records of the "Publishers'
Weekly," from 1881 to 1894 inclusive, were as
follows :
312
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
NEW BOOKS PUBLISHED.
iS8i
1882
1883
1884
1885
1887
2,991
3472
3^8:
4,088
4,776
4437
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1894
4,631
4^665
4,862
These figures, of course, include the different edi-
tions of the same book issued by different publishers.
During the period from 1872 to 1890 inclusive it was
no unusual thing for six or seven editions to be
made of the same book by different publishers, most
of them being in the cheap pamphlet form or in the
cheapest cloth binding.
Below is a table of the publications for the year
1894, classified according to subjects and the source
of origin. The variety of books by foreign authors
(chiefly English) imported bound or in sheets is very
large, but the number of copies of each book thus
imported is usually small.
PUBLICATIONS FOR 1894.
CLASSIFICATIONS.
BOOKS BY AMERI-
CAN AUTHORS, INCL.
NEW EDS. MANUF.
IN U. S.
BOOKS BY ENGLISH
ANDOTHER FOREIGN
AUTHORS, INCL. NEW
EDS.MANUF.INU.S.
BOOKS BY FOREIGN
AUTHORS IMPORTED
BOUND OR IN SHEETS
INTO U. S.
Fiction
37°
474
184
33°
261
107
'74
152
"o
5°
i4S
83
93
92
33
35
28
9
297
I
22
22
22
82
8
35
H
u
32
i
17
7
2
4
62
10
262
9°
61
77
72
5°
48
78
79
14
1
46
23
14
17
i
Law
Theology and Religion .
Education and Language
Juvenile
Poetry and the Drama
Political and Social Science
Literary History and Miscellany
History
Physical and Mathemat'l Science
Biography, Memoirs
Medical Science, Hygiene
Description, Travel
Fine Art and Illustrated Books .
Useful Arts
Sports and Amusements
Domestic and Rural
Mental and Moral Philosophy . .
Humor and Satire
2821
577
1086
Several methods of estimating the yearly output
of books have been attempted. One of these was
to take the capital employed in every firm which
published books during the year 1894— in the case
of firms not exclusively devoted to publishing,
subtracting from their known capital a definite
proportion, so as to allow for that part of the
business not connected with books. In the case of
several incorporated companies, their capital and
their output are known, thus giving a basis for cal-
culation. The same proportion of output to capital
was observed in the case of all the publishing-houses
given on the list. A second method was to estimate
the output by classes; for instance, the amount of
books used in schools and colleges, the amount
bought by free and subscription libraries, the
amount sold by subscription only, the amount
bought by lawyers, doctors, and other professional
men, etc. A third method was to take the reported
total value of books made in 1820, 1830, 1840,
1850, and 1855, and to carry forward the same
progression to date. Still another method tried was
by taking the retail prices of the books published
during 1894 as a basis. Estimating that each book
sold an edition of 1000 copies, which is probably
well within the limits, the result was multiplied by
the proportion estimated as sold of those books
printed previous to 1894.
These four methods were suggested to a number
of booksellers, with a request for their estimate of
the total amount paid by the public during the year
1894 for all classes of books. The results obtained
varied greatly, not only as to individuals, but in sev-
eral cases where persons made the estimate according
to each of the four methods suggested above, their
four estimates did not correspond in any appreciable
degree. After a careful comparison of all the esti-
mates it seems a fair conclusion that the public pays
at least $25,000,000 per year for what may be called
" general literature," and probably an equal amount
is paid each year for school and college text-books,
for books sold by subscription only, for directories
and other similar works, and by the public and sub-
scription libraries.
For many years there has been a gradual increase
of American books in all departments of literature,
with the exception of fiction. The English novel,
owing to lack of international copyright, could be
printed and published at low prices ; but since 1891
the tendency has been altogether in favor of Ameri-
can novelists. In 1893, 263 American novels and
834 English or foreign novels were published in the
United States; but in 1894 there were 370 novels
"by American authors and 297 by English and other
foreigif authors.
The study of the export of books for the last year
shows that we sent books or other printed matter to
all parts of the civilized world to the amount of
$2,147,391. British North America was the largest
receiver, taking something over a half-million of
dollars ($581,066); and the United Kingdom was
the next, taking $548,358. The book business with
South America and the West Indies is an important
one, having amounted in 1894 to about $579,000.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
313
Australia uses $50,780 of our books. In estimating
this total of exports of books to be $2,147,391, some
natural speculations arise as to what must be the
home consumption of books, since the exports can
express only a small proportion of the total output.
As to the life of the average book in the United
States during various periods, it has been estimated
as follows: During the first half of the century
probably three fourths of the books published at
any time during that period could be found on sale
in the book-stores at the end of it. During the
next twenty-five years the average life of a book was
from five to twenty years. In 1872 began the pub-
lication of the cheap " libraries." These " libraries "
tended to materially reduce the life of the average
book printed after that date. It is probable that one
third of the books published in any calendar year
will be out of date, and only asked for occasionally,
within one year of publication. Another third of the
books published during the same year will probably
have a life of about two or three years. Of the re-
maining third practically all but ten per cent, will
be " dead stock " within seven or eight years of their
publication. This arises from the fact that such an
enormous number of books are published to-day.
Prior to 1870 the publication of any book, and the
necessary machinery of distribution, required an out-
lay of capital which very few firms possessed.
One large and increasing demand for books is
that arising from the many public libraries in the
United States, which, according to the last enumer-
ation, in 1891, numbered nearly 4000, having an
average of about 9000 volumes each. Some of the
most important libraries take copies of all the works
published. When a book is popular — not necessa-
rily fiction, but historical, biographical, philosophical,
etc. — many copies may be taken by a single library.
The increase of the legitimate business of book
publishing in the United States is a healthy and
perfectly natural one. The demand for books must
increase with the growth of the country. The pub-
lisher and the book distributer are at once in touch
with the new sections of the country that are being
opened constantly. The need of general instruction
is the predominant idea in the American mind, and
it is for that reason that the Americans are the most
universal of book-buyers and of book-readers.
This sketch of book publishing in the United
States was prepared by Mr. Barnet Phillips and
Mr. Frederick A. Nast, under my supervision.
CHAPTER XLV
AMERICAN PRINTING
WHEN the Revolutionary War closed, the
printing trade in America was almost ex-
clusively confined to the tide-water towns.
Except in two or three instances in Pennsylvania and
Massachusetts, the art had not penetrated inland, and
the total number of places where it was practised
before 1775 was only twenty-nine, aggregating about
i oo offices. In most of these establishments printing
and the publication of newspapers were carried on
concurrently, the latter being esteemed an integral
portion of the printer's art. This continued to be the
rule for a long time after, and until within the mem-
ory of some living men ; and that extension of the
calling which began immediately after the struggle
for freedom was through newspapers. The first ones
established beyond the coast settlements were those
at Lexington, in Kentucky, and Pittsburg, in Penn-
sylvania. They were soon followed by another in
Cincinnati ; and by 1 8 1 o there were thirteen news-
papers in Kentucky, fourteen in Ohio, six in Ten-
nessee, and one each in Indiana and Michigan.
Each of these offices did whatever job-printing was
offered to it, and also printed and bound books on
occasion.
The chief centers of the printing trade, however,
have always been the three great cities on the At-
lantic coast. Baltimore has never executed much
printing in proportion to her size, and Charleston,
Savannah, and Norfolk did little except that which
was purely local in its character. Those towns
which first developed a comparatively large trade in
printing, not above mentioned, were Albany, Hart-
ford, and Worcester. The leading printer in the
latter place, Isaiah Thomas, was denominated by a
French traveler as the Didot of America. Of the
three great cities, Philadelphia was, for the first fifty
years after the conclusion of the War of Indepen-
dence, unquestionably the first in this line. There
the earliest daily paper was begun ; there bookbind-
ing and bookselling were most vigorously carried
on ; there the greatest publisher of the United States,
Mathew Carey, was established ; and there Congress
sat most of the time after the adoption of the Federal
Constitution, before a permanent seat of government
was established at Washington. Philadelphia was,
too, the largest city in the United States. So great
was this industry there shortly after the beginning
of this century that no presses were kept at work.
They were wooden presses, it is true, and their per-
formance was small, measured by the standards of
to-day ; but the number surpassed that of any other
English-speaking city on the globe except London.
New York and Boston were alike much smaller in
the quantity of the work they did, although the
latter had been on a parity with Philadelphia until
about 1760.
There was no job-printing to speak of in the year
that Jay's treaty was ratified. Probably one man
could have set up all the jobs that were executed
in Philadelphia in 1795. An important city of that
size would now require perhaps sixty men to do
the small work offered to its printers. In these
offices books and pamphlets took nearly the entire
force. Newspapers were little read, and there was
in them very little discussion of important matters.
They were repertories of dry American facts and
summaries of foreign news. Condensation and re-
writing were little practised, and there were no edi-
torials. Very little local news was given. When-
ever a politician wished to address the public in
a forcible way, he wrote a pamphlet. The books
were very largely pirated from English publishers.
Next followed religious works, books upon law and
medicine, and school-books. A few original works
were issued each year, but the departments just
mentioned comprised the great bulk of all those
printed. There were no authors who lived by their
calling, and wood-engraving was commenced only
in 1793, any one who had natural skill in this line
being considered qualified to pursue it.
314
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The printing art in both England and America in
1795 was substantially that which existed two hun-
dred years before. Type-founding was better exe-
cuted in England in the second quarter of the
eighteenth century than at any time before, and
there had necessarily been some development occa-
sioned by the greater wealth of the English printers
and the greater number of men they employed. But
with the single exception that the press had been
slightly altered, no new inventions had been made.
It was soon to improve, however, and marvelous
changes were to originate in the mother-land of the
race, and be carried still farther both there and here.
The shape in which progress was to appear in this
country was chiefly, for a series of years, in the en-
largement of printing-offices, the multiplication of
places in which the art was carried on, and the in-
troduction of minor industries which had not hitherto
been known in America. The first of these was the
establishment of a permanent type-foundry. Some
foundries had been started by self-instructed work-
men, and had attained a certain measure of success,
but none of them had been of long continuance.
Even a Scotch type-foundry which had been begun
in Philadelphia about 1785 had ceased operations, the
senior member of the firm having died in 1 790. The
first permanent establishment was also in Philadel-
phia, and began casting in 1796. It is still in exis-
tence and doing good work, and until lately was
known as the foundry of the MacKellar, Smiths &
Jordan Company. Those who began it were two
Scotchmen, who formed the firm of Binny & Ronald-
son. They had no competitors till 1 80 5 , when ingeni-
ous mechanics in Hartford started another foundry,
but with very indifferent success, until Elihu White,
one of them, brought the tools to New York in
1810. Here he did very well. A firm of printers
in New York, David & George Bruce, desired to
enter the field of stereotyping, and applied to the
two existing foundries to accommodate them by the
casting of types suited to their special needs. This
was refused, and the Braces began making their own
type, and soon became successful. Other foundries
began in Boston in 1816, and in Baltimore in 1817 ;
in 1830 there were a dozen in the country.
Stereotyping by the plaster process was practised
in the city of New York by David & George Brace
in 1813. David Bruce had been to England to
learn the particulars of a process invented there,
but was able to do no more than to approximate
to the thorough knowledge requisite. Facts were
held back. When he returned he found that some
processes must be reinvented, and that Lord Stan-
hope had not attained complete success. His dili-
gence and mechanical skill finally enabled him to
make a plate which was perfectly level on both
sides, and of exactly the same thickness in every
part. This made the work far more perfect than
that done abroad, and an Englishman in New
York named Watts, who had succeeded in making
stereotype plates here by another process in the
same year with Bruce, left this city, with Bruce's
improvements, and went to Vienna and other cities
in Europe, where he taught master printers the art
of making stereotypes "in the American way."
Through him Germany acquired the art. His
sojourn in Vienna was in 1819. In that year an
Englishman then traveling through the United States
declared that stereotyping was more largely em-
ployed in America than in England, and that the
results were excellent. It reached its acme of de-
velopment here by 1865, forty or fifty firms carrying
on the business, and 1000 workmen being employed
in it. The plaster process was finally superseded by
the introduction of electrotyping for book work, and
the papier-mache' process for news work, which had
been used concurrently with it for some time. The
facility with which, when types had been composed,
a cast could be taken of them through the agency
of plaster of Paris, that replica then remaining use-
ful for a lifetime, induced Americans to stereotype
almost all books that were likely to sell for longer
than a year. This proved a very great economy.
In England, and upon the Continent, where labor
was less high-priced and where stereotyping did not
meet with so much favor, the types were recomposed
for each new edition.
Ink, during the colonial period, was made by
most of our printers. Few attained the skill that
would enable them to manufacture a good article.
The theory is very simple. It is to mix soot or
lampblack with a boiled oil that is transparent and
sticky, remaining fluid when in mass, but rapidly
drying and adhesive even when laid in a very thin
coating upon a sheet of paper. But practice was
difficult. Most printers bought their good inks in
England and made their poor inks. About 1805
one firm in Philadelphia and another in Cambridge-
port began the manufacture of printers' ink. Shortly
after another was begun in New York, and in 1816
a fourth one. After this date enough was made and
demanded to increase materially the standard of ex-
cellence. Competition has been active among these
houses, and as a result inks are now cheap and good.
There are perhaps thirty firms engaged in preparing
this article. Until 1850 no systematic attempt was
316
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
made to supply colored inks. Before that time almost
the only color used other than black was vermilion,
which each printer mixed as he needed for use. Ten
years after aniline colors appeared and became very
popular. Their use is still increasing. A curious
thing about bright-colored inks is that many of them
are made as near to the desired tints as possible by
the use of mineral and vegetable substances, each
variety then having brilliance added to it by the
employment of an aniline mixture which differs very
little from it in hue. Thus a very bright effect is
produced at the moment, but afterward vanishes,
although the substratum remains, and gives an in-
dication of what the color originally was. The
whole amount manufactured does not reach a value
of $1,000,000.
Another step in the progress of the printer's art
was the introduction of elastic rollers for inking the
types. In Washington's day ink was applied to
the face of types with balls of pelt in a slow and
laborious way. An ingenious compositor in Eng-
land found an elastic substance, formed from glue
and molasses, used in the potteries of England, and
fancied it might work well if employed on presses.
He tried the experiment, which was successful ; and
shortly after, when machine presses went into use in
England, composition rollers were found to be in-
dispensable. Their first employment in America, it
is believed, was in New York in 1826, but their use
soon rapidly spread throughout the whole country.
Printing-machines could not be used to profit with-
out cylindrical inking rollers. More than a dozen
establishments are constantly engaged in making
rollers for printers.
Another great change was that which came be-
tween 1819 and 1830, when wooden hand-presses
were driven out and iron ones came in. To-day
this seems unimportant, but it was the greatest
change that had taken place in the printer's art
since the time of Gutenberg. The wooden press
was weak and wheezy ; it creaked with every pull ;
the sheets printed were no larger than about a page
of the ordinary daily, and each press required two
expert men to keep it going. It was very slow. A
year's work by four men would produce no more
than a man and two boys can now accomplish in a
single month with modern machines. The change
from wood to iron did not begin in the United
States until about 1820, although several presses
had been imported before that time, the invention
being an English one. Nor was the change a rapid
one. Eight years later the majority of the presses
employed in New York were still of wood, and many
were used up to as late a date as 1840. The iron
press was very much stronger in all its parts than its
predecessor ; it took no more muscle, and it printed
a sheet three times the size of the former one. Among
the first manufacturers were Turney, Worrall, Wells,
and Smith ; but in a few years nearly all presses were
manufactured by Hoe in New York and Ramage
and Bronstrup in Philadelphia.
It is to be noted throughout all the earlier history
of printing in the United States that our country
followed Great Britain. There the improvements
originated, after a time being taken up by us. This
continued to be the case till half a century ago,
since which time the lead has been on this side.
Among the inventions which were perfected to a
great extent in England before they came here was
the new method of paper manufacture introduced
by the Fourdrinier machine, which was brought to
America in 1825. The result of the change was
that paper immediately became lower in price, and
larger sheets were made. Only one further advance
was now necessary for the production of cheap
newspapers and books — the construction of rapid
presses.
In the third half-decade of the century a German
named Konig, who lived in England, succeeded in
producing a cylinder-machine upon which the Lon-
don " Times " was printed with great speed. After
constructing several, he returned to Germany, and
there began again the manufacture of presses. In
England engineers took up the problem of improving
the machine as he left it, and succeeded in doing so
in many important respects. But in America no
presses like Konig's were made which were success-
ful in practice until about 1829. Platen printing-
machines were made by Treadwell and Tufts, which
answered a useful purpose, but these could not
print as swiftly as those in England. About 1826
an English machine was imported, and it was while
repairing this that Colonel Richard M. Hoe gained
his first knowledge of power-presses. Shortly after-
ward Colonel Hoe's father began the manufacture
of presses on substantially the same plan as the
one imported, although certain improvements were
added. They were made strong where there was
much wear, and light where no wear was expected.
The very best material was used, and the most
thorough workmanship demanded. This thorough-
ness has always been kept up. As a result, although
English presses have always been cheaper than ours,
it has never been found expedient to import them.
The high pitch set by Hoe has since been followed
by all the manufacturers, and no more trustworthy
THEODORF. L. DEVINNE.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMKki i
317
ironwork is executed anywhere than by our press
builders. Hoe improved all machines that he con-
structed, brought out new patterns, and added new
devices. The other early power-press makers were
Adams and Taylor.
The early stage of American printing ended in
1833. For some years after the productions of the
art were not altogether pleasing, and some of them
were offensive to a cultivated taste. But all the
requisites for rapid development were at hand-
Paper, ink, type, and presses were made here;
money which could be invested in new enterprises
had accumulated, and the people were anxious to
get cheap reading and better printing. By the inven-
tion of cloth bookbinding, which began to be used
here two or three years before, the production of
bound books had become much less costly. What
had before cost fifty cents or more a copy to bind
could then be bound for ten cents. Schools were
formed everywhere, mechanics earned good wages,
and roads had been much improved. At about this
time railroads first went into use, enabling news-
papers printed at one city in the morning to reach
another 150 miles distant by nightfall, which could
not have been done by any method of riding ex-
press previously known. On the 3d of September,
1833, the New York " Sun," the forerunner of a new
class of newspapers, appeared. At that time nearly
all dailies were slow and dull, having little in them
but political argument and foreign news. After the
power-press came in they began to enlarge, and in-
creased their sheets as they could, until finally some
of them had an area of two thousand square inches.
They printed few copies. The blanket-sheets, how-
ever, had to wait for the general employment of the
Fourdrinier paper-making machine, and those with
larger circulations required the double-cylinder print-
ing-machines. The New York " Courier " and the
New York " Daily Advertiser " were compelled to buy
their first paper in England after power was applied,
for the product of the American mills was too flimsy.
On the small papers there was a continual struggle
against time. The " Sun " was printed on a sheet
eleven and one half by seventeen inches, a hand-
press being used. Two persons, working at their
utmost speed, relieving each other every twenty
minutes, were able to produce about 400 copies an
hour ; but this performance did not supply the de-
mand for the papers. In 1834 a cylinder- press was
used, propelled by the arm of a laboring man at the
crank of a balance-wheel. This was followed, in
1835, by a double cylinder driven by steam-power.
Such, with a change of names and places, was the
experience of all other cheap dailies of that time, in-
cluding the Baltimore "Sun," the Philadelphia
"Ledger," and the New York "Herald." The
amount of printing increased rapidly. In 1808 the
combined circulation of all the New York dailies was
estimated at less than 9000 ; in 1840 ten dailies had
a circulation of about 87,000, of which 70,000 was
attributed to the penny papers. The population had
increased a little more than threefold ; the circu-
lation had increased more than ninefold.
The changes in the decade from 1840 to 1850
were in the introduction of the lightning press, the
institution of news agencies, the testing of power-
presses in job-work and upon books, and the multi-
plication of shops and mills subsidiary to the art.
The double-cylinder press in general use by news-
papers in 1845 was ultimately found to be too slow
for the requirements of a large circulation. R. Hoe
& Company in 1847 invented the type-revolving
rotary printing-machine, on the cylinder of which
the type was fastened, and successively presented
to the four, six, or ten impression cylinders placed
around it. For twenty years this form of cylinder
was approved as fast enough. After that time it
was adjudged too slow. In 1869 the same house
introduced the web printing-machine, which printed
continuously from stereotypes on a cylinder against
an endless roll of paper, with a speed that then
seemed incredible. This machine was made in
many forms: to print four, eight, twelve, or more
pages ; to fold, count, and paste them, and to add
covers or insetted sheets ; or to print illustrations in
two, four, or six colors. All this can be done at
speeds varying from 6000 to 70,000 an hour.
Large as this performance is, one machine is not
enough for the needs of a paper of large circulation.
From two to twelve are used in the more prosperous
dailies. Fast newspaper machines are made in
Europe, but few of them are sold in America, al-
though the machines constructed here are used in
England and the English colonies. It is admitted
that the largest printing-press manufactory in the
world is that of R. Hoe & Company. The efficiency
of the fast machine presses is largely aided by im-
provements in stereotyping. Instead of printing the
type on one press, two or more stereotypes of a page
can be made for use on as many different presses.
This would have been impossible with the liquid plas-
ter method, but the use of paper pulp enables it to
be successfully accomplished. Moist papier-ma'ch£
is driven into the interstices of the type, dried, and
laid in a concave mold, so that when metal is poured
upon it it will make a convex plate. The stereotyp-
318
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ing of curved surfaces was successfully done, for the
first time in America, by Charles Craske, of this city,
in 1854, and plates were made regularly in 1861.
Job-offices, as distinct from book-offices, first be-
gan to be numerous about 1850, and book printers
added to their facilities those of the job trade. Be-
fore 1830 printers had no opportunity to develop
their art. There were more printers than work, and
the abler men had to seek other trades for the exer-
cise of their ability. Jonathan Seymour, for many
years the leading printer of New York, became a
paper dealer. Others in New York also made a
change. Alderman Clayton gave up printing and
bestowed exclusive attention to the sale of paper and
stationery ; Mather undertook the manufacture of
ink ; Darius Wells began the making of wood-type ;
David & George Bruce, at first printers and
afterward stereotypers, became type-founders. All
these, and many others that could be named, both
here and elsewhere, achieved distinction in their
newly selected callings. Harper & Brothers, then
J. & J. Harper, became publishers by necessity.
Failing to get from established publishers work
enough to keep their presses busy, they selected and
printed at their own risk books which they sold in
small quantities to leading booksellers in every part
of the country, adding the purchaser's name to the
regular imprint.
The decade before the war was one of great ad-
vancement in every department of the art. New
press builders came in, and this branch, which had
been carried on almost entirely by Hoe, Adams, and
Taylor, was henceforth to be practised by many.
Among them were Cottrell, Babcock, Campbell,
Potter, and Huber, each making some new improve-
ment. The introduction of the power-press into
book and job offices was very slow. All the work
of Harper & Brothers in 183 5 "was done on hand-
presses. The first power-press used by this house
was introduced the next year. The first power
platen printing-machine was made in this country
by Daniel Treadwell, of Massachusetts. Although
bulky and inconvenient, it proved of so much ad-
vantage to Daniel Fanshaw, of New York, then the
printer of the Bible Society, that in 1829 he mort-
gaged his establishment to that corporation, so that
he might put in nine more. It was superseded in a
few years by the Adams press. In 1845 this latter
machine was the favorite in every office in the great
cities. Publishers of books would not allow their
plates to be printed upon a cylinder even as late as
1860. The use of cylinder-machines was confined
to newspapers, posters, and coarse job-work. Fran-
cis Hart was the first New York printer, and proba-
bly the first in the country, to prove that the cylinder
could be successfully used on fine book and job
work, but for a long time his demonstration was re-
ceived incredulously by other printers.
In this branch of printing improvements in
machinery began with the small presses used by
job-printers. The Yankee card-press and the Gil-
man card-press, introduced in the decade between
1840 and 1850, took card-printing away from the
hand-press. Soon followed the Ruggles printing-
engine and the Gordon press, equally efficient for
the printing of circulars and hand-bills. These little
machines not only did the work quicker, but better.
They made a revolution in the methods of printing.
It was found that on these machines wet or damp
paper was not necessary ; a stronger and clearer im-
pression could be had on dry paper when the type
was resisted by the hard packing of glazed mill-
boards. This method of printing on dry paper was
afterward utilized on cylinder-presses, and applied
with great success to fine woodcuts. The success of
American magazines is largely due to the dry-paper
method of printing illustrations. The old "Scrib-
ner's Magazine," now the " Century," was the first
magazine to develop dry-paper printing. Its ex-
ample has been ably followed by " Harper's," the
"Cosmopolitan," and others.
The American method of making-ready woodcuts
was first shown in " Harper's Pictorial Bible," by
Joseph A. Adams, who made the engravings, also
made ready the forms, and developed the system of
overlaying that is now adopted in all printing-houses
of this country. The type-casting machine, that
rapidly reduced the price of printing-types, was in-
vented by David Bruce, Jr., of New York, in 1 838.
For many years it was the only effective machine,
and as such was adopted in every type-making
country. About 1848, Lovejoy, from Boston, in-
troduced in New York the art of electrotyping.
The feasibility of the new process had been demon-
strated in this city by Joseph A. Adams in 1839,
who made electrotype plates in 1841 for "Mapes's
Magazine." On books the new art supplanted plas-
ter and papier-mache' stereotyping, which could not
properly reproduce engravings on wood.
There are several claimants for the honor of
introducing and developing the art of photo-
engraving in America, but it is generally admitted
that John C. Moss was one of the earliest and
most efficient workmen in this field. This new pro-
cess has practically destroyed the art of engraving
on wood. Illustrations that once cost $100, and
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
HI
that required a month of time, can be had for a
tenth of the price, and sometimes in one day. The
success of the cheaper illustrated magazines is based
on the low cost of ordinary illustration. When en-
graving on wood was in fashion, there were here
engravers of marked eminence, and their work
was admired abroad. Adams, Linton, Juengling,
Nichols, Rowland, Filmer, are but a few of the many
able men of that period. The high reputation of
New York engravers is now worthily sustained by
Cole, Muller, Whitney, and King. Closson and
Anthony of Boston are equally famous.
The progress made in the United States has been
in many directions, and leaders in the art have been
found in many places. More printing has been
done in New England than elsewhere, in proportion
to the population. The two principal colleges of
the United States are located there, and the general
standard of education is high. Much book-printing
was executed in early years in Hartford, Boston,
New Haven, and Worcester, and each of these
cities is still steadily increasing in its production.
The chief center of the printing business is in
New York ; Philadelphia and Chicago coming next,
and Boston, Washington, St. Louis, and Cincinnati
following. The bulk of the work done in Washing-
ton is for the government. There are at least ten
other cities where the amount executed is great, and
where large establishments can be found. The
amount of capital required has greatly increased
since the beginning of the century, although each
tool or appliance is lower in price. Fifty years ago
an expenditure of $200 in types and materials was
enough to keep a man at work ; but now the mate-
rial required per hand in cities will cost at least
$1000. The growth of printing has been very rapid.
It is not probable that the total number of workmen
of full age in this art in the United States reached
beyond 500 at the beginning of the century ; it must
at present exceed 100,000. The product is in the
neighborhood of $150,000,000.
Type-founding is another branch of the business
that has increased greatly. The amount manufac-
tured in 1890 was supposed to be about $3,000,000
worth. Since then many of these establishments, of
which there were about thirty, were consolidated,
and the price of type has been lowered. Recent
improvements in the art have enabled type-found-
ers to cast type which is perfect, or nearly so, not
requiring much subsequent finish. A very great
change has been made in the composition of news-
papers, and to some extent in books. Matrices are
assembled upon a machine, and a whole line is cast
at once. Nearly all large daily papers employ this
apparatus, which saves a very large proportion of
the cost of composition. Type-setting machines,
handling separate types, are also in use, and promise
to be equally efficient.
Lithography, or printing upon stone, was em-
ployed in 1819 in the United States, but not com-
mercially. Since 1825, however, it has thus been
used, and it has made wonderful progress since the
Civil War. Three or four years after that closed
this kind of printing was executed successfully on
a power-press. In 1890 the amount of work done
was about $20,000,000 a year, and 8000 persons
were employed.
For valuable assistance in the preparation of this
article I am indebted to Wesley W. Pasko, recording
secretary of the Typothets of New York.
, o£
CHAPTER XLVI
THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY
THE probable period at which iron was first
adapted to the use of man is a disputed
subject among antiquaries. For a long
time the claim was generally conceded that the use
of copper and bronze by primitive man preceded
that of iron ; this assumption, however, appears to
be based almost entirely upon the fact that few or
no traces of iron implements have been found in the
prehistoric remains of man. This absence of iron
implements may readily be accounted for by the
very perishable nature of iron, and the comparative
rapidity with which it oxidizes or rusts away when in
damp places. The tendency of recent antiquarian
investigations is to place the use of iron by man con-
temporaneously with, if not antedating, that of cop-
per and bronze. It has been contended by some
authorities that the difficulty with which iron is
smelted from its ores would cause it to be one of
the very last metals used by a primitive race. This
claim, however, cannot be entirely substantiated,
from the fact that iron is not a difficult metal to re-
duce from its ores, particularly if they are rich, as
is abundantly illustrated by the methods of making
iron still in use among the savage and half-civilized
tribes of Asia and Africa. It is certain that both
the Assyrians and the Egyptians used implements of
iron many centuries before the Christian era. Iron
and furnaces in which it was made are mentioned
in the Pentateuch. The Greeks obtained their iron
from the Chalybes, a nation that dwelt on the south
coast of the Black Sea, from whom it was also ob-
tained by the Asiatic nations. The Romans not only
procured their iron from this district, but also from
Spain, Elba, and Noricum. The iron-mines of Elba,
which to the present day yield a large amount of
ore, were worked by the Etruscans, and the method
employed by them for extracting the iron from its
ores was probably very similar to that now known
as the Catalan forge process.
It may be safely assumed that the aboriginal in-
habitants of North America were unacquainted with
the use of iron in any of its forms. At the time of
the first visits of the Europeans to these shores the
few metallic implements in the possession of the
natives were probably made of copper. In order
properly to comprehend the development of the iron
industry in any country it is essential at the outset
that the distinctive characteristics of the three great
groups under which the iron of commerce is classi-
fied should be understood. Though the terms
" wrought-iron," " steel," and " cast " or " pig iron "
are not scientific and are incapable of technical dis-
tinction one from the other, they are by virtue of long
usage essentially broad, hence convenient for use.
When a lump of pure and easily reducible iron ore is
heated on a bed of ignited charcoal in a smelting-fire
or forge it is readily reduced to a lump of metallic
iron similar in shape to the mass of ore treated. If
the lump be sufficiently large one end may be ham-
mered and drawn out into a bar or rod, while the
other end remains in the fire as a mass of reduced
or partly reduced ore. Such an operation represents
the essential features of the primitive methods of
iron smelting practised in the early colonial days of
this country; the product thus obtained is known
as wrought or malleable iron, whether it is made
in the rude manner described or by the improved
bloomeries which later replaced the rude old forge.
From the bloomery, producing its soft malleable bar
or bloom, the blast-furnace was gradually evolved,
new metallurgical reactions were effected, and the
product obtained in a fluid condition, in which it
could be run into simple sand receptacles, forming
pig-iron, or into specially constructed molds to pro-
duce castings for practical use. The metal thus
obtained was hard, brittle, and possessed distinct
physical characteristics not found in malleable iron.
Since by the use of improved methods it became
possible to obtain the product of the blast-furnace
readily and with vastly greater economy, pig-iron
320
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
321
soon became, as it is at present, what the Germans
call raw iron (Roheisfti), from which practically every
other variety of finished iron or steel is obtained.
The ton of pig-iron is therefore very properly taken
as the rough standard by which the world's produc-
tion of iron is now measured.
Prior to the year 1795 the iron industry in the
United States was not only of a primitive character,
but was essentially feeble. The British government
had for years been systematically discouraging the
efforts of the American colonists to produce iron,
in order to avoid competition with the home indus-
tries ; these repressive measures continued until the
Revolutionary War. Forges or bloomeries were to
be found in nearly all the colonies from the times of
earliest settlement, and as the population increased
in districts more or less remote from the seaboard the
difficulties of transportation were sufficient to stimu-
late the colonists at such localities to manufacture
iron for their own consumption. Unlimited sup-
plies of fuel being always at hand in the vast forests
which covered the country, it became only necessary
to find ore and obtain persons sufficiently skilled to
construct the smelting appliances. The rude forges
of earlier days were gradually, as the demand for iron
increased, superseded by simple forms of blast-fur-
naces, producing, as a rule, a strong and excellent
quality of charcoal-iron ; indeed, the earlier blast-fur-
naces in the United States were practically foundries
manufacturing all the hollow ware and iron castings
required for domestic consumption in the rural com-
munities in which they were established. The iron
required for structural purposes, such as bars, straps,
nails, sheets, etc., was obtained in the early days
either by hammering the bloom from the forge or
bloomery, or by shaping by means of rolls propelled
by water-power. In fact, before the invention of the
puddling process in England by Cort, in 1784, a
large proportion of all forms of wrought-iron were
derived in this manner. The old so-called " Wal-
loon " process of refining pig-iron into the malleable
or wrought form or into a crude mild steel was in-
troduced into the colonies at an early date in their
history. We have, however, no means of knowing
to what extent it was used ; but as it required skilled
workmen specially trained in its operations, it would
seem probable that the colonists, who were gener-
ally their own iron makers, did not take kindly to
its adoption. By the puddling process malleable
iron is not directly produced from the ore, as in the
older methods of manufacture, but indirectly from
pig-iron. The introduction of the puddling process
was second in importance to no other invention in
the history of the iron industry of this country ; it
has, moreover, held its own with the greatest tenac-
ity wherever established, and may, in fact, be con-
sidered to have held the same relation to the iron in-
dustry of forty years ago that the Bessemer process
bears to that of the present day. The Revolution-
ary War, though causing the ruin of many colonial
industries, had the effect of stimulating the iron in-
dustry to some extent, by reason of the unusual de-
mand for cannon, projectiles, and other war material,
which could not be obtained abroad.
For a number of years after the Revolution the
iron industry developed steadily but slowly, probably
owing to the fact that, as in colonial days, much, if
not most, of the iron used along the seaboard was
imported. As the more remote communities in the
interior, however, increased in wealth and population,
the demand for iron grew apace, and the product
not only increased in quantity, but also in quality.
According to Mr. James M. Swank, who is undoubt-
edly the best authority upon the history of the iron
industry in the United States, no statistics of the pro-
duction of iron were collected before the year 1 8 1 o.
The production of pig and cast iron in that year was
53,908 tons ; wrought and malleable iron of all kinds,
27,105 tons; having a total value of $6,081,374, of
which amount Pennsylvania produced $2,473,748.
The product of the steel furnaces of Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
and South Carolina in 1810 was 917 tons, valued
at $144,736 ; of the whole number of steel furnaces
Pennsylvania contained five, producing 531 tons,
valued at $81,147. An analysis of these figures
gives us some idea of the state of the industry at the
beginning of the century. The product of the blast-
furnaces—pig, or, as it was at that time termed, cast
iron — was made or run directly into small castings
then in demand for commercial purposes ; the malle-
able iron was probably all derived directly from the
ore in forges or bloomeries, whence it was taken to
the rolling or slitting mills to be made into rods, bars,
plates, nails, etc. The steel made at this period in
the United States was probably all produced by the
cementation or blister process, and was all of the
grade now known as high-carbon or tool steel. Al-
though Huntsman's improvement of this process, by
which the steel bars thus made were fused in cruci-
bles and subsequently cast into ingots, had been in
operation in Sheffield, England, a number of years
prior to 1 8 10, it is doubtful if his invention had been
adopted in the United States at this early date. In
the census of 1820 the quantities of iron made are
not given ; their value, however, is stated as follows :
322
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
pig or cast iron, $2,230,275 ; wrought-iron, $4,640,-
669 ; total, $6,870,944. If these figures be correct
either the value per ton had decreased since 1810 or
else the quantity produced failed to increase in a
ratio corresponding to the general growth and de-
velopment of the country. The census statistics of
1830, however, show a decided improvement as to
values, although no estimate of the quantity is quoted.
The returns for the year 1830 were: pig-iron and
castings, $4,757,403! wrought-iron, $16,737,251;
total, $21,494,654. As the puddling process had
probably not been used at this period to any extent,
the disproportion between the production of cast or
pig iron and that of wrought-iron is marked. This
condition could not be due to the difference in value
of the two products ton for ton, since in those early
days the blast-furnaces were small and crude, and
consumed what would now be considered an enor-
mous proportion of expensive (charcoal) fuel. As
a consequence the ton of pig-iron cost from $35 to
$40, and the ton of wrought-iron perhaps one third
as much more.
In the decade between 1 830 and 1 840 few changes
or innovations were introduced having much influ-
ence upon the character of the industry in the
United States. New inventions and improvements
devised and operated in Europe did not then, as they
do now, make their appearance here almost simulta-
neously with their practical application in the coun-
tries where they had their inception. During this
period the production of iron steadily increased, but
upon much the same lines as heretofore. Primitive
and insignificant as compared with those of to-day,
the capacity of the blast-furnaces of that period
may be judged from the fact that it required, in the
year 1840, 804 of them to produce 286,903 tons of
iron. The number of tons of malleable (bar) iron
produced for this year were 197,233, by 795 bloom-
eries, forges, and rolling-mills. It will be noted
from this statement that for the first time in the his-
tory of the industry the production of cast or pig
iron exceeded that from the bloomeries and forges ;
this was possibly owing to the fact that the puddling
process and other methods of refining from the pig-
iron instead of the ore, as in the case of forges and
bloomeries, were gradually being introduced. The
establishment of the puddling process as an adjunct
to the industry was of the very greatest importance,
as this method of refining iron was destined to sup-
plant all others and to continue in existence until in
turn replaced by newer methods of making mild steel
for structural purposes. No figures are published
for the monetary value of the product in 1840, but
if we assume the ton of pig-iron to have cost $30,
and the ton of hammered bar-iron $90, we obtain
$8,607,090, or nearly double the value of pig and
cast iron produced in 1830. The total value of the
bar-iron at this estimate would be $17,750,970. It
will be observed from these figures that the value of
the bar-iron increased since 1830 in a ratio greatly
less than that of the blast-furnace product, although
up to 1840 little or no iron was made in blast-fur-
naces using any other fuel than charcoal. In 1840
we arrive at a stage in the history of the American
iron industry when great changes were to be effected.
Notwithstanding the great supplies of timber still
available in even the more settled parts of the coun-
try, the relatively high cost of manufacturing char-
coal, and its enormous consumption in the furnace
per ton of iron produced, were serious obstacles to
the growth of the industry, even where a good sup-
ply of ore was well assured. The discovery a few
years previous of great deposits of anthracite coal
in northeastern Pennsylvania directed attention to
the utilization of this fuel in the manufacture of
iron. As early as 1835 l^e adaptation of anthracite
to the manufacture of iron began to attract atten-
tion. In that year the Franklin Institute offered a
gold medal " to the person who shall manufacture in
the United States the greatest quantity of iron from
ore during the year, using no other fuel than anthra-
cite coal, the quantity to be not less than twenty
tons." Mr. William F. Durfee, in his " History of the
Iron and Steel Industry of the United States," states
the medal was never awarded, and that it is fair to
assume that the required quantity of iron was not
manufactured in this manner. He further remarks
that there is abundant evidence to prove that from
1 830 to 1 840 a number of attempts to use mineral
fuel in smelting iron ores were made. The first prac-
tically successful attempt to produce pig-iron by the
use of anthracite was made by Mr. David Thomas
at Catasauqua, Pa. The furnace which he erected
there for this purpose was blown in on July 3, 1840,
and the first " cast " made on July 4th. This fur-
nace was equipped with a " hot blast " operated by
water-power, thus inaugurating in the United States,
simultaneously and at the same locality, two of the
greatest innovations in blast-furnace practice. This
furnace, producing from the original start fifty tons
of iron per week, continued in profitable operation
until the year 1879, when it was dismantled. The
earlier forms of hot-blast apparatus consisted essen-
tially of a series of nests of iron pipes heated exter-
nally by separate fires, the object being, in passing
the air from the blowing or blast engine through
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
these pipes, thereby greatly augmenting its tempera-
ture, not only to increase the heat in the furnace,
but to decrease the consumption of fuel per ton of
ore smelted. The invention of the hot blast was
patented by James B. Neilson, of Glasgow, in 1828,
and subsequently improved upon from time to time,
notably by Cowper and Whitwell, until at the pres-
ent time the increased heat of the blast is not only
obtained by the combustion of the waste gases from
the top of the furnace without the expenditure of
additional fuel, but the temperature obtained in the
modern regenerative fire-brick hot-blast stove has
been increased to 1200° Fahrenheit, whereas in the
older type of stove the temperature of the blast
probably seldom exceeded 600° Fahrenheit. The
use of the hot blast is perhaps the most important
improvement ever made in blast-furnace practice,
for without it the production of pig-iron as cheaply
and in such enormous quantities as at present would
have been impossible. Notwithstanding that the suc-
cess in smelting iron in blast-furnaces with anthracite
had been practically demonstrated in 1840, the gen-
eral use of this fuel appears to have grown slowly ; it
was ten or more years before the use of coal (either
anthracite, coke, or a mixture of the two) became
general, and the broad river valleys were illuminated
by the flames of the furnaces which produced for
Pennsylvania the wealth of an empire. In 1846 the
first furnace constructed with the intention of using
raw bituminous coal as fuel was successfully placed
in operation at Lowell, Mahoning County, O. Al-
though coke had been in general use in England for
a number of years, it was not, according to Over-
man, until 1837 that it was successfully used in the
United States in the blast-furnace at Lonaconing,
Alleghany County, Md. The manufacture of Con-
nellsville coke was commenced in 1841, but, accord-
ing to Weeks, it was not until a number of years
later, when railroad transportation had become more
fully developed, that its value as a furnace fuel be-
came thoroughly demonstrated. The period between
the years 1840 and 1850 was a most eventful one in
the history of the American iron industry. The in-
troduction of the improvements in smelting already
indicated, together with the use of steam-power for
propelling the blast and in performing other varieties
of work about the furnaces, its replacement of water-
power in operating rolling-mills and hammers, in
mining coal and ore, and the rapid growth of the
railroads, produced a stimulating effect probably
never before experienced in a similar degree by
any American industry. The railroads contributed
largely to the development of the iron industry in
two ways : directly, by rendering transportation com-
paratively cheap, thereby enlarging the iron market
and increasing the demand ; and indirectly, by cre-
ating in their construction a new and unprecedent-
edly large consumption of iron. The railroads, in
fact, have perhaps had more influence in shaping the
character of American industry than any one other
factor. As the production of iron increased in later
years, the older iron-ore deposits became exhausted,
or else proved inferior to the newly discovered ore-
beds of the Lake Superior region. The problem of
suitably locating a modern blast-furnace producing
from 9000 to 10,000 tons of pig-iron per month
became a serious one, and its solution has had the
effect of moving the geographical center of the iron
industry west of the Alleghany Mountains, nearer a
new and larger ore supply, yet handy to the coke
of Connellsville. It is a curious fact of economic
geology that the best iron-ore deposits in any part of
the world are seldom found in the vicinity of large
coal-fields. As it is essentially cheaper, considered
bulk for bulk, to transport the ore than the fuel a
long distance, we find to-day most of the larger iron-
producing establishments clustered in the immediate
vicinity of the coal-mines, where they will doubtless
remain until the supply of fuel is exhausted or until
radically different methods of obtaining the iron
from the ore are devised. In 1850 there were pro-
duced in the United States 563,755 tons of pig-iron
by 3 7 7 establishments, and wrought-iron to the value
of $22,629,271 in 552 establishments. Swank gives
no estimate of the amount of steel produced, but as
it is probable that most of the steel consumed in the
United States in this year was imported, the domes-
tic product must have been necessarily small.
The evolution of iron and steel plate making, par-
ticularly boiler-plates, which are of immense com-
mercial and industrial importance, forms an interest-
ing chapter in the growth of our great industry. As
I have stated, the pig-iron made early in the century
was either used for foundry purposes or was taken
to a Catalan forge, where it was reworked and
brought to the condition of wrought-iron. It was
then made into bar-iron or sheet-iron for commer-
cial use. About the year 1815, when steam began
to be used, Dr. Charles Lukens remodeled his mill
to produce a thicker plate for that purpose. The
bloom, as it was called, was reheated at the forge
and hammered as thin as possible, usually about
one and one half inches thick. It then went to the
rolling-mill, where it was laid on a bed of coal in
what was called a grate-furnace. After heating, it
was rolled into plates one quarter and three six-
324
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
teenths of an inch thick and sent to the boiler maker.
He, however, soon tired of shearing and having such
a quantity of scrap on his hands. The mill then
sheared the product into the regular commercial
sizes : forty-eight and forty-nine by twenty-six by
one quarter or three sixteenths ; or, if large enough,
it was sheared into plates sixty-eight and sixty-nine
by twenty-six, the scrap being cut into nails. Very
soon, however, the reverberatory furnace was intro-
duced, the scrap being arranged into piles of such
size as was necessary to produce the required plate,
heated to a welding heat, and rolled in the mill.
This state of things continued until the introduction
of the puddling furnace. In 1852 Congress passed
a law requiring all makers of boiler-plate to stamp
their names, place of business, and letter to indicate
whether charcoal or puddled, upon the goods pro-
duced. This led to a great amount of deception,
as there was no penalty ; and very soon the repu-
tation of the maker was the only safeguard. In
1872 Congress passed another law requiring the
maker of boiler-iron for marine boilers to stamp his
name and place of business upon it, with the tensile
strength which he would guarantee, under a penalty
of $2000 fine and imprisonment of two years for
fraudulent stamping, and making it obligatory for
the inspector to see that the law was complied with.
This also proved a dead letter until the present su-
pervising inspector-general, James A. Dumont, was
appointed in 1877, as appears by the report of the
Board of Inspectors to the Secretary of the Trea-
sury in January, 1878, and subsequent years. He at
once went to work and placed a testing-machine in
each of the ten districts, allowing no plate subject to
tensile strain to be used until after it had been tested
and approved. Feeling the necessity of a better
knowledge, I began, as soon as the law was passed,
to test my own manufacture, and when General Du-
mont came into office he requested the makers of
boiler-plate to appoint a committee to come to
Washington and appear before the full Board of
Inspectors to devise " a set of rules which would
protect the public without unnecessary hardship to
the manufacturer." I was appointed chairman of
that committee, and after several consultations the
rules at present in use were adopted, very little
alteration having been found necessary since their
adoption. In connection with this subject I pub-
lished in the " Franklin Institute Journal " for Feb-
ruary, 1878, an article upon ''The Strength and
Ductility of Iron and Steel Boiler- Plate at Different
Temperatures," and another in January, 1879, upon
"The Effect of Continued and Progressively In-
creasing Strain upon Iron." The Hartford Steam-
Boiler Insurance Company about this time wrote
to me for a standard for steel, which was given to
them, and still forms their standard. It places the
tensile strength of boiler-steel at 55,000 to 60,000
pounds to the square inch, with an elongation of
twenty-five per cent, in eight inches. In reference
to this rule, I have recently written to Mr. J. M.
Allen, president of the Hartford Steam-Boiler Insur-
ance Company, who has had eighteen years' testing
practice, and quote from his letter in reply :
"You told me at that time that you thought it
would be from 55,000 to 60,000 tensile strength on
the specimen tested, with an elongation of twenty-
five per cent, in eight inches. We had various tests
made about the same time, and have since had
them made on other machines, more particularly
at Watertown Arsenal, Massachusetts, and we have
found that your opinion in regard to this matter
has been carried out in every instance, and we now
vary but little from it in our requirements, except in
some cases where the steel is to be used for special
purposes, where we have gone a little over 60,000
tensile strength ; but our standard rule does not ex-
ceed 60,000, and as to the elongation of twenty-five
per cent, in eight inches, we have never changed
that. We have found the ductility ample in most
cases in connection with the thousands of boilers
which we have insured."
It has now become the practice in all engineering
work to fix some standard, and there is hardly a day
that we do not have one or more inspectors in our
mill ; so that what a very few years ago was : nerely a
rule of thumb is now reduced to a rule by which the
quality of all iron or steel is weighed and measured.
The period in the development of the iron indus-
try between the years 1850 and 1860 was not char-
acterized by the introduction of any such changes or
innovations as in the preceding decade. The most
important changes appear to have been in increas-
ing the efficiency of the rolling-mill machinery and
appliances then in use, as, for example, the invention
of the " three-high " roll-train ; the introduction of
mills for rolling beams, by Cooper & Hewitt, at Tren-
ton, N. J. ; and the invention in 1848 of the "uni-
versal mill," by Daelin, a German engineer, which
invention found its way to America some twelve
years later. Between the years 1850 and 1860 the
production increased steadily, if slowly, foreign com-
petition being at this time a particularly serious ob-
stacle to overcome. In fact, in the manufacture of
the finer qualities of steel, no progress was made up
to the year 1860. The first edition of "Appleton's
CHARLES HUSTON.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Cyclopedia," printed that year, states that " Ameri-
can cast-steel is hardly known in the markets." Ac-
cording to the census of 1860, 97 establishments in
the United States produced 51,290 tons of blooms,
valued at $2,623,178 ; 286 establishments produced
987,559 tons of pig-iron, worth $20,870,120; 256
establishments produced 513,213 tons of rolled iron,
worth $31,888,705; 13 establishments produced
11,838 tons of steel, worth $1,778,240. These last
figures probably refer to the crude or cheaper grades
of steel, if the statement in " Appleton's Cyclopedia "
be correct. Such was the condition of the American
iron industry at the beginning of the decade which
saw the country in the throes of the most dreadful
war of modern times. During the years 1861-65
the resources of the iron industry in the Northern
States were taxed to their utmost to provide the
Federal armies with war material and the navy with
guns and projectiles. The industry in the South,
strained at an early day beyond its feeble capacity,
soon broke down, and most of the requirements of
the Confederate armies were supplied from abroad.
In the train of dire disaster wrought by the Civil
War some good to the iron industry may be found ;
for not only did iron ships make their appearance
in the navy, but the application of iron plates or
"armor" to their sides had its inception. The
American iron-clad monitors which made their ap-
pearance at this period were not, as has been popu-
larly supposed, the first armor-clad vessels ever con-
structed, since in 1859 the French built the frigate
Gloirc, which was armored with iron plates five inches
in thickness. The British, not to be outdone by
their ancient naval foes, constructed in 1 86 1 the mag-
nificent frigate Warrior, which was protected on its
sides by solid iron plates four and one half inches in
thickness. As regards armor, either of these vessels
was much better protected than any of our monitors
constructed during the Civil War. It appears doubt-
ful if we possessed any rolling-mills at this period
capable of producing as heavy iron armor-plate as
was then made abroad, for we find the first monitor
was protected by armor consisting of from six to
eight thicknesses of one-inch iron plates bolted one
on the other with overlapping joints. The later ves-
sels were probably protected in much the same way
by armor made up of a greater number of similar
one-inch plates. One of the marked incidences in
the history of the iron industry between the years
1860 and 1870 was the gradual abandonment of the
production of iron in districts remote from the coal-
fields, charcoal-iron continuing, as at present, to
be made in large quantities, its superior qualities
for certain purposes rendering the demand fairly
uniform.
In the New England States, containing no coal
deposits, but some fairly good iron ores, all the iron
smelted in the earlier days was by use of charcoal.
As the timber supply decreased and the competition
from furnaces more favorably located became greater,
the industry began to wane, and gradually, one after
the other, the old furnaces were abandoned and dis-
mantled, until to-day scarcely any remain. In 1855
and 1856, Henry Bessemer, of London, obtained
patents for a process of converting molten pig-iron
into steel by forcing small jets of cold air through
the molten iron ; but he did not achieve success
with his invention until a modification of the process
was patented by Robert F. Mushet. Mushet's im-
provement consisted in adding to the molten steel,
after the blast had been stopped, a sufficient quan-
tity of spiegeleisen (an alloy of iron and manganese)
to neutralize the oxide of iron caused by blowing and
to give the steel the proper degree of hardness and
fluidity. In 1856 Bessemer obtained two United
States patents for his invention, but was immediately
confronted by a claim of priority of invention pre-
ferred by William Kelly, a native of Pittsburg, Pa.
The result of this incident was that Kelly obtained
a patent, but did not appear to avail himself of his
success, and the introduction of the pneumatic or, as
it is now universally termed, Bessemer process was
delayed several years. Since neither Bessemer's
nor Kelly's United States patents could be made of
much practical value without the control of those of
Mushet, it became necessary, in order to create the
Bessemer-steel industry in this country, to consoli-
date all the conflicting interests, which was done in
1866; and the first plant to produce the steel as a
commercial article was put in successful operation
by the Pennsylvania Steel Company at Steelton,
near Harrisburg, Pa., June, 1867. The first steel
rails ever rolled in the United States upon order in
the way of regular business were rolled by the Cam-
bria Iron Company, Johnstown, Pa., August, 1867,
from ingots made by the Pennsylvania Steel Com-
pany. The production of Bessemer steel in the year
1867 was 3000 tons, the industry continuing to grow
with rapid strides. In 1890, 4,131,535 tons were
produced. Of these amounts, 2550 tons were made
into rails in 1867, and 2,091,978 tons in 1890. In
the year 1891 3,247,417 tons and in 1892 4,168,435
tons of ingots were produced. The output of 1892
was the largest in our history, but in 1893 and 1894
it decreased about eighteen and twelve per cent, re-
spectively. The importance of the invention of the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Bessemer process to the world in general and the
United States in particular cannot be overestimated,
since it has reached a development with us greater
than in any other country in the world. In 1890
the total amount of all varieties of steel made in
the United States was 35.2 per cent, of the entire
world's product. The rapid and enormous develop-
ment of the Bessemer-steel industry in the United
States is attributable to the great extension of our
railroads, as nearly all the steel rails used in their
construction were made of this material. Within
recent years Bessemer-steel ingots are becoming
largely used in the manufacture of black and tinned
plates.
The open-hearth steel process had its inception
in the year 1856, when the Siemens Brothers, who
were natives of Germany, but then residents in Lon-
don, perfected what is now generally known as the
Siemens regenerative gas-furnace, without which no
open-hearth steel can be made. In 1864, Messrs.
Emile and Pierre Martin, of the Sireuil works in
France, erected, with the assistance of Dr. Siemens,
one of the regenerative gas-furnaces to convert steel
in an open-hearth or reverberatory furnace of their
own construction. This scheme was a success from
the start, and by a subsequent consolidation of the
Siemens and Martin inventions a steel-making appa-
ratus was devised, known as the Siemens-Martin or
open-hearth process. The first open-hearth furnace
introduced into this country for the manufacture of
steel by the Siemens-Martin process was built in 1868
by F. J. Slade for Cooper, Hewitt & Company, at
the works of the New Jersey Steel and Iron Com-
pany, at Trenton, N. J. The building of this fur-
nace was commenced in the spring of 1868, and in
December of the same year it was successfully put in
operation. In 1870 the production of open-hearth
steel in the United States was 1 500 tons, and in 1890
574,820 tons, the industry showing a rapid develop-
ment during the intervening twenty years. Great
Britain is at present the largest producer of open-
hearth steel in the world, and in this branch of the
iron industry the United States is still somewhat
behind its great rival. In 1890 Great Britain pro-
duced 1,564,200 tons, as against 574,820 tons in
the United States. In 1894 the production in the
United States amounted to 784,936 tons, and in
Great Britain 1,575,318 tons, of which 104,531 tons
were made by the basic process. From the present
indications it seems probable that the production of
open-hearth steel_ in the United States for the year
1895 will reach nearly 1,000,000 tons, and that it
will not be many years before it equals that of Great
Britain. The so-called " basic " open-hearth process,
although having been in successful operation in Eu-
rope for a number of years, did not have its incep-
tion in the United States until the year 1888, when
a number of such furnaces were constructed at the
works of Carnegie, Phipps & Company, at Home-
stead, near Pittsburg, Pa. The manufacture of the
basic open-hearth steel has developed slowly in the
United States, and it does not seem likely to increase
with great rapidity as long as the supply of cheap
and excellent iron ore from the Lake Superior region
continues undiminished. During the remarkable
boom in the iron industry of the Southern States a
few years ago we heard much about the possibilities
of making steel by the basic process in this part of
the United States, the cheaply available iron ores of
this section being assumed to be particularly suitable
to the production of steel in this manner. These
expectations, however, appear to have failed to
be realized. Without going into technicalities, the
basic open-hearth process may be briefly defined as
an ordinary open-hearth plant whose furnace lining
is made of a basic material, such as dolomitic lime-
stone or the mineral magnesite. When pig-iron con-
taining a sufficiently great quantity of phosphorus to
render it unfit for conversion into steel by any other
method is melted in a furnace thus constructed, the
basic lining, together with a basic flux which is
added, removes the objectionable phosphorus and
renders (other conditions being normal), in most
cases, the resulting steel equal to that prepared in
the open-hearth furnace in the old and usual man-
ner. The purposes for which open-hearth steel is
ordinarily adapted are quite different from those for
which the Bessemer steel is most suitable ; but the
converse of this fact, however, is not true, since
open-hearth steel may be and frequently is used to
an equal, if not greater, advantage wherever Bes-
semer steel is employed. In this country, at least,
all high-grade structural material, such as boiler and
ship plate, bridge and building members, high-grade
castings, etc., is almost invariably of open-hearth
steel, which is generally considered, and doubtless is,
more uniform in quality than soft steel made by the
Bessemer method.
One of the most curious phases in the history of
the American iron industry is the fact that although
the United States at one time consumed nearly sixty
per cent, of the world's entire production of tinned
plates, with the exception of a few sporadic attempts
in 1873 and 1875, no tin or terne plates were made
in the United States until the year 1891. This
phenomenon cannot be explained by the fact that
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
this country mines or produces no tin, because Great
Britain, since the practical exhaustion of her Cornish
deposits, has been similarly situated, and is obliged
to import over two thirds of the tin consumed from
the East Indies, whence comes, also, most of the tin
used in the United States. According to the report
of Colonel Ira Ayer, special agent of the Treasury
Department, the total amount of tin and terne plate
produced in the United States in the year ending
June 30, 1892, was 13,646,719 pounds or 6092 gross
tons; for the year ending June 30, 1893, — which
was a very bad year for the iron trade, — 99,819,202
pounds or 44,563 gross tons ; the year ending June
30, 1894, 139,223,467 pounds or 62,153 gross tons;
and, finally, the year ending June 30, 1895, 193,801,-
073 pounds or 86,518 gross tons. In 1889 the im-
ports of tin and terne plate from Great Britain into
the United States were 331,311 gross tons, having
a foreign value of $21,726,707. Great Britain fur-
nished virtually all the tin-plate used in the United
States during the twenty years ending 1 890. No bet-
ter evidence of the success of our domestic tin-plate
industry could be afforded than the fact that our im-
ports have steadily decreased since 1889, those for
the year 1894 being 215,068 gross tons, having a
foreign value of $12,053,167. It will be observed
from the figures given for the American production
that the industry has increased more than fourteen-
fold in four years. Verily this industry is here to
stay, and it is not too much to expect that within a
very few years we will be able to supply our entire
domestic demand, and importations will practically
cease.
If the history of the development of the American
blast-furnace practice were written it would form a
large book of itself, and it is therefore only possible
in this sketch to mention very briefly some of the
most important factors which influenced it. I have
already intimated how the introduction of the hot
blast, coke-fuel, and the use of steam-power in-
creased the efficiency of many of the furnaces. In
1870 most of the blast-furnaces in operation were
still very primitive, and although no statistics for
that year are given, it is probable that the best of
them did not produce as an average over fifty tons
of pig-iron per day, whereas in 1895 the production
of 300 tons per day is a common occurrence, and
in exceptional cases 350 to 400 tons per day have
been made by some of our best furnaces. The fol-
lowing table from the United States census reports
exhibits the rate of production of pig-iron in the
different sections of the United States during the
twenty years ending in 1890 :
PRODUCTION OF PIG-IRON.
DISTRICT.
Tom or jooo POWM.
YKAR INDINC.
MAY 31, 1870.
Y«A» EKDiNc.
MAY 31, 1880.
YRAK iMnmo
JUNE 30, 1890.
New England States . . .
Middle States
34,47'
1,311,649
184,540
522,l6l
30.957
2,401,093
350.436
995-335
3,200
33.781
5,216,591
1,780,909
2,5*2,351
26,147
Southern States
Western States
Far Western States
Totals
2,052,821
3,781,021
9,579,779
From the above figures it will be noted that the
manufacture of pig-iron in New England was prac-
tically stationary for the period of twenty years
ending in 1890. Between this date and 1895 it has
steadily decreased, the total amount produced in
1894 being 7572 tons. During the twenty years
between 1870 and 1890 production in the Middle
States had nearly quadrupled, in the Western States
increased nearly five times, and in the Southern States
nearly ten times. The production of pig-iron in the
United States for the census year 1890 was 9,202,-
703 gross tons, the largest in the history of the coun-
try ; in fact, larger than that of any other nation in
the world, being 616,023 tons >n excess of the pro-
duction of Great Britain in 1882 — the greatest on
record. In 1870 Great Britain produced 5,963,515
tons of pig-iron ; in 1880, 7,749,233 I in 1890, 7,904,-
214; in 1894, 7,364,745. The United States pro-
duced in 1891 8,279,870 tons of pig-iron; in 1892,
9,157,000 ; in 1893, 7,124,502 ; in 1894, 6,657,388.
It will thus be observed that, owing to the general
depression in the iron business during these latter
years, the production has gradually decreased and
fallen considerably short of that in Great Britain dur-
ing the same period. The production in 1895, how-
ever, will probably show a great increase, although
it is not likely to equal that of the phenomenal year
1890.
A sketch of the American iron industry in the past
hundred years would be incomplete without some
reference to the introduction of the manufacture of
armor-plate into the United States. This class of
material not only has a peculiar and limited demand,
but its manufacture requires the highest degree of
metallurgical and mechanical skill, together with an
exceptionally expensive plant. When the reconstruc-
tion of the United States navy was begun, some ten
years ago, we had absolutely no facilities for mak-
ing the simplest kind of armor-plate, although pos-
sessing some of the largest steel-works in the world.
328
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
One of the first of the new armored vessels com-
pleted (the monitor Miantonomoh) was protected by
" compound " plates imported from England. All
the large forgings for the guns and shafts of the
earlier ships were likewise imported. Owing to the
wise and liberal policy of Congress, the Bethlehem
Iron Company and Carnegie, Phipps & Company,
of Pittsburg, were induced to erect expensive plants
necessary for making not only the heavy gun-forg-
ings required, but also for all the different grades
and thicknesses of armor-plate. In 1891 these
firms began to supply armor for the ships in course
of construction, although at first their output of fin-
ished armor was extremely slow. The delays have
now been slowly overcome, and at the present time
there is little doubt that these great steel-works will
be able to supply the armor as fast as new ships are
constructed. How successful these works have been
in furnishing our government with the best grades of
armor-plate could have no better illustration than
the fact that the Bethlehem Iron Company is now
supplying foreign governments with armor for their
ships. The only two important iron and steel com-
modities which the iron industry of the United States
did not supply in 1890 (tin-plate and armor-plate)
are at present being made in large quantities, and
the year 1895 sees this country for the first time in
its history absolutely independent as regards the pro-
duction of every important variety of iron and steel.
Vast improvement has been made in the machi-
nery necessary to manipulate iron and steel. The
Bethlehem Iron Company has, I believe, the largest
hammer in the world, of 125 tons' capacity. This
hammer was built by Mr. John Fritz and put into
successful operation in 1891. The Bethlehem Iron
Company and Carnegie, Phipps & Company are now
prepared to make the heaviest forgings required for
armor-plate, heavy shaftings, etc., up to forty to
fifty tons in weight. Long previous to this, how-
ever, Mr. Fritz, while at Cambria, put into success-
ful operation the three-high roll-train invented by
him (and afterward adapted to plate-mills by Mr.
Lauth) ; and his brother, Mr. George Fritz, in-
vented what is known as the " automatic tables," all
of which improvements enable the manufacturer to
successfully handle almost any weight of ingot. I
well remember when a 5oo-pound mass of iron was
thought to be so heavy that the whole neighborhood
gathered in to see it rolled. The necessity of han-
dling such very heavy weights as could be made from
ingots cast in large masses brought into play the in-
vention of hydraulic machinery, so that we now have
pumps to produce any required pressure in a series
of pipes which deliver the water to the hydraulic
engines in any part of the works. By simply turn-
ing a valve now a boy will pick up a heavy ingot
(say of io,ooo-pound weight) with his hydraulic
crane and deliver it anywhere within reach of the
crane. If on a car, it may then be taken by a small
locomotive to the rolling-mill, where another crane
picks it up and puts it into the furnace, and, after
heating to the required degree, takes it out and de-
livers it to the machinery at the rolls ; then the auto-
matic tables push it back and forth through the rolls
until it is reduced to the required dimensions. The
same tables now take it to the shears, which are also
operated by hydraulic power, and the plate, some-
times two inches thick, is sheared ready for ship-
ment. All this is done with more ease than was
possible a few years ago. Within the last few years
electricity has been brought into play to do some of
the heavy work, being for some things even more
available than hydraulics.
In this brief account of the evolution of this
great industry I have been much indebted for infor-
mation to Mr. James M. Swank, secretary and gen-
eral manager of the American Iron and Steel Asso-
ciation, and author of the elaborate work, " Iron in
All Ages." My space has been too limited to more
than outline the vast subject, but I have endeavored
to give a slight idea of the giant in iron production
our country has become in so short a space of time.
CHAPTER XLVII
COPPER AND BRASS
THE Naugatuck River has its sources in the
hills of northwestern Connecticut, and flows
southward for about forty miles to its junction
with the Housatonic River at Derby, taking its course
through a narrow, winding valley, between steep,
well- wooded hills, that rise directly from the river-
bank to a considerable height. From Torrington,
at the head of the valley, to Derby, there is a fall
of about 600 feet. Four times, within six miles from
its mouth, the water is diverted from its channel by
dams, and held in large reservoirs to furnish water-
power. Further up the valley, wherever it broadens
to give room for a village or a city, there are water
privileges, and the power is utilized for manufactur-
ing purposes.
In this narrow valley, which contains a popula-
tion of more than 80,000 people, evidence of thrift
and prosperity is everywhere seen in the neat, com-
fortable homes of the workingmen, and the fine
houses of their employers. This is the seat of the
brass-rolling industry of America. Ten great cor-
porations are here directly engaged in this business,
producing about three fourths of the total quantity
of rolled brass manufactured in the United States,
giving direct employment to 8200 persons, and indi-
rectly to many thousands more. Nearly 100,000,-
ooo pounds of copper, or about one half the total
quantity of this metal consumed in the United
States, are conveyed annually to the Naugatuck
Valley for use in these manufacturing establishments.
The Naugatuck is a capricious stream. It is sub-
ject to freshets in the early spring months, while in
the summer there is often a scarcity of water. The
valley of the Housatonic River, running parallel
with the Naugatuck through Connecticut, furnishes
better water privileges, and broader plains for laying
out towns and cities; but in the Naugatuck Valley
were found the men of foresight, energy, and ac-
tivity who could originate great enterprises and
carry them to completion. They began the brass-
rolling industry sixty-five years ago. Its develop-
ment and progress with the growth of the country
are due to the energy and ability of those who have
conducted the business and furnished the necessary
capital for its enlargement. The causes that have
led to the concentration of so large a proportion of
this industry in the Naugatuck Valley are more
complex. The cheap power afforded by the water
privileges in the valley undoubtedly led to the es-
tablishment there of the first rolling-mills, which, as
they increased in size and capacity, finally outgrew
the water-power, and are at the present day operated
by steam, or by steam and water-power together.
An abundant supply of pure water is always neces-
sary in a brass-mill for washing the metal, for fire
protection, and for use in condensers in connection
with steam-power; and the water-supply from the
Naugatuck River is very useful for such purposes,
as well as for power.
The mills originally established in the valley
have enlarged and extended from time to time to
keep pace with the growing demand for brass. Ac-
cording to the general law governing the concen-
tration of kindred industries and trades in particular
localities, new mills were started there, even after
the water-power had ceased to be a determining
factor in the problem of location. Other advan-
tages, such as the cheapness and accessibility of
wood of the variety best suited for annealing pur-
poses, were among the causes that held the trade in
the valley. Then, too, there arose a race of work-
men skilled from generation to generation in the
mixing, rolling, and manipulation of brass; and
as time went on and competition increased, the
production of rolled metal becoming less profitable,
many of the rolling-mills began remanufacturing
their own metal. Other corporations were formed,
some being direct offshoots from the brass-mills,
329
330
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
until the location became what it is to-day; a
great center for the reworking and consumption of
metal. There are many reasons why it is desirable
that a brass-mill should not be too far from the
place where its product is chiefly consumed, and
thus it happens that, while a few brass manufac-
tories are operated in other parts of the country,
the Naugatuck Valley still is and probably will re-
main the seat of the brass-rolling industry in Amer-
ica. Other enterprises, such as the rolling of iron
and steel, thrive best where their raw material, their
fuel and labor, are cheapest and most accessible,
transportation, labor, and fuel being great factors
in the cost of the product; but the brass manu-
facturer, working a high-priced raw material, and
bringing his finished product to the point of nicety
in gauge and quality, finds the cost of labor, fuel,
and transportation factors of far less importance
relatively, and he is governed largely by other
considerations in his choice of locality. There-
fore, while the shifting centers of the manufac-
ture of iron and steel are marked throughout the
country by abandoned furnaces, the seat of the
brass-rolling industry remains to-day where it was
established sixty-five years ago, it being a note-
worthy fact that, with hardly an exception, all of the
brass-mills which are operated outside of the State
of Connecticut were constructed and are carried on
by Connecticut men.
Israel Coe, a farmer of Connecticut, John Hun-
gerford, of Connecticut, and Anson G. Phelps, a
capitalist of New York and founder of the house of
Phelps, Dodge & Company, were pioneers in brass-
manufacturing in this country, and in 1834 they
built a brass-mill at Wolcottville, now Torrington,
Conn. Previous to 1830, brass was imported, or
manufactured here in a very primitive way. As
early as 1811, James G. Moffett, of New York, rolled
brass in small quantities, using for power a sweep
actuated by oxen. In 1802, the manufacture of
gilt buttons was begun in Connecticut by Abel Por-
ter & Company. At that time these buttons were
articles of fashionable use. To obtain brass for this
purpose, the mixture was cast in ingots at Water-
bury, and taken to Bradleyville, near Litchfield,
Conn., where there was an iron-mill driven by
water-power; here it was broken down and rolled
into strips, and returned in a rough state to the but-
ton factory in Waterbury, where it was rolled thin-
ner by being passed between two rolls two inches in
diameter, driven by horse-power. The copper for
brass-making was obtained from old boilers which
had been used in distilleries and in sugar-making.
This copper was cast into ingots and mixed with
spelter, which was obtained from abroad. In 1808,
Abel Porter & Company purchased the water-power
now owned by the Scovill Manufacturing Company at
Waterbury, and soon afterward put in rolls suitable
for breaking down and finishing brass. For a period
of about twenty years they rolled brass, but it does
not appear that their production was any more than
enough to supply their own requirements. In 1830,
the firm of Holmes, Hotchkiss, Brown & Elton es-
tablished a mill and engaged in the manufacture of
sheet brass at Waterbury. This was substantially
the beginning of the sheet-brass business in America,
although the metal, in small quantities, may have
been occasionally supplied to consumers before that
time by the firm of J. M. L. & W. H. Scovill, and by
Benedict & Coe, of Waterbury.
There was at that time also a demand for brass
kettles, which were manufactured in England by a
process known as the " battery " process : that is,
they were hammered into shape from metal blanks.
The establishment of the mill at Torrington, at the
head of the Naugatuck Valley, in 1834, was for the
purpose of rolling brass for use in manufacturing
these kettles, and to supply the growing demand of
the button factories. A small rolling-mill was built,
with machinery imported from England, and Israel
Holmes, of Waterbury, was engaged as manager of
the mill. There was great difficulty in securing
workmen competent to carry on the business. Mr.
Holmes was sent to England, and succeeded in
procuring a few experienced men. He afterward
made another trip abroad for the same purpose, but
the English manufacturers, fearful of losing their
American trade, endeavored to prevent him from
hiring their men, and it was with great difficulty and
some danger to himself that he succeeded in em-
barking a colony of workmen and their families,
about thirty persons in all. These were landed at
Philadelphia, taken in a schooner from there to
Hartford, Conn., from which place they proceeded
on foot through the woods, a distance of twenty-
five miles, to Torrington.
From this small beginning, and with no end of
difficulty and discouragement, the enterprise con-
tinued to grow. Local competition arose, and in
1840, Edwin Hodges, of West Torrington, started a
mill for the purpose of making brass kettles, and
also for drawing brass wire. This seems to have
been the first brass-wire-drawing establishment in
this country. It was located in Cotton Hollow, in
the town of Torrington. The enterprise was un-
successful, and the mill was soon closed, with the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
331
loss of all the capital invested. In 1841, the origi-
nal enterprise at Torrington was made into a stock
company, with a capital of $56,000. It was named
The Wolcottville Brass Company, and the incorpo-
rators were John Hungerford, Anson G. Phelps, and
Israel Coe. The records of this company for the first
few years of its existence contain some interesting
details. The copper used was imported from Chile,
or was obtained in the form of old copper, which
was collected from different places throughout the
country. The price of copper was then eighteen and
three fourth cents per pound. Spelter, which was im-
ported, cost eight and three eighth cents per pound.
The fuel used was mainly wood, but some Lehigh
coal was procured, which cost, at Hartford, $8.43
per ton, to which was to be added the cost of trans-
portation by teams from Hartford to Wolcottville.
Fire-brick for the furnaces cost $60 per 1000. The
manufactured product, in the form of rolled and
sheet brass, was valued at twenty-six to thirty cents
per pound. It was taken by teams either to Water-
bury, or twenty-five miles across a hilly country to
Hartford, and from there shipped on sloops to New
York. Upon the site of the works occupied by the
Wolcottville Brass Company are to-day the great
factories of the Coe Brass Manufacturing Company.
The name of Anson G. Phelps is perpetuated by the
city of Ansonia the Ansonia Brass and Copper Com-
pany, and the Ansonia Clock Company, as well as by
the firm of Phelps, Dodge & Company, which he
founded ; and the name of Israel Holmes appears in
the title of the corporation of Holmes, Booth & Hay-
dens, of Waterbury.
The decade from 1840 to 1850 saw the birth of
many of the prominent brass-manufacturing corpo-
rations of the present day. In 1843 a joint-stock
company, at Waterbury, was organized under the
title of the Benedict & Bumham Manufacturing
Company, with a paid-up capital of $100,000.
Aaron Benedict was president and treasurer, and
John S. Mitchell secretary. Mr. Aaron Benedict
continued at the head of the company until his
death in 1873. This company now operates exten-
sive works, and gives employment to 967 persons,
manufacturing brass, German silver, etc., and re-
manufacturing metal.
The Waterbury Brass Company began business in
1845 with a capital of $40,000. Among the incor-
porators were John P. Elton, Lyman W. Coe, Israel
Holmes, and Hobart V. Welton. They now give
employment to 525 persons, and manufacture brass,
brass wire, etc., and also remanufacture.
In 1849 the Naugatuck Railroad was completed,
and the product of the valley mills was thereafter
shipped by rail to tidewater at Bridgeport.
In 1848 Thomas Wallace and his sons, John,
William, and Thomas, began the business of wire-
drawing at Birmingham, Conn. Their cash capital
was $500. Their knowledge of their trade enabled
them to increase their business, and in a few years
they built a factory at Ansonia, which has since
been greatly enlarged. At present it is conducted
under the name of Wallace & Sons, and gives em-
ployment to 646 persons, in manufacturing brass and
copper wire, and remanufacturing.
The Scovill Manufacturing Company, of Water-
bury, succeeded the firm of J. M. L. & W. H. Sco-
vill, and was incorporated in 1850, with a capital of
$200,000, which has since been increased. They
now manufacture brass, German silver, etc., employ-
ing 1650 persons, and are extensive remanufacturers
of metal.
The Coe Brass Manufacturing Company, of Tor-
rington, Conn., was founded by Lyman W. Coe in
1863, and succeeded the Wolcottville Brass Com-
pany. Lyman W. Coe, the son of Israel Coe, was
the president of the corporation, which began busi-
ness with a capital of $100,000. Their capital has
been increased from time to time, and they now em-
ploy 650 persons, manufacturing brass, German sil-
ver, tubes, wire, etc. They do not remanufacture.
In 1844 Anson G. Phelps purchased extensive
lands in the vicinity of what is now the city of An-
sonia, which was founded by him, and named in his
honor. He constructed a dam across the Nauga-
tuck River, a canal, large reservoirs for water-power,
and built a mill for rolling copper. The firm of
Phelps, Dodge & Co. had for some years prior to
1844 operated a copper rolling-mill at Birmingham,
Conn. The water privilege at Ansonia is now
owned and operated by the Ansonia Land and
Water-Power Company, and is the source of water-
power for the city of Ansonia. Mr. Phelps brought
from the Wolcottville works J. H. Bartholomew and
George P. Cowles, who managed the business at
Ansonia under the name of the Ansonia Brass and
Battery Company, the term " battery " being indic-
ative of the process by which brass kettles were
hammered from metal blanks. This method of
making kettles was in use until 1851, when it gave
place to a patented process for spinning kettles from
circular blanks of metal. The business of the An-
sonia Brass and Battery Company was conducted
by the firm of Phelps, Dodge & Company of New
York. A brass-mill was built, and later a wire-mill.
The company afterward engaged in the manufac-
332
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ture of clocks. In 1869 this manufacturing enter-
prise was incorporated under the name of The
Ansonia Brass and Copper Company. In 1877 the
manufacture and sale of clocks had increased to
such an extent that it was decided to form a new
joint-stock corporation under the name of The An-
sonia Clock Company, which began business on
January i, 1878. The location of this part of the
company's business was transferred to Brooklyn,
N. Y., where large factories were erected and are
now in operation. The ownership and management
of the two companies are practically the same.
They operate at Ansonia four factories, where they
give employment to 1125 persons, and in the fac-
tories in Brooklyn 1000 persons are employed.
They manufacture at Ansonia sheet brass, sheet cop-
per, wire, tubing, etc. They also remanufacture their
metal, making brass bedsteads and other articles.
During many years brass manufacturing was con-
ducted on what would now be regarded as a very
small scale, and, although the methods pursued at
the present day are substantially the same as at the
beginning, wonderful progress has been made in
cheapening these methods, and improving the qual-
ity of the articles manufactured. It is stated that in
the early forties it was customary for the manufac-
turers at Waterbury annually to appoint a committee
to make the long journey to Baltimore for the pur-
pose of purchasing copper for the season's supply.
At that time the purchase of 500,000 pounds of cop-
per was sufficient for a year's supply for these manu-
facturers. At present that quantity would not supply
the demand of the Naugatuck Valley for two days.
Copper and spelter being the metals from which
brass is made, a brief account of the sources of sup-
ply from which these materials are obtained will
throw some light upon the development of the busi-
ness of brass and copper rolling. The first copper-
mine worked in the United States was the Sims-
bury Mine, at Granby, in Connecticut. The record
of this mine extends back to the year 1705. It was
worked until 1770, but was not profitable, and
only a small quantity of ore was taken out. Dur-
ing the War of the Revolution it was used as a
prison, and to-day it is an object of interest to those
who are curiously inclined. About the year 1719,
the Schuyler Mine, near Belleville, N. J., was
opened and became one of a number of small
mines which were worked in that section of the
country for a series of years following. The Gap
Mine, in Lancaster, Pa., was started in 1732. The
production of copper from all these openings, how-
ever, was of very little commercial importance, and
until the Lake Superior region became a source of
supply, the consumers of copper in the United
States had to procure their raw material in Chile.
It was brought to this country in the form of pigs,
and refined near Boston, at Baltimore, and at other
points along the coast. In 1844, the Cliff Mine,
near Eagle River, Lake Superior, was opened, and
in 1845 regular records of production were begun.
The great development of the copper-mining in-
dustry at Lake Superior soon placed the United
States in the front ranks of the copper-producing
countries of the world, and the product of these
mines, being of a quality much finer than the cop-
per produced abroad, naturally took the place of
the foreign product for home consumption. Cop-
per production in the United States from 1845 to
1880 kept pace with home consumption, a com-
paratively small quantity being exported up to the
last-named period, so that the record of the cop-
per produced in the United States between the
periods named will indicate the progress made in
manufactures of brass and copper. Beginning in
1845 with a product of too tons (which was much
less than the quantity required for home consump-
tion), the record as shown by periods of ten years
is as follows: 1850, 650 tons; 1860, 7200 tons;
1870, 12,600 tons; 1880, 27,000 tons.
Very little copper was imported to the United
States after 1860. In 1879 the Lake Superior
region furnished about eighty-three per cent, of the
total quantity of copper produced in the United
States, but after 1880 the opening of the copper-
mining regions of Arizona and Montana increased
the output largely beyond the quantity required for
use here. A heavy exportation at once followed,
and this country became one of the world's great
sources of supply of copper. The quantity of cop-
per produced in the United States in 1894 was
157,814 long tons, of which there were consumed
here 78,687 tons, and the quantity exported was
75,737 tons.
A fair estimate of the average price of copper in
the United States from 1845 to 1859 is twenty
cents per pound. From 1859 to 1876 the yearly
average price of copper varied from twenty and a
half cents to thirty-two cents per pound, with the
exception that in the years 1864 and 1865 the price
was advanced, so that in 1864 the average price of
Lake Superior copper was forty-six and one fourth
cents per pound, and in 1865 thirty-six and one
fourth cents. Since 1876 there has been a gradual
decline in the yearly average price, which was
eighteen and five eighth cents in 1877, and eleven
ALFRED A. COWLES.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
and one fourth cents in 1887. In 1894 the price
touched nine cents per pound, which is the lowest
point recorded. The price at present is twelve cents
per pound. Since we became great exporters of
copper, the price of this metal in the United States
has been nearly at a parity with the price in Eu-
rope. With increased production the cost of min-
ing has been greatly reduced, while improvements
in metallurgy, and methods of electrolytic extrac-
tion, have brought into the market great quantities
of copper suitable for the finest work from sources
which formerly furnished only coarse and ordinary
grades of material. In former years the tariff upon
copper had affected the price of the raw material
in this country, often enabling the mining compa-
nies to obtain from the consumer at home a higher
rate than that which ruled abroad. The price of
copper in this country was sometimes sustained by
arrangement between the mining companies, who
would market the copper here at a fixed price,
and ship their surplus product abroad at a con-
siderably lower rate. The American brass manu-
facturer was, therefore, usually confined to a home
market for his product, and the statement that, in
certain cases, he succeeded in taking large foreign
contracts for brass, with the disadvantage of having
to pay a higher price than his competitor abroad,
not only for his raw material but for his labor and
supplies, is the best possible tribute to the excellent
quality of his work. Ingot copper was admitted to
this country, duty-free, until the Act of July 30,
1846, when a duty of five per cent, was imposed.
The Act of March 3, 1857, restored copper to the
free list. Subsequent duties were imposed upon
copper: in 1861 of two cents per pound, and after
that period of from two and a half to five cents per
pound. The McKinley Bill made the duty one and
a quarter cents per pound, and at present ingot
copper is on the free list.
The first refined spelter produced in this country
was made in the year 1856, at Bethlehem, Pa., from
ores mined there, and it was sent to the govern-
ment arsenal at Washington. Up to 1865 or
1866, the spelter used by brass manufacturers was
imported from Germany and Belgium. In 1867
the Missouri Zinc Company, at Carondelet, Mo.,
began to make spelter from Wisconsin ores. The
first year they made about 1800 tons; the next year
about 2500 tons. This was used in the United
States. In 1869 the first zinc ores were discovered
in southwestern Missouri, and since then the devel-
opment of the zinc industry has been constantly
increasing. The output of the present year will
probably be between 80,000 and 90,000 tons. The
American brass manufacturers have used domestic
spelter almost exclusively for the past twenty-five
years, the quality of the American spelter being su-
perior to that of the foreign article. One of the
finest grades of spelter is produced in New Jersey,
and is sold at a high price, but the greater part
of the spelter produced at present in this country
comes from southwestern Missouri and Kansas.
At no time within the past twenty-five years has
spelter been admitted to the United States free of
duty. The duty under the McKinley Bill was one
and one half cents per pound. Under the present
tariff the duty is one cent per pound.
On January 13, 1801, Paul Revere, of Revolu-
tionary fame, wrote to a friend in London, request-
ing him to go down to Maidenhead, where rolling
machinery was manufactured, and ascertain the
price of a pair of rolls nine inches in diameter and
twenty inches long, for making sheet copper. Col-
onel Revere was a silversmith, and had previously
corresponded with Benjamin Stoddard, Secretary of
the Navy, upon the subject of copper rolling. It is
not known whether or not these rolls were procured
at that time, but in January, 1801, Colonel Revere
purchased an old powder-mill at Canton, Mass.,
where he began the production of sheet copper.
The business has been carried on continuously since
that time, and is now incorporated under the name
of the Revere Copper Company. Among the
names of those originally connected with this en-
terprise are Joseph A. Revere, James Davis, John
Revere, and S. T. Snow. This company now manu-
factures sheet copper and yellow metal, giving em-
ployment to 125 men.
In 1812 the Soho Copper Company was estab-
lished in Belleville, N. J., where there is a good
water-power, and water transportation by canal and
by the Passaic River. The originator of this enter-
prise was Harmon Hendricks, the son of Uriah Hen-
dricks, who was an importer of copper and metals.
Some of the buildings were of brick, roofed with
tiles imported from Europe. The rolling-mill was
of wood, and contained one pair of breaking-down
rolls, one pair of sheet rolls, and one pair of bolt
rolls, all of which were imported from England.
The plant and machinery cost $50,000, and were
intended for the purpose of furnishing the United
States government with heavy copper sheets for
boilers, and bolts for ship-building, during the War
of 1812. This business has descended from father
to son in a direct line, until it is now in the hands
of the fourth and fifth generations, and is known
334
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
as the " Belleville Copper Rolling Mills," operated
by Hendricks Brothers, and employing 100 men.
In the year 1815, ingot copper sold for eighteen
and one half cents per pound, and the price of copper
sheets was thirty-nine cents per pound.
The Gunpowder Copper Works were built in 1817,
on the Gunpowder River, ten miles from Baltimore,
by Levi Hollingsworth. Water power was used in
manufacturing. In 1866 the rolling-mill was trans-
ferred to Canton. It is now operated by the Balti-
more Copper Smelting & Rolling Co., who are en-
gaged in smelting, and in the manufacture of blue
vitriol and sulphuric acid. They employ in all
about 500 operatives, of whom fifty are employed in
the rolling-mill.
The manufacture of yellow metal for sheathing
vessels was the subject of a patent by H. F. Muntz, of
Birmingham, England, about the year 1840. This
mixture, which contains a large percentage of spelter
and can be rolled while hot, being cheaper than cop-
per, naturally came largely into use for ship-sheath-
ing. It was first made in this country by the Revere
Copper Company, within a year or two after its pro-
duction in England. Later, it was made by the
Taunton Copper Manufacturing Company, the New
Bedford Copper Company, and the Bridgewater Iron
Company. The decline of American ship-building,
and legislation permitting American vessels engaged
in foreign trade to use the foreign metal without pay-
ment of duty, have greatly decreased the demand
for yellow metal in the United States.
The causes that have tended to localize the
manufacture of sheet brass do not affect the rolling
of copper. There is no mixing to be done, and
less skill is required in rolling copper than is need-
ful in rolling brass. The makers of sheet copper do
not remanufacture their product. So that, while
out of a total of nineteen brass-mills fourteen are
located in Connecticut, the copper-mills are distrib-
uted throughout the country : in Massachusetts,
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Michigan, and Illinois. The following is a list of
the brass and copper rolling-mills in this country at
the present time :
BRASS AND COPPER ROLLING-MILLS, 1895.
NAME.
LOCATION.
YEAR
ESTAB-
LISHED.
NUMBER
PERSONS
EM-
PLOYED.
PRINCIPAL PRODUCTS.
Ansonia Brass & Copper Co
Ansonia, Conn.
Providence, R. I.
Waterbury, Conn.
Baltimore, Md.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Birmingham, Conn.
Bristol, Conn.
Bridgeport, Conn.
Torrington, Conn.
Kenosha, Wis.
Detroit, Mich.
Waterbury, Conn.
Belleville, N. J.
Pittsburgh, Pa.
New York.
Meriden, Conn.
Seymour, Conn.
New Bedford, Mass.
Waterbury, Conn.
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Waterbury, Conn.
Rome, N. Y.
Boston, Mass.
Waterbury, Conn.
Seymour, Conn.
Taunton, Mass.
Dollar Bay, Mich.
Ansonia, Conn.
Waterbury, Conn.
1845
1882
1843
1887
1892
1865
1863
1886
1881
1853
1812
1848
1865
1860
1869
1879
1828
1850
1878
1831
1888
1848
1845
1,135
698
967
5°
206
455
75°
650
'44
275
1,012
IOO
90
575
IOO
791
5°
55°
397
J25
i, 600
220
150
90
646
525
Rolled brass, sheet copper, wire, etc. Re-
manufacture.
Wire.
Rolled brass, German silver, wire, etc. Re-
manufacture.
Sheet copper.
Rolled brass, copper, etc.
Rolled brass, wire, etc. Remanufacture.
Rolled brass, etc. Remanufacture.
Rolled brass, German silver, wire, etc. Re-
manufacture.
Rolled brass, German silver, wire, etc.
Rolled brass and copper.
Rolled brass, sheet copper, wire, etc.
Rolled brass, wire, etc. Remanufacture.
Sheet copper, etc.
Sheet copper, etc.
Rolled brass, etc. Remanufacture.
Sheet copper, etc.
Sheet copper, yellow metal, etc.
Rolled brass, wire, etc. Remanufacture.
Sheet copper.
Sheet copper, etc.
Rolled brass, sheet copper, etc. Remanu-
facture.
Rolled brass, copper, etc.
Sheet copper and yellow metal.
Rolled brass, German silver, etc. Remann-
facture.
Rolled brass, German silver, etc.
Sheet copper, yellow metal, etc.
Sheet copper, wire, etc.
Rolled brass, sheet copper, wire, etc. Re-
manufacture.
Rolled brass, wire, etc. Remanufacture.
Benedict & Burnham Mfg. Co
Baltimore Copper Smelting & Rolling Co.
Birmingham Brass Co.
Bristol Brass & Clock Co
Bridgeport Brass Co
Coe Brass Mfg. Co
Chicago Brass Co
Detroit Copper & Brass Rolling-Mills . .
Holmes, Booth & Haydens
Hendricks Bros
C. G. Hussey & Co
Manhattan Brass Co
Edward Miller & Co
New Haven Copper Co
New Bedford Copper Co
Plume & Atwood Mfg. Co. .
Park, Bro. & Co., Ltd.
Parsons Manganese Bronze & Copper Co.
Randolph & Clowes
Rome Brass & Copper Co
Revere Copper Co
Scovill Mfg. Co
Seymour Mfg. Co
Taunton Copper Mfg. Co
Tamarack Osceola Copper Mfg. Co. . .
Wallace & Sons ...........
Waterbury Brass Co
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
335
In addition to these, there are two manufacturers
of iron wire, who are extensive manufacturers of
copper wire also. They are the Washburn and Moen
Manufacturing Company, of Worcester, Mass., and
the John A. Roebling's Sons' Company, of Trenton,
N.J.
Brass founders or manufacturers of articles of cast
brass are not included in the foregoing list. This
is a separate branch of business, and it is carried
on by a great number of foundries in the United
States, some of the most prominent of these being :
The Eaton, Cole and Burnham Company, of
Bridgeport, Conn. The Crane Company, of Chicago.
The Buckeye Brass and Iron Works, of Dayton, O.
The \Vm. Powell Company, of Cincinnati. Henry
M'Shane Manufacturing Company, of Baltimore.
M'Nab and Harlin Manufacturing Company, of New
York. Jarecki Manufacturing Company, of Erie, Pa.
Walworth Manufacturing Company, of Boston.
It is estimated that these eight companies con-
sume about ten million pounds of ingot copper an-
nually, and that the total consumption of ingot cop-
per by all the foundries is from eighteen to twenty-
five million pounds. In addition to this there is a
large quantity of old metal annually converted into
brass castings by these foundries.
Many manufacturing concerns, also, have their
own foundries, where metal is cast, to be used in
their various departments. These foundries are not
included in the foregoing estimate.
Seamless Brass and Copper tubes are made by a
number of the brass-mills in Connecticut, by the
American Seamless Tube Company, near Boston,
and by the Bloomsburg Brass and Copper Company,
in Pennsylvania. Early in 1848, Joseph Cotton,
Joseph H. Cotton, William E. Coffin, Holmes
Hinckley, and Daniel F. Child, all of Boston, de-
spatched to England an engineer, Joseph Fox, to
learn how to make seamless brass tubes, paving a
large sum to Messrs. Green and Alston, the English
patentees, for the instruction of Mr. Fox, and the
right to make tubes by their process in the United
States. Previous to that time all copper and brass
tubes for use in locomotive and marine boilers and
for the hundreds of other uses to which tubes were
put, were brazed ; that is, made of strips of metal put
in a rounded form, and their edges brazed together.
In 1850, the gentlemen before-named organized a
corporation called the American Tube Works, of
Boston, and began the manufacture of seamless
drawn brass tubes. These tubes have taken the
place of the brazed tubes in all cases where steam or
other high pressures are involved, and they are made
by seven or eight manufacturers in the United
States.
There are no public records showing the present
condition of the brass and copper industry in
America. Figures can only be obtained by per-
sonal application to the manufacturers themselves.
The following details, showing the state of the busi-
ness at present and covering the year ending July
i, 1895, are taken from information furnished by
twenty-seven corporations, and include the entire
business of the country in rolled brass, copper, and
wire. In a few instances, where information could
not be obtained, an estimate of the business has
been made.
The nominal capital invested is $12,137,000, but
the amount of the actual investment is about
$28,000,000.
The number of persons employed is 14,350.
The annual consumption of copper is 191,000,000
pounds.
The annual consumption of spelter is 31,500,000
pounds.
The value of the annual product is $36,400,000,
of which the metal is valued at $29,700,000, and
the remanufactured products at $6,700,000. This
includes only remanufacturing by brass rolling mills.
Any one of the principal establishments in Con-
necticut will serve as a type of the modern brass
and copper rolling-mill. The buildings are usually
of brick, roofed with iron, and contained in an in-
closure of from twelve to twenty acres. They are
generally one story high, and are light and well
ventilated. An air of neatness and order prevails.
The machinery is of modern construction and the
best that can be made. The motive power is steam.
In the remanufacturing departments automatic ma-
chinery takes the place of hand labor. In the roll-
ing-mill, metal of the finest finish is produced, and
brought to a degree of accuracy in gage which is not
usually found in other countries. Eyelet metal, for
example, is required to be rolled to a width of six
inches, and not to vary more than one two-thou-
sandth of an inch in gage; that is, it must not vary
in thickness more than one-fifth of the breadth of a
human hair. A skillful rollerman will produce metal
within these requirements. It is well understood
by those who are familiar with the methods em-
ployed abroad, that nearly all the improved pro-
cesses of brass rolling have originated in this
country; that we have taken the lead in this branch
of business from the beginning, and that our pro-
ducts at present, in point of accuracy of gauge and
fineness of quality and finish, are far in advance of
336
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
similar articles produced in other countries. This
has been brought about indirectly by the fine qual-
ity of our copper and spelter, which has enabled
our manufacturers to produce brass of a kind readily
adapted to mechanical manipulation, while Yankee
ingenuity has taught our mechanics to invent ma-
chinery for metal rolling and metal working, which
in its turn has created a demand for metal of the
utmost nicety in gauge; so that a very large propor-
tion of the brass produced in this country to-day is
gauged by the micrometer, which registers fractions
of the thousandth part of an inch.
Many of these brass manufacturing corporations
have a nominal capital, which represents only a
small part of the real sum invested. They have
from year to year enlarged their plants, using their
surplus earnings, and increasing their outlay with-
out increasing their capital, so that often the real
investment is three or four times the amount of
the capital stock. Seven of the principal brass
rolling-mills, with a nominal capital amounting to
$2,419,000, claim an actual investment of $12,000,-
ooo ; nearly five times the amount of their capital
stock. Brass rolling is now carried on upon a very
narrow margin of profit, so that what would appear
to be a fair dividend upon the nominal capital is
a very small return for the actual investment. As a
natural result, in some cases new plants, that have
been erected with modern machinery, have had to
close their doors, being unable to compete with
those already established. Laborers employed in
brass-works are well paid, and, as a rule, are thrifty,
often owning their houses. Difficulty with workmen
is of very rare occurrence, and no serious labor
troubles are recorded in the history of the business.
That the present low price of copper, the revival
of business, the natural increase in consumption
following the growth of the country, and the ex-
tension of electric lighting and telegraph lines, all
using a great quantity of metal, will lead to in-
creased production of every form of manufactured
brass and copper, is already shown by figures indi-
cating that the domestic consumption of copper for
1895 will be at least twenty per cent, in excess of
the quantity consumed in 1894.
The writer is indebted to the courtesy of the
manufacturers of brass and copper for such infor-
mation concerning their business as was necessary
to enable him to compile the statistics contained
in this article, and he desires also to acknowledge
his obligation to Messrs. S. T. Snow, of Boston,
Edmund Hendricks, of New York, F. J. Kings-
bury, of Waterbury, and Charles F. Brooker, of
Torrington, Conn., for facts relating to the early
history of the manufacture of brass, copper, and
yellow metal; to Mr. E. H. Cole, of New York,
for a list of brass foundries, and to Messrs. John
Stanton and Edward F. Byrne, of New York, for
information touching the history of copper-mining
and the production of spelter.
CHAPTER XLVIII
LOCOMOTIVE AND ENGINE WORKS
A THOUGH transportation for self or chattels
has long been known to man, improvement
in its various methods was so slow as to be
almost imperceptible until the introduction of steam
gave it an impetus on land and water. This power-
ful agent has been adapted to transportation within
the past one hundred years, and the event has been
followed by the decline and fall of the stage-coach
and the canal-boat, and the rise and development of
the locomotive and the steamship. These two have
constituted the most important factors of transpor-
tation, which is itself one of the most important ele-
ments of the civilization of the present century.
On sea and land rapid transportation was impossible
without steam. This was applied first to power
transmission, as in pumping and the movement of
machinery; then to navigation, where the conditions
correspond most nearly to those of stationary prac-
tice, and last to the propulsion of vehicles on land.
The factor by which its power is utilized for the
latter purpose is the locomotive. There are no
branches of the mechanic arts which possess greater
fascination for the general public than the building
of steamships and locomotives. Properly directed,
they struggle, they accomplish, they excel; and all
are interested in their achievements. This interest
is not new. It attached no less to the transporta-
tion of bygone generations. The rivalry of compet-
ing stage-coaches and the popularity of the favorite
whips are traditional. To-day the master of the
speediest steamship and the driver of the fastest
locomotive have inherited the same popular regard.
As the entire development of locomotive engin-
eering in the United States has taken place within
the past century, it is not difficult to trace its in-
ception and progress. Although other lines of rails
had previously been laid for special purposes, the
Baltimore and Ohio and the South Carolina rail-
roads— both begun in 1828 — were the first Ameri-
can railways constructed to carry passengers and
freight. Upon the first mentioned of these lines
was run the first American-built locomotive, — that
of Peter Cooper, which was constructed in 1829.
This was, however, a mere working model, not in-
tended for permanent service, but to demonstrate
the practicability of operating the line by locomo-
tive power. It did this successfully, and led to the
completion of the road, which otherwise might have
been abandoned. This little machine, with a single
cylinder three and a half inches in diameter, a boiler
no larger than that of an ordinary kitchen-range,
and tubes improvised from gun barrels, on its trial
run attained a speed of eighteen miles an hour, and
hauled forty passengers besides the driver, who was
Peter Cooper himself. The first locomotive for
real service used in the United States was the
" Stourbridge Lion," built at Stourbridge, England,
and imported by Horatio Allen, in 1829, for the
Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. It was
of a primitive type, quickly abandoned both in Eng-
land and the United States, but forms one of the
interesting steps by which a uniform pattern was
subsequently reached. In 1830, the first locomo-
tive constructed in the United States for actual
work — the "Best Friend" — was built by the West
Point Foundry, for the South Carolina Railroad.
In 1831 Matthias W. Baldwin, a manufacturer of
bookbinders' tools, of Philadelphia, was engaged by
the proprietors of Peak's Museum, of Philadelphia,
to construct a model locomotive to operate on a
circular track, to satisfy the public curiosity growing
out of the Rainhill contest, in England, which had
resulted in a victory for Robert Stephenson's
" Rocket," and which was then attracting wide-
spread attention. In September, 1832, there were
built at York, Pa., by Davis & Gartner, three loco-
motives of the " grasshopper " pattern, for the Balti-
more and Ohio Railroad, from designs of Phineas
337
338
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Davis and Ross Winans. Some of these locomo-
tives continued in service about sixty years, and
until recently were still in use at Mount Clare, in
Baltimore.
The success of the Peale Museum model was
such that Mr. Baldwin was employed by the Phila-
delphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad Com-
pany, in 1831, to construct a locomotive for their
line. This locomotive — "Old Ironsides" — was
completed in November, 1832. It was a four-wheel
engine, similar to the English design of the day,
and weighed in running order something over five
tons. The rear, or driving wheels, were fifty-four
inches in diameter, placed on a crank axle. The
cylinders were nine and one half inches in diameter,
by eighteen inches stroke, and were attached hori-
zontally to the smoke-box. The frame was of wood.
The wheels were made with heavy cast-iron hubs,
wooden spokes and rims, and wrought-iron tires.
There was no cab. The tender was four-wheeled,
with wooden sides and back for holding the wood
used for fuel, and with an iron box used as a water-
tank. This locomotive attained a speed of thirty
miles an hour, with its train attached, and upon a
special occasion it is said to have attained a speed
of sixty miles per hour. Locomotive engine build-
ing may be said to have become fairly established
by 1834 ; but in those early days, when there was no
practice to guide, when skilled workmen were few,
and but little in the way of shop facilities existed,
the difficulties surrounding the locomotive builder
were extraordinary, and only the most indomitable
perseverance attained success. Civilization owes a
debt of gratitude to those pioneers of railway me-
chanics— Cooper, Allen, Baldwin, Rogers, Norris,
Winans, Campbell, and their co-workers, and later
to William Mason, Cooke, McQueen, Millholland,
Hudson, and others.
The early American locomotives were similar in
all essential features to the English engines of the
day, being constructed largely either from published
descriptions or from actual observation of those im-
ported. The importation of locomotives did not
long continue, however, as the mechanics of the
country soon proved their ability to supply the de-
mands of the growing railroads. The many bright
minds engaged upon the subject, together with ac-
tive competition among the early builders, soon re-
sulted in radical departures from the English types.
Developing independently, under various conditions,
the differentiation soon became marked, and re-
sulted in features which still distinguish the Ameri-
can from the English locomotive, in whatsoever
country they may be found. The steps by which
these differences were reached may be briefly
touched upon as follows : the substitution of a four-
wheel swiveling truck or bogie for the pair of fixed
carrying- wheels (1832); the use of the cross-head
pump for supplying feed-water to the boiler (1833) ;
the use of the half-crank driving-axle in place of
the crank-axle (1834); the use of outside connec-
tions to the driving-wheels (1835); the coupling
together of two pairs of driving-wheels, patented by
H. R. Campbell (1836); the use of counterbalance
weights to balance the revolving and reciproca-
ting parts (1837); the use of lap-welded wrought-
iron boiler tubes (1838); the use of bar-frames of
forged iron with forged pedestals (1840); the use
of wooden cabs with glass windows, to afford am-
ple protection for the enginemen, which originated
about 1840 in New England, where such protection
was necessary on account of the severity of the win-
ters; the introduction of Baldwin's flexible-beam
truck (1842); the use of equalizing beams connect-
ing the driving-wheels, invented by Eastwick and
Harrison (1845); the use of the "ten- wheel" loco-
motive, with six coupled wheels and a leading four-
wheel truck (1846) ; the use of the Mogul locomotive
with six coupled wheels and a leading two-wheel
truck (1861), and of the Consolidation type, with
eight coupled wheels and a leading two-wheel truck,
designed by Alexander Mitchell of the Lehigh Val-
ley Railroad, and built at the Baldwin Locomotive
Works in 1866. The Mogul type took its name
from the first engine of this class; the Consolidation
type likewise took its name from Mitchell's " Con-
solidation," but the latter was named not because of
any peculiarity of design, but because of the then
recent consolidation of a number of smaller lines
now joined in the Lehigh Valley system.
Other features of the American locomotive appear
to the foreigner to be peculiar, such as the pilot or
" cowcatcher," the bell, the boiler covering of plan-
ished or Russia iron, the large headlight, and the
directness and visibility of the pipes and other ap-
purtenances. The aim of American locomotive
designers has been to produce a machine having the
maximum flexibility of wheel-base to enable it to
pass sharp curvature and adapt itself to the uneven-
ness of track subject to the action of severe frosts ;
and to provide for repairs by making every part
accessible and removable without affecting other
parts. Prior to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876,
it was frequently customary to use gaudy painting
and forms of unessential parts supposed to be orna-
mental ; but during the period of business depression
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
and retrenchment in which the Centennial occurred,
the railroads learned to dispense with this source of
expense. This cause, together with the improve-
ment in the public taste which was coincident with,
or the result of, the Centennial, led to the aban-
donment of fancy painting and molded or beaded
ornamentation, and the substitution of smooth, ap-
propriate forms, painted in plain dark colors, with
little or no striping.
In the early fifties the "American" type, with
four coupled wheels and four-wheeled truck, patented
by Campbell in 1836, became the most generally
adopted class of locomotive, and was for many
years thereafter used for general service — passenger,
freight, and switching. The growing traffic of the
railways, however, created the need for more power-
ful locomotives constructed especially for freight ser-
vice, as well as for engines better adapted for switch-
ing than old road locomotives. Therefore, in the
sixties, the Mogul and ten-wheel types were widely
adopted, and between 1870 and 1880 the Consoli-
dation type became the recognized standard for the
heaviest freight service. Prior to 1880, the general
use of iron tires and iron rails of light section, usually
not exceeding fifty to sixty pounds per yard, limited
the weight per axle to about twelve tons as a maxi-
mum. About that year the general substitution of
steel tires and the growing use of steel and the in-
troduction of the heavier rails possible in steel, to-
gether with an awakening to the advantages of larger
heating surfaces in locomotive boilers, led to the ac-
ceptance of greatly increased weights. This ten-
dency has since grown constantly. The use of
heavier, more powerful locomotives made practi-
cable economies in transportation by the use of cars
of larger carrying capacity, which in turn required
still heavier locomotives to move them. Like the
perpetual contest between the impenetrable armor-
plate and the irresistible projectile, it is difficult to
predict the conclusion of the struggle. It appears,
however, that the present car loads of 60,000 to
80,000 pounds are about as large as will serve the
convenience of shippers. It is safe to predict that
rails of 100 pounds per yard, which have already
been adopted by a number of the most important
lines, must shortly come into general use. The
heaviest locomotives of 1895 have as much as
twenty-four tons' weight per axle.
Among the locomotive-building establishments
which have contributed a share to the motive-power
of the past, and have either disappeared altogether
or have discontinued the manufacture of locomo-
tives for other lines of business in which competition
is less intense, may be mentioned the works of Mor-
ris Brothers, of Philadelphia, which in early days
were active competitors of Baldwin and Rogers, but
which, after many vicissitudes, went out of existence
in 1865. These works in part are now included in
the plant of the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Balti-
more had the works of Ross Winans and the Den-
meads. Boston has had the works of Seth Wilmarth,
the Globe Works of John Souther, and the works of
McKay & Aldus at East Boston, whilst the Hinckley
Locomotive & Machine Works, one of the oldest,
occupied an honorable position in the business
until within ten years. New England has been an
active locomotive-building section. In addition to
the works mentioned may be noted those of Ballard
Vail, Andover, near Boston, Mass.; Corliss & Night-
tingale, Providence, Geo. H. Corliss, the great en-
gine-builder, proving less successful in the manufac-
ture of locomotives ; A. Latham & Company, White
River Junction; the Amoskeag Locomotive Works
at Manchester, N. H. ; the Locks and Canals Works
at Lowell, Mass. ; a works at Lawrence ; and in later
days the Taunton Locomotive Works, the Mason
Machine Works, and the Portland Locomotive and
Car Company, three concerns of enviable reputa-
tion, which have recently found other lines of busi-
ness more profitable. New Jersey also has been a
prolific field of locomotive-manufacture. An off-
shoot from the Rogers Works was that of Will-
iam Swinburne, of Paterson, which was subse-
quently called the New Jersey Locomotive Works,
and finally the Grant Locomotive Works. Find-
ing their shops antiquated and their appliances
inadequate to modem requirements, the Grant
Works ceased business at Paterson in 1885, and
reorganized with new capital and new shops at
Chicago. This plant succumbed to the financial
storm of 1893, and was sold to the Siemens & Halske
Electric Company, which now operates it under
its own name for the manufacture of electri-
cal equipment and locomotives. For many years
Breese, Kneeland & Company operated the Jersey
City Locomotive Works at Jersey City, and Van
Cleeve, McKean & Dripps had shops at Trenton.
Eastwick & Harrison were builders of locomotives
at Newcastle, Delaware, but, failing in 1840, were
succeeded by the Newcastle Manufacturing Com-
pany. The partners subsequently gained fame and
wealth in railway operations in Russia. In the
West were the Cuyahoga Works of Cleveland, those
of Scovill at Chicago, Booth & Company at San
Francisco, and others at Detroit and Milwaukee.
Later the Rome Locomotive Works, at Rome, New
340
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
York, entered the field, but had only a few years
of disastrous existence, which ended in 1891. The
list might perhaps be extended further, but it is a
more agreeable task to record the works which
are, in this year 1895, engaged in keen but friendly
rivalry to contribute to the progress of transporta-
tion and to supply the motive power for 180,000
miles of railways in the United States and a con-
siderable number abroad.
The Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia
were established in 1831 by Matthias W. Bald-
win, as has before been mentioned. These works
are now the property of George Burnham, Edward
H. Williams, William P. Henszey, John H. Con-
verse, and William L. Austin, partners, constituting
the firm of Burnham, Williams & Company. The
annual capacity is 1000 locomotives, and 947
have actually been constructed in a single year,
during all of which, however, the demand for lo-
comotives was not sufficient to keep the works
running continuously to their maximum capacity.
The works occupy sixteen acres in the center of
the city. A number of the buildings of later con-
struction are from four to six stories in height and
of the most substantial character. Employment is
given to about 5100 men.
The Rogers Locomotive Works, of Paterson,
N. J., were founded in 1836 by the firm of Rogers,
Ketchum & Grosvenor. The mechanical head
and dominating spirit was Thomas Rogers. Upon
his death in 1856 the business was incorporated
under the title of The Rogers Locomotive and
Machine Works, of which Jacob S. Rogers was
president and William S. Hudson was superinten-
dent. Mr. Hudson exercised an important influ-
ence upon the development of American locomo-
tive manufacture. Owing to Mr. J. S. Rogers' in-
creasing age, the company was reorganized in 1892
under its present title of The Rogers Locomotive
Company. Mr. R. S. Hughes, for many years
treasurer, became president, and Mr. Reuben Wells,
well known for his honorable connection with rail-
road management, became superintendent. These
works give employment to about 1400 men, and
have an annual capacity of 250 locomotives.
The Schenectady Locomotive Works were estab-
lished by Norris Brothers in 1848, were incorpo-
rated in 1851, and in 1863 passed into the sole
control of John Ellis, who associated with him as
superintendent Walter McQueen. Mr. Ellis was
succeeded, upon his death in 1864, by his next
younger brother, Charles G. Ellis, and upon the
death of the latter in 1891 Edward Ellis became
president. Mr. A. J. Pitkin is now superintendent.
The works employ 1800 men and have an annual
capacity of 400 locomotives.
The Cooke Locomotive and Machine Com-
pany, of Paterson, N. J., began the manufacture
of locomotives in 1852, the title of its ownership
then being Danforth, Cooke & Company. The
works were originally established about the year
1800, and for fifty years were engaged in the man-
ufacture of cotton and other machinery. Upon
the entrance of John Cooke, who had previously
been in the employment of Thomas Rogers, the
manufacture of locomotives was begun. John
Cooke may therefore be regarded as the founder
of this establishment as a locomotive-works. The
present organization is John S. Cooke, president;
Frederick W. Cooke, vice-president; William
Berdan, secretary and treasurer; and Charles D.
Cooke, superintendent. The original shops in
Paterson have recently been abandoned to other
uses, and new and completely modern shops have
been built with a capacity of 180 locomotives per
year. The works employ about 800 men.
The Pittsburgh Locomotive Works were organized
in August, 1865, and were completed so far as to
construct their first locomotive in the latter part of
1866. The works were originally designed for a ca-
pacity of thirty locomotives per year, but by the con-
struction of new fire-proof buildings, and the addi-
tion of new and improved machinery, the capacity
has been gradually increased to 300 engines per
year. The works occupy nearly twelve acres of
ground, and their equipment includes the most im-
proved hydraulic, pneumatic, and electric appliances
for fashioning the work and handling materials.
There is also a completely appointed laboratory for
chemical and physical tests of materials. The works
employ about 1500 men.
The Rhode Island Locomotive Works of Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, were likewise established in
1865, at the close of the War of the Rebellion,
when the nation once more turned to the arts of
peace and began the work of restoring its wasted
energies, expanding its means of internal communi-
cation, and developing its material resources. These
works have occupied an important position in the
field of locomotive-manufacture. As now organ-
ized, Charles Felix Mason is president, Arthur Liv-
ingstone Mason is vice-president, Earl Philip Mason
is secretary and treasurer, and Joseph Lythgoe is su-
perintendent. These works employ about 1400 men,
and have an annual capacity of 250 locomotives.
The works of H. K. Porter & Company, of Pitts-
AI.BA B. JOHNSON.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMKRCE
341
burgh, were established in 1869, and have been
devoted exclusively to the manufacture of light lo-
comotives for such special purposes as in mills, fur-
naces, mines, contractors' and plantation service,
etc. The firm was at first Smith & Porter, and
later Porter, Bell & Company. It employs 325 men,
and has a capacity of 120 locomotives per annum.
The Brooks Locomotive Works of Dunkirk, New
York, were originally constructed as the locomotive
building and repair shops of the Erie Railway. In
1869, Jay Gould, then president of the Erie Rail-
way, having completed extensive shops at a more
central location on the line of that road, ordered
the Dunkirk shops to be permanently closed, and the
machinery removed to other locations. Mr. Horatio
G. Brooks, at that time superintendent of motive
power and machinery of the Erie Railway, whose
home was at Dunkirk, and whose interests were
identified with the welfare of that place, made a
proposition to Mr. Gould for a lease of the shops
and machinery for the purpose of establishing the
business of locomotive-building. The lease was
consummated in November, 1869, and before the
close of the year the first two locomotives of the
new Brooks Locomotive Works Company were
turned out. The growth of the works since that
time has been constant, until their capacity at the
present time is 400 locomotives per year. During
the year 1883 the property, comprising twenty acres
of land, the permanent plant, additions and ma-
chinery were purchased from the New York, Lake
Erie and Western Railroad Company by the Brooks
Locomotive Works. These works employ about 1500
men. At the present time Mr. M. L. Hinman is
president and treasurer, and Mr. R. J. Gross vice-
president.
The Richmond Locomotive and Machine Com-
pany of Richmond, Va., is the only locomotive-
manufacturing plant in the South. The works were
established in 1865 for the manufacture of planta-
tion and saw-mill machinery, and were gradually
adapted for the construction of tram and street-car
motors. In 1880, the shop having been destroyed
by fire, it was removed beyond the city limits and
reconstructed upon an enlarged scale. In 1889 it
secured the contract from the United States govern-
ment for building the machinery of the armored
batde-ship Texas, which gave it wide prominence.
This contract was successfully executed, but the
works have since been devoted exclusively to the
construction of locomotives. They give employ-
ment to 1200 men, and have an annual capacity of
200 locomotives.
The Dickson Manufacturing Company of Scran-
ton, Pa., are important manufacturers of locomotives
and of mining machinery, for which their location in
the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania is most
suitable. These works were established in 1862.
They have a capacity of 100 locomotives annually,
and employ from 400 to 450 men.
The Manchester Locomotive Works, of Manches-
ter, N. H., established in the early fifties, are under
the management of Aretas Blood. They employ
about 700 men, and are capable of producing about
too locomotives annually.
From the foregoing it is apparent that, exclusive
of such locomotives as are built in railroad shops or
shops not regularly engaged in the business of loco-
motive building, the locomotive-manufacturing estab-
lishments of the country have an aggregate capacity
of about 3000 locomotives a year. At the present
time this capacity is largely in excess of the require-
ments of the country. The actual reported produc-
tion of the past six years, with the number exported
(not including Canada and Mexico), is as follows:
LOCOMOTIVES PRODUCED AND NUMBER
EXPORTED.
NUMBER
TOTAL
EXPORTED
REMAINDER
NUMBER or
YEAR.
PRODUCTION
(OMITTING
NOT
WORKS
REPORTED.
MEXICO AND
EXPORTED.
REPORTING.
CANADA).
1880
i860
187
1672
16
1800
221'?
137
*V/J
2076
14
1891
23OO
357
1943
'5
1892
1764.
IA.I
1623
12
jgq-j
2OII
2O$
11
'^VJ
1804
£«
I SO
eo6
n
Average. . .
1807
2O3
1694
The total number of locomotives in use upon the
railways of the United States, Canada, and Mexico
for the same years, as reported to " Poor's Manual," is
as follows: 1889,31,062; 1890,32,241; 1891, 33,-
563; 1892,35,281; 1893,36,012; 1894,35,813.
As the average life of a locomotive may be taken
at twenty years, it is apparent that an annual pro-
duction of about 1800 locomotives will supply the
natural wear, whilst there is in the country a capacity
for constructing in contract and railroad shops about
twice that number. The difference between the
number requiring replacement on account of natural
wear and this total capacity must be absorbed by
locomotives for new lines, for permanently increased
traffic, and for export. The locomotive -building
establishments above mentioned employ in the ag-
342
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
gregate 15,000 men, who receive in wages about
$10,000,000 annually. The total value of the pro-
duct of these works, when operating to their full
capacity, is about $30,000,000.
Although the earliest locomotives used in the
United States were imported from the mother coun-
try, it was not long before the achievements of
American mechanics attracted attention abroad. In
1845 the Baldwin Works exported locomotives to
the Royal Wiirtemberg Railroad. In 1848 Rogers
shipped locomotives to Cuba; and while the expor-
tation of locomotives during recent years has been
largely to those countries without the resources
requisite for locomotive-building, in the earlier years
it was not uncommon for American manufacturers
to ship their products to Austria, to England, and
elsewhere in Continental Europe. Statistics fail to
show the number of locomotives exported during
the earlier years, and even recent statistics are in-
accurate in not covering shipments of locomotives
to Canada and Mexico. During the twenty-five
years comprised within the period from 1871 to 1894,
there were exported 2879 locomotives to countries
exclusive of those reached by rail connections from
the United States. These locomotives were dis-
tributed throughout South America, Cuba, Australia,
Japan, Norway, Sweden, Russia, South Africa, and
the Islands of the Pacific. The shriek of the Ameri-
can locomotive is heard in the Holy City. Although
the line from Jaffa to Jerusalem was constructed by
French capital, the locomotives were supplied from
the United States.
The market price of a locomotive in 1832 appears
to have been $4000, this sum having been agreed
upon between Matthias W. Baldwin and the Phila-
delphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad for
the locomotive " Old Ironsides." The highest prices
known in locomotive-building, as in other industries,
were those obtained during the War of the Rebellion,
when heavy freight or passenger locomotives com-
manded from $30,000 to $35,000. Prices declined
after the close of the war toabout$7ooofora thirty -five-
ton passenger locomotive in 1878-79. During the so-
called boom of 1 880-8 1, prices again rose to about
$15,000 each for similar passenger locomotives ; but
since that time there has been a constant reduction
in the price per pound, the weights of locomotives
gradually increasing with the demands of increasing
traffic, while prices have remained nearly stationary
at about $8000 to $9000 each for average passenger
locomotives, and from $9000 to $10,000 each for
average freight locomotives.
The importance of fuel economy was appreciated
in Europe earlier than in the United States. Pro-
gress had been made in the development of the
compound locomotive by Lindner, Von Borries, La
Page, Worsdell, Webb, and others. W. S. Hudson,
superintendent of the Rogers Locomotive Works,
designed a two-cylinder, or cross-compound, loco-
motive, as early as 1873, but it was never built. In
1882 Henry D. Dunbar designed and patented a
four-cylinder tandem compound locomotive, which
was tested on the Boston and Albany Railroad. In
1889 the Pennsylvania Railroad imported from
England a compound locomotive of Webb's pattern
for experimental service. The same year Samuel
M. Vauclain, superintendent of the Baldwin Loco-
motive Works, designed a four-cylinder compound
locomotive, in which a high-pressure and a low-
pressure cylinder are placed one above the other on
each side of the locomotive, both formed within a
single casting, together with the steam-chest, and
occupying the same place as the ordinary single-ex-
pansion cylinders. The two piston-rods connect
to a common cross-head. From the cross-head pin
back, the locomotive does not differ in any essential
respect from the ordinary engine. The first loco-
motive of this pattern was built the same year for
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Tests indicated
highly economical results. About the same time
A. J. Pitkin, superintendent of the Schenectady
Locomotive Works, brought out a two-cylinder, or
cross-compound locomotive, having a form of inter-
cepting-valve differing from those previously used
abroad. The general interest in compound loco-
motives, together with the powerful influence of
two of the most prominent works in the country, led
to the rapid introduction of compound locomotives,
and caused other locomotive-builders to bring out
similar designs. There have since been built in the
United States about 800 compound locomotives, of
which nearly 600 are of the Vauclain pattern, four
are of the four-cylinder "tandem" type, and most
of the remainder are of the two-cylinder or cross-
compound type. The compound locomotive is un-
questionably a step in advance, realizing as it does
an economy of from fifteen to forty per cent., ac-
cording to the service in which it is employed.
The most conspicuous improvement in transpor-
tation, which resulted from the introduction of
steam-power, was the great increase in the capacity
for high speed. Peter Cooper's first locomotive is
said to have attained a speed of eighteen miles per
hour. Baldwin's " Old Ironsides " is recorded as
having attained a speed of sixty miles per hour for a
short distance. Speeds of sixty miles per hour have
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
343
therefore been known from the inception of Ameri-
can railways. The real progress of locomotive de-
velopment has not been so marked in increasing the
capacity for speed as in increasing the weight of
trains which can be hauled with certainty at rates
of speed which have previously been regarded as
phenomenal. Up to the year 1889, when the com-
pound system was introduced, there did not exist a
demand for sustained speeds exceeding fifty miles
per hour. In November, 1892, one of Vauclain's
compounds, No. 385, running on the Philadelphia
and Reading and the Jersey Central railroads, be-
tween Philadelphia and Jersey City, with a train of
four heavy cars, attained a speed of ninety-seven
miles per hour by covering one mile in thirty-seven
seconds. On May 10, 1893, locomotive No. 999, of
the New York Central Railroad, is said to have
covered a mile in thirty-two seconds, equivalent to
ii2l/2 miles an hour, hauling the Empire State ex-
press, consisting of four heavy cars. On July 19,
1893, engine No. 682, of the Philadelphia and Read-
ing Railroad, hauled a train of nine loaded passen-
ger cars from Winslow Junction to Pleasantville,
twenty-six miles, in twenty-two minutes, or at the
rate of 70.9 miles per hour, and on August 27th, the
same locomotive hauled seventeen loaded passenger
cars over the same distance in twenty-seven minutes,
or at the rate of fifty-seven miles per hour. These
performances are remarkable for the weight of the
trains hauled. The locomotive is a Vauclain com-
pound. On September n, 1895, a locomotive of
the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad
hauled the Empire State express, consisting of four
cars, from New York to East Buffalo, 436^ miles,
in 407^3 minutes, being an average speed of 64.26
miles per hour. It is believed that the steam loco-
motives of to-day possess capacity for running at
as high a speed as is required by public demand,
or as is consistent with the commercial conditions
governing the business of transportation.
During the past few years the general substitu-
tion of electric power for horse-power and for other
means of propulsion on tramway lines has caused
electricity to be regarded as perhaps a rival of
steam, or at least as a competitor which may prove
to be a serious rival in the future. The progress of
electrical science is so rapid that what is written
to-day is obsolete to-morrow. What we regard as
impossibilities now may shortly become established
facts. In 1840 Davis & Cook constructed a walk-
ing-beam engine with a zinc and copper battery,
using a solution of blue vitriol. In 1842 Davidson,
of Scotland, constructed a five-ton electric locomo-
tive, which was actuated by seventy-eight pairs of
thirteen-inch-square zinc and iron plates in sul-
phuric-acid solution, and propelled itself at the rate
of four miles an hour. In 1844 Channing con-
ceived the idea of substituting electro-magnets for
permanent steel magnets, and of exciting the field
magnets by an electro-magnetic machine. This
idea was subsequently developed by Henry Wilde,
Manchester, England, between 1863 and 1866. In
1847 Farmer constructed an electro-magnetic loco-
motive having forty-eight pint cup cells of Grove
nitric-acid batteries. This drew a car containing
two passengers on a track of eighteen inches gauge.
In 1850 Page, of Washington, constructed an elec-
tro-magnetic locomotive of sixteen horse-power, ac-
tuated by 100 cells of Grove nitric-acid batteries,
having platinum plates eleven inches square. This
machine propelled a car carrying a dozen or more
persons on the Baltimore and Washington Railroad,
at a speed of nineteen miles an hour. In 1851
Thomas Hall, of Boston, constructed and exhibited
a small electric locomotive which took its current
from a stationary battery by means of the rails and
wheels. It was arranged automatically to change
the current and return at the end of the track. In
1860 he made a more elaborate model called the
" Volta," which was exhibited at the American Me-
chanics' Fair. In 1859 Farmer invented what he
designated the self-exciting dynamo, which was con-
structed in 1860. Improvements on this were made
by Wheatstone, Leaman, and Ladd in 1867, and
by Gramme in 1871. It made possible the substi-
tution of the dynamo for the galvanic battery, and
permitted the generation of electricity at low cost.
The first experiments in the use of electrical lo-
comotives on steam roads appear to have been
made by Leo Daft on the New York Elevated Rail-
road with a motor of 125 horse-power. In 1886
Frank J. Sprague conducted experiments on the
same road with trains of individual motor-cars. In
1891-92 the Thomson-Houston Electric Company
built a locomotive of about 125 horse-power for
freight service at Whitinsville, Mass. This locomo-
tive handles an aggregate load of 200 to 300 tons
at a speed of five miles an hour. In 1892 the
North American Company ordered from the Bald-
win Locomotive Works a powerful electric locomo-
tive to be constructed from the plans of Sprague,
Duncan & Hutchinson, Limited. This locomotive
was completed in 1894 and weighed sixty-seven
tons. It had four pairs of wheels connected by
coupling-rods, and the field magnets were hung
from the driving-boxes, whilst the armature was
344
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
hung on the driving-axle. In 1892 the General
Electric Company undertook the construction of
an electric locomotive for the tunnel of the Balti-
more and Ohio Railroad in Baltimore. This loco-
motive was completed in 1895, and was designed
to weigh ninety tons and develop 1500 horse power.
In 1892-93 the General Electric Company equipped
in the grounds of the World's Columbian Exposi-
tion at Chicago, and operated during the period
of the Exposition in 1893, an elevated railroad
known as the Intramural Railway. Its mechanical
success was such that in 1894 the Metropolitan
West Side Elevated Railroad, which had been de-
signed as a steam line, countermanded an order
for twenty-five steam locomotives and substituted
electric power. In 1895 the Lake Street Elevated
Railroad of Chicago discontinued the use of steam
locomotives and substituted electric power. The
same year the New York, New Haven and Hartford
Railroad equipped its Nantasket Beach branch
electrically for experimental purposes, and the
Pennsylvania Railroad equipped a branch road at
Mt. Holly for the same purpose. In 1895 the
Baldwin Locomotive Works consummated a work-
ing agreement with the Westinghouse Electric and
Manufacturing Company, for the production of
electric equipment for railway service. There is a
large field for electricity in railway work, and it is
probable that after it has been applied to switching
and suburban service in the great cities, public
opinion will compel the abandonment of steam lo-
comotives in these precincts.
Although the steam locomotive is more promi-
nently brought to the attention of the public, and is
therefore more popular and better known, yet it has
no greater effect on daily life than other steam en-
gines. Mention has been made of steam-power
applied to transportation in navigation on the ocean
and on inland water-ways, but besides this use for
steam it supplies a thousand wants of daily life, such
as the furnishing of the water-supply of great cities,
the driving of the machinery of busy hives of indus-
try, the lighting of streets and houses, the running
of elevators in high modern buildings, the extinguish-
ing of fires, the operating of the electric tram-car,
and in many other ways meeting the wants of mod-
ern civilization. For many years the development
of the stationary engine and the marine engine were
identical. The first experimental steam engine built
in the United States is said to have been constructed
in 1773 by Christopher Colics, a lecturer before the
American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. In
1787 John Fitch launched on the Delaware River at
Philadelphia a steamboat propelled by paddles, which
attained a speed of thirteen miles per hour, and in
1796 he experimented in New York with one ope-
rated by a screw. His efforts were closely followed
by those of Robert Livingston. About the same
time other mechanics were devoting attention to the
problem of steam navigation, among them Samuel
Morey, Nathan Read, Nicholas Roosevelt, Oliver
Evans, Robert Fulton, John Stevens, and others.
Transatlantic steam navigation began in the year
1819, when the American steamer Savannah made
the trip from Savannah to St. Petersburg. The de-
velopment of the marine engine through its various
forms of single expansion, compound, and triple ex-
pansion cylinders has resulted in the powerful mech-
anisms which drive the Campania, the Lucania, the
Paris, the St. Louis, and the St. Paul, at the rate of
500 miles per day. This development has resulted
from the labors of many, among whom may be men-
tioned John and Robert Stevens, Robert Thurston,
James P. Allair, the Copelands, and John Ericsson.
Since 1850 the improvements have been rather in
details of construction than in any marked change
in type. The engineer has striven and is still striv-
ing for the highest efficiency with the greatest degree
of economy. The introduction of what is known as
the Corliss valve gear marks probably one of the
greatest eras in engine building. This is a device
by which the steam is admitted into the cylinder for
any desired portion of the stroke, and the point of
cut-off automatically maintained by the governor
without affecting in the least the free opening of the
exhaust. Many devices had been introduced before
this time for the purpose of using the steam expan-
sively, among which may be mentioned that of Fred-
erick E. Sickles, in 1841, whose drop cut-off with
detachable valve gear was used in this country until
1849, when George H. Corliss brought out the im-
proved expansion gear which bears his name, and
which is used to-day by builders all over the coun-
try. The adoption of the surface condenser may also
be noted as an improvement of great practical utility
in the economy of that class of engines to which it is
adapted.
As the country developed, there was an ever-in-
creasing call for smaller engines with higher speed
and higher steam pressure. Excessively high pres-
sures had already been experimented with as early
as 1823 by Jacob Perkins, who in 1827 constructed
a single-acting engine in which steam of 800 pounds
pressure was used, and in the same year he made a
compound on the Wolfe plan, in which he adopted a
pressure of 1400 pounds, expanded eight times. He
ONE HUNDRED YKARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
M I
even went so far as to propose to adopt a pressure of
2000 pounds, using engines with small cylinder di-
mension and cutting off the admission at one sixteenth
of the stroke. For obvious reasons these excessive
pressures were not adopted in general practice, but
the experiments had the effect in later years of call-
ing the attention of builders to the greater economy
of high pressure steam, and engines and boilers were
adapted to its use in a moderate degree. This
caused inventors to consider different plans by which
high pressures could be utilized and high speed en-
gines constructed. A number of designs were exe-
cuted, among which may be noted the Westinghouse,
which is a double-cylinder, single-acting engine. The
low cost and simplicity, combined with a high de-
gree of efficiency, have brought this engine into ex-
tensive use.
The competition among engine builders has caused
marked changes to be made in simplifying and re-
ducing the cost of manufacture. Probably no change
which has been made equals that, adopted by nearly
all builders of what may be called the merchantable
engine, of reducing the number of main parts to a
single column or bedplate, in which the revolving
and reciprocating parts are supported and the cylin-
der secured directly to this column or bed. Engines
of this class, both vertical and horizontal, are manu-
factured by builders all over the country, and per-
haps no better estimate can be derived of the advance
in this particular than to consider that in 1795 there
were exceedingly few in this country who were in-
terested in the introduction of the steam-engine,
whereas in 1895 scarcely a town of any importance
exists which does not boast of one or more shops
where steam-engines are built. The marked advance
in the efficiency of the steam-engine may be seen
when we consider that previous to 1850 it took from
five to eight pounds of coal and something like
eighty pounds of water per horse-power per hour to
operate what was then considered the best class of
engine, whereas to-day the same work is done with
an expenditure of one and eight tenths pounds of
coal and fifteen pounds of water per horse-power
per hour. The manufacture of stationary engines is
so widely distributed and so extensively followed
that neither in the United States Census nor in other
compilations of statistics is it possible to determine
the number of men employed, the number of em-
ployers interested, the amount of capital involved, or
the value of the productions of this branch of
engine building.
The steam fire-engine is an important factor in
securing the safety of human life and property, and
the improvement in such engines within fifty years
has been great. Captain John Ericsson built a port-
able steam fire-engine, which was tested in New
York City in 1842, but was not put into regular ser-
vice. The time required for raising steam was then
eighteen minutes. Steam fire-engines were put into
permanent service in Cincinnati about 1853, and at
that time steam could be raised in less than four
minutes from the time the torch was applied. Econ-
omy is not a matter of prime importance in steam
fire-engines, the first requisites being power and por-
tability. Modern machines of beautiful design and
superb workmanship can be drawn by two horses,
and can be made ready for delivering enormous
quantities of water within three minutes after the
sound of the alarm. This comparatively small ap-
paratus can throw a stream of water over all except
the highest buildings in the large cities, and can
run for hours without damage. The boiler of the
steam fire-engine is one of the most powerful for its
weight used in any practical work. The fire-engines
manufactured in the United States are admittedly
superior to those manufactured elsewhere. This
superiority has doubtless resulted from the need of
the most efficient apparatus to protect cities largely
built of wood, and which are much more subject to
conflagration than those of older countries, where
brick and stone are the principal materials used in
construction.
While the progress of steam-engineering during
one hundred years has largely revolutionized the
methods of living, this development has not reached
its termination. On the contrary, the engines and
boilers which have recently been used in torpedo
boats, the experiments of Maxim in England, and of
Langley in the United States, introducing steam-
engines and boilers of power heretofore inconceiv-
able for their lightness, and the light engines and
boilers which are used in road carriages, indicate
that we may expect in the near future an enormous
saving in the amount of coal used in producing
power, and in the convenient subdivision of power
for a great variety of uses. It is reasonable, there-
fore, to expect that this advance will continue at
an accelerated pace, and it may be predicted that
the further development of steam engineering will
result in the increased conservation of the world's
resources and in an added contribution to the com-
fort and happiness of mankind.
CHAPTER XLIX
MACHINERY MANUFACTURING INTERESTS
WHEN the harvest of a century is gathered
we are able to measure its quantities and
to determine its values ; but the improve-
ment in the arts of a century can be estimated only
by comparing the conditions existing at its begin-
ning with those at its close.
Looking backward, then, to 1795, we discover a
sparsely settled country, with means of transporta-
tion limited to the slow ox or to the more speedy
horse ; the forest is cleared by a clumsy axe, adapted
more for dressing the timber after it is felled than
for felling it ; the ground is tilled by the spade and
the plow of wood, saving only the coulter and some-
times the mould-board, which turns the soil but little
below the surface; and the harvest is gathered by
the scythe and the sickle, wielded by arms and
hands strengthened and hardened by toil. A few
sawmills have existence, but most of the timber for
construction is hewed. The grist-mill is the most
complex piece of machinery ; its shafts and gear-
wheels are of wood, and its owner, the jolly miller,
depends upon his customers not only for his tithe
of the grain, but also for the assistance necessary to
grind it. The condensing steam-engine of Watt,
patented in England in 1769, was only practically
at work there for the first time in 1776. The non-
condensing engine of Oliver Evans had demon-
strated here in 1780 that it would operate, but
in this country both the condensing and the non-
condensing engine were absolutely unknown in
practice. The spinning-frame of Arkwright, in-
troduced into England in 1771, was as yet an
experiment here. The spinning-wheel propelled by
the foot, and the loom by the foot and the hand,
were the sole domestic agencies for clothing the
people and their beds, upholstering their furniture,
and providing their table-napery. Iron had been
made in the forge for more than a century, and cast-
ings of iron of uncertain quality were supplied from
the small cold-blast furnaces, whose output was from
one and one half to two tons daily, a few of the
largest making from twenty-five to thirty tons per
week. With few exceptions every kind of production
was by hand, or if machinery aided, it was directed
at every stage by human intelligence. When in 1771
Arkwright established his spinning-frame in Eng-
land, and a few years later Oliver Evans organized
a flour-mill in this country to execute the several
operations of the mill previously conducted by the
miller, machinery was enabled for the first time to
perform successive but dissimilar operations without
human direction.
The jealous policy of Great Britain, which aimed
to concentrate within her borders all the improve-
ments in the arts, prompted legislation from 1750 to
the close of the century, first to prevent the manu-
facture of iron in this country beyond the stage of
pig and bar, then to prevent the exportation from
Great Britain of any " tool or utensil used in work-
ing up or finishing cotton or linen, woolen or silk
manufactures, and of any other tool or utensil which
now is, or at any time or times hereafter may be,
used in working, finishing, or completing of the iron
or steel manufactures of this kingdom," under pen-
alty of forfeiture of such tools or utensils, a fine of
^200, and imprisonment for twelve months. That
the unfortunates outside of the kingdom should never
be enlightened, they were forbidden, under penalty
of ^500 and imprisonment in the common jail for
twelve months, " from seducing artificers, and others
employed in the manufactories, to depart out of this
kingdom ; and if any artificer has promised or con-
tracted to go into foreign parts to practise or teach
his trade, such artificer may be obliged to give
security, at the discretion of the court, that he shall
not go beyond the seas, and may be committed to
prison until he give such security."
At the close of the last century and during the
early part of this, these acts were rigidly enforced,
and they were not rescinded until 1845. In con-
346
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
347
sequence of this legislation machinery could not be
obtained from England, and the only alternative was
to rely upon our own mechanical ability and con-
struct what was needed at home. Our workmen
were skilled in the use of the axe, the adze, and all
carpenters' tools ; they had successfully constructed
our sawmills and grist-mills, in which the gearing and
shafting were of wood, the latter revolving upon
small iron journals ingeniously secured in the ends
of the wooden shafts. Our blacksmiths fashioned
our iron with facility in the forge, but the new ma-
chinery then coming into extensive use in England
demanded that this iron should receive a higher fin-
ish and be given a more exact form than could be
afforded by the forge, and out of this necessity the
machinist was born.
From the " History of American Textile Machi-
nery," by John L. Hayes, LL.D., we learn that
Samuel Slater, a young Englishman, aided by the
capital of some enterprising men in Providence,
R. I., constructed at Pawtucket, in that State, in
1790, the first of the textile mills in this country to
use the Arkwright system. All of its machinery was
built by him on the premises, and we may conceive
the difficulties under which he labored when we
consider that he brought with him from England no
plans or models of the machinery, and in that age of
the world not one of the machines now so common
for shaping cold iron had existence. What expedi-
ents he must have resorted to, and what a school it
was for his workmen ! At this period woolen cloth
fabricated in the household was the only domestic
source of the supply of that article; but in 1793
John Schofield and his family, with his brother
Arthur, emigrated from England to this country,
and, being well skilled in the most approved method
of manufacturing woolen goods in England, con-
structed, with the aid of some persons of wealth in
Newburyport, Mass., the first carding-machine that
was worked in the United States. This apparatus
was first turned by hand ; but when the remaining
machinery was completed the factory was put into
operation by water-power, the business thenceforth
being conducted prosperously. Like the cotton-
mill of Slater, the machinery of this first woolen-
mill was built by Schofield on the premises. Rude
indeed must such machinery have been ; but it
served its purpose, not alone to prepare the fiber and
to spin the yarn for which it was designed, but also
to educate every man, woman, and child who aided
to construct or to operate it.
Out of such experience came, first, that adjunct
of the lathe, the slide-rest, the progenitor, in fact, of
nearly all the appliances for automatically shaping
cold iron. At this time the lathe had but lately ad-
vanced beyond the first stage of its existence, that
of two dead-centers, which supported the work as it
was rotated backward and forward by a band around
it, one end attached to a spring-pole above it, the
other end to the foot of the operator, while the turn-
ing-tool was held in his hand. Think of the skill
and the patience required to produce good work
with such an implement I And yet with no better
appliance all of the domestic turned work of our
colonial period was executed.
The lathe had now, however, advanced beyond this
first stage, and was provided with a revoluble spindle
and center, by which the work was axially supported
and rotated ; but the tools for turning either wood
or iron were still held and manipulated by hand.
The new industries demanded large numbers of
cylindrical iron pieces exactly parallel and of like
diameter, for the production of which manual skill
was inadequate. This want was supplied by the
slide-rest, which theretofore had been found only in
the workshop of the optician and the mathematical-
instrument maker, but was now to become a com-
mon adjunct of the lathe. From this time the
capacity of the lathe to produce cylindrical work of
the required exactitude was unlimited, but the work-
man had to manipulate the slide-rest to enable the
cutting-tool which it carried to perform its work.
The preparation and the adjustment of the cutting-
tool, as well as its rate of traverse, required skill;
but to perform the work after that demanded only
constant attention, and the number of workmen
who could patiently give that was limited. As a
consequence the slide-lathe was introduced, where-
by the advance of the cutting-tool, and the rotation
of the work, were automatically performed. The
facilities for producing the long, flat, and straight
surfaces best adapted for such a machine were then
limited to the hammer and the cold-chisel, the file
and the straight-edge, the latter then produced by
grinding three surfaces alternately upon one another
until they touched uniformly, in any order of pairs.
The slide-lathe, therefore, had a curious develop-
ment. The hand-lathe, with its wooden bed and
short slide-rest, could produce cylinders economi-
cally, and these were utilized for slide-lathe beds;
but lacking stability, as well as security for the slide-
rest, the cast-iron bed dressed by the cold-chisel and
the file was finally adopted. The form of the guid-
ing surfaces of the slide-rest was, however, modified
in the lathe to save hand labor, and this distinctive
form has maintained an existence to the present day.
348
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The next development of the slide-rest was the
planing-machine, whereby the rough and irregular
surface of the castings and forgings, traveling slowly
under a cutting-tool movable at right angles to the
travel of the work, was smoothed and reduced to a
true plane. The advent of this machine was an era
in the life of the machinist, as great, perhaps, as that
of the slide -rest. I am unable to determine when
the first one was started, but to give some idea of
its development I may say that in 1 838 it was gen-
erally understood that there were but four of these
machines in the United States. With this machine
it was at once possible to construct lathes of in-
creased capacity, power, and exactitude. The drill,
which before that had been limited to a revolving
vertical spindle, was endowed with an iron frame,
and a table at right angles to it, upon which the
work might be rigidly supported and adjusted with
ease and certainty. The boring-mill or vertical lathe
was then economically possible, and took its place in
the machine-shop to execute a large class of turned
work that did not require to be supported upon
centers, or as preparatory thereto. Much of this
work consisted of wheels that had to be keyed upon
their shafts. The seats for these keys were chipped
and filed, and the first development of the planing-
machine was the key-seating machine, in which the
tool moved while the work was fed against it. The
capacity of such a machine for other work was soon
developed, and when provided with compound slide-
rests and a revoluble table mounted thereon, it took
its place as a standard tool in the machine-shop,
under the name of the slotting-machine. This
planer, with its vertically movable tool, was the
progenitor of a machine with similar attachments,
but with its tool moving horizontally, upon which
work could be conveniently shaped in a great variety
of forms ; and the shaping-machine, as it was called,
soon became one of the standard tools of the
machine-shop.
With the advent of these tools the art of driving
the cold-chisel and of guiding the file, once the
criterion of a good workman, was rarely exercised.
In the mean time, however, the vertical spindle-
drill, with its compound tables, movable vertically
and adjustable horizontally in two directions at
right angles with each other, had been supplemented
by the horizontal drill, with similar tables, but with
its drill-spindle parallel to the tables ; and the further
requirements in this direction had been supplied by
the radial drill, in which the vertical drill-spindle is
movable about a vertical axis, toward and from which
it is adjustable radially.
The development of the machine-shop was not,
however, exactly in the order above indicated ; it
had other requirements which these tools supplied
inadequately, if at all, among which were the screw-
bolts and nuts for securing the parts of the machines
together, a want which had been imperfectly sup-
plied before even the original lathe had an existence.
The iron screw-bolt was then formed by compress-
ing a split die upon it, provided with spiral threads,
and rotating the bolt or the die backward and for-
ward until the thread was partly cut and partly raised
to its completed form, while a taper-tap was screwed
into the nut from one side and then from the other,
until by trial the nut was found to enter upon the bolt.
The apex of the thread was always larger than the
diameter of the bolt, and bolts and nuts were only
interchangeable by accident. The slide-lathe made
it possible to cut out the thread without raising it,
but for the great mass of bolts this was far too ex-
pensive, so that the split die continued to produce its
imperfect product in this country until the solid die
patented by Philetus W. Gates, May 8, 1847, with
sectional threads, was introduced. After this die
had cut the thread at one pass, its direction of rota-
tion was reversed to unscrew it from the bolt, which
not only left a mark upon the thread, but was liable
to injure the die, and no compensation for wear was
possible. It was not until 1857 that a bolt machine
was devised by William Sellers, and constructed by
his firm in which dies to cut the thread at one pass,
and adjustable to size, could be opened and closed
while running continuously in one direction, and
thereafter ordinary screw-bolts could be made inter-
changeable. In 1860 this tool was introduced into
England, and subsequently upon the continent of
Europe.
Another of the early machine-shop tools was the
gear-cutter, simply a revolving milling-cutter against
which the wheel was forced, mounted upon a spindle
above the dividing-plate on the same spindle. The
only power used was that required to rotate the cut-
ter ; the movement against the cutter and its reverse,
and the division or adjustment for the next tooth,
being all performed by the workman. The cost of
such work was so great that the teeth of nearly all
wheels, even for fine machines, were cast, until a
machine was devised by William Sellers, and con-
structed by his firm in 1867, and exhibited at the
exposition in Paris in the same year, in which the
work of the operative was limited to adjusting the
wheel to be cut to the cutter. After that the ma-
chine proceeded with the work of cutting each tooth,
retracting the cutter, turning the wheel for the next
WILLIAM SELLERS.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
•M
tooth, and so on, until the wheel was completed in
less time than it could be done when these move-
ments were effected by hand ; so that now one man
r;in easily attend several machines, and cast teeth
are no longer admissible in good machines.
One other typical machine-tool which has re-
ceived its greatest development in this country must
be referred to — the milling-machine, by which the
various shapes for use or for ornament in our fire-
arms are fashioned. Its use is so varied that it has
become a necessary adjunct to every machine-shop,
and I close with this the list of machine-tools ne-
cessary to make other machines. It must not be
supposed, however, that the above comprise all or
nearly all of the machine-tools now in common use ;
they are but types, upon which an infinite variety of
changes have been wrought to adapt them to special
requirements. Their development marked the first
stage of the machinist's art, when machine-tools were
only required to perform the simple operations of
turning and planing, drilling and milling, to make
other machines.
Along witli the development of these tools for
general purposes came a development of the system
of interchangeability as an economical principle in
manufacturing machinery, requiring in some in-
stances special machines, but more commonly spe-
cial tools or appliances for use in connection with
the ordinary machine-tools. While it cannot be
claimed that this country was the first to attempt
manufacturing machinery upon this principle, it
must be admitted that the system was in successful
use here very many years in advance of any other
nation, and that, in fact, the demonstration here that
the system was economical, as well as advantageous
in other respects, induced the nations of Europe to
adopt it and procure the necessary apparatus here
to establish it at home.
For the economical manufacture of machinery or
of apparatus in which large numbers of the parts
shall be interchangeable there are certain prelimi-
nary conditions which must be observed : first, refer-
ence standards must be provided, with which to
compare the several parts and determine the toler-
ance— that is to say, the amount of variation per-
missible between the standard and the product ;
second, every part of the finished piece must be
completed without the intervention of hand labor;
and third, for every piece a base must be established,
te which each and every succeeding operation must
refer ; consequently every piece must form a sepa-
rate study to determine the best appliances for
each operation, so that the efficiency of the opera-
tion shall not be dependent upon the skill of the
operator.
The first application of these principles was made
upon firearms in our government arsenals, under the
direction of Mr. Eli Whitney, the inventor of the
cotton-gin. The growth of the system must have
been slow, and confined for a long period to a few
of the principal parts; but from the first it had
proved economical, for in 1832, Mr. Calhoun, then
Secretary of War, admitted to Mr. Whitney that the
government was saving $2 5,000 per year at the two
public armories alone by the use of his improve-
ments. The drop forging-press, with its dies con-
forming to the shape desired, served to produce
expeditiously in red-hot metal all of the smaller
parts of the gun, closely approximating the finished
size and shape. The milling-machine, when its
capacity was developed, finished these forged parts,
however varied the shape, with an accuracy well
within the limit of tolerance ; and the drill, when the
order of procedure had been determined and the
guiding templets were provided, fashioned the bear-
ings for the working parts and the holes for securing
the parts in position. The wooden gun-stock, of
irregular form, was rapidly and automatically shaped
exteriorly as it and its model revolved in a lathe
designed by Thomas Blanchard, and patented by
him January 20, 1820. Other special tools routed
the groove for the gun-barrel and the cavity for the
lock, with the other details required to receive the
guards and fastenings of the gun, with such accuracy
that the several parts could be assembled as they
came from the machines. The accuracy then at-
tainable, however, was far short of that now de-
manded ; the gun then produced did not require it.
The machine-tools were limited in variety and com-
paratively rude of structure, so that the quality of
their work could not be depended upon. The
vernier caliper was the most delicate instrument of
measurement, and a thousandth of an inch was its
extreme limit of accuracy, while the form of the
screw-thread did not admit of very accurate deter-
mination.
As the quality of our machine-tools improved, the
skill of our workmen advanced and their appreciation
of accuracy was enlarged. Appliances necessary to
detect with certainty an error of the twenty thou-
sandth of an inch were supplied by the Pratt &
Whitney Company, after designs by Professor W. A.
Rogers and Mr. George M. Bond ; and the form
of screw-threads advocated by Mr. William Sellers
in a paper read before the Franklin Institute, April
21, 1864, has since become the standard for the
350
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
United States ; so that now a degree of accuracy is
easily attainable which, at the introduction of the
system, was impossible. The failure of the earlier
attempt to establish an interchangeable system of
manufacture in France was perhaps due to rude
apparatus ; but from the description that has come
down to us it would seem that the cardinal condi-
tions before referred to had not been observed, with
the result that a commission appointed by the French
government in 1791 decided that it was inexpedient
to establish a central manufactory of locks, mainly
for the reason that it had not been found economi-
cal, and in 1807 the last factory engaged in the
manufacture was suppressed.
From the first our method of working the inter-
changeable system had proved economical, and, with
the growth of excellence in every detail of machi-
nery, the system had been so extended and improved
that the knowledge of its advantages reached to
foreign countries, and various commissions were
appointed to investigate it. In 1870 the German
government contracted with the Pratt & Whitney
Company for gun machinery to the value of $350,-
ooo, and within the next three years for $1,250,000
more; and until 1875 the company was kept busy
on European orders. By a supplemental contract
with the German government the Pratt & Whitney
Company agreed to superintend the erection of the
machinery they had furnished, and to instruct native
workmen how to operate it. The results were so
satisfactory that, departing from precedent, the au-
thorities forwarded a letter, from which the following
is an extract :
"The Pratt & Whitney Company has furnished
the royal armories of Spandau, Erfurt, and Danzig
with plants of machinery which execute the work
with such nicety and precision as to save one half
the wages, and to render the government in no
small degree independent of the power and skill of
the workmen." About the same time other manu-
facturers of gun-making tools — notably Brown &
Sharpe, of Providence, R. I.— received large orders
for such machinery from other foreign countries,
and our system for the manufacture of this class of
interchangeable parts was thus established in Eng-
land and on the continent of Europe.
The record, therefore, discloses the fact that for
more than half a century this country has been in
possession of a system of manufacture peculiar to
itself, developed first in the manufacture of the
larger class of firearms, then extended to pistols,
and subsequently to a great variety of products,
such as the sewing-machine, the type-writer, the
bicycle, and the watch, in all of which we stand to-
day unrivaled.
Within the period I have been reviewing every
art has advanced enormously, and many have been
developed that had no previous existence. The
farmer no longer scratches the surface of his fields.
His plow of steel suffices to turn the sod to a depth
that compels a more bounteous harvest ; his seeds
are planted and his crops are tilled by machines
which he rides and guides ; and his harvest is cut
and cured by still other machines, that carry him to
their work, obedient to his will.
Textile fabrics, at first hand-made, by successive
steps have become the product of machinery to
which the raw material is supplied, and from which
the finished material only is removed by hand. The
twine for the fisherman was once spun and the
meshes of his net were knit by hand. But he need
no longer knit, because he can buy his net for less
than he must pay for the twine of which to make it.
The yarn for knitting, formerly hand-made, is no
longer in the market, and its knitted product, once
a fireside occupation, is now supplied at a cost that
even those so-called idle hours could not compete
with. Boots and shoes then required a skilful work-
man to produce. Each was the work of one man.
But the shoemaker no longer exists. More than half
a hundred workers each contributes his mite to the
shoe which machinery produces, while garments
then cut out and laboriously stitched by hand are
now fashioned in piles and stitched and buttonholed
by machinery. While machinery has thus been
adapted to feed and to clothe us, it has been taught
to produce almost every article required in the
household or the workshop. Indeed, the very
houses that shelter us no longer represent the skill
of the joiner, for the mill has usurped his place, and
the carpenter only assembles its work.
The same changes have occurred in the fabrica-
tion of metals. The blast-furnace, whose maximum
product early in the century was 25 to 30 tons per
week, now produces 500 tons per day. The bloom
of iron, then the unit from which the largest masses
were built up, small as we now regard them, has
given place to the ingot of steel, weighing many
tons, which requires less labor to produce than the
bloom of as many pounds. The forge and the roll-
ing-mill which fashion the ingot in great masses are
new creations, and the machines which shape it in
detail with such marvelous rapidity, and at one heat,
are developments so great that the original parent
is barely recognizable. In transportation the team
of horses has long since been displaced by the loco-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
;:,!
motive, and present indications point to another and
more efficient substitute.
The immense number of similar parts which the
automatic machinery of these and other industries
demanded afforded opportunity for the introduction
of machine-tools to manufacture machinery, as dis-
tinguished from those designed simply for making it.
The difference may be illustrated in the two processes
of making a turned bolt with a square or hexagonal
head, the one after the introduction of the slide-lathe,
and the other at the present time. Then, a bar of
iron of suitable size was heated and forged by the
smith to a size and shape approximating that of the
finished article ; this was centered ; a carrier was
secured upon one end whereby it could be rotated ;
the end opposite the carrier was squared in the slide-
lathe by a side-tool, the carrier was transferred
to the other end of the bolt, and the opposite end
was squared, the side-tool was changed for another
tool, adapted to turning the body of the bolt, and
this again for another, adapted to cutting the
thread. At each change of carrier and of tool the
lathe was stopped that the workman might release
the one tool and secure the other. Now, the iron
bar, square or hexagonal, and of the size and shape
of the head of the bolt, is delivered from the rolling-
mill to the attendant of the machine, who thrusts it
into the machine against a stop ; the machine grips
it, squares off the projecting end, turns up the body
of the bolt, cuts the thread, bevels the end, and
finally cuts off the bar beyond the last turning, to
make a head, and the bolt drops, a finished product.
The machine releases the bar, moves it forward the
distance required for another similar bolt, and re-
peats its operations, until the bar is converted into
bolts ; and it could, if desirable, inform its attendant
that it was out of work, or notify him of the fact by
stopping its movement. The attendant is no longer
of necessity a machinist, for his only occupation is
to provide his machine with bars, to remove its pro-
duct, and to keep it clean, duties which attendance
upon a number of such machines does not make
onerous. The turned bolt so manufactured is as
good as, but no better than, that which was first
forged and then finished upon the simple slide-lathe ;
but the product of the workman is vastly greater,
and the skill required for it is far less. For such
apparatus quantity of like product is the first req-
uisite. Given this, and the skill of the engineer
and the machinist is demanded to produce by suc-
cessive automatic operations the desired result.
These operations without the intervention of human
intelligence may at first be few in number, but they
will be extended from time to time as experience
warrants or as future discoveries may render possible.
The field, then, for machinery and for manufac-
turing interests is forever widening. Every secret
of nature that is unfolded, every discovery in the
arts, every combination that produces new results,
only opens other avenues of progress, which must
become more rapid and more diverse with the
growth of the centuries.
At the close of this century, however, it should
be noted that within the period I have been review-
ing the trade of the machinist had its origin. It
would be interesting to determine accurately, if that
were possible, what is now the annual product of this
new industry ; but the census gives only the aggre-
gate value of the machinery, tools, and implements
in use, and the annual production of all manufactur-
ing industries. From this source, however, we find
that the annual product of all manufacturing in-
dustries per employee amounts to $1988, a sum con-
siderably in excess of what I believe would be found
to be the product per employee in a manufactory
comprising foundries and machine-shops. The last
census gives the number of foundries and machine-
shop establishments at 6475, the capital employed
at $382,798,337, and the number of employees at
247,754; and if we assume the annual product per
employee to be $1500, we shall have an annual pro-
duction of machinery equal to $371,631,000, which
is probably a moderate estimate. The importation
of machinery is so small compared with our own
production that the cost has but little effect upon
our market, particularly so as its design and con-
struction are generally regarded as inferior to our
own ; but it is of interest to know that our average
annual importation for the last five years has been
$2,512,417.
It is to be hoped that, with a more widely dis-
seminated knowledge of the value of statistics, the
coming decade will develop census reports from
which, for the principal industries at least, an ac-
curate knowledge of our production per operative
may be determined.
CHAPTER L
AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY AND IMPLEMENTS
KNOWLEDGE is not a matter of words : it
is an acquaintance with things. Theories
may present a seemingly formidable front,
but they must ever yield before the battering-ram of
facts. The farmer who hitched his small horse to
the short end of the whiffletree to balance the large
horse at the longer end may not have appreciated
the stern philosophy of the failure of his scheme, but
the failure itself was a demonstrated fact. Needless
to say, he was not a farmer of the present day and
age, to whom the laws of mechanics, as applied to
his calling, are almost as familiar as to the inventor
himself. The contributions of invention to the ad-
vancement of agriculture are as self-evident as cause
and effect. These contributions — the things con-
tributed— are familiar to the great farming public.
This acquaintance with the various machines and
implements designed for his use has given the agri-
culturist a knowledge that is power — a power that
is seen not only in his own ameliorated condition,
but in the generally augmented commercial pros-
perity of the nation and of the world. The uni-
versality of the value of important agricultural
inventions is uniformly recognized by writers upon
commercial and economic subjects. In 1869 Mr.
J. J. Thomas published a book entitled " Farm Im-
plements," and in the course of his introductory
remarks said: "The great value of improved farm
machinery to the country at large has been lately
proved by the introduction of the reaper. Careful
estimates determine that the number of reaping-
machines introduced up to the beginning of the
great Rebellion performed, while working in harvest,
an amount of labor nearly equal to that of a million
of men with hand implements. The reaper thus fills
the void caused by the demand on workingmen for
the army. An earlier occurrence of that war must
therefore have resulted in the general ruin of the
grain interests, and prevented the annual shipment,
during that gigantic contest, of the millions of bush-
els of wheat which so greatly surprised the com-
mercial savants of Europe."
In contemplating the subject of farm machinery
and implements, one is struck by the infinite variety
of useful inventions extant, and is at a loss to know
where, within the scope of a brief sketch, the line
shall be drawn between special mention and mere
allusion covering the general field. Research in
this direction, however, as doubtless in most other
industrial lines, discloses the names of a few whose
individuality has become so indelibly stamped upon
the age as to entitle them to more than a passing
notice. Aside from these apparently necessary ex-
ceptions, it is not the purpose of this article to dwell
upon particular inventions, classes, or individual in-
ventors, but rather to indicate in a comprehensive
manner the growth and development of the speci-
fied art during the past roo years, and to show or
attempt to measure the accruing advantages not
only to agriculture but to the commercial progress
of this wonderful century.
There are no tangible figures relative to the early
manufacturing interests of the United States. The
government made an effort to secure data on this
subject in 1810, and, under the direction of the Sec-
retary of the Treasury, the marshals of the several
States, and the secretaries of the Territories, began the
work, but the returns were so irregular and deficient
in specific particulars that they have never been
accepted as possessing any value for the statistician.
It may be said, however, that down to the begin-
ning of the present century but little progress had
been made in the improvement and development of
agricultural implements. It is true that during the
eighteenth century in Great Britain there were va-
rious spasmodic efforts at improvement which showed
that inventors were dreaming of something better
than was then in common use, but they either lacked
352
ELDRIDGE M. FOWLER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
capacity to make their new devices practically op-
erative, or agriculturists lacked sufficient intelligence
to appreciate and operate them. The first quarter
of this century had passed before invention in this
lino had made any practical progress, and it was
not until the middle of the century that manufac-
turers undertook a general advance, and began to
push their product and arouse agriculturists to the
advantage of improved implements. Then opened
this modern period of rapid progress, development,
and perfection. The movement began in this coun-
try, and Americans have maintained the lead ever
since.
The centennial character of this publication sug-
gests the fact that 100 years ago the patent on Eli
Whitney's cotton-gin was two years old. As a fac-
tor in the acceleration of the national resources and
wealth, its value can scarcely be overestimated.
Referring to it, Lord Macaulay is reported as say-
ing: "What Peter the Great did to make Russia
dominant, Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin
has more than equaled in its relation to the pro-
gress and power of the United States." In 1791,
just previous to the time of Whitney's invention, the
cotton crop of the world was estimated at 490,000,-
ooo pounds, of which the United States produced
about one two-hundred-and-forty-fifth. As early as
1845 the total product had increased to 1,169,600,-
ooo pounds, of which the United States supplied
1,000,000,000 pounds, or more than seven eighths.
Other cotton-producing countries were slow to
avail themselves of Whitney's invention, and were
consequently distanced in the race to supply the
world's increasing demand. In this connection it
is interesting to note that in 1784 a consignment of
eight bags of cotton, a total of about 1600 pounds,
was seized at Liverpool on the ground that so large
a quantity could not have been produced in the
United States ! A conservative estimate of the cot-
ton crop of this country for the current year places
it at about 9,500,000 bales of 477 pounds each.
The first need of the original agriculturist was an
implement for stirring the soil, and for this purpose
he fashioned a stick with a hooked end, which he
himself drew. In time, when beasts were trained
for the bearing of burdens and for draft, this stick
was enlarged and drawn by them ; later it was shod
with iron, and through all the centuries down to a
little more than 100 years ago it remained substan-
tially the same, even among the most highly civi-
lized peoples, being to this day in common use in
Mexico and in other Latin-American nations. Some
improvement was made in Great Britain during the
last century in the form of plows, and iron was in-
creasingly used in their construction, but the plow
still in common use was the primitive implement,
generally made by the farmer himself. The first
American patent on a plow was granted to Charles
Newbold of New Jersey, in 1797. The claim was
for a plow of solid cast iron, excepting handles and
beam, consisting of a bar, sheath, and mold-plate.
It cut and turned over the soil very well, but farm-
ers did not accept it because they thought that iron
was poisonous to the land.
The man who laid the foundations of the modern
plow was Jethro Wood. He gave it its present
form and made it of cast iron, with share, shin,
mold-board, and landside, the parts being common
to any plow — that is, interchangeable. It was
patented September i, 1819. During the forties
plow-making was carried on extensively in the East-
ern States, but the demands of the Western and
prairie States from 1850 and onward, and the use
of chilled iron, expanded the industry and led to
the many inventions and the perfection that have
followed. Among the names that will ever be as-
sociated with the plow are John Deere, pioneer in-
ventor and manufacturer, and James Oliver, whose
perfection of the chilled plow was an important ad-
vance in this line of invention.
The first drag, or harrow, was the limb of a tree,
with extending branches. This suggested the A
form of drag with teeth inserted, and it, in turn, the
square or oblong Roman harrow. These came
down to the middle of this century, substantially un-
changed. The first improvement in harrows was
the revolving disk, for which the first patent was is-
sued by our Patent Office to G. Page on August 7,
1847. Many and various have been the improve-
ments in harrows since.
Hand dropping or sowing of seed was the common
practice down to the middle of this century. A sort
of drill plow was produced in Assyria long before
the opening of the Christian era, and the Chinese
claim the use of a similar implement some three or
four thousand years ago. About 1 730, Jethro Tull,
an Englishman, produced a machine that was the
prototype of the modern drill. By the end of the
century, considerable advancement had been made
in England, and a broadcast seeder mounted on a
wheelbarrow had been invented. The first Ameri-
can patent on a seeding-machine was granted in
1799 to Eliakim Spooner, and several others were
issued during the early years of this century; but
nothing practical resulted until about 1840. J. Gib-
bons, on August 25, 1840, patented the feeding cavi-
354
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ties and a device for regulating the amount deliv-
ered. Next, M. and S. Pennock, of Pennsylvania,
obtained a patent March 12, 1841, for improvements
in cylinder drills, a class of drills they largely placed
upon the market. Patents on slide drills and " force-
feed " drills followed, the first patent on the latter
having been granted to Foster, Jessup & Brown,
November 4, 1851. The feeding or dropping de-
vices having thus been invented, various kinds of
seeding-machines followed — drills, broadcast seed-
ers, and combinations, etc., to be developed and
perfected as the years passed.
The original cultivator was like the original plow,
simply a hooked stick. This in time was developed
into the hoe, and remained the common cultivating
implement until this century was well advanced.
Early in the eighteenth century Jethro Tull origina-
ted in England the " horse-hoe " system of cultiva-
tion. He sowed grain in rows, cultivating between
them. To carry out his system he invented the horse-
drill and the horse-hoe, or cultivator, with which to
work between the rows. His system failed for the
time, cultivating continuing to be done with the hoe,
and sometimes by plowing between rows, until corn-
fields began to be of considerable size, when the
single-shovel corn cultivator for one horse was pro-
duced by some blacksmith, and later another shovel
was added, forming the two-shovel plow. The latter
was generally used in the prairie corn-fields up to
1860. April 22, 1856, George Esterly took out a
patent on a straddle-row two-horse corn cultivator,
which was the first in the invention of a line of im-
plements in the manufacture of which millions are
now invested; there being an almost endless vari-
ety of cultivators — hand and horse, single and dou-
ble, walking and riding, shovel-bladed, spring-tooth,
disk, etc.
Among the prehistoric implements that have been
found are several forms of sickles and scythes for
cutting grain. The earliest are of flint, but curved
and shaped quite like the old sickle that our grand-
fathers used ; the scythes being similar in shape, but
larger, some having shanks for handles, or snaths.
These were the implements with which grain and
grass were cut, down to about fifty years ago. Of
course, through the many centuries they were im-
proved in form and material; the snath of the
scythe was given the proper shape, and finally fin-
• gers were added, forming a cradle, early in this
century. It is true that Pliny describes a crude
stripping-header, as in use in Gaul during the first
century of the Christian era, and several efforts
were made to produce a grain-cutting machine to
be drawn or pushed by horses, in England and in
this country, toward the end of the last century and
the fore part of this ; but nothing practical came of
these efforts.
The earliest demonstration of a successful reaper
was made by Cyrus Hall McCormick in Virginia in
the summer of 1831. His first patent was granted
on June 21, 1834. Letters patent bearing date De-
cember 31, 1833, were issued to Obed Hussey, but
the McCormick reaper had been operated in the field
two years before Mr. Hussey claimed to have in-
vented his machine. Both McCormick and Hussey
built reaping-machines that did good, practical work.
Hussey, however, was hardly strong enough for the
struggle necessary for pushing a radical innovation;
but McCormick zealously persevered, improving
and perfecting his machine, building an increased
number each year, and pushing their sale with un-
tiring energy, until the demand so largely outran
manufacturing facilities that in 1847 the plant was
removed to Chicago and fully equipped for supply-
ing the harvest-fields of the West.
In 1849 the United States Commissioner of Pat-
ents, referring to the McCormick reaper, said: "In
agriculture it is in my view as important a labor-
saving device as the spinning-jenny and power-
loom in manufactures. It is one of those great and
valuable inventions which commence a new era in
the progress of improvement, and whose beneficial
influence is felt in all coming time." Mr. McCor-
mick exhibited his machine at the London Exposi-
tion of 1851, and after witnessing its field work the
juries were enthusiastic over its success, it being
openly asserted that this machine alone was worth
the entire cost of the Exposition. In recognition
of the value of Mr. McCormick's invention, it is
worthy of note that in 1878 he was elected a cor-
responding member of the French Academy of
Sciences, on the ground of his " having done more
for the cause of agriculture than any other living
man."
Since the invention and general introduction of
the reaper, improvements have been many and val-
uable. Among those marking the progress of the
development it should be noted that in July, 1851,
Palmer & Williams were granted a patent on their
self-raking reaper. During the fifties patents were
also issued to John H. Manny, Walter A. Wood,
Cyrenus Wheeler, and others, for improvements on
reapers; to Louis Miller for important features of
both reapers and mowers, and to C. W. and W. W.
Marsh for the first practical hand-binding harvester,
with which, later, the binder was successfully incor-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
porated. The first patent on a grain-binder was
granted to John E. Heath on July 22, 1850. Com-
ing down, however, to the automatic twine binder,
as in use at the present time, the McCormick de-
vice patented by Marquis L. Gorham, February 9,
1875, is the original successful invention. The
early reaper has gradually developed into the mod-
ern harvester, and is now quite generally superseded
by it. The range of the harvester's utility is also
being enlarged, and we have a machine adapted to
the successful cutting of rice, and another to corn
and sugar-cane. Within the past -decade some at-
tention has been given to the Universal Harvester,
designed for the simultaneous cutting and threshing
of grain. It is built to cut from sixteen to forty
feet, but climatic conditions are such as to preclude
anything more than a very limited adoption, though
machines of this type are used to some extent on
the Pacific Coast.
Implements for mowing and reaping were origi-
nally of the same class, and mowing and reaping
machines were thus classified in the Patent Office, so
it is not known who first invented a machine intended
solely for mowing. The early reapers were gen-
erally of the class known as combined — that is, they
both reaped and mowed. William F. Ketcham was
the first to build distinctively mowing-machines for
the market. His first patent was granted on No-
vember 1 8, 1844.
Grain was first pounded out of straw by a stick,
next by the flail, and then by cattle or horses on
the " threshing-floor," and the larger portion of the
grain in this country was thus threshed prior to 1840.
The first successfully operated threshing-machine
was the invention of Andrew Meikle, in Scotland,
for which he obtained a patent in 1788. A fanning-
mill was added in 1800, and it then became a com-
plete separator, but it was very imperfect and was
stationary — being run by water-power — and the
grain was brought to it to be threshed. Threshers
without separating devices were used in this coun-
try as early as 1825, but to Hiram A. and John A.
Pitts belongs the honor of producing the first prac-
tical combination of threshing and cleaning, or sepa-
rating, devices, all in one machine, and that portable.
In 1834 they made the combination and successfully
operated it. Their first patent was dated December
29, 1837. The Pitts Brothers laid the foundation of
the threshing-machine industry, and they and McCor-
mick, who was bringing forward his reaper at the
same time, together laid the foundation upon which
has since been built the whole structure of the mod-
ern agricultural-implement industry. It opened up
great possibilities for improvements in other classes,
and stimulated invention in all lines.
Corn-planters are strictly an American invention.
Several patents on seeding-machines were issued by
the United States Patent Office from 1799 down to
1836, when the records were destroyed by fire, and
some one or more may have been granted for put-
ting seed-corn into the ground. A patent was issued
to D. S. Rockwell, March 12, 1839, for a corn-plant-
er. Afterward other patents were granted, covering
various devices and improvements in hand and horse
planters, but it was left for George W. Brown to
produce a practical and marketable machine of this
type. His first patent was issued on August 2, 1853.
The hinged marker was successfully attached by
Jarvis Case, whose patent is dated December i, 1857.
The first patent on a check-rower was granted to M.
Robbins, on February 10, 1857; but to Haworth
Brothers is due the credit of making the check-rower
sufficiently practical for common use and putting it
on the market.
In haying tools and machinery, J. E. Porter's
patents of 1872, on carriers, opened the way for a
big industry. The Keystone Manufacturing Com-
pany were first in the field with a successful hay-
loader, and to P. K. Dederick must be accredited
the perfection attained by the baling-press.
In view of the fact that windmills for pumping
purposes were very generally used in Holland several
hundred years ago, it seems somewhat surprising
that the farm wind-engine, as we know it to-day,
has a history of only some two-score years. In 1841,
a man named Wheeler, who was laboring as a mis-
sionary among the Indians in Northern Wisconsin,
conceived the idea of a windmill for grinding grain
and pumping water, but it was not until 1867 that
his theories were embodied in a model of what is
known as the " solid- wheel" mill. In 1854, Daniel
Halliday and John Burnham crystallized their ideas
of a sectional windmill, and, engaging at once in its
manufacture, stimulated others, until now immense
capital is invested in this branch of industry.
It is apparent that there are many other impor-
tant machines and implements of this class well de-
serving more than passing note, but the scope of
this article precludes any specific reference to them.
Of incalculable value is the long line of portable
engines, horse-powers, ditching machines, com shel-
lers, shredders, and huskers, cane machinery, potato
planters and diggers, etc. Suffice it to say that in
these various lines improvement is the watchword;
and if our American inventors have not quite reached
perfection, they are making commendable progress
356
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
toward it, and need have no apprehension of being
superseded by inventors or manufacturers of other
nations.
The number of establishments engaged in the
exclusive manufacture of agricultural machinery and
implements, as shown by the census returns of 1890,
was 910; or, as specified in the " Government Bulle-
tin," this is the "number reporting," and we can well
believe that it is considerably below the actual total.
These concerns reported an aggregate capital of
$145,313,997, the number of hands employed being
39,580, receiving in wages $17,652,162. The value
of the manufactured product, including receipts from
custom work and repairing, was $81,271,651. Our
foreign trade in this line of manufactures is increasing
at a rapid rate, having grown from practically noth-
ing at the time of the Rebellion to $5,027,915 for the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1894, a forcible illustra-
tion of the fact that American genius and skill,
American capital and push, are asserting their su-
premacy around the globe. The number of farms
in the United States is given as 4,564,641, or 623,-
218,619 acres, worth $13,279,252,649. These farms
were supplied with machinery and implements to
the value of $494,247,467, this figure represent-
ing a gain of over twenty-one per cent, in ten
years. It will thus be seen that the modern agri-
culturist is keenly alive to the value of either im-
proved methods or implements looking to the bet-
tering of his condition and the lightening of his labors.
If he does not repeatedly say so in words, he puts it
more forcibly in deeds. That he takes kindly to
the manufactured products of inventive skill is seen
in the gradual ratio of increase of the money annu-
ally expended for purchases in this direction. It is
also seen in the wonderful increase of our country's
cereal product, which has grown from about 600,-
000,000 bushels in 1840 to considerably more than
3,000,000,000 bushels as estimated for 1895. There
has, of course, been a natural logical increase in our
farm product, but it is safe to say that a fair percent-
age of it, as shown by the above figures, has been
directly due to the benefits which invention has con-
tributed to modern agriculture. /
In the early colonial days, machinery was re-
garded as a special invention of the devil, and it was
a bold step, taken by the Rev. Thomas Barnard, to
preach his " manufactory sermon " in Boston, in the
course of which he asserted that " an industrious
prosecution of the arts of civil life is very friendly to
virtue," assuring his hearers that such encouragement
to manufactures as would enable them to produce
at home what they were then importing from foreign
countries would be the part of wisdom and prudence.
It was nearly three quarters of a century later before
the agricultural-implement industry gave even a hint
of its ultimate magnitude, and the story of its won-
derful growth during the past fifty years — were it
told by a master who should picture all its bright-
ness — would read like a tale of the Arabian Nights.
The invention, development, and marketing of our
modern farm machinery and implements have directly
advanced the cause of agriculture to a degree that
our forefathers never dreamed of, fairly lifting it from
the treadmill round of drudgery to the table-lands of
thought, so that now, instead of being a mere matter
of the application of brute force, its rich possibilities
call into constant requisition the God-given attri-
butes of intelligence and reason. In the United
States there are more than 10,000,000 persons actu-
ally engaged in agriculture in its various branches, a
number which far exceeds those employed in all
other fields of labor, and in nothing is the progress
of the farmer's calling shown so strikingly as in the
wonderful improvement in the implements designed
for his use. By the aid of these he has, within the
last half-century, been enabled to increase the effec-
tive force of labor fully twenty per cent., which means
an annual net gain to the agricultural community of
probably not less than $200,000,000 ; and when it is
remembered that the products of the farm present a
most important figure in our commerce, our manu-
facturing, shipping, railroad, and kindred interests, it
will be conceded that the advancement of agriculture
means also the advancement of these industries, and
a material augmentation of the general prosperity
of the whole country, and of all countries.
CHAPTER LI
STOVES AND HEATING APPARATUS
CAREFUL research into the history of the
origin and evolution of stoves and heating
apparatus develops the fact that advance in
invention and manufacture has not followed isother-
mal lines, as would seem natural, but that the
United States, from the inventive character of its
people, has easily taken the lead, although in doing
so it has not hesitated to appropriate all that was
best and most useful in the systems that obtained in
other countries. The vast geographical extent of
our country, its various climates, and the complex
character of its population have been reflected in the
history and nature of this as of other great industries.
Stoves are said to have been cast for the first time
in Alsace, France, in 1490, and as early as 1509
they were cast at Ilsenberg. The first casting
known to have been made in America was a small
round-bottomed kettle with a cover, made at Lynn,
Mass., in 1642, at the first blast-furnace erected in
this country. The jamb-stove was made by Chris-
topher Sower, of Germantown, Pa., between 1730
and 1740. In 1744 Franklin stoves were made in
Philadelphia.
Between 1752 and 1768 stoves of the box-stove
order were made at Marlboro, near Winchester, Va.
In 1760 Baron William Henry Steigel cast stoves at
his furnace near Letiz, Pa., and was very successful.
In 1786 heating-stoves of the box shape were cast
in Philadelphia, and plates for these stoves were
shipped to Providence, R. I., and to Troy, N. Y.,
where they were put together. The Conant stove
was made at Brandon, Vt., in 1820. The plates for
the Woolson stove were made at Brandon, Vt., and
carted seventy miles to Claremont, N. H. The
Woolson stove was also made at a later date in
Massachusetts, Detroit, Mich., and in Cleveland,
Ohio.
The character of heating and cooking appliances
at any period is determined by the kind and price
of fuel. At the beginning of the century wood was
cheap and labor scarce ; therefore the fireplace was
made capacious enough to contain a large back-
log which lay in the ashes at the rear, and in front
of which was the forestick, resting on andirons. The
space between these two logs was filled with smaller
wood. The living-room in which this fireplace
was located served for both kitchen and dining-
room, and at night high-backed settees were ar-
ranged in front of the fire to intercept the heat, and
prevent cold draughts from behind. The home
idea of the fireside that pervades our literature had
its origin in these early family rooms. The fire-
place also served for cooking. Hinged to the
right-hand jamb was an iron crane filled with dan-
gling pot-hooks. It was pulled out so that pots and
kettles might be hung on the hooks, and the crane
was then swung back over the blazing fire. Pota-
toes were baked in the hot ashes. In the wall
alongside the fireplace was built the brick oven,
with its flat bottom and arched top, having an iron
door in front. On baking-day, a wood fire was
built inside of this oven, and when it was burned to
coals and the oven thoroughly heated, the fire was
neatly removed, and the bread placed on the oven
bottom. In England, with soft coal for fuel, they
still cling to the open fire, and do not take kindly
to the substitution of close stoves. In the northern
part of America the climate made it desirable to
heat other rooms than the one in which the fire-
place was located. The first effort in this direction
was the jamb-stove. This was a cast-iron box built
into the side of the fireplace so that one of its sides
received heat from the fire, while the rear end,
which could be closed with a door, opened into the
room in the rear of the fireplace, which thus re-
ceived some heat from the adjoining chamber.
In the early days churches were not heated, foot-
stoves being used to keep the feet of the congrega-
357
358
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
tion warm. These consisted of sheet-iron pans about
six inches square, in which live coals were placed,
and these were enclosed in casings of metal perfo-
rated at the sides and top, having bails by which
they were carried. In 1744 Benjamin Franklin de-
vised a cast-iron open fireplace which stood out
from the chimney and so caused the heat from its
back and sides to be thrown into the room.
The six-plate or box-stove was the earliest form
of the present heating apparatus. It was made
from iron taken directly from the blast-furnace, and
was very heavy. These stoves stood on an orna-
mental frame, and were made in this country as
early as 1752. Early in this century cylindrical or
oval stoves of sheet iron were made in Philadelphia,
and also in New Hampshire, by Isaac Orr. This
developed later into the oval regulator, with a draft-
damper, opened and closed automatically by the dif-
erence in expansion of a brass rod and the sheet-iron
stove-body. In 1836 James Atwater, of New York,
made a stove with an illuminated case of cast iron
and mica. It had inclosed flues, a check-flue, and a
direct draft-damper. The Stanley square heating-
stove, with return and exit flues inclosed in the four
corners, was perfected about this time. In 1845
Dr. Bushnell invented a cylinder-stove with the in-
side lined with fire-clay, and having a pipe at each
of the four corners, down which the heat returned
to a hollow base, and thence went up through a
pipe at the back.
Gas-burners or surface-burners next appeared in
the order of rime. These were both round and oval,
and by perforated fire-pots, or perforated gas-rings
at the top of the brick, the coal was more perfectly
consumed than in any former device. They were
mostly made of sheet iron; and generally the flues
which returned the heat to the base were inclosed
in the stove body. The most popular of these were
the P. P. Stewart's oval and round parlor-stoves,
first made about 1860, by Fuller, Warren & Com-
pany, of Troy, N. Y.
Base-burning stoves have now been long in use.
The principle of these stoves is " to place the fuel in
such a position that air to supply combustion shall
come from one direction, and the fuel from the oppo-
site direction, thereby causing the heated products of
combustion to pass from the sides of the pile of fuel,
instead of up through it." The magazine idea is first
seen in the English patent of David Riz, 1770. Next
came the patents of James Watt, in 1785; Pollock,
in 1807, and Stratton in 1817 and 1822. Anthracite
coal was brought into use in America between 1820
and 1830, being afterward used to a limited extent
for heating in open grates. It was so difficult to
prevent a fire kindled with anthracite coal from go-
ing out, that those who were interested in this fuel
sought for an expert to devise the best method of
burning it. Dr. Eliphalet Nott, President of Union
College, of Schenectady, N. Y., had invented a box-
stove in 1820, with which all the students' rooms in
the college were heated ; and as he was an acknow-
ledged authority on the combustion of fuel, a small
quantity of anthracite coal was sent to him. The
result of his experiments was the construction of an
illuminated magazine-stove of an oblong square
section, lined with fire-brick. This worked well,
but for the fact that when the cover was removed
gas would escape and often explode. When a pas-
sage was made from the top of the magazine to the
exit flue, which allowed the gas to pass off, the users
would often carelessly leave the damper open, thus
causing all the coal to become ignited. These de-
fects rendered the new stove of no value.
Jordan L. Mott, Sr., a merchant of New York
City, who in 1830 had become a manufacturer of
stoves, in 1833 constructed a self-feeding base-burner.
In this stove he introduced the burning of the chest-
nut size of anthracite coal in thin layers, fed from a
magazine. Mr. Mott's stove contained the princi-
ple of the modern base-burner, as it is now used.
In 1852 D. G. Littlefield, of Albany, constructed a
self-feeding base-burning stove, which he improved
in 1856 ; and in 1862 he made his " Morning Glory"
base-burner, which had a very large sale wherever
anthracite coal was used. The construction of this
stove, employing chestnut coal, showed how anthra-
cite coal might be burned successfully. In 1862 the
" Oriental " base-burner was devised by Perry &
Company, being similar to the " Morning Glory "
construction. It had a great sale.
About this time the " American " base-burner was
brought out by Van Wormer & McGarvey, of Al-
bany, proving very successful. About 1863 Hailes
& Treadwell, acting for Rathbone, in Albany,
added a magazine to the revertible-flue gas-burner,
which drew the flame away from the magazine, and
heated the floor more than the direct-draft base-
burners had previously done. In 1865 Hunt &
Miller, of Hudson, produced a base-burner with
very small mica windows opposite the grate. In
1871 James Spear, of Philadelphia, constructed his
anti-clinker direct-draft base-burner, with a small
illumination opposite the grate, and the same year
W. J. Keep brought out " Keep's Side-Burner," which
was the first stove that had been made with a full
mica section both below and above the fire-pot.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
m
Fuller, Warren & Company, who manufactured this
stove, were of the opinion that " no one would admire
mica windows opposite a dirty ash-pit," and therefore
thought best to be very careful about putting it on the
market. Perry & Company, of Albany, were watch-
ing the anti-clinker and the side-burner, and in 1873
put the anti-clinker grate and the full double illum-
ination into a case of the graceful proportions of the
American base-burner, and produced the " Argand "
base-burner. The arrangement of flues in the Ar-
gand was the same as had been made by Elihu Smith,
who did much to develop the base-burning stove.
The Argand construction and shape were exactly
what the people wanted. The Michigan Stove Com-
pany manufactured it on royalty in the West. The
Detroit Stove Works made the " Crown Jewel " of
the same shape, except that they sloped the lower win-
dows outward. Fuller, Warren & Company in 1875
made " The Splendid " after the lines of the " Crown
Jewel," and in 1876 the Michigan Stove Company
dropped the " Argand " and made the " Garland."
This type of round stoves held its own until 1880,
when the Magee Furnace Company, of Boston, con-
structed a rectangular double illuminated base-
burner, with an artistic ornamentation. This shape
was followed by leading firms, but did not meet the
approval of the masses, partly because the fire-box
was square.
In 1884, the Michigan Stove Company brought
out a stove with square base, round front, and nearly
square sides, with a round fire-pot, and a round top
surmounted by a dome, called the " Art Garland."
This was the invention of Mr. Keep, who had re-
moved from Troy, and had become the superintend-
ent of the Michigan Stove Company. This stove
was imitated by six of the largest firms the next year.
The same year Smith & Anthony of Boston made
the " Hub " base-burner, with a modeled ornamen-
tation by Mr. Osburn, designer of the Low Art Tiles.
In 1885, the Michigan Stove Company adopted the
modeled style of ornamentation, which has since
been used by the principal manufacturers. In 1887,
Mr. Keep patented the use of an inturned mica sec-
tion over the fire, with a reflector placed above it,
in the " Reflector Art Garland " for the Michigan
Stove Company. The patents were respected for
about five years, but at present nearly all first-class
houses have constructed stoves with the reflectors
and the shape of this base-burner.
The first departure from the early brick oven was
the tin reflector. When this was set before the fire
the baking was done on shelves by radiant heat.
In the brick oven the fire was placed inside. The
first effort at improvement tended to place the fire
outside the oven, so as to impart a continuous heat,
and at the same time to make a portable stove which
would warm a room by the heat escaping through
its outside walls. The first cooking-stove was prob-
ably evolved by placing an oven in a box-stove. The
James stove was the first of this kind of which we
have any record. It was called a nine-plate. The
oven door opened on the side of the stove, and the
flues about it led the smoke up its sides and over
the top to the pipe collar.
The Vermont " Historical Magazine " has this to
say concerning the great change wrought by the
introduction of the cooking-stove :
In 1819, John Conant invented the Conant stove,
and made the first one from castings obtained at the
furnace in Pittsford, Vt. In 1820, Mr. Conant erected
a furnace at Brandon, Vt., and the first blast was made
in October. At this furnace was cast the old Conant
stove, the first made in the State, and a great invention
for the time, and which was the wonder of the farmer's
kitchen. It was the inauguration of a new era in the
culinary kingdom. The pleasant old fireplace, with
its swinging crane of well-filled pots and kettles, hearth-
spiders with legs, and bake-kettles, and tin bakers to
stand before the blazing logs and bake custard pies in,
all went down at once and disappeared before the first
stove, without so much as a passing struggle. Stoves
with ovens, but without boilers, etc., had been previ-
ously made to some extent. The State of Vermont was
being supplied previous to 1819 by a house in Troy,
N. Y., who had their castings made in Philadelphia.
The Conant stove had an oven above the fire,
with a door in both ends, the front one being over
the fire-door. Each side of the stove was extended
so as to receive a pot which rested in the recess by
its rim. This presented one side and a portion of
the bottom of each pot to the fire. At the rear of
the stove another chamber was constructed to hold
a third pot, and this could be heated by an inde-
pendent fire, if it was not considered desirable to
heat the whole stove. The fire was still under the
oven.
The Woolson stove, invented at Claremont, N. H.,
had the oven at the side of the fire-box, and by
dampers the heat could be thrown under or over the
oven. The top was flat, and there were several
cooking-holes. The " Premium " succeeded, and
was an improvement upon this stove. As an illus-
tration of the change in the requirements of the
trade, Mr. H. C. Woolson, a son of the inventor,
writes : " When my father's stove was first made
the farmers said it did not burn half enough wood,
360
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
but when it was laid aside the complaint was that it
burned too much wood. A sheet-iron stove was in-
vented soon after my father made his stove, called
the 'Yankee Notion,' which was the beginning of all
elevated-oven stoves." Experiments in oven-stoves
showed that the fire underneath the oven heated the
bottom too rapidly, and the fire at the side caused
one side of the oven to bake faster than the other.
This led to placing the oven at the rear, and on a
higher level than the boiler-holes, which brought the
heat uniformly against all parts of the oven. This
also enabled the boiler-holes to be placed very near
the floor, and brought the oven higher up than in
any other construction, making it a very convenient
stove to operate.
The next progressive step was Stanley's rotary
cook-stove in 1833, a stove which had the cooking-
holes and fire-box as low down as the elevated oven.
The top revolved by a crank and cogs, so that any
hole could be brought over the fire. Tin ovens
were placed over the pots or sad-irons to retain the
heat, and a tin cover was put over a rack on which
were placed loaves to be baked, making a portable
oven for the top of the stove. An elevated oven
was attached to the stove when required.
The evolution of the cooking-stove did not follow
in regular sequence, as would appear from the fore-
going account. The Conant, and Woolson, and the
elevated-oven were probably made at the same time.
Mr. Giles F. Filley, of St. Louis, sheds light on the
subject as follows : " A Mr. Hoxie, a Quaker, had
gone from Philadelphia to Salisbury, Conn., where
pig iron was made before 1812. He had no doubt
used the ten-plate stoves, for he held that the heat-
ing of an oven from the under side was wrong, and
that the fire should be on the top of the oven, and be
made to pass around the same to heat it evenly in
all its parts. Hoxie's first stove was oval in form,
the fire passing down the two end flues, meeting at
the bottom of the stove, thence to a chimney by a
channel cut in the hearth of the fireplace over
which the stove was placed. Hoxie then made a
two-flued portable stove, the flues similar to those in
the two-flued ranges now in use. He next made a
stove with what is now called the three-flued princi-
ple. The stoves made by Hoxie were principally
sold in the neighborhood of Salisbury, and they
were hardly known outside of that place during his
lifetime, which ended about 1820." J. G. Hatha-
way, who made a great stir in the stove trade, ob-
tained a patent on his stove in 1837. He claimed
to have invented the three-flue construction, but he
afterward admitted that he had seen one of Hoxie's
stoves. The Buck stove was invented by a Mr.
Crowell, of Palmyra, N. Y. ; but according to con-
tract the patent was taken out in the name of Mr.
Buck, in 1839.
P. P. Stewart's first patent was in 1838. The fire-
box hung in the upper part of the oven, so that the
heat from both sides and the bottom was thrown into
it. The flame passed down in one sheet in front of
the oven, then under and up the rear to the pipe
collar on top of the stove. Stewart's large-oven
stove was made in 1850, and was at first a three-flue
construction, but he soon after adopted a sheet flue
under the oven, and three flues at the back. Sam-
uel Pierce about this time invented the curved plate,
now generally used at the front of the oven, which
threw the ashes from the grate into an ash-pit in the
hearth. There have been no important changes in
cook-stove construction since that date. Minor
changes have been made to increase sales, such as
Filley's gauze door, his return-flue construction, the
various arrangements of reservoirs and grates, the
methods of oven ventilation, and Buck's Stove Com-
pany's brilliant glass and enameled oven doors.
Several innovations have also been introduced by
Bridge, Beach & Company.
Royal Deane, of the Bramhall-Deane Company,
N. Y., gives a number of facts regarding French
ranges, or those made of wrought-iron and steel.
Before 1850 a Frenchman, who, he thinks, was
named Gillette, had supplied the Boston market with
a sheet-iron range. The fire in this range was sus-
pended inside of a sheet-iron casing in a basket
grate, the cooking and heating being accomplished
by radiant heat from the fire direct. The firm of
Stimson Brothers, or Stimson & Son, of Boston, had
also made similar ranges. About 1850 the firm of
Duparquet, Huot & Moneuse, of New York, was
established, and made a similar range, but later the
oven was made a separate part of the construction,
and flues were placed around it as at the present
time. In 1855 John Van, of Cincinnati, placed on
the market the first modern wrought-iron range, in-
tended to be used on Mississippi steamboats; and
since that date this branch of the trade has increased
very rapidly.
Stoves were manufactured in Detroit during the
thirties at the Hydraulic Iron Works foundry. In
1849 the writer of this paper, while learning the
molding trade in this foundry, worked on repairs
for Woolson stoves, and in this way had his atten-
tion turned to the subject of this manufacture, and
in 1861, with his brother, James Dwyer, he estab-
lished the first foundry in Detroit exclusively for
JEREMIAH DWYER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
m
making stoves. In 1864 this concern was merged
into the Detroit Stove Works, W. H. Tefft and M.
I. Mills joining the company. In 1871 the present
writer, with Charles DuCharme, George H. Harbour,
and others, established in Detroit the Michigan
Stove Company, and in 1881 his brother organized
the Peninsular Stove Company.
Foundries for the manufacture of stoves exclu-
sively were established at Troy and Albany at an
early date on account of the superior molding-sand
found there. In 1835 Joel Rathbone and Pratt &
Treadwell conducted stove foundries in the latter
city. Such foundries were also established at vari-
ous points in the New England States. New York
City possessed a number of stove foundries, and
Jordan L. Mott was one of the first to use a cupola
for remelting iron for stove manufacture.
About 1865 the competition of foundries located
in the West became so sharp that eastern manu-
facturers were obliged to establish branch houses at
Chicago to facilitate the delivery of stoves to their
western customers. Later, eastern men began to
move their entire plants to western points, with the
result that at present Chicago is the center of stove
distribution.
As the result of the efforts of Mr. John S. Perry
of Albany, a meeting of stove manufacturers was
held at Delmonico's in New York on March 6,
1872, with Mr. John S. Perry as chairman, and
Henry T. Richardson as secretary. General Rath-
bone suggested that a permanent organization was
desirable, and the following committee was chosen
for that purpose: Messrs. Resor, Smith, Shepard,
Rathbone, McDonald, Tefft, Patterson, Bradley,
Greene, and Filley. This committee presented a
draft of a constitution and by-laws which were
adopted after discussion and amendments, an as-
sociation being organized with John S. Perry as
president; G. F. Filley, first vice-president; David
Stewart, second vice-president, and Mr. A. Bradley,
treasurer. John S. Perry held the office of presi-
dent until 1874; Sherman S. Jewett was president
until 1878; John F. Rathbone, 1879 and 1880;
R. P. Myers, 1881; W. H. Whitehead, 1.882 and
1883; Grange Sard, 1884 and 1885; Jacob L.
Smyser, 1886 and 1887; George H. Barbour, 1888
and 1889; D. M. Thomas, 1890; Jesse Orr, 1891
and 1892; George D. Dana, 1893 and 1894, and
Lazard Kahn, 1895. In 1886 D. M. Thomas was
made permanent secretary and held the position
until his death in 1895, with the exception of the
year 1890, when he accepted a position with a
manufacturing concern. He resumed the duties of
his office, however, in 1891. T. J. Hogan suc-
ceeded him in 1895, having been secretary during
the year 1890.
At the first meeting in 1872, Mr. Perry presented
the following table, showing the number of stoves
manufactured in the years enumerated:
YEAXS.
NUMBER MADE.
GAIN ran cnrr.
18-10 . .
2C OOO
1840
IOO OOO
I8W
77C OOO
juu
I,OOO,OOO
z/5
167
1870
2,IOO,OOO
The following figures are furnished by T. J. Ho-
gan, secretary of the association mentioned above,
the National Stove Manufacturers' Association :
In 1870 there were 275 stove and hollow-ware
manufacturers, consuming yearly 275,000 tons of
iron. The volume of business in 1872 was $37,-
600,000. The stove foundries in the United States
January i, 1895, were 215, with an estimated capac-
ity of $35,840,400. The volume of business in 1892
was $34,578,300; in 1893, $30,035,700; estimated
volume of business in 1894, $24,204,810.
The estimated capacity is divided as follows :
Connecticut $234,000
Maine 324,000
Massachusetts . . . 2,580,000
New Hampshire. . 169,200
Rhode Island .... 421,200
Indiana 1,098,000
Ohio 4,107,600
Illinois 3,859,000
Kansas 360,000
Michigan 3480,000
Minnesota 342,000
Missouri 1,540,800
Wisconsin 921,600
Maryland $720,000
New Jersey 100,800
Virginia 216,000
West Virginia ... 100,800
Pennsylvania .... 6,062,400
New York 6,776,000
Georgia 1 1 1,000
Alabama 120,000
Kentucky 975,000
Oregon 90,000
Tennessee 1,086,000
Texas 45.°°°
The Stove Founders' National Defense Associa-
tion was organized in 1886 with Mr. Henry Crib-
ben, president, and D. M. Thomas, secretary. Mr.
Cribben has been elected president each year. The
office of secretary has always been filled by the
secretary of the National Association of Stove Man-
ufacturers. Committees from this association and
from the Iron Molders' Union meet each year to
decide upon prices to be paid for molding, and to
adjust differences and avoid strikes. Through the
efforts of this association no reduction in the wages
of molders employed by its members was made ne-
cessary during the period of business depression ex-
tending from 1893 to 1895.
In 1713, M. Gauger, in a treatise on the construe-
362
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
tion of fireplaces, recommended the heating of air
by means of a hollow back or wall of a fireplace.
In 1744 Dr. Franklin invented a stove for burning
wood, in the form of a box, of a greater distance
from side to side than in depth, with an open front.
The smoke escaped over the top of a flat chamber
behind the fire, and passed downward between it
and the real back of the stove, and thence into the
chimney. This flat, hollow chamber communicated
underneath the stove with a tube opening into the
external atmosphere, and a quantity of air was thus
passed through the flat chamber into the room,
through small holes left in the sides. This was
probably the first attempt to construct a hot-air furnace
for supplying pure heated air to rooms. A patent
was granted Daniel Pettibone of Philadelphia, in 1 808,
for stoves for rarefying, by heat, air for warming
buildings. This system was soon after introduced
in the Philadelphia Almshouse, and was used for
heating churches and large buildings. In 1835
William A. Wheeler is said to have made at Wor-
cester, Mass., the first warm-air furnaces that were
made in New England. Gurden Fox, a grocer of
Hartford, Conn., some time between 1835 and 1840
brought out a hot-air furnace which had a large
sale. Other hot-air furnaces of an early date were
the Blaney and the Culver. The old firm of Rich-
ardson & Boynton, of New York, put the Boynton
furnace on the market at an early period.
In 1843 Mr. Henry Ruttan began his experi-
ments in heating and ventilation, and later wrote a
book on the subject. The first attempt to heat
buildings with anthracite coal was made in a very
crude way. The furnace was placed in the cellar,
surrounded by an air-chamber of brickwork, and
the gaseous products of combustion were carried
through the building, passing through cylindrical
drums on the upper floors and out at the top of the
house.
The use of hot water in pipes for heating seems
to be an invention of great antiquity. Seneca has
accurately described the mode of heating by water
in the Thermae at Rome, which shows that the me-
thod of heating baths by passing water through a
coil of brass pipes which passed through the fire
was known prior to the Christian era. The appli-
cation of this invention appears to have cropped up
at various periods. In France, in 1777, M. Bonne-
main used a coil of small pipes filled with water
for the incubation of chickens. In 1817 Marquis
de Chabannes introduced it in London for heating
a conservatory, and also heated some rooms in a
private house by means of pipes leading from a
kitchen boiler. In 1822 a Mr. Bacon, also in Eng-
land, introduced hot water for heating purposes,
using a single pipe of large diameter, which was
slightly deflected from a horizontal line, the hot
water passing along the top of the pipe, which gave
very imperfect circulation. Mr. Atkinson, an archi-
tect, suggested the addition of a separate pipe for
returning the colder water to the boiler.
Hot-water heating came into general use in Can-
ada a number of years ago, and the open-tank sys-
tem seems to have been first used there; but this
did not become a popular method of heating in the
United States until recently. In 1842 the Perkins
hot- water apparatus was introduced in New York
and Boston from London, by Joseph Nason ; and
the business was conducted in both places by the
firm of Walworth & Nason. One of the first
houses warmed by the Perkins hot-water heater was
No. 15 Ashburton Place, belonging to the estate of
Ebenezer Melleken, and the apparatus was in 1892
doing good work after a use of forty-seven years.
In a Perkins apparatus circular, issued in London
about 1820, a heater spoken of as being the only
one in the United States is recorded to have been
in the residence of Colonel Thomas H. Perkins,
Pearl street, Boston.
Hot-water heating has been extensively used in
England and in Canada, but was not thoroughly
appreciated by the people of the United States un-
til within the past fifteen years. The Gurney and
the H. B. Smith heaters were very generally used.
During the last fifteen years this method of heating
has become very popular, and there are a great
number of good heaters on the market. Detroit
has done much to introduce hot-water heating. The
Peter Smith heater was the first. The Detroit
Heating and Lighting Company in 1885 began con-
structing the Bolton Heater, which had previously
been made in Canada. The Mouat was the next.
The United States Heater Company has during the
past four years done a large business, and the Penin-
sular Stove Company are heating many buildings by
a combination of hot water and hot air, their system
being considered equal to any in use.
William Cook, of Manchester, England, proposed
in the middle of the last century the heating of
houses by steam. In America the practice seems to
date from 1841, in which year Mr. J. J. Walworth
bought a small stock of wrought-iron pipe and fit-
tings, which had been sent to this country by James
Russell & Sons, of Wednesbury, England, to be
sold on commission by James Boyce, who soon be-
came discouraged by the small amount of business
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
done, and returned to England. The gas compa-
nies were just beginning to use wrought-iron pipe.
One year after, Mr. Joseph Nason returned from
England, bringing the Perkins Steam Heater, which
had been manufactured in England since 1820, and
the firm of Walworth & Nason was formed. In
1845 or 1846 Mr. Nason conceived the idea of using
small wrought iron pipes, three quarters to an inch
in diameter, for warming buildings with steam.
The first building warmed in this way was the East-
ern Hotel, of Boston, and the first factory was the
Burlington (Vt.) Woolen Mill. The steam-fitting in
the factory was done by N. H. Bundy, the inventor
of the Bundy radiator. For many years every steam-
fitting firm in this country could trace its origin to
the old shop of Walworth & Nason, through either
one or two removes.
The improved methods of heating buildings by
steam and of ventilating them by " fan blowers,"
now so extensively used throughout the United
States, owe much of their development to James J.
Walworth. It was in 1841 that he entered into
partnership with his brother-in-law, Joseph Nason,
and established the business of steam and hot-water
wanning and ventilating buildings by radically new
methods. In 1844 the construction of apparatus for
warming buildings, especially manufactories, by
steam, was begun and rapidly extended. Immedi-
ately following this came a new system of ventilation
by the use of the " fan blower," propelled by steam-
power, which was and is used in conjunction with the
system of steam-heating. Though J. J. Walworth has
been the business head of the concern, yet as an en-
gineer in steam-heating he has designed and executed
many important works. Mr. Nason retired from
the firm in 1852, and at present the Walworth Man-
ufacturing Company owns an extensive steam-heat-
ing plant at South Boston, employing there and else-
where upward of 800 workmen.
In 1846 Mr. Thos. F. Tasker, Sr., of Philadelphia,
introduced the first closed apparatus returning the
water of condensation to the boiler, and thus keeping
up the circulation for heating purposes. His firm,
Morris, Tasker & Morris, became very prominent soon
afterward, in both steam and hot-water heating, be-
ing also manufacturers of pipes and fittings. This
establishment subsequently became widely known
as Morris, Tasker & Company. They made the
first wrought-iron pipe that was made in this
country.
Men who have been prominent in the introduction
of steam and hot-water heating apparatus are Henry
B. and Edwin Smith, John H. Reed, John H. Mills,
and George B. Brayton.
Cast-iron radiators have been extensively manu-
factured in this country. The first we have record
of is the N. H. Bundy radiator, and after that the
Gold Pin radiator. The Gurney Manufacturing
Company and a large number of others are making
radiators, probably the largest concern being the
American Radiator Company, which controls two
extensive plants in Detroit and one in Buffalo.
In preparing this history I am indebted to " The
Metal Worker," New York; R. Z. Liddle, Albany;
Giles F. Filley, St. Louis ; George W. Cope, Asso-
ciate editor of "The Iron Age," Chicago; John
H. Mills, Boston ; Jordan L. Mott, New York ; W. L.
McDowell, Philadelphia; D. G. Littlefield, Albany;
John Van Range Company, Cincinnati ; and Frank
A. Magee, Boston.
U-&Z&1Jt^f£,
S <f
CHAPTER LII
PLUMBERS' AND STEAM-FITTERS' SUPPLIES
IT is through the agency of the plumber and
sanitary engineer that life in cities, under the
healthful conditions which govern it at the pres-
ent time, is made possible. Though to the ordinary
layman the work of the plumber may be less obtru-
sive, he really deserves a much more prominent
position as a benefactor of communities than his
fellow-craftsmen of the building trades are disposed
to accord to him. The architect may prepare plans
of edifices, the symmetry and beauty of which ex-
cite the pleasure of the eye, and his more mechani-
cal co-laborers, the mason, the brick-layer, and the
carpenter, may follow his tracings with the finished
skill in the acquirement of which their lives have
been spent; these create a habitation. But to the
man who interweaves, as it were, his efforts with
theirs, who provides sanitary appliances after a fash-
ion compatible with the sternest laws laid down by
the dictators of public health— to this man, the aim
of whose life is to provide safeguards insuring his
fellows against all danger of infection from that
most insidious enemy of human life, the microbe
bred by careless or imperfect domestic surroundings,
is due a meed of gratitude but seldom forthcoming,
because the reasons for it are so slightly understood.
Engineers, architects, and health officers accom-
plish much by their influence with individuals and
by the exercise of their professional and official func-
tions. They reach, however, only a limited portion
of the community, while the plumber makes his in-
fluence felt on every hand. A certain trust is thus
imposed upon him, which raises the better and more
conscientious element of his occupation to a higher
plane than is usually awarded to the followers of
mechanical pursuits, as it has converted the calling
itself into what enthusiasts on the subject might be
tempted to denominate one of the fine arts. The
word "plumbing," derived from the Latin plumbum
(lead), meant originally to seal or repair with this
364
metal. In the earlier ages lead was the material
most favored for such purposes, owing to the ease
with which it could be manipulated. Lead pipes
were used to some extent by all the nations of old,
and were invariably utilized in the ancient cities of
Asia, Egypt, Syria, and Greece for conveying water
under pressures too great for pipes made of earthen-
ware. These pipes were made from sheets of lead
rolled into the form of cylinders and soldered at the
edges.
When the improvement in plumbing fixtures is
compared with that of other materials used in me-
chanical pursuits a curious disproportion in the rela-
tive time that has been required for this development
is revealed. Almost the entire history of progression
in this department is covered by the past fifty years.
Hardly a half-dozen plumbers were known in New
York a half -century ago, and all these were men who
fashioned in their individual workshops the some-
what crude fittings they supplied. After the com-
pletion of the Croton Aqueduct in 1842, however,
the necessity for durable pipes and fittings began to
be felt, and this led to the establishment of manu-
factories of plumbers' supplies. At first these con-
cerns were engaged almost exclusively in the manu-
facture of lead pipe, sheet lead, or iron pipe. In the
earlier part of the century, wooden pipes, or logs
bored out, were used for conveying water through
the streets. This was under the old Manhattan sys-
tem. There was at that time, and is there yet, a
tank in Reade Street for maintaining which the
Manhattan Bank received its charter.
A modern chef would regard with curious con-
tempt the kitchens of that day, though their oc-
cupants doubtless thought them adequate for all
purposes of the culinary art. In contrast to the
elaborate arrangements now in vogue for producing
every degree of temperature desired, there was then
the ordinary kitchen range with its water-back con-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
trivance for heating water, which, however viewed
by modern eyes, was then regarded as being almost
the veritable culmination of that half-century's de-
velopment in domestic apparatus. The same princi-
ple applies in ranges to-day, and is in general use in
private houses, although for hotels and other large
buildings special appliances for heating water, inde-
pendent of range connections, have accompanied the
increased magnitude of such structures. The first
kitchen appliance independent of the range, with its
water-back and boiler connections, was a sink used
in the kitchen, with the usual hot and cold water
faucets over it. This for many years comprised the
entire plumbing of an ordinary dwelling. The next
feature was a bath — a wooden box lined with lead,
a primitive and unsightly fixture. Following that
came cast-iron bath-tubs, painted inside and out, and
next a box lined with copper, which was the favor-
ite bath for many years.
A quarter of a century ago was commenced here
the manufacture of porcelain-lined bath-tubs, which
for a long time were brought out exclusively by the
company of which I am the head. To-day similar
goods are made in various parts of the country by
other concerns. The most popular and elegant tub
—the very acme of perfection in bathing apparatus,
in fact— is one of solid porcelain, which has become
almost indispensable in the finest plumbing. These
goods were, until a year ago, always imported from
Europe ; but since that time one of the most enter-
prising potters in the United States has so perfected
this variety of ware that the American article to-day
stands on an equal footing with the world's produc-
tion. There is practically no expense to which one
may not go in this direction, should he feel so dis-
posed, and some of the private bath-rooms in the
homes of modern millionaires could compete in point
of beauty with the famous public baths of ancient
Greece and Rome.
In the possession of our house is a Dresden-china
bath-tub, the only duplicate of which is owned by
the emperor of Germany. It is comparatively
simple in design, and betrays but few evidences of
the value put upon it — $3000. It is seldom, how-
ever, that extravagance extends thus far with this
particular article. As a rule it is more generally
distributed throughout the bath-room ; and hand-
painted tiles, which constitute the material for walls
and floors, come in for a fair portion of the finan-
cial outlay, much fanciful decoration being permitted
with these. Then the more immediate toilet acces-
sories are to be considered, and among these are
found onyx and variegated marble slabs with brass
supports, plated with nickel, silver, or gold, and
furnished with the most elegant Cauldon-china
basins, painted by prominent artists. These adjuncts
themselves constitute an important item of cost in
the equipment of the thoroughly up-to-date bath-
room.
In examining the subject of domestic sanitation it
is worth while to note that while the expense of the
plumbing of the average first-class dwelling of thirty-
five or forty years ago could be computed at $250,
this work to-day may be reckoned, in the majority of
instances, at from $2000 to $6000, according to the
size of the building and the fancy of the owner.
As has been aptly observed, " Look out well for the
health-rate, and the death-rate will lose its signifi-
cance." Doctors for many centuries had the mo-
nopoly of what little knowledge existed of the con-
ditions affecting public health ; but of late years the
Dwelling Reform Association of New York, Amer-
ican Public Health Association, Public Health
Association of New York, and similar organizations
in other large cities throughout the Union, together
with the architect, the plumber, and the inventor and
manufacturer of plumbers' supplies, have done more
to reduce the death-rate from zymotic disease in our
large towns and cities than probably the doctors
have themselves.
As a part of the general sanitary system now to
be considered, each house has its own network of
pipes which convey the refuse of the basins, sinks,
and closets to the general sewer. It is obvious that
any leakage or deposit from these would nullify the
purpose for which they were designed. The air
within them must also be kept out of the dwelling
by placing a water-trap at every opening through
which sewage is to enter the pipes, and by making
all internal pipes gas-tight. It is necessary that a
current of fresh air have free access to the pipes,
that the filth within them may be oxidized ; and the
air of the sewer outside must be rigorously shut off
from that of the pipes within the house. This
secures freedom from contagion from without, and
the water-trap, as previously mentioned, furnishes
protection against the passage of gas within through
openings which admit of the entry of water.
The inverted siphon, which is sealed by water
lying in the bend, is almost universally regarded as
the simplest and best form of trap. True, inventors
are appearing from time to time with other proposi-
tions in the way of a seal, but a better device hardly
seems possible. A separate, distinct trap is placed
in the house-drain to disconnect the main sewer from
the house. This will not insure perfect security, how-
366
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ever. Practically a distinct trap is required at each
basin or other fitting, its function being to shut out
the air of the house-drains from the rooms. The
soil-pipe is ventilated by a current of air which flows
upward, and must always extend to a point above
the roof. This, together with the ventilating of each
trap, insures the most perfect immunity against the
accumulation of sewer-gas within the pipes that is
known. Sometimes the additional flushing received
by a soil-pipe into which the refuse of both a water-
closet and a bath or wash-basin is discharged works
rather as a benefit, and it may be contended that
plumbing-work after the ideas just set forth, with
proper traps, light and ventilation, good workman-
ship and first-class material, is all that is necessary
to insure perfect safety from contagion.
A bedroom basin is usually made perfectly safe
by leading its waste-pipe into the ordinary drain-pipe
which connects with the sewer, and which must
be protected by a water-seal, itself ventilated to
prevent siphonage. It is a good general rule to
have all plumbing fixtures ventilated in the same
way. Occasionally rain-pipes are utilized as venti-
lating continuations of soil-pipes and waste-pipes.
This should never be, for these pipes terminate under
the eaves, a point where the drain-air is likely to be
carried back into the house.
All drain-pipes should be made of iron. Lead
pipe is affected by hot water and is often destroyed
by rats. Clay decomposes and is easily broken.
Two grades of soil-pipe are known to the trade —
common and extra heavy. The common pipe, if
certain conditions exist, can be trusted to serve for
a considerable length of time. The heavy-grade
pipe is the safest to select, however, and its diameter
is a leading point of importance, as the quantities of
water usually proceeding from bath and accumulat-
ing fixtures will, as a rule, flush a four-inch pipe
better than one of larger size. Every joint of the
soil-pipe should be made with a view to its being
tested under pressure. Iron, as already indicated, is
preferable in pipe to any other material. With
the introduction of sewers generally the manufac-
turers in New York for some time supplied every
section of the United States with iron pipe. The
custom of tarring pipes cannot be too strongly con-
demned, as imperfections may exist which cannot
be discovered after this has been done, but which
manifest themselves after the pipes have been put
into actual use and when it is too late to remedy
them without great expense.
In the interests of good ventilation it is best to
continue the soil-pipe and all vent-pipes to a point
above the roof without any reduction in diameter.
That the greatest care must be exercised in the
manufacture and the adjustment of this class of
pipe will be appreciated when it is stated that any
want of air-tightness in drains or soil-pipes within a
dwelling leads to the pollution of the air, both by
indraft as well as by diffusion. A common method
of testing such leaks as may admit foul air is to fill
the house-drains, soil-pipes, and the rest with smoke
from cotton-waste soaked in oil. The escape of
these unpleasant fumes by other than the proper
channels is readily detected. In occasional in-
stances, too, the lower end of the pipe is stopped
and the pipe itself is filled with water, the fall of
which, of course, denotes an imperfection some-
where.
I have already referred briefly to the subject of
traps, which, above every other branch of the more
practical part of plumbing, causes the most vexation,
and continually presents a problem that every aspir-
ing sanitary engineer feels called upon to cope with.
Few there are who have shrunk from charging this
barrier, and but few of these, in turn, have failed to
contrive some sort of a trap that for the nonce, at
least, seemed to combine the essential features of
which the plumbing world has been so long in
search. In general, though, from its simplicity and
practical utility, the system of back ventilation, in-
dorsed by all the boards of health, is believed to be
the most efficacious and satisfactory in existence.
In any article dealing with this subject attention
must necessarily be directed to the progress which
has been made in the construction of water-closets.
It is with this division of plumbing more than any
other, perhaps, that the question of general public
health is most intimately concerned, and upon this
point particularly have the manufacturers of plumb-
ing fixtures brought all their inventive faculties to
bear. Water-closets, apparently, were of as early
origin as definitely constructed baths. In the his-
tory of Rome we find records of some which were
designed in gold and silver. It is contended that
traces of others were found in the ruins of Pompeii,
and that they even existed in Egypt. Fosbroke,
writing on this subject, speaks of closets in the pal-
ace of the Caesars which were adorned with marble
and mosaic, and which were provided, apparently,
with complete drainage by water.
Throughout Europe, however, the subject seems
to have received but slight serious attention until the
eighteenth century. The first English patent for a
water-closet was issued in 1775 to Alexander Cum-
mings, a watchmaker in Bond Street. This closet
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
367
had a sliding valve between the trap and bowl, and
here we find the first recorded instance of a siphon-
trap being used in this connection. In 1778 Joseph
Bramah received a patent for a closet with a valve
at the bottom of the bowl, working on a hinge.
Bramah's closet was the forerunner of a large num-
ber of inventions founded on the same general prin-
ciples as the first, and in most respects but slight
improvements over that one. A valve closet sup-
plied by a tank, the hopper of which was flushed by
pressure on the seat, was patented in 1792. No
patents were issued for water-closets in America
until 1833, nor does it seem that previous to the
nineteenth century they were considered as coming
within the province of the plumber at all. At the
present day we have for consideration valve closets,
pan closets, plunger closets, hopper closets, cistern
closets, siphon closets, and latrines. A score or so of
years ago the pan closet was the type generally in
use. Then came the valve and plunge closets,
which have been superseded by the siphon closets.
The valve closet takes its water from the main service-
pipe, and cisterns are not usually required with this
class of closets. A cistern closet differs in that its
water supply is taken into the cistern direct from a
main or a tank, and is released into the bowl by a
system of valves and pulls. In the material of
construction water-closets have followed the general
trend of toilet furnishings, and are now made mostly
in one piece and of glazed earthenware. Next to
the water-closet, urinals are of vital sanitary impor-
tance, but their general construction and principles
scarcely require extended discussion.
Thus it will be seen that never in history have
plumbers had so much to do with the health of the
families in our large cities as now, nor have they
ever so well understood the principles of internal
plumbing-work as at present. The knowledge of
sanitary work is spreading rapidly, and to keep
abreast of his trade the plumber has to educate his
eyes as well as his hands; for it is not enough that
he becomes a skilled hand-worker — he must become
an intelligent head-worker as well.
An almost incalculable advantage now exists in
the fact that even in the cheapest flats all kinds of
closed plumbing have been superseded by open
work, with no boxed fixtures or pipes. This is to
be commended on account of its cleanliness, health-
fulness, and availability in event of the necessity of
repairs. Much of the progress made by the plumber
has been due, without doubt, to the intelligent action
of the boards of health. When it was definitely felt
that this aid and cooperation were being furnished,
the efforts of the better class of plumbers were
strengthened and stimulated. To Mr. John Dema-
rest, more than any other inventor, the public is in-
debted for the best plumbing fixtures known in any
section of the globe. Many of these he himself has
patented, and his entire career has been fairly illu-
minated with repeated successes in the devising of
appliances to conform with the consensus of opinion
expressed by the most capable sanitary engineers of
modern times.
In proceeding to the second division of the sub-
ject I might remark at the outset that in these days
it would be considered about as sensible for a man
to contemplate the construction of any building of
consequence without the aid of the workmen who fit
the stone and lay the floors as to eliminate the
steam fitter from his calculations. But few Ameri-
can industries have grown with such rapidity as this
one, which has pushed ahead at a pace parallel with
the manufacture of wrought-iron pipe. With the
latter, too, its progress has been almost inseparably
connected, for had not the production of wrought-
iron pipe by perfected machinery and at a reduced
cost occurred at the time it did, the development
of steam and hot-water heating would have been
greatly retarded. This growth may be said to date
practically from 1840, though it did not assume
proportions of consequence, relatively to the great
industries, until after the close of the war. The ear-
lier developments of the industry were largely assisted
by Joseph Nason, of New York, and J. J. Walworth,
of Boston.
Attempts at steam heating had been made in
England by the employment of the Perkins system,
in which very small pipes were connected with boil-
ers, on the calculation that a high temperature would
thus be generated. Sometimes this temperature be-
came sufficiently high to elevate also its environ-
ments, after a most unexpected and distressing
fashion ; and because of this liability to explosions,
as well as through its irremediable extravagance in
the consumption of fuel, it was finally abandoned.
At the period referred to it is probable that not
twenty buildings in New York City were heated by
steam. With the introduction of low pressure, the
early development of which was greatly assisted
by the two gentlemen mentioned, a change became
almost immediately apparent. Low "pressure"
meant practically no pressure at all, and possessed
economical advantages hitherto unheard of. It was
durable in that there was practically no wear upon
the apparatus, and no fuel was wasted in generating
high temperatures.
368
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
All of this was brought about, of course, by suc-
cessive inventions and improvements. Though the
two are included under the one title now, steam
heating really preceded heating by hot water in
pipes. The first boilers set up were similar to those
that had been used for power purposes. They were
made from wrought-iron. Radiators followed
quickly, being constructed from wrought-iron tubes,
both vertical and horizontal; but as low-pressure
work came into more general favor other forms of
radiators in sheet-iron were adopted, chiefly because
of the low rates at which they could be sold. They
lacked durability, however, and at last their use was
abandoned. About 1865 the attention of manufac-
turers was directed to the construction of heating
boilers and radiators from cast-iron ; and though for
a time progress in this direction was slow and the
sale of these goods limited, it had assumed by 1880
proportions of fair size, and since that date has ex-
panded with such rapidity as to make the manufac-
ture of steam and hot-water furnaces one of our
most important industries. A number of American
manufacturers, in fact, are exporting goods of this
description, and find that they can successfully
compete with foreign makers. Because of the de-
velopment of hot-water and steam heating, also, a
strong impetus has been imparted to an auxiliary
occupation — the making of such hardware goods
as bolts, nuts, washers, gauges, facings, and various
tools — which represents large investments of capital
and on which the success of the main industry
largely depends.
While the advancement in supplies for steam and
hot-water heating has not hinged absolutely upon
the development of the modern office building, it is
undeniably true that this institution has constituted
the most important factor in its increased prosperity,
and has added enormously to its growth. The
boilers used for this purpose are almost always of
wrought-iron or steel, owing to the fact that in
nearly every instance high pressure is used on the
boilers for the running of elevators, electric lights,
and for pumping. In a large number of these
buildings the exhaust steam from the engines is
alone sufficient for all heating purposes, and where
it is not, a reducing pressure-valve is used, so that
the pressure in the distributing pipes and radiators
rarely exceeds five pounds, and the water condensa-
tion is returned to the boilers by automatic devices
of various kinds, the manufacture of which occupies
the attention of several large factories.
It is safe to state that in 1840 the amount of
trade in this line did not exceed $200,000 per
annum, and that not more than $75,000 were in-
vested in it. In 1860 the trade had increased to
about $2,000,000 per annum, which represented a
capital of about $500,000. By 1880 these figures
had increased to an annual trade amounting to
$15,000,000, the capital behind which was $4,000,-
ooo ; and at the close of the season of 1895 I can
safely assert, I believe, that this industry has ex-
panded in its yearly transactions to between $80,-
000,000 and $100,000,000, and that the invested
capital will amount to $50,000,000. As an illustra-
tion of the rapid development of certain branches
of this business it may be stated that while in 1870
only 8 firms were engaged in the manufacture of
house-heating boilers, in 1 880 there were 1 8 ; in 1 890,
63; and for 1895 the number is estimated at 150.
The manufacture of cast-iron radiators has kept
pace with that of the boilers. Only from 250,000
to 300,000 feet of radiators were cast in 1870, while
in 1880 the output was little less than 2,000,000
feet. By 1890 it had increased to between 6,000,-
ooo and 7,000,000 feet, and for 1895, as far as
reports can be gathered, close to 18,000,000 square
feet of surface will have been cast. The lowering
of the cost of production has been a very material
factor in the progress of this trade ; in fact, it may
be said that the reduced cost of steam and hot-
water heating had a very sensible effect on its
growth generally. As an illustration of this we may
revert to 1880, when radiators were sold at thirty-
eight and forty cents per square foot, figures which
by 1895 had dropped to from sixteen to eighteen
cents per foot for the standard sizes.
In other branches of this industry, as well, have
occurred reductions as great proportionately to the
cost of production. This is most notably the case
in the manufacture of iron pipe and brass valves.
These reductions have been brought about by im-
proved methods of manufacture, better systems of
management, and by largely increased trade, which
permits business to be done with a smaller margin
of profit.
In the foregoing, reference has been made at more
or less length particularly to the culinary, bath,
toilet, heating, and supply and waste pipe systems ;
but there are one or two subjects that have only
indirectly been touched, among which one of the
most important is ventilation or pure air. The out-
side air, as is well known, contains carbonic acid
varying between 3 and 6 parts in 10,000 volumes;
but in close places, such as crowded buildings, this
rises to the extent of even 25 volumes in 10,000
of air. It has been experimentally proved that
JORDAN L. MOTT.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
when the heat is excessive organic matter charging
the air of crowded places rises in amount as the
carbonic acid increases, so that we have a foulness
of the air, or, as it may be termed, want of ventila-
tion. The sanitary plumber must fully understand
this, just as he must also know that wherever there
are sewers there is certain to be sewer-gas, which,
when it finds its way into houses, becomes a deadly
enemy to the human race, and the source or pro-
moter of nearly all the so-called zymotic diseases.
To abate this evil has been one of the greatest prob-
lems which the modern sanitary plumber has had to
encounter, and which he has now happily solved for
the benefit and welfare of the millions who live the
artificial existence of our large cities. The wise and
exact observance of all these sanitary laws and reg-
ulations by our plumbers in their work has within
the past quarter of a century materially reduced the
death-rate in our larger cities. Thus it will be seen
that the work of the practical or sanitary plumber
demands high and peculiar qualifications. His or-
dinary work is easily learned, but the scientific or
sanitary part requires careful study. There are four
things in a building which cannot be sacrificed to
economy. They are the foundations, the roof, the
plumbing-work, and the apparatus for heating. The
two essentials first mentioned are usually secured at
any cost ; but the attempt to economize comes in
the plumbing-work and furnace. As time goes on
and the importance of the plumber's work comes to
be still better understood, the vital interests affected
by this false economy will be realized, and people
will come to appreciate that the best way for all
concerned is to pay the plumber a fair price and
hold him to a strict account for the quality of the
work.
In closing this article it may be interesting to
show by figures the exact importance of the allied
industries under discussion. The following tabular
statement gives the number of plumbing and gas-
fitting and plumbers' supply establishments, with
the invested capital, the value of the product, etc.,
in thirty-seven of the principal cities of the Union,
taken from the census reports for 1890 :
PLUMBING AND GAS-FITTING AND PLUMBERS' SUPPLIES, 1890.
PLUMBING AND GAS-FITTING ESTABLISHMENTS.
PLUMBERS' SUPPLIES.
No. ESTAB.
CAPITAL.
EMPLOYEES.
PRODUCT.
No. ESTAB.
CAPITAL.
PRODUCT.
Atlanta, Ga
lit
251
327
63
'4
278
114
4i
5I
12
37
27
40
10
39
33
si
35
10
769
7
20
498
2l
16
46
28
124
,3
ii
£
$44,050
299,637
886,860
1,307,356
673,569
27,862
1,550,718
381,970
225,980
44450
363,609
35465
63,720
156,707
306,087
138,249
222450
437,712
442,847
14,165
547469
196450
182,883
2,705,093
37,305
243,700
2,612,597
136407
95>625
177.319
315-895
581,067
364,835
393-847
27,650
154,300
467.735
i°5
4g
2,321
815
42
2,586
674
453
72
477
20
"5
233
527
286
192
612
647
33
774
312
158
5.537
54
310
2,975
173
116
251
271
1,047
i77
824
46
172
646
$205,892
799.525
3,250,086
4,137.514
1,360,070
54,825
5,608,857
M55-9J5
783,926
181,860
913,503
57,300
184,165
, 401,712
M55,254
418,613
399,85°
927,024
1,232,541
43,860
',352,845
535,526
329,748
10,304,253
61,423
728,696
5,701478
279,380
240,892
441,565
495,»5o
1,651,169
'.075,827
1,660,346
80,020
373,259
M30,574
4
3
10
6
5
4
17
IS
3
$295,819
78,100
611,650
$495,500
73-800
546,750
Boston, Mass
Brooklyn, N. Y
Buffalo, N. Y
Charleston, S. C
Chicago, 111
I.255>346
149400
1,248404
363,227
Cleveland, O.
275-972
Detroit, Mich
110,552
Jersey City, N. J
Milwaukee, Wis . .
Minneapolis, Minn
Mobile, Ala.
Newark, N J.
New Haven, Conn
New York, N. Y
1408,954
*.345,383
Norfolk, Va.
Omaha, Neb
Philadelphia, Pa .
1401,675
1,100,031
Pittsburg Pa
Portland Me
St. Paul, Minn
San Francisco, Cal
97.55°
169,600
Washington D C
370
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Thirty years earlier the census reports for 1860
divided the plumbing business and its branches into
four general classes, reporting them as follows :
its growth, and its own achievements to vouch for
its worthiness, the trade of the plumber is one to
which the future can only mean progress. Much
NUMBER OF
ESTABLISHMENTS.
CAPITAL
INVESTED.
COST OF
MATERIAL.
EMPLOYEES,
MALE.
ANNUAL WAGES.
VALUE OF
PRODUCT.
I
$14,000
$26,0.0 <;
V\
$7,20O
Plumbing
1
3,<;oo
Si 1 72
2,580
A
22,100
20,200
42
1C QOO
Plumbing and gas-fitting .. .
4
636,800
694456
1,015
389,910
1,599420
As showing the material increase since then, each
one of a half-dozen of our principal cities exhibits
in 1 890 a larger value of product than did the whole
country in 1860. With these figures to demonstrate
has been done in fifty years, as I have shown ; but
more remains to do, and the next century will see
the fruition of this one in the enlarged scope of new
and changed conditions.
CHAPTER LIII
BUILDING MATERIALS
THE improvement in the art of building indi-
cated by the variety of building materials, in
iron, stone, clay, and wood ; the machinery for
their production ; the skill with which these materials
are used singly and in combination ; the appliances
for rapid construction ; the devices for the conve-
niences and comfort of the occupants of buildings ;
and the artistic treatment of the interior and exterior
of edifices, is self-evident to any person who com-
pares the structures erected within the past few years
with those put up less than a quarter of a century
ago. These improvements in the art and science of
building may be said to have been achieved within
the business period of a single lifetime, without going
back to the time when brick, stone, iron, and wood
were worked into shape by laborious processes, after-
ward being used in the most commonplace manner,
and when almost everything in which artistic effect
was sought had to be imported from Europe, or
the skilled labor to produce it had to be specially
brought from the old countries. There are still
standing in the lower sections of the city of
New York dwelling-houses erected a century ago,
old office buildings proudly named after owners who
have passed away in the natural course of events,
and old hotels that were once looked upon as mar-
vels in their way. And yet many things that appeal
to the eye and receive admiration as component parts
of new buildings cannot strictly be classed as build-
ing materials, however essential to artistic effect or
to comfort and convenience such things are. Deco-
rations in oil and water colors on walls and ceilings,
hangings of paper, leather, and other materials,
electric lighting, steam-heating, and even the eleva-
tor, without which the modern high building would
be impracticable, are among these.
The height to which many new buildings are
carried indicates the greatest advance in the art of
construction, for such edifices represent principles
untried twenty years ago, and have for their basis
the use of iron or steel for the support of the floors,
instead of masonry, reducing the walls to a mere
inclosure for keeping out inclement weather, and
for protecting the ironwork incased in them from
damage by fire. Twenty-five years ago a six-story
building was considered very high; but passenger-
elevators came into use, adding value to the upper
stories. Ten and eleven story edifices followed.
With solid masonry the thickness of a wall is
regulated by its height, tapering by stories from the
bottom to the top. Under this method the great
thickness of the lower portions of the walls oc-
cupied the most valuable space for rentals, and with
a height of ten or eleven stories the greatest prac-
ticable limit seemed to be reached. No more of the
area of a valuable lot could be given up to the oc-
cupancy of brick walls. Suddenly and simultane-
ously a number of architects and engineers grasped
the idea that metal columns could be carried up
to any desired height, having girders between on
which to carry the floors and the requisite amount
of masonry as an outside protection. Thus an
edifice could be elevated to the clouds, and, irre-
spective of height, take up far less of the area of
a lot than would be required by the old-fashioned
method of solid brick walls. Fifteen, twenty, and
twenty-five story buildings quickly followed, and it
is conceded that structures 500 feet high, or of any
height whatever, can be safely erected on this plan.
The use of a framework, or, as it is generally
termed, a skeleton, of iron or steel, with curtain-
walls supported on girders placed between the
columns, the latter and the girders carrying the floors
in addition, is an American novelty, notwithstanding
it has for its immediate prototype the cast-iron fronts
with column standing upon column. The first cast-
iron front ever erected in the world was put up in
New York in 1 848 ; yet that was but a repetition of
iron columns and lintels long previously used as a
substitute for stone and brick to the extent of a
371
372
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
single story. The skeleton, as used in the lofty
buildings, is simply an evolution or expansion of
the principle contained in the familiar cast-iron
fronts, and in the oft-used method of increasing the
bearing strength of a brick pier of too small an area
safely to bear alone the load to be imposed, by plac-
ing an iron column in the center of the pier.
Obviously it is to the interest of an owner, as well
as necessary for public safety, that an excessively
high building shall be so constructed that in the
event of fire the building itself shall not be seriously
damaged, nor shall it imperil the safety of surround-
ing buildings. Laws regulating the construction of
buildings in New York require all structures above a
stated height (eighty-five feet) to be built fire-proof ;
that is to say, they must be constructed with walls
of brick, stone, or iron, the floors and roofs of
materials similar to the walls, and the stairs also
must be of incombustible materials. Fire-proof
floors are now commonly constructed of rolled iron
or steel I-beams, with arches of burnt clay between
the beams.
The first wrought-iron I-beams rolled in this
country were made by Peter Cooper, at his mills in
Trenton, N. J., about 1860. The Phoenix Iron Com-
pany, of Pennsylvania, began to roll them about
the same time. Prior to that date there was a very
limited number of fire-proof buildings in this country.
Those which did exist chiefly belonged to the gov-
ernment. In the early fire-proof structures erected
in New York City — the Cooper Union building,
Harper's publishing building, and the Historical
Library building — the iron floor-beams are of a
shape known as deck-beams, being very similar in
section to an ordinary rail, only deeper. The depths
of I-beams have been increased from six and seven
inches up to twenty-four inches, and mild steel has
displaced wrought-iron. Eastern and Western roll-
ing-mills yearly turn out an enormous quantity of
rolled steel I-beams for use in buildings.
Before the time when rolled beams could be expe-
ditiously procured and at moderate prices, cast-iron
beams were used. When the openings to be spanned
were of considerable width, bowstring-girders, or
arch-shaped castings with horizontal wrought-iron
tie-rods connecting the ends, were commonly used.
It is admitted by all who are competent to judge
that wrought-iron or steel is superior for use where
the load tends to tear the metal asunder; and in
course of time cast-iron for beams and girders be-
came almost entirely superseded by rolled wrought-
iron, and later on by rolled steel. The use of
cast-iron beams, lintels, and columns in commercial
buildings kept a number of large foundries in
New York busy for many years. More than half a
century ago the Jackson Architectural Iron- Works,
now a corporation, were started, being practically
the pioneer foundry for the manufacture of ironwork
for buildings. It was in these works that the first
entire iron front was made, from drawings furnished
by the introducer, James Bogardus. Several firms
that became quite renowned in the line of architec-
tural ironwork— among them J. B. & W. W. Cornell
— procured their cast-iron work for many years from
the Jackson foundry. Iron fronts became popular,
and New York supplied the demand from Boston,
Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis, until finally
their manufacture was taken up in every section of
the country. During the past ten years architects
have shown a preference for fronts of brick with
terra-cotta or stone for trimmings, and cast-iron
fronts have largely gone out of fashion, perhaps
later on to be revived, particularly for commercial
structures, as cast-iron has in its favor unequaled
advantages of lightness, strength, durability, econ-
omy, incombustibility, and ready renovation. John
Roach, who became celebrated as an iron-ship
builder, started in the foundry business in a small
way in New York about the year 1840, making
castings for builders' uses ; but he veered off into
ships' castings and machinery, and finally into build-
ing ships.
The Jackson foundry was started to manufacture
grates and fenders, and during all the years of its
existence has continued that as one of its principal
branches. It was the establishment of a new in-
dustry in this country, for these things were all
imported from abroad. While fireplace fronts can
scarcely be included among " building materials," in
the ordinary understanding of that term, yet they go
to make up a permanent and necessary part of build-
ings. There are a number of other adjuncts to an
edifice that cannot properly be included as building
materials, but each of which makes progressive steps
in providing useful, convenient, and comfortable
structures. In a modern building electric light and
steam-heat are looked for as matters of course ; and
mail-chutes, telephone and electric call service are
developments of recent years. In dwelling-houses
gas-stoves are supplanting coal-ranges for cooking ;
the old-fashioned pan water-closet has given way to
the S trap-bowl ; bath-tubs are of enameled iron,
solid porcelain, or marble, instead of wood lined
with copper or other metal ; pneumatic or electric
appliances open the street-door at will ; locks that
are unpickable and burglar-alarms secure reasonable
WILLIAM H. JACKSON.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
373
safety from would-be intruders; and in a variety
of ways the conveniences, comforts, security, and
healthfulness of homes have been added to of late
years by provisions made in the planning and con-
struction of buildings.
Formerly French or English plate-glass was de-
manded for every good building. American plate-
glass slowly but surely worked to the front rank in
quality, and has become one of our great home
industries. In art glass-work for windows, American
manufacturers and American artists produce the
equal of the best made in any other country, but the
time was not long ago when everything in that line
of art-work was of foreign make.
Marbles in great variety, sandstones in almost
every color, and granite of various hues are quarried
in all directions ; and through cheap transportation
by water or rail, every section of the country has an
available supply of every kind and color of stone
for architectural effect in buildings. Stone is planed
and carved by machinery more accurately and
quicker than by hand. The labor thus saved, and
the consequent cheapening of molded and carved
stone, have increased the consumption and given em-
ployment to a far greater number of workmen than
would otherwise have been the case. The world's
experience has shown, moreover, that while machi-
nery increases production, it also opens new fields
for useful labor, and the cheapening of the cost of
manufactured products proportionately increases
their consumption by bringing them within the
reach of a greater number of persons. Not only
in stone, but in every kind of material which enters
into the construction and finishing of buildings, has
machinery reduced the cost. The army of work-
men is vastly greater in numbers, and wages are
higher, than when hand labor had the field entirely
to itself.
Wood moldings were laboriously worked out by
hand in former years. Machinery changed all that,
so that to-day a carpenter would as soon think of
hewing out timber from the log by hand as to work
out by hand the trim for a house. From the mold-
ing-mill the trim now comes all ready to be put in
place. Hard woods, especially ash and oak, have
largely taken the place of white pine for trim, and
it is due to machinery that doors and architraves
around openings can be obtained in hard woods at
less cost than the same in soft woods could have been
had a few years ago. Hard wood for mantels, of all
grades from the simple and cheap to the elaborate
and costly, has, to a great extent, taken the place
of marble and slate. The advance in woodworking
machinery and in carving by machinery enables
very artistic and elaborate work in wood to be ob-
tained at very reasonable prices, and architects and
builders have not been slow in availing themselves
of their opportunities. Improved fillers and varnish
coatings for hard woods are on sale in every paint-
store, and cabinet finish is easily and cheaply
produced. Ready-mixed paints for interior and
exterior uses are extensively used, the grinding
being done by machinery, the mixing, therefore,
being more thorough than by hand. Paint mixed
with such ingredients that fire is repelled from
wood or other materials coated with it is a compara-
tively new article of manufacture, but is being largely
used for protecting frame factories and other build-
ings where the danger of burning is great. Wire
cloth, in place of wood lath, is much used, not only
because it keeps the plaster better and prevents
cracks, but because it makes a good fire-resisting sur-
face for ceilings under wood beams and on the sides
of wood studs. A variety of solid, thin, light, and
strong partitions of iron and plaster are used in
place of the wood-stud, lath, and plaster partitions,
so dangerous in case of fire. Mortar and plaster
mixed by machinery are supplied to masons in any
quantity required. The mixing being more perfectly
done by machinery than by the hoe, the blisters so
often seen on finished wall surfaces, due to bad
mixing, are obviated. To ordinary plaster other
ingredients are now added, these plaster mixtures
being known in the market under several different
names, but all having for their object hardness and
durability. A few years ago American hydraulic
cements were looked upon with extreme suspicion
by engineers and architects, and imported Portland
cements were demanded for use in important foun-
dation-work. Now American cements are recog-
nized as having equal strength with the English
and German cements, joined with other good quali-
ties, and are sold at lower prices than the imported
brands.
In appearance the streets in our great cities are
taking on a lighter hue, due to the light-colored
brick so generally used for the fronts of new build-
ings. Twenty-five years ago, in New York, red was
the universal color for front brick, the choice front
brick being brought from Philadelphia and Balti-
more. The clays of New Jersey give us brick in
white, lemon, buff, mottled, and other hues, and these
are used to the exclusion of red. Terra-cotta in
a variety of colors and artistically executed enters
largely into the ornamental treatment of the fronts
of buildings. The extensive use of this material,
374
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
and the erection of manufactories for its production,
are of recent date in this country. In clay products
alone architects have a chance to display taste and
skill of which their professional brethren a decade
or so ago never entertained a thought.
In the Post-Office building in this city, a little
more than twenty years ago, hollow-tile flat arches
between iron floor-beams were introduced for the
first time in this or any other country. This was
the invention of Mr. B. Kreischer, a manufacturer
of fire-brick in New York. The flat-arch system
provided a level ceiling at once, at a less cost and
with much less weight of material than filling in be-
tween iron beams with segmental arches of common
brick, and then furring down with wood or iron to
obtain a level ceiling surface. The new system
came into general use for fire-proof buildings all
over the United States. A long litigation ensued
over the patent, but under the crucial test of publi-
cations from all parts of the globe, the courts finally
decided the Kreischer patent void for want of orig-
inality. Abroad the system of flat arches whose end
sections abut against rolled iron or steel beams for
floorings is recognized as an American invention,
and at a meeting of the Royal Institute of British
Architects, held in 1882, this method of constructing
floors was commented upon, the chairman of that
meeting going on to say that when a man in the
United States brought out a good invention con-
nected with building or anything else, it was straight-
way adopted all over the country, remaining in use
until something better was provided, when that, in
its turn, was taken up.
Another American invention whose merit has
been recognized everywhere is illuminated tiles
—the placing of small disks of glass in iron plates
which form a walking surface and at the same time
transmit light to a vault or room beneath the side-
walk. The name Hyatt will always be associated
with this invention in America and Europe. Years
of litigation ensued after the introduction and use
of this invention, but fortunately for the inventor the
court decisions were finally in his favor, by which he
realized large sums of money.
Iron for the frame and bars of skylights has su-
perseded wood in all large cities, in part because
modern building laws will not permit the use of
wood for any but very small skylights. Twenty-five
years ago iron skylight bars were of solid rolled
iron. An American inventor, Hayes, introduced
skylight bars of sheet-iron, bent by machinery to a
proper shape, and these light, strong, and cheap
bars are now everywhere in use. Galvanized sheet-
iron for cornices on the fronts of buildings has taken
the place of wood in cities, and in the manufacture
of them an enormous amount of sheet-metal is used
annually.
In bank and safe-deposit buildings the burglar-
proof work for vaults and strong rooms represents
a very large manufacturing industry in providing
what is deemed essential to the equipment of such
structures. Bank vaults of chilled iron and steel
were used a long time ago, but the increase in the
demand for burglar-proof work resulted in improved
methods of construction, and in the invention of
better time-locks and alarm appliances to give warn-
ing of attempts at burglary.
Wood necessarily enters into the construction of
buildings of every character. Hundreds of millions
of dollars are invested in the work of handling this
material, and several hundred thousand artisans are
employed in preparing it for use from the time the
logs are gathered in the forests until they are
fashioned into the required shapes. This industry
is among the most important in the United States,
but there are no reliable data extant from which
anything approaching an accurate estimate of the
capital invested or the number of timber workers
employed can be determined. Some idea of its
magnitude may be formed when it has been es-
timated by builders of wide experience that out of
some 12,000,000 dwelling-houses in the United
States nearly 11,000,000 are built mainly of wood.
In the almost countless number of fire-proof
buildings the stairs, of course, are made of incom-
bustible materials — iron for the strings, risers, and
railings, and slate or marble for the treads. Several
large iron-works devote their attention solely to this
class of manufacture. The variety of designs and
the coating of the iron with other metals by electro-
processes, or by a process that preserves iron against
rust without paint, go to make up in extent and
beauty a branch of iron manufacture that has de-
veloped from very small beginnings to extensive
proportions. The inclosure of elevator-shafts in
fire-proof buildings is generally of iron grille-work,
which has the same characteristics as iron stair- work
in points of design and workmanship.
In putting the different kinds of materials in
place in the building a saving of time and labor is
sought. Even in ordinary buildings brick and mor-
tar are no longer carried on men's backs up a ladder.
Hod-hoisting machinery has taken the place of
manual labor in this respect. On important build-
ings power-derricks lift all heavy weights from the
ground to the uppermost story — stone, iron, and
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
375
everything else. It is not an unusual sight to see a
cart-load of brick brought to a building, the horse
then unhitched, the cart hoisted by the derrick to
an upper story, and the brick dumped, after which
the cart is lowered to the ground. The riveting of
connecting parts of ironwork in important buildings
is frequently done by machine instead of by hand.
Foundations for high buildings, where the soil is
uncertain or inadequate to bear enormous loads, are
in some instances carried down to rock by means of
cylinders of iron sunk to the required depth and
then filled in with masonry. In other cases a fram-
ing of iron beams covering the whole area of the
building, much like a raft, is laid and covered with
concrete. Engineering skill in its application to
building work has no limit, in reality ; it can reach
down deep into the ground or tower up high toward
the clouds. But the opportunities to do the things
that would have been considered marvelous a cen-
tury ago have arisen only during late years. Possi-
bly the same ability existed then, but the call for its
exercise has come with a more recent date.
Architecture has played a most important part in
the development of the modern building. Conse-
quently a slight departure from the main thread of
this subject may be allowable in order better to
trace the progress of the century in the building
line. The origin of architecture is wrapped in ob-
scurity. Caves and huts of branches were the first
buildings made by man. Examples of a second
stage of development are found in the stone monu-
ments of various islands in the Pacific and in
the ancient monuments of America. The ruins of
Mexico show no foreign influence in their artistic
workmanship, and are therefore regarded as an in-
dependent national development. Some of these
show an advanced and highly ornamented form of
the pyramid. Of Oriental architecture the Egyp-
tian examples are perhaps the most striking. The
numerous monuments of India can be compared in
extent and magnificence only with those of Egypt.
China received its architecture from India. Gre-
cian, Roman, and Gothic architecture furnishes high
examples of the art, and many of its features are
interwoven with modern architecture.
A new period in the development of architecture
began about the close of the eighteenth century,
when a reaction against the rococo style made it-
self felt. Important examples are the Mint in Berlin
and the Brandenburg Gate, built at the close of the
eighteenth century. The age and conditions of
American civilization do not admit of an indigenous
architectural development, as in older countries, and
therefore we find in the United States examples of
almost every known national style. The building
operations of the settlers of the seventeenth century
were modeled upon those of the countries whence
they had emigrated.
Thus the early buildings of New England and
Virginia are essentially English ; those of New York
and Pennsylvania are Dutch and German; while
Florida shows thoroughly Spanish architecture, and
New Orleans is practically a transplanted French
city. With the beginning of the eighteenth century
the increased intercourse between the individual
colonies gave rise to a more homogeneous archi-
tecture. The more important buildings of the
period are all the works of English architects,
among them being King's Chapel, Boston (1749),
by Harrison, and St. Michael's, Charleston, S. C.
(1752), by Gibson, a pupil of Wren. To the same
period belong Christ Church, Philadelphia, and the
old State-houses of Boston and Philadelphia. The
dwelling-houses of the colonial period were simple
in style and usually of wood, depending for their
external effect principally upon the use of columns,
and with interiors of great plainness, the ornamen-
tation being concentrated in the staircases, of which
some artistic examples are still in existence.
The first and chief of the government buildings
at Washington was the Capitol. In its present form
the Capitol is a monumental edifice with a dome
135 feet in diameter rising 217 feet above the roof.
The architectural effect is secured by the free use
of porticos and colonnades, and by the striking
approaches. The other government buildings are
of a similar style. Since that period a style founded
on the Italian Renaissance has been employed in
nearly all public buildings, sometimes with great
success. To this period, also, belongs the New
York City Hall (1803-12), built of marble and free-
stone, which at the time of its erection surpassed all
buildings here in material and conception. For a
time Greek architecture became the fashion, and
it was applied to many buildings. To this develop-
ment belong the Custom-houses in Philadelphia and
New York (with monolithic columns) and Boston,
and Girard College, Philadelphia.
The first successful attempt of Gothic architecture
was the erection, in 1839-45, in New York, of
Trinity Church, by Richard Upjohn, which has
since remained the accepted type of American
church buildings. From the church the Gothic
style was for a time carried to all other classes of
buildings, but was soon abandoned. With the rapid
growth of the country in wealth and ambition there
376
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
succeeded crazes for various architectural styles.
Egyptian, Moorish, Swiss, and other types were
employed, but finally all of them were abandoned.
Subsequently a revival of Gothic architecture, under
the influence of Ruskin, produced some buildings
of merit, among them the National Academy of
Design, New York, largely in the Venetian style ;
the State Capitol of Connecticut, at Hartford ; and
the Harvard Alumni Memorial Hall, at Cambridge.
During recent years the prevailing style for muni-
cipal buildings has been that of the French Renais-
sance. Imposing examples of this style are seen in
the new municipal buildings of Philadelphia and in
the new buildings of the State and War departments
at Washington. Many of the newer capitol build-
ings of the various States are of architectural merit,
the most elaborate being the Capitol at Albany. In
church architecture, New York, Boston, Chicago,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, and some Western cities
possess good examples of Gothic and other styles.
The largest and most costly church edifice on the
continent is St. Patrick's Cathedral, in New York.
A notable departure from the Gothic style is seen in
Trinity Church, Boston, where the Romanesque has
been employed with great artistic success.
Much of the sameness and monotony in dwelling-
houses which obtains in most of the older cities is
giving way to a pleasing variety, especially in newer
localities. This change is largely due to the forma-
tion of schools of architecture, which are turning out
thoroughly equipped native architects. The Ameri-
can Institute of Architects, founded in 1867, with
its local branches, assists in encouraging professional
intercourse among its members, and the various
architectural journals spread an increasing know-
ledge of the art. All these agencies combine to
form a national educated taste which may originate a
national type of architecture, thus rendering impos-
sible the crudities of past generations, and developing
refinement in the choice or combination of existing
styles.
Every one of the group of subjects referred to
occupies a relationship more or less intimate to
the others. A modern building is something more
than merely the walls and roof. It includes the pro-
ducts of trades that a century ago had no existence,
others that have lived less than half a century, and
still others that less than a quarter of a century ago
were unknown. With the growth of population
the number of buildings proportionately increases.
In our great cities many families living indepen-
dently of one another occupy together a single build-
ing, while the former rule was one family to a house.
New conditions of living have arisen, not merely for
the poor in tenement-houses, but for the well-to-do
and affluent, in the aggregation of many homes
under one roof. Increasing the size of buildings
vertically instead of horizontally called for the work-
ing out of new problems not only in engineering,
but in sanitary science. American ingenuity and
skill have, however, kept pace with every require-
ment or necessity. The achievements and progress
in every direction which have added so much to
the welfare and greatness of our country during the
past one hundred years have nowhere been more
marked than in the materials used and the know-
ledge of their proper applications in the construc-
tion of buildings.
CHAPTER LIV
ELECTRICAL MANUFACTURING INTERESTS
THERE is no way in which the electrical indus-
tries of 1895 can be compared with those of
1795, for the simple reason that a hundred
years ago electrical science was rudimentary and the
electrical arts were all unborn. A few stray pieces of
apparatus built by instrument makers under the vague
directions of philosophical investigators constituted
throughout the first quarter of the present century the
bases from which all our later inventions and de-
velopments have dated. It was not until within the
last fifty years that, the correlation of electricity and
magnetism being fairly understood, and the ability
to turn mechanical energy into current being fully
perceived, the world enjoyed the benefits, in quick
succession, of telegraphy, electroplating, electric
lighting, telephony, electric power, electric traction,
electric heating, forging, welding, and cooling, and
economists ; but indications are not wanting that it
is the agency chiefly to be relied upon hereafter in
the closer knitting together of city and country, the
increasing of facilities for commerce, and the diffu-
sion throughout remote districts of information that
should be common to all.
The telegraph, representing a pioneer electrical
development, has attained, it is believed by many,
the magnitude of maturity, while its methods are
pretty much the same as when Morse first operated
his crude devices. Inclusive of allied and similar
services to the public, the telegraph system of the
United States reaches a capitalization of about
$200,000,000, of which the Western Union and
Postal lines may be credited with more than one
half. The condition of the telegraph industry is
portrayed in the following figures:
MESSAGES SENT BY THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY.
YEAR.
MESSAGES.
RECEIPTS.
EXPENSES.
AVERAGE TOLL
PER MESSAGE.
AVERAGE COST
PER MESSAGE.
1 802
62,387,298
$23,706,404
$16,307,857
31.6
22.3
1801
66,591,858
24,978,442
17,482,405
31.2
22.7
1804
58,632,2 -57
21,852,655
16,060,170
3°-5
23-3
igq:
S8.W7.3I5
22,218,019
16,076,630
3°-7
23-3
the electric extraction of minerals and precious met-
als. These constitute a noteworthy fruition for five
decades, yet have barely scratched the possibilities,
and have so far been limited in their usefulness al-
most entirely to urban populations. Strange as it
may seem at a time when dwellers in the city en-
counter electrical appliances on every side, there
is not a single art that has been a direct boon to the
agricultural sections of the country, despite the fact
that America is a land of farms, and that here elec-
tricity has been more vigorously exploited, and in
more ways, than anywhere else in the world. Elec-
tricity is, in fact, at the present moment, curiously
associated with the intense and crowded city life
that engages the thoughts of social and political
Hence it will appear that there is no rapid expan-
sion in telegraphy going on, nor can there be one
without some very radical changes. If the popu-
lation of the United States of America be taken at
65,000,000, it would appear that only one telegram
per head per year is sent, and the ratio remains
about the same through many years, without any
variation that denotes a growing habit on the part
of the people.
When we turn to telephony an explanation of this
state of affairs is seen. The advent of Professor
Bell's telephone in 1876 found capital quite averse
to assuming any risk in it, and even in 1879 the
Western Union Telegraph Company surrendered all
its telephonic work to the American Bell Telephone
377
378
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Company, on condition of being paid for a term of
years twenty per cent, commission on the receipts
in royalties from the telephone — an arrangement
which has brought some $7,000,000 into the West-
ern Union treasury without any expenditure. But
the telephone has meantime gained ground so enor-
mously that some observers believe the effectual
supercession of the older telegraph to be well in
sight. The American people now exchange yearly
750,000,000 telephonic talks; that is, they use the
telephone ten times as much as they do the tele-
graph, at infinitely less cost. Each telephone talk
through an exchange costs the subscriber less than
five cents on the average. Every twenty-four hours
the telephone is used more than 2,000,000 times, so
that, broadly, 4,000,000 people, or twenty-five per
cent, of the adult population, resort to it daily,
chiefly for commercial purposes. As an actual fact,
hand-written letters are only four times as numerous ;
and thus, if both telegraph and telephone were out
of existence, the number of sealed pieces of mail
matter, on the same calculation, would be increased
by 800,000,000. New York City alone would re-
quire 40,000 district messenger-boys to carry around
its communications that are now sent in a single
day over its telephone wires.
The total investment in telephony, however, in
1894, was only $77,500,000, although it is rapidly
increasing. One of the most important commercial
branches of it is the long-distance work, which, be-
gun in 1885, is done with a ramification of 55,000
miles of pole-line and 265,000 miles of wire, con-
necting together no fewer than 2000 towns and cities
by double or " metallic " circuit, any one of which
places any telephone subscriber in New York, for
example, can reach ; while the public can do the
same in this city by using some 1200 scattered pay
stations. The rate to Chicago from New York is
$9 for five minutes' talk, or $4.50 at night. The
recent expiration of fundamental patents has also
greatly stimulated telephonic work.
In view of these and other conditions, Mr. P. B.
Delany, a well-known electrician, has worked out .
a plan that would render the telegraph remarkably
valuable, and popularly rehabilitate it. He proposes
that letters shall be telegraphed instead of carried
by trains. There are 40,000 letters exchanged daily,
for instance, between New York and Chicago, and
the perfection of methods now is such in " machine
telegraphy " that with two good copper wires he
would carry 28,000 messages of fifty words each
daily between the two cities. The contrast with
old methods is seen in the statement that with a
single copper wire of only 300 pounds to the mile,
thus machine-worked between New York and Phila-
delphia, Mr. Delany proposes to handle 3000 words
per minute; whereas by the present key system in
vogue, for the same quantity of matter, thirty-eight
wires must be worked quadruplex, or 152 circuits,
at about twenty words per minute. Here certainly
lies a great future, with great benefit, if the plan is
feasible, to commercial and social intercourse.
Although this country ranks with England in its
patronage of the submarine cable, and is proud of
the indomitable New York merchant, Cyrus Field, it
has no cable industry and a very small cable owner-
ship. Vast as are the quantities of fine cable made
in America for telegraphic and telephonic work
along its rivers and lakes, the American cable is still
unknown to the deep seas. There has been no
period, apparently, since the New World was elec-
trically moored alongside the Old, when our manu-
facturers could, in this branch, compete on equal
terms with those of England and Germany.
The fire-alarm telegraphs have been an important
item in this field of manufacture, and there are over
600 places equipped, generally with the Gamewell
system, which is, perhaps, the best known. In 1890,
the last year for which definite statistics are avail-
able, a group of fifty cities had no fewer than 8400
fire-alarm boxes in use by their fire departments. A
system for a small city costs about $1000. Every
city has now its police telegraph also, many com-
bining with it a telephonic patrol system that brings
a squad to any point within five minutes after the
call is sent in. The district messenger system has
become familiar in most American cities, as an
auxiliary to the telegraph. In New York City the
average number of boys employed for this work is
1 200, who run some 2,500,000 errands in a year.
That the boys loiter is obviously a calumny.
As an offset, perhaps, to the European preemi-
nence in the one department of submarine tele-
graphy, we may turn to the generous figures of the
growth of electric lighting in the United States.
There are barely one hundred central stations in
all Great Britain; there are 2500 local electric-light
companies here, and some 200 municipal plants.
The investment there has reached $35,000,000; in
such work in this country the total is placed at
$300,000,000, New York alone approximating the
figures for all England. Of isolated plants for arc
or incandescent lighting in mills, mines, stores, halls,
docks, etc., the number in the United States has
reached probably 7500 ; there were in 1893 no fewer
than 3500 such isolated incandescent plants, with
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
379
a capacity of 1,500.000 lamps. The value of the
tot.il arc and incandescent outlay, independent en-
tirely of the central stations, is placed at $200,000,-
ooo. All this is the outcome of the inventions
of men like Edison, Brush, Elihu Thomson, Wes-
ton, Wood, Hochhausen, and, in the new era just
beginning, Nikola Tesla, Stanley, Bradley, and Stein-
metz. At one time some forty or fifty manufactur-
ing companies competed for the sale of the plant ;
but the art has in many respects become specialized,
and the leading survivors are the General Electric,
Westinghouse, Fort Wayne, Excelsior, Brush, Stan-
dard, and Western Electric companies. The General
Electric Company, for example, had its arc appara-
tus operating in 957 central stations, in May, 1895,
supplying 130,000 arc-lights. This is a typical
"parent" company, which now has a total capital
of about $44,000,000, employs some 7000 men in
its factories, and has an annual output ranging from
$10,000,000 to $15,000,000. A typical "local"
suborganization is the Chicago Edison Company,
with a capital of $7,000,000, and four central stations
supplying current daily for 161,000 incandescent
lamps, 4000 horse-power of electric motors, and
3600 arc-lamps, using about 500 miles of under-
ground tubing and cable to reach its customers.
A typical isolated plant is that in the Auditorium,
Chicago, with 17,000 incandescent lamps; or that
in the new Carnegie Steel- Works, at Duquesne, Pa.,
where 3000 horse-power is used for electric light
and power.
The practical incandescent lamp was brought to
commercial perfection by Edison less than twenty
years ago. The dynamo capacity in this country
to-day for incandescent lighting is estimated at over
8,000,000 lamps of sixteen candle-power, while the
number connected to the circuits is from 12,000,000
to 1 5,000,000. The number of lamps produced by
about a score of factories is from 50,000 to 75,000
daily. Ten years ago an incandescent lamp cost
the consumer not much less than one dollar, while
excellent lamps are now bought at about twenty
cents apiece. The average life of lamps is 600 to 800
hours. Equally remarkable is the reduction in the
cost of carbon-points for arc -lamps. In 1876 they
were imported from a French maker, a dozen or two
in the batch, at forty cents each. The American
manufacture began in 1878, with over thirty hand
processes, and at prices of $80 per i ooo. The car-
bon art to-day recognizes only four hand processes,
and prices are in the neighborhood of $10 per 1000.
Within the past fifteen years some seventy-five fac-
tories have been started to supply the annual con-
sumption of 200,000,000 carbon-points, and their
capacity has reached three times that figure. There
are to-day twenty-five factories in the world, with
a capacity of, say, 350,000,000 per annum. The
largest of these factories is in Cleveland, O., owned
by the National Carbon Company, comprising four-
teen large buildings on seventeen acres of ground,
with a capacity of 250,000,000 per annum.
All these seem large figures, but as a matter of
calculation it will be found that they would need a
tenfold multiplication if electric light were entirely
to replace gas. The process is, however, going on,
with the effect at the same time of raising the stan-
dard of illumination everywhere, and greatly cheap-
ening gas production. In 1890 no fewer than 278
American cities, with a population of 7,000,000, had
entirely given up gas for electricity in lighting their
streets. Although no municipal gas-plants are now
erected, the number of electric-lighting plants built
by municipalities is strikingly on the increase all
over the Union.
Associated closely with electric light is electric
power, the motors being placed on the same circuits
as the lamps. All the concerns building electric-
light apparatus also build motors; but there are
about a dozen factories, such as the Crocker- Wheeler,
and Eddy, that devote themselves exclusively to
motors, of which it is estimated that 500,000 are
now in use, the bulk of these being the small fan-
motors for ventilation, costing, on an average, $15
each. Motors of fifty horse-power and upward are,
however, by no means uncommon; while the ten-
dency in all new factories, machine-shops, etc., is to
distribute power by such motors, instead of using
long lines of belt and shafting. At the Homestead,
Pa., Steel- Works, for example, power is thus fur-
nished to electric motors aggregating 4000 horse-
power ; at Bessemer, Pa., to about 2000 horse-power ;
and a third metal plant has thirty electric cranes,
three electric traveling bridges, six motor freight
conveyers, fifteen motor-cars, and a score of motors
for miscellaneous purposes.
The use of electric elevators in cities, furnished
with current from both central stations and isolated
plants, is a distinct class of work. In New York
there are several hundred of these elevators, requir-
ing a total of upward of 5000 horse-power daily for
their operation. For the Parrott Building in San
Francisco Mr. F. J. Sprague is furnishing fifteen of
his electric elevators. At present to be found chiefly
in office buildings, they have already made their
way into apartments and into private dwellings.
Electric heating and cooking apparatus, fed with
380
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
current from central stations, is also becoming famil-
iar, especially in laundries, restaurants, canneries,
and hair-dressing establishments.
A few years ago the dynamos in central stations
were large that would operate 500 lamps; to-day
machines of from 5000 to 25,000 lamp capacity
are not unusual. These are now driven directly by
huge steam-engines of the vertical triple-expansion
marine type. In the same manner arc-dynamos
were usually able to energize twenty-five or thirty
arcs of 2000 candle-power each ; but their place is
being taken by machines that will feed 150 to 200
such lamps on circuits thirty and forty miles long.
It is evident that great economy is thus effected.
Arc-lighting, which at its introduction cost seventy-
five cents or more per night per lamp, now averages
from thirty to thirty-five cents. Incandescent lamps
cost about one cent an hour each for current, and
motors obtain their supply at less than ten cents
per horse-power per hour. Whereas it was once the
well-nigh universal custom to sell a current at a
" flat rate," it is now the more scientific custom to
meter it. Indeed, one of the most significant de-
velopments of late years has been the perfection of
American electrical instruments of measurement and
precision devised for lighting and power circuits.
Those of Edward Weston have won a reputation
that has gone around the world.
Very early indeed were the efforts made in elec-
tric railroading. The work of Thomas Davenport,
a Vermont blacksmith, fifty odd years ago, embodied
many of the elements familiar in the street-railway
of to-day ; but no progress was made, because the
primary battery was then the sole source of current.
It was not until within the last ten years that the
electric railway industry became established. The
present writer collected the first American statistics
on the subject in 1887. There were then but thir-
teen small roads. This year the trolley roads in the
United States have reached the imposing total of
900, with 11,000 miles of track, 25,000 cars, and a
capitalization of fully $750,000,000, which in spite
of frequent inflation has a notable dividend-earning
capacity, rarely falling below six per cent, for the
bonds, and the common stock receiving as much.
The ability of electricity to increase the traffic of a
street-railway has hardly ever been less than forty
per cent, in the year of its adoption, and has fre-
quently exceeded one hundred per cent. In all
Europe the number of electric roads is below 100.
The annual increase here is at least that number,
representing a purchase of some $100,000,000 worth
of rails, cars, motors, wire, engines, boilers, poles, etc.
The electric railway industry has endless aspects.
In New York, Washington, and Chicago, under-
ground trolley conduit roads are being adopted in-
stead of the overhead trolley type, with fair success.
In Chicago, at the World's Fair, an elevated electric
road carried 8,000,000 passengers, and there is now
a similar road in regular operation in that city. For
New York City is proposed a tunnel electric railway
system, to cost the metropolitan taxpayers $50,000,-
ooo, on the plan so successful for some years past
in London.
Nor is this all. As far back as the summer of
1894 there were sixty-two street-car lines carrying
United States mail ; thirty-five lines had gone into
the express business, and fifty- five were hauling
freight. These figures have probably been doubled
in the past twelvemonth. More interesting still is the
interurban extension of the trolley system. Within
a year as many as 190 electric railway companies
have been projected to ply across country, with 3457
miles of track. Many of these have been built and
are already running. They range from four miles
up to seventy-five in length. The competition of
these roads and the regular street trolley railways
with steam railroads has begun to revolutionize the
latter, if only for the reason that ten miles for five
cents is an ordinary car trip, while the steam train
needs ten cents for five miles for its mainte-
nance. On some steam roads the suburban travel
has been practically wiped out, and a great many
schedules have been abandoned. To meet this seri-
ous condition of affairs the Pennsylvania, and the
New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroads, as
well as others less well known, have adopted electri-
city for some of their branches with marked success ;
and the intention is to carry this change much further
at once.
Additional to this is the use of heavy 1500 horse-
power electric locomotives by the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad Company for freight haulage in its Balti-
more tunnel. These locomotives haul trains of 1400
tons, and make, when necessary, a speed of sixty
miles an hour. The same method is to be adopted
for the Grand Trunk Tunnel under the St. Clair River.
In short, the steam railroad system is at the point of
a new departure, and is everywhere being prepared
for the greater utilization of electricity.
An art allied to electric locomotion is that of
electric navigation. At the World's Fair in Chicago
in 1893, 1,003,500 passengers were carried on the
lagoons by a fleet of fifty electric launches; and
these boats, scattered all over the country, have
become nuclei for a number of smaller busy fleets
T. COMMKRFORD MARTIN.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
HI
employed by trolley railways, park boards, police
departments, and private owners. These boats are
operated by means of storage batteries charged from
time to time, and able to run them continuously for
forty or fifty miles. A boat of such a character,
making ten to twelve miles an hour, thirty-five feet
in length and six to eight feet beam, is obtainable
complete for about $1600.
The storage battery has been far more successful
afloat than in street-car propulsion, but it is now in
swift adoption for isolated plants and central stations,
as a reservoir of current when the machinery is not
in operation. The Edison Company in Boston has
recently erected and equipped a five-story building
as a storage-battery adjunct, which supplements an
earlier annex of the same kind, the two together
being by far the largest in the world. They have
a capacity of 30,000 amperes of current, or 60,000
lamps ; and have taken care of all demands on the
company for current during periods of fifteen hours.
It is becoming the practice, also, to equip fire-alarm
departments with storage batteries in place of the
old primary batteries.
Electric mining is one of the latest of the indus-
tries to be developed by the electrical engineer, and
bids fair to surpass the electric railway in magnitude.
The demand for apparatus in it is estimated to have
reached already the sum of $100,000,000, for hoists,
crushers, drills, pumps, ventilators, cars, etc., all
driven electrically. The adoption of this machi-
nery, furnished with current from dynamos driven
by water-power, has enabled scores of mines to pay
expenses that were unable to do so with fuel as high
as $15 a ton. Some of these plants are being oper-
ated at altitudes of 12,000 feet above sea-level, and
exemplify the beauties of long-distance electrical
power transmission, which in itself is even now con-
stituting a separate field of endeavor.
By all odds the most important long-distance
electrical power enterprise is that of the Niagara
Falls Power Company, in the utilization of part of
the energy of the great cataract. By means of its
plants on both sides of the Niagara River this com-
pany will develop 350,000 horse-power; and its
power-house, canal, and tunnel on the American
side are adequate to the production of 100,000
horse-power of electrical current, generated by the
Tesla two-phase system. An expenditure of $3,000,-
ooo has been made, and is now yielding an income.
Part of the current is being used in the electrical
manufacture at the falls of aluminium and carborun-
dum, and a large manufacturing city is beginning to
form about a mile above the falls, free from smoke,
dust, and gases, all the energy being distributed
silently over hidden wires. Arrangements have been
made by which Buffalo, twenty-two miles away, is
to receive this current in large quantities, the price
being $18 per horse-power at the Niagara end of
the line ; while it is estimated by experts that the
current can even be delivered 300 miles away in
Albany, to compete on equal terms with the power
of steam-engines on the spot, using coal at $3 per
ton. The boats on the Erie Canal are also to have
this power, at a rate of $20 per horse-power per
year, and vital improvement in canal haulage is ex-
pected. The first trials in this direction have been
made, with notable success. All over the United
States the example at Niagara is being imitated, and
millions of dollars are pledged for similar water-power
utilizations, while a great many such plants have gone
into commercial operation.
Incidental reference has been made to the use of
American electrical measuring instruments abroad.
But for the fact that our own markets have had so
large a capacity of consumption, an enormous ex-
port trade would long ago have grown up. As it is,
the demand from foreign countries in certain lines
is already respectable. Throughout Mexico, the
West Indies, Central America, and South America,
our dynamos for light, and motors for power, are in
use on an extensive scale ; and many are also found
in Canada, although it is the practice there to manu-
facture under patents of American electrical inven-
tors. A considerable part of the new gold-mining
work in South Africa is done with American elec-
trical plant ; and Buluwayo, which but two years
ago was the bush capital of savage Lobengula, is
lit every night from a central station whose machi-
nery was made in New York State. Japan and China
have taken large quantities of electric-lighting ap-
paratus from us ; the royal palace of Corea is illu-
minated by our incandescent lamps ; American tele-
phones are thickly strung in the Sandwich Islands ;
and electric railway plants from Ohio are in success-
ful operation in Indo-China. Even England has
not disdained to take electric motors and electric
railway apparatus from us, and some of her most
important electrical manufacturing corporations bear
famous American names and employ many Ameri-
can inventions and methods. Indeed, if the remark
of Emerson be true, that steam is half an English-
man, we may with equal felicity assert that electricity
is nine tenths an American.
The above are to-day the main lines of Amer-
ican electrical manufacturing and supply, reaching
toward a capital of $1,500,000,000; but they are
382
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
not all, and they draw their material from a swarm
of subsidiary industries ; while they throw out every
year new commercial tendrils and employ thousands
of intermediaries in order to gain access to the pub-
lic. The electric refining of metals is a growing de-
partment, in which millions are invested annually.
There are 392 electroplating establishments in the
United States, with a capital of $38,000,000, employ-
ing 2 700 hands ; and there are also no fewer than 300
electrotyping firms, besides large numbers of etching
and jewelry houses using current in their work. The
insulated wire and cable factories number a dozen.
Their output mounts into countless millions of feet of
wire annually, while the practice of running interior
wires through tubes has necessitated the production
of some 15,000,000 feet of insulated conduit annu-
ally. Merely placing wires underground is estimated
to have required $150,000,000 for cables and sub-
ways. Every hotel in the country has its annunci-
ator system, and every private residence of any pre-
tension has at least its electric bells. In medicine,
electrotherapy is so well recognized that a score of
large manufacturers are busy turning out galvanic
and faradic apparatus for practitioners of all schools.
The production of disinfectants electrically has as-
sumed large proportions, and their use is growing.
The place of electricity in education may be gauged
by the fact that 1500 students take up electrical
engineering in a single year as a special study at
leading colleges. It is seen clearly to-day that the
future of all the electrical arts depends upon a re-
duction in the cost of current, and to this end Mr.
Tesla has devised his oscillator, combining steam-
engine and dynamo in an integral mechanism which
shall create and distribute power at half or one
quarter the present cost. Others are working at
the problem of obtaining electricity directly from
heat ; and if there be one thing that is clearly writ-
ten upon the face of mechanical and industrial ad-
vance, it is that the succeeding century, no less than
the present has been that of steam, will be emphat-
ically the age of electricity.
CHAPTER LV
THE PACKING INDUSTRY
THE packing industry may be considered as
applying more particularly to the curing
and packing of hog products; but no re-
view of this business would be complete which did
not take into consideration the slaughtering, dress-
ing, and shipping of cattle and sheep. The Ameri-
can packing-house of to-day is usually found com-
bining the two branches of business, although it is
true that only a small percentage of the product
from the cattle and sheep is "packed," using the
term in its most literal sense.
The information available does not make it plain
as to where and when the packing industry, as dis-
tinct from butchering operations and incidental cur-
ing of meats, had its origin. It is said — although
I cannot find satisfactory proof of the statement —
that pork was cured and packed in barrels in Salem,
Mass., in 1640, and it is certain that, about 1690,
Boston did quite a trade in that line ; but the pater-
nity of the Western packing business, as we under-
stand it to-day, belongs, I think, to Cincinnati. In
1818, one Elisha Mills, a " down-easter," was estab-
lished as a packer in Cincinnati. The first drove of
hogs ever received in Chicago was in 1827, but no
attempt at packing seems to have been made until
1832. In that year George W. Dole packed some
pork for Oliver Newbury, of Detroit; but Chicago
does not figure in the statistics of packing points
until 1850. It is claimed that 9600 hogs were
packed there in 1834. It was not until the season
of 1832-33 that a definite attempt was made to
obtain statistics covering such operations. In that
winter Cincinnati was credited with slaughtering
85,000 hogs, several houses being engaged in the
business.
The development of the agricultural resources
of the Western States, especially from Ohio to
the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, cheapened the
cost of producing animals, particularly hogs ; and
attention to their production was stimulated and
encouraged by the demands from Southern and
Eastern dealers for product for their markets. Pack-
ing operations naturally followed in many places
west of Cincinnati, more or less directly in commu-
nication with the transportation facilities afforded
by river navigation. The movement of the product
was by way of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to
New Orleans, and a great deal was shipped thence
by vessels to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York,
Boston, and other cities on the Atlantic coast.
In the early days of Western pork packing the
slaughtering was, to a large extent, a distinctive
business from the curing operations. The packer
confined himself largely to the cutting and curing
of dressed hogs. The farmer in those early days
slaughtered his own hogs on the farm, in the months
of December and January, the neighbors usually as-
sisting ; and he sold whatever he could spare over
and above the needs of his own family to the near-
est storekeeper, or to the small packer, who, located
at some convenient point, cut up the dressed hogs,
cured the product, and shipped it South, as I have
already mentioned. Sometimes, indeed, the pack-
ing-house took the form of a flatboat on the river,
the curing, such as it was, being done on board.
When the spring " break-up " came the flatboat was
floated down the river, and the product exchanged
at Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, and New Orleans,
for sugar, molasses, rice, and other merchandise.
Chicago's place in the packing business is preemi-
nent to-day, but it was not always so. In 1845 a
Cincinnati journalist published the following state-
ment:
" The putting up of pork has been so important
a branch of business in our city for five and twenty
years as to have constituted its largest item of manu-
facture and acquired for it the soubriquet of ' Pork-
opolis.' . . . Our pork business is the largest in the
world, not even excepting Cork or Belfast, in Ireland,
which country puts up and exports immense amounts
383
384
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in that line ; and the stranger who visits Cincinnati
during the season of cutting and packing hogs should
on no account neglect making a visit to one or more
slaughter-houses and pork-packing establishments in
the city.
"It may appear remarkable, in considering the
facility for putting up pork which many other points
in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky possess, in
their greater contiguity to the neighborhoods which
produce the hogs, and other advantages which are
palpable, that so large an amount of this business is
engrossed at Cincinnati. It must be observed, how-
ever, that the raw material in this business — the
hog — constitutes eighty per cent, of the value when
ready for sale, and, being always paid for in cash,
such heavy disbursements are required in large sums,
and at a day's notice, that the necessary capital is
not as readily obtainable elsewhere in the West as
here. Nor, in an article which in process of curing
runs great risks from sudden changes in weather,
can the packer protect himself, except where there
are ample means in extensive supplies of salt, and
any necessary force of coopers or laborers to put on
in case of emergency or disappointment in previous
arrangements. More than all, the facilities of turn-
ing to account in various manufactures, or as articles
of food in a dense community, what cannot be dis-
posed of to profit elsewhere, render hogs, to the
Cincinnati packer, worth ten per cent, more than
they will command at other points in the Mississippi
Valley."
In the Cincinnati " Price Current " of November
1 6, 1844, it was mentioned that a large pork-pack-
ing house had been established at Louisville, and
the Louisville " Journal " was quoted as saying :
" Heretofore all the pork killed here has been packed
at the slaughter-houses, and the purchases have been
in gross ; but the packing-house on Pearl Street will
now enable dealers to purchase the net pork at the
slaughter-houses and have it packed in the city, pre-
cisely as this business is done in Cincinnati."
The " Price Current " in the same month said :
" The number of regular packing-houses at Cincin-
nati is found to be twenty-six, the most of them
prepared to do a pretty extensive business, as far as
the necessary conveniences are concerned ; but only
a small proportion of them will pack to any consid-
erable extent on their own account." In 1853-54
the number of packing-houses there was forty-one ;
m ^55-56, forty-two houses. Among the various
points in the region of the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers where hogs were packed in considerable num-
bers in the forties were Columbus, Chillicothe, Circle-
ville, and Hamilton, in Ohio ; Lafayette, Lawrence-
burg, Madison, Terre Haute, and Vincennes, in Indi-
ana ; Alton, Beardstown, Pekin, Peoria, and Quincy,
in Illinois; and many places of minor importance.
The greatest number of places engaged in the hog-
packing business was reported in 1873-74, 397 places
being included in the official reports ; and since that
time the number has steadily declined, the process
of concentration in the large centers going steadily
on, the number in 1894-95 being only 76.
The first effort at a definite statement of pork
packing in the West was instituted by Charles Cist,
of Cincinnati, in the winter of 1832-33. The " Price
Current " of that city, which was started in January,
1844, by A. Peabody, inaugurated a more complete
system of investigation, and this publication has con-
tinued such statistical work, with a very greatly
widened scope of investigation in recent years, the
trade now relying upon its weekly and annual state-
ments for information concerning this industry. I
am indebted to my friend, Mr. Charles Murray, the
present editor and proprietor of the " Price Current,"
for most of the statistical information incorporated
in this article.
The first season in which the Western packing
reached a total of 1,000,000 hogs was in 1843-44,
the number falling below this point during the next
three years. The following table shows the number
of hogs packed in the West up to the beginning of
summer slaughtering operations :
HOGS PACKED.
YEAR.
NUMBER
PACKED.
YEAR.
NUMBER
PACKED.
1842-41 . .
671; ,OOO
i8t;7-i;8
2,211 OOO
I843-44 . .
1,245,000
iSqS-Cq
1844-41; . .
7QO.OOO
i8co_5o
1845-46
1846-47 . .
940,000
825,000
1860-61
1861-62
2,156,000
1847-48
,7IO,OOO
1862-63
1848-49
,560,000
1863-64. . . .
3,261,000
I84O-CO . .
,652,000
1864-6?
IHO-51 .
.•53-5.000
1865-66
i 788 ooo
l8«-e2 . .
.157 OOO
1866-67
iSzz-f.'i . .
2 2OI,OOO
1867-68
2 781 OOO
l8$3-44 . .
2.C7C.OOO
1868-69
l2U-<t
1869—70
1855-56
2,49O,OOO
1870-71
2,695,000
1856-57 . .
I,8l8,OOO
IS7I-72
Prior to 1872 summer slaughtering had not
reached proportions of importance. In that year
500,000 hogs were killed during the season, and
subsequently, with the introduction of chilling
processes, summer killing developed into large pro-
portions, as is shown by the following comparison
PHILIP D. ARMOUR.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of yearly totals for the summer and winter seasons,
and the aggregates :
HOGS PACKED.
YIAE.
SUMMER.
WlNTE*.
TWELVE
MONTHS.
505,000
5410,000
5,915,000
1877 74
1,063,000
5,466,000
6,529,000
l87i-75
1,200,000
5,566,000
6,766,000
';?/•» 13
1875 76
1,262,000
4,880,000
6,142,000
1876-77
2,308,000
5,101,000
7409,000
1877-78
2,?4'?,OOO
6,505,000
9,048,000
*?/Z '
1878—79
7,^78,000
7480,000
10,858,000
4,051,000
6,950,000
II,OOI,OOO
iKSii-Sl
5,324,000
6,919,000
12,243,000
l88l-82.
4,803,000
5,748,000
10,551,000
1882-83. . . .
3,211,000
6,132,000
Q,'14'J,OOO
1883 84. . . .
3,781,000
5402,000
9,183,000
1884-85 . . .
4,059,000
6,460,000
10,519,000
1885-86 . . .
4,964,000
6,299,000
1 1 ,263,000
1886-87
5,644,000
6439,000
12,083,000
1887-88
5,611,000
5,921,000
11,532,000
1888-89
s.m.ooo
5,484,000
10,799,000
iSSQ-QO
6,88l,000
6,664,000
13,545,000
I&OO-QI
9,540,000
8,173,000
17,713,000
I 80 I O2
6,696,000
7,761,000
14,457,000
1802-0"?
7,7<;7,OOO
4,633,000
12,390,000
l8Q1 Qd
6,721,000
4,884,000
1 1 ,605,000
iXoi-QC
8,812,000
7,191,000
16,003,000
The summer season covers the period of eight
months, from March to October inclusive, and the
winter season four months, November to February
inclusive, in these exhibits. For the past ten years
the summer packing represents nearly fifty-two per
cent, of the aggregate. It is here shown that from
a business of about i ,000,000 hogs, as the yearly ex-
tent of Western packing operations fifty years ago,
the growth of this industry brought the annual aver-
age for the following decade to 1,606,000, during
which period the largest total was 2,535,000, in
1853-54; for the next decade, 1855-56 to 1864-
65, the annual average was advanced to 2,613,000
hogs, the largest number being 4,069,000, in 1862-
63; for the following decade, 1865-66 to 1874-75,
the annual average reached 3,993,000 hogs, with
6,766,000 as the largest number, in the last year of
the period; for the next decade, 1875-76 to 1884-
85, there was a more striking advance, the annual
average representing 9,015,000 hogs, with 12,243,-
ooo as the largest yearly number, in 1 880-81. Again
a large increase is shown for the past decade,
ending with 1894-95, for which the annual average
is 12,139,000, and 17,713,000 the largest yearly
number, in 1890-91.
For the ten years ending with 1851-52 the pack-
ing at Cincinnati represented twenty-seven per cent,
of the total for the West, that city reaching 475,000
hogs in 1848-49. At that time the industry had
scarcely been inaugurated at Chicago, and was of
unimportant proportions at St. Louis, while Milwau-
kee, Kansas City, Omaha, and other towns were
unknown in the packing lists. Railroads penetrated
the West in 1852, and by 1855 several roads were
in operation. This influence, tending, as it did, to
open up the country to settlement, and facilitating
the exchange of commodities, had a marked effect
on the extension of the packing business, and in
changing its geographical position and its character.
At Chicago about 20,000 hogs were killed in 1850-
5 1 , and the increase at this point from that time on
was rapid. In 1858—59, 99,000 hogs were killed in
Chicago; 505,000 in 1861—62; 1,225,000 in 1871—
72; 4,009,000 in 1877-78; 5,752,000 in 1880-81 ;
and in 1890-91, 6,071,000, by far the largest yearly
total for one city in the history of the industry, Kan-
sas City coming second with 2,398,764 in the same
year.
Until 1861-62 Cincinnati continuously main-
tained its position as the leading packing point in
the country. In that season the distinction passed
to Chicago, where it has remained, and is likely to
continue for a long time. Of the aggregate of 131,-
000,000 hogs handled by Western packers in the
past ten years, Chicago represents 46,000,000, or
thirty-five per cent. During the past ten years
Western packers have paid out $1,429,000,000 for
hogs, or an annual average of about $143,000,000,
reaching $172,679,000 for the year ending March
i, 1895. These figures relate only to the manufac-
ture of hog products, and to the business in the West
prosecuted for commercial purposes.
While curing operations were carried on in East-
ern markets at an earlier period, what may be termed
regular packing establishments probably were not
established there until after the industry had been
developed in the West. The following is a state-
ment of the reported sales of beef-cattle, sheep, and
hogs at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Balti-
more, in the year 1844, most of these animals being
undoubtedly slaughtered for local consumption in a
fresh state :
ANIMALS SOLD IN FOUR EASTERN CITIES
IN 1844.
CATTLE.
SHEEP.
Hoes.
TOTAL.
Boston
New York . .
Philadelphia
Baltimore . . .
43.53°
49,002
37.42°
33.5<»
98,820
75.713
91,480
90450
43,060
13478
22480
24,000
181:410
138.193
I5I.380
147.95°
Total . . .
163,452
35D.463
103,018
622,933
386
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The aggregate value of the 623,000 animals mar-
keted in the four large cities in one year, fifty years
ago, was $7,500,000. For the year 1894 the re-
ceipts of cattle, sheep, and hogs at Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore were as follows :
ANIMALS SOLD IN FOUR EASTERN CITIES
IN 1894.
CATTLE.
SHEEP.
HOGS.
TOTAL.
182,276
688,334
1,664,671
2,535,281
New York . . .
Philadelphia. .
Baltimore ....
564,932
176,960
154,958
2436,842
59«,985
361,722
1,656435
363.671
602,996
4,658,209
1,132,616
1,119,676
Total ....
1,079,126
4,078,883
4,287,773
9,445,782
The total value of the 9,445,000 animals repre-
sented in the foregoing exhibit for 1894 was approxi-
mately $140,000,000. There were exported 42 1,000
live cattle, valued at $38,963,000, leaving approxi-
mately 9,000,000 animals for local slaughtering es-
tablishments at the seaboard, and representing about
$100,000,000 in value.
For many years a number of large packing estab-
lishments have been in operation in Eastern cities,
notably at Buffalo, Boston, Providence, New Haven,
and Springfield. At about fifty establishments in
New England, New York, and Pennsylvania from
which returns of packing have been obtained, the
total packing for the year ending March i, 1895,
was 3,098,000 hogs. The total of these establish-
ments ten years ago was 1,550,000, which exceeded
any previous year. The hogs slaughtered the past
year at the seaboard and other Eastern localities
represented a value of about $60,000,000, which
with the amount paid out by Western packers makes
a total of $232,000,000 for the year's outlay for
hogs, or an average of about $750,000 daily.
These statistics indicate in general terms the sig-
nificant progress of the pork-packing industry in the
United States, which we may say really had its begin-
ning about seventy-five years ago. The limits of
this article will not permit me to explain in detail
how this vast quantity of meat is to-day handled
and prepared for market. Naturally, labor-saving
devices have been adopted as pressing needs dem-
onstrated their necessity. The killing is done by
hand, no mechanical means of wholesale slaughter
having been evolved; but in the manipulation of
the carcass many ingenious contrivances are utilized.
The scalding and the scraping of the hog used to
be a slow and tedious job ; but to-day as soon as
life has left the animal he is hooked by the nose to
an endless chain, passed through the scalding-vats,
and through an automatically adjustable scraper,
where he is deprived of his hair and bristles in a
few seconds ; he is then hoisted, head down, upon
an inclined rail ; and is disemboweled, beheaded,
washed, trimmed, and whirled off to the chill-rooms
at the rate of twenty hogs a minute. The cutting
and curing of the hog, too, is different from the cus-
tom of early days. Hams, shoulders, sides, or bar-
reled pork, comprised the selling list of thirty years
ago. To-day the variety of cuts is bewildering to
an outsider. The world is to-day the packer's mar-
ket, and he has to study the peculiarities and prefer-
ences of each country, and even each county. The
influence of English county idiosyncrasies in the
cutting and curing of home-killed bacon is reflected
to-day in our cuts. Wiltshires, Cumberlands, Staf-
fordshires, Yorkshires, etc., are only a few of such
distinguishing styles.
No one factor has done more to render possible
the development of the last twenty years in the
slaughtering, curing, and packing of meats than the
discoveries securing and improving artificial refrig-
eration. At the bottom of all successful meat curing
lies the proper and thorough chilling of the carcass.
The packing season is now twelve months long, and
summer-cured meat differs in no material respect
from that cured in winter.
Beef packing was among the earliest of operations
in the curing of meat for transportation to other
localities, as well as for preservation for home de-
mand. Barreled beef was put up in the West in
considerable quantities as early as pork, and prob-
ably earlier, and transported by water to the Eastern
markets ; and beef packed at Boston, New York,
New Haven, and other Eastern cities found its way
all over the world on shipboard.
The canning of beef was attempted in Chicago in
the sixties, and enjoyed some little growth ; but it
was not until the year 1879 that the beef -canning
business was taken up on a large scale by the pack-
ers. Mechanical ingenuity, in discovering a sure
and practicable method of hermetically sealing tins,
rendered possible the preservation of food in this way
on a large scale ; and the facilities already secured
by the large packers for disposing of every part of
the animal placed the business entirely in their hands.
The convenience of canned beef, tongues, potted
meats, and soups, and the fact that they could be
guaranteed to keep sound in any climate for years,
combined to steadily increase this branch of the in-
dustry. In 1890, 111,000,000 pounds of canned
beef were exported.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The dressed-beef trade, which now forms so large
a part of the packing business, had little importance
prior to 1875. The settlement of the West, and
the rapid increase in the numbers of cattle on the
Western ranches and farms, afforded a new and
bountiful addition to the world's food-supply; but
it was not until the invention and development of
refrigerator-cars that the food which the world lacked
was brought in quantity, and in good condition, to
its table. The exportation of fresh beef had its
beginning in a moderate way in the early months
of the year 1876, and was enlarged with the later
months, making a total of 19,838,000 pounds for
the year. For five years, ending with 1880, the
average was 59,000,000 pounds, reaching 100,622,-
ooo pounds in the last year of the period. For the
next ten years the annual average was 113,000,000
pounds, reaching 182,500,000 in the last year of the
period. For the past four years the average was
203,000,000 pounds, reaching 233,000,000 pounds
in 1892. At first the cattle were transported on the
hoof, and handled in the Eastern cities by the local
abattoirs ; but the long and tiresome journey was bad
for the beef, and this method had to give place to
something less wasteful and more humane. The
large hog-packing establishments which had already
grown to prominence in Chicago afforded the neces-
sary means of effecting the revolution. There the
offal could be manipulated to better advantage than
elsewhere. Mechanical skill, as I have said, pro-
vided the refrigerator-car, cold-air machines, and a
number of other devices. The packer to-day slaugh-
ters thousands of head of cattle daily, chills the car-
casses at a uniform temperature, whether in mid-
winter or in the " dog days," loads the beef, after
thorough chilling, into his own refrigerator-cars, in
which a uniform temperature is maintained between
Chicago and the Eastern markets, delivers the beef
into his own cold-storage warehouses in the large
Eastern centers, and distributes the carcasses to the
local butchers at a lower price and in better condition
than the local beef slaughtered by themselves, and
in vastly better condition than the meat which they
previously obtained from cattle shipped on the hoof
1 500 or 2000 miles by rail. If the meat is intended
for export the packer runs his refrigerator-cars along-
side the ocean-liners, and transfers the meat to the
specially constructed chill-rooms of the steamers, and
lands the beef in London, Liverpool, and Glasgow
in prime condition and at a low price. There is
good ground for the view that the cattle-raising in-
dustry of the West has been greatly benefited by
this extension of slaughtering through the develop-
ment of the dressed-beef trade.
Definite figures illustrating the growth of the
slaughtering of cattle for commercial dressed beef
are unfortunately very meager ; but the general pur-
pose of such information is served by the introduc-
tion of statistics indicating the number of cattle killed
at prominent Western markets where this industry is
prosecuted. The following compilation shows the
average annual number of cattle killed in periods
of five years, from 1871 to 1890 inclusive, and the
average annual number for the four years ending
1894, at the places named:
CATTLE KILLED IN FOUR WESTERN CITIES.
PERIOD.
CHICAGO.
ST. Louis.
KANSAS CITY.
OMAHA.
1871-75....
1876-80....
190,000
411,000
104,000
165,000
37,000
60,000
1881-85 ....
864,000
182,000
82,OOO
IO.OOO
1886-90 ...
1,696,000
210,000
341,000
170,000
1890-94 ...
2,223,000
303,000
756,000
460,000
The killing of cattle for supplies of commercial
product has also been prosecuted at various other
points in the West, including Milwaukee, Sioux City,
Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Cleveland.
The following is a comparison of the number of
cattle killed in 1871, 1880, 1890, and 1894, at the
large Western markets mentioned, with the total re-
ceipts at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Bal-
timore for the same years, with totals for Western
and Eastern markets mentioned:
CATTLE KILLED AND CATTLE RECEIVED.
1871.
1880.
1890.
1894.
141,000
496,000
2,224,000
2,023,000
St. Louis
69,000
196,000
227,000
492,000
Kansas City
20,000
50,000
549,000
925,000
Omaha
323,000
518,000
Four Western centers
230,000
742,000
3,323,000
3,958,000
745,000
1,268,000
1,280,000
1,079,000
West and East
975,000
2,010,000
4,603,000
5,037,000
388
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The aggregate value of the 5,037,000 cattle in
1894 in the several markets where they were killed,
including the number exported alive (421,000), was
approximately $235,000,000.
Incident to traffic in dressed beef, the mutton
trade has assumed important proportions in late
years, this product being largely distributed in the
refrigerator-car shipments of meats. The following
figures show the number of sheep killed in the four
Western centers and received at the seaboard cities
in the years 1871, 1880, 1890, and 1894:
SHEEP KILLED IN FOUR WESTERN CENTERS
AND RECEIVED AT SEABOARD CITIES.
1871.
1880.
1890.
1894.
Sheep, West . .
Sheep, East . . .
261,000
2,793,000
405,000
3,005,000
1,621,000
3,274,000
3,564,000
4,079,000
The published records of the Census Office do not
give figures showing the capital invested in the pack-
ing business earlier than 1870. The official figures
for 1870, 1880, and 1890 are as follows:
1870 $22,124,787
1880 49419,213
1890 116,887,504
Even after the packing business had assumed
fairly large proportions, the packers were not aware
of, or did not appreciate, the value of the offal, and
the problem of how to get rid of it at the least ex-
pense was ever present. So recently as twenty-five
years ago, in Chicago, the blood was allowed to run
into the river, and men were paid five dollars a load
to cart the heads, feet, tankage, and other waste
material out upon the prairie and there bury it in
pits and trenches. Instead of being a source of
profit, the offal, in this respect, was a distinct source
of expense. Gradually there grew up in the vicinity
of the packing centers subsidiary enterprises having
for their object the utilization of some or all of this
waste material. Such concerns turned out glue, oil,
tallow, and crude fertilizers. In time, however, the
necessities of the business, and the growing compe-
tition, forced the progressive packer to include these
industries in his own establishment. It became less
profitable to pack in a small way, and to-day a large
packing plant depends largely for its profit on the
intelligent utilization of those so-called waste mate-
rials which in the early days of the packing business
were not only thrown away, but the removal of which
was, as I have shown, an actual source of expense.
In all this packing business, whether it is in beef
or hogs, the waste which previously prevailed when
the animals were handled one by one by local butch-
ers, or were handled on even a slightly larger scale
by the numerous small packers that were scattered
over the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and
Missouri, or in the East, is, by the present methods,
entirely obviated. It is the aim that nothing shall
be wasted. The large packing establishments of
to-day manipulate their own horns, hoofs, bones,
sinews, hide-trimmings, etc., in their own glue-works.
The sweet fat of the cattle forms the basis of butter-
ine, made in their own butterine factories ; the sheep
pelts are scoured, and the wool removed in their own
wool-houses, cleansed, and sold direct to the large
Eastern cloth-mills. The intestines are cleansed and
salted and used for sausage casings in their own
sausage factories. The blood and all animal refuse
are treated by their chemists in their own fertilizer
factories, with a view to the scientific preparation of
fertilizers to suit different soils ; and in one or two
packing houses there has been established a labora-
tory where the inner lining of the hog's stomach is
made into pepsin of greater purity and activity than
was possible when the sensitive material had to be
transported in a raw state, and subjected to all the
risks of decomposition and consequent loss of diges-
tive power.
I do not know of any business in which the de-
velopment has been so marked in the same length
of time as in the packing business. It seems a " far
cry " from the packing-house which consisted of a
flatboat on the river to the packing-house of to-day,
which owns and operates, as part of its equipment,
6000 refrigerator-cars ; but the distance as measured
by the lapse of time is only fifty years. I do not
care to venture a prophecy as to the future. I shall
leave that to the genial editor who writes, I under-
stand, on the " Next Hundred Years." The popu-
lation of the United States in 1871 was about 39,-
500,000 ; in 1880, 50,155,000 ; in 1890, 62,622,000 ;
in 1894, about 68,000,000. The population in 1894,
as compared with that of 1871, was as 172 to 100.
The total number of animals marketed in 1894, as
compared with 1871, was as 306 to 100. The fierce-
ness of competition may force the packing-house
of twenty-five years hence to include a tannery, a
boot and shoe factory, a cloth-mill, and a mammoth
tailor-shop, and the tendency to concentration may
be still further intensified ; but the packing business
as a whole seems destined for greater development,
and should grow with the country's growth.
X <X/ /$k~~"Mu^
CHAPTER LVI
AMERICAN FISH FOODS
IT is conceded that the search for gold was in a
measure one of the propelling forces of discov-
ery; but the quest for food, and particularly
for fish food, must also be considered as a reason
for the love for wandering. This double incentive
was conspicuously shown in 1614. Captain John
Smith, in describing " New England, a part of Amer-
ica, at the Isle of Monahiggin," writes, " Our plot
was there to take whales and make trials for a mine
of gold and copper. If this failed, fish and furs was
then our refuge, to make ourselves savors howso-
ever."
The earliest knowledge that edible fish of the kinds
known in the old world were to be found in abun-
dance in the waters of the new dates back to the
time of John Cabot and his son Sebastian. Under
a charter granted by Henry VII., John and Sebas-
tian Cabot reached, in June, 1497, what was proba-
bly the coast of Labrador. We find on a map of
somewhat later date (the authenticity of which can-
not be questioned) a land which bears the name
"Tierra de los Bacallaos," which, in English, is
"the Land of the Codfish." Philologists are often
struck by what may be called the resistance of a
word to all changes. J. Carson Brevoort has shown
in the most convincing manner that the Greeks, the
Latins, the Iberians, the English, and the Dutch all
derived the name " cod " from the small stick, gad,
or rod used in drying the gadus, and baculeum in
Iberian is a small stick, hence the Spanish baccalaos
or dried cod.
In 1415, as stated by Prof. G. Brown Goode,
English vessels frequented the fishing-grounds of
Iceland, and it is not impossible that these ships
sailed further westward in search of the cod. If
tradition is worth anything, the probabilities are
strong that the hardy Basques reached the northern
coast of America centuries before Columbus did.
"The banks of Newfoundland were among the prin-
cipal inducements which led England to establish
colonies in this country, and in the records of early
voyages are many allusions to the appearance of
cod." (Goode.)
Less than a century later, an adventurer petitioned
Queen Elizabeth (1577), offering to "destroy the
great Spanish fleet which went every year to the banks
of Newfoundland for fish for their fasting days."
Eleven years later (1585), when war was imminent
between England and Spain, Barnard Drake was
commissioned to proceed to Newfoundland to warn
"the English fishery there of the trouble." In 1600
there are records which show that England em-
ployed 200 vessels and 1000 men and boys in the
New England fisheries. With the settlement of Vir-
ginia the excellence of the fish on the southern coasts
was cited. " A bold channel so stored with sturgeon
and other sweet fish as no man's fortune has ever
possessed the like " (1607). George Percy wrote to
England of " the good mussels and oysters of Vir-
ginia" (1606). There is a record of the same time
describing an encounter with the Indians of Virginia,
who, having been driven off, " fled, leaving many
oysters in the fire." The presence of salmon (sallos)
in Virginia is indicated by a document found in the
Simancas archives. There is a curious fragment of
verse which has come down to us, written by Dray-
ton (1619-20), entitled "An Ode to the Virginia
Voyage," where the adventurers are "to get the
pearle and gold."
In the study of fish as food, comparing the long
past with the immediate present, one marked differ-
ence is in the method of preservation. Among
aboriginal races, more particularly those living in the
far North, climatic conditions permitted conservation
of fish by the simplest methods of drying, but such
measures were not possible in warmer zones. The
method of salting and drying fish, as practised in
Scandinavia, is of the most remote antiquity. Smok-
389
390
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ing fish in order to prepare them for eating, it is be-
lieved, is of a later date. In the earlier times it must
have been necessary that a catch of fish should be
at once landed so that it could be marketed. Later
came the preparation of fish for future use by salting
and drying. If the port of final destination were
far distant, a convenient shore in the proximity of the
catch had to be found, so that the fish might be
cured. The early Norseman or Basque of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, or the English, French, or
Spanish fishermen of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, must have sought such curing-grounds,
so that fishing interests had much to do with the
early founding of colonies.
Modern methods of preserving fish are refine-
ments of older processes, the result of a better scien-
tific acquaintance with the composition of food. If
there always must exist a demand for cured fish, be-
cause it can be kept over, and has the advantages
of small bulk and high nutrient quality, neverthe-
less the demand for the more natural fresh fish re-
mains constant. The first use of ice on board of
fishing-smacks, it is believed, was by the fishermen
of the American colonies, the practice always having
been in vogue among the New England fishermen.
The reason for it is plain ; the low temperature of
New England furnished an abundance of ice during
the winter, but in summer the heat was excessive,
and fish would spoil. In England and France ice
always has been, in the past as in the present, an ex-
pensive luxury.
The credit for the refrigerating of fish on a large
scale is to be accorded to Enoch Piper of Maine,
who first perfected it in the British Provinces. This
method is now general in all the large cities on the
American seaboard. The advantages of the refriger-
ating process are evident. In former times, when
there was a glut of fish, it often had to be destroyed,
because the expense of handling amounted to more
than the price offered. To-day, no such waste is
possible. Whenever fish is landed at the large cities,
and is low in price on account of catches in excess of
immediate demand, such fish are bought at a fair
price and stored in refrigerators. In this way the
labors of the fishermen are not lost, and the stock of
food is increased.
Sometimes the idea has been advanced that co-
operative methods, such as are successfully carried
out by dairymen, should be used by fishermen. It
has been proposed that desiccating establishments
should be organized in the neighborhood of fisheries,
where the excess of fish might be dried by means of
approved apparatus.
An important factor in the extensive use of fish is
a more expeditious method of transportation. By
means of rapid transportation, fish from all portions
of the United States reach in a short time the main
centers, and distribution on a large scale becomes
possible. By actual comparison, it is found by look-
ing over the list of fish offered for sale every day in
New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago, that
the variety offered far exceeds that to be found in
London, Paris, or Berlin. The large centers of Euro-
pean population require fish, but those living at some
distance from the capitals have it only in sparse
quantity. This arises from want of a better system
of distribution, or from indifference on the part of
those who supply the markets. In the New York
fish markets, as in those of other great centers of the
United States, fresh fish may be found at all times in
excellent condition, coming from every portion of
the country. There are no waters, salt or fresh,
from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico, which do not
contribute their fish to the general markets. Even
salmon from Kamtschatka, via Bering Strait, have
been found in Fulton Market, New York.
The natural increase of any population requires a
larger supply of all kinds of food, but there is another
factor to be considered in this — a brief study offish
alimentation in the United States. In proportion to
the flesh of domestic animals eaten in this country,
the quantity of fish consumed per capita is larger
than elsewhere. If there should be the least de-
crease in any staple article of food, no matter whether
derivable from an animal or vegetable source, such
diminution would be at once attended with the
gravest consequences. Has, then, the supply of fish
been equal to the demand ?
For the elucidation of a question of this character,
not a general but a special area of water, with refer-
ence to the catch, should be studied. As has been
before presented, the fishing-banks of Newfoundland,
first discovered by the Cabots, gave abundance of
fish during the sixteenth century. Though statistics
of fishermen cannot be presented with precision,
since we learn that in Queen Elizabeth's time there
were " a thousand English men and boys " fishing
there, we may safely believe that, counting the
Spanish, French, and Dutch fishermen working over
the same grounds, there were some 5000 men em-
ployed. For almost 400 years these same waters of
the Atlantic have been fished, — and by an array of
fishermen ever increasing, — who have employed for
the last century very much improved methods of
taking fish; yet it cannot be said that in these waters
the staple fish, the cod, has shown any appreciable
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
diminution. A vastly increasing quantity of fish
only could have sufficed the business demands of the
more numerous fishermen. This constant presence
of fish is not singular to American waters. The same-
conditions of perennial abundance occur in European
waters. The European herring, or other fisheries,
are of the remotest antiquity, yet they still bear the
stress of the vast requirements of to-day.
It may then be laid down as a general rule, that
so far as pelagic or deep-sea fish are concerned, in
contradistinction to the capture of fish living in
close proximity to the coast, the supply of such
deep-sea fish is well-nigh inexhaustible, as man's ef-
fort to diminish their number has so far been with-
out appreciable effect. This was the conclusion
arrived at by the late Professor Huxley in his ex-
haustive study of the English fisheries. It is not,
however, to be questioned, that from causes beyond
our comprehension certain kinds of fish are in abun-
dance one year and scarce the next. This may be
the case of one special fish, but not of all the fish
frequenting known areas of water. The error made
by the superficial observer is to give too great
prominence to the absence of special fish in a par-
ticular year. When systematic research is made,
extending over periods of twenty or fifty years, the
average quantity of pelagic fish is found to be the
same. A particular fish may be scarce in certain
waters while abundant in others. Fishermen, when
the catch is poor off the coast of Massachusetts,
naturally complain, but are ignorant of the fact that
north or south of them these same fish are in abun-
dance.
There are exceptions to this general rule as ap-
plicable to the constancy of certain pelagic fish.
In former years what was known as the shore cod
were in abundance near our coasts. These fish
have become comparatively scarce to-day. Whe-
ther too many have been caught, so that reproduc-
tion became difficult, or for the reason that the
sources of food for the fish have been diverted, is
not now known. As far as relates to one fish, the
halibut, its absence from its former grounds is a
well-ascertained fact. That the halibut is scarcest
to-day in eastern waters of the United States can-
not be questioned. The possibility is that the old
halibut grounds have been over-fished.
It is this ignorance on the part of our legislatures
of the inexhaustible natural supplies of pelagic fish,
which has brought about numerous acts which
have only resulted in hampering the fishing inter-
ests of the country. The laws of nature are indif-
ferent to human laws. "As early as 1670 laws
were passed by the Colony of Massachusetts pro-
hibiting certain instruments of capture, and similar
ordinances have been passed from time to time
ever since. The first recourse of our State govern-
ments has always been in seasons of scarcity to
attempt to restore fish to their former abundance by
protective legislation." (Professor G. Brown Goode.)
In a careful study made of the mackerel, extending
over three quarters of a century, there were found
periods of abundance and scarcity. " These alter-
nated without the least reference to the alleged
causes of over-fishing or any particular cause." If,
then, useless laws were made in what was certainly
the infancy of American fishing, a better acquain-
tance with ichthyology should preclude the formu-
lating of any such restrictive acts to-day, so far as
deep-sea or free-swimming sea fish are concerned.
So far the subject of fish as a food-supply de-
rived from the sea or ocean has been presented,
and an endeavor has been made to show how un-
wise and useless it is to place any restrictions on
the taking of pelagic fish. With fish found in the
rivers or lakes the conditions are entirely different.
If it is beyond man's power to exhaust the food de-
rivable from the sea, this is by no means the case
with fresh-water fish. There are many fish called
anadromous, or those which return periodically from
salt to fresh water, as the salmon and the shad, and
these species would be absolutely exterminated if
man so willed it. These fish, born at the source of a
river, go down to the salt water at certain periods
during their existence, remaining there till, later on,
urged by the instinct of reproduction, they return
to their places of origin in the same rivers. The
period of their return from salt to fresh water, in or-
der to lay their eggs, is when these fish are caught.
It is precisely at this time that these fish are of ser-
vice to man, being in their best edible condition.
It can thus be understood how a river could be so
cross-barred, by means of nets, as to catch almost
every anadromous fish ascending the stream. A
practical example of this may be found in the Co-
lumbia River, once the finest salmon river in the
world. The Columbia has supplied canned fish
during the last quarter of the century, and now,
from over-fishing, the river is almost depleted of
salmon.
The presence of dams for manufacturing purposes
may or may not have been an industrial necessity,
but such dams have in the past brought about the
entire disappearance of salmon and shad in certain
New England rivers, for the reason that the fish
could not ascend the streams to lay their eggs. It
392
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
is therefore wise and proper that State legislators
should pass laws regulating the character of the nets
to be employed in catching such anadromous fish,
and fixing certain periods when fish could or could
not be caught, or establishing what are known as
close seasons.
Our great North American lakes, when compared
with the vast extent of the sea, are restricted areas
of fresh water. The range of fish in these lakes is
limited, and their habits can be readily determined.
If no heed were to be taken as to the seasons of
spawning of these lake fish, and their indiscriminate
capture were carried out, the inevitable result would
be their complete destruction. It is a salutary and
just provision, that laws should be passed restrict-
ing fishing in the lakes to certain seasons, and regu-
lating the size of the meshes of the nets.
It is therefore evident that with certain fresh-
water fish, forming a large proportion of our food,
their present or future abundance must depend upon
protective legislation. But even then the legiti-
mate supply, bearing in mind the constantly in-
creasing demand, would be notably decreased if it
were not for the intelligent methods devised for re-
stocking with fish depleted rivers and lakes, and
even in some cases the seas.
Here the newer science of fish-culture becomes
important. Fish-culture does not create fish. What
it does is to study particularly the spawning habits
of fish. It secures the fecundated eggs, hatches
them artificially, rears the young fish, cares for them
up to the period when they are able to provide for
their own wants, and, lastly, introduces the young
fry in quantity in those rivers or lakes where, from
over-fishing or other causes, the fish are wanting.
Fish-culture has to do with our future supply. It
plants the fingerling to-day, so that in the years to
come the little fish, grown to full size, may furnish
wholesome food.
In studying the advance fish-culture has made in
the United States it is highly flattering to signalize
the practical good sense and enterprise of a private
body of citizens, the American Fish Cultural Associa-
tion, which first directed public attention to the re-
stocking of our rivers and lakes. It was through the
influence of this association that the attention of the
government was called to the matter, with the re-
sult of creating the United States Fish Commission
(1871), with that most distinguished man, the late
Spencer F. Baird, at its head. With the fullest ap-
preciation of the exigencies of the case, Professor
Baird endowed the study of American fish-culture
with all the treasures of his scientific and, above all,
practical mind, and our country will always be in-
debted to him for the many benefits he has bestowed
upon it.
It is evident that preservative measures will al-
ways be necessary in order to keep up the average
stock of useful fish in our rivers and lakes, but when
we study the condition of the oyster a more serious
problem is presented.
The oyster is a type of immobility. If in its em-
bryotic state it is endowed with motion, in its sub-
sequent condition it becomes forever fixed. If the
oyster were taken in an indiscriminate manner, in
time it would be exterminated. In England and
France the supply would have failed long ago had
not stringent measures been carried out looking to
their preservation. In France efforts were directed
toward restocking old beds and the creation of new
ones.
The oyster-beds of Maryland and Virginia were
at one time deemed inexhaustible, but constant
dredging for oysters, the quantity desired being on
an ever ascending scale, showed that the beds of
Chesapeake Bay were unable to stand the demands
made on them. Legislators finally directed their at-
tention to these oyster-grounds, and to other oyster-
beds on our North Atlantic seaboard, and with good
effects. Grants were established in some cases,
making a title to oyster-beds, or municipalities
rented oystering privileges. The planting of oysters
was encouraged, and laws were formulated regulat-
ing the dredging. The chaotic conditions of some
fifteen years ago have been changed. Even with
the many precautions used it is to be feared, such
is the demand for oysters, that our time of plenty
has passed, and that the price of the oyster will be
increased in the years to come. Methods of estab-
lishing new beds by means of oyster-culture have
been successfully carried on in France, but do not
seem to have been available in the United States.
This arises not from any want of knowledge or skill
on our part, but because the spat of the American
oyster has certain peculiarities in which it differs
from the French oyster. The clam is still abundant,
nor does there seem to be any reason why for many
years to come it will not meet the demand.
Lobsters are becoming scarce. This is caused by
their having been over-fished in the first place, and,
secondly, because of the indifference of the captors
as to the size, condition, and consequently the age
of the lobster. In a general taking of lobsters, the
small females having been captured, natural chances
of reproduction were destroyed. At one time lob-
sters were fairly abundant in the waters of New
EUGENE G. BLACKFORD.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
York. To-day, few, if any, are caught. The ab-
sence of lobsters from their former grounds upon the
North Atlantic seaboard must be noted. Methods
of fish-culture applied to lobsters have not as yet
been successfully operated. Legal restrictions in
regard to the indiscriminate capture of the lobster
have been exceedingly difficult to carry out. The de-
mands of the lobster canneries in certain seasons are
always on the increase, and supervision is apparently
impossible.
Terrapin of the finest variety is becoming very
scarce. This is due to the overcapture of the North-
ern terrapin. In the South terrapins of not so high
a quality are still moderately abundant. Fish on
our American coast are not taken to serve as food
alone. The menhaden is among our valuable fish,
as a source whence oil and fertilizing material are
derived. With a very much increased force of
fishermen, and with more approved methods of cap-
ture, the catch of the menhaden is still large. The
menhaden shows, as do other pelagic fish, that in cer-
tain years they are more abundant than in others.
Looking over a list of fish offered in the New
the halibut. In 1804 Nantucket shoals, or localities
even nearer to New York, furnished the halibut. As
time went on halibut was fished for near Labrador ;
then the waters near Iceland were sought by our
adventurous Gloucester fishermen. At present fresh
halibut comes in good quantity from Alaska and
the far northern Pacific. To-day all the ordinary
fish marketed, taking New York as a center, is de-
rived, not only from adjacent seas or rivers, but from
waters 800 miles north or 1000 miles south on the
Atlantic sea-board.
In presenting such figures as are available, show-
ing the weight and value of the American fisheries
for 1870, 1880, and 1890, those of 1870 are not con-
sidered by the United States Fish Commission as
absolutely trustworthy. The census of our fisheries
had not, in 1870, the advantages of the careful
supervision of the Commission. Unfortunately, too,
that of 1890 is wanting in some details, the
work not having been entirely concluded. If, how-
ever, errors have been made, experts believe that
the statements as to values are rather under than
overestimated.
PRODUCTS OF UNITED STATES FISHERIES IN 1870, 1880, AND 1890.
187
0.
188.
j.
is^
3.
POUNDS.
VALUE.
POUNDS.
VALUE.
POUNDS.
VALUH.
$11,096,522
1,771,822,000
$36,692,200
2,026,020,900
$42,141411
4,1:20,126
4,611,71:6
2,136,103
Total
$K.62 (.64.8
1,771,822,000
$4i,3oc,Qc6
2,026,020,900
$44,277.; I d
York markets in 1804, it will be found to be made
up of some fifty-seven varieties. Deducting from
this list two which are rather unusual and not salable
to-day, we have fifty-five kinds. To-day seventy-five
different kinds of sea products may be seen in any
of the wholesale or retail fish markets in the Ameri-
can cities of the seaboard, according to the season.
A notable change is to be found in the places from
which the fish are obtained. Our great-grandfathers
who were captains of fishing-smacks caught the
general run of pelagic fish in about the same areas
of water as do their great-grandsons, the skippers of
the Gloucester or New York fishing fleets of to-day.
By means of transportation other sources of fish fur-
ther north or south furnish the present additional
supply.
The greatest exception among the deep-sea
swimming fish, as has been before stated, would be
FISHERY PRODUCTS EXPORTED IN 1870, 1880,
AND 1890.
PRODUCTS.
FISCAL YEAR
1870.
FISCAL YEAR
1880.
FISCAL YEAR
1890.
Fish and shellfish ....
Oils and spermaceti . .
Whalebone
$1,380,601
1,049,882
74-2.Q-27
$4,028,626
881,131
2ce 847
$6,040,826
682,131
7OC.COO
Total
$2.774.420
$%. 165.604
$7.428.4 ?7
In 1875 the value and extent of the fisheries
carried on by the port of Gloucester alone was es-
timated at $4,059,500. In 1876 it was worth $4,-
648,000. This was one only of many towns which
kept out fleets on the Atlantic and in the bays and
sounds of New England. For this same year (1876)
Professor Baird estimated that the yield of the fish-
394
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
cries prosecuted in vessels and from the ports of the
United States amounted to :
KIND.
POUNDS.
Codfish 7L373.900
Mackerel 3°.542,5°o
Herring 22,328,700
Other fish «,5°3»54°
Fresh fish not cured ' 99.677.9"
It must be borne in mind that twenty years ago
the fisheries of the North Pacific were in their
infancy.
It has been possible for the United States Custom
House to determine, with a fair amount of accuracy,
the total tonnage of vessels employed in the cod,
mackerel, and whale fisheries for a series of years.
In 1800 the total tonnage was 35,626 tons; in 1820,
1,108,464; in 1840, 241,232; in 1860, 329,605;
and in 1880, 115,946. The diminution of tonnage
is due to the withdrawal of the large vessels em-
ployed in the whale fisheries.
The abstract taken from the last census presents
many remarkable features. In 1890 there were
163,348 persons employed, with a capital invested
of $43,602,123, returning products worth $44,277,-
514. There were 7257 vessels, with a net tonnage
of 174,020, worth $11,133,265. Maryland, with
her oyster fisheries, had the most men, 36,436;
Massachusetts was the next with 16,250 men.
New York had 9321 employed. California had
3094 men. Dividing the value of the products, the
general fisheries were worth $26,747,440; the whale
fisheries $1,697,875; the seal fisheries $438,228;
menhaden fisheries $1,817,878 ; oyster fisheries $13,-
294,339; and the sponge fisheries $281,754.
The latest statistics of the fishing business of the
States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of
Columbia (1894-95) show 91,000 people em-
ployed. The value of the oyster product alone was
$12,400,000. Shad was worth $1,216,000. In the
oystering business the investment in Maryland was
$7,649,904, and the oyster product represented $5,-
259,865. The total weight of the product from the
water was 590,454,369 pounds, worth $19,023,474.
The weight of fish caught was :
YEARS. POUNDS.
1874 295,726,800
1880 465,600,000
1890 332,211,600
1894 324,217,200
The oil exported in 1894 was 430,389^ gallons.
The particulars of the menhaden industry are of
great interest, because they are carried out upon the
Middle Atlantic seaboard in a more systematic way
than any other fishery. The catch, it will be no-
ticed, was the lightest in 1874, and the heaviest in
1880; but the takes in 1890 and the last year far
exceeded that of 1874, which tends to prove that
with fish having powers to move as they please,
man's efforts to lessen their numbers materially by
capture become impossible.
A statistical study of the weight and values of
fisheries on the Pacific coast, from the waters of San
Francisco Bay to Alaska, is not yet possible. On
the Columbia River the canning of salmon began in
1866, with 4000 cases, and in 1889 reached 309,885
cases. Then came the exhaustion of the Columbia
River. In 1883 the salmon of Alaska were first
canned, and in that year 6000 cases were marketed.
In 1890 the enormous total was 610,717 cases. In
the seven years from 1883 to 1890 this would have
meant a consumption of 27,706,958 salmon. There
can be no question as to the speedy extermination
of the salmon in some of the Alaskan rivers.
As to the cod and other pelagic fish of the North-
western Pacific waters of the United States, there is
no reason to suppose that they are in less quantity
than on the Atlantic seaboard. With each succeeding
year, these fish from the Pacific will find their way all
along the great lines of railroad from the West to the
East, and in increasing quantities.
Extensive canneries, many of them devoting their
attention to the herring and lobster, are found on the
eastern coast of the United States, and they contrib-
ute largely to our stock of food. On the California
coast the presence of the true sardine has been noted.
When there shall be olive - culture in California, sar-
dines, as they are put up in France, will unquestion-
ably be added to our home fish food.
MENHADEN INDUSTRY — SEASONS 1874, 1880, 1890, and 1894.
YKAS.
FAC-
TORIES.
SAIL
VESSELS.
STEAM-
ERS.
MEN
EMPLOYED.
CAPITAL
INVESTED.
NUMBER OF
FISH CAUGHT.
GALLONS OF OIL
MADE.
TONS
SCRAP.
TONS DRY
SCRAP.
1874
64
283
2<
2,4-;8
$2 500,000
•3 772 847
en Q76
1890. ...
1894. .
11
44
36^
27
3°
si
52
57
3,261
4,368
2,560
2,550,000
1,750,000
1,737,000
776,000,000
553,686,156
540,361,900
2,035,000
2,939,217
1,999,505
I9>«95
21,173
27,782
25,800
20,339
20,332
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Fish-culture has been of great benefit to California.
The shad, at one time unknown in the Pacific rivers, is
now to be found there in abundance, its original pro-
genitors having been taken thither from the Atlantic
seaboard. California shad exceed ours in size, and
from their abundance are cheaper. The striped bass
(Jtoccus liiieatus), now abundant in California, is also
due to fish-culture.
There is no reason to suppose that there will ever
be any diminution in the supply of fish. There is
no limit as to the area of American waters where edible
fish are to be found. And, as has been shown, there
can be no reason why our stock of anadromous fish
should ever be sensibly diminished. The only ex-
ception recorded so far, as to the constancy of our
North American pelagic fish, was the absence of the
tilefish. It disappeared some time in 1882, due, it
is believed, to a sudden change of temperature in
the deep waters. After ten years of absence, the tile-
fish {Lopholatilus chamaleonticeps) has again put in
an appearance.
It is needless to dwell further on the present facil-
ities of transportation, which will undoubtedly be
increased in the immediate future, nor comment on
the very much more perfect means which are appli-
cable to the preservation of all perishable products.
The catch of 1895, it is considered, has a value of
$46,000,000.
CHAPTER. LVII
AMERICAN CANNING INTERESTS
THE development in this country of the prac-
tical arts pertaining to the hermetical sealing
of food, now so well known under the generic
title of canning, is an interesting feature of the com-
mercial growth of this country. Evolved from the
studious and observant brain of an humble French-
man, and tested through years of his plodding expe-
rience, the new method came amidst the throes of
the French Revolution, in the year 1795, a veritable
offspring of the First Republic. About fourteen
years later the French government, under Napoleon
the Great, awarded the discoverer the prize of 12,000
francs, which long before had been offered for a
method that would preserve alimentary substances
without robbing them of their natural qualities and
juices. Nicholas Appert, born in 1750, spent his life
in brewing, wine-making, pickling, and the making
of confectionery, living over ninety years, and con-
tinuing to the last to invest all funds he could obtain
in the prosecution of his investigation in these differ-
ent lines. He died, in 1841, neglected and alone.
His children have received some benefit from his
labors, the title of Chevalier being borne by a de-
scendant of his to-day, indicating that the cross of
the Legion of Honor had been awarded to him in
recognition of his merits. This industry, which has
now become essentially American, begins, therefore,
exactly within the century to which this work ap-
plies. Appert had obtained financial assistance from
English sources, and as a result we find that, about
1810, his method was being used in the factories of
an English firm of purveyors.
In that year, a patent was granted in England to
one Peter Durand, for a can, made of tin, to be used
in hermetically sealing food, the patent also covering
the use of glass, pottery, and other fit material. In
the letters patent, it is stated that the new method
was communicated to him by a foreigner residing
abroad. Ezra Daggett, who was in the employment
of this English firm, brought the secret, it is believed,
to America between 1815 and 1818. In 1819, he
was engaged in the packing of hermetically sealed
food by this process in New York city, in company
with his son-in-law, Thomas Kensett. The descend-
ants of Mr. Kensett still have some cans of these
goods in their possession which were put up in 1822,
as the labels show. Salmon and lobster were among
the earliest goods packed, and oysters also were pre-
served, according to these labels. In 1825, a patent
was granted to Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett
for an improvement in the art of preserving. The
can was then called a " case," the label containing
directions for opening it.
About the same time that Daggett came to
America from England, Charles Mitchell arrived in
Boston from Scotland. He was born in London,
there learning the canning business as an apprentice.
He left London in 1820, and on reaching Boston al-
most immediately entered the employment of Will-
iam Underwood, who established the firm of William
Underwood & Company, in 1822,10 hermetically seal
food. There is a lack of information concerning the
development of the industry during the next twenty
years, but it was throwing out roots from the New
York and Boston plants. In 1843, the firm of Treat,
Haliday & Company were canning lobsters in New
Brunswick, and salmon in Maine. There is a suppo-
sition that Haliday brought the process from Scot-
land and joined Treat about 1840. Already there
was a known distinction between the French (or Ap-
pert) process and the Scotch method. Appert used
glass vessels only, but the Scotch method required
the puncturing of the tin after the first cooking, and
then recooking after the hole was soldered. About
1846, Wells, Miller & Provost had a packing-house
in New York, on Front Street, near Peck Slip. ; W. R.
Lewis & Bro. established a factory at Portland, Me. ;
and E. C. Wright began packing oysters in Balti-
396
EDWARD S. JUDGK.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
more, having obtained his knowledge of the process
from Thomas Kensett the first. At this time cans
were made by the regular tin-workers, but cappers
were becoming a regular branch of the business.
Henry Evans, Jr., a tin-worker by trade, learned the
process while working as a capper for Wells, Miller &
Provost. In 1848, he went to Eastport to pack
lobsters for that firm; in 1851 going to Baltimore
and later engaging with Thomas Kensett the second,
who had formed a partnership with Ira Wheeler in
New York. In 1849, Evans had a factory at New-
ark, N. J., for Kensett & Company, and here were
packed supplies of fresh vegetables for Dr. Kane's
Arctic Expedition. These included tomatoes, on-
ions, potatoes, and cabbage. Some time after this
Evans went to the West Indies, where he packed
for Kensett & Company the first pineapples ever
packed in that way in those islands.
About 1850, the business began to develop rapidly,
and its history is difficult to follow. The oyster
business of Baltimore and the lobster and sardine
fisheries of Maine were the principal bases of exten-
sion. William Numsen & Sons began work in this
business in Baltimore in 1847; in 1849, they were
packing cove oysters. Tomatoes, peaches, pears, and
other articles were put up about the same time, the
process being applied to nearly all the fresh foods in
the different canneries. A number of active New
Englanders located in Baltimore, embarking in the
raw -oyster shipping business, and in time many of
them began hermetically sealing oysters. The widow
of Thomas Kensett the first sold the secret to Holt
& Maltby and others, and thus they got into the
cove-oyster packing. This title of " cove oysters "
has come to be recognized as the specific name for
hermetically-sealed cooked oysters. "Cove" oys-
ters were from coves famous for the size and quality
of their oysters, which were located on the west side
of Chesapeake Bay, above the Potomac. The can-
ning business has given them immortality.
For the first half of the century the industry was
obliged to produce all the supplies it needed by hand-
labor, and even after canneries multiplied, the output
was necessarily restricted, because of the number of
hands required and the cost of the goods, based en-
tirely on hand-labor. This industry is the connect-
ing link between agriculture and manufactures, the
can being an essential to the foods in this condition ;
and the food is the raison d'etre of the can — useless
each without the other. The manufacturing lines
that have received an impulse from the introduction
of this industry are those that unite in the production
of the can, the cases, labels, and canning machinery.
Previous to 1850 the cans were made by hand,
usually by cutting out the tin blanks with shears,
beating the ends into shape with a mallet over a
former of some kind, and cutting the opening with
a hand-punch and mallet. Originally the opening
was covered on the flat top by a flat circular piece
of tin, well soldered down. The first can-making
machinery we have any authentic record of was
naturally adapted from such as tinsmiths used, they
being the first providers of cans for the packers, but
in 1849 Evans, at Newark, N. J., introduced the use
of the " Pendulum " press, for making can-tops. This
same press came to Baltimore in 1851. With this
press Evans introduced the crease and convex cap.
The California gold-fever gave a great impetus to
the canning industry, and the list of the new firms
that entered the business during the ten years from
1850 to 1860 would be too long to insert here, even
if it could be made up with accuracy. Two historic
firms arose just previous to the close of the first half
of the century — Rumery & Burnham of Portland,
Me., and Louis McMurray of Baltimore. The former
was merged at the close of the war into the firm of
Davis, Baxter & Company, a firm then well estab-
lished. Later, this became the famous Portland
Packing Company.
The Civil War gave another impulse to the in-
dustry, many of the established firms canning meat
on government contracts. The canning of milk,
under the title of condensed milk, resulted in a wide
extension of the industry as previously carried on.
Condensed milk, produced by evaporation and pre-
served with sugar, became a regular article of com-
merce; large quantities of it were used by the
commissariat of the United States army. In 1860,
the New York Condensed Milk Company of New
York was in full operation, Mr. Borden being a
stockholder of the company. In 1863, William
Numsen & Sons of Baltimore were handling such
large quantities in this same line that they formed
the Baltimore Condensed Milk Company, in which
Mr. Borden was also interested. On November 4,
1856, a patent was issued to Gail Borden of New
York for this method, and under the same date
another for an improved method that dispensed with
the boiling.
On April 8, 1862, a patent was issued to I. Win-
slow of Philadelphia for a new method of preserving
green corn, which was the regular Appert process for
hermetically sealing goods. Winslow assigned this
to J. W. Jones, of Portland, Me. It is understood
that Winslow learned this art in France, when on a
visit there in 1840. Nathan Winslow of Portland,
398
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Me., is said to have been the first who commercially
canned sugar corn, and the Winslow Packing Com-
pany has ever since been famous for its canning of
this vegetable. There is reason to believe that the
industry was first carried into the Mississippi Valley
by the same Henry Evans, Jr., who was in Balti-
more with Thomas Kensett the second. Evans,
who was at that time a member of the firm of Evans,
Day & Co., was returning East in 1873, when he
happened to lie over at Circleville, Ohio. There he
met Mr. C. E. Sears, who was engaged in drying
sugar-corn, such as is known as shaker corn. He
found he could purchase cut corn, fresh and sweet, at
a price per can far below the cost of the corn in the
husk at Baltimore. His firm bought largely of it
that season, besides fitting up a cannery at Circle-
ville to can it there. The next year, however, the
cannery was sold to Mr. Sears. This same factory,
greatly extended by Mr. Sears, is now owned and
operated by his widow, Mrs. C. E. Sears, so success-
fully that in 1894 she packed the largest output of
sugar-corn of any factory in the West, if not in the
world.
In the spring of 1864, the business of canning sal-
mon was begun by the firm of Hapgood, Hume &
Company, at Washington, Yolo County, Cal., on the
Sacramento River. In two years, salmon became
scarce there, and after an inspection tour the firm
built a cannery at Eagle Cliff, on the Columbia River,
Washington. This factory began operations in 1867.
The development of the Pacific Northwest was due
more to the salmon industry than to any other single
influence.
In 1866, Mr. G. C. Van Camp, of Indianapolis,
Ind., began packing all kinds of fruits and vegetables
in six-gallon cans, the goods being sold in the city
markets by the pint or quart. In 1868, he went
into the regular canning business, mostly in No. 2
cans. Mr. G. W. Baker began the canning of sugar-
corn in Aberdeen, Harford County, Md., in 1866,
and several of his sons still continue in the business.
Between 1877 and 1885 canneries developed in
great numbers, Harford county, Md., alone having
over 400. At the same time firms spread through
all the States of the West, mainly packing sugar-
corn and tomatoes. There had been many efforts
to introduce machinery into the packing- houses, but
it was generally resisted by the employees, led by
the cappers, on whom depended the proper sealing
of the cans. This important function had been or-
ganized into a regular system, one boss capper taking
the capping of an entire factory and, in some places,
of several factories. For the sake of having expe-
rienced cappers in season the firms would keep them
employed in making cans during the winter months,
so even the making of cans was largely governed by
these employees. Machines to do capping had been
invented, but proved to be unpractical until, about
1883, Mr. I. H. Cox, of Bridgeton, N. J., introduced
a hand-capper which proved a success. Very soon
thereafter machines for all kinds of operations in the
business were introduced. As machinery multiplied,
country canneries increased in number because it
supplied the place of hands, which the rural sections
lacked. By 1892 the variety of machinery special
to this industry had increased to such an extent that
in that year, at an exhibition of canners' supplies
held in the city of Chicago, in connection with a
convention of the Western Packers' Association, Mr.
Buchanan, Chief of the Department of Agriculture
of the Columbian Exposition, who had been invited
to see it, stated to the Chief of the Department of
Machinery that it was extraordinary and novel. Al-
most every operation was done by machinery, and
the business of " packers' supplies " has become a
large one. The introduction of machinery greatly
reduced the price of goods and increased the output.
Meantime the old, original method of cooking (or
processing, as it is called) the goods in open kettles
in plain boiling water was improved upon by adding
salt to the water to increase its density and thus gain
greater heat and quicker results. About 1858 this
was further improved by substituting chloride of cal-
cium for the salt; and later, steam-kettles, having
a cover and containing a coil of steam-pipe, were
patented by A. K. Shriver and G. W. Fisher, both
of Baltimore, and these have superseded all other
methods for processing foods. Machinery likewise
revolutionized the making of cans, until at present
they are made by hundreds of millions in special
factories, by " systems " that have almost banished
the use of manual labor in their production.
The growth of the industry, the multitude of
firms, the rapid cheapening of the goods, and the
popularity of the business, which requires hermetical
sealing and therefore exclusion of the goods from
sight, made the fixing of grades and terms of sale
and delivery absolutely necessary. Growing in a
century from nothing to a vast industry, and pecu-
liar in its nature, it was entirely without commercial
rules. The first commercial organization of packers
of canned goods met at Philadelphia in October,
1872, but had only a brief existence. In February,
1883, a Canned Goods Exchange was organized in
Baltimore, that city then being the great center and
producer of these goods. Mr. A. L. Scott was its
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
first president, and Mr. R. Tynes Smith its first secre-
tary. The intention was to have regular sales on
the floor daily, but this plan was abandoned. It,
however, adopted grades for goods, rules and terms
to govern transactions, and laid the foundation of
commercial procedure for the business.
In 1885 the packers of the Mississippi Valley or-
ganized in Chicago under the title of the Western
Canned Goods Packers' Association, with William
Ballinger, of Keokuk, la., as president, and L. G.
Seager, of Gilman, la., as secretary, and this has been
a successful and powerful influence in the business,
under the guidance of wise and tireless officers. It
is based on the principle of mutual exchange of pri-
vate statistics among members. The packers of the
State of New York organized about the same year,
with T. L. Bunting, of Hamburg, as president, and
J. G. Gibson, of Utica, as secretary, with quarterly
meetings and the statistical principle. Virginia and
New Jersey organized about two years later, each
locally.
The basis of a national association was laid at
Indianapolis, in February, 1889, at a meeting of a
number of representatives of the local associations,
thus making it of a federal nature ; the plan being
submitted by Mr. Bunting, of New York. This was
consummated at a meeting in Baltimore in May of
the same year, by representatives from all the minor
associations. Mr. L. G. Seager, of Gilman, la., was
chosen its first president, and Mr. E. S. Judge, the
publisher of " Trade," as secretary. There is no-
thing of the nature of a trust in the organizations
of the packers; they are based entirely on the ad-
vantage of mutual information and general busi-
ness rules.
In 1894, the Peninsula Packers' Association was
organized at Dover, Del., with James Wallace as
president and C. M. Dashiell, of Princess Anne,
Md., as secretary. The "Atlantic States Canned
Goods Packers' Association " was also organized in
the fall of the same year, at Baltimore, with E. H.
Thurston, of Mechanic Falls, Me., as president, and
H. P. Cannon, of Bridgeville, Del., as secretary.
These bodies are also members of the National
Association.
In 1894, there were in the United States over
1900 known canned-goods packing firms, distributed
among forty-two States and operating about 2000
canneries, of which Maryland had twenty-five per
cent. ; Maine, seven per cent.; New York, six per cent.;
Ohio, Illinois, and Virginia, three and one half per
cent, each ; California, five per cent. ; Indiana, three
per cent., and the other States ranging from fifty-six
factories in Pennsylvania down to one in Arizona.
The total output of canned goods is computed to
have been about 700,000,000 cans of all sizes and
kinds. The principal articles packed are tomatoes,
com, milk, oysters, corned beef, salmon, sardines,
peaches, peas, beans, apples, pears, pineapples, small
fruits, and pumpkins. They are important in about
the order given, although values of the aggregate
packs may not run in the proportion of the number
of cans.
There is a species of sectionalism about the pack-
ing, due mainly to climatic influences. Thus, the
principal corn-packing States are Maine, New York,
Maryland, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas. Tomatoes
are more southern in their trend — New Jersey,
Maryland, Indiana, Virginia, and Kentucky being
the heaviest packers, while New York, Ohio, and
Illinois have the principal milk-canneries. Cove
oysters are confined to Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi. Beef has been
packed in many sections, but the States north and
west of the Ohio now almost monopolize this line of
canning. Salmon is now only packed on the Pacific
Coast, and Alaska is the main source of supply
for the market, the canneries multiplying there as the
fish have fled from the over-fishing of civilization.
Maine monopolizes the American sardine-pack-
ing, as it does lobster-packing, except what is done
in Canadian waters. Peaches are packed principally
in Maryland, Delaware, California, and Michigan;
Georgia is, however, annually increasing the number
of her canneries of this fruit. Peas are packed prin-
cipally in Maryland, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and
of late in Delaware ; but many of the States in the
upper Mississippi Valley are steadily increasing their
output. Beans are of three kinds: string beans,
baked beans, and lima beans. The first named are
a heavy but profitless pack, being put up in all
sections to fill time between other crop seasons; the
second have their headquarters in Massachusetts,
though New York is a strong second, and the arti-
cle is being added to the list of packers' products in
canning-houses everywhere. Lima beans find most
packers in New York, Maryland, California, and
Ohio; the Pacific Coast furnishing large quantities
that in a mature state come east to be packed in
winter as soaked goods. Apples are annually be-
coming a heavier pack in tin — Maine, New York,
Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas putting
up large amounts, and the industry is spreading to
the new apple fields of Washington and Oregon.
New York and California are the principal packers
of pears, Maryland and Delaware also doing much
400
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in them. Pineapples, now one of the favorite fruits
in tin, are packed mainly at Baltimore, Md., but the
packing of them is extending in all directions. Small
fruits have declined in the quantity packed till the
pack of 1894 was probably not over one fourth the
number of cans put up in a year fifteen years ago.
California is the great packing region for small
fruits, but a varying amount is annually put up by
canners in all sections. Pumpkin is almost entirely
confined to the Northern States. Soups are packed
principally in New York and Illinois, but the output
of this class of goods is being increased by large can-
neries in several of the other States. There is an
almost endless line of varieties of canned goods, from
green figs in Mississippi and Texas to turtle in Florida,
and dandelions and mince-meat pies in New York.
The annual aggregate value of these goods amounts
in an average year to over $7 1,250,000. At 500 cases
to the car and two dozen cans to the case, they would
need 58,750 box-cars to carry the pack annually.
Besides the market it has made for the agriculturist,
it has made a demand for labor in the cannery and
its work, which requires at least 400,000 people in
the height of the season. They would require over
2,000,000 boxes of tin-plate for the cans, about
30,000,000 cases, and 700,000,000 labels. Such is
the business to-day that 100 years ago had just
been shown to the public in a foreign country. The
genius of this American republic seized on this idea
of the humble Frenchman, and has made of it a great
industry and a new article of quotation in the mar-
kets of the world. Its vastness is due entirely to
the ability of the American workmen to secure and
consume the good things of life which Heaven sends
us and genius preserves for us in all climates and all
seasons.
CHAPTER LVIII
AMERICAN WINES
r I ^HE history of the wine business in the
United States is very recent. It is recorded
A. that the first attempt to cultivate American
vines by European colonists was made in Florida.
It is well known that in 1769 the French colonists
of Illinois, near the town of Kaskaskia, made wine
from the native wild grapes, and even as early as
1630 the London Company sent French vineyard-
ists to Virginia to plant vines. Many efforts were
made in the eighteenth century to introduce the
tender European vine, and to adapt it to the harsh
climate of the Eastern States; but without excep-
tion the attempts proved abortive.
In the nineteenth century there must have been
several hundred failures in the same attempt, and in
1851, Downing, writing in the "American Horti-
culturist," said : " The introduction of European
vines in America for cultivation on a large scale is
impossible. There is first a season or so of promise
and then complete failure."
Several of the French settlements in the Ohio
Valley succeeded in raising grapes to a limited ex-
tent, and early in the century some Swiss from
Vevay planted a town in Indiana and attempted
the culture of vines on a large scale ; but it proved
unsuccessful, although a certain quantity of wine
was produced. The first successful grower was
Longworth, of Cincinnati, who in the forties and
fifties raised many grapes and produced some wine.
It was of his Catawba wine that Longfellow wrote
his inspiring lines. Many other kinds were tried at
the time, and while Mr. Longworth lived, a fair re-
turn was secured, although possibly at too great a
cost, for Cincinnati is not now a grape center.
Commercially speaking, wine making was not car-
ried on to any extent in the Eastern United States be-
fore the Civil War. Underhill, in his vineyard upon
the Hudson, and a few others, made wine ; but the
sale was small, although grapes were beginning to
be produced in abundance. The islands in Lake
Erie, which were perhaps the first wine-producing
centers of the Atlantic States, practically began to
be known about 1857.
The history of vine cultivation in California is like
a romance. Where the earliest vines came from no
man knows; but, under the familiar cognomen of
the "mission" grape, the vine was brought sup-
posedly from Spain by way of Mexico. It was
cultivated to a considerable extent around the old
missions which were founded in southern California
during the second half of the last century. The
priests planted small tracts close to the missions,
cared for the vines jealously, and surrounded them
by high adobe walls. The cultivation was careful,
and an abundance of fruit was grown, from which
wine was made. What the latter was can be judged
from the harsh qualities of the small quantity of
mission claret made in California to-day. As far as
can be learned, the product of the vineyards of the
mission fathers did not enter into the trade of those
days, which was largely in hoofs, hides, and tallow ;
but their wines were used upon the tables of the
priests, served to the occasional visitors at the mis-
sions, and dealt out to the immediate retainers of
each establishment.
Even after the arrival of the American settlers,
in 1849, as well as of representatives from every
nationality on the globe, next to no advance was
made toward increasing the area of land devoted to
viticulture until the year 1858, when, through the
publication of articles devoted to wine growing, in
the report of the State Agricultural Society and in
the newspapers, a wide-spread interest was mani-
fested in vine planting, and the area thus required
in California was suddenly largely increased.
Many of the vineyards planted in the years im-
mediately after 1858 were devoted to grapes for
table use, and the remainder were almost exclusively
planted with the old mission grape. The centers of
production in those days were in southern California
401
402
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
(in the San Gabriel Valley, and about the old town
of Anaheim) and in the Sonoma Valley around the
town of Sonoma.
Toward 1862 vine planting became almost a
matter of general enthusiasm. In 1861 Governor
John G. Downey appointed three commissioners to
report upon the best ways and means of promoting
the improvement and cultivation of the vine. One
of these commissioners went to Europe, and, after
visiting all the European districts, made an elaborate
report upon the methods of cultivating the vine,
making wine, and curing raisins, bringing with him
on his return 200,000 grape-vine cuttings, with
rooted vines of every obtainable variety to be found
in Europe, Asia Minor, Persia, and Egypt. This
collection embraced about 400 varieties, and in it
was brought, presumably from Hungary, the Zin-
fandel, which has been so prominent in the later pro-
duction of wine in California.
Between 1870 and 1875 the making of wine had
so largely increased that the consumption was more
than met. As a natural consequence, in compli-
ance with the laws of trade, there was a great de-
pression in prices, and many vineyards were rooted
out. In 1879 the demand again caught up with the
supply, and there was a new era of vine planting.
It was not until 1880 that the great body of viticul-
turists of that State had begun to believe that other
varieties of grapes, aside from the old mission, were
suitable for wine making. Before that time few
believed that any grape could be as good as the
mission. Experience, however, has proved that
California soil is well adapted to the fine varieties of
European grapes. In point of fact, most of the vine-
yards there are planted with varieties more hardy,
more resistant to disease, more consistent bearers,
and producing finer qualities and greater quantities
than the mission ever succeeded in doing, even
under the most favorable conditions.
Following the persistent efforts of enterprising
viticulturists, the great quantity of the wine made
is now produced from imported varieties, whose
character is so distinct, and whose quality is so
superior to wines made from the mission grape, that
new faith in the future of California wines has been
born ; and the belief has spread that under proper
conditions the State makes wine of a high average
grade, and eventually may rival some of the classic
growths of the Medoc and of Burgundy.
The new era began in 1880. In spite of the
efforts made by wine makers and wine merchants,
only a limited market had been secured for Cali-
fornia wines in Eastern States, plainly shown by the
fact that the total shipments out of the State by sea
and by rail in that year were but 2,487,353 gallons,
valued at $1,343,170, while the exports of this year
(1895) are expected to approximate 15,000,000 gal-
lons, valued at about $6,000,000.
In the latter part of 1879, after the short vintage
of that year had been gathered in, it was found that
most of the old stock had been exhausted. Sud-
denly the price of all kinds of wine went up, and the
supply was barely sufficient to meet the demands of
the market. This at once awakened a more general
interest in wine growing ; but there was a woful lack
of knowledge on the part of the growers, and only a
few acknowledged authorities to which to apply for
information. Numerous newspaper articles ap-
peared calling attention to the value of viticulture
in that State, and expressing a desire for the forma-
tion of some State institution where such practical
knowledge might be obtained as was necessary for
the conduct of this important branch of agriculture.
Under these circumstances the State legislature took
the matter up, and in March, 1880, the State Board
of Viticulture was created, and provided with funds
to meet its necessary expenditures.
This board has been in existence for fifteen years,
and under its direction all the standard literature in
the English language on vine planting, vine culti-
vation, cellar management, distillation, and every
branch of viniculture and viticulture, has been col-
lected and published. The wealth of information
to be found in French, German, and Italian works
has all been drawn upon and compared with the
actual experiences in California. Besides this, the
board has been instrumental in procuring State laws
promoting the making of pure wines, and in attending
to matters of national legislation pertaining to the
wine and brandy interests, and has exercised a
fostering care over those who intended to plant
vines, the cellarmen, wine makers, and wine ship-
pers. Its cost to the State has been nominal com-
pared with the returns that have resulted from its
efforts.
At the present time wine making in California is
one of the best paying agricultural industries, not
only in that State, but in the United States. Wheat
is depressed beyond example ; barley has at present
a comparatively low value ; wool is scarcely worth
the cost of shearing; the hop-fields, not only in
California, but in New York, Oregon, and other
producing States, are being sadly neglected on ac-
count of the great cost of picking ; the fruit business
at best is, particularly in California, one which de-
pends largely on the failure of the Eastern crop to
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
403
insure good prices for Western producers ; oranges
are subject to every conceivable sort of fluctuation ;
while wine is returning a handsome profit to the
producer.
There are two reasons for this. First, not only
are the producers combined, but there is an era of
good feeling existing among the shippers without
parallel, perhaps, in the history of the California
trade. The second reason is that there is no over-
production of wine. The shipments to the Eastern
States, to Central America, Hawaii, Europe, and
elsewhere, added to the California consumption
of about 8,000,000 gallons, more than offset the
production. No new vineyards are coming into
bearing, while many of the old vineyards are being
gradually killed by phylloxera. It will take at least
six or eight years before the wine production of
California can be materially increased, and for
that time the wine industry will have to meet
steadily increasing demands upon it, both in quality
and quantity. There is, therefore, every prospect
of an era of prosperity for at least ten years to
come.
While I have thus far given a history of viticulture
in California, with which I am particularly familiar,
it must not be forgotten that there is in the Eastern
States, particularly in New York, Ohio, Missouri,
Illinois, Virginia, and Georgia, a most prosperous
viticultural interest. The viticulturists east of the
Rocky Mountains have had to contend with the
difficulty of using native American vines and their
hybrids for wine-producing grapes. Considering the
drawbacks that they have encountered, their efforts
have been in every way commendable, and their
wines have a steady sale at remunerative prices.
Nicholas Longworth, already spoken of, was un-
doubtedly the leader in American viticulture. Until
he began his efforts wine was practically unknown
among Americans in the country districts, although
a few bottles, having about as much value as goose-
berry wines, were put up in many families, expressed
from the grapes which were the progenitors of the
Isabella, the Concord, or other common varieties.
Longworth showed that really desirable wines could
be produced upon American soil, with American
growers and makers. Becoming rich early in life
by fortunate purchases of land lying in the city of
Cincinnati, he retired from the practice of law, his
ostensible business, about the year 1825, to embark
in horticultural pursuits. He first tried foreign
grapes, but unsuccessfully, and then began experi-
ments with native ones, with which he did not have
the same difficulty. His first vineyard was a small
one, but he gradually enlarged it, until he had 200
acres in grapes. His favorites were the Isabella
and the Catawba, and from them he produced wine
of a high marketable value. Since 1865 particular
attention has been given to grape growing in many
of the States in the East, there being a large de-
mand for them for table use, and this incidentally
has stimulated wine making. There are years in
which the yield is so abundant that it hardly pays
the grower to send the grapes to market ; then more
wine is made. But the bulk of the Eastern crop which
is intended for wine is grown for that purpose. It is
carefully handled, and by the best houses is kept
three years in stock before any is sold.
The chief grape and wine growing district in the
East is around Lake Keuka, in the western part of
the State of New York. This is in the lake district,
and the vineyards are from 500 to 800 feet above
sea-level. The natural harshness of the climate is
so modified by the existence of these large and deep
bodies of water, fed by natural springs, and rarely
freezing over, that grape culture can be better car-
ried on there than in much of the region 500
miles south of them. Every one of these lakes, which
lie at the end of the Appalachian chain of moun-
tains, has many vineyards adjacent. Next to Lake
Keuka come in importance Seneca Lake, Cayuga
Lake, and Chautauqua Lake. Along the Hudson
many grapes are grown. In an island in this river
Underhill propagated the lona grape, long regarded
as the most valuable kind known. Ohio ranks with
New York as a wine producer. The soil on Kelley's
Island and Put-in-Bay, and around Cleveland and
Sandusky, seems particularly adapted to it. Much
comes from North Carolina, the Scuppernong being
principally grown there ; there are admirable wines
in Missouri, and Virginia is now producing consid-
erable quantities. No wines come from New Eng-
land, although possibly they might be grown in the
sunny valleys of Connecticut; but New Jersey is
now making rapid strides in the way of good sound
wines, fit to compare with good Burgundies. The
skill of American wine makers has increased. The
methods of handling the grapes, of caring for the
newly expressed product, of improved cellarage,
and of bottling, have all been learned with thorough-
ness. Although labor is dearer than in Europe, de-
vices which save much cost have been introduced
everywhere except to facilitate maturity. This de-
pends entirely upon age, no artificial method being
used to hasten that. Neither are there syrups
introduced to give mellowness or tone. American
champagnes are now largely used, and when properly
404
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
prepared are much esteemed. Much American wine
is sold as foreign.
I am aware that there is a general impression in
the East, particularly among some wine dealers who
have heretofore handled only the European product,
that California should produce but one distinctive
variety of wine. On this point I wish to quote from
a work recently published by the State Viticultural
Commission, and written by Charles A. Wetmore :
"I have found generally that a notion— it is
hardly fair to call it an opinion — prevails among the
importers that there is, or should be, one distinctive
type of California wines in general, and that we
make some sort of a mistake in not producing a par-
ticularly distinctive type of California wine. To them
the well-known characteristics of the vineyard dis-
tricts of the Old World, such as Xeres in Portugal,
Bordeaux, Burgundy, and the Rhine, appear to as-
sume broad territorial significance individually, each
being in importance equal to the opportunities of
California. Small places in Europe occupy, in their
minds, larger places than youthful California. They
little appreciate the fact that the viticultural area,
both in latitude and longitude, and in the value of
climatic and soil conditions, of all the regions where
grapes are grown successfully in Spain, Portugal,
France, and Germany, is equally matched, both in
extent and variety, on the Pacific coast. One might
as well speak of the one typical wine of all those
countries of Europe as to think of one wine repre-
sentative of this coast.
" Few realize that the western coast of North
America is practically the counterpart of the western
coast of Europe, with Great Britain attached to the
Continent. Every condition of soil and climate is
here reproduced to compare with Xeres, Malaga,
the Mediterranean coast of France, the slopes of the
Alps, the valleys of the Rhine and Rhone, and the
humid climates on each side of the British Channel.
In the variations of practical possibilities in viticul-
ture, every distinction known to the west of Europe,
from Gibraltar and Nice to Scotland and the Nether-
lands, is found on this coast from Lower California
to British Columbia. Our Algiers is inland in Sonora
and Arizona, and our Russian Siberia is between the
Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. To the
average New York mind, however, both Los Angeles
and Shasta appear to be suburbs of San Francisco,
and as nearly related as Xeres and Malaga, or as
the Medoc and Sauterne districts, while, in fact,
they are as far apart as Xeres and Burgundy.
" To those who do not comprehend this coast let
me say that every known viticultural condition of
Europe that has been observed from the Rhine to
the Mediterranean coast, and even across on the
northern borders of Africa and eastward toward
Palestine, can be found here in the territory from
the Columbia River to the Gulf of California and
eastward into Arizona. Every known variety of
European wine-grapes finds somewhere here its
natural home, and somewhere a place where it can-
not be successfully cultivated. In some places none,
in others few, and in others many, just as in Europe,
are found to prosper. Many mistakes in the at-
tempts to transplant and adapt have been made, and
equally many in experimentation with European
methods ill suited to locality.
" Our experiences and present conditions are
similar to what might have been expected if, during
a single generation, an enterprising people had found
western Europe unpopulated, and had attempted,
with one common purpose, to establish viticulture
from the Mediterranean to the Rhine from one
common nursery of all vines, and without such
knowledge of the local peculiarities as has been, in
fact, the growth of generations. Under such a pos-
sibility we might have had Spaniards cultivating the
Palomino in the Medoc, Frenchmen trying the
Medoc in Xeres, Germans essaying the Riesling in
Languedoc, and Portuguese worshiping port on the
Rhine, with numerous admixtures of all kinds of
efforts in all places. The present condition of
California viticulture is not much different from
such a supposed condition in Europe, with the ex-
ception that our producers are far more intelligent
and better informed as to their mistakes and the
means of remedying them than European vintners
generally are as to the causes of any of their present
successes.
" I shall show, however, that progress and im-
provement in given lines of perfection are not entirely
subject to the will of producers, even if natural con-
ditions and knowledge are present. The producer
who exports is governed by the will of distant
markets, and California, so far as even the Atlantic
States are concerned, is yet an exporter, aided only
by a very limited consumption locally. Even France
produces one kind of claret for England and another
for the Argentine Republic ; one kind of champagne
for Russia and another for America; one kind of
Burgundy for foreigners and another for Paris ; and
everywhere in her own territory is satisfied with her
local wines of every kind and character, without re-
course to foreign delicacies. Whenever foreigners
— and I include New York as among the most
foreign people we have to deal with — will become
CHARLES CARPY.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
403
satisfied with the best that each of our districts can
produce without any attempt to imitate European
styles, it will be time for them to complain that we
do not produce typical California wines; but so
long as the markets demand styles like favorite
European brands, so long must California producers
and dealers make attempts to please them, either
with ignorantly devised methods and blends, or false
labels; and so long as our Eastern Atlantic coast
markets refuse to pay as much for equal quality,
whether domestic or imported, they cannot expect
producers to sacrifice quantity for quality in wine
making to any practical extent."
The statistics of the production of wines in Cali-
fornia from 1877 to 1895, and the exports out of the
State by sea and rail for the corresponding years,
are as follows :
PRODUCTION AND EXPORTS OF WINE FROM
CALIFORNIA.
YEAR.
PRODUCTION IN
GALLONS.
SHIPMENT OUT OF STATE
IN GALLONS.
1877
4,000,000
1,462,072
1878 .
5,000,000
1,812,159
1879
7,000,000
2,155,944
1880
IO,2OO,OOO
2,487,353
1881
8,000,000
2,845,355
1882
9,000,000
2,816,735
1883
8,500,000
3,190,167
1884
IO,OOO,OOO
3,C24,OQQ
1885
II,OOO,OOO
4,256,224
1886
18,000,000
5,192,223
1887
15,000,000
6,901,771
1888
I7,OOO,OOO
7,235,994
1880
18,000,000
8,286,442
l8qo
18,000,000
9,092,082
1801
2O,OOO,OOO
11,114,029
1802
20,000,000
11,117,752
l8qi
25,000,000
12,326,033
1804
15,000,000
14,031,401;
I got;
1 7,000,000
1 15,000,000
1 Estimated.
The total consumption of the United States is
about 36,000,000 to 38,000,000 gallons annually,
which is supplied as follows:
GALLONS.
California (average) 20,000,000
Other States and Territories 14,000,000
Imported 4,000,000
Total 38,000,000
It may be now asked, What of the future? As
for quantity, we can expect but little increase in
California in the next six years. In quality we can
expect much. Many choice producing sections are
already well known. The best of foreign varieties
have been tested in many locations, and their
adaptability to different situations is thoroughly
understood. Every year sees some improvement in
our methods of viticulture, wine making, and cellar
management. An industrious, intelligent, and ex-
perimenting class of citizens are bending their
energies and thoughts to the production of the
highest types. Lacking the experience that has
come with centuries of work in Europe, possessing
a new and rank soil at best, they are seeking to
overcome every defect which may be found by an
exacting connoisseur. Financially the prospects are
excellent. Most of the old stocks of wine have been
bought up and cleared out of the cellars. Markets
have been developed in New York, New Orleans,
Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and all
the leading cities of the country. There is scarcely
a large city in which our wines have not found a
market. The drug trade commends them and the
brandies in the highest terms. At home we have
the producers combined and standing for prices that
will bring them a fair remuneration for their labor ;
we have the merchants receiving remunerative re-
turns from their connections all over the country.
Of the needs of the viticultural industry there are
but few things to say, though much might be said
on each topic. We need a national pure wine law.
We need some amendments to the internal-revenue
laws which will, at least, place our producers upon
an equality with the French brandy producers in the
matter of blending and bottling brandy.
Concerning the necessity of a general national
pure wine law, it can be said that there is a very
general movement among all wine-producing coun-
tries for stricter regulations. The time has come
when it should be generally recognized by the gov-
ernments of the world that wine means fermented
grape-juice, and does not mean a combination
recently given by William Bailey Bryant in his
"Nineteenth-Century Handbook on the Manufac-
ture of Liquors, Wines, and Cordials without the
Aid of Distillation," published by the Industrial
Publishing Company, of Owensboro, Ky. His idea
of an imitation of "red wine, cheap," is as follows:
" Water, one gallon ; sulphuric acid, to the
strength of weak vinegar; honey, one pint; pow-
dered alum, one-half ounce; one sliced red beet
and a half-pint strong tincture of logwood; one
drop oil of wintergreen dissolved in a wineglassful
of alcohol ; one half of a grain of ambergris rubbed
up in sugar ; one pint tincture of grains of paradise.
Any kind of bright sugar or syrup will answer in
the place of the honey, and in less quantities. This
wine, when prepared on a large scale, can be made
at a very low price, as the honey is the only article
406
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
that is of value, the tincture of the grains of paradise
being substituted for spirit ; and any quantity of it
can be prepared at the shortest notice. The color-
ing is kept prepared in barrels for use. When the
beets are added, the mixture is allowed to stand for
the coloring to become discharged from them for
several days."
This book, I believe, is protected by the copyright
laws of the United States. It is infamous, not alone
that such a receipt should be allowed to be pub-
lished, but that we have no national pure wine law
to prevent the concoction of such a beverage, with
sulphuric acid and water as a base. I say that we
need a national wine law, because, under the Inter-
state Commerce Act, no State pure wine law can be
made operative outside of the boundaries of that
State, and, as far as I am aware, New York, Ohio,
and California are the only States which have a
wine law designed to prevent adulteration and the
manufacture of imitation wines. One effort was
made to secure such national legislation, but it was
defeated, by what interests it is needless to mention ;
but the effort is to be resumed. Our second need,
to secure the right to bottle and blend brandy in
bond, will, I trust, be obtained at the coming session
of Congress.
CHAPTER LIX
AMERICAN DISTILLERIES
THE extraordinary consumption of alcoholic
liquors, and the extensive application of alco-
hol for all purposes, show it to be one of the
most important substances produced by art. There
is but one source of alcohol, its production arising
from the fermentation of sugar or other saccharine
matter obtained from plants containing either free
sugar or starch convertible into sugar. It is a vola-
tile, inflammable, colorless liquid, of penetrating odor
and burning taste. In commerce, when made from
maize or other grain, it is called grain-alcohol ; from
reindeer and Iceland moss, moss-alcohol ; from pota-
toes and beets, root-alcohol ; and from grapes, wine-
alcohol.
The discovery of the art of distillation is attributed
to the Arabian alchemists, the first mention of it oc-
curring about the eleventh century ; but it was un-
doubtedly known and practised for centuries before
by the Chinese. Brandy was named the water of
life, and one of the early alchemists, in his enthu-
siasm over the discovery, declares that " this admi-
rable essence is an emanation from the Divinity ; an
element newly revealed to man, but hid from antiq-
uity because the human race was then too young
to need this beverage, destined to revive the energies
of modern decrepitude." Distillation consists in
converting a liquid into vapor in a closed vessel by
means of heat, and then conveying the vapor into a
cool vessel, where it is reconverted into liquid. The
possibility of separating substances by vaporization
is dependent upon the fact that very few substances
are volatile at the same temperature. Thus while
water boils at 212°, alcohol boils at 173°. Strictly
speaking, the spirits are not produced by the act of
distillation, but are the result of the previous act of
fermentation, distillation merely separating the spirits
from the mixture in which they already exist.
A little over a century ago, in 1791, the first in-
ternal-revenue tax on spirits was imposed, being nine
cents a gallon on spirits manufactured from grain,
it being estimated that at that time about 3,000,000
gallons were annually produced from domestic mate-
rials. This tax, light as it was, was strenuously re-
sisted by the western counties of Pennsylvania, which
rose in rebellion, and had to be suppressed by the
militia of that State and adjacent ones. From 1802
to 1813 the internal-revenue tax was abolished, after
which a tax on distillers was substituted for a tax
per gallon. In 1816 the internal-revenue tax was
reduced one half, and abolished entirely in 181 8, re-
maining non-existent until 1862, in which year, being
pressed for money to carry on the war against the
Southern Confederacy, the nation found a prolific
source of revenue in the taxation of spirits. The fol-
lowing has been the rate of taxation under the differ-
ent statutes from 1862 to the present: July i, 1862,
the tax was twenty cents per gallon ; March 7, 1864,
it was made sixty cents ; June 30, 1 864, it was in-
creased to $1.50 ; December 22, 1864, it was further
increased to $2 ; July 20, 1868, it was reduced to
fifty cents; June 6, 187 2, it was changed to seventy
cents; and on March 3, 1875,11 was fixed at ninety
cents, where it remained until August 28, 1894, when
it was raised to the present rate of $1.10. In 1874
the revenue derived from spirits from all kinds of
materials, including fruits, was about $43,000,000,
of which $2,000,000 was from spirits manufactured
from fruits. This was $2,000,000 in excess of the
previous year. The total number of gallons pro-
duced during 1874 was about 69,500,000. The im-
mense revenue derived by the government from dis-
tilled spirits is shown by the fact that during the last
ten years it has aggregated about $1,000,000,000.
The progress made in the distilling business during
the past century has probably been greater than in
almost any other line of manufacture, all the latest
achievements in science having been used to bring
about such a result. At the dawn of the present
century distilling was chiefly conducted by farmers,
who made the crudest product in the crudest way.
407
408
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
A small kettle and a worm placed alongside his log
cabin were almost as essential a part of the farmer's
household equipment as a flail for his grain or a plow
for his lands. In nearly every family liquor was a
daily article of consumption, and the brown jug an
indispensable adjunct to labor on every occasion.
No commerce was conducted in alcoholic liquors in
farming regions, each man creating his own supply.
When one glances at the present immense business,
with its distillery plants, many of which are palatial
in their appointments, and some having a daily mash-
ing capacity of 5000 bushels, the progress that has
been made appears simply amazing.
The first product that reached the dignity of a
place in commerce was so-called rectified whisky. It
was the crude high wine after it had passed through
a layer of charcoal, which largely extracted the
fusel-oil and made a product ready for sale. To
this were frequently added flavoring extracts, the
compound then being put into heavily charred bar-
rels, and a little sugar coloring added to smooth over
its rankness and fieriness. Thus prepared, it was
distributed among consumers, and some brands won
for themselves a considerable demand. Following
this process a redistilling apparatus was invented, by
means of which the fusel-oil was more thoroughly ex-
tracted from the spirits. To make it more palatable a
certain proportion of old-fashioned Bourbon from
Kentucky, or rye from Pennsylvania or Maryland,
was added to give bouquet, flavor, and the appear-
ance of genuine whisky. This class of goods became
known as redistilled whiskies, and the proportion
of these which were sold in commerce as against
the genuine whiskies of Kentucky and Pennsylvania
was fifteen to one. In fact, the genuine goods made
in Kentucky were used by dealers mainly for flavor-
ing these so-called redistilled whiskies. It may be
well for me at this point to define Bourbon whisky.
The name now has a very wide significance. Orig-
inally it was whisky distilled from Indian corn or
rye in Bourbon County, Kentucky. As its fame
spread, countless imitations sprang up, so that to-
day Bourbon whisky may be said to be whisky dis-
tilled from corn or rye after the manner in which it
is made in Bourbon County. The yield of Bourbon
whisky was then about three gallons to the bushel.
It was heavy in body and flavor, qualities which
made it very valuable in compounding ; but it took
many years of maturing to neutralize the fusel and
other essential oils by the action of the atmosphere.
The process of improvement was slow, and the trade
recognized the fact that whiskies required at least
three years or more to attain full maturity and be-
come ready for consumption. At this stage the sci-
ence of mashing was greatly improved, increasing
the yield and lessening the cost of production. This
had the effect of popularizing Kentucky Bourbons
among the masses, and instead of being employed
so largely for compounding purposes they came into
use on a larger scale as a beverage. It also became
patent to distillers and dealers that a larger yield did
not injure the quality, but, on the contrary, made
the whisky finer, as it contained less oils when made
in quantity, and did not require so much time to de-
velop its highest maturity. The pressure of compe-
tition has since induced some distillers of standing to
sacrifice quality for quantity, and they have resorted
to artificial means to produce the appearance of de-
velopment. The whisky which has given Kentucky
its reputation is that known as sour mash, and there
are a few distilling firms who are so jealous of their
reputation that they continue to distil only genuine
sour mash, yield being a secondary consideration.
To attain a fine bouquet, with its accompanying
flavor and body, they eschew all artificial means of
forcing development, recognizing as an undisputed
fact that the atmosphere is the only chemist that can
bring about such results. These firms constitute the
bulwark which maintains the reputation of Kentucky
whiskies. The larger number of the distillers look
merely to the production of a deteriorated cheap
grade, and the demoralization has taken such deep
root that it is claimed by some producers that a
year is all the time that is necessary to fit whiskies
for consumption. While the production of cheap
grades has lowered the standard of Kentuckies, it
has diffused the taste for them among the masses,
causing the dealers to substitute them for redistilled
whiskies or so-called " domestics," which are but
imitations of the genuine article. The present con-
sumption of whiskies of all grades made in Kentucky
is estimated at about 25,000,000 gallons per annum.
The stocks remaining in bond of the product of
the past four years are 83,000,000 gallons. Of rye
whiskies, which are mainly produced in Pennsyl-
vania, Maryland, and West Virginia, there were re-
maining in bond of the past four years' production
as follows : Pennsylvania, 23,953,000 gallons ; Mary-
land, 8,838,000 gallons; and West Virginia, 1,073,-
ooo gallons; to which may be added Tennessee,
which makes straight wheat whisky, with stocks in
bond of the last four years amounting to 1,194,000
gallons. This represents the stocks of so-called
straight whiskies, although, as above stated, but a
small proportion of Kentuckies can properly be so
classified.
JAMES E. PEPPER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
HI
The principal States in which ordinary spirits are
produced are Illinois, with a production for the year
ending June 30, 1895, of about 21,000,000 gallons,
of which there are remaining in bond 6,300,000 ;
Indiana, with a production for the same period of
7,000,000 gallons, having 2,800,000 gallons remain-
ing in bond ; and Ohio, with an output also of about
7,000,000 gallons, having 4,000,000 remaining in
bond.
I have hitherto confined my remarks almost en-
tirely to spirits distilled from grain, the product from
fruits being comparatively unimportant. From its
greater availability and its cheapness, grain is in gen-
eral use ; while from fruits, which have a perishable
nature and are non-available during the greater part
of the year, there is distilled only a limited supply
of apple, peach, and grape brandy, the State of Cali-
fornia producing more than half of the fruit brandy
made in this country. The total revenue for spirits
from fruits in 1894 was but $1,287,497. Molasses
as a distiller's material yields nothing but rum. Of
late, however, attempts have been made to produce
pure spirits from that source, but, owing to the diffi-
culty of eliminating the rum odor from the output,
the experiment is problematical. There is a very
small production of rum, which is principally con-
fined to New England ; and the cheapness of grain
spirits has tended to reduce the rum product to con-
tinually smaller dimensions. It is mainly manufac-
tured for export purposes, very little being used in
this country, as straight whiskies have superseded
the once popular beverage. It should be stated
that common spirits require no aging, being ready
for manufacturing purposes or for compounding the
day that they come from the still, and they never
improve. In most cases, after having been doc-
tored up to produce the appearance of genuine-
ness, they are palmed off as true whisky under
some euphonious title, and frequently they are
audaciously placed on the market masquerading
as sour mash.
In a review of American distilleries it is necessary
that I should dwell for a moment upon the distilled
spirits consumed in the arts, manufactures, and medi-
cine in this country. Of these alcohol and cologne
spirit take the lead, although high wines, whisky,
brandy, rum, and gin are also used. Pure alcohol
cannot be obtained by ordinary distillation alone.
The rectified spirit or alcohol of the pharmacopoeias
contains nine per cent, by weight of water in the
United States, sixteen per cent, in Great Britain;
proof-spirit or diluted alcohol, fifty-four and one
half per cent, by weight of water in the United States,
fifty-one per cent, in Great Britain. That alcohol is
used in some localities as a beverage is undoubtedly
true, and it is said that fully one half of the alcohol
that finds its way to the Northwest is so consumed
by Poles, Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, Hungarians,
and Russians. It has been estimated that about
fifteen barrels of alcohol are consumed as a beverage
daily in New York City, but it is impossible to collect
data upon which to found a reliable estimate on this
point. The foreigners employed in the coal regions
of Pennsylvania are drinkers of alcohol, and a con-
siderable quantity is annually disposed of among
them. A large percentage of the cost of pharmaceu-
tical preparations arises from the distilled spirits used
in their manufacture. Concerning the amount of
alcohol alone consumed in the arts, manufactures,
and medicine in the United States, the Secretary of
the Treasury, in his annual report of December 2,
1889, estimated it at about 6,000,000 proof-gallons.
Cologne spirit is used for many purposes for which
alcohol would be unsuitable, and whisky, brandy, rum,
and gin form the basis of many proprietary medicines
and of tinctures and medicinal wines. The amount
of distilled spirits consumed in the arts and manu-
factures has been estimated at fifteen per cent, of
all distilled spirits consumed, which is equivalent in
round numbers to 12,000,000 gallons. The returns
in proof-gallons, for the entire United States, of the
wholesale druggists and manufacturers, eleemosy-
nary institutions, and retail apothecaries, are given in
the following summary :
DISTILLED SPIRITS CONSUMED IN THE ARTS, ETC., IN 1889.
RETURNS RECEIVED PROM
AGGREGATE.
ALCOHOL.
COLOGNE
SPIRIT.
HIGH
WINES.
WHISKY.
BRANDY.
RUM.
Cm.
Total
IO.O76.8d2
6 *IA. S I C2
1.4X3 OA8
2.Q21.QOQ
266,874
iSq.cSi
222,2O(
Manufacturers and wholesale druggists .
Eleemosynary institutions
7,966,640
IO2.7QO
5.425.791
30 092
1.334.033
A 37J.
54,737
881
879,282
W.222
100482
6,sQQ
87,378
841
84-937
779
Retail apothecaries
2,QO7.4I2
1,289 269
lid 6 A I
20. 7 72
I. oSf. 7QO
Icq,7Q7
101,362
136,579
410
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The eleemosynary institutions here referred to
are dispensaries, homes, asylums, and others of a
similar character. The above table shows that the
total quantity of distilled spirits consumed in the arts,
manufactures, and medicine in the United States dur-
ing the twelve months ending December 31, 1889,
was 10,976,842 proof-gallons. The following table
gives the returns in proof -gallons, by totals for States,
of all forms of distilled spirits consumed or sold by
manufacturers and wholesale druggists, eleemosy-
nary institutions, and retail apothecaries combined.
The inherent repugnance to paying the heavy tax
on alcoholic liquors imposed by the government has
given rise to a large number of illicit distilleries
throughout the country. Occasionally one of these
secret stills is unearthed in the large cities, which
indicates that there are always more or less of them
in operation at the centers of population. In the
mountain regions of the country, more particularly
in the South, a large amount of distilled liquor is
drunk that never has been recorded in the Internal
Revenue Department, or paid a penny of taxation.
DISTILLED SPIRITS CONSUMED IN THE ARTS, ETC., IN 1889.
BY STATES AND TERRITORIES.
STATES AND TERRITORIES.
AGGREGATE.
ALCOHOL.
COLOGNE
SPIRIT.
HIGH
WINES.
WHISKY.
BRANDY.
RUM.
GIN.
The United States
10.076,84.2
6. 74 e.. 1 52
1 .453.048
7C.QQ2
2.O23.QOO
226.874
180 c8i
'"Z»Z95
Alabama
41,343
18,781
648
10.061
Arizona
1.23?
778
Arkansas
3O.23 4
1-7 C 32
883
12 846
California
20.4X72
I 7O.Q4.8
o«5
74 OI3
7661
5°
1»°59
Colorado
33.4OQ
12.042
117
Id6
3»9ZO
Connecticut
234.SIO
I38,OI I
5 *
7 222
7 C7I
5^u
i»73jt
Delaware
II,OO3
7Q4Q
c$i
TC
District of Columbia ....
Florida
25,920
Q.737
8,870
C.7QC
3>4'0
840
237
TC7
IO,O33
2 23§
1,442
48l
793
*97
M3S
Georgia
14^, Is;
07,668
32.236
in
II 378
8?7
1 88
'5*
Idaho
3.O7O
IOI
1C
jC
2 O28
°57
66
54*
Illinois
I. -3 O6.332
721 5C2
18698
IT 1&-3
Z59
Indian Territory
41
61»6°S
4.552
3r>935
Indiana
2Q4.44O
......
t-7 -7^^
Iowa
180.062
O8.3i;4.
1 7 >UJ5
'x x
Kansas
42X18
b>431
ss
4*447
Kentucky
131,012
So 083
cfi QC-J
i»y°5
Q TC7
Louisiana
I12.QI4
ITC 276
2 024
6262
5°>°5J
355
£88
Maine
TIC CXC.
8-j 360
T SnS
7°9
Maryland
u»39°
28 T C 1
53
r3>539
°,949
3»381
Massachusetts . .
1,018 080
*°»*54
I>9°3
2>°39
rn SX-i
i,752
Michigan
4Q4.83Q
5>°Sl
124,743
<?n Z.QQ
r9>°53
I02>354
31,692
Minnesota
183096
117
•Ml
I4>513
ft ?AQ
8,258
Mississippi
16,231
5.4Q3
1J»5°3
33*794
O &C9
692
-Q
2*05 3
Missouri • • • •
I,O7l 068
ficc 824
T2n fiSS
y»<>5z
352
4°
33^
Montana
'.955
253.75°
22,041
2,213
I3>991
Nebraska
IOO.372
106 2c8
I nfifi
nfi
327
'9
Nevada
2,118
248
&
54>6o7
H.38')
742
5»279
New Hampshire . . .
CQ A& e
°4
299
59
New Jersey
176 I7C.
*7>136
M*57
75
ID.570
2,418
7447
4,817
New Mexico
?R
I»335
i°>372
4,808
'.335
3-431
New York
I.76O 343
TQ -Qf.
2>353
545
43
North Carolina
14661
A%A1
8l
'97.55 '
29,501
10,727
241?j
North Dakota .
o »reR
TQQ
.9s 7
jQS
Ohio
^»75°
75
2^85
ISO
Oklahoma
43
41^,151
43
37>SS°
i»321
10,781
3.243
14,292
Oregon
ge ni»7
Pennsylvania
>»35
7
I2,5>51
2,051
244
1,097
C QAi
Rhode Island
133.06 C.
/uo»U25
IOI 848
305*574
i 968
14.497
,768
8,864
. Q-f,
South Carolina
22 CIO
225
14,269
7.734
4>S3O
South Dakota
°53
4,445
334
'83
Tennessee
221 q8l
207
3
2>349
357
199
Texas
32.3/5
36
54.164
5'343
'5°
'.479
Utah
5J»994
Q tfmft
0,302
33,660
3.528
75
'.795
Vermont
°»73°
7.913
9
5.038
2>593
234
535
Virginia
3°»744
?f> nXfi
32
7,213
75'
1.653
1,198
Washington
2.44°
7°
74H
537
411
29
West Virginia
25S
37
5.774
1,022
211
500
Wisconsin
11, 9^9
43'
753
16,400
1,708
1,112
Wyoming
3.231
1 23»675
7>1S°
*•
343
25,071
5'756
813
1,920
- .
3°
'.073
265
7°
63
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
411
This criminal branch of the history of American dis-
tilling would make interesting reading on account of
its picturesque character, but I can only allude to
it here. For reasons that are obvious, no estimate
worth having can be formed of the amount of dis-
tilled liquor in the United States that evades the gov-
ernment tax, but the figures would doubtless reach
considerable magnitude.
The daily capacity of grain distilleries in opera-
tion February, 1895, was 85,237 bushels, equivalent
to an output of 358,620 gallons ; and in the previous
month there was a daily output of 364,559 gallons.
I select January and February as the season when dis-
tilling is in full operation. In August, 1895, there was
a daily mashing capacity of 68,454 gallons. August is
a month in which distillation is almost at a standstill.
It should be stated here that the official compila-
tions as to the number of distilleries are apt to be mis-
leading. A very small number of distilleries are prac-
tically turning out the entire output. Officially, it is
stated that in February last Illinois had but 1 5 stills
in operation, with a daily capacity of nearly 100,000
gallons ; while North Carolina is credited with nearly
300 stills, with a daily capacity of but 3148 gallons.
In other words, the number of stills in operation ap-
pears nominally very large, approaching 1000, while
actually the bulk of the output is produced by less
than a tithe of that number.
The number of fruit (apple, peach, and grape) dis-
tilleries registered and operated during the year end-
ing June 30, 1894, was 3633, with an average daily
capacity of not quite one gallon each. Of these
North Carolina had 1115 stills, or nearly one third
of the whole; Virginia had 1230, leaving outside
of these two States but 1288 stills.
The average quantity of grain used in the pro-
duction of spirits during the last ten years is about
22,ooo,ooobushels; in the year ending June 30, 1893,
it reached 29,000,000 bushels, which produced 1 26,-
545,000 gallons. Fully half the grain used is corn.
An important collateral industry is the feeding of
cattle and hogs on the distillery slops. During the
year ending June 30, 1894, this industry showed the
following results :
CATTLE FEED FROM DISTILLERIES.
NUMBER.
62,123
Number of cattle fed at regular grain POUNDS.
distilleries
Increase in weight of cattle 14449,516
Average increase in weight 232
Number of hogs fed
Increase in weight of hogs 1,901,748
Average increase in weight 74
Total increase in weight of cattle and
hogs 16,351,264
To this increase, Illinois contributed
8,000,000 pounds, or about one half.
25-554
The amount of spirits withdrawn from distillery
warehouses for scientific purposes and for use in the
arts in the United States is very small, but increasing.
Thus in the year ending June 30, 1892, there were
39,400 gallons; in the following year, 54,552; and
in the next year, ending June 30, 1894, the amount
was about 70,000— an increase of 15,000 and 14,-
500 in each successive year. Of the withdrawals
in 1892, 65,000 gallons were alcohol and 4500
neutral or cologne spirits, out of a total of 69,700
gallons.
The entire production of alcoholic spirits from
grain in the United States for the last fiscal year,
ending June 30, 1895, was 80, 1 16,374 gallons ; with-
drawn tax-paid, 74,200,720 ; and remaining in bond,
138,33x^94,
The tax paid to the Internal Revenue Department
for the maintenance of the government from alco-
holic liquors for the last fiscal year, ending June 30,
1895, was $79,862,627, or $5,396,674 less than the
previous year.
When one compares these figures, reaching over
80,000,000 gallons, and the enormous revenue ac-
cruing to the benefit of the general taxpayers, with
the petty production for private use by farmers a cen-
tury back, the unexampled progress must be appa-
rent without further comment. The spirit interest has
interwoven itself with the life of the nation, so that
it has become one of the most trustworthy sources
of national income.
The necessity of increasing the revenue has fostered
legislation favoring a higher tax, which unfortunately
tends to bring among the masses inferior goods ; for
the higher the impost the lower the standard of
quality must be in order to make up for the increase
in cost. The purpose of every legislator should be
to promote the public health and welfare by mak-
ing it possible for producers to furnish a wholesome
beverage, thoroughly matured, at the minimum cost.
To tax it to death does not accomplish this object.
It naturally forces the production of cheap imita-
tions, which are made out of common spirit, and
often sold the same day that they are made. That
whisky requires several years' time for properly ma-
turing is universally acknowledged. Those brands
alone should be, in my opinion, allowed to be sold
that can show natural aging.
In European countries alcoholic liquors, such as
brandy, etc., are allowed to remain in bond until re-
quired by the trade for consumption. This plan al-
ways insures a large stock of matured goods in bond.
There is no reason why our government should force
the tax-payment at any given period.
412
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
In order to extend the trade into foreign countries,
the privilege of bottling whiskies in bond, and re-
ducing them to such proof as may be required for
commercial purposes, should be extended to the dis-
tillers of this country, as it is in Canada, where the
government, alive to the interest of its manufactu-
rers, affixes a stamp to each bottle, thus certifying to
the genuineness of the contents. This would infuse
confidence and promote export trade, as well as
afford an opportunity for our citizens to secure a
genuine and wholesome beverage. The trade in
Canadian whiskies has been steadily on the increase
for years, owing to this privilege so wisely conferred
by the Canadian government.
The inequality in the conditions affecting our dis-
tillers as contrasted with those of Canada may be
better understood when it is remembered that at the
last session of Congress our government increased
the tax on our product from ninety cents to $1.10
per gallon, and lowered that on foreign spirits from
$2.50 to $1.80, thus letting down the bars to those
who already had superior protection from their own
governments. This was not merely the special privi-
lege of bottling in bond, but the ruling, in the case
of the Canadian government, that forbade the impor-
tation of any whiskies from the United States unless
in loo-gallon packages. It should be stated that our
packages run about forty-five gallons, larger packages
not being found practicable for aging purposes. This
action of the Canadian government amounts to
practical prohibition, and results exactly as was in-
tended, for none of our whisky now finds its way
into that country.
The history of the large combination of American
distillers of alcoholic liquors is too recent and some-
what too complicated for me to dwell upon at this
time. I have endeavored to show the enormous
importance of the distilling industry not only to the
government, but to the people of the United States,
and my conclusions with reference to legislation on
the subject of distilled spirits are arrived at with a
sincere desire to foster and assist by intelligent means
the progress of one of America's greatest industries.
Marvelous as has been that progress during the cen-
tury now closing, it is but reasonable to suppose that
the record of the next hundred years of our history
will be such as to reflect the greatest credit upon the
intelligence and enterprise of American distillers.
CHAPTER LX
THE BREWING INDUSTRY
BEFORE the use of written words the lips of
our Aryan ancestors articulated a sound
which expressed for them food and drink,
and the source from which these things came. This
source was the bearded barley of the Himalayas.
The porridge and the bread of the Aryans, made
from the first grain used for common food, were the
crudest forms from which has sprung the brewing in-
dustry. It was not until the Sanskrit writers, in their
earliest record of the living language, drew the dis-
tinction, that separate words were used to express
barley, bread, and beer; and even now a euphoni-
ous ear will catch the similarity in these three words,
which, though much changed from their Aryan pro-
totypes, still have a musical resemblance which tells
us of the kinship of the three. The story of beer is
therefore as old as the story of humanity.
In the most remote antiquity the Egyptians
brewed, as did the Assyrians, and later the Greeks
and Romans; and from time immemorial the Teu-
tonic race have been famous for their skill in the pro-
duction of the beverage for which they praise to-day,
in poem, prose, and story, in song and eulogy, the
name of the very modern but acknowledged patron
saint of brewing, Gambrinus. The word for beer
has been preserved, as the art of brewing has been
developed, by the Teutons. The Egyptians called
beer zythum, and the Greeks and Romans, cerevisia;
but the word " beer " in some form has always been
used to express to the Teutonic mind the ancestral
beverage.
While the written history of brewing begins with
Egypt, and the development of the art of brewing
should properly be accredited to the Teutons, to
America must be credited the attainment of scientific
perfection in the craft, which, like mathematics, has
become in the United States practically a finished
science. When the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plym-
outh Rock they brought with them from England,
in addition to the fiery potables they were wont to
drink, — " and not a man afraid," — some of the sturdy
brew of " merrie England," and also a knowledge of
the brewer's craft, which they soon turned to practi-
cal use in the land of their adoption.
The Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, with their
long clay pipes puffing clouds of blue smoke, were
wont to sip from generous tankards the beer of the
Netherlands, and crack their jokes around the tav-
ern table, the while they grew fat, sleek, and jolly
under the gentle influence of their beneficent national
beverage. Good William Penn found solace in
the brew made under his direction for his young,
peaceful, but aspiring colony ; and farther south,
in old Virginia, many were the happy gatherings
where harmony prevailed, and memories of their
old home far across the sea rose through their com-
panionable chat, like the foam upon the treasured
musty ale.
In New England, where the stronger spirits most
prevailed, our good forefathers passed a law grant-
ing immunity from taxes and a prize in money to that
energetic brewer who should brew in a single year
more than 500 barrels of honest beer ; for, said they,
not only does this peaceful beverage add to the pros-
perity of the farmer by giving him a market for his
grain, but, by supplying to our worthy citizens a bev-
erage of much milder form, adds much to the temper-
ance and good order of Massachusetts Colony. So
peacefully, with full approval, and yet with growth
most unfortunately slow, an infant industry was
formed, which in 1795 produced upward of 2,000,-
ooo gallons.
Legislative enactment, in the varying application
of intelligence and ignorance, liberality and fanati-
cism, has, since the days of the Egyptians, hampered
or caused the expansion of the brewing industry.
While, prior to 1795, it does not appear that legis-
lation adverse to the brewing industry was enacted,
legislation favorable to the cheaper distribution of
distilled liquors brought the more potent beverages
413
414
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
to the front, and held in check the brewing indus-
try, which would otherwise have proved itself more
powerful in promoting temperance than any organ-
ized legislative effort. During the administration of
Washington, Congress, in considering the very first
federal -revenue law, was impelled by consideration
of public morality to take cognizance of the impor-
tance of fostering the brewing industry. But oppo-
sition from various quarters arose. In 1789 Madi-
son expressed the hope that the brewing industry
would strike deep root in every State in the Union,
and Thomas Jefferson gave expression to the opin-
ion that "no nation is sober where the dearness of
fermented drinks substitutes ardent spirits as a com-
mon beverage."
In 1810 the domestic production of malt liquors
amounted to 5,754,735 gallons. There were only
129 breweries in this country, most of them pro-
ducing ale and porter exclusively. In 1847 the in-
creasing German immigration brought into America
not only a demand for their favorite beverage, lager-
beer, which gave a new impetus to the trade, but
also a practical knowledge of the craft ; and lager-
beer breweries began to spring into existence wher-
ever a sufficient number of Germans had settled
to make these little local establishments possible.
Americans sniffed suspiciously at this form of beer,
which was new to them, and allowed difference in
race to prejudice them against what was destined
to be their national beverage. Owing to the
greater popularity of lager-beer, the production of
ale and porter at the present time does not exceed
1,000,000 barrels.
The modern reformer, when confronted by the in-
disputable fact that the Germans are one of the most
temperate of nations, if he be somewhat fanatical in
his prejudices, blindly closes his eyes, and in his at-
tack upon what he is pleased to call the moral wrong
of the production, sale, and use of intoxicating bever-
ages, forgets to discriminate, and thereby misses in
many instances the true solution of the whole ques-
tion, which is such legislation as will make reasonably
accessible the mildest of the great family of beverages,
and hold under proper restrictions those which are not
beneficial in their effects. Long before German im-
migration had assumed any noteworthy proportions
the wisest and most patriotic statesmen of our coun-
try were so alarmed at the increased use of fiery in-
toxicants that they would have resorted to any legiti-
mate means to force breweries into existence.
Therefore, between these conflicting elements, it was
a constant struggle for existence with the brewing
industry up to 1862.
It remained for the exigencies of the great Civil
War to bring forth such excise measures as should
put the lighter beverages prominently to the front.
Heroic measures were taken to raise the revenue
and save the government from impending disrup-
tion. The internal-revenue laws came into exis-
tence. These threw the burden of taxation heavily
upon ardent spirits. The passage of these laws in
July, 1862, was practically the beginning of the de-
velopment of the present vast brewing industry. It
was like the breath of new life, and the extraordinary
advancement of brewing from that day to this has
been a surprise and wonder to all who have watched
its history.
It was in 1862 that the Brewers' Association was
formed. A moving cause in its organization was a
desire for self-protection, and yet the fundamental
principle which brought the American brewers to-
gether was patriotic, for they associated for the pur-
pose of jointly aiding the government in perfecting
the revenue laws relating to malt liquors, enforcing
by their moral influence the collection of the rev-
enue without discrimination, and of securing them-
selves by organization against unjust treatment. To
its credit be it said that the Brewers' Association has
never lost sight of its fundamental purpose. Born
in the throes of the great struggle for national unity,
it has served the government faithfully and well, and,
instead of criticism and opposition, it has evinced
sympathy and cooperation in the efforts of the gov-
ernment to establish proper internal-revenue laws,
and has willingly acquiesced in the payment of this
species of taxation.
The War of the Rebellion also brought about a re-
markable revulsion of feeling in regard to our foreign
population and their customs, especially as to the
Germans and beer drinking. When the war put the
patriotism of the people to a crucial test the Germans
were found among the first to rush to arms in defense
of our country. Old prejudices vanished before the
bond of sympathy soon warmly established, like mist
before the sun. This brotherhood established by
the Rebellion has never died out, but has constantly
grown stronger, and has cemented us together as
one race. We have contributed to one another many
of our habits and peculiarities, many of our cus-
toms. The habit of drinking fermented beverages,
which was a characteristic of the Germans, is prob-
ably the highest contribution to temperance and
good order which has come to us from any foreign
nation.
The production of beer from the year 1863, ex-
pressed in barrels, is as follows :
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
410
BEER PRODUCTION FROM 1863.
YEAR.
BARRELS.
Y«A«.
BARRELS.
1863..
2,006,625
1880. . .
12,800,900
1864
7.141,381
1881
14,125,466
186;
3,657,181
1882..
16,616,364
1866
<J.IK,I4O
1883
I 7. 340.424
186?
6t2O74O2
1884
18,856 826
6,146,663
1885
I9,2l6,63O
1869
i'.; U.c;;
2O 28Q O2Q
l870.. .
6,574,617
1887 . .
22.460.34 1
1871
7,740,260
iSSS. .
24, ; 60,682
1872
8,659,42 7
1889..
2<,OQ8.76<;
1871
0.613,323
1800 ..
26,820,0; 7
l87A
Q,6oo.oo7
1801
1876
Q.4C2.6Q7
1802
-; r .i"-i CIO
1876
9.OO2.7C2
180-1
77 876.466
1877
9,810,060
1804.
33,780,084
1878
10,181,158
l8qc
l87Q
IO.C8Q,Q77
SALES OF BEER IN THE PRINCIPAL CITIES OF
THE UNITED STATES, FOR THE YEAR
ENDING MAY i, 1895.
Crnis. BARRELS.
Albany 364,694
Baltimore 591,557
Boston 1,025,948
Brooklyn 1,941,395
Buffalo 618,743
Chicago 2,687,947
Cincinnati 1, 145,806
Cleveland 429,665
Detroit 365,215
Louisville 212,695
Milwaukee 2,208,654
Newark 1,209,058
New York 4,732,300
Philadelphia 1,852, 106
Pittsburg 435,880
Rochester 554,815
San Francisco 500, 183
St. Louis 1,943,084
Syracuse 252,202
Toledo 245,609
Troy 230,539
These statistics, showing a development in the last
century from 2,000,000 gallons in 1795 to 1,030,-
368,088 gallons in the year 1895, speak more elo-
quently of the marvelous advance than glowing lan-
guage. There are now 2200 brewing establishments,
by far the greater number making the lager-beer of
the Germans. They range in magnitude from the
little home brewery of some German garden to the
gigantic business enterprise with an annual output
exceeding 1,000,000 barrels. In the earlier years
brewing was carried on exclusively for local markets.
Within the last thirty years, however, the shipment
of beer in barrels from one point to another began,
and now train-loads of the delectable, foam-capped
beverage leave the great shipping cities daily. The
capital invested in brewing in the United States is
about $400,000,000. The value of the annual out-
put of the industry is $200,000,000. It contributes
to the support of the United States government, in
internal-revenue taxes alone, over $33,000,000. The
local taxes paid by it aggregate over $3,000,000
more. The development of the bottling of beer
from nothing to a business which, in one brewery
alone, amounts to over 42,000,000 bottles annually
— mostly quarts — is a remarkable evidence of growth.
Over 50,000 men are directly engaged in the brew-
ing of beer in the United States.
These material manifestations of progress by the
mere aggregation of figures are based upon a deeper
and broader advance in the application of science to
the art of brewing. The establishment of brewers'
schools, where theory and practice could be brought
into constant association, where experiments could
be conducted, and where a thorough training could
be given to brewers' sons who, with an inherited ten-
dency to skill in the art of their forefathers, desired
to equip themselves with a higher knowledge of the
craft, has brought into the field of competition a
skill in the manipulation of the various processes of
the brewing industry which has made possible a
greater advance in the art of brewing since the year
1870 than had occurred from the time of Queen
Elizabeth and the days of Shakespeare's Falstaff.
Only thirty years ago the principles governing the
production of beer were, as we see, essentially un-
changed. The interval of seventy years from 1795
had brought no noticeably valuable advances in the
art. While it is true that chemistry, physiology,
and botany, and, above all, the science of mechan-
ics, passed through great development during the
first half-century, it apparently meant nothing for
the art of brewing save a thorough and necessary
preparation of the various factors which were to be
the foundation on which should rest the subsequent
extraordinary progress— a progress destined to make
brewing one of the most delicately scientific arts of
manufacture. During the last quarter of a century,
however, the brewing industry, taking advantage of
every development of modern analytical investiga-
tion and mechanical advance, has been subject to
radical improvements in all directions. It is espe-
cially indebted to Pasteur, Naegeli, Hansen, Lint-
ner, and Delbrueck, who have contributed immea-
surably to the creation of the higher art of brewing.
The dawn of an unsuspected and unparalleled
line of improvement in the science of brewing, con-
sidered especially with reference to the physiology
of fermentation, appeared with the labors of Pasteur,
published to the world in his " fitudes sur la Biere "
in 1876, in Paris, and later with those of Hansen
at Copenhagen, concerning the physiology of the
416
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
organisms of fermentation. From time immemorial
beer had been known as a perishable product, but
the causes leading to its spoiling were shrouded in
deep mystery. Pasteur proved that the diseases of
beer might be traced to the growth of injurious
organisms, especially bacteria, and indicated the
ways and means of preventing these diseases through
the application of a rational process of wort cooling
and fermentation. Hansen advanced an important
step further by proving that the brewer's yeast might
become, by contact, under given circumstances, with
similar organisms closely resembling it, more injuri-
ous than bacteria. He crowned his labors by de-
veloping and introducing a process of cultivating
yeast, in absolute purity and in large quantities, from
a single germ, thereby also preventing the introduc-
tion of wild yeast into the beer. These improve-
ments were soon applied upon a large scale in the
leading breweries of the United States, and brought
about material changes in their practical operation.
After the principle of preventing infection had once
been proclaimed, the old-fashioned open cooler was
replaced by a suitable closed apparatus, often in-
geniously constructed, which came up to the high-
est requirements of the new science. Closely con-
nected with this was the use of filtered air, rendered
germ-free, and of sterilized water, so that to-day the
product of the brewer's art, in its highest and ideal
perfection, is absolutely protected against infection.
From the moment it leaves the brew-kettle, passes
over the coolers, and through the process of ferment-
ing and lagering, and up to the moment when it is
served as a refreshing and perfect beverage, perhaps
thousands of miles from the place of its production,
it is protected by constant, accurate, and effective
scientific safeguards.
Physiology and theoretical chemistry, hand in
hand, have made brilliant progress in the science
of brewing. The most complicated processes in the
malting of barley, in mashing, and also in fermen-
tation have been thoroughly explored and have
come to be perfectly understood during the last few
decades, and have laid solid foundations for the
activity of the maltster and the brewer. An impor-
tant place in this connection must be assigned to
an invention which has brought about more radical
changes in the brewery than any other, and which
alone has made possible the introduction of numer-
ous other improvements and innovations. This in-
vention is the ice-machine and the application of
artificial refrigeration upon a larger scale. Hardly
twenty-five years ago the imperfect ice-machine of
Carre1, a Frenchman, was considered a curiosity,
while to-day the model machines of Linde and De
la Vergne are common property of all the brewers.
Americans may now justly claim to produce in
the United States, not only the best beer, but, as is
acknowledged by European authorities, the most
durable beer, in the world. It is a peculiar, although
incontrovertible fact, that the latest scientific theories
of brewing, credit for which belongs to European
investigators, have always found the most rapid and
complete application and introduction in practice in
this country. Professor Delbrueck, of Berlin, and
Professor Schwackhoefer, of Vienna, who were sent
to America in 1893 by their respective governments
as authorities upon brewing, for the purpose of study-
ing American breweries, were agreed in acknow-
ledging this fact, and in their official reports did
honor to the American brewing industry as they had
found it. We have particular reason to be proud of
the fact that a special process of fermentation which
has been in use in this country for years has recently
been proved by Professor Delbrueck to be the most
rational process, judged from a scientific standpoint.
This shows clearly to what an extent the theories of
European investigators have been practically applied
in this country before they were ever practically
adopted abroad.
It would be going too far to recount all the differ-
ent improvements to which the science of brewing
has led us within the last few years. But there is
one innovation that deserves to be mentioned, which
has attracted attention of late, and which had its
origin in our own country. This is the collection
and utilization in its purity of the carbonic-acid gas
formed during the process of fermentation. This
process makes it possible to abandon the former
" kraeusen " process, the old-fashioned method of
carbonating. The finished product may now be
charged with the finest natural carbonic-acid gas.
This collection of the by-product of fermentation
produces such a superabundance of carbonic-acid
gas that it may readily be liquefied, and is destined
to crowd out of the market all other products of its
kind. As Americans we have particular reason to
be proud of this achievement, because the solution of
the problem had been attempted in vain by European
authorities for many years.
During a trip covering the year just passed it has
been the pleasure of the writer to satisfy his curios-
ity, as never before, by a careful investigation of the
methods of foreign brewers, and, by taking the
American method of perfect brewing as a standard,
to reach certain conclusions which, as an American,
he is proud to hold : first, that while the deep, analyt-
FRED. PABST.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
417
ical, concentrated, and tireless mind of foreign, and
especially German, scientists may, by more pains-
taking and patient application, have attained for the
world a better knowledge of the fundamental the-
ories on which success in the art of brewing should
rest, it took the broader grasp, the more nimble and
daring intelligence, of the American mind, and the
tremendous energy of American enterprise, to put
these theories into practical operation ; second, there
is an overwhelming difference in advanced methods,
to the credit of the American ; third, the American
schools of brewing are now in the very van of scien-
tific progress, and, even if equaled, are certainly not
surpassed in the higher technical instruction which
they give.
As beer is to become, if it is not already, the
national beverage of the United States, and as in-
creasing skill in the art will contribute immeasurably
to the good health and temperance of the race, it is
indeed a source of congratulation that the brewers
of America are fully alive to the responsibility which
rests upon them, and that they realize in the deepest,
broadest sense that their own prosperity, their own
advancement, and their own standing in the com-
munity depend upon the development of their craft
to the highest ideal of perfection.
CHAPTER LXI
AMERICAN TOBACCO FACTORIES
IT seems almost incredible that tobacco, the dried
product of a common herb, possessing the
properties of a narcotic stimulant, and in no
way necessary for man's sustenance, should have
from its first introduction progressively increased in
consumption wherever used throughout the habitable
globe ; that, despite the opposition of the combined
powers of the church, the state, and the moralist to
its use, its consumers being the subject of ridicule,
persecution, and even mutilation, and itself an ob-
ject of universal taxation, it furnishes at the present
time not only one of the largest staples of commerce,
but provides as well one of the leading manufactur-
ing industries of mankind.
The use of tobacco being nowhere mentioned
prior to the discovery of America, at which time the
species Nicotiana Tabacum, now almost universally
grown, was being extensively cultivated by the na-
tives, it need excite little surprise, when its universal
use is considered, that the tobacco industry has been
inseparably connected with the history, growth, and
prosperity of our country from its earliest settlement
to the present time, or that the few thousand pounds
grown and exported by John Rolfe, of the colony
of Virginia, in 1612, should have increased to the
present enormous yield of 500,000,000 pounds per
annum, grown upon an area of 693,000 acres, by
205,000 planters. About one half of this product
is consumed at home, and the remainder exported,
mainly to Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain,
and Italy.
The high prices which tobacco commanded upon
its introduction into England in 1586 greatly stimu-
lated its production in the colonies. The foundation,
however, for the enormous tobacco industry of our
country was laid through an event which afterward
proved a most potent factor in the destiny of the
American Republic. In August, 1619, the captain
of a Dutch man-of-war sold to the planters upon the
James River, Virginia, twenty negroes (African cap-
tives), the first slaves introduced into the territory of
the American colonies. Within the next one hun-
dred and fifty years the slaves in the colonies num-
bered over 290,000, scattered from New England
to Georgia ; and under the stimulus of this class of
labor the annual exports alone of the staple exceeded
70,000,000 pounds.
In Virginia, as early as 1633, tobacco-inspection
warehouses were established, to which all tobacco
grown for sale was required by law to be brought
before the last day of each year, for examination by
colonial inspectors appointed for that purpose, " who
shall cause all the badd and ill-conditioned tobacco
instantlie to be burnt, and the planter thereof to be
disabled further from plantinge any more of that
commodite of tobacco." These inspectors, being
sworn and placed under heavy bonds, were author-
ized to issue formal receipts for accepted tobacco.
Such receipts by law became a legal tender, and
under the title of " tobacco notes " were for over a
century the medium of domestic and foreign ex-
change, being receivable for all debts, public and
private, at a value per pound annually fixed by the
Assembly, the price being based upon quality, sup-
ply, and demand. The price was therefore uniform,
whether the tobacco was raised for sale or for use as
a legalized circulating medium in barter. The pen-
alty for forging these certificates, as well as against
inspectors who issued them fraudulently, was death.
During the year 1633 the barter price of tobacco
was fixed at ninepence a pound; but in 1639 so
great was the over-production and disregard of
quality that its cultivation was restricted, and all
debts ordered satisfied in tobacco at threepence a
pound. Indiscriminate planting was stopped by
the governor and council of Virginia, with the con-
sent of the Assembly, and each planter restricted
to zoo plants, on each of which should be left but
418
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
419
nine leaves. As late as 1732 tobacco was made a
legal tender in Maryland, on a basis of value of one
penny a pound.
A marked change is shown in the distribution of
the tobacco crops of the United States during the
past one hundred and fifty years. In 1750 tobacco
cultivation was confined almost entirely to Virginia
and Maryland. In 1840 the product of the eight
leading producing States, expressed in millions of
pounds, was: Virginia, 75; Kentucky, 55; Ten-
nessee, 29; Maryland, 24; North Carolina, 16;
Missouri, 9 ; Ohio, 5 ; and Indiana, 2 ; while in
1890 the product was: Virginia, 49; Kentucky,
222; Tennessee, 36; Maryland, 12; North Caro-
lina, 36; Missouri, 9; Ohio, 38; and Indiana, 7 —
the production of Kentucky alone being 33,000,000
pounds in excess of the other seven States combined.
Retarded for a time by the War of the Revolution,
and again, later, by the Civil War, the cultivation
of tobacco has constantly increased, until at the
present time its production is the largest in its his-
tory. Its cultivation has always been confined to
the belt where it originated — a tract of about 600
miles in length by 300 in breadth, comprising por-
tions of the States of Maryland, Virginia, and Ken-
tucky, the northerly counties of North Carolina, the
Cumberland Valley in Tennessee, the Miami Valley
and Ohio River counties in Ohio, and small areas in
Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, and Mississippi. These
districts produce nearly all of the manufacturing and
export tobaccos of the United States, exclusive
of the tobacco grown for cigars, which is a more
northerly product.
The manufacture of tobacco and snuff is, so far
as known, coeval with its cultivation. The practice
of snuff taking was observed by sailors sent by
Columbus to the isle of Cuba on his second voyage
in 1494. In 1502 Spanish explorers on the South
American coast noted the habit of tobacco chewing
among the natives, and a few years later European
explorers crossing the North American continent
observed the universal custom of pipe smoking
among the Indians, both as a symbolical and a social
custom. Small factories were early started through-
out the colonies to supply, in some form convenient
for handling, those localities where either tobacco
was not grown or the larger proportion of settlers
were engaged in other pursuits.
The earliest form of general use, by which each
individual became, as it were, his own manufacturer,
was the rubbing and breaking up of tobacco in the
hand for pipe smoking. As the outside demand
became greater the dried tobacco was rubbed by the
manufacturer through sieves of various meshes to
the inch, to suit the convenience and taste of con-
sumers. This procedure, with improved methods of
handling, is still the process by which granulated
smoking-tobacco is made. A machine for mak-
ing cut smoking-tobacco was described in 1732 as
located in a Virginia manufactory, the output of
which was 54,000 pounds per annum. In 1765 the
manufacture of snuff was in comparatively few
hands, the product being ground entirely by hand
through the use of iron mortars and pestles. Before
the adoption of the Constitution the leading snuff
industries of the country, which were located at
New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, had attained
considerable proportions.
About the year 1760 the entire tobacco industry
was revolutionized by the introduction of water-
power. This in turn being later replaced by steam
resulted in the industry becoming centralized in the
hands of a few manufacturers. As late as 1794,
under a law for the encouragement of manufac-
turers, State aid was conjoined with private capital
in New York for the construction of a combination
mill near Albany, to manufacture and grind, roll
and cut tobacco, Scotch and rappee snuff, mustard,
chocolate, starch, hair-powder, split pease, and hulled
barley. In this mill all the operations, even to
the spinning of tobacco, were performed by water-
power, the tobacco-mill having a capacity of 100,-
ooo pounds per annum. This plant, at that time
the most extensive and perfect of its kind in the
country, well illustrates the advance of the tobacco
industry during the past one hundred years.
The subdivisions of the industry at the present
time maintain about 800 factories, of various capa-
cities, located in all sections of the Union, at least
4 of which are snuff-mills, each producing annually
upward of 2,000,000 pounds of snuff; 10 plug-
tobacco factories, each with an annual output rang-
ing from 5,000,000 to 20,000,000 pounds; 15
smoking-tobacco factories, whose annual produc-
tion varies from 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 pounds
each ; and 5 factories in each of which are annually
manufactured from 1,000,000 to 4,000,000 pounds
of fine-cut chewing-tobacco. In all there are 50
factories manufacturing over i ,000,000 pounds each,
and nearly 200 factories producing over 100,000
and less than 1,000,000 pounds each.
Manufactured tobacco and snuff were early the
objects of internal taxation by the general govern-
ment. Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Trea-
sury, in 1 790, recommended a tax of ten cents per
pound on snuff, and six cents on other kinds of
420
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
manufactured tobacco, as likely to produce annually
from $90,000 to $100,000, computing the quantity
of these articles manufactured as exceeding 1,500,-
ooo pounds, and reasoning that "this, being an
absolute superfluity, is the fairest object of revenue
that can be imagined." Acting upon this recom-
mendation, an act was passed by Congress in 1794,
under which snuff and sugar were combined in one
bill as objects of internal-revenue taxation, the tax
on the former being eight cents and the latter two
cents per pound, the import duty being respectively
fixed at twelve cents and four cents, and the draw-
back or allowance for export the same as amount
of internal tax paid.
In 1795 the internal duty was taken from snuff
and laid on snuff-mills, for the reason that " the tax
was difficult of collection and liable to great eva-
sion " ; and " it appearing that a snuff-mill works
about half the year, — that is, 156 working-days, —
yielding per mortar an average of forty-five pounds
of snuff per day, it follows that $561.66 per mortar
per annum, as the equivalent of eight cents per
pound, would yield a similar revenue." The tax was
therefore fixed as follows : every mortar worked by
water-power, $560 ; every pair of millstones, $560 ;
every pestle other than that worked by hand, $140 ;
every hand-pestle, $112; and every mill in which
snuff is manufactured by stampers or grinders, $2240
— providing at the same time for a drawback of six
cents on each pound exported. The internal-rev-
enue tax on snuff collected for the six months end-
ing March 31, 1795, at the rate of eight cents per
pound, amounted to $3887.84^, while for the six
months ending September 30, 1795, including the
mill tax, the collections increased to $i 1,662, and for
the year ending September 30, 1796, the collections,
under the law taxing the snuff-mill, etc., aggregated
$17,124.80. This last system of taxation caused
great dissatisfaction among manufacturers, since the
duty was paid on the plant regardless of the quantity
manufactured ; and as the government paid out for
drawbacks to some manufacturers an amount ex-
ceeding that received for revenue, the inequality of
the operations of this law was so apparent that the
act was suspended in 1 796, and again by subsequent
sessions of Congress until 1 800, when it was repealed.
During the past thirty-two years the tax on to-
bacco has proved a source of enormous revenue to
the government. During this period the contribu-
tion through taxation of the tobacco industry to the
support of the general government approximates
close to $1,000,000,000, being nearly one quarter
of the receipts from all sources of internal revenue
between July, 1863, and July, 1895, and nearly ten
per cent, of the entire income of the government
from customs, internal-revenue and direct taxes,
sales of lands, premiums on bonds, and other mis-
cellaneous sources during the same period of time.
By the United States internal-revenue laws the
tobacco industries were divided for purposes of taxa-
tion into two distinct classes : one the manufacture
of chewing and smoking tobaccos and snuffs; the
other the production of cigars, cheroots, cigarettes,
etc. The factory production of tax-paid tobacco
and snuff in the United States for the calendar year
ending December 31, 1893, exceeded 250,000,000
pounds, subdivided into plug chewing, 148,000,-
ooo ; fine-cut chewing, 14,000,000; smoking-to-
bacco, 76,000,000; and snuff, 12,000,000 pounds.
Other materials aggregating 70,000,000 pounds
annually — mainly sugar, licorice, malt, etc. — are
added in various proportions during the manufacture
of these products, to suit the taste of consumers.
The amount of tobacco and snuff exported during
the same period was 15,500,000 pounds. In addi-
tion it is estimated that fully 28,000,000 pounds,
representing the local consumption by growers, es-
cape taxation. Statistics covering a series of years
show that the percentage of consumption in our coun-
try of the various kinds of manufactured tobacco
and snuff is : plug, 62 per cent. ; smoking- tobaccos,
27 per cent. ; fine-cut, 7 per cent. ; and snuff, 4 per
cent. During the past twenty-five years the im-
proved methods of manufacture introduced in all
the subdivisions of the tobacco industry have ma-
terially reduced the cost of production, with a cor-
responding decrease in price to the consumer. In
manufactured tobacco and snuff the processes of
cleaning, ordering, casing, drying, cooling, cutting,
dressing, flavoring, weighing, packing, stamping,
labeling, with the additional procedures in the cigar-
ette manufacture of carding, rolling, wrapping, and
cutting off, are now generally carried on by machine
instead of hand labor.
The general consumption of the product of the
tobacco industries of the United States has increased
enormously during the past thirty years. Such in-
crease has not been relative in its subdivisions.
Based upon the collections of the internal-revenue
department, the production of manufactured tobacco
and snuff during 1863 was 24,000,000; 1865, 37,-
000,000; 1875, 119,000,000; 1885, 180,000,000;
and 1895, 259,000,000 pounds. A comparison of
the reports of the internal-revenue department with
the last published report for the calendar year end-
ing December 31, 1892, shows that the consumption
PIERRE LORILLARD, JR.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
421
of plug tobaccos has increased during this period 66
per cent. ; fine-cut chewing, decreased 18 per cent. ;
smoking, increased n 7 per cent. ; and snuff, increased
201 per cent. The large number of cigar makers
who have qualified as tobacco manufacturers for the
purpose of sorting, sieving, and packing for sale
their refuse scraps, clippings, and cuttings, accounts
in a measure for the increased consumption of
smoking-tobacco. The increase in consumption of
snuff from 4,000,000 pounds in 1880 to nearly
12,000,000 in 1893, due in a large measure to its
use for dipping purposes, is entirely at variance with
the generally accepted view of the public that the
use of snuff is fast becoming a relic of the past.
During the fifteen years ending June 30, 1895, the
annual consumption of tax-paid cigars, cheroots, etc.,
increased from 2,682,000,000 to 4,164,000,000, an
increase of 56 per cent. ; and during the same
period the annual consumption of tax-paid cigarettes
has increased from 567,000,000 to 3,328,000,000,
an increase of 486 per cent. While this increase
has in both instances been annually progressive, it
is apparent that the greater increased consumption
in cigarettes has been at the expense of the cigar in-
dustry ; for while the production of the former dur-
ing the years 1894-95 was 270,000,000 in excess of
the average for the past five years, the production
of cigars, cheroots, etc., declined 250,000,000 dur-
ing the same period of time. In addition there are
annually manufactured for export about 2,000,000
cigars and 400,000,000 cigarettes. Aside from the
cultivation, preparation, and handling of the raw
material, according to the latest available statistics
the various tobacco industries of the United States
are carried on by 11,351 establishments, with an in-
vested capital of nearly $100,000,000, employing
129,423 persons, whose annual wages aggregate
$53>336>°6°. using material costing $79,491,209,
and having miscellaneous expenses incident thereto
aggregating $23,000,000.
I have thus endeavored, so far as the space al-
lotted me would allow, to trace the progress and
present status of the tobacco factories in the United
States from the early cultivation of the raw material
in the colonies to its present extensive production,
both as the basis for one of our largest domestic in-
dustries, as well as furnishing one of the largest of
our staples for export.
CHAPTER LXII
AMERICAN SOAP FACTORIES
S'
i OAP making in the American colonies was
largely a household art in the beginning.
The thrifty housewife, utilizing the kitchen
fats saved in the dripping-pan, made her own soft
soap for domestic purposes, and even a species of
hard soap, usually molded in the form of a ball, and
of a quality that, though considered excellent in
those days, would "scarcely be used by housekeepers
of to-day.
If the soap boiler proper, as distinguished from
the household maker, attained little prominence in
the early days, soap was still a product the prepara-
tion of the material for which afforded a flourishing
colonial industry. So early as 1608, when the sec-
ond ship sent out from England to the Jamestown
colony arrived, there were landed a number of
Germans and Poles, skilled craftsmen, among whom
were several proficient in handling fat and soap-
ashes. The superabundant timber of the virgin
woodlands afforded every advantage to this indus-
try. In 1621 soap-ashes for export to England
were worth from six shillings to eight shillings per
hundredweight, and fifty years later the settlements
in that part of the country now included in Maine
and New Hampshire derived their chief wealth
from the fat and soap-ashes there produced.
The candle and the tallow dip, then the ordinary
means of illumination, have always constituted in
their manufacture a branch of the soap maker's
business, but in those days it was a far more impor-
tant one than it is to-day. Newport, R. I., had a
number of these establishments by the middle of the
last century. Boston and all New England were
likewise active in this trade, owing to the large
whaling interests there, which furnished the sperm-
oil.
Such was the status of the soap industry at the
beginning of the century which comes within the
limits of this article. While there were small soap-
boiling establishments in nearly all the large towns
by 1795, it is safe to say that they did not produc
a great deal over $300,000 annually. The bulk o;
the product consumed was, as has already been
stated, home-made.
The earliest moving cause in the evolution of a
small and comparatively unimportant trade into a
great industry was the discovery by Leblanc, a
Frenchman, in 1791, of his celebrated process for
the manufacture of soda on a large scale. This
discovery, although made so early, was not appre-
ciated in its full significance until more than thirty
years later, when chemical manufacturers and soap
makers began to avail themselves extensively of the
supply of soda thus cheaply afforded.
Prior to this latter event, however, the trade
foundations of the great soap industry of to-day
were laid by a few persons who were long-sighted
enough to perceive the future requirements, and
courageous enough to believe they could fulfil them.
Among these, one of the oldest, as it is one of the
largest, in both present and past importance, was
the establishment of William Colgate, founded in
1806 in a modest way in the old building in Dutch
Street, where the warehouses and offices have re-
mained to this day. Fancy soaps were at this time
unknown, and the makers of the American product
contented themselves with a very common grade of
soap. The same conditions prevailed in both Phil-
adelphia and Boston ; but so rapid was the advance
that by 1835 we were supplying all the home de-
mand, with the exception only of certain of the fin-
est qualities of soap, the secret for making which
was possessed by some English or French manufac-
turer. We were in addition heavy exporters, sending
abroad, principally to England, nearly as much
every year as we are bringing in from there to-day.
The total imports of soap for 1835 were but $36,-
218, while of our home-made product of soap and
candles there was shipped abroad $534,467 worth.
In Great Britain the soap industry was hampered at
:
n
422
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
423
this time by a duty originally imposed in 1711, and
not repealed until 1853. Despite this drawback, it
is interesting to note, as showing the growing com-
mercial and industrial importance of soap, that dur-
ing the fifty years which followed 1801 the annual
production increased from the amount as previously
stated to over 197,600,000 pounds.
The increased importance of the soap industry
thus developed in England, together with the many
new uses to which the product was soon being put,
especially as an auxiliary in other manufacturing
processes, was speedily felt on this side of the water.
Nevertheless the stimulation manifested itself rather
in increased production than in improved quality.
Fifty years ago we were employing substantially
the same methods and processes that were used in
England. New England was then the principal
center of the manufacture for the United States,
although New York and Philadelphia were gaining
prominence. At that time filling materials were
practically unknown, and " settled " soaps were
merely run into the wooden frames and crutched
for hours, until rendered thick from cooling, or were
finished by boiling down. The material was ladled
by hand from the kettles into the frames, or put into
buckets or tubs and carried and emptied into the
frames. The kettles themselves had cast-iron bot-
toms, to which a wooden curb was fastened by means
of cement. The composition of this cement, which
was used to prevent leakage, was regarded at that
time as a great trade secret, especially when the
cement was capable of preventing the leakage for
some length of time. The waste lye was run off
through a pipe reaching through the wooden curb
to a point near the bottom of the kettle. The ket-
tles were heated by open fire, and the contents were
kept from burning by stirring them with a long iron
rod flattened at the end. The lye was made by
leaching wood-ashes, since the use of caustic soda,
although dating back to the beginning of the cen-
tury, had made very slow advances.
While processes and methods were thus, compar-
atively speaking, at a standstill during the first four
decades of the present century, the soap industry,
nevertheless, steadily advanced in importance, and
prepared itself for the wonderful development that
immediately followed the discoveries of Chevreul
in 1841. He demonstrated the true principles of
saponification, and no later improvement, whether it
be in the introduction of the steam processes or in
the discoveries and uses of the many new vegetable
and animal oils, has been of greater importance.
The impetus thus given is shown in the fact that
only one year later, in 1842, there were produced
in the United States alone 50,000,000 pounds of
soap, 18,000,000 pounds of tallow candles, and
3,000,000 pounds of wax and spermaceti candles,
while exports to the value of more than $1,000,000
attested the preeminence we were gaining in the
markets of the world. Of the total soap product at
this time Massachusetts was credited with over
one quarter, and of the spermaceti she produced
nearly all.
Five years later, at the time when our house re-
moved its factory to Jersey City, the soap industry
had grown to great proportions. There were many
manufacturers of soaps and candles in New York
at this time, and among the more prominent of
these I recall Enoch Morgan, James Buchan, John-
son, Vroom & Fowler, D. S. & J. Ward, J. D. &
W. Lee, Holt & Horn, Patrick Clendenen, John
Alsop, C. W. Smith & Company, John Taylor &
Sons, W. G. Browning & Company, Lee A. Corn-
stock, John Buchanan, George F. Penrose, John
Ramsey, John Kirkman, and John Sexton. The
manufacture of fancy soaps had already been
begun, and in 1850 was established on an exten-
sive scale by our house. Shaving-soap, always in
great demand in those days, when beardless faces
were the vogue, was also greatly improved in this
decade, and many other of the common toilet
necessities of to-day were either first brought out
or developed to comparative excellence at this
time.
In common, too, with almost every manufactur-
ing industry of importance, the making of soap was
soon facilitated by the introduction of machinery.
American ingenuity, always on the alert for labor-
saving devices, has since been active in this field as
in others, and the improved and extensive equip-
ment of the modern factory testifies to its success.
Manual labor, which was the rule in the earlier days,
has been replaced in many of the various processes
by machinery that performs the work more expe-
ditiously and at a reduced cost. There are specially
constructed machines designed and adapted for
almost every step in the different processes of manu-
facture where their introduction has been either fea-
sible or of advantage. A technical specification of
the nature and functions of these machines would
not only require too much space, but it would be
tedious as well to the general reader, and is therefore
omitted.
There are various sources for the fats used in the
production of soap. The berries of the soap-tree of
South America and the West Indies possess excel-
424
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
lent natural qualities for the manufacture of soap,
and the bark of the Quillaia Saponaria, from Peru,
is used in Liverpool for washing woolens. In Cali-
fornia the roots of the Phalanjium Pomaridianum
are found in great abundance, and have the odor of
brown soap ; these are used for washing clothes.
Different kinds of oils are used in the manufacture
of soap, these offering different proportions of ap-
proximate principles of fatty bodies, such as stearine,
palmitine, and oleine. Different kinds of alkalis
used to unite with the fats produce soaps of vary-
ing hardness, soda making a harder soap than pot-
ash. The hardest soap is made by the use of stearine
and soda, and the softest soap by the union of
oleine and potash. Glycerine is often combined
with fatty acids, since it is broken up by the action
of the alkali, the glycerine then existing in a free
state in the soap, or it may be extracted as a sepa-
rate product. The principal fats and oils used in the
manufacture of soap are tallow, and palm, rape,
poppy, linseed, hemp-seed, and olive oils.
Olive-oil is used in the manufacture of Castile,
Marseilles, and other marbled and plain soaps of
southern Europe. Similar results by similar methods
are attained in this country. The best oils for mar-
bled soaps are obtained from Naples. The Spanish
oils are also valuable for the same purpose. The
oils from the East are not so rich in stearine, and
contain a certain amount of green pigment, which
make them less desirable. Mottled or marbled soaps
are obtained by sprinkling the surface of the freshly
made substance successively with lyes less and less
concentrated. The saponification— which by its
very Latin derivation shows that the manufacture
existed among the Romans— is conducted ordinarily
by boiling the fat with a solution of caustic potash
or soda. Most fats require a long boiling with an
excess of alkali, but lard, beef-marrow, and the oil
of sweet almonds may be saponified merely by an
agitation with caustic soda at an ordinary tempera-
ture.
Soaps are scented and colored by mixing coloring
substances and volatile oils or odorous matter with
them. Sometimes, for the purpose of producing a
medicated soap, antiseptics, such as carbolic acid,
creosote, chloride of potash, and sulphur, are mixed
with the ingredients. A soap for the use of taxider-
mists in preserving skins is produced by the addition
of arsenic. A large industry has developed in this
country in scouring-soaps, which are produced by
the addition of fine sand or pumice-stone to the
ordinary soap when in its plastic state. The secret
of the cleansing power of soap has never been satis-
factorily explained ; yet while it is generally supposed
to be due to what is known as "hydrolysis," or
partial decomposition into free alkali and insoluble
acid soap, it is probably due, as a matter of fact,
to the power of the solution to emulsionize fats.
The processes of soap manufacture are three in
number, according to the ordinary classification.
First, there is a process of direct union of free fatty
or resinous acid and alkalis, a process which is not
much in use. Second, there is the treatment of fats
with definite quantities of alkalis, in which the
glycerine remains with the soap. This is known as
the "cold process." Third, there is the treatment
of fats by boiling them with indefinite quantities of
alkali and lye. The great bulk of soaps is hard
soap, and this is of three kinds — the curd, the mot-
tled, and the yellow. The finest quality of the curd
soap is obtained by the use of tallow, the lye being
concentrated by the use of close steam till the soap
is hard. In producing mottled soap, while the pro-
cess is the same as in the manufacture of the curd,
darker fats are used, and concentration of the fats
is not carried to such an extent as with the other.
When there is a natural mottling of the soap it is
an absolute guaranty that there is no undue amount
of water present in it. The artificial mottling of
soap is carried on to a very large extent for legiti-
mate purposes ; but there are those who practise it
for the express purpose of fraud. The mottling
process is largely used for laundry-soaps. Yellow
soaps contain more or less resin, the finest qualities
of such soap being secured by the use of light-
colored resin and the best grade of tallow. The
finishing or " fitting " of yellow soaps requires long
experience on the part of the manufacturer for satis-
factory results. The method of finishing all kinds
of soap is a variable factor, depending upon the
precise kind of article desired.
In the production of cocoanut or marine soaps
the cocoanut-oil is saponified by the use of strong
lye without salting. After several days of harden-
ing the blocks of soap are first cut into slabs by
means of a thin steel wire, and the slabs are then
transformed into bars. These bars are stamped
with the name of the maker and the brand of the
soap, and are then ready for the market.
The demand for cheap soap has resulted in the
introduction and extension of a process known as
"filling." In this various substances designed to
increase the detergent power of the soap, or to in-
crease its bulk and weight, thus lessening its power,
are introduced into the soap after it leaves the
"copper." This process is also known as "crutch-
SAMUEL COLGATE.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
m
ing." The substances used as adulterants are water,
talc, clay, chalk, sulphate of baryta, etc. In the
production of soft soaps impure solutions of potash
soaps are combined with glycerine in caustic lye,
which results in transparent jellies.
In the production of toilet-soaps good curd or
yellow soap is used as the basis, special precautions
being taken against the presence of free alkali.
The soap is cut into shavings. It is then partially
dried, and, coloring-matter and perfumes being
added, the composition is passed several times be-
tween granite rollers to make it homogeneous. The
mass is then " clotted," which consists in the use of
great pressure to form the soap into bars. These
bars are then cut and stamped. The lower qualities
of toilet-soaps are generally made by the "cold
process." Transparent soaps are produced by dis-
solving good dry soap in alcohol, pouring off the
clear solution, and then removing the bulk of the
spirit by distillation. The soap remaining is then
put into molds, cooled, and preserved for several
months in warm chambers, until it becomes quite
transparent. Many kinds of transparent soaps are
made by the '' cold process," the transparency being
accomplished by the addition of sugar. Glycerine
is often incorporated with opaque and transparent
soaps for emollient effects, while for disinfecting
purposes carbolic acid, cold tar, eucalyptus-oil, and
other substances are added. The commercial value
of all soaps depends upon the percentage of fatty
anhydride present in them.
Having thus briefly reviewed the technology of
the soap-manufacturer's art, we return to the consid-
eration of the historical features of the subject. In
the decade ending in 1850 the annual production of
soap and candles had reached nearly $10,000,000,
and by 1860 it had increased to still greater propor-
tions. Its extent in that year, as well as in each
succeeding decade, as gathered from the census re-
ports of the United States, was as follows :
most important phase of this industrial success.
This is contained in the fact that American soaps
are strong competitors in the markets of the world.
Not only do we produce enough and to spare for
our own wants, but we also send annually great
quantities to foreign countries. Showing as this
does the superiority of the American article, it is
most gratifying; and the fact that England and
France are still the most noted producers of toilet-
soaps does not prevent me from declaring that we
are producing here at home at the present time arti-
cles every bit as good, if not better than those
made abroad, and that it is a question of only a
short time before our superiority in this direction
will be as freely conceded as it now is in the com-
moner grades of soap. The development and pres-
ent importance of our foreign trade can be gathered
from the subjoined table, giving the exports and
imports of soaps by half-decades during the past
twenty-five years :
EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF SOAP, 1870 TO 1894.
YEAH.
IMPORTS.
EXPORTS.
1870...
$627,352
1875. .
6Q1AQ1
1880
$306,386
728,680
1881;.
4OI.ICO
O07,2Oi
1800...
<;<;!, 440
I,IOQ,OI7
1804
1:78,810
T.I7Q 722
Modern conditions have greatly changed the
methods of soap manufacturers. Commencing with
the introduction of the first pressed cakes of laundry-
soap in this country by B. T. Babbitt, innovations
and improvements have followed thick and fast.
Upon the breaking out of the Civil War resin be-
came very scarce, and other substances were added
to the soap as substitutes. After the war, when
resin became plentiful, there was a tendency to
revert to the old methods of making soap ; but late
THE SOAP INDUSTRY, 1860 TO 1890.
YEAR.
ESTABLISHMENTS.
EMPLOYEES.
WAGES.
CAPITAL.
MATERIAL CON-
SUMED.
VALUE OF
PRODUCT.
1860
6l4
1 24.7
$18464,574
1870. ..
614.
4,422
$1.025,0^1
$10454,860
$15,232,587
22,535,337
1880
620
15,280
2,219,531
14,541,294
19,907444
26,552,627
1800
£78
28,687412
«, 600,385
The above figures demonstrate most clearly the
growth that has been made by the soap-manufactur-
ing interests, but they do not express another and
in the sixties the process of hardening resin soaps by
the use of sal-soda was first introduced by A. Van
Haagen, at that time of Philadelphia, Gradually
426
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the process of recovering glycerine from waste-soap
lye was perfected in England, but it has been im-
proved upon here, so that now refined and chemi-
cally pure glycerine is made by a goodly number
of soap factories. The manufacture of soap-powder
pertains to this same period. White floating soap
was first put upon the market by Procter & Gamble,
of Cincinnati.
The introduction of sapolio also marked a new
era in the soap business. It was a combination of
true soap and scouring substances in such propor-
tions as to increase to the highest point the advan-
tages of each. The Bath brick of the scullery
has gone since its advent, and the principle upon
which sapolio was established is now utilized in
many forms. Intense competition has burdened
the business with enormous advertising expenses,
with all the various ramifications thereon attendant,
such as the " gift trade " of premiums in crockery,
glass, lithographic art work, and household novelties.
While the maker of the housewife's soaps has had
increased by these things his cost of production, the
manufacturers of the finer grades have been equally
alert to keep abreast of the demand for artistic
wrapping and boxing, with the result that thousands
of dollars are annually expended for the purely
esthetic requirements of the business. Despite all
this, the best grades of soap are now made in the
United States. In quality, form, and preparation
they are equal to those made anywhere in the world,
while along the line of mechanical facilities for oper-
ating upon large quantities of material with the
greatest economy of time and labor this country is
acknowledged to take the lead among the nations
of the earth.
Among the great firms engaged in the business
to-day, and identified with its progress, I might
mention B. T. Babbitt, N. K. Fairbank & Company,
James S. Kirk & Company, D. S. Brown & Com-
pany, Procter & Gamble, and Colgate & Cox.
Thus far I have avoided all mention of perfu-
mery, notwithstanding the fact that its manufacture
is sometimes a subsidiary branch in the great soap
establishments. The subject, nevertheless, is one
that must properly come up for discussion by itself.
Under the general head of perfumery are grouped a
great variety of articles for toilet use, such as cos-
metics, pomades, toilet powders, oils, depilations,
dentifrices, sachet powders, etc. In their manufac-
ture has been developed a business which more than
almost any other demands the extremest care, taste,
and experience on the part of the maker.
The hardy settlers and stern old Puritans who
first came to America had little use and less desire
for the sweet-smelling unguents of the Old World
dandies. Accordingly it was long before perfumery
was established as a manufacture here. In the
proud old Tory days before the Revolution, and in
the time of the Confederation which followed, per-
fumery, cosmetics, and the like were necessities in
the toilet of any person of fashion. The carefully
powdered hair and cue, the delicately scented shirt-
frills and handkerchief, were all indispensable to the
gentleman who wished to appear in good society.
The supply of these articles, however, was drawn
almost altogether from abroad, from the great cen-
ters of England and France. The housewife's rose-
water, steeped lavender, and kindred preparations
were generally known, and made by each family in
quantity requisite for its own needs. As in the case
of soap, so with perfumery, it took many years and
changed conditions to bring the industry from the
kitchen to the factory.
There are several methods for the extraction of
the odoriferous qualities of plants, and for imparting
them to spirits and oily bodies. For pomades the
best fat to be procured is the marrow of the ox.
An inferior source lies in the mixture of beef and
veal fat and lard. These are beaten in a mortar,
melted in a water-bath, and then strained. Before
cooling the essential oil for the perfume is stirred
in, or else flowers are thrown in and left to digest
for several hours. These flowers are then removed,
the fat is again heated and strained under heavy
pressure, and fresh flowers are supplied. This pro-
cess, known as maceration, is continued for several
days ; the product is then strained.
For delicate plants such as jasmine, tuberose, and
cassia, the process employed is known as " absorp-
tion " or enfleurage. In this process square wooden
boxes, the bottoms of glass plate, are used. In
these is first placed a layer of purified lard and suet
mixture ; freshly gathered flowers are placed upon
this layer every morning. The boxes are then shut,
and the grease finally acquires a very strong odor
from the flowers. For the saturation of oils the
boxes are supplied with a wire bottom, on which
cloths are placed after being soaked in the oil.
After being charged the cloths are placed, several
of them together, under heavy pressure, and the
perfumed oils are thus regained. For the scenting
of spirits the process of maceration or of digestion
with essential oils is conducted in a water-bath and
by agitation for several days. Perfumed soaps are
prepared by substituting pomades for the grease in
the mixture of soda lees.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
427
The meagerness of the records, and the difficulty
of distinguishing between the perfumer who dealt
in imported articles, or at best made but one or two
special and usually simple scents in limited quantity,
and the actual American manufacturers, prevent as
full a history of the early trade as might otherwise
be given. It is certain that perfumery was being
made in the United States, and in steadily increas-
ing quantities, during each of the first four decades
of the present century. The impetus given to the
soap industry early in the forties by Chevreul's dis-
covery reacted directly upon the production of per-
fumery. Many Frenchmen, skilled perfumers, had
come to this country, and were vying with the
American manufacturers for a trade that was already
most profitable. Distinctive American scents had
been introduced and become popular. "Ask for
Cream of Lily," or " Take nothing but Violet Blos-
som," were advertisements illustrating the extent to
which the business had grown. Among the manu-
facturers in New York at this time — between 1845
and 1847 — were Thomas Jones, John Lindmark,
Levi Beals, John Wyeth, Johnson, Vroom & Fowler,
James Mackey, John Ramsey, William White &
Company, Robert Reed, and John B. Breed. The
French element in the trade was represented by
such houses as J. M. de Ciphlet, F. F. Gouraud,
August Grandjean, and Eugene Roussel.
Since then the growth of the trade has been
great, and its importance is steadily increasing as
American processes, intelligence, and push bring
their forces to bear in competition with the great
established centers abroad. The foreign strongholds
the native herbs, as at Mitcham in Surrey, where
tons of peppermint and lavender are often distilled
at a single operation. In the northern part of the
United States there are many essences and essential
oils manufactured from scented woods and herbs,
such as wintergreen, sassafras, and others. Pepper-
mint and roses and other flowers from gardens, fruits,
seeds, and other vegetable products are unlimited
sources for the production of this fascinating article.
The delicate scent of flowers has been traced to
certain oils and ethers which may be elaborated
from substances possessing even disgusting odors.
The fetid fusel-oil affords odors which, obtained by
processes of differentiation, are the same as those of
fruits. Oils from gas-tar yield bitter-almond odors
or the essence of mirbane. These are extensively
used for perfuming soaps, and in many instances are
regarded as preferable for culinary uses and the
perfuming of confectionery. Then we have per-
fumes supplied from animal sources as well as vege-
table. Among these are musk, civet, ambergris, and
hartshorn. Ambergris supplies the most ethereal
odors for use in combination with other perfumes.
The greatest number of materials for perfumes (this
being twenty-eight) conies from the south of France.
Among these are the orange and the jasmine flowers,
which form the bulk of the product, and also violets,
roses, cassia, and tuberoses.
The progress made by the perfumery industry in
this country during the last four decades is best
shown in the following tabulated statement, taken
from the United States census reports for the years
noted :
PERFUMERY AND COSMETICS, 1860 TO 1890.
YEAR.
ESTABLISHMENTS.
EMPLOYEES.
WAGES.
CAPITAL.
MATERIAL CON-
SUMED.
VALUE OP
PRODUCT.
1860 1.
e-jc
ifcCQ7.oOO
$1.222 4OO
1870. .
64
727
$260,415
I,I72,QOO
$892,219
2,029,582
1880
67
741
2l8,2W
81-5,827
1,201.400
2,203,004
1890
1^7
IMK
877,670
2,I28>4-2O
4.63O.I4 1
The statistics for this year include the manufacture of fancy soap.
of the perfumery industry are London, Paris, and
the Mediterranean cities of southern France, to-
gether with the rose-growing regions of Turkey and
Persia, where the manufacture of the ethereal attar
of roses is carried to great extent. Cannes is famous
for its roses ; Nimes for its thyme, rosemary, astic,
and lavender ; Nice for its violets and mignonettes ;
Sicily for its lemons, bergamot, and orange perfumes.
In England some essential oils are obtained from
Of our foreign trade in perfumery there is little
to be said, except that its condition has been and
is encouraging. France and England, controlling
as they do to a great extent the supply of raw ma-
terial, have long been regarded as rulers of the per-
fumery market. Nevertheless this country has for
many years sold abroad nearly as much as it has
imported. In 1894 the figures show the imports
to have been of the value of $427,850, while the
428
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
exports were but $327,835, or, speaking roundly,
$100,000 less. This disparity, however, is not so
great as it at first appears, owing to the fact that the
classification of imports includes toilet preparations
of every description, embracing many articles ex-
cluded under the export grouping. At home, with
an annual production at the present time certainly
amounting to, if not in excess of, $5,000,000, the
progress of the last quarter of a century is plainly
evident. Among the great firms active to-day in
that advance throughout the country are Colgate &
Company, Lundborg, Lazell, Dalley & Company,
Theodore Ricksecker, Solon Palmer, Alfred Wright,
E. W. Hoyt & Company, Lanman & Kemp, and
Frederick Stearns & Company. Great, however, as
has been the advance made here in both this and
the soap industry, it is safe to predict that its full
extent is not yet reached. An increased capital, a
wider knowledge of applied chemistry, and a devel-
opment of internal resources are all tending to place
us at no distant day in the very van of the world's
progress in these industrial arts.
CHAPTER LXIII
THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY
EBOR is a combined effort of the animal king-
dom, led by mankind, to overcome and sub-
due, to subject and utilize, the forces of na-
ture. Labor, in its various relations, assumes forms
that are both psychical and physical in character.
Groups, combinations, and subdivisions of these
forms exist in the great war of the animal kingdom
on the solid, fluid, and gaseous conditions of matter.
Hence it is that the chemist and chemical manu-
facturer are called on to organize and array the final
attack on all known productions of the earth, of the
water, and of the atmosphere.
The chemical industry of the United States may
be considered to have been in existence, at this
time, about one hundred years. In common with
other leading manufactures, it has reached large
proportions. Almost every State of the Union has
within its borders chemical establishments of some
kind. The industry is affected for good or bad in
quick response to the rise and fall of other manu-
factures.
Before the Revolution no chemicals were made
here. From such reports as are obtainable it ap-
pears that 8000 pounds of copperas were made in
Vermont in 1810, and a smaller quantity in Mary-
land in the same year. In 1813 alum was made in
the latter State. Oil of vitriol was manufactured in
Philadelphia in 1793. At Baltimore, the manufac-
ture of chemicals, paints, and medicine began in
1816. When the census of 1820 was taken, two
chemical establishments were reported from New
York City.
By 1830 the industry was firmly established in the
United States, Philadelphia being the center. There
were then thirty firms in the business in the entire
country, having a capital of $1,1 58,000, and produc-
ing articles valued at $ i ,000,000 per annum. Alum,
copperas, and some other articles were manufactured
to the almost entire exclusion of the foreign product.
The list of productions included calomel and various
other mercurial preparations, Glauber's and Rochelle
salts, tartar emetic, ammonia, sulphate of quinine,
oil of vitriol, tartaric, nitric, muriatic, oxalic, and
acetic acids, aqua fortis, Prussian blue, chrome-
yellow, chrome-green, refined saltpeter, refined
borax, refined camphor, acetate and nitrate of lead,
prussiate of potash, and bichromate of potash.
The totals for the chemical industry, as reported
at the Eleventh Census (1890), are shown in the
following summary:
CHEMICAL INDUSTRY IN 1890.
Number of establishments reporting 1,626
Capital:
Direct investment $168,462,044
Value of hired property $12,098,037
Miscellaneous expenses $13,640,343
Average number of employees 43, 701
Total wages $25,321,077
Officers, firm members, and clerks:
Average number 5.953
Total wages $7,464,260
All other employees :
Average number 37.748
Total wages $17,856,817
Cost of materials used $106,521,980
Value of products $177,811,833
The principal products reported, and their quan-
tity and value, were as follows :
CHEMICAL PRODUCT: QUANTITY AND VALUE.
PRODUCTS. QUANTITY. VALUE.
Alum (Ibs.) 93,998,008 $1,616,710
Coal-tar products 687,591
Dyeing and tanning ex-
tracts and sumac (Ibs.) 187,906,911 8,857,084
Gunpowder and other ex-
plosives " 125,645,912 10,993.131
Fertilizers (tons) 1,898,806 35,519,841
Paints, colors, and var-
nishes 52,908,252
Pharmaceutical prepara-
tions 16,744,643
Potash and pearlash .... (Ibs.) 5,106,939 197, 507
Sodas " 333, 124,375 5>432>4°o
Sulphuric acid 1 ' 1,384,776,972 5,198,978
Wood-alcohol and acetate
of lime 1,885,469
Chemicals (including all
acids, bases, and salts
not heretofore enumer-
ated) 24,751,974
All other products 13,018,253
Total value $177,811,833
1 Includes 581,536,200 pounds manufactured, and con-
sumed in the manufacture of fertilizers, for which no value is
given as sulphuric acid.
429
430
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The most important of all chemical products is
sulphuric acid, which maintains its supremacy over
any other known article in promoting the manu-
facturing interests of the world. By the census of
1890, 105 establishments were reported as engaged
in the manufacture of this acid, the production being
1,384,776,972 pounds. Of this quantity, 581,536,-
200 pounds, estimated as being worth $2,480,495,
were produced and consumed as an intermediate
product by establishments manufacturing fertilizers.
Taking this into account, the total value of all sul-
phuric acid manufactured in the United States dur-
ing 1890 was $7,679,473, an increase in value of
109.71 per cent, over 1880, and in quantity of
348.49 per cent. The large increase in the number
of establishments and in the quantity produced, to-
gether with the reduction in price, indicates the
advance that has been made in general manufactures
in the United States during the decade intervening.
Of the 1,384,776,972 pounds reported, 1,009,863,-
407 pounds were 50° Beaum6 acid, 20,379,908
pounds were 60° acid, and 354,533,657 pounds
were 66° acid. Reduced to a uniform strength of
50°, the total production for the year was 1,567,-
138,777 pounds. Supposing all of the chambers to
be running 365 days in the year, we find the amount
of 50° acid and equivalents manufactured in each
twenty-four hours to be 4,293,531 pounds, or 2147
tons.
From technical considerations, manufactured
manures are the next in importance to sulphuric
acid in the category of chemical productions. The
total of 1,898,806 tons of these materials produced,
indicates, by no inaccurate measure, the extent of
the farming interests of the country. When we
consider that about 300 pounds of artificial fertilizer
are commonly used to one acre of land, it is seen
that 12,658,700 acres were enriched by its use.
Dr. David T. Day, chief of the Division of Mines
and Mining, states that 375,000 tons of fertilizers
were consumed during the last census year in the
Southern States, leaving 1,523,806 tons as the
consumption of the Eastern, Middle, and Western
States. The increase in manufacture over 1880 is
I>171.353 tons, or about 161 percent. Thesefigures
show that large areas of our country are becoming
unprofitable to farm without the use of these aids to
fertilization; and the existence of factories in the
States of California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,
Minnesota, and Wisconsin is indicative of the grad-
ual exhaustion of soil that was virgin in character
less than twenty-five years ago. These facts tend
to show that the time is approaching when none of
our unmanured soils will yield in remunerative
quantity. They prove that economies are coming
into practice in the utilization of material that for-
merly ran to waste.
The farmer occupies a reversed position to that of
the manufacturer of artificial manures. By prodigal
wastefulness and culpable ignorance he permits im-
mense quantities of manurial matter to find their way
to the sea, while bemoaning his lot and sighing over
the yield of virgin lands in comparison with that
of his own ; whereas the manufacturer, by the aid
of chemical skill and mechanical devices, converts
refuse matter into valuable merchandise.
The figures presented here yield consolation to
the farmers of the Atlantic slope. When the not
distant time arrives for the extinguishment of an
agriculture that is based on primordial soil, the
lands of these regions will recover their lost value ;
for the facts herein submitted tend to show how
closely fertility is allied to the production of manu-
factured manures, and this manufacture can be
carried on most profitably at those points where
supplies of foreign crude material can be obtained,
and where seaboard transportation can be made
available.
The decade between 1880 and 1890 is rendered
memorable to the chemical industry by the perma-
nent establishment of the manufacture of soda salts
in the United States. Previous to that time all at-
tempts to produce these articles successfully from
common salt had failed. The causes that led to re-
peated failure and the consequent loss of large sums
of money are to be found in the high cost of labor,
the absence of customs-duties on bleaching-powders
or chloride of lime, and the exceedingly low rates
of ocean freight that rule on this class of mer-
chandise.
The Solvay Process Company, of Syracuse, N. Y.,
has been founded on the experience and skill of the
now noted Solvay, of Belgium. But, however satis-
factory the process may be, it has a drawback that
affects the production of many articles in the United
States, — notably bleaching-powders, paper stock, and
certain chemicals, — inasmuch as all the chlorine of
the common salt employed is lost, passing away as
valueless chloride of calcium. Consequently the
United States remains dependent upon Great Britain
and Germany for its supply of so important an article
as bleaching-powder.
A question of the greatest interest centers in this
problem— how to overcome this defect in our manu-
facturing system. The efforts of inventors have for
many years been directed toward the solution.
HENRY BOWER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
481
Theory has marked out a number of paths, but
practice has not yet succeeded in following any of
these to a satisfactory result. It may be remarked
that, in addition to bleaching-powders, the important
chemicals, alizarin, chlorate of potash, and chlorate
of soda, are not found among the salts produced in
this country, and that these articles, so essential to
the textile interests, are free from customs-duty.
The States of the Union often provide chemical
manufactures relatively to their natural products;
but the markets for chemicals are situated chiefly at
such attractive points as the great centers of textile
manufacturing, of dyeing and bleaching works, and
of the oil-refineries and artificial-manure works;
hence, chemical works are to be found principally at
or near these points. It appears from the report for
the Eleventh Census on the dyeing and finishing of
textiles, considered as a distinct industry, prepared
by Mr. P. T. Wood, that chemicals and dyestuffs
to the value of $8,407,693 were consumed by the
248 establishments engaged in this industry, to which
must be added $11,278,970, the value of chemicals
and dyestuffs consumed during the census year by
textile manufacturers who do their own dyeing and
finishing, making a total of $19,686,663 as the value
of this class of chemicals consumed in the textile
industry.
The leading articles of raw material and their
derivatives used in chemical manufactures, briefly
stated, are as follows:
RAW AND MANUFACTURED CHEMICALS.
RAW MATERIAL.
Brimstone or sulphur ;
pyrites containing sul-
phur.
Nitrate of soda.
Salt (common).
Potash salts.
Nickel ores.
Chromic-iron ores.
Antimony ores.
Bismuth ores.
Copper ores.
Cobalt ores.
Iron ores.
Lead ores.
Manganese ores.
Mercury ores.
Zinc ores.
Gold.
Silver.
MANUFACTURED ARTICLES
OR DERIVATIVES.
Oil of vitriol, or sulphuric acid,
the most important of all
chemicals.
Nitric acid and all nitrates.
Soda ; muriatic acid.
Bichromate of potash, prussiate
of potash, and many other
combinations.
Salts of nickel, for plating.
Chromates of potash and soda.
Alloys ; medicinal salts.
Alloys ; medicinal salts.
Sulphate of copper, or blue vit-
riol.
Oxide of cobalt.
Sulphate of iron, or copperas.
White and red lead ; litharge.
Disinfectants ; chlorine.
Calomel ; white and red pre-
cipitate ; vermilion.
Oxide of zinc.
Chloride of gold.
Nitrate of- silver.
RAW MATERIAL.
Innumerable vegetable
productions.
Linseed.
Cotton-seed.
Cotton.
Corn and all cereals.
Wood.
Argol or tartar.
Borate of lime.
Barytes.
Chalk.
Iodine.
Limestone.
Magnesia.
Ochres.
Crude phosphates.
Fats.
Animal matter, such as
horns, hoofs, and leather.
Oils.
Coal (bituminous).
Clays.
Corundum.
Cryolite.
Silica or sand.
Tin.
Atmospheric air.
Water.
MANUPACTURID AITICUU
on DKRIVATIVM.
Dyeing extracts ; alkaloids ;
acids ; and pharmaceutical
preparations.
Paints.
Soap ; oils used in cooking.
Guncotton.
Glucose; alcohol; starch.
Explosives; oxalic acid; potash;
acetic acid ; paper.
Tartaric acid ; cream of tartar.
Borax.
Paints.
Whiting.
Sublimed iodine ; all iodides.
Lime ; carbonic acid.
Carbonate and sulphate of mag-
nesia.
Paints.
Phosphorus.
Soap; glycerine.
Prussiate of potash; artificial
manures.
Soap ; perfumes.
Ammonia ; coal-tar colors ; cya-
nide of potash.
Alum.
Aluminium.
Alum; soda.
Silicate of soda ; glass.
Tin-salts, for dyeing purposes.
Oxygen.
Gas ; hydrogen ; oxygen.
The innumerable variety of combinations made
of the raw materials named renders it impossible to
state them in any limited space. The variety of raw
materials, and of the numberless combinations thereof,
gives to the chemical industry a unique position. No
other branch of manufacture can approach it in
scope, in the necessity for its existence, or in the
knowledge required for its prosecution.
The merchandising in chemicals is of a complex
character, and is based chiefly on chemical tests,
both of the raw materials and of the manufactured
articles. The markets of all quarters of the globe
are scanned, and supplies, in many instances, are
carried in large quantities, owing to the remote
points of their production. The chemical industry
affords one of the largest sources for transportation
to railroad and water carriers, in raw materials as
well as in partly finished and wholly manufactured
stuffs. In many articles the competition of countries
enjoying low prices for labor is difficult to meet. On
the other hand, through advantages not enjoyed by
foreign manufacturers, considerable exportation of
certain chemicals is going on at this time.
The industries or trades dependent upon the manu-
facture of chemicals may be enumerated as follows :
432
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
INDUSTRIES USING CHEMICAL PRODUCTS.
Woolen manufacture.
Cotton
Silk
Oil-cloth
Explosives
Pyroxylin
Paint
Glucose
Artificial manures.
Oil refining.
Tanning.
Glass manufacture.
Soap
Artificial ice manufacture.
Pharmaceutical
Pyrotechnic
Electrical or galvanic manu-
facture.
Printing-inks manufacture.
Paper manufacture.
Bleaching-works.
The plant of a chemical works involves the use
of a larger area of land than is necessary in other
manufactures, as the buildings adaptable to the
operations are usually only one story in height,
nearly all the work being done on the ground floor,
where large furnaces, grinding-mills, and engines
can be placed. This is one reason that the capital
required for the conduct of these manufactures
seems disproportionate to the value of the products,
in comparison with other branches of industry.
In the eyes of one unversed in the art, a chemical
works may appear to be only a mass of rude furnaces,
old pots, and rough machinery ; yet the establish-
ment may contain appliances of the most costly de-
scription, such as underground flues ; furnaces of the
most modern construction ; iron castings fashioned
in innumerable forms and weights ; copper vessels,
coils, and stills; thousands of fire-bricks and other
forms of refractory material ; steam boilers of the
most economical pattern ; lofty chimneys ; powerful
engines ; expensive pumps ; mills of different kinds
for the grinding and powdering of a great variety of
materials ; leaden chambers for acid making, with
tanks, towers, and accessories of the same metal ;
platinum apparatus and stills for concentrating sul-
phuric acid ; and chemical earthenware, vitrified to
resist the action of acids. Indeed, it may be stated
that a chemical works of any magnitude contains
and requires every manufacturing appliance used or
known, excepting those adapted especially to weav-
ing and printing.
Skill and scientific knowledge are needed in the
successful conduct of manufacturing chemistry at
this time to an extent un thought of by the men who
were good workers twenty years ago. The com-
petition of scientific Germany in many departments
of chemical manufacture has forced the progress of
an industry that was yet in its infancy two decades
ago. The laboratory, well equipped with careful
workers and good apparatus, has become the pulse
of the whole establishment. Each step in the pro-
cesses is indicated in the unerring results obtained
by the analyst and tester, while the huge and costly
machinery of the factory is the counterpart, to a
great extent, of the miniature equipment of the
laboratory. Chemical engineering is an important
factor in the adjustment of plant to the exigencies
of the difficult and tortuous operations. Some in-
stitutions of learning have recognized this fact by
adding to their curriculum a course of chemical
engineering. The advance in the manufacture of
chemicals in the United States during the past
twenty years has been marked, not by many changes
of processes, but essentially by the new appliances
furnished by engineering skill.
The processes used in making chemicals are al-
most as varied as are the articles produced, but cer-
tain leading steps are essential to all, as grinding,
furnacing, dissolving, separating, evaporation, filtra-
tion, and crystallization. The laws governing chem-
ical constitution are closely followed at each step,
and the processes improved and revised, from time
to time, by the aid of mechanical contrivances.
These changes are rendered more and more neces-
sary as the strong competition of the age sweeps
away old and unsuitable appliances.
Many chemical operations demand a long time
for the production of finished material. Crystalliza-
tion is of slow growth in many instances, and de-
composition takes place very gradually in others;
therefore another reason presents itself for the
abnormal amount of capital required to carry on
this branch of industry. Both crystallization and
decomposition are hastened or retarded by many
physical conditions ; heat and cold, intense motion,
and absolute quietude are in their turn called to the
aid of the chemist. When we speak of crystalliza-
tion we should bear in mind the fact that by this
process the great purity of commercial chemical
salts is obtained — sometimes, it may be, by frequent
dissolvings and as many distinct crystallizations.
The chemical industry takes rank as the fourth
among the great manufacturing divisions of the
country, the three preceding it being (i) iron and
steel, (2) woolen goods, and (3) cotton. (It may be
well to explain that cattle killing, the making of
clothing, and of boots and shoes, and any other as-
sembling industries are not considered manufacture
proper.) The chemical industry represents a diver-
sity of interests such as center in no other depart-
ment, and it affords to the United States a source of
activity for labor, skill, and capital that is highly en-
couraging to those who have pride in the progress
of their country.
CHAPTER LXIV
THE LEAD INDUSTRY
C^D was known, probably, to the earliest peo-
ples of the earth. Its use antedates written
history, and its abundant occurrence in nature,
taken in connection with the ease with which it is
reduced from its ores, leads archaeologists to infer,
even when little mention and few traces are found,
that the ancient nations were familiar with its prop-
erties. Egypt, when the pyramids were building
and the golden serpent of the Pharaohs still repre-
sented living royalty, knew the plumber's metal and
used it, either as an alloy for her wondrous bronze,
or in native form for small images and amulets.
The armies of Thotmes III. brought it back with
their spoils from Mesopotamia, and made it into
sling bullets, the Egyptian slingers using it, as did
the Persians, and later the invincible legions of
Greece and Rome. Babylon used lead to render
moisture-proof the famous hanging gardens ; Troy,
ere Hector fell, and Priam, saved by the most duti-
ful of sons, became a wanderer, made images of
lead ; and the Phenician mariner, steering his bark
across the sea by the glittering constellation of the
Little Bear, not only carried it in his hold, consigned
to the great storehouses of Sidon and Tyre, but the
hollow tubes of his anchors were weighted with it
as well.
Greece and Rome knew lead as well as we of to-
day. Conquered Britain yielded to the Roman not
only the " imperial tenth," but her immense stores,
which produced thousands of tons, and which Rome
claimed, in fee forceful, and took. Spain also
yielded the Romans thousands of tons, and the
mines of the Urals were works of antiquity when
Caesar was a child. Nearly every land on earth
found more or less lead within its borders, and the
mining of this metal in a small way was almost uni-
versal at the time America loomed up before the
European imagination as the world's El Dorado.
Naturally so base a metal as lead was not the
objective treasure of the adventurous miners and
metallurgists who first struck their picks into Amer-
ican soil. Gold and silver they sought, and if for
many years they found little, their search at least
developed many mines and regions, as perhaps the
too easy discovery of the yellow metal they coveted
might not have done.
The first American lead discovered, by white men
at least, was in 1621, in the vicinity of Falling
Creek, near Jamestown, the original English settle-
ment in Virginia. Iron-smelting works had been
erected by the London Company, and an expert
metallurgist named John Berkeley was put in charge.
Berkeley, in addition to his services rendered to the
company, did a little prospecting on his own account,
which developed the existence of a vein of galena
— the sulphide and commonest ore of lead. He
worked this secretly, and supplied his neighbors with
lead for bullets and other purposes ; but cupidity
caused him to keep the location of the vein a secret,
so that when, a year or two later, he was killed by
Indians, his secret died with him. A few years
later a friendly Indian disclosed the location of the
old mine, and the lead deposits of Virginia have
been worked more or less ever since, although the
output has never been very great. Lead was also
early discovered in Connecticut and Massachusetts,
and by the middle of the last century valuable work-
ings were open in New York State. The lead-mines
of the East, however, have never been of such im-
portance as those of the great central and Western
regions of the Upper Mississippi and in Missouri,
which were early developed by the French. The
lead-fields of the Galena district, comprising portions
of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, which have been
among the most productive in the world, are believed
to have been first discovered and worked by an
Indian trader named Nicholas Perrot, who explored
from the Canadian settlements of the French as far
as the river Des Moines during the last of the seven-
teenth century. By 1690 the Indians living in the
433
434
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
regions about Galena were smelting and selling lead
to the French traders. The region contiguous to
the present city of Dubuque, which was one of the
richest lead districts in America, was also first worked
by a Frenchman, Julien Dubuque, who settled
among and made friends with the Sacs and Foxes
in 1774, just prior to the Revolution.
The Indians in 1788 granted to Dubuque the
mine he had discovered, known as Prairie du Chien,
and in 1796 the grant was confirmed by Baron de
Carondelet, the French governor-general of the
tract called Louisiana, which included the present
States of Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana,
parts of the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Illinois, and all the broad lands to the westward.
Dubuque worked his mines until his death, in 1809,
when the Indians, after burying him with tribal cer-
emonies in a massive leaden coffin on the great bluff
which bears his name, reclaimed them from Du-
buque's creditors, and held possession until their
removal from the district, in 1832, by the United
States government. Dubuque's heirs at once claimed
the property, but the government ejected them ; and
legal squabbles kept the status of the district in a
most uncertain condition until 1847.
The mine La Motte, upon the head waters of the
St. Francis River, a great lead property, was also dis-
covered by a Frenchman, the famous adventurer and
explorer, M. de la Motte-Cadillac, who founded De-
troit. La Motte discovered the celebrated Golden
Vein sometime between 1715 and 1719; but authori-
ties differ as to the precise year, William H. Pulsifer,
in his "Standard Notes for a History of Lead," seem-
ing to incline to the former date. The lead-fields in
the vicinity of Potosi, Mo., were discovered about
1720 by Philippe Frangois Renault, and in 1763
the extensive fields known as Mine a Burton were
discovered by Francis Burton, who in 1798 granted
about one third of his claim to Moses Austin. The
latter erected improved furnaces for smelting, sunk
the first shaft ever seen in a lead-mine in that dis-
trict, and began the manufacture of shot and sheet-
lead. Around this industry grew up the town of
Herculaneum.
The condition of the lead-mining interests of the
country in 1795, when the century of which this
paper properly treats began, was as outlined above.
Minor workings in the Eastern States, while they
produced but a comparatively small output, were the
only really American interests.
France and Spain, with their respective territo-
ries of Louisiana and Florida, had jurisdiction over
nearly all the valuable mining lands of the lead
region ; and even in those districts where the United
States had acquired rights, the mining privileges
were usually in the hands of the French and Indians,
who recognized their value and were slow to part
with them. The Indians, in particular, made the
rich surface sheets of galena a source of continual
profit. Their methods of smelting were crude in
the extreme, consisting usually of a small hole dug
in the ground and lined with rocks. This was usu-
ally located on a side-hill, both for the purpose of
getting a strong air-draft, and also in order that a
small tunnel connecting with the bottom of the
furnace-hole might be dug, through which the
molten lead could run off when the galena and fuel
were thrown in and fired. Rough pigs, run in a
scooped-out hollow of the earth itself, and weighing
about seventy-five pounds, were usually made by
the Indian squaws and taken to the trading-posts
for barter. This method of smelting was wasteful,
but with the practically unlimited supply it made
little difference, and almost any man who found
either a pocket of the "float" mineral or a small
vein could mine and smelt it roughly himself. As the
surface deposits became exhausted, and the miners
had to go deeper, while at the same time improved
and economical methods of reducing the ore became
necessary, more capital was required and the works
became more extensive.
There is probably no ore that reduces more readily
than galena, yet at the same time the volatility of
the molten lead permits great loss from careless
methods. The composition of the ore, which, as
before stated, is a sulphide, is about eighty per cent,
of lead, frequently carrying more or less silver, and
sometimes nickel, cobalt, or antimony, with about
seventeen per cent, of sulphur. Simple roasting
suffices for its reduction, the sulphur combining at a
low temperature with the oxygen of the air, and pass-
ing off. This is, in its simplest statement, the process
by which lead is extracted from this ore ; and either
open furnaces with strong draft, or reverberatory
furnaces, are used. Unfortunately a considerable
quantity of the lead passes off in fumes from the
furnace. In remedying this, some of the modern
smelting-works have found it profitable to build a
very long funnel-pipe, through which the fumes
from the furnace are passed before they reach the
air. During this passage they are cooled, and a very
appreciable quantity of lead in the form of powder
is deposited along the pipe.
Another and great discovery was not made in this
country until 1838, when cerusite, or the lead car-
bonate, was found by the American miners to be
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
reducible and a valuable ore. This ore, previously
thrown away by the miners, who called it "dry
bone," was found in large quantities, and its utiliza-
tion very greatly increased the annual output during
the decade following. Under this stimulus, and the
litigation over the more important lead regions hav-
ing been settled, the output of the mines in the
Galena district jumped from 664,530 pounds in 1825
to 54,494,856 pounds in 1845. Tne decade between
1840 and 1850 witnessed the high-water mark of the
lead interests in America up to the time that the
Western lead-fields were opened. The rich prop-
erties of the Mississippi and in Missouri yielded
plenteously, and in their eagerness the mine owners
allowed themselves to glut the market, with the in-
evitable result that prices fell and the entire lead
industry received a set-back from which it was some
years in recovering. The Jasper County lead-fields,
which have built up the town of Joplin, Mo., were
also discovered during this decade, in 1 848. Oper-
ations were carried on in a small way, but no general
attention was attracted to this district until a dozen
years later, when, in three years, 17,500 tons were
produced from these mines. Since then the annual
output has been as great as 17,765 tons, and in one
year (1884), the disastrous one for all lead interests,
as little as 2665 tons.
American lead-mines held but a poor third place
among the productive fields of the world, however,
until well into the seventies. England and Spain
each produced greater quantities of lead than the
United States in 1872 ; but the development, about
this time, of the great Western deposits of argentif-
erous galena, which had been discovered in 1864,
changed all this. This rich region, neglected on
account of its inaccessibility to a market, suddenly
took on life and activity with the extension of the
railroads through the territory. In 1877 the Eureka
district was turning out nearly 20,000 tons of lead
annually ; the Utah lead-fields, worked by the
Mormons, were producing 15,000 tons annually so
early as 1873, and by 1877 the output had increased
to 27,000 tons for the year. Colorado was a year
later in showing respectable results for her workings,
but by 1883 the output of the mines of that State
amounted to the tremendous total of 70,557 tons.
This marvelous increase was largely due to the
cerusite deposits at Leadville, which were first
worked in 1878, and from which fully one half of
the total lead production of the State was derived.
These Western lead ores were, almost without
exception, very rich in silver. While silver in small
quantities is found in all galena, and has been ex-
tracted even from the ores of the Mississippi and
Missouri lead regions in quantity ranging from six
to twenty ounces per ton, it was only in the Western
mines that the precious metal was found in quan-
tity sufficient to make the lead a by-produc. so far
as relative values were considered. So little was
thought of lead, in fact, that in the earlier days,
when transportation was more difficult and expen-
sive, the ore was cupeled at the mines, and only the
silver brought to market. For this reason the lead
output has been more or less dependent upon the
silver market, but this is beginning to change.
Lead itself has gained a place in the useful arts and
manufactures that cannot be ignored, and its supply
must be maintained. Owing to this the production
of the American mines has been developed to a
point far in excess of the figures of twenty years
ago. The year following the development of the
Western argentiferous deposits the United States
was producing as great a quantity as was England
in 1872, when she was the great lead miner of the
world. Less than ten years later the annual output
of the American mines had reached a figure greater
than the combined production of England, Spain,
and the United States in 1872, and the increase was
steadily maintained.
In the foreign commerce of the nation lead has,
within the past five years, come to play a far more
important part than it ever did before. In 1885
the imports of lead and its manufactures were only
$486,436, and the exports $123,466. In 1890 the
figures had only increased to $657,658 for the
imports and $182,412 for the exports; but the very
next year saw a marvelous advance, which has con-
tinued ever since. The importation of silver-bear-
ing ores, containing much lead, has also become an
important matter, and until the silver repeal bill was
passed, and the " bull " days for that metal ceased,
Mexico had a great interest in that direction. The
figures for the past five years, excluding 1895, for
which full reports are not yet published, are as
follows :
VALUE OF LEAD IMPORTS, 1890 TO 1894.
YEAR.
LEAD, AND MANU-
FACTURE OF.
SILVER-BEARING
ORE.
1800
$657,658
$7.7^8 572
1891 . . . .
8953608
1892 ...
^.6(17 778
o 6<;6 761
180-3
e. 702.624.
1 1 IOO 747
l8Q4
6 606,865
6 67Q.I7I
The exports during the same period show only
a comparatively slight gain, having ranged from
$182,412 in 1891 to $638,636 in 1894.
436
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
During the sixty-five years between 1825 and
1890 the production of the lead-mines of this coun-
try amounted to the almost incredible total of
5,324,794,000 pounds, or, expressed in the briefer
figures of commerce, to 2,662,397 tons. The pro-
duct, as summarized for the same period by the
demi-decades, will give, if the previous explanation
of causes is borne in mind, the best illustration of
conditions, rise, and progress in the lead industry
that can be drawn. Up to 1873 lead was almost
entirely obtained from the non-argentiferous ores of
the Missouri and Mississippi regions ; but after 1875
the table specifies the relative quantities from the
two grades of ore. The figures given are in the
standard short ton :
PRODUCTION OF LEAD, 1825 TO 1894.
YEAR.
TOTAL.
N ON- ARGENTIF-
EROUS ORE.
ARGENTIFEROUS
ORE.
182?
I.SOO
1830
s.ooo
l8nc
13,000
*"J->
1840
17,000
1841;
30,000
i8;o
22,000
1855
15,800
15,600
1861;
14,700
1870
1 7,830
1875 . ...
10,640
24,731
74,000
Q7,o2 s
27,600
7O,I K
i88s . .
129,412
2I.Q7?
107437
1800 . .
l6l.7<4.
31, Til
1 30,4.0 ^
1802 . .
213,262
31,678
181,584
i8od
ICQ -1-11
121 'i.K
In the production of the 161,754 tons of metallic
lead in 1890 the smelting and refining works em-
ployed 6131 men, to whom was paid in wages for
the year $4,228,634.15. This sum, together with
$5,154,682.04 paid out for supplies and materials,
and other charges incidental to the carrying on of
the business, brought the total expenditures for the
year to $11,457,367. 25.
Between lead crude, and cast or hammered into
some required form, and lead manufactured, chemi-
cally changed, and metamorphosed, there is a great
break in time. The chief of all the products of lead
manufacture is, of course, the carbonate, which was
the psmithium of the Greeks, the cerusa of the
Romans, and is the white lead of to-day. As a
pigment and base for colors it finds its chiefest use,
its well-known body and opacity and ready assimi-
lation with linseed-oil, which is the best of all vehicles
for coloring-matters, making it the best substance
man has yet discovered for this purpose. Other
important lead products are litharge, the yellow
protoxide ; minium or red lead, which is a combina-
tion of the protoxide with a peroxide ; orange mine
or orange mineral, made by heating white lead ; and
lead acetate or sugar of lead. There are several
other forms in which lead combines, but the sub-
stances already given are those of most importance
in the arts.
In point of antiquity the oxides seem to have
been longer used than the white lead, no traces of
which are found in the wall-paints of the Egyptians,
Hindus, or other ancient peoples ; whereas the
oxides are found to have been used both for the
glazing of pottery and in colors. White lead was
first brought into extended use by the Romans ; and
Rhodes, the manufacturing center of antiquity, was
the place from which the finest was obtained. Ro-
man women used the ceruse as a cosmetic — a use it
also found among the Athenian belles ; and minium
was used as rouge. In these peculiar uses, despite
the well-known injurious qualities of lead, the same
substances have remained up to a comparatively
recent date. White lead was also used by the
Romans as a body for their paints, and both it and
its manufacture are described by such ancient writ-
ers as Theophrastus, about 300 B.C. ; Vitruvius, who
wrote about two hundred years later ; and Pliny and
Dioscorides, who filled respectively the records of
the two succeeding centuries. These writers all
agree in stating that white lead was produced by
placing sheets of lead in pots with vinegar or wine
lees, and allowing them to stand. This fails to
account for the presence of the carbon dioxide
necessary to the reaction which converts the lead
acetate to the carbonate ; but it is certain that this
substance was present, for the product was unques-
tionably white lead. During the dark ages, and up
so far as the sixteenth century, there was but little
use for white lead. About the latter date its manu-
facture was begun in Holland by what is now known
as the " Dutch process." This process, however,
can scarcely have been original with the Dutch,
since Theophilus, a monk who wrote about the tenth
century, describes it very exactly, and the Saracens,
Italians, and Spaniards are all said to have used it.
With the addition of stable litter banked around the
jars, in which small bits of marble are also placed,
the Dutch process differs in no way from that de-
scribed by Pliny, who says: "The lead is thrown
into jars filled with vinegar, which are kept closed
for ten days ; the sort of mold which forms upon
the surface is then scraped off, and the lead is again
put into the vinegar until the whole of the metal is
consumed."
WILLIAM P. THOMPSON.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
437
The Dutch process, whether it dates from Amster-
dam or Rhodes, has ever since, however, been the
one which, in its elemental principles, but with
improvements and technical modifications from time
to time, has proved the best and most profitable.
Holland became skilled in this manufacture, and
England had already established it firmly upon her
own tight little island at the time when the century
under discussion opened. America, on the other
hand, had not one establishment for the manufacture
of white lead. What white lead was used during
the eighteenth century came from England ; but the
primitive habits of the community in those early
d.iys caused paint to be regarded not only as a
luxury, but, furthermore, as a useless one, since tim-
ber was far too plentiful and cheap to require pres-
ervation at the expense of paint. Neither inside
nor out were the buildings of the early colonial
townspeople painted, and the log cabins of the
settlers needed little such adornment. After the
Revolution, however, more luxurious customs and
greater pretensions were indulged in by the citizens
of the new Republic, and the use of paint became
general in the cities. For the body of this paint all
the white lead had to be imported from England.
The English product at this time was most unblush-
ingly and heavily adulterated, and prices were more
than high. So great did the demand become, and
so profitable the business to the English manufac-
turers, that when the manufacture of white lead was
proposed and commenced in the United States, the
most desperate attempt, resorting to means beyond
even the lawful limits, was made to ruin the new
American industry. Had it not been for the War
of 1812 and the consequent shutting out of British
goods, it is highly probable that the white-lead in-
dustry would have been delayed for many years in
this hemisphere.
The original manufacturer of white lead in the
United States was Samuel Wetherill, of Philadelphia,
who was also one of the earliest woolen, cotton, and
general chemical manufacturers. This enterprising
gentleman, who was one of the most prominent
members of the Pennsylvania Society for the
Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful
Arts, which was established in 1787, began the
manufacture of white lead early in the present cen-
tury. Concerning the exact year authorities differ,
—some so widely as to place it in 1789, — but Mr.
Pulsifer, to whose " Notes for a History of Lead "
I have before referred, takes the authority of a
descendant of Mr. Wetherill, and dates the first lead
manufactory in the United States from 1804.
Shortly after the factory was opened a young Eng-
lishman applied for work. A night or two later the
factory was destroyed by fire, and the young Eng-
lishman left that very morning for England. Gossip
always connected the two events. About 1809 the
factory was rebuilt, and then began the bitterest
struggle any two great commercial interests here and
in England ever waged. British lead was put on
the market at a price that was absolutely impossible
for the American maker to quote. The War of
1812 saved Wetherill from ruin, and under the im-
petus thus given the industry grew rapidly for a few
years, its growth being still further aided by the
development of the recently acquired lead regions
that Louisiana, as purchased from the French, in-
cluded. By the census of 1810, WetherilFs factory,
which was the only one in the country, was credited
with an annual product of 369 tons. Red lead was
also produced in small quantities, but the imports of
these two products exceeded the domestic produc-
tion as two and one half to one. In Philadelphia,
where the industry began, the second factory in the
country was started by John Harrison, at the Ken-
sington Works, about 1810. In the latter year the
manufacture of white lead was begun at Pittsburg
by Adam Bielin and J. J. Stevenson. A second
factory in the same town was started, but proved
unsuccessful after a year or two. Meantime an
Englishman named Smith appeared in Philadelphia
as a manufacturer of white lead, and all five of these
firms were struggling against the English manufac-
turer when the War of 1812 came to their relief.
All of these early manufacturers employed, so far
as can be learned, the Dutch process, as previ-
ously described. Certain patents for improvements
upon it were taken ; but the burning of the Patent
Office has destroyed all record of them, except that
Samuel Wetherill devised and secured a new and
better method "for setting the beds or stacks."
Stable litter as the source of the required heat was
in universal use. Various new and speedier methods
for the manufacture of white lead than those pro-
vided by the Dutch process were invented, and in
1814, Welch & Evans, of Philadelphia, patented
one by which granulated lead, placed in revolving
lead-lined barrels partly filled with water, was
ground by attrition, oxidized by the air, and carbon-
ized by the addition of burning charcoal. A factory
for the manufacture of lead by this process was built
soon after by a Mr. Richards, who had succeeded
the Englishman Smith. The venture, like all sim-
ilar ones, proved unprofitable.
The price of white lead before the War of 1812
438
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
was from ten to twenty cents per pound. American
manufacturers mainly used the imported pig-lead,
and the domestic supply was small. When the im-
portation of the foreign pig-lead was suspended by
the war, the price of the native metal took a great
jump. The Western lead-fields, however, were
either undeveloped or, as in the case of the rich
Galena district, still in the hands of the Indians ; and
a great scarcity of the metal resulted, which caused
the price of white lead to advance to thirty cents a
pound. The profit inevitably suggested by these
figures, together with the general resumption of
business that came after peace was declared, gave
a fresh impetus to the white-lead industry. During
the next twenty years many new works were estab-
lished, and older ones extended. By 1830 there
were twelve establishments in the country, of which
eight were east of the Alleghanies. These factories
were not turning out over 3000 tons annually, and
as the price of white lead, following a temporary
glut of the pig-lead market, had declined to nine
cents per pound, the total value of the year's output
was but a little over $500,000.
One of the great advances made in the manufac-
ture of white lead in this country came about two
years after this, when Augustus Graham, a promi-
nent New York manufacturer of white lead, discov-
ered, by obtaining employment as a common work-
man in one of the great English factories, the secret
of the use of spent tan-bark instead of stable litter
as a means of obtaining heat and carbonization.
This knowledge worked a considerable change in
white-lead manufacture, and by 1840 the annual
product had increased about sixty-six and two thirds
per cent, in the whole country. Prices, however,
had advanced but little, white lead being quoted at
only a cent a pound more than in 1830. The sud-
den bursting forth into prosperity and productivity
of the mines in the Galena and Missouri lead
regions, which occurred during the fifth decade, had
an immediate effect upon the white-lead industry.
The supply was unlimited, but the question of trans-
portation was a serious one. Waterways were, of
necessity, considered the only freight routes avail-
able, and Europe was far nearer to the Eastern
cities than those towns situated to the westward of
the great bar of the Alleghanies. From the Mis-
souri lead-fields, and the Galena region as well, the
pig-metal was boated down to New Orleans, and
there transhipped by vessel to New York. Not
only was it a long journey, but it was a costly one
as well ; and in some sections, not readily within the
distributive field of New York or the large coast
cities, other means were adopted. At Buffalo,
especially, I recall the method of transportation by
which the Galena district pigs were landed at the
factories of the corroders. The manufacturer had
to keep an agent at the mines, and buy daily, as
auctioned off, the product of the day's smelting.
When an agent had thus purchased a sufficient
quantity he secured a caravan of prairie-schooners
drawn by oxen, and started it across the open prairie
to the nearest settlement and lake port, Milwaukee,
where the lead was shipped in sailing vessels and
taken to Buffalo.
The ten years preceding and those during which
the Civil War was raging marked no important ad-
vance in the lead industry. The introduction of the
manufactured zinc oxide as a substitute for white
lead, together with the advance in the price of
metallic lead under the strong influence of the war-
time demand, checked the use of the manufactured
product until the return of better times at the con-
clusion of the war. Furthermore, adulteration,
which had long been regarded as permissible by
white-lead makers, came to the condemnation it
deserved, and the purer product developed by this
sentiment had its immediate effect in raising the
manufactured lead in the public estimation. It was
about this time, also, that " sublimed lead " came to
be introduced for use as a substitute for white lead.
The discovery resulted from certain unsuccessful
experiments made by two gentlemen named Lewis
and Bartlett, in the direction of an improved and
speedier process for manufacturing white lead. It
is a singular fact that the manufacture of white lead
is one of the few of the useful arts in which modern
science has so far been able to make little appreci-
able advance. The monkish presbyter Theophilus,
in the ninth century, knew, as did the Rhodians
before him, and the Dutch nearly seven hundred
years after him, the basic principles of the manufac-
ture of white lead ; and if the empirical knowledge
of that early day has been replaced by formulated
knowledge, it still has accomplished but little to
recompense its added learning. Englishmen, French-
men, Germans, and all other nationalities have ex-
perimented with the subject abroad, and Americans
have invented and patented at home, but all to no
purpose. The original Dutch method, with certain
improvements in detail and manipulation, seems
destined to survive this century, as it has the many
before it.
The white-lead production of the United States,
as followed by decades from 1810, while it can only
be given for much of the time in approximate
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
439
amounts, is still sufficiently exact to show the steady
growth which has brought it to prosperity and prom-
inence in the industrial affairs of the nation. As
accurately as can be obtained, the figures are :
WHITE-LEAD PRODUCTION, 1810 TO 1890.
YEA*.
TONS.
YEA*.
TONS.
1810
tfQ
1860..
15,000
1820
1870
1C .OOO
1810
3,000
5O,OOO
lSj»
5,OOO
1887..
65,OOO
IKO
Q.OOO
1890
75,OOO
The lead oxides, of which a considerable quantity
is annually produced in the United States, were, like
white lead, first manufactured in the western hemi-
sphere at Philadelphia, where, before the War of
1812, there were at least three establishments.
Their manufacture has changed little during the last
one hundred and fifty or two hundred years, during
which time they have been recognized products of
the English factories, and have also been made in
Holland, and to some extent in France. In making
red lead, which is, perhaps, the most important of
the oxides, the method is simply to heat litharge in
a reverberatory furnace, which immediately changes
it from yellow to red. In this country this method
is the one commonly employed, although some
works substitute a bottle-shaped iron cylinder for
the reverberatory furnace. Red lead and litharge
are usually manufactured at the white-lead works,
and there are but few separate establishments for the
exclusive manufacture of the lead oxides. Orange
mine or orange mineral, a form of lead oxide pro-
duced by heating white lead, is another of the use-
ful products of the metal ; and the valuable astrin-
gent known in medicine as sugar of lead, and
chemically as acetate of lead, being obtained by the
simple treatment of lead with acetic acid, and with-
out the presence of carbon dioxide, is still another
product well known to the commerce of to-day.
The personnel of the white-lead industry since its
establishment in 1804 has been an interesting one,
and has included many men of the rarest business
abilities and most unswerving integrity. For a com-
prehensive summary of it up to within ten years
I acknowledge my indebtedness to the author of
" Notes for a History of Lead." According to this
authority there were, outside of those firms already
mentioned, only two established during the second
decade — the Cincinnati Manufacturing Company in
1815, and Barney McLennon's works, in the same
city, in 1820. Dr. Vanderberg, of Albany, was ex-
perijnenting with its manufacture by improved pro-
cesses in New York in 1820; and ten years later,
having come back from experiment to the old-time
Dutch process, he, together with David Leavitt and
John and Augustus Graham, under the title of the
Brooklyn White-Lead Works, were operating suc-
cessfully. This company was incorporated in June,
1825. Another Brooklyn firm of early establish-
ment was the Union White-Lead Company, started
by the Messrs. Cornell about 1827. The Salem
Lead Company in 1824, and Francis Peabody in
1826, established the white-lead industry in Salem,
and Robert McCandless and Richard Conkling
established works in Cincinnati during this same
decade. In 1830 there were about a dozen white-
lead factories in the United States, and eight of
these were east of the Alleghanies, including, besides
those just mentioned, Lewis & Company, Wetherill
& Sons, Harrison & Brothers, of Philadelphia, and
Hinton & Moore, of New York, who also handled
large quantities of the imported article. During the
next decade there were started the Boston Lead
Company, in 1831 ; Great Falls Manufacturing
Company, in 1832; Jewett, Sons & Company, at
Saugerties, in 1838 ; Gregg & Hagner, at Pittsburg,
in 1837 ; and Reed & Hoffman, at St. Louis, in
1837. This latter establishment, taken shortly after-
ward by Henry T. Blow, became in later years the
Collier White-Lead and Oil Company.
From 1840 to 1850 was a period of the most
rapid growth for the white-lead industry. Among
the larger works established during this decade
were : the Atlantic White-Lead Company, of New
York, founded by Mr. Robert Colgate ; John Jewett
& Sons' Staten Island works ; the Great Falls Manu-
facturing Company, changed by Batelle & Renwick
to the Ulster White- Lead Company; Suffolk Lead-
Works and Norfolk Lead Company, of Boston ; the
Forest River Lead Company, of Salem, successors
to Francis Peabody ; Thompson & Company, of
Buffalo ; B. A. Fahnestock & Company, of Pitts-
burg ; Eagle White-Lead Works, at Cincinnati ; and
William Glasgow, Jr.'s, works, at St. Louis.
The succeeding decade saw less increase than the
one preceding. William Wood and T. J. McCoy
took the Eagle Works, of Cincinnati ; the Niagara
White-Lead Company started at Buffalo, and Wilson
Waters & Company at Louisville. This was but a
lull, however, that was to give place to renewed
activity. From 1860 to 1870 there were founded,
among others, such great establishments as the St.
Louis Lead and Oil Company, which succeeded the
440
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
O'Fallon White-Lead and Oil Company in 1865 ; the
Southern White-Lead Company, established by
Platt & Thornburg in the same year; Goshorn
Brothers, who secured the McCandless establishment
in Cincinnati, and afterward organized it as the
Anchor White-Lead Company; the Eagle White-
Lead Company, also of Cincinnati; the Shipman
White-Lead Company, organized at Chicago by
D. B. Shipman ; J. H. Morley's works, at Cleveland ;
Haslett, Leonard & Company, who succeeded
Waters in Louisville; Lewis & Schoonmaker, of
Louisville, who later sold out to T. J. McCoy and
the American White-Lead Company ; the Western
White-Lead Company, in Philadelphia ; the Cornell
Lead Company, which succeeded the Niagara
Company, at Buffalo ; four branch establishments
of Fahnestock & Company, at Pittsburg; Hall,
Bradley & Company, of New York and Brooklyn ;
the Salem Lead Company, a new company organ-
ized by Mr. Francis Brown at Salem ; and the
Maryland White-Lead Company, which was estab-
lished in Baltimore in 1867. In Cincinnati Fred-
erick Eckstein became interested in the business of
Townsend Hills.
Since this period there have been comparatively
few large establishments founded. Even so early
as 1870 the tendency toward consolidation rather
than individual extension was already noticeable,
and the two largest of the plants founded during the
succeeding decade were both absorbed by the older
companies.
The manufacture of white lead in former years
had been very profitable, which had induced the
building of an unnecessarily large number of facto-
ries in different sections of the country, which in turn
brought on severe competition, and many of the
factories became unprofitable. In order to lessen
this competition various devices of association were
successively tried, and failed, until at last, in 1887,
a number of factories came together in an associa-
tion practically similar to the then existing Standard
Oil Trust. The association, however, was unsuc-
cessful, and in 1889 my friends H. H. Rogers and
the late Charles M. Pratt, both of whom had had
large experience in the lead and paint business,
knowing that I was about to retire from my associa-
tion with the Standard Oil Company, called my
attention to the fact that the National Lead Trust
were desirous of my becoming interested with them.
At that time the suggestions were declined, because
of the totally inadequate capital of the existing
concerns, the extreme and foolish capitalization,
and the disorganized condition of the management.
Subsequently arrangements were made by which
other great factories of the country, consisting of the
John T. Lewis & Brothers Company, Philadelphia ;
the Salem Company, of Boston ; the Atlantic
Company, of Brooklyn ; the Collier and Southern
Companies, of St. Louis, including the Southern
Company, of Chicago, and the Maryland Company,
of Baltimore, were acquired. These properties
came in, necessarily, on the same basis of capitali-
zation as in the preceding organization. The writer
then became president, and shortly thereafter
acquired the important works of Armstrong, Mc-
Kelvy & Company and the Davis-Chambers Com-
pany, at Pittsburg ; and by the end of that year the
then National Lead Trust manufactured about
eighty per cent, of the country's production of white
lead, seventy per cent, of red lead, fifteen per cent,
of linseed-oil, ten per cent, of sheet-lead, nine per
cent, of lead pipe, and sixty per cent, of lead ace-
tate, together with sundry other of the important
manufactures of lead. These, together with the
large smelting and refining plant at St. Louis,
smelters at Socorro, N. Mex., and Leadville, Colo.,
and sampling-works in different parts of Mexico,
were included in the great organization with which
the lead industry of this country entered upon the
last decade of the century.
The real work of consolidation, sifting out, and
practical organization may be said to have then
fairly commenced. Many small factories operating
in a desultory way, with frequent stoppages, were
closed for good ; works in favorable localities, and
capable of producing the best results in any one
direction, were devoted to this branch, enlarged and
improved, and the best class of employees selected
and taken to the more important works. New
machinery and more healthful appliances were at
once put into use. Schools for mutual education
among the more important manufacturers were
organized, and the expert knowledge of each placed
at the service of all.
Efforts to reduce the unwieldy capitalization cul-
minated successfully in 1891, when the Lead Trust
was dissolved, and a new company, organized under
the laws of the State of New Jersey, with a capital
of $15,000,000 preferred and $15,000,000 common
stock, took its place. Before the organization of
the National Lead Company all the floating debt of
the various corporations included in it had been
paid off, and soon after its organization the large
mortgages which had existed upon some of the
works were liquidated, and the National Lead
Company enjoys the unique position of never hav-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
441
ini; borrowed a dollar. Economics have been intro-
duced in every department, and the character of all
manufactured products marvelously improved, and
at the same time placed upon the market at prices
lower than ever before known, and the fact demon-
strated that honest management in a combination
of interests is of greater advantage to the share-
holder for profit, and to the public for cheapness,
than an unintelligent system of piratical competition.
With practically the same methods as those em-
ployed by the ancients, the industry has risen,
through the sheer executive intelligence of the
present age, until it has assumed the proportions
seen to-day. Less than a century old, the lead
industry in America ranks with that of any nation
in the world ; and from our boundless mineral
resources will probably some day be drawn the
greater part of the world's supply.
CHAPTER LXV
THE SALT INDUSTRY
THE early history of salt making in this coun-
try is veiled in much obscurity. The prin-
cipal centers of population on the Eastern
coast were in great measure supplied with the arti-
cle imported from England, the price of which was
exorbitantly high, and during times of disturbance
with the mother country was almost unattainable.
In the early part of the eighteenth century small
saline plants were established along the Atlantic
coast from Massachusetts to Virginia, and salt was
made directly from the water of the sea, either by
direct open-air evaporation in broad vats, or in
smaller kettles with the aid of artificial heat. For-
tunately fuel was plentiful and cheap, and, as the
process was simple in the extreme, special experience
and skill were not requisite. Almost every family,
therefore, on the seaboard was its own salt maker,
just as, within the writer's recollection, people resid-
ing at a little distance inland were their own soap
makers and candle makers.
While those living on the coast could always ob-
tain sufficient salt without difficulty, the settler ad-
vancing westward could not carry with him a very
abundant supply, owing to his lack of capital and of
means of transportation. As he penetrated the wil-
derness, however, he came in contact with the In-
dian and the beast of the forest, to whom salt was
just as necessary as to civilized man. From them
he soon learned the sources of their supply, and,
locating at one of the " licks " or brine springs, set
up his kettle, poured in his brine, and lighted his fire.
In a short time he could thus prepare a supply of
salt sufficient for his needs during several months.
These brine springs were found at various localities
in nearly all of the Middle and Western States in-
vaded by the early settler, but none of them was as
rich in saline constituents or as ample in supply as
those which were found in the country of the Onon-
dagas.
Upon the coast, salt making, by both solar and
artificial heat, was extensively practised until after
the War of 1812. The restrictions on our com-
merce being then greatly relieved, salt from foreign
countries was more freely imported ; and this, to-
gether with increasing supplies from the Onondaga
district, led to the reduction in price to fifty cents per
bushel, and even less. It was then found cheaper
to buy the salt from merchants than to continue its
manufacture in the primitive manner at the coastwise
stations. These, then, were gradually abandoned,
and the Eastern and Middle States obtained their
supply almost exclusively from the two sources
above mentioned. This could hardly be otherwise
when we consider that the water of the ocean con-
tains only about two and one half per cent, of salt, as
against the brines of the Onondaga salines, which
held in solution from fifteen to seventeen per cent,
of the precious substance. With salt selling, at the
present time, for six or seven cents a bushel, the use
of the word "precious" in such connection may
seem extravagant ; and yet salt, absolutely essential
as it is to human life, has been in former times and
among certain peoples the general unit of value, and
has even, further, served the purposes of a circulat-
ing medium.
The American salt industry proper dates back to
just beyond the last decade of the last century, when
the State of New York, with enlightened foresight,
purchased in 1788 from the Indians the Onondaga
salines, embracing an area of about 15,000 acres.
In the winter of 1789 and 1790 Nathaniel Loomis
made 600 bushels of salt on the State reservation.
Others followed, and in 1797 the State deemed this
infant industry of sufficient importance to put in
force laws and regulations regarding the control and
management of salt making in this field, a Superin-
tendent being appointed to see that they were prop-
erly carried out. During the first year the product
442
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
443
of this field amounted to about 25,000 bushels, equal
to 700 tons, of 2000 pounds each, of what is now
graded as common fine salt.
The general arrangement made by the State with
salt makers was to lease them the ground, on which
the lessees erected the necessary structures. The
State then pumped the brine and delivered it to the
boilers, who paid a royalty of one cent for every
bushel of salt obtained from the brine. Even with
the early methods of salt making then in vogue
(chiefly boiling in kettles) the manufacture was very
profitable, and many were induced, on this account,
to undertake it. This led to the rapid development
of the field, and a corresponding increase in the
output, which as early as 1820 amounted to about
13,000 tons. At about this time it is stated that the
manufacture of solar salt was commenced on the
State lands ; but I fail to find any estimate of the
quantity produced until 1841, in which year 6000
tons of solar and about 87,000 tons of the other
grades were accounted for to the State. The pro-
duction of salt steadily increased until 1862, when it
amounted to about 56,000 tons of solar and 200,000
tons of other grades. From this time there was a
gradual diminution in the product of fine salt, which
altered the proportions theretofore existing, until in
1880 84,000 tons of solar and about 155,000 tons
of other grades were being made. Since 1880 there
has been a further falling off in the output, and the
official figures for 1894 indicate a production of
about 66,000 tons of solar and less than 25,000 tons
of other grades. The seemingly immense output of
the Onondaga or Syracuse district would doubtless
have become still greater had it not been for the
development of a field in Michigan, which soon sur-
passed its older rival in the amount of its output, and
materially restricted the territory in which the latter
could compete to advantage. The second impor-
tant blow given to the Onondaga industry was the
development of the western New York salt-field, in
Wyoming, Genesee, and Livingston counties, em-
bracing what is known as the Warsaw and Genesee
districts, the latter being in Livingston County and
bordering on the Genesee River. In these districts
salt of various grades is made by evaporating the
brine with artificial heat, the amount of solar salt
being insignificant. As an offset to this, four large
shafts have been sunk, three in Livingston and one
in Genesee County, from which immense quantities
of salt have been brought to the surface in lumps
or blocks, some of which are reduced by grinding
to smaller sizes. The output of this field increased
from 16,000 tons in 1885 to 324,800 tons in 1893.
The evaporating-works in western New York pos-
sessed a great advantage over those near Syracuse,
as they were able to obtain brine holding from
twenty-three to twenty-five per cent, of salt, which
in practice meant that two tons of fuel would pro-
duce as much salt there as three tons would at Syra-
cuse. As a partial offset to this, Syracuse, by its
location on the Erie Canal, was enabled to trans-
port its product to the seaboard more cheaply than
its rivals. Despite this slight advantage in freight
rates the fine salt industry at Syracuse has been
obliged to yield the field to competitors in other
places, and with no present prospect of revival in
this branch of its trade.
The Michigan salt-fields, which were the second
of any importance to be developed, possessed the
very great advantage of cheap fuel, using, in most
cases, sawdust, chips, slabs, and other refuse from
the lumber-mills. The first salt made in Michigan
on a commercial basis was in 1860, and during the
last half of that year 560 tons were made. This was
increased in 1861 to nearly 18,000 tons, and the out-
put gradually augmented, until the maximum point
(about 550,000 tons) was reached in 1887. Since
then there has been a somewhat lessened product.
Besides the Michigan fields there were other impor-
tant regions discovered in the West. The Kansas
field was opened with a product of about 22,000 tons
in 1888, increasing to 178,000 tons in 1893. In
California the product, which was almost wholly solar
salt, increased from 30,000 tons in 1886 to 41,000
tons in 1893. During the last two years, however,
finer grades of salt have been manufactured in that
State. In Ohio there are several salt plants, the
principal one of which, at Cleveland, enjoys excep-
tional facilities in the way of cheap water transpor-
tation for its product. The output of the State for
1893 amounted to about 70,000 tons. In Utah the
production of salt increased from about 15,000 tons
in 1883 to nearly 200,000 tons in 1892, dropping
back in the following year to about the output of
1883. This was due to the shutting down of the
silver-mines, which had drawn their supply of salt
from this district.
The development of the salt industry in Louisiana
reads almost like a romance. About eighty years
ago, a Mr. Marsh, desiring to obtain a well of fresh
water on an island of his, known as the Petite Anse,
after digging a few feet, found instead a well of brine.
By evaporating this he obtained considerable salt,
and upon exploring his possessions farther he discov-
ered a bed of rock-salt about fifteen feet beneath the
surface. This salt was mined in the usual way, and
444
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
as the surface of the rock was further exposed, vari-
ous aboriginal relics, such as stone axes and other
implements, were brought to light, showing that the
same mines had been worked hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of years before. The Louisiana salt
deposit has never been an important factor in the
American trade, except during the War of the Re-
bellion, when the Confederate States, shut off from
purchases in the Northern market, drew largely on
these mines, running the price up to $30 and even
$90 a ton. At the present day it probably does not
command over $2. During the past ten years the
annual output of the Petite Anse mine has varied
from 25,000 to 50,000 tons. In addition to those
above mentioned there are a few other localities in
which salt has been manufactured on a commercial
scale, but the output is too limited to demand sepa-
rate mention. The United States reports give the
total production of salt for the year 1893 as 1 1,816,-
772 barrels, equivalent to 1,654,040 tons; but in
my judgment New York is credited with 1,000,000
barrels more than the facts will warrant.
Salt is obtained in this country in several different
forms and ways. From the mines it comes in blocks,
and from strong brines it is obtained by evapora-
tion or boiling by solar or artificial heat. Boiling is
conducted under four distinct systems: (i) in long
wooden troughs containing steam-pipes (these are
called grainers, and the system is distinctively Ameri-
can) ; (2) in large open pans of iron or steel, with
direct heat beneath them ; (3) in large vacuum pans
in which the brine is boiled at a comparatively low
pressure ; (4) heating in closed tubes, at a tempera-
ture much higher than that at which brine boils under
ordinary atmospheric pressure. As the writer is a
manufacturer using two of the above-named systems,
he deems it improper in this place to comment on or
discuss the merits of the methods adopted by others.
Boiling in kettles was at one time an important fea-
ture of the Syracuse field, but has never been gen-
erally adopted elsewhere.
The grades of salt prepared for market in the
United States comprise rock, solar, common fine,
and common coarse, which are not artificially dried
after manufacture ; and so-called " dairy " salt, which
is dried and either sifted or ground. The term
" dairy " salt is generally used in too comprehen-
sive and loose a sense, and is made to include salt
prepared for table use rather than for the dairy. A
strict dairy salt specially prepared for the use of but-
ter and cheese makers is the most expensive grade
manufactured, selling for a little over half a cent a
pound at the works, and costing the consumer about
one cent a pound, including package, at most points
east of the Mississippi River. For table use this
price seems too high, for neither merchant nor con-
sumer will pay it. The greater part of the table salt
used in this country is sold by the manufacturers on
a basis of about $3 a ton. At $5 a ton there are
comparatively few buyers, and at $10 a ton (half a
cent a pound) there are none. (These are car-load
lots, free on board, and exclusive of the cost of bar-
rels, sacks, or other packages. ) This is especially true
of large cities like New York and Chicago, while in
smaller cities and country towns the merchants are
more generally willing to pay higher prices, thereby
securing better qualities of the article. For a strict
dairy salt there is but little market in New York City,
this point not being a distributing center for this
grade. Chicago, however, takes large quantities of
the best qualities. From that city it is distributed to
the large creameries and cheese factories of the West.
The uses of salt are manifold. Many, perhaps,
look on it simply as a condiment, or as a preserva-
tive of food, butter, cheese, beef, pork, and so on.
Its other uses, however, are extensive and important.
Hide salting, bottoming of ships (to prevent decay
of the wood), acid making (muriatic), and salt-cake
(used in the manufacture of glass), soda-ash, bleach-
ing mixtures, soap making, and silver smelting, all
make their demands on the salt deposits of the
country. The farmer also feeds it to his stock and
spreads it on his land.
The salt industry of the United States has had its
ups and downs, and history repeats itself wherever a
new location is selected for its development. In the
Onondaga region salt making was for many years
highly remunerative, attracting capital so freely that
in course of time upward of 100 firms or corpora-
tions made this the seat of their operations. The
inevitable result of this was a general fall in prices,
the profit on each bushel of salt becoming smaller
and smaller. To meet this each operator increased
his output to the limit of his resources, thus aggra-
vating the difficulty, until finally it became a ques-
tion of the survival of the strongest ; the only alter-
native being a combination of all interests under
one efficient management. The manufacturers of
fine salt solved the problem of existence many years
ago by pooling their interests, forming in 1860 the
American Dairy-Salt Company. This concern for
twenty years or more received reasonable returns
on its investments, but when called on to compete
with the stronger brines of Michigan and western
New York was obliged to yield to the inevitable,
and some three years ago these interests were put
HENRY G. PIFFARD.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
449
into the hands of a receiver. The manufacturers
of coarse salt at Onondaga in like manner formed
a combination, under which their plants are still
operated.
In Michigan the vast and rapid development of
the territory led to a combination of a majority of
the manufacturers, under the name of the Michigan
Salt Association, which controlled all sales and fixed
all prices. This was well enough until western New
York entered the field. The manufacturers of this
district wanted the trade that formerly had been sup-
plied by Syracuse and Michigan, and made prices
sufficiently low to attract a great deal of it. Not
content with this, they entered into the most intense
competition among themselves, until the price was
brought down so low that some were forced to the
wall. Here also attempts were made to harmonize
the diverse interests and place prices on a just and
equitable basis. Selfishness, dishonesty, and ineffi-
cient control rendered these attempts nugatory. Of
the Kansas field the same story might be told, and
no one field has yet found an effective means of con-
trolling the industry in its own district.
When we consider that any one of the States of
Xcw York, Ohio, Michigan, and Kansas is capable
of supplying, and desires to supply, the entire coun-
try, we need not be surprised that a good article of
common salt may be bought at almost any of the
manufactories in our country for about $2 a ton.
The superintendent of the Onondaga Salt Springs,
in his last report to the legislature of the State of
New York, correctly expresses the situation in the
following words : " The past season has not been
remunerative to those engaged in the manufacture
of salt." A similar expression could, we believe, be
justly employed in connection with the salt industry
of the entire country. The Ohio field, with enor-
mous resources in both salt and money, also wants
its share of the business. The general outlook for
the salt industry, therefore, is not very encouraging.
Two attempts have in recent years been made, by
drawing in the aid of foreign capital, to consolidate
the native salt interests. The first effort failed ; and
the second, when on the verge of fruition, came to
grief in consequence of the failure of certain land
speculations in South America.
Foreign competition was for many years held in
comparative check by a moderate duty on the im-
ported article. For a little over a year, however, salt
has been admitted free. The effect has been a very
decided increase of importation and a corresponding
decrease of home manufacture. As the domestic
prices were already very low, there was very little
appreciable gain to the consumer, and some of the
works have shut down, and their employees have
been deprived of this means of gaining a livelihood.
Without having accurate figures on which to base an
opinion, I hazard the estimate that about twenty per
cent, of our salt operatives have been thrown out of
employment, while the wages of the remainder have
been reduced by about the same percentage. The
sums thus lost to the American artisan have gone in
part to the middlemen ; and in part to the salt work-
ers of England, the coastwise inhabitants of southern
Europe, and the negroes of the West Indies. It may
be stated that at the present time the salt factories
of England are getting from $2.50 (ten shillings) to
over $3 (thirteen shillings) per ton of 2240 pounds
for common salt. As the freight from Liverpool to
American ports is less than half the freight from the
New York State fields to the seaboard, the removal
of the duty places our workers at a great disadvan-
tage, and has absolutely compelled the reduction of
wages. Comment is needless.
CHAPTER LXVI
THE BISCUIT INDUSTRY
THE history of the biscuit industry in America
for the past one hundred years is the story
of a phenomenal development from an
almost complete obscurity to the wide-spread and
well-known conditions of to-day. Perhaps no other
single industry is so far-reaching in its sources of
supply, or enters into so many homes with its per-
fected product, as that under consideration. Great
difficulty is experienced in procuring early statistics
in relation to the biscuit business, as those who were
engaged in it during the first part of the century
have all passed away and have left no written
records. Tradition, therefore, is responsible for
almost all our early information.
The name " biscuit," derived through the French
from the Latin, means " twice baked," and had,
according to Gibbon, its origin in the fact that the
military bread of the Romans was twice prepared in
the oven. As applied to the product of bakeries,
this term was brought from England to America,
and came into general use here probably not much
earlier than the middle of the century. In Europe
all articles of food in the shape of small cakes made
from flour, with sweetening or flavoring added, have
always been and still are called " biscuits." Goods
of this variety, however, were at first unknown in
the United States, and the term generally applied to
the first crude productions made of plain and un-
sweetened dough was " cracker." This latter name
has ever since retained its significance in this coun-
try in connection with the plain, usually crisp,
unflavored grades of goods, which last, however,
when introduced much later into Europe, were there
all absorbed into the generic title "biscuit," the
name " cracker " falling into disuse. We have grad-
ually adopted to some extent in America this more
sweeping classification, but the distinction between
the specific name "cracker" and the general term
" biscuit " it is well to bear in mind.
The first cracker produced in the United States,
so far as known, was pilot or ship bread, a large,
round, clumsy, crisp affair, which supplied the
demand of the merchant marine for an article of
food that would, unlike ordinary bread, keep for a
prolonged period. Subsequently another variety
was originated, the cold-water cracker, which differed
from the first chiefly in its smaller size, more com-
pact texture, and greater hardness. For a long time
these two crackers were the only goods known to
the trade. They were both made of unleavened
dough (flour and water and a little salt), mixed and
kneaded by hand ; and each cracker was rolled out
and shaped separately before being placed, one at
a time, on a long-handled sheet-iron shovel or peel,
and transferred in order to the floor of the oval-
shaped tile oven then in use. It was not until some
time later that raised or fermented dough was used
in the manufacture of crackers, and it is only within
the past fifty years that any great variety has been
produced.
The first cracker bakery in the United States of
which we have any trustworthy record was that of
Theodore Pearson at Newburyport, Mass., in 1792.
His specialty was the pilot or ship bread already
spoken of, and in that quaint old town the manu-
facture is still carried on, the name Pearson having
long been a household word in all that part of the
country. At Milton, Mass., in 1801, Joshua Bent
erected his first oven, which doubtless was a small
affair, as it was carried on no more than three days
in the week by himself and family, the product then
being loaded into his wagon and sold in the sur-
rounding towns. This was the beginning of the
baking of the celebrated "Bent's water-cracker,"
which has achieved a more than national reputation.
A little later, in 1805, Artemas Kennedy, a great-
uncle of Frank A. Kennedy, established himself at
Menotomy, now known as Arlington, Mass., after-
ward moving to Westford, and finally to Milton.
The elder Kennedy died in 1832, and in 1834 one
446
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
441
of his sons, Jason, started a similar enterprise in
Charlestown. Jason's cousin, also named Artemas
Kennedy, who was his foreman, came in 1840 to
Cambridgeport, Mass., and commenced baking for
himself. Continued success marked the business
until 1861, when Mr. Kennedy died, its conduct de-
volving upon his son, Frank A. Kennedy.
In Boston the oldest recorded bakery was that of
Richard Austin, who started in Ann Street about
1830. He was succeeded by his brother Thomas
in 1843, and the business continued under various
titles, in which the names of both J. B. Fowle and
A. L. Graves appeared at different times, until it
came, in 1885, into the hands of J. W. Austin, a
descendant of the first Austin, who still carries it on.
At a later date came several other firms of promi-
nence in New England, among them Thurston, Hall
& Company, of Cambridgeport ; John S. Carr, of
Springfield ; Parks & Savage, of Hartford, Conn. ;
C. D. Boss, of New London, Conn. ; and the New
Haven Baking Company, of New Haven, Conn.
In New York City the oldest existing firm is the
house of Treadwell & Harris. Ephraim Treadwell,
the founder, began business in 1825. About this
date, and during the quarter-century following, the
firms of Robert Spier, Erastus Titus, John T. Wil-
son, C. T. Goodwin, J. Bruen, and J. Parr were also
in business in the same city; but none of them is
now in existence. Later, in 1850, Garrett B. and
Edwin O. Brinckerhoff started business on Madison
Street, removing, in 1857, to Elizabeth Street, where
the Brinckerhoff branch of the New York Biscuit
Company is still carried on. At Albany, N. Y.,
Helcher & Larrabee established themselves about
1860. In 1871 the firm name was changed to
E. J. Larrabee & Company, which gained and still
maintains a most enviable reputation. Mr. John
Holmes, an Englishman, entered their service in
1870, and in 1877 formed in New York City a
partnership with G. H. Coutts, under the firm name
of Holmes & Coutts. The famous brands of this
house at once forced their way to the front, and
gave their owners both fame and fortune. A little
later J. R. Vanderveer and D. M. Holmes erected,
also in New York City, a model establishment, and
in a few years made their names recognized as manu-
facturers of the highest grade of goods.
Meanwhile, following the lead of New England
and New York, other bakeries were springing up all
over the country. It would be impossible to present
any adequate list of these, and the mention of the
following more important firms must suffice: Het-
field & Ducker, of Brooklyn ; Walter G. Wilson and
A. J. Medlar & Company, of Philadelphia ; James
Beatty (since gone out of existence), J. D. Mason,
and J. R. Skilltnan, of Baltimore ; Haste & Harris,
of Detroit ; the Margaret Bakery, of New Orleans ;
C. L. Woodman (no longer existing), D. F. Brera-
ner, and the Dake Bakery, of Chicago ; Garneau,
Dozier & Company (later known as Dozier & Weyl),
of St. Louis, and S. S. Marvin & Co., of Pittsburg,
Pa. These and many other smaller houses joined
in the race for recognition and competed with one
another over the country, sending their represen-
tatives from Maine to Oregon and from the lakes
to the Gulf, besides exporting no small quantity
of goods to parts of South America, Africa, and
Australia.
Turning our attention at this point to the mechan-
ical processes employed in the manufacture of the
goods which the foregoing names represent, we
discover in the twenty-five years during the middle
of the century a development no less remarkable
than rapid. Until about 1840 machinery in the
biscuit business was almost unknown, all the goods
being worked up and put into the oven one piece
at a time by hand. As the demand increased a
machine was finally invented which rolled out the
dough, already prepared by hand, into a thin sheet.
This sheet, passing along on an endless belt or
apron, was cut into the required shape by a stamp
rising and falling automatically. In this way about
a dozen crackers were cut out at a time, and it be-
came possible to bake five or six barrels of flour a
day — an important increase over the preceding aver-
age rate of one barrel. Except in size and capacity
the ordinary cracker-machines of to-day differ but
little from the first crude invention. The machines
for making fancy goods, however, were of a later
date and of correspondingly greater variety, and
must not be confounded with those used for making
the plain, unsweetened crackers.
In 1849 the discovery of gold in California, and
the consequent demand for crackers as a suitable
article of pioneer food, proved a marked stimulus
to the biscuit trade. Up to about this time the first
machines had been turned by man-power. Gradu-
ally horse-power and then steam-power were intro-
duced, and the capacity of the various existing
plants enlarged. The War of the Rebellion gave a
second great impetus to the industry, and the old-
time flat-tile ovens being taxed beyond their capacity
to meet the increased demand for hard bread for
the use of the army and navy, a mechanical reel
oven, consisting of a series of long iron pans revolv-
ing in a framework, similar in action to the Ferris
448
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
wheel, the whole located in a large brick oven-
chamber, was invented, and practically revolution-
ized the cracker business. This change at once
caused the capacity of a single oven to jump from
the earlier rate of six barrels to twenty-five or thirty
barrels of flour a day. The size of these reel ovens
has been gradually increased, until at the present
time almost all the large plants have a daily capacity
of from forty to fifty barrels per oven.
Commensurate with the growth of the business
was the increase in the variety of goods produced.
In 1840 but five kinds of crackers were known,
these being the original pilot-bread, the hard cold-
water cracker, the soft or butter cracker, the square
soda, and the round sugar-biscuit; the last three
differing from the others in containing shortening,
butter or lard, and in being the product of a fer-
mented dough. This fermentation or raising greatly
increased the lightness and softness of texture of the
cracker, and in consequence rapidly met the approval
of the public. It will be noticed from the above
statement that, with the exception of the sugar-
biscuit, no sweet or fancy biscuits were manufactured
here at that time. In England, however, fancy
cakes of several kinds were on the market ; and
some years before the War of the Rebellion the two
large English firms, Huntley & Palmer, and Peak,
Frean & Company, began sending different lines of
their fancy biscuit to America. They established
agencies in nearly every large city of the Union,
even as far west as California, and their goods were
sold in all the principal retail grocery houses in the
United States. Recognizing the growing impor-
tance of this new line of trade, but unable to procure
any machinery in this country to supply it, Belcher
& Larrabee, of Albany, already mentioned, sent to
England in 1865 for the necessary cutters and
machines to compete with the foreign imports.
Their attempt was successful from the start, and
thus began in America the production of sweet or
fancy biscuit, which, gradually extending, has be-
come at the present day the most profitable element
of the biscuit industry. Shortly after the above
date American mechanical skill started into action,
and soon H. J. McCollum, of New York, and
Denio & Roberts, of Boston, the only prominent
makers of bakers' supplies at that time, were equip-
ping the various plants with machinery which, at less
cost, rivaled in capacity and operation that of Eng-
land. In consequence the importation of English
goods decreased, and the American varieties, being
equally good, almost entirely took their place.
Encouraged by this success at home, several
American firms, among them being Holmes &
Coutts, Wilson of Philadelphia, and F. A. Kennedy,
made an attempt about 1880 to introduce into
England and France some of our brands of un-
sweetened goods ; for it will be remembered that in
Europe unflavored biscuit — or plain crackers, as we
call them — was at that time utterly unknown. For
a time this attempt proved successful ; but the two
large English firms above referred to, finding a
growing demand for these new importations, sent
men to the United States to study the processes and
the grades of flour used here. The result, as may be
expected, was but the complement of their earlier
experience with their own specialties in America.
The English ovens soon produced all the grades
of common crackers exported from here, and the
American trade, in consequence, declined. Nor has
it been possible since that time to revive it to any
great extent, owing to the almost prohibitory com-
petition of foreign cheaper tin packages in which
the goods must be placed to be shipped, and cheaper
labor. American goods are, however, still exported
in medium quantities to Africa and South America,
while in many of the large cities of Europe some of
the specialties of a few firms can be found.
Glancing over the development of recent years,
we see a progress and a growth that it is almost
impossible to analyze. Originative skill and strict
business application have produced machine after
machine and established system after system, by
which the industry, though perhaps still somewhat
short of perfection, has reached a high rank in the
scale of magnitude and efficiency. A great many
of the processes involved have been practically rev-
olutionized, in almost all instances machinery taking
the place of the former hand labor. As an instance,
the dough, which until twenty years ago was mixed
and kneaded by hand in long boxes, is now entirely
prepared in large iron mixers by means of a revolv-
ing paddle, some of these machines being capable
of handling as much as twelve barrels of flour at a
time. Machines, also, to produce an almost endless
variety of fancy cakes and biscuits have been in-
vented and introduced, resulting in an ever-increas-
ing list of new goods. When Joshua Bent first
established his bakery at the beginning of the cen-
tury only two kinds of crackers were known. To-
day the number reaches in the aggregate at least
500 different grades and varieties. Some of the
greatest successes in this increase have been the
result of accident, while others are the perfection
of long and costly experiment. In this connection
must be mentioned the names of J. H. Mitchell, of
FRANK A. KENNEDY.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Philadelphia; Ruger, of Buffalo; H. J. McCollum
and Fowler & Rockwell, of New York ; and Roth
& McMahon, of Chicago, all manufacturers of
bakers' supplies and machinery, and each taking
a part in the invention and development of the
mechanical processes introduced. And the end is
not yet. New specialties are constantly being pro-
duced by the various competing firms, and the skill
and ingenuity of all those directly interested are
constantly taxed to bring to life some new combina-
tion of delicacies, while a host of artists is kept
active in originating attractive and suitable labels
and coverings for the various packages in which the
goods meet the public. To give some slight idea
of the magnitude of the biscuit business as it stands
to-day, a few statistics may be of interest. Before
giving these, however, it will be necessary to add a
short account of the recent organization of the bis-
cuit industry.
In 1890 three large companies were formed,
comprising together nearly all the largest and most
prominent plants in the country. The first of these,
the New York Biscuit Company, includes the lead-
ing houses of New England and New York, with
an immense factory in New York City, the largest
and most complete in the United States. The build-
ing is 600 feet long, 200 feet wide, and rises six
stories in height. Forty ovens are its complement,
with an aggregate daily baking capacity of 1000
barrels of flour. The second is the American Bis-
cuit and Manufacturing Company, with one factory
in New York City, but doing its principal business
in the West and South. The third is the United
States Baking Company, its largest factories situated
in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. These three
companies represent an aggregate capital of $25,-
000,000, and in 1894 their consumption of flour
approximated 1,400,000 barrels. A fourth, some-
what smaller, company, the National, has since been
formed, which has plants situated respectively in
Denver, Colo., Cedar Rapids, la., Des Moines, la.,
Rock Island, 111., and New Orleans, La.
Although these four companies represent almost
all the important plants, it is safe to assume that
their consumption of raw material and consequent
product is not above one half the total in the United
States, for in nearly every large city and town from
Eastport to California can be found independent
bakeries, each with one or more ovens. In the
manufacture of biscuit, flour is, of course, the most
prominent item ; and the importance of this fact to
the farmer can be gauged when we calculate that in
order to supply the needs of all the cracker bakeries
of this country during the past year at least 2,800,-
ooo barrels of flour were required. Reckoning five
bushels of wheat to a barrel of flour, and twenty
bushels to the acre, we find that the above figure
means the product of no less than 14,000,000 bush-
els or 700,000 acres. But flour, though the most
important, is by no means the only raw material
of consequence used in the biscuit business. The
following figures are taken from the report for the
year 1894, and, though rough, are as close an ap-
proximation to the actual amounts of materials other
than flour as it is possible to estimate :
MATERIALS CONSUMED IN BISCUIT
MANUFACTURE.
51,000,000 pounds sugar.
1,800,000 gallons molasses and syrup from the West Indies
and our Southern States.
34,000,000 pounds lard.
6,000,000 " butter.
400,000 gallons milk.
1,900,000 dozen eggs.
1,017,770 pounds honey from Cuba, Florida, California, and
the far West.
2,132,330 " raisins from the Mediterranean and Cali-
fornia.
figs from Smyrna,
soda.
cocoannts.
almond nuts,
salt,
currants.
722439
22486,636
1,830,982
18,748
4,145,004
814,598
1,510
ginger.
7,128 gallons extract vanilla.
564,034 pounds jellies.
70,764 " almond paste.
15,936 " oil of lemon and orange.
230,545 " chocolate.
73,988 " cream of tartar.
97,770 " apricots.
21,306 " citron.
To these figures must be added the following,
which enable the finished goods to properly reach
the consumer: 10,000,000 wood boxes; 7,000,000
barrels; tin to the value of $250,000, made into
cans and packages ; together with 5000 tons of
paper and pasteboard. To handle all these mate-
rials and prepare the product for market an army
of workers is required. For all the heavier labor,
mixing and baking, men are employed ; but the
packing, labeling, and some portions of the fancy
or iced work are done by skilful-fingered girls.
Traveling salesmen visit every portion of the country
for orders, and in the large cities drivers by the
hundreds, with handsome wagons, make daily and
weekly rounds, supplying the trade with the factory
product. The New York Biscuit Company alone
has 2500 operatives, besides 350 salesmen and
drivers ; and the total number of hands engaged in
the various processes of the biscuit industry in the
United States will probably reach not less than
25,000.
450
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Not a freight-train or steamer of any principal
line but carries these goods over the country. Not
a yacht skims along our shores, not a vessel crosses
the ocean, without carrying biscuit in greater or less
variety in its store-room. Not a hotel would think
its menu complete without the after-dinner coffee
with crackers and cheese. Not a picnic party
would arrange for an outing without calling upon
the grocer for its supply of biscuit. Not an after-
noon tea, luncheon, or other social function would
be complete without the dainty novelties so lavishly
supplied by our leading bakeries. When we add to
this the daily home consumption, and the constantly
increasing exports to the West Indies, Central and
South America, which are following closely on the
growth of political alliances between the American
republics, the value and importance of the biscuit
industry to the country is appreciated. No field
affords better opportunity to intelligence, genius,
and business enthusiasm. The century which is
closing has recorded great achievements, but that
which lies ahead is equally full of promise.
CHAPTER LXVII
THE COTTON-SEED-OIL INDUSTRY
THE utilization of one waste product does
more to enrich the world than an increase of
many millions of dollars of product in some
old and well established industry. Perhaps there is
no single thing that more forcibly illustrates this
truism than the utilization of the once despised
cotton-seed. In the process of ginning seed-cotton
the result is a little more than two pounds of seed
for every pound of cotton produced ; and forty
years ago, aside from the small amount of seed that
might be reserved for the next season's planting, and
such small quantities as were consumed by the cattle
on the plantation, there was absolutely no use to
which it could be applied. At the gins the great seed
heaps grew, as the sawdust heaps rise to-day around
the portable sawmill, until, as a last resort, the gin
would be moved from the base of the seed mountain
it had reared up to itself. Thus was cotton-seed, in
1840 and 1850, a source of actual expense and an
encumbrance. That there was an oil that might
be made useful contained in the cotton-seed was
known, of course, ever since 1783, when that august
and venerable body, the London Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Com-
merce, first called public attention to it. The real
value of this oil, or a method for its extraction, was,
however, not known to the society ; and while it
declared that the seed-cake resulting from the manu-
facture of the oil was good cattle-food, and though
the society offered gold and silver medals of reward
for the first successful process of making the oil and
cake, it never had occasion to bestow its honors.
Later on, when the seed of the Egyptian cotton was
introduced into Europe, the manufacture and re-
fining of the oil was begun and carried on quite ex-
tensively. The use of the product for food purposes
was also learned abroad before any advance what-
ever had been made by this country in that direction.
The dilatoriness of Americans in availing them-
selves of this great wasted asset was undoubtedly due
to the fact that the South, where cotton was king, was
not a manufacturing community, and had neither
taste nor inclination to develop along any but agri-
cultural lines. Her population, further, embraced but
few of the operative class needed for the labor of the
manufactory. The first recorded attempts in this
country to extract the crude cotton-seed oil were
made at Natchez, Miss., in 1 834, and at New Orleans
in 1847. Both were complete failures from the
standpoint of practicability, and it was long a
lugubrious jest with the late Mr. Frederick Good,
of New Orleans, who was active in the second at-
tempt, to show a small bottle of the crude cotton-
seed oil, which he stated had cost him just $12,000.
Abroad the seed of the Egyptian cotton continued
to be used more or less successfully, and experiments
— rather desultory in their nature, perhaps — were
continued on this side of the water. The greatest
difficulty encountered by the pioneers in this field
was the total lack of appropriate machinery. Fore-
most as Americans have been in the invention of
mechanical appliances, they were singularly back-
ward in developing machinery for the expression of
the cotton-seed oil. At the time now under discus-
sion each mill that was attempted had its own
mechanical ideas, and these were uniformly crude
and unsuccessful. In fact, the introduction of im-
proved or even fairly practicable methods of extract-
ing and refining cotton-seed oil did not come until
some of the American manufacturers — notably Mr.
Paul Aldige', of New Orleans— had visited the great
European works, including those at Marseilles, and
patterned from them, in the early years after the
Civil War.
Prior to this, however, the industry had gained a
foothold on a small scale, and crude cotton-seed oil
was put on the market in limited quantities. Its ap-
pearance as a domestic product dates from about
1855, and to Mr. Paul Aldige', of New Orleans, later
one of the most prominent cotton-seed-oil manufac-
turers in the country, is due the credit for the first
successful attempt at crushing the seed in a mill. He
451
OXE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
had to contend with many difficulties, not the least
of which was procuring the cotton-seed. The
wealthy planters of those ante-bellum days, when
their cotton crop was picked, ginned, and baled,
were quite disposed to regard the business as com-
pleted. To be troubled about selling the waste
seed product of the gins was not worth their while :
and as the small planter did not exist to any extent,
it was more than difficult to secure die needed seed.
It was harder to get one ton then than it is to get
one hundred to-day. Furthermore, the transporta-
tion faculties for bringing in the seed from the cut-
tying districts were of die poorest. These obstacles,
together with erode machinery and htde knowledge
og the ramable by-products to be obtained
from the manufacture of the oil, afl operated to keep
the ""l«qjiy at die lowest point.
Singularly enough, it was in die tight little Yankee
State of Rhode Island that the first firm foothold for
this pfmfarly Southern industry was obtained. A
miQ was started at Providence, R. I., in 1855—56,
and die seed was shipped from the South, principally
from New Orleans. While but a small affair com-
pared widi die huge works of to-day, diis mill coo-
tinned to be operated until die outbreak of die
Civil War put an end to Southern seed shipments.
During die years of war dial followed, die cotton-
seed-oil industry made htde headway here, illlnmli
abroad it was mpHiy coming into prominence.
There were a few small miDs and refineries in die
cities along die Mr»ii.^i| ' notably at Vicksburg
and New Orleans; and after die blockade of dial
river began to shut off supplies, dieir product came
into demand as an illuminating ofl, despite die fact
diat it could not be burned in chimney-lamps. In
dte accumulation of die seed-cake resulting from
diis hinrtartr, which prevented all exportation, die
Sooth first came to use it, in default of anything
better, as a food for cattle. It had never been
used for such a purpose here before, aldxmgh it had
been exported, and its valuable properties were well
known on die continent of Europe. The hulk, also,
were disco* a ed at dus time, in die same forced
way, to be good food-stuff for cattle, and dieir use
for diis purpose, in a limited way in die Soudt, dates
from diis time. These hulk, mixed widi a certain
percentage of die meal of die seed-cake, make a
compact form of fodder, and were used in the timber
regions and odier localities where hay was hard to
obtain and difficult to transport.
It is not many years ago dial every cotton-seed
mffl in die country utilized, as far as possible, its
; for fuel to operate die miDs; but diis demand
fell short of die production, and the larger miUs were
put to an expense for hauling die hulls away or for
erecting furnaces to convert diem into ashes. Grad-
ually die value of die hull became known to die
dairyman, and dien to die feeder of stock for die
butcher, tin at die present time practically all die
hnDs produced are utilized as cattle-food, and diat
which was only lately an expense to die crusher has
become a source of revenue.
This and many other most valuable by-products
were, however, almost unknown here until after die
war had ended. In New Orleans and at Vicks-
burg die crushing of die seed was continued in a
small way during die years between 1860 and 1865,
when peace, widi the consequent return of die
people to dieir agricultural pursuits, again brought
larger crops and increased activity. In 1866 there
were in die whole United States just seven mflk for
ttte crushing of die cotton-seed. Though die diverse
usefulness of the cottoo-seed ofl was manifesting itself
almost dafly in some new form, die growth of the in-
dustry was comparatively slow. Twenty-six nulls in
1870 increased in die next ten years to only forty-
five. These represented a capital invested of
$3,862,300, dirongh which was turned out an
annual product valued at $7,690,921. In wages
die cotton-seed miDs in 1880 paid out $880,836 to
3319 employees, and die value of die material con-
sumed by diem in die processes of manufacture was
$5,091,251. These figures, while of respectable
amount, considered widi due allowance for die
short time die industry had been known, still sink
into insignificance by contrast widi diose represent-
ing its condition to-day. The fifteen years diat
foDowed 1880 have seen die most wonderful change
in die status of the cotton-seed-oil business among
die commercial and industrial interests of die coun-
try. While die total product of die country in 1880
was less dian $8,000,000, diat of a single concern,
die American Cotton Ofl Company, ten years later,
was over $20,000,000, and 5000 employees were
carried on die rofls of diis one company.
One of die great factors in this wonderful growdi
has been the continued bringing to light of new uses
and value for die product. What die discovery
of the by-products of petroleum did for diat min-
eral ofl was done for cottonseed ofl, when die
manifold uses of die refined product began to be
understood. As an ofl, dot of die cotton-seed
possesses in high degree aD die properties common
to the best vegetable ofls, widi die exceptions diat
for household flnunination, or as a lubricant, it can-
not be used to advantage. As ordinarily known in
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the phraseology of the market, refined cotton-seed
oil is of four varieties, viz., summer and winter
yellow, and P""1"**" and winter white. From the
miner yellow are derived many valuable products.
The well-known lard compound, " cottolene," and
fonflar products, which have so largely superseded
bog-lard for cooking purpose*, take a great deal of
mis grade of ofl, the balk of which, in fact, may be
fmlA to be consumed in culinary channels. When
cheaper than tallow, " f™™r yellow " is also used
in great quantity in the manufacture of laundry and
toilet soaps, and a large amount of it, made from
•elected crude ofl, is exported for use abroad in the
making of bntterine, a substitute for batter m»H»
used in Holland, Belgium, France, and other Euro-
pean countries. This grade of ofl is of the finest
quality, and in many places has supplanted ohve-ofl
as a dressing for salads or the general uses of die
table. Druggists find in it a reliable and excel-
lent substitute for olive-oil in many preparations
for external application, such as salves and nm-
ments. Not being inflammable, cotton-seed ofl is
used by the salt manufacturers to float on top of
their *»"fr*j and the paper nvlrr*. find a «imilar use
for it. By a process of bleaching, " summer yellow "
is converted into "summer white." "Winter yel-
low" and "winter white" win stand a cold test at
52 - Fahrenheit, without rhilKng These ofls are
produced i'*nn tnf summer ous by f ili«iviiiiy a large
percentage of the stearin contained therein. Winter
ofls are largely used as a snbstitntc for whale and
lard ofls in miners' l=""p* and considerable quanti-
ties are used in foreign countries. Cotton-seed soap-
stock, as known to commerce, is the residuum of the
refining-kettle, and is utilized in low-grade laundry
soaps and in wool-scouring soaps.
Besides these uses of the refined ofls, the crasher
of cotton-seed sees his product and by-products
bring him returns from various other sources. The
cotton-seed cake, or solid readmrm of seed remain-
ing after the expression of the ofl, finds sale as cake,
principally in Great Britain ; but by far die larger
portion of the cake is converted, by grinding, into
cotton-seed meal, which is of such high repute at
home and abroad, both as a food for cattle and
iV fy aiwi as an ingredient of j""»"««"l fertilizers,
mat the entire production finds a ready sale. The
"Enters" or short staple cotton, ranking relatively
as of about half -value with "middling cotton," is
another by-product which the cotton-seed crusher
gains through a careful regaining of die seed.
The process of extracting die ofl from the cotton-
seed is a rather complicated one in its preparatory
stages, but is simplified to the last degree by the em-
ployment of machinery at each and every step. The
seed, on reaching the mill, is first screened, to re-
move sand, dirt, bolk, and foreign substances, and
finally a draft of air is osed to complete the cleaning
process. The seed is now ready for the miters,
which machines are an elaboration of the ordinary
cotton-gin; and whatever staple remains upon the
seed is stripped off in passing through ****•*! From
die linters die seed passes to the holler, a high-
onghly. The hnOs, by screens and beaters, are now
separated from die meats, which latter are, by screw-
conveyers, conducted to bins con tig
to
crashers, and as fast as required are passed through
die crushers, where die mass is reduced to a uniform
consistency, and is known to mflhnen as " uncooked
meaL" The first step is cooking this meal, which is
done in steam-jacketed kettles. When heated to a
proper degree die meal is drawn from die 1"^*>«T,
formed into cakes, enveloped in cameTs-hair doth,
and placed in boxes of an hydraulic press, when by
the application of proper pressure die crude ofl is
speedfly extracted. The solid residue remaining in
die press-box is die decorticated cotton-seed-oil cake
of commerce.
In die practical methods by which these mflk
are supplied and operated all die improvements of
modern industrial enterprise have been laid under
tribute. In the distribution of the ofl product, tank-
cars on die railroads and tank-steamers on the high
seas are used for transportation in bulk; and die
American Cotton Ofl Company, m its iiniiifiisc ex-
port business to Rotterdam, has a tank-steamship
capable of carrying 4200 tons of ofl in bulk, dins
saving the heavy item of cooperage. Tms steamer
can dras uuiy, without injuring, even die finest
quality of die food-oil, which is in great demand
in Holland and Belgium. As an evidence of die
amount consumed there it is shown dial Rotterdam
alone imported in one year, icceudy, no less dian
8,356,676 gallons of cotton-seed ofl, of which
5,973,760 were from dm country. The diva WIT
of die industry lequiies factories other dian die
crude-oil rnflTs, as refineries, lard and cottokne plants,
soap factories, cotton-ginneries, cotton-compressors,
and fertiHzer-nu'xmg establishments. The supply for
aD these is derived direcdy from d»e crude-oil nriDs,
which in their turn are operated immediately from
die raw m*trml_ in providing which there has grown
up a most nnportant branch of the agricultural sys-
tem of die South.
With the development of die industry in later
454
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
years have come, of necessity, radical changes in
the methods of collecting the seed and covering the
country. The commission-merchant, who, in the
early days after the war, did almost all the business
for the large cities, has disappeared. With New
Orleans as a center for the large milling interests,
these seed buyers formerly laid only the Mississippi
River bottoms under contribution for their annual
supply. They acted as middlemen, and to them the
mills sent as many bags as they desired to have filled
for their season's supply. These bags were in turn
sent out by the agents to the planters to be filled, and
on their return were forwarded to the mills, where
they were reweighed, inspected, and, if found de-
fective in any way, a charge was entered against the
commission-merchant, who was furthermore respon-
sible for the bags, and was duly charged with any
shortage of return. As the mills increased, however,
and competition became keener, buyers from the
various great concerns supplanted the commission-
merchant. They represented their particular mills,
and scoured great districts of the cotton-growing
sections, hundreds of miles distant, buying up all the
seed they could find. This arrangement entailed
upon the mills the necessity of direct dealing with
the planters, which sometimes has resulted in more
or less pecuniary loss. Where twenty-five years ago
the commission-merchant stood between the mill and
short weight, poor-quality seed, or shortage in the
bags, there is no one to do so to-day, and the petty
losses in the individual dealings make up an aggre-
gate sum that adds materially to the annual expense
account.
As collections are now made, everything has been
systematized to a point that insures the greatest
possible expedition of business. In the small inland
towns the seed is brought in entirely by wagons,
drawn by the inevitable Southern mule ; and every
Saturday morning during cotton-picking time a long
string of these wagons can be seen waiting in the
sun outside the seed depot to be weighed and un-
loaded. All is grist that comes to a cotton-seed
buyer nowadays ; that is, until he begins to grind.
Foreign substances and poor-quality seed mix with
the wagon-load, and are shoveled in to him at the
same market price as the good product. He has
no time to object, as the early cotton-seed grinder
would most certainly have done. He now knows
the machinery in the mill will sort all that mass of
seed as intelligently as he himself could do it, and
with infinitely more rapidity. He knows that he
and his colleagues are now buying from 1,250,000
to 1,500,000 tons per year, where a few thousands
only were bought twenty-five years ago, and if the
expediting of this vast business involves some in-
creased expense, it must be borne. This buying in
bulk is also practised where the seed is transported
by rail to the mills. Immense tracts are laid under
contribution in this way, and remote districts reached
by the mills in their ever-extending hunt for the seed.
Much of the product brought in by the railroads is
transported for several hundred miles, and statistics
place the average expense to the mills of this single
transportation item at $2 per ton, which, supposing
that only one half the total seed-supply was carried
over the railroads, would run into large figures.
The third and most favored method of collecting
the cotton-seed is by boat along the rivers. In this
form of collection it is found necessary to sack the
seed, and for this purpose the mills supply the bags.
A steamboat carrying several thousands of empty
bags will leave New Orleans or Vicksburg, as the
case may be, and steaming slowly up the river, stop
at each small town and at the various plantations
along the levees. At each stopping-place as many
bags are left as each planter thinks he can fill ; and
when the last bag has been given out, the steamboat
is turned and headed down the river to pick up the
freight by the dozen or by the hundred bags as it re-
turns. The great drawback to this system is that the
bag used for cotton-seed is altogether too popular
an article among the planters. These " planters "
are not the class of men they were in the old ante-
bellum days. The glory of the manorial residence,
with its broad acres, has departed, and the name has
ceased to signify anything more than an ordinary
farmer. The planters to-day are small holders, and
for the most part negroes, to whom a cotton bag
has a varied utility that would scarcely be believed
at first sight. It makes an excellent pair of trousers
or a coat for plantation work, a good saddle-cloth
for the road, and can even be found as bedding in
not a few of the houses along the levees. That the
loss entailed in this seemingly petty way is really a
heavy one may be gathered from the fact that the
mills have had a shortage of as many as 1,500,000
bags in a single season.
The effect upon the cotton-growing interests of
the South of the great industry that has sprung up
from this seed has been undoubtedly great. In the
face of a declining market the total production of
the plantations has more than doubled during the
past twenty-five years. A crop of 3,154,946 bales
in 1870 had increased to a total production of
7,527,211 bales in 1894. Cotton-seed oil solely,
has not been, of course, responsible for this advance,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
nor is such a claim advanced. It can be stated,
however, that since the small planter, with his five
to ten bale crop, became common throughout the
cotton belt, the additional revenue which he has
been able to derive from the sale of the cotton-seed
has done much to aid his progress.
The quality of the cotton affects little or not at all
the quality of the seed, and soil so poor as to yield
a hardly marketable cotton will still grow a plant
whose seeds are as good as the best. In the making
of the cotton-seed oil there has already been utilized
a large amount of the seed of the almost worthless
" bumblebee " cotton. This cotton is stunted, either
from poor soil or lack of cultivation, and grows so
near the ground that only the very smallest negro
children, known as " bumblebees," are able to pick
it without becoming exhausted by stooping. Fi-
nally, when it is considered that the seed of the
cotton-plant more than pays the entire expense of
ginning, baling, and tying the crop, the economy it
effects is plainly seen. Even the slave labor of the
ante-bellum days cost its own maintenance, and, little
as that cost was, the financial interests of the planta-
tion to-day are better served because of the added
value of the seed. In fact, the whole agricultural life
of the South has been benefited by this formerly de-
spised gift of old King Cotton, and it is only just to
say that the people are becoming appreciative of
this fact.
To return to the history of the industry from the
point at which we left it in 1880. The fifteen years
which have intervened between then and now have
formed the period in which cotton-seed crushing
may fairly be said to have taken its place among
the great American interests. Forty-five mills in
1880 had increased to sixty within two years, or at
the rate of thirty-three and one third per cent.
Since then the increase has been steady, both in the
number of mills and in the capacity of those already
in operation. In 1890 there were 119 establish-
ments, and it is a small mill nowadays that does not
crush 1 0,000 tons of seed during the season, although
twenty years ago such a capacity would have been
looked upon as enormous.
Looking back upon the cotton-seed-oil industry
for fifteen years, the personnel of the trade gains an
added interest and a deeper significance viewed in
the light of later events. Few of the men who were
looked up to as leaders in the business at that time
are leaders to-day. Many are dead and all are
changed, but they are still remembered as pioneers
in the days of the early successes of cotton-seed
crushing. The babe is now become a giant, both
at home and abroad. The prejudice against cotton-
seed oil — so rampant fifteen years ago as to induce
Spain at that time to begin a war against its impor-
tation, in which Italy, moved to the defense of her
olives, speedily joined— has largely disappeared.
Since 1889 the exportation of cotton-seed cake and
meal has become an important item of our foreign
trade, and one which bids fair largely to increase.
The amount exported in 1893 was 195,319 tons,
and in 1894, 208,042 tons. In addition to this the
exports of cotton-seed oil in 1894 amounted to
14,958,309 gallons, valued at $6,008,405.
In the year 1894, with a cotton crop of nearly
8,000,000 bales, there were over 1,500,000 tons of
seed crushed. This means that at least $10,000,000
were distributed among the planters of the South in
cash payments for cotton-seed; the railroad and
transportation companies received as much more in
freights. From this resulted a product approximat-
ing 60,000,000 gallons of crude cotton-seed oil,
besides about 500,000 tons of oil-cake and meal.
Wages and the legitimate expenses of the industry
further circulate millions annually. Its prosperity
reacts beneficially upon the country, and its product
adds to the comfort and conveniences of the time.
With it the South takes her place among the other
sections in the manufacturing interests which will
bring wealth to her and commercial honor and credit
to the American nation.
CHAPTER LXVIII
THE STARCH INDUSTRY
/'"STARCH is a white pulverulent substance
composed of microscopic spheroids, which
are, in fact, sacs containing amylaceous mat-
ter. These microscopic particles vary in size and
form, and exist in many plants. Chemists name
three kinds of starch — one found in cereals, another
called inulin, and a third called lichen-starch. They
are all insoluble in cold water, alcohol, ether, and
oils, and, with the exception of inulin, are converted
into sugar by dilute sulphuric acid and by diastase.
The first-named forms with hot water a mucilaginous
solution, which, when cold, is the starch used by the
laundress of to-day ; it is tinged blue by iodine. The
second forms a granular precipitate when its solution
in boiling water is allowed to cool, and is tinged a
fugitive brown by iodine. The third, by cooling the
concentrated solution, gives a gelatinous mass, with
clear liquid containing very little starch floating over
it ; its jelly becomes yellow with iodine. Starch is
found in wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, rice,
corn, millet, pease, beans, potatoes, arrowroot, and
other plants, and varies greatly in quantity under
different circumstances.
The making of starch had a very ancient origin,
for it is spoken of by Pliny, in the first century A.D.,
as being made from wheat on the island of Chios.
Very little is said of it by modern writers, however,
until the time of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when
its use became almost a necessity for stiffening the
enormous ruffs worn by the queen and her court.
So scarce and exclusive was the article at that time
that its use was forbidden by English law except for
the purpose just mentioned, and by perfumers in
making the hair-powders then in vogue. The Greeks
made starch from wheat for food about the beginning
of our era, and potatoes formed a considerable source
of starch-supply early in the sixteenth century.
As the manufacture of cotton goods increased, and
especially after the development of calico printing,
there was a greatly enlarged demand for starch, and
as the early restrictions upon its manufacture were
removed, inventors and experimenters turned their
attention to its cheaper and better production.
Crude methods for making it became generally
known, and it was produced in small quantities in
many families for home use. New sources of sup-
ply were also discovered, and gradually took their
proper place in the general economy of the industry.
The importance attaching to these is indicated by the
fact that in 1796 the British Society of Arts gave a
medal to Mrs. Gibbs, of Portland, for her discovery
of Arum maculatum as a source of starch. But for
many years the principal source of the article was
wheat or potatoes.
One hundred years ago there was not a starch fac-
tory in all our broad land except the domestic ones,
where our great-grandmothers grated the potato and
washed the starch out of the pulp. This was then
strained and left over night to settle ; in the morning
the water was poured off, and the starch removed
from the vessel and dried in the sun, being then laid
aside to be used as occasion required. The oldest
process of manufacturing wheat-starch in the United
States consisted in steeping the grain in water until it
was soft, when it was passed through a malt-mill, or
between rollers, and again mixed with water. Fer-
mentation then set in, forming lactic and acetic acids,
which disintegrated the cellular structure of the ker-
nel and liberated the starch granules. These were
collected by repeated washings and precipitations,
the process being continued several days, the gluten
putrefying and giving off a very foul odor. The
sugar and a portion of the starch were converted
into alcohol, and a part of this into lactic and acetic
acids, which dissolved the gluten that had escaped
putrefaction. Thorough washing removed the solu-
ble matter, and the starch left behind was dried and
prepared for market. The other method, known as
non-fermenting, is of French origin, and consisted in
kneading wheat-flour into dough with water, and then
456
THOMSON KINGSFORD.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
HI
washing in a fine sieve in a stream of water as long
as the passing water continued milky. The starch
in suspension and the sugary portion in solution
were caught below the sieve, and the gluten nearly
all remained behind in a sticky mass. What passed
through was left to ferment twenty-four hours in
an oven at 68° Fahrenheit, and a little leaven was
added, or the skimmings of a former operation, to
lusten the process. The portion of gluten carried
through with the starch was thus separated and re-
covered by skimming. The starch was then treated
like that otherwise produced. This last-described
method gave a product of about fifty per cent, of
the weight of flour, while by the first process it was
only thirty-five or forty per cent. Most of the
gluten was saved in a condition to be used for food
by mixing it with potato or other substance. The
starch thus produced, while good for some purposes,
lacked the required strength for fine laundry-work,
was not clear and pure white like the modern pro-
duct, and, being made from wheat, was compara-
tively costly. The removal of the gluten was never
perfect, causing endless annoyance and perplexity
to the laundress when it came in contact with her
hot irons ; and it was by these, or still more crude
and costly methods, that nearly all the starch was
produced down to about the year 1841.
The uses to which starch is put are numerous.
Not only in the laundry and kitchen do we find it,
but also in many of the leading manufactories of
the day. It is used largely in the manufacture of
textile fabrics, in calico printing, paper, confection-
ery, breadstuffs, paint, wood filling, etc.
The manufacture of starch from potatoes in
this country is now confined principally to the
New England States, Maine having forty-four
factories. There are sixty-four factories engaged in
this branch of the starch industry of which I have
knowledge, these factories consuming 2,824,512
bushels of potatoes, producing 24,008,352 pounds
of starch per annum, requiring 1536 horse-power,
and employing 659 hands for about three months in
each year. The capital invested is $355,765, and
the value of the annual product, $854,697.33. Cull
potatoes are largely used. Potato-starch is used
almost entirely by manufacturers of textile fabrics.
The wheat-starch industry early in the century
gave promise of great importance, the annual output
of this commodity continuing to increase until 1842,
when the discovery and perfection of the process for
the extraction of starch from Indian corn, by Thomas
Kingsford, turned the attention of manufacturers to
this cereal as a source of starch supply, and many
wheat-starch factories were remodeled thereafter to
use Indian corn. The first wheat-starch factory of
which I have knowledge was that started by Edward
and John Gilbert at Utica, N. Y., in 1807, which
factory continued until about 1849, when it was re-
modeled to use Indian corn. The business was given
up and the plant abandoned in 1859. In 1817 a
wheat-starch factory was started by Thomas Barnett
at Philadelphia, Pa., which was removed to Knowl-
ton, Pa., in 1879, and there continues in operation.
The next wheat-starch factory was operated by
George Fox in Cincinnati, O., in 1824, at which
time but five bushels of wheat were consumed in the
weekly output. The business gradually increased,
until 500 bushels per week were required to meet the
demand. This factory began the manufacture of
starch from Indian corn in 1854. In 1827 William
Colgate & Company started a wheat-starch factory
in Jersey City, N. J., where they had a very suc-
cessful career in this branch of the starch industry.
Their plant was altered into a corn-starch factory in
1842, and continued in the manufacture of starch
from the latter-named grain until 1865. In 1843
Colgate & Wood (Charles Colgate and Julius J.
Wood) began the manufacture of wheat-starch at
Columbus, O. There are but five wheat-starch fac-
tories in this country at the present time of which I
have knowledge. These factories have an aggregate
capital of $195,000, the annual production being
8,312,000 pounds, valued at $346,000, requiring 250
horse-power, and employing 88 hands. The capa-
city of these factories is 1077 bushels of wheat per
day.
As early as the year 1841, while Thomas Kings-
ford was superintending the wheat-starch factories of
William Colgate & Company in Jersey City, N. J.,
where he had been employed since thespring of 1 832,
he clearly saw the objectionable features of both the
methods of manufacture and of the product, and in
his study to remove them became convinced that in
our ripe Indian corn lay the future source of abun-
dant starch that would in every way excel all others
if it could be separated from every substance foreign
to its nature. He imparted his conviction to his em-
ployers, the result of which may be inferred — manu-
facturers and capitalists are seldom ready to aid in
the experiments of investigators. They thought that,
at the best, the prospects of success were doubtful.
They were making money, and why should they not
continue manufacturing starch from wheat instead
of taking up a wild project ? He talked with other
starch makers of that day, who ridiculed the idea,
and declared it to be impracticable and visionary.
458
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Satisfaction with present conditions is always a foe
to advancement. The more he thought of the sub-
ject the more his mind was imbued with the belief
that ultimate success awaited him. The history of
his experiments is deeply interesting.
In the year 1841, at the Colgate factory in Jer-
sey City, N. J., he began a series of experiments to
test his theory, following substantially the processes
in use in the factory. He first soaked a quantity
of Indian corn-meal, and then washed it through a
fine sieve, hoping thus to secure the starch; but it
remained only corn-meal. He then obtained some
shelled corn, soaked it several days in lye to soften
the grain, and endeavored to reduce the kernels to
pulp with a mortar and pestle. This done, he washed
out the starch, or endeavored to, from the other con-
stituents ; but this attempt also failed. He then tried
a wooden screw-crusher, with which, and the use of
several solutions, he endeavored to extract the pure
starch ; but again failure attended him. His next
mechanical contrivance for reducing the corn to
pulp was a paint-mill, but the final result was the
same — he failed to effect a separation of the starch.
He then soaked another quantity of corn, and passed
it between the rollers of an old sugar-mill, borrowed
from a grocer ; but the rust on the mill discolored
and spoiled his product. Still persistent, he procured
a pair of granite rollers, mounted them on shafts in
a frame, and by passing the corn repeatedly between
them, obtained a clear pulp. When this was strained,
washed, and settled by the process with which he
was familiar in the manufacture of wheat-starch, he
found it so mixed with gluten, albumen, woody fiber,
and other impurities, that he could not effect the
separation desired. Mr. Kingsford now continued
his experiments with various kinds of acid, hoping
to produce the long-sought separation of the pure
starch from all the other constituents of the grain,
but without success. He then made a solution of
wood-ash lye, the use of which also failed, as did
other similar experiments. Almost discouraged, but
still stimulated with a desperate hope of ultimate
success, he ground up another quantity of corn and
treated it with a solution of lime. Again success
evaded him. But he was now nearing his triumph.
He had thrown the first lot, treated with a lye solu-
tion, into a receptacle, and to this, in his discour-
agement, he added the last quantity, upon which he
had experimented with lime, and left them to be
thrown away with the results of many former fail-
ures. On entering the room a few days later to put
it in order, he proceeded to empty the tub, and to
his great joy and surprise found at the bottom a
quantity of beautiful white starch, thoroughly sepa-
rated. Continuing his work, he rapidly perfected
his process, and in 1842 produced his first quantity
of marketable starch. Mr. Kingsford fully realized
the importance of his discovery, although his most
sanguine anticipations could scarcely have led him
to hope for the great success that followed. Corn
was then vastly cheaper in comparison with wheat
than it is at the present day, thus promising lower
prices and greater profits, as well as increased de-
mand for the new starch. He freely exhibited his
product to buyers and consumers, as well as to his
employers, and there was only one verdict: it was
incomparably superior to any other starch. Now
he did not have to ask for financial aid. William
Colgate & Company were ready and anxious to
make any investment necessary to establish the
manufacture if they could share in the profits, and a
business engagement was accordingly effected, under
which Mr. Kingsford was to superintend all the
operations and devise the necessary machinery for
the manufacture, at the same time retaining the
knowledge of his process for himself. None of
the starch-making devices formerly used in the
factory could be utilized, and he set himself to the
work of inventing and building special machinery
for the new process. The task was successfully
accomplished, the manufacture began, and the new
starch soon reached consumers in comparatively
large quantities. It met with prompt and universal
favor, and soon crowded the former starches from
the market.
In 1846 the firm of T. Kingsford & Son was
formed by the association of Thomas Kingsford and
his son Thomson. They erected a small factory at
Bergen, N. J., and there the manufacture of the
Kingsford starch was successfully inaugurated,
the knowledge of the superiority of this starch spread,
and the rapidly increasing demand became known,
capitalists came forward with propositions for in-
vestment in the business. This resulted, in 1848, in
the incorporation of an organization styled the
Oswego Starch Factory, and the removal of the
business to Oswego, N. Y., where suitable factory
buildings were erected. Unfailing water-power, a
pure water-supply for manufacturing purposes, and
good shipping facilities were the chief advantages
secured by this change of location. In 1850 Thomas
Kingsford became impressed with the conviction
that, by following processes somewhat different from
those employed in making laundry starch, a food-
substance might be produced from corn, which
would be free from the objections inherent in corn-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
meal, extremely nutritious, and at the same time
suited to the most delicate or infantile stomach,
supplanting arrowroot, sago, tapioca, and similar
farinaceous foods. He immediately began a series
of experiments, which resulted in the discovery and
production of the now universally known corn-starch
for food purposes. From 1842 the demand for
corn-starch continued to increase, leading to the
establishment of many plants ; but the concentration
of the starch interests into fewer hands has within
the past few years resulted in the cessation of work
in seventeen factories. There are at present sixteen
factories engaged in the manufacture of starch from
Indian corn in this country, with an aggregate capa-
city of 29,000 bushels of corn per day, producing
206,673,000 pounds of starch annually, valued at
$8,738,895. In this branch of the industry there
is, at present, an invested capital of $8,450,000 ;
11,740 horse-power are required, and 2219 hands
are employed. In 1891 a combination or trust was
formed, composed of many of the starch companies
in the United States, and called the National Starch
Manufacturing Company. The manufacture of
starch may be counted among the leading industries
of this progressive nation, and a large proportion of
the product is annually shipped to, and finds a ready
market in, foreign countries.
Like other industries, the growth of starch manu-
facture has kept pace with our ever-increasing pop-
ulation. In 1880 there were 139 factories engaged
in the manufacture of starch from potatoes, wheat,
and corn. Ten years later there were but 80
factories, which would seem a falling off of the in-
dustry. But a carefully prepared table of facts
concerning the subject shows a marked increase in
the number of hands employed, quantity produced,
and value of annual product. A brief summary
shows a total of 2966 hands employed in potato,
wheat, and corn starch factories, utilizing 13,526
horse-power, producing 238,993,352 pounds of
starch annually, valued at $9,939,592.33, and em-
ploying $9,000,765 capital.
S'
CHAPTER LXIX
THE MATCH INDUSTRY
BY the coaction of thought and energy are all
things developed from nature. The quick-
whirling, sharp-pointed stick of hard wood,
brought in contact with resisting hard wood, gener-
ated by friction the heat which gave primitive man
his first spark of fire. That primitive man who, with
energized thought, produced the first spark of fire was
a greater inventor than any who followed him up to
the day when man harnessed electricity to produce
the same spark of fire. How similar their methods,
— action and reaction ; the positive and negative
poles of the battery ; the whirling armature of metal
coming in contact with metal, generating the heat-
fluid that is distributable by proper conductors ; yet
how great the step in mechanics between the two —
one base and rudimentary, the other the perfection
of mechanics!
It has been written that " human culture may be
said to have begun with fire, of which the use in-
creased in the same ratio as culture itself." The
ancients regarded fire as a sacred element, and,
when once produced, it was watched, replenished,
and cared for with a religious zeal by virgins, who
were scourged if they permitted it to expire.
To the development of mechanics and chemistry
we owe our progress physically; and while some
branches of industry may attract more attention
than others on account of their importance, it would
seem that all have traveled along at about the same
pace and made about the same progress, the match
industry, like its neighbors, only keeping step to the
music of the rapid march of industrial affairs. The
progress made in the methods of producing fire
quickly was for several centuries exceedingly slow,
taking into consideration the fact that phosphorus
was discovered in the eighth century by an Arab
named Bechel. Owing, perhaps, to lack of proper
chemical and mechanical appliances at that time, it
dropped from sight, and was rediscovered in 1669
by Brandt. Both Bechel and Brandt discovered it
in liquid human refuse after it had been changed
by keeping. Later it was procured from human
bones, and still later from all kinds of bones ; and
now it is extracted by electricity from mineral
phosphates. It is exceedingly strange that, while
its properties were well known for several centuries,
its application to matches dates back only a little
over half a century. It would be hard work to
compute accurately the value to the human race of
the introduction to general use of this useful little
article.
It is estimated that five matches per day are used
for each man, woman, and child in the United States,
and that fifteen seconds are required to consume a
match, while the time required to produce the same
number of fires by the best-known methods before
matches were invented would have been ninety
hours per annum for each person. The difference
between the two methods would figure out a saving,
at five cents per hour, of over $270,000,000 per
annum to the people of the United States.
The original discovery of the ignition of phos-
phorus and sulphur by friction was made by God-
frey Haukwitz in 1680. About one hundred and
fifty years later, Walker, of Stockton-on-Tees, in-
vented the friction-light. Two or three years prior to
that the famous instantaneous-light boxes were in
use. These were called Eupyrions and Prome-
theans, and consisted of sticks of wood tipped with
sulphur and chlorate of potash, which ignited on be-
ing dipped into sulphuric acid. These instantaneous
lights retailed at a very high price. The lucifer or
improved friction-match succeeded them in 1833.
The first patent granted in the United States for a
friction-match was to Alonzo D. Phillips, of Spring-
field, Mass., October 24, 1836, and the manufacture
in this country began in the same year.
The splints were whittled out by hand at first,
and continued to be made in a crude way until
1842, when Reuben Partridge patented the first
460
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
splint-cutting machine. The discovery of red or
amorphous phosphorus was made by Schrotter, a
German, in the early fifties ; and one of its earliest
users was Herr Lundstrom, of Jonkoping, the
original Swedish safety-match manufacturer, in
1855-56. A history of this industry in 1856 states
that it had reached gigantic proportions in Sweden,
Germany, and England. In the latter country there
was an average daily output of 40,000,000 matches
in that year. To-day the Diamond Match Com-
pany's largest factory, at Barberton, O., has facilities
for turning out 100,000,000 matches per diem.
How quickly, in the familiarity of common use,
has the little match lost its merited consideration as
an important factor in human events, and how little
do we realize its importance in commercial affairs!
There are consumed in the United States 115,200,-
000,000 matches per annum, which, if put end to
end, would reach a distance of over 4,000,000 miles,
or span the earth 170 times. Allowing eleven
matches to the inch in width when put side by side,
they would make a band around the earth fifteen
inches wide.
There are annually consumed in the production
of matches in the United States, and in casing them,
over 40,000,000 square feet of pine lumber one inch
thick ; 8000 tons of strawboard and paper are used
in boxing and wrapping them for market ; 3,500,000
pounds of paraffine and brimstone are used for
saturating the ends of match-sticks ; and 6,000,000
pounds of chemical compound are used for match-
heads. About $7,000,000 are invested directly in
the match business, and $5,000,000 are invested in
lumbering and manufacturing enterprises, owned and
operated by the match manufacturers to supply them-
selves with materials used in the making of matches.
The annual product is delivered to the consumer for
about $7,000,000. In the match business proper
about 2200 people are employed, and as many more
are employed in the manufacture of material for
matches. The aggregate wages paid amount to about
$1,500,000 per annum.
The production of matches has been attended
with a great amount of misery which is incidental
to the business. People of scrofulous or delicate
constitution who are brought in contact with phos-
phorus in handling matches, or who daily inhale the
fumes of phosphorus, are frequently attacked by a
most distressing disease called necrosis of the bone.
It usually attacks the lower jaw-bone; when it at-
tacks the upper jaw-bone death is almost certain.
In the early history of match making the business
was conducted in the crudest way possible to
imagine. It was driven by competition into the
hands of the poorer classes of people in London
and in the larger cities of the continent of Europe.
The manufacture was in cellars ; and so numerous
became the cases of this most loathsome disease
that the different governments drove the manu-
facturers out of the cellars and ordered that they
work in better-ventilated buildings. Despite the
growth of the business the evolution of machinery in
the manufacture has very much lessened the number
of people employed, and reduced the danger of this
disease to the minimum.
From whittling out match-splints in 1833, when
matches were first invented, there has followed a
mechanical development (the several steps of which
would be more interesting to the specialist than to
the general reader, and will not be dwelt upon in
this paper), until now the most perfect and modern
machinery is used in their manufacture. The opera-
tion of these machines may be described as follows :
The wood from which the match-splints are made
is pine plank, two inches thick, which, after being
thoroughly dried, is resawed into lengths from one
and seven eighths to two and one half inches, repre-
senting the length of the matches to be made. The
knots and cross-grained parts are cut out of the
blocks, and only good straight-grained lumber is
used. These blocks are then put into the automatic
feeder of the machine, the paraffine and composition
for the head of the match having been properly
prepared and placed in their respective receptacles,
which are so arranged that they can be replenished
from time to time without stopping the machine.
The knives or dies that cut the match-splint from the
block are so placed in the head-block of the machine
that when the splints are cut they are separated by
a quarter of an inch, and placed or set in cast-iron
plates made into an endless chain by link attach-
ments. At each revolution of the machine forty-
four matches are cut and set, the machine making
from 175 to 250 revolutions per minute, its rapidity
depending on the length of the match and other
conditions.
From the cutting end of the machine the endless
chain moves along over a drying or heating block
prepared for this purpose, where the match-splint is
heated to a degree nearly equal to that required to
melt paraffine, so that the paraffine may not chill
on the stick when the splint passes through it, but
that the end may be thoroughly saturated. The
chain continues to move on in its course to the com-
position rollers, where the match receives its head ;
thence on in a circuitous route, passing back and
462
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
forth, coming in contact with blasts of cool, dry air
for a period of one hour and a half, when it returns
to the place of beginning, just before reaching which
the matches are punched out of the chain by an
automatic device into small paper or strawboard
boxes varying in size, capable of containing from 65
to 500 matches, the boxes having been fed into the
machine by an automatic device with such regularity
that one might almost truthfully say that the matches
were counted into the boxes ; the chain continuing
along to take other match-splints on their round, to
be made complete matches and dropped in turn into
other boxes. These boxes of matches pass from the
machine to a rotary table, around which sit from two
to four girls, who take the boxes, place the covers on
them, and then pack them into cases.
The machines require just enough manual help to
feed them the raw material and to take care of the
manufactured product, and are so nearly perfect that
it does not seem possible for much further develop-
ment to be accomplished. The world is indebted
for the present perfection, first, to the policy of the
Diamond Match Company, which has kept em-
ployed, since its organization in 1881, a corps of
expert inventors and mechanics for the invention
and improvement of its machinery, at an expense
of at least $50,000 a year; second, to the inventors
themselves, chief among whom are E. B. Beecher
of Westville, Conn. ; McClintock Young of Fred-
erick, Md. ; J. P. Wright of New Haven, Conn. ;
Joseph Baughman of Akron, O. ; Charles Palmer of
Akron, O. ; and John W. Denmead of Akron, O.
The writer has occasionally added a thought in this
development, especially as to the architecture of
factories best adapted to match manufacture, and
so arranged as to bring the danger from the use of
phosphorus down to a minimum.
Coincident with this development of machinery
for the manufacture of matches has been that of
machinery for the manufacture of paper and straw-
board boxes used in the match business, a large
part of which machinery has been the creation of
E. B. Beecher. Its operation is as follows : A roll
of strawboard of proper width, lined with white or
colored paper, is placed in the machine, which takes
it and scores the board for the corners without cut-
ting or breaking its fiber. The strawboard is then
glued by an automatic device and folded into an
endless tube, passing on in that form through print-
ing-presses that print three sides of the tube. It is
then cut into proper lengths. Passing on in the
machine, it is sanded on the fourth side, which
makes the rubbing surface for the ignition of the
match. This forms the cover or outside of the
boxes ; these covers are turned out from the machine
at the rate of 450 per minute. The boxes proper are
made in a similar way, by machinery which folds and
glues them in shape.
The immense saving to the world by the intro-
duction of machinery for making match-boxes is in-
dicated by the following facts : There are now used
in the manufacture of matches in the United States
at least 2,000,000 paper or strawboard boxes per
day, which, if made by hand, as the greater part of
them were twenty years ago, would require at least
1500 people; while now it requires to operate the
machines that make these boxes not over 75 people.
Besides this great saving of labor, a great saving in
the use of strawboard and paper for labels, paste,
etc., has followed the introduction of machinery, ma-
chine-made boxes being much lighter and stronger.
A further economy has been achieved in the space
required for the manufacture of boxes. Strange to
say, in England and parts of the Continent hand-
made boxes are largely used, the material for them
being weighed out and charged to people who call
for the work and take it home to complete, returning
the finished boxes to the factory in due time. This
work is taken at prices which indicate, at least, that
it is not done in brownstone houses. It is one of
the strange sights to be seen in London and Liver-
pool, this giving out of material for match-boxes to
the poorer classes of people. It is at once pictu-
resque and disgusting. " May human life never be
so cheap in America," is one's first thought on wit-
nessing it.
Nature has queer ways of working out her prob-
lems. Perhaps it is this very cheapness of human
life abroad that has prompted the better fed and
housed Yankees to inventive habits. Certain it is that
they have made greater progress in match making
than any other people on earth. To-day the largest
match-making firm of England or the Continent is
using match machinery invented by Americans over
thirty years ago, while Americans are using machi-
nery that is making a saving in labor over that referred
to of seventy-five per cent. The Diamond Match
Company is now constructing in Liverpool, England,
the largest match factory in the world, for the intro-
duction of the latest and best-known methods for the
manufacture of matches. It would not be strange
if, with the cheap labor and the saving in cost of
material, chemicals, etc., some of the products of
these works should reach the eastern shore of this
continent. Such has been the evolution of the
match industry, with and without protection.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The effect of this automatic machinery of the
match industry is easily summed up. In 1880, be-
the organization of the Diamond Match Com-
pany, there were in existence throughout the
United States over thirty match factories, employ-
ing about 4000 people. The total product of all
these factories at that time was 2,200,000 gross per
annum, which constituted at least ninety-five per
cent, of all the matches that were consumed in the
United States, there being but very few imported ;
while now, with a much smaller number of people
employed, four times as many matches are pro-
duced, the greater part of which are consumed in
this country. Manufacturers' prices of matches
have been reduced from fifty to seventy-five per
cent. The consumption of matches has been in-
creased much more than in proportion to the in-
creased population of the United States, this result
being largely due to the low prices at which they
are sold.
A very large portion of the material used in the
composition for the heads of the matches in this
country is imported. Chlorate of potash, of which
there are consumed in matches in this country 1,500,-
ooo pounds per annum (besides several millions of
pounds that are used for other purposes), is all im-
ported—not one pound of the article is made in the
United States ; and the same is true of some other
chemicals used, notwithstanding that they could be
prepared here as cheaply as in Europe, barring the
difference in the price of labor. With a judicious
system of protection to those American industries
which need it there is no reason why, in a few
decades, we can not only be self-sustaining and
independent as a manufacturing and commercial
people, but be able to compete for the trade of the
world on an equal footing ; though we cannot ex-
pect to command for a long time yet much of the
trade of other countries. The civilized nations of
the world are each encouraging home industries by
protective tariffs on such articles as require their
fostering care, and are especially appealing to the
patriotism of their people to patronize home indus-
tries. The sooner that the American people learn
that foreign countries buy of us only such articles as
they are forced to buy, so to speak, the sooner they
will be prepared to save to themselves the great-
est market on earth — that of their own country.
Although we may pride ourselves on the great
progress that has been made in the physical and
commercial development of our country, there seems
to be plenty of work yet to do.
The writer visited match factories last year in
Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, and England,
and he was unable to discover any material pro-
gress made by these different people beyond the
processes in vogue in America twenty-five years
ago. Of course, the people of those countries have
not had the stimulus of high wages to prompt them
to the use of labor-saving machinery. In Italy the
writer visited a match factory where several hundred
people were employed at wages that in our country,
with our habits of living, would not furnish even the
common necessaries of life. A large number of girls
worked for wages not exceeding nine cents per day,
and the most that was paid to girls in this factory
was one franc per day. The writer's attention was
naturally attracted to these people. One of the girls
had on a knit blouse, so open and loosely knit as
to disclose the fact that the wearer had a chemise
underneath ; a calico skirt, hooked together at the
waist over the blouse ; and a cotton underskirt that
showed itself in spots. Her legs were bare, as re-
vealed by the shortness of the skirt, which did not
reach half-way below her knees ; and on her feet
were wooden sandals. The effect of the whole was
plainly to outline her rounded contour. Such a
costume would not be recommended to New York's
four hundred, but it was none the less suggestive of
comfort, as the weather was warm. It is probable
that the whole outfit did not cost one dollar. Like
their sisters of high society, some of these girls were
better dressed than others.
If to do the greatest good to the greatest number
be an economic principle, then the American people
should be thoroughly satisfied with their match sup-
ply, matches being so cheap that they are often used
for kindling-wood without materially affecting the
expenses of the household. Such results could only
be obtained by the best methods of manufacture
and distribution. Before the business of manufac-
turing matches in the United States was so thor-
oughly organized by the Diamond Match Company
matches were made by over thirty different com-
panies, many of which did not know the first
principles of the manufacture of good matches.
Notwithstanding competition was then very sharp,
the bulk of the product was sold at about three
times the present price of matches, and in many
cases the goods were utterly worthless.
The expense of conducting the business in those
days was enormous, comparatively, and, of course,
increased the price of the goods. In the city of
Chicago five separate stores were maintained, with
all the expenses incident to such establishments;
and in other cities of the country there were stores
464
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in proportionate number to the amount of goods
sold. Moreover, each manufacturer had from one
to five traveling salesmen tramping over the country
at large expense, not less than from $2000 to $3000
per annum each. The system has been so revolu-
tionized that one store in each of the larger com-
mercial centers supplies the public need for matches,
with greater facility than in the olden times, and
very few traveling men are now found necessary in
this line of business. The public have received the
benefit of these economies.
To still further lessen the expense of the produc-
tion of matches, the management of the Diamond
Match Company has adopted a policy, so far as it
has been practicable to do so, to make the company
as self-supplying and independent as possible, they
having invested several millions of dollars in manu-
facturing many of the articles used in the making of
matches, and in pine forests, and large mills for the
reduction of pine-trees to lumber for splints by the
most economical methods, in order that all possible
waste may be avoided. These investments could
be profitably made only by a company using such
large quantities of these several articles as are used
by the Diamond Match Company. A compre-
hensive system of factories to supply the want
of matches has been advantageously distributed
through the country. Nearly all of these factories
have been modernized and brought up to a very
high standard of efficiency. While concentration of
capital in this business has brought down the num-
ber of factories to about twenty, the match business
is in no sense a monopoly, and many times more
people are now interested directly in the business
than were before the Diamond Match Company was
established in 1881. The company is rather in the
nature of a cooperative company (although regularly
chartered), in which every important person in the
business from time to time, as he comes on the stage,
is aided to the ownership of stock in the company.
The liberality of the management in this particular
has wedded to the business a corps of very able
young men in each and every branch of their
different factories and stores.
The difference between this company and a
monopoly is illustrated by a comparison of it with
a monopoly in the same line of business. The
French government runs the match business as
a government institution. The revenue or profit
derived from it is somewhat over $4,000,000 per
annum. The cost of matches to the French peo-
ple is quite four times what is paid for better
goods in America. The " Pall Mall Gazette " of
recent date describes this monopoly in the following
language :
"Those who have had occasion to travel much
beyond Calais of late cannot fail to have been
struck by the fact that, since the French match
makers struck, matches in France have, in an
unusually large number of instances, been found
capable of doing so. The ' Matin ' supplies an ex-
planation of this phenomenon. The matches that
have been striking were all made in Belgium. Dur-
ing the strike the French government has been
drawing its supplies from Ghent. It appears Ghent
can supply this sort of matches at ^3 45. zd. per
1,000,000, whereas the match-wood turned out by
the French factories costs not less than ^£5 8,r. 4//.
for about the same number of misfires. So the
' Matin ' has been moved to make a little calculation.
And, according to this, it would seem, if France
were to give up the business altogether, close her
factories, pay the hands to do nothing for the term
of their natural lives, and run the Belgian articles,
she would net an annual profit of _^8ooo. This
sounds very nice, and Mr. Ribot could do with the
money, and there would not be nearly as many bad
words about. But then, as another Paris journal
points out, the thing would be unpatriotic, and when
patriotism wants a light it will probably have to go
on using those words, or learn the two-stick trick to
get one."
One is a monopoly, run by the operatives, not by
the owners ; the other is a company largely owned
by operatives, who carry on the business for their
own benefit, the result being economies whereby the
public is greatly benefited.
One of the greatest achievements of the Diamond
Match Company was its last winter's lumbering
operation, conducted by J. H. Comstock, who or-
ganized a force of men in October, and between the
ist of October and the ist of April cut 185,000,000
feet of lumber in logs, having at one time in the
woods over 6000 people and 1200 horses. The
expense was over $600,000. This work was made
necessary by the extensive fires of last fall in order
to save the lumber. Such is the advantage of capital
in preventing waste.
The writer, who has had forty years' experience
in the match business, has not only seen it wonder-
fully developed, but he has been equally impressed
with other lines of development that have had an
effect on it. The method of distribution of matches
in the early fifties was by canal or wagon — at least
in the West, when there were but very few railroads
in Ohio and west of Ohio, and the roads then run-
OHIO C. BARBER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ning would not transport matches, which were con-
sidered too dangerous.
It was only in the early sixties that railroads be-
gan to carry matches. The writer has been in every
county in Ohio with a wagon, also in a large portion
of Michigan, Indiana, West Virginia, and western
Pennsylvania, on the mission of parceling out to the
country stores small lots of matches, for which he
did not always get cash. In fact, all cash was the
exception, and the business was chiefly done in what
then was called " barter " ; that is, matches were
traded for calico, cotton cloth, boots and shoes, tea
and coffee, sugar, candles, and everything else that
was useful in the home and could in turn be traded
off to the hands in payment of labor. The cash
received in those days for matches went to buy
lumber, brimstone, phosphorus, and other chemicals
used in their manufacture, which were all imported,
with the exception of lumber. It was very little cash
that labor received in the West " in those good old
days." There was one notable exception when cash
was paid out to hands, and that was when a circus
was in town, the amount required being twenty-five
cents per head. And all went, if it took the last
cent.
The evolution from these methods to those of to-
day is quite as remarkable as the evolution in
mechanical development. Strange it is that a con-
dition of trade could exist such as existed in this
country in the fifties, when there were produced
from the mines of the country so many, many
millions of dollars of gold, all going out to foreign
countries in the purchase of merchandise which we
were unable to manufacture.
Prominent among the men who have developed
the manufacture and distribution of 1 1 5,300,000,000
matches per annum (so that no person shall want
for matches in the United States if willing to pay a
very moderate price for them) are found William
Gates (deceased), Frankfort, N. Y. ; George Barber
(deceased), Akron, O. ; D. M. Richardson (de-
ceased), Detroit, Mich. ; John K. Robinson, Chi-
cago, 111. ; E. B. Beecher, Westville, Conn. ; L. W.
Beecher, Westville, Conn. ; James Hopkins, St.
Louis, Mo. ; William H. Swift, Wilmington, Del. ;
Joseph Swift, Wilmington, Del; M. Daily, Phila-
delphia, Pa. ; William M. Graves, Chicago, 111. ;
George P. Johnson, New York City ; E. G. Byam,
Boston, Mass. ; J. C. Jordan, Portland, Me. ; James
Eaton (deceased), Utica, N. Y. ; Henry Stanton (de-
ceased), Syracuse, N. Y. ; James Clark (deceased),
Oshkosh, Wis. ; William H. and J. H. Moore,
Chicago, 111. These last two gentlemen became
largely interested in the business in 1889, and have
aided greatly in bringing it up to its present com-
mercial importance.
CHAPTER LXX
THE ICE INDUSTRY
THE use of ice as an article of commercial im-
portance dates from early in the present cen-
tury. It is to the people of America above
all others that the credit must be given for its rapid
development as an industry, hardly less phenomenal
than the progress of steam, the improvement of the
printing-press, and the introduction of electric and
other inventive industries.
Prior to the beginning of the present century we
learn little as to the use of ice. Dating back to the
days of Job, we find him singularly oblivious to his
opportunities when the Lord called his attention to
" the treasures of the snow," " the treasures of the
hail," " the ice," and " the hoar-frost of heaven."
Galileo seems to have been equally inappreciative,
notwithstanding that he is accredited with having
been the first to observe that "ice is lighter than
water ; hence it floats." In the early ages of Greece
and Rome it is shown to have been used, snow in the
days of Seneca having been sold in the shops and
peddled upon the streets of Rome. The snow thus
used was collected on the dry plains of Hannibal's
camp on the ancient Mons Albanus, where pits were
dug, cone-shaped, about fifty feet deep and twenty-
five feet in diameter at the surface, then filled with
snow, and beaten down as hard as possible, the pit
having been first lined with straw and prunings of
trees. The extreme bottom of the pit was obstructed
by a wooden grating, in order to form a drain ; and
more prunings being added, a thatched roof was put
on, and a door, well covered with straw, left at the
side, through which entrance could be effected for
the purpose of cutting out with mattocks the ice thus
formed. In the East Indies a somewhat analogous
example appears, the pits there, however, being about
thirty feet square by two feet deep, lined with sugar-
cane or the stems of dried Indian corn about a foot
thick. In these pits shallow earthen dishes are placed,
which are filled at dusk with water that has been
boiled, which readily freezes during the night ; and
at sunrise hundreds of laborers carry the thin sheets
of ice thus formed to deep pits, ramming them down
to force them to congeal into a solid mass. In
China a like method is pursued.
In the reign of Henry III. of France, toward the
close of the sixteenth century, the use of snow for
cooling liquors at the tables of the wealthy became
somewhat general, and its sale near the end of the
seventeenth century was made a profitable trade in
some parts of that country. From that time to the
early part of the nineteenth century little progress was
made in developing the use of ice, although some
experiments were made in increasing refrigeration
by mixing saltpeter and snow with ice, and in con-
gealing by cold various juices, creams, and other
luxuries. I refer to the original manuscript of an
article prepared for the United States census of 1880
for thus much of " ancient history," as, strange to
relate, the literature of the business may be said to
be still in its infancy ; and the absence of accurately
compiled statistical information from the various sec-
tions of our own country, as well as others, prevents
such a resume' as can be given from properly con-
veying a clear idea of the magnitude of this won-
derful outgrowth of American enterprise.
When Daniel Webster moved to Marshfield in
1835 and cut his own ice, he had seen but the birth
of this new child of nineteenth-century progress, and
but little of its infancy, for it had not then developed
into youth. The year 1805 may be taken as mark-
ing the first stage of its life, if we except the ship-
ment made from New York in the year 1799 by a
gentleman in Charleston, S. C., who chartered a ves-
sel for a cargo which was cut on a pond near Canal
Street, in the city of New York. In 1805 Marti-
nique's hot sun destroyed the frigid cargo of 130 tons
which had gone to its shores from Yankeedom in
the little brig Favorite to assuage the sufferings on
that fever-swept island. The ill results of that ex-
periment, by which $4500 were lost, only temporarily
466
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
467
disheartened its originator, Frederic Tudor, son of
Judge William Tudor, who as a colonel had served
on the staff of General Washington. The brig Tri-
dent, two years later, carried Mr. Tudor's second
shipment from Boston, which arrived in Havana,
but likewise proved unprofitable. The War of 1812
caused a cessation of his efforts, and not until the
year 1816, after obtaining a concession from the
Spanish government securing a monopoly in Havana,
did he again venture to export from Charlestown,
Mass., cargoes of ice to the South. Their success-
ful sale justified further ventures to other Southern
ports on our coast, and the Stars and Stripes for suc-
ceeding years waved over many an American ship
freighted with frozen crystals which found a wel-
come in home and foreign ports as far as the East
Indies. In 1817 and 1818 the trade was extended
to Charleston and Savannah; in 1820 to New Or-
leans; in 1833 to Calcutta; in 1834 to Rio Janeiro.
An illustration of the progress of ice exportation is
furnished in the following table :
EXPORTATION OF ICE.
YKAR.
NUMBER CARGOES.
QUANTITY.
TONS.
1806 ..
I
IV)
1816
1
I.2OO
1826
it
d.OOO
1836 . .
4S
I2,ooo
1846
ITS
65,000
1856 .
i-3
•?(>•?
146,000
In this latter year shipments had covered ports in
the West Indies, South America, Ceylon, Calcutta,
Bombay, Madras, Batavia, Manilla, Singapore, Can-
ton, Mauritius, and Australia. In 1842, Gage, Hit-
tinger & Company, of Boston, entered the field as
exporters, and introduced American ice by the bark
Sharon to the people of London. Mr. Lander, of
Salem, followed them in this trade. In 1872 ship-
ments had increased to 225,000 tons, and thus the
trade continued until the year 1880, when the ex-
traordinary failure of the ice crop opened the field in
tropical countries for manufacturing ice. In that
year the shipments by 1735 vessels from the Ken-
nebec alone amounted to 890,364 tons.
Thus the irrepressible American was different
from Job and Galileo ; he saw his opportunities and
made the most of them. In a few years the business
was begun in Eastern cities, notably in New York,
where it has since attained the most gigantic propor-
tions. Previous to the introduction of Croton water
into that city, the earliest efforts at gathering ice, ex-
cepting the first shipment in 1799 to South Carolina
before referred to, were directed by a few butchers
desirous of preserving meats for the wants of the
small population. Their ice came from what was
known as Sunfish Pond, on the outskirts of the city.
In the year 1826 some ice was cut on Rockland
Lake, the purity of this water particularly commend-
ing it. This ice was conveyed from Rockland Lake
landing in a rude box, set upon a truck with wheels
cut from logs of wood, to the sloop Contractor, com-
manded by Captain John White, and from the sloop
it was trundled around ashore in a one-horse cart
until sold. Later the steamboat that made a trip
from Haverstraw and return in two days brought
all the supply to the city customers. As in Boston,
these pioneers thought ice could not be kept above-
ground, and therefore stored it in a large hole twenty
feet square by fifteen feet deep. Then followed the
building of stone houses at the old red fort, Hubert
Street, in New York City, and another at the foot of
Christopher Street. This plan of storage was event-
ually abandoned, owing to the waste ensuing from
frequent exposure of the ice while loading wagons.
Thereafter followed, as the business grew, the erec-
tion of storehouses at the lakes and other places where
ice was first gathered ; these storehouses varying
greatly in size, but ordinarily built about too or 150
feet in length by 36 to 40 and 50 feet in width, and
containing rooms more or less in number for the
separation of the ice. These rooms in some of the
States are each called a house, although all are
under one roof ; while elsewhere an aggregation of
rooms is designated a house. Thus an owner of a
twelve-room house is spoken of in one section of
the country as owning twelve ice-houses, and in
another section as owning one house. The storage
capacity of houses ranges from 10,000 to 90,000
tons, 30,000 tons being a fair average accommo-
dation ; and the total storage of natural ice for mer-
cantile use may be safely estimated for the whole
United States at 10,000,000 tons.
A lack of unity of interest and harmony in the
trade, and a tendency to overestimate rather than
underestimate the magnitude of individual opera-
tions, have resulted in promoting incorrect opinions
as to the storage capacity, the consumption, and the
capital invested. Thus, in some cases, chartered
companies have been erected upon fictitious value,
arbitrarily fixed without reference to intrinsic or
market value, often comprising sums stated as con-
sideration for " good- will," a rather valueless com-
modity in many cases. Shorn of these values, how-
ever, an estimate taken from the best information
at hand, and from actual inspection of most of the
468
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
large centers where the business is conducted, results
in fixing the entire capital engaged in the ice busi-
ness of the United States, inclusive of that invested
in manufacturing ice, at not less than $30,000,000 ;
and the production for commercial use at about
15,000,000 tons, about one half of the crop gathered
being available for use, the waste by melting and
chipping amounting to fifty per cent. No pro-
vision, however, is made in this estimate for the
business conducted in the small towns and villages
of the country, of which it is impossible to obtain
statistics.
To move this great body of ice requires a large
fleet of vessels— sailing vessels for export, and
mostly ice-barges and other boats for the home
trade. The railroads also, in many sections, are
largely used for transportation, more particularly in
the West, where the value of the ice dealers' patron-
age has been recognized in rates that make it pos-
sible for dealers to use cars in transportation profit-
ably; whereas in the East this has generally been
found to be impracticable, except where the railroad
company has entered into competition with ice deal-
ers to build up its own freight by controlling owner-
ship of the ice plant. In the year 1878 large
quantities were shipped in train-load lots by the
Knickerbocker Ice Company, of New York, to
Cincinnati and other cities in the West and South,
twelve gross tons weighing out ten net tons, much
to the surprise and admiration of buyers in those
cities for the skilful packing. Ice was railroaded
afterward in the same year to St. Louis from Maine
—a longer distance; but the experiment was not
repeated, owing to a waste of fifty per cent. The
large fleets of ice-barges traversing the Hudson by
day and night, in tow of steam-tugs, during the
season of navigation, which is limited to an average
calculated during fifteen years at 268 days, form a
picturesque scene familiar to tourists on that river ;
and the great storage-houses so numerous on its
banks between Rondout and Coxsackie have awak-
ened their wonder, equipped as they are with ele-
vators and chains, stored away during the sum-
mer, but which in winter run to the music of steam-
power with the white blocks of crystal from the
water to the interior of the houses. The electric
power has not yet been put in service there, except
for light while working at night. The movement
of the large stock of ice required for New York and
adjacent cities must of necessity be made in the
limited period for water transit, the record of fifteen
years showing a closing of navigation on the Hud-
son an average of ninety-seven days in the year.
Over 1500 wagons and 3000 horses are in use for
the distribution of ice in the cities of New York and
Brooklyn alone, and the weekly pay-rolls in these
two cities for laborers engaged in such work amount
in the summer with the leading dealers to about
$25,000 per week. To the yearly pay-rolls must be
added the cost of towing, loading, and discharging
barges, dock and stable rents, repairs and mainte-
nance of boats, wagons, ice-houses, and other things
in which the deterioration from usage is rapid, and it
will be found questionable whether any other indus-
try returns out of its receipts so large a percentage
to the people from whom the revenue is derived.
The manufacture of ice-tools and machinery, as
a necessary adjunct of the ice business, is made a
specialty by some dealers in this country, who thus
have attained not only a national but an interna-
tional reputation for excellence of work. Mr.
Nathaniel Wyeth, of Boston, who constructed the
first double-walled modern ice-house, has the
credit, in connection with Mr. John Barker, of the
same city, of inventing many of the ice-tools, now
numbering over seventy, which supplemented the
primitive ax and hand-saw used in the early years
of the business. The Norwegians were the first
foreigners to recognize the advantage of American
ice-tools and machinery, after the invention of ice-
plows in the year 1839 (although the patent clear-
ing-tooth was not invented until the year 1872);
and it was not many years after the exportation of
ice was shown by Americans to be practicable that
certain of those Northmen visited this country to
learn the method of harvesting, storing, and ship-
ping, which business dealers in that country have
since largely pursued. Some cargoes of Norwegian
ice have found a ready market in the city of New
York in seasons of scarcity, the first cargo arriving
in the year 1880.
The production of cold by artificial means has
attracted attention from a much earlier date than is
generally supposed. The existence of porous clay
vessels for cooling water in Egypt, Arabia, China,
and other Eastern countries would indicate that this
method antedated the use for like purposes of even
ice itself, notwithstanding ice was already prepared
in nature's own laboratory. In the southern part
of the eastern hemisphere, where ice could not be
found, the earliest process was the plunging of wine-
bottles in water to lower the temperature of the
wine ; then succeeded the plan of wrapping them in
wet cloths, thus applying the principle of evapora-
tion, a principle still in existence combined with the
use and solution of saline substances. When snow
ROBERT MACLAY.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
could be procured it was substituted for water, and
eventually the application of salt was found to
hasten evaporation. The use of ether was also
known as productive of cold by evaporation shortly
after its discovery ; and in India it was common,
owing to the cheapness of niter, to use a solution of
niter and water also as a cooling mixture for wine.
The becarros of Malaga and the alcarrazas of Spain
are but modernized developments of those cooling
vessels which the Saracens introduced, and faithfully
attest the antiquity of the practice of artificial means
of refrigeration. The record of early experiments
for mercantile uses starts with the Italians in the
sixteenth century. Lord Bacon later took some in-
terest in the matter ; and the record of the results of
the experiments of Mr. Walker, of Oxford, England,
in 1795, contains highly interesting tables of many
freezing mixtures. Professor Leslie, of England,
produced a considerable degree of refrigeration on
the principle of including in the exhausted receiver
of an air-pump sulphuric acid, a substance rapidly
absorbing vapor. Later experiments were made
by French and German inventors. The ether-
machine followed, being patented in Connecticut in
1850; but a serious danger arises from the use of
ether, owing to its liability to explosion in case of
leakage. Other machines have been made using
liquefied ammonia, and others sulphurous acid and
various frigorific mixtures. More progress in these
has been made by manufacturers in this country
than elsewhere, particularly in the commercial use
of cold air for refrigeration in breweries and places
where cold air only is required, but with more
varying success in the production of ice itself for
consumption, except at points remote from the
sources of natural ice-supply. Thus in the South,
and notably at points away from the coast, machine-
made ice has been handled to better advantage than
the other ; but the cost of manufacturing such ice,
even without the additional cost of making a chem-
ically pure article, precludes the prospect of ever
bringing it profitably into competition with ice
formed by nature's own hand.
America may well be proud of the ice industry,
and may well claim its parentage. It brings com-
fort to the afflicted, it puts sweetness and purity in
the place of decay, and by wasting gives up its own
life to save lives greater and more valuable. It
promotes the honest investment of capital, and feeds
and clothes laborers by the thousands. On the
fields adjacent to the city of New York alone it
finds employment in the harvesting season for from
15,000 to 20,000 men, and in its distribution during
summer for nearly 5000 men. The cost of harvest-
ing goes to the laborer, thence to the merchant;
the costly plants set as jewels among the farm lands,
wherever located, reduce the taxes of other land-
owners ; and thus all classes reap a benefit from the
money which stores, moves, and distributes the crop.
It is a productive industry in the fullest sense, and as
" blessed is he who makes two blades of grass grow
where one grew before," so should this industry, in
all the glory of its productive power and beneficial
results, be fostered and classed among the thousand
things which stir the pride of the American people
in this nineteenth century.
CHAPTER LXXI
SODA-FOUNTAINS
JAMES PARTON, in his " Life of Thomas Jef-
ferson," says of Dr. Joseph Priestley : " It is not
true that no public memorial of Dr. Priestley
has been erected. Every soda-fountain is his
monument; and we all know how numerous and
splendid they are. Every fountain, too, whence flows
the home-made water of Vichy and Kissingen is a
monument to Priestley ; for it was he who discov-
ered the essential portions of the process by which
all such waters are made. The misfortune is, how-
ever, that of the millions of human beings who quaff
the cool and sparkling soda, not one in a thousand
would know what name to pronounce if he were
called upon to drink to the memory of the inventor.
And really his invention of soda-water is a reason
why Americans should join in the scheme to honor
his memory. He not only did all he could to assist
the birth of the nation, but he invented the national
beverage."
"Soda-water," or, more correctly, carbonated
water, which is simply a mechanical mixture of car-
bonic-acid gas with water, was first made by Professor
Venel, of Montpellier, France, whose researches
were laid before the French Academy of Sciences in
'75°. by mixing two drams of soda and "marine"
acid in a pint of water contained in an ordinary
glass bottle. Carbonic acid was discovered by the
Belgian chemist, Van Helmont, in the early part of
the seventeenth century. He coined the word
" gas " to designate it. Lavoisier named it carbonic
acid, and Priestley, in 1767, produced a carbonated
beverage by pouring water briskly back and forth
between two small vessels held in a layer of carbon
dioxide on the top of the fermenting mass in a brew-
ery vat at Leeds, England. Bergman, the Swedish
chemist, in 1770 generated carbonic-acid gas from
chalk by the use of " vitriolic acid," and invented a
generating apparatus for the purpose. In 1810,
Simmons and Rundell, of Charleston, S. C., were
granted a patent for saturating water with " fixed
470
air." John Matthews, of New York, in 1832 began
the manufacture of soda-water, and apparatus with
which to make it, and may fairly be termed the
father of soda-water as it is known in the United
States. Matthews, who learned his business in
England under Bramah, manufactured generators
of cast-iron lined with lead, in which he produced
carbonic acid from marble-dust and oil of vitriol,
purifying it by passing it through water in a purify-
ing chamber, whence it was conducted into fountains
of cast-iron lined with block-tin, in which the gas
was combined with water by means of a revolving
agitator, or by rocking the fountain, which, for this
purpose, was mounted by means of trunnions in a
cast-iron frame. His dispensing apparatus was a
simple draft-tube projecting from a counter, beneath
which the fountain was incased in ice, or the foun-
tain and draft-tube were connected by means of a
coil of pipe placed in an ice-box ; the syrups for
sweetening and flavoring being kept in glass bot-
tles on the counter. Subsequently these bottles
were mounted on a caster, and later they were in-
verted, mounted in rings upon a marble slab, and
stopped from within by a valve upon the end of a
rod which projected through a hole in the top of the
inverted bottle.
The apparatus for manufacturing soda-water de-
scribed above, with various modifications and im-
provements, is that most generally used to-day
throughout the United States, and nearly all manu-
facturers use marble-dust and sulphuric acid for the
production of carbonic-acid gas.
In 1844, A. D. Puffer, of Boston, began the
manufacture of soda-water apparatus, and probably
about the same time A. J. Morse, who in his day
was one of Boston's leading coppersmiths, took up
this branch of manufacture. Puffer invented the
first cooler for soda-water upon which a patent was
granted, and Morse manufactured a vertical copper
generator and portable copper fountains or tanks
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
471
for holding and transporting the beverage. In
1847, William Gee, of New York, who had been an
apprentice under Matthews, established himself in
business. He was an ingenious mechanic, and pat-
ented many minor devices in soda-water machinery
and apparatus.
To G. D. Dows, an Englishman, who carried on
a drug business in Boston, belongs the honor of in-
venting and patenting the first marble soda-water
apparatus, the prototype of the modern soda-foun-
tain. He began business in 1854. His apparatus
was a marble box, containing a coil-pipe cooler for
soda-water, and metal containers for syrups, and an
ice-shaver, in which a block of ice was shaved into
snow, the syrups and soda-water being drawn in
a tumbler previously partly filled with shaved ice.
This apparatus was distinguished by a row of silver-
plated syrup-faucets, upon each of which an eagle
was perched, serving as a lever for opening the
faucet. His soda draft-tubes were provided with
nozzles of soft rubber, which served to retain the
gas in the water while being transferred to a water-
bottle held against the rubber nozzle, the water
being subsequently poured from the bottle into a
tumbler containing the ice and syrups.
Later he invented the first double-stream soda
draft-tube, which delivered the soda directly into the
tumbler, thus doing away with the use of the bottle.
This draft-tube furnished a fine forcible stream which
stirred up the ice and syrup, and was provided with
a " spoon " pivoted in the edge of the nozzle, which,
when the tumbler was pressed against its projecting
end, was forced beneath an inner nozzle, breaking
the force of the fine stream and producing a large
stream without force, which retained gas in the
water without intervention of the water-bottle.
Dows exhibited his apparatus at the Paris Exposi-
tion of 1867, and received medals and high com-
mendation. About this time he established a branch
house in London, which is still in existence. He
was the first to manufacture a fine article of bottled
ginger-ale in this country, and much of that now
manufactured is made upon his formula. Among
his early customers were Z. S. Sampson, of Court
and Hanover streets, Boston, and Orlando Tomp-
kins, who kept a drug-store at the corner of Wash-
ington and Winter streets, and who was the father of
Eugene Tompkins, proprietor of the Boston Theater.
In 1 863, being in need of a soda-fountain for use
in my drug-store in Somerville, Mass., I invented
and patented an apparatus styled the " Arctic,"
which subsequently attained a wide popularity, and
led me to abandon the drug business to engage in
its manufacture. Although a crude machine judged
by modern standards, it was considered to be in
advance of any in the market at that date. Its
peculiar features consisted of cylindrical metal cool-
ers, which possessed the advantage of producing soda-
water of so low a temperature that the use of shaved
ice, which had the effect of driving off the gas
from soda-water drawn upon it, could be dispensed
with. The syrup-containers were placed in the rear
of the marble box, and connected with the syrup-
faucets by means of coolers passing beneath the ice,
producing chilled syrups. Syrup-faucets bearing a
star and liberty-cap, doubtless remembered by many
readers, distinguished this apparatus, which was
noted for the coldness and consequent good quality
of the beverage drawn from it.
My first catalogue was issued in 1864 from a little
factory at n Haverhill Street, Boston, and was
illustrated with woodcuts made by Kilburn, Boston's
leading wood-engraver. It is curious to read in
this book, in the light of subsequent developments,
the statement of a conservative druggist : " Folks
don't drink soda nowadays." Among my first cus-
tomers were Henry C. Choate and John I. Brown
& Son, leading druggists of Boston, and Southmayd,
the leading confectioner of the city; also Ellis F.
Miller, of Hanover and Union streets, a location
which is still one of the leading soda-water stands
of the city.
About this time Puffer introduced his apparatus
with the " magic " draft-tube, from which soda-water
and a variety of syrups were drawn through the
same nozzle. This apparatus attained a wide pop-
ularity, and is known to New-Yorkers through its
use by the celebrated Hudnut. During the years
1864, 1865, 1866, and 1867 my business extended,
covering a wide range of territory ; Frederick
Stearns, of Detroit, F. E. Suire & Company, of
Cincinnati, then the largest retailers of soda-water in
the country, and Charles Lippincott, the largest
soda-water manufacturer in Philadelphia, being
among the users of and dealers in the "Arctic."
The Lippincott business, which was established in
1832, subsequently took up the manufacture of
marble soda-water apparatus, becoming one of the
leading manufacturing houses in the line.
At this time, E. Bigelow, of Springfield, Mass.,
was manufacturing an apparatus which had at least
one excellent feature— the "wonder" cooler, sub-
sequently purchased, with other effects of the Bige-
low Manufacturing Company, by John Matthews,
on the failure of the company. The Bigelow
apparatus was supplied with a piston-style faucet,
472
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
which proved unsatisfactory and went into disuse
when this company discontinued business. The
Bigelow apparatus was in use by Hegeman & Com-
pany, of New York, in 1865.
In 1854, and subsequently, many inventions of
both the elder and younger John Matthews were
patented; among others the measuring syrup-tank
of glass, still used by their successors. William Gee
invented and patented the two-wheel soda draft-
tube, the pipe-lined coupling, a blow-off cock for
generators, and other devices, which subsequently,
by purchase, became the property of the Matthews
concern. This ingenious mechanic received a pat-
ent for the combination of a force-pump with a
soda-fountain, for forcing water into the fountain
against pressure, thus preventing the waste of gas
consequent upon opening the fountain to refill with
water ; and this invention is the basis of the present
splendid machine for filling portable fountains made
by the Matthews Company. Another of his inven-
tions is the draft apparatus of silver plate, made
popular by Huyler, the confectioner, and used at all
his stores. This apparatus, known as the " Monitor
Crystal Spa," and made by the Matthews Company,
consists of a central cylinder containing coolers and
syrups, surrounded by a revolving caster supporting
an array of glass syrup-bottles. Gee's manufactur-
ing apparatus was used by the celebrated Dr. Han-
bury Smith, of Union Square, New York, and his
bottling apparatus by Comstock, Gove & Company,
of Boston. John Matthews is referred to in the
New York "Evening Mail," in 1868, as the "Nep-
tune of the trade," and is stated to have the largest
house in the business, employing 100 men and car-
rying on no less than sixteen distinct trades, the
factory at First Avenue, Twenty-sixth and Twenty-
seventh streets, where it is still located, supplying
everything in the soda-water line, from a quart of
syrup to a $1400 apparatus.
In 1868 my apparatuses were already being imi-
tated by rival manufacturers, and from that time on
the competition has been sharp. The first departure
from the square white marble box was made by me
in 1869, when the cottage style was introduced, and
the design patented. Colored marbles were used in
this design, the Tennessee, Vermont, and New York
State marbles being used in addition to the white
Italian. In this year I introduced the patent revolv-
ing tumbler-washer, and began the use of block-tin
syrup-cans, which were a great advance in purity
and durability over the syrup receptacles of copper,
glass, and earthenware previously in use. In this
year, also, I had the satisfaction of selling one of
my fountains to Copeland & Tarbell, of Boston,
who had at that time the finest confectionery estab-
lishment in the United States.
Joseph Hindermyer, of Philadelphia, was one of
the early manufacturers of soda-water apparatus,
and many ingenious devices originated with him.
Among his appliances which came into general use
was the ground-plug syrup-faucet, which, with many
improvements and modifications, is still used by the
majority of manufacturers of soda-fountains. At
this time there were 1200 of my fountains in use,
and I opened my first branch at Maiden Lane and
Nassau Street, New York. In 1873 the first hot-
soda apparatus was patented, and in 1874 a sliding
valve, double-stream draft-tube, and the cup-cooler,
the latter still being used in all apparatus of my
make. In 1874, also, the first patent was granted
under which the Matthews steel fountain was man-
ufactured. The introduction of the steel fountain
marked an era in the business, it being a vast im-
provement over the so-called portable cast-iron foun-
tains, or even the lighter copper fountains, once so
common and now so seldom seen.
The Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia af-
forded an opportunity not to be overlooked for ad-
vertising the soda-fountain and popularizing soda-
water as a beverage, and the exclusive privilege
of serving it within the grounds was secured by
Charles Lippincott & Company and myself for the
sum of $50,000. The business done was enormous,
and, although not profitable in itself, proved a valu-
able advertisement. Puffer in this year invented the
arc, a small silver-plated counter apparatus, which
has proved very popular ; and Gee invented a self-
closing acid-valve for carbonic-acid-gas generators.
Matthews in 1878 invented the solid-plunger
syrup-pump, which, with modifications, is still ex-
tremely popular with bottlers of soda-water ; and in
1880 the "sublift" syrup- valve for glass syrup-
tanks, provided with measuring chambers, which
form the distinguishing feature of this make of dis-
pensing apparatus. In 1 88 1 Matthews was granted
the first of a series of patents for filling portable
fountains with soda-water, which formed the basis
of the so-called " new system " now coming into
general use. Puffer in 1 88 2 invented and introduced
the revolving water-gauge, and the same year intro-
duced the patented pressure-regulator, a useful device
for preventing breakage of bottles when being filled
with soda-water, lessening danger to operators from
flying fragments of glass, and improving the uni-
formity of beverages. Roger Scannell, of Boston,
in 1884 patented the first spray-carbonator, a simple
JAMES W. TUFTS.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
473
and efficient device for combining gas with water
without mechanical agitation.
An era of the business was marked again in 1 885
by the invention of the drawer syrup-can, which
was patented and introduced by me. This syrup-
can, which differs from all that have preceded it in
being horizontal and located below the ice-chamber,
has become so popular that it has practically driven
every other form of syrup-can from the market.
Numerous patents have been granted upon imita-
tions of it, and several suits for infringements are
now before the courts. The heat-regulator used on
my hot-soda apparatus was invented and patented
in this year.
In 1886, Harry Robertson, of New York, pat-
ented a spray-carbonator containing some ingenious
automatic features, which is manufactured by Wit-
teman Brothers, of New York. In 1887, William
P. Clark, of Medford, Mass., invented the latest of
a series of double-stream draft-tubes, which were for
many years, and are still, used exclusively on my
fountains. This tube, which is a nice piece of
mechanical construction, may be entirely taken
apart without the use of a wrench, and draws alter-
nately fine and large streams of soda by slight move-
ments of a lever. Luther W. Purler patented the
non-clogging blow-off cock for generators in 1887,
and F. Hazard Lippincott patented a removable
glass syrup-jar, with a simple and ingenious device
for detaching the cock from its lever by simply lift-
ing it with the jar in removing the latter.
Early in 1891 the proprietors of the four largest
concerns engaged in the manufacture of soda-water
apparatus came together and organized the Ameri-
can Soda- Fountain Company, which purchased from
the owners, at fair valuations, the four businesses
represented. The company is capitalized at $3,750,-
ooo, one third of which is first preferred stock,
bearing six per cent, dividend; one third second
preferred stock, bearing eight per cent, dividend ;
and one third common, which to date has paid ten
per cent., while a surplus of $300,000 has been laid
aside. The company conducts its four branches as
separate and distinct businesses under the old firm
names of James W. Tufts, A. D. Puffer & Sons,
Charles Lippincott & Company, and the John
Matthews Apparatus Company. It has recently
acquired by purchase the Hartt Manufacturing
Company, of Chicago. The stock of the American
Soda-Fountain Company is held by some 800 differ-
ent owners.
The Hartt Manufacturing Company patented and
introduced in 1891 a drawer-can which is dropped
before withdrawing. This patent has already be-
come a source of litigation, two suits for infringe-
ment having been brought under it. Henry Car»e,
of Rock Island, 111., in 1892 patented a carbonating-
machine for combining carbonic-acid gas and water
by the spray process, which was introduced by the
Hartt Manufacturing Company, and has attained
considerable popularity. The Low Art Tile Com-
pany, of Chelsea, Mass., took up the manufacture of
soda-fountains in 1891, abandoning its older busi-
ness of manufacturing tiles for architectural and
decorative purposes, and produced the first apparatus
incased entirely in tiles.
F. H. Lippincott in 1893 patented the first tilting
syrup-jar, which was closely followed by a similar
device ir.vented and patented by Herman Hoff, of
the Hartt Manufacturing Company ; and the same
year I patented the " Cataract," the latest and most
improved form of spray-carbonator. In this machine
gas is admitted under high pressure to a vertical
chamber, through a regulating valve which maintains
a uniform pressure ; by means of a pump, water is
forced into the top of this chamber through a plate
perforated with hundreds of tiny holes; and a
revolving agitator in the lower part of the chamber
completes the combination of gas and water. The
quantity of water is governed by the action of a
small vessel hung in knife-edge bearings and counter-
balanced, the water flowing and ebbing in the vessel
as its level varies in the mixing chamber, and gravity
causing the vessel to rise and fall as its weight varies
with the changing flow of water. The rock-shaft,
upon which the vessel and its counterpoise are
mounted, carries a belt-shipper, and its movement
ships the driving-belt of the pump from the fast to
the loose pulley, and vice versa, thereby alternately
stopping and starting the pump. The action of this
machine is entirely automatic, and adapts its output
to the demand made upon it by the bottlers, work-
ing equally well whether supplying one or six bot-
tling tables. I have recently completed for the
Charles E. Hires Company, of Philadelphia, a
machine consisting of three of these carbonators
mounted in battery with two generators of the larg-
est size, which is capable of supplying eighteen bot-
tlers and turning out 3600 dozen bottles of beverage
in ten hours. This is probably the largest machine
in the world for the manufacture of soda-water.
Besides the patents described, hundreds of others
have been granted for soda-water machinery, the
American Soda-Fountain Company alone owning
nearly 200 live patents. In addition to those men-
tioned previously in this article, there are scattered
474
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
throughout the country numerous other concerns
manufacturing soda-fountains, among which may be
mentioned Otto Zweitusch, of Milwaukee ; Bennett
& Gompers, of New York; and the Robert M.
Green Company, of Philadelphia. Wrought-iron
portable fountains are also manufactured by the
Iron-Clad Can Company, of Brooklyn.
The amount of capital invested in the business is
hard to estimate, and also the number of people
employed. The capital of the American Soda-
Fountain Company has already been stated, and this
company employs nearly 1000 hands, in addition
to a force of about 125 traveling salesmen. The
number of soda-fountains in use is estimated at from
50,000 to 60,000. Fully this number have been
made and sold by the various concerns now forming
branches of the American Soda- Fountain Company,
and of these the majority are still in use. The dis-
pensing fountains, which are generally made from
foreign marbles, many being of rare Mexican onyx,
vary in value from $100 to $10,000 each, bottling
outfits of cast-iron and copper ranging at about the
same values. The business annually done by the
users of these fountains takes about the same range,
though in exceptional cases it is much larger.
Plows, who until recently was the leading dispenser
in Chicago, sold $24,000 worth of carbonated bev-
erages in a single year.
Without doubt the large consumption of this
wholesome and agreeable beverage has an influence
in promoting temperate habits among the people of
the United States, by lessening the consumption of
alcoholic drinks. That the use of soda-water in-
creases largely year by year is shown by the annual
sale of several thousand of the practically indestruc-
tible steel fountains used as portable containers. As
a source of profit the soda-fountain contributes
largely to the prosperity of its owner, and no retail
drug or confectionery store can lay claim to be well
appointed that is not supplied with one. The busi-
ness of manufacturing soda-water apparatus is in a
prosperous condition, and its prospects for the future
are bright, although competition has forced prices
to such a point that profitable business can be done
only upon a large scale, involving the investment
of enormous capital in plant and labor-saving
appliances.
The cost of selling and collection is large, and
payments are made in non-negotiable lien notes, and
it is only by making them in very large numbers that
soda-fountains can be profitably manufactured.
The collateral branches, which include the manufac-
ture of fruit-juices, flavoring extracts, syrups, bot-
tlers' supplies, and the silver-plated furnishings of
the soda-water counter, are in a flourishing condi-
tion. In conclusion I may say that soda-water,
which a few years ago was a novelty and luxury, is
now looked upon as a necessity, and bottled waters,
plain and salted, as well as ginger-ale and similar
sweetened carbonated beverages, are now commonly
found upon the tables of a large percentage of our
people.
CHAPTER LXXII
AMERICAN TEXTILE MILLS
ONE hundred years ago there were no textile
mills, as we now understand the term, in the
United States. Whatever our people did in
the way of manufacturing their own clothing was
mostly done in the household ; the spinning-wheel
and the hand-loom were utensils as familiar in the
old-fashioned kitchens as the pots and kettles of the
housewife. The homespun garments worn by our
forefathers were fashioned out of wool grown on the
home farm, carded by hand-cards, washed in tubs,
spun and woven by hand, fulled and finished at home,
cut up and sewed — all by the joint labor of husband,
wife, sons, and daughters. The finer clothes worn
in those days were all imported ; and as the colo-
nies grew and multiplied, and their consumption of
English textiles increased, the manufacturers of the
mother country foresaw a wondrous new market
opening up before them. The desire to retain and
increase that market for textiles, in the manufacture
of which England already led the world, was far more
prominent among the causes leading up to the Amer-
ican Revolution than the historians of that event have
yet discovered.
The homespun garments of colonial days were
plain in weave, and wore like iron ; their ingredients
were indicated in the name commonly applied to
the cloth — "linsey-woolsey." It was a fabric of
woolen weft, woven on a linen warp. Linen was
much more commonly produced in the household
than cotton fabrics, and wool was more in use than
all other fibers combined. Cotton was a scarce
commodity in colonial America until long after the
Revolution. It possessed a value equal to that of
wool, and sometimes very much higher. What little
of it was used prior to the nineteenth century was
mostly imported from the Barbadoes. When Samuel
Slater started the first American cotton-mill at Paw-
tucket, in 1793, he insisted upon using cotton from
the Indies, because of the poor quality of the cotton
then raised at home. No one dreamed, when the
"Shipping and Commercial List and New York
Price Current " first made its appearance, that Amer-
ica was destined to become the cotton-producing
country of the world; nor did Slater's little mill
of 250 spindles, which had then been in operation
five years, give signs that it was the germ of an
American industry which would consume within the
next 100 years more cotton than all the world was
then growing. The history of the textile industries
during the colonial period is nowhere suggestive of
the development which confronts and amazes the
student at the close of the nineteenth century, who
finds them, with their subsidiary industries, employ-
ing more capital and creating a greater value of
annual product than any other group.
Our forefathers realized how important it was
that the colonists should learn to clothe themselves.
They resorted to all sorts of expedients, some of
which smack strongly of state socialism, to overcome
the difficulties in the way. They offered bounties
to increase the number of sheep and promote the
growth of flax. In Massachusetts laws were passed
making it compulsory that each family should spin
a given quantity of yarn every year, under penalties
of heavy fines. Gradually the household textile in-
dustries assumed an importance which alarmed the
mother country, and the Lords of Trade attempted
by various restrictive orders to prevent and harass a
development which threatened to destroy the colo-
nial market for the chief products of British indus-
try. Parliament passed an act in 1774— which was
shortly after the Arkwright inventions had inaugu-
rated the modern factory system — forbidding the
exportation, under heavy penalties, of any of the
machines used in the cotton, silk, woolen, or linen
manufacture. One smiles, in recalling this statute,—
which remained in force, with certain modifications,
until 1845, — at this evidence of a puerile hope that
the English people could keep the fruits of inventive
genius bottled up in their little island, so long as she
475
476
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
permitted her sons to carry their brains across the
water. Slater brought his spinning machinery in his
head ; in the same way Arthur Scholfield, three years
later, brought the first wool-carding machine, which
he built and put into operation at Byfield, Mass., in
1794, thus fixing the date of the beginning of the
factory manufacture of wool, by machinery operated
by power, in the United States. American machi-
nists and inventors did the rest.
It is not to be denied, however, that this English
statute did retard, embarrass, and make trebly diffi-
cult the early development of our textile factories.
At the founding of the newspaper whose century of
existence is celebrated in this volume, the American
textile industries were easily one hundred years be-
hind those of Great Britain.
It would be interesting, if space permitted, to
follow the evolution of this household industry, by
slow and gradual steps, into the highly organized
factory system which marks the close of the nine-
teenth century. First came the neighborhood full-
ing-mill, utilizing the friendly services of the adjacent
stream, and relieving the housewife of the labor of
fulling and finishing the cloths and blankets accu-
mulated by the busy shuttle during the long winter
evenings. Then the carding-machine was added to
the fulling-mill ; the farmers for miles about brought
their wool to be converted into rolls ready for the
spinning-wheel. After Slater had successfully ap-
plied the Arkwright invention to the spinning of
cotton at Pawtucket, here and there throughout
New England little mills gradually appeared which
spun both cotton and woolen yarns by water-power.
Hand-looms were still used in all these mills until
1813, when Francis C. Lowell's invention of the
power-loom led to the building of the Waltham
cotton factory by the Boston Manufacturing Com-
pany, and the American textile mill first took on
the characteristics which have since increasingly
distinguished it.
Power spinning and weaving machines were rap-
idly applied to the manufacture of woolens, and it
began to be seen that the household manufacture of
textiles was disappearing before the greater economy
and efficiency of the factory system. The transition
was not rapid, and the ups and downs of our first
textile mills were numerous and discouraging. The
outbreak of the War of 181 2, and the non-intercourse
acts and Embargo which preceded it, were the most
potent factors in completing the transition. The total
suspension of importations threw our people suddenly
upon their own resources for their entire supply of
clothing. Cotton-mills and woolen-mills were quickly
built. High prices and the promise of quick fortunes
drew many men with little or no knowledge of manu-
facturing into the business.
All went well enough until the war ended ; then
collapse and ruin followed apace. The work of
laying the solid foundations of textile manufactur-
ing had all to be done over again. Imported cot-
tons and woolens again invaded the market with a
rush, and the domestic manufacturers found it im-
possible to compete with them either in quality or in
price. Labor was unskilled and hard to get ; know-
ledge and experience were sadly wanting ; machinery
was clumsy and defective ; the country was poverty-
stricken, and trade and the national finances thor-
oughly demoralized. Then first began the great
battle in Congress, which has waged more or less
intermittently ever since, for the protection of the
domestic manufactures by means of tariff laws.
The Tariff Act of 1816— the first of the series in
which the principle of protection was recognized
in the rates fixed as a distinct purpose of the law,
conjointly with the raising of revenue — was much
more favorable to the cotton than to the wool
manufacture, because it applied the minimum prin-
ciple to cotton cloths, which was in effect a specific
duty of six and one quarter cents a yard, while the
simple ad valorem rate of twenty-five per cent, was
applied generally to woolen goods.
From the date of that law the cotton manufacture
began a healthy development, and it naturally grew
much faster than the wool manufacture. The later
tariffs were in like degree, as a rule, more favor-
able to cottons than to woolens ; partly owing to
this fact and partly to other causes, such as the
much more delicate, complicated, and expensive
operations incident to the latter, the cotton manu-
facture has, at all times except during the Civil
War, shown a greater prosperity, and on the whole
a more rapid development, than its sister industry.
But in both industries for many years it was an up-
hill struggle against great odds. Few fortunes were
made ; many were lost ; and the courage and tena-
city of those early textile manufacturers are worthy
of a better eulogy than any yet written.
Since the year 1850 the development of our tex-
tile industries has been pretty accurately recorded
by the Federal census, and it is therefore possible to
measure, from that date, the degree and the char-
acter of the development. To give the reader a
bird's-eye view of the growth of American textile
mills in the last fifty years I reproduce here a table
prepared by me for the Eleventh Census, in which
the statistics of the three principal textile industries
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
477
are presented chronologically in comparison with of the country, we have an additional product, as
one another, and in a form more condensed than I shown by the Eleventh Census, of $413,022,516;
have seen it elsewhere given. This table offers making the total value of the products of our textile
nearly everything in the nature of statistics with mills, when they finally reach the market, the enor-
which it is necessary to burden this paper.
mous sum of $1,134,971,778. This total is the
COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF COMBINED TEXTILE INDUSTRIES IN THE UNITED STATES,
1850 TO 1890.
INDUSTRIES.
YEAR.
NUMBER OF
ESTABLISH-
MENTS.
CAPITAL.
AVERAGE NUMBER OP EM-
PLOYEES AND TOTAL WAGES.
COST OF
MATERIALS
USED.
VALUE OP
PRODUCTS.
EMPLOYEES.
WAGES.
Wool manufacture *
1850
1850
1850
1850
1,760
1,094
67
104
$32,5 '6,366
74,500,931
678,300
4,818,350
&
1,743
5,105
1
2
2
2
$29,246,696
34,835,056
1,093,860
11,540,347
$49,636,881
61,869,184
1,809476
•5454430
Cotton manufacture.
Silk manufacture
Dyeing and finishing textiles. . .
Combined textiles
Wool manufacture '
1850
1860
1860
1860
1860
3,025
1,673
1,091
'39
124
112,513,947
42.849>932
98,585,269
2,926,980
146,897
59-522
122,028
5435
7,097
a
$13,361,602
23,940,108
1,050,224
2,001,528
76,7« 5,959
46,649,365
57,285,534
3-901,777
5-005435
128,769,971
80,734,606
115,681,774
6,607,771
11,716463
Cotton manufacture
Silk manufacture
Dyeing and finishing textiles . . .
Combined textiles .
$ RRRR
00 00000000
3,027
3,456
292
150,080,852
132,382,319
140,706,291
6,231,130
'8,374,5°3
194,082
119,859
6,649
13,066
40,353462
40,357,235
39,044,132
1,942,286
5,221,538
112,842,111
134,154,615
111,736,936
7,817,559
3 99,539,992
214,740,614
217,668,826
177489,739
12,210,662
3 "3,017,537
Wool manufacture "...
Cotton manufacture
Silk manufacture .
Dyeing and finishing textiles. . .
Combined textiles
1870
1880
1880
1880
1880
4,790
2,689
191
297,694,243
159,091,869
208,280,346
19,125,300
26,223,981
274.943
i6i,557
3 174,659
31,337
16,698
86,565,191
47,389,087
42,040,510
9,146,705
6474,364
353,249,102
'64,371,551
102,206,347
22467,701
13,664,295
520,386,764
267,252,913
192,090,110
41,033,045
32,297,420
Wool manufacture '
Cotton manufacture .
Silk manufacture
Dyeing and finishing textiles . . .
Combined textiles
1880
1890
1890
1890
1890
4,018
2,489
905
472
248
412,721496
296494,481
354,020,843
3845o;8oo
384,251
219,132
221,585
5o,9'3
20,267
105,050,666
76,660,742
69489,272
19,680,318
9,717,011
302,709,894
203,095,572
154,912,979
51,004425
12,385,220
532,673488
337,768,524
267,981,724
87,298454
28,900,560
Wool manufacture 1
Cotton manufacture
Silk manufacture
Dyeing and finishing textiles. . .
Combined textiles
1890
4,114
739,973,661
511,897
'75-547,343
421,398,196
721,949,262
1 Includes hosiery and knit goods.
z This item was not fully reported in the census of 1850.
3 At the census of 1870 the value of the fabric itself was included, whereas in all subsequent censuses merely the values added to such fabrics by
processes of dyeing and finishing are given.
Here we find, in the half-century, a growth in
the value of products from $128,769,971, in 1850,
to $721,949,262, an increase of nearly six times, and
not less than ten times if it were possible to mea-
sure this product by quantity instead of by value.
Even these figures convey an inadequate idea of
the relative importance of our textile mills in the
industrial economy of the nation, for these mills
supply the materials for a great group of subsidiary
factory industries, such as the wholesale clothing
manufacture, the shirt manufacture, etc. When we
aggregate these, and add to them the value of the
products of the linen, jute, hemp, and bagging mills
largest in value of any single line of related indus-
tries. The total most nearly approaching it is that
of the iron and steel industries, the multiform varia-
tions of which reveal a value of products, when
aggregated from the census tables, of $1,096,163,-
056. These two industries include, therefore, two
ninths of the total value of all the domestic manu-
factures reported by the Eleventh Census ; and those
of the textile mills and the factory products grow-
ing out of them are equal in value to one ninth of
all our manufactures. Figures of this magnitude
bring us face to face with the true relative impor-
tance of our textile mills in the industrial economy
478
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of the nation. Few people realize how vast and
how varied it is ; for they do not stop to think that,
next to the food question, nothing comes so closely
home to all the people as the question of what they
shall wear.
The decrease in the cost of goods during the
period covered by this table has been one of the
most striking phases of the development. Unfor-
tunately it is not a phase which statisticians have
learned to measure in figures. This decrease in the
cost of textile goods is due in some measure, of
course, to the decreased price of the raw materials
from which they are made ; but in even larger mea-
sure is it due to the remarkable advance in the meth-
ods of manufacture— to the new and more perfect
machinery employed, in the invention of which
American mechanical genius has contributed cer-
tainly as much as any other people, and perhaps
more.
All the fundamental inventions in spinning ma-
chinery were of English origin; so was the comb-
ing-machine and the power-loom. The English
have a remarkable record in this respect, and the
French and the Germans have also done much in
the invention of labor-saving textile machinery. But
the American record surpasses them all, in my judg-
ment. The wool-carding machinery of all countries
owes its chief improvement over the machines of a
century ago to the invention of John Goulding, of
Worcester, Mass., whose patent, dated 1826, dis-
pensed with the splicing-billy and produced the end-
less roll or sliver. Michel Alcan, the distinguished
French writer, describes it as "the most important
advance in the wool manufacture of the nineteenth
century." " It was not a step," he says, "but a flight."
The modern cotton-spindle, making 10,000 revo-
lutions a minute, is an evolution of our own me-
chanics. General Draper, in his interesting paper
on " The History of Spindles," has shown that the
saving effected by the new forms of spindle invented
and adopted in the United States since 1870, when
5000 revolutions a minute were the average speed,
has been more than equal to the capacity of all the
warp-spinning machinery in use in this country in
that year. He adds the interesting fact that " to-
day more than three times as much warp-yarn is
spun in the United States as in 1870, a rate of in-
crease without parallel since the earliest introduction
of the cotton manufacture."
The Lowell loom was the first successful applica-
tion of power to the weaving of cotton, the Cromp-
ton loom to the weaving of fancy woolens, and the
Bigelow loom to the weaving of carpets. " Not a
yard of fancy woolens," wrote Samuel Lawrence,
" had ever been woven by power-looms in any coun-
try until it was done by George Crompton at the
Middlesex Mills in 1 840." Every carpet ever woven
was woven by hand until Mr. Bigelow's power-loom
revolutionized the industry. Beyond these funda-
mental machines the American mechanisms for ex-
pediting processes, for automatic devices, for dispens-
ing with intermediate help, have been so numerous
that they have completely transformed the modus
operandi of textile mills throughout the world. These
mechanisms are more generally in use to-day in the
best American textile mills than in those of any
other country. So far as mechanical equipment is
concerned, our best mills, whether cotton or woolen,
are fairly equal to the best in any foreign country.
It does not follow that textile manufacturing is
done here, as a rule, with equal economy in cost;
some of the reasons for this may be pointed out
later. In structural equipment the modern Ameri-
can mill is in some respects superior to the average
foreign mill. It is not so massive a structure, nor
so solidly built, we using brick when the English
generally use stone ; but in the lightness and airiness
of its rooms, in economy of arrangement, and in
general completeness of equipment and care for the
comfort and convenience of the operatives, it is
generally superior. Since Mr. Edward Atkinson's
successful efforts to introduce the slow-combustion
construction, the liability to loss by fire is hardly
greater, as the insurance statistics show, than it is
abroad. Of course there are left many old-fash-
ioned mill structures, built long ago, and often of
wood, to which these remarks do not apply. But
the lesson is fast being learned by our textile manu-
facturers that in these days of close competition and
small profits successful manufacturing requires that
buildings shall be of the latest design and the most
approved arrangement, and machinery shall be not
only modern in make, with every latest improve-
ment, but must also be kept in perfect condition by
constant renewal. Many parts of the machinery re-
quired for the equipment of our textile mills are still
necessarily imported from England, because not
made, or less perfectly made, in the United States.
This is true of some varieties of cotton machinery, and
of most of the preparatory machinery of the worsted
manufacture. Our machine manufacturers have
been advancing as rapidly in recent years as the
textile mills themselves, and the time cannot now
be far distant when every new mill built in America
will be equipped throughout with American-made
machinery.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
479
The American textile mills now supply practi-
cally every variety of fabric made in the world,
with the exception of linens and the very finest
grades of other fabrics. In a single branch of tex-
tile manufacturing — flax — our efforts have been a
failure by the test of experience, and are likely to
continue a failure. But three establishments mak-
ing linen goods reported to the last census, showing
a capital of $900,000, and products valued at $547,-
278. These products were chiefly thread and twine,
the latter for use in the shoe manufacture. Except
crash goods, there are now no linen fabrics of any
moment manufactured here. Great sums of money
have from time to time been invested by daring
manufacturers in constructing plants for the manu-
facture of linen fabrics. The result has invariably
been disappointment and failure. If the obstacles
were of a kind that ingenuity and perseverance could
overcome, they would have been conquered. These
obstacles are climatic in the first instance, flax being
a fiber which requires more moisture than any other
for its successful manipulation. Again, there is dif-
ficulty in obtaining a home supply of suitable raw
material. Years of high protection have failed to
persuade the American farmer into growing flax for
fiber. The care, the skill, the trained labor required
to grow and separate the best quality of fiber, dis-
courage him, and the absence of any considerable
home market removes the inducement which tariff
protection would otherwise afford. The history of
the linen manufacture in other countries seems to
establish the fact that it is the one textile manufac-
ture likely to remain segregated in a few localities
like Holland and Ireland, where the fiber is grown
on the spot, where the climate is peculiarly adapted,
and where the help has acquired an expertness born
of generations of experience. Moreover, linen is
the one textile the consumption of which has not
appreciably increased with the growing perfection
of textile machinery. The quantity of linen fabrics
made to-day is hardly larger than a century ago.
The other fibers, less difficult to handle, more sus-
ceptible to cheap manipulation, continually encroach
upon its uses.
Turning from this single failure, we find extraor-
dinary success in every other department of textile
manufacturing. Perhaps the most striking contrast
to our experience with linen is that afforded by the
silk manufacture. At first sight it would appear
that this must be the particular textile industry which
could not flourish in America. Since the whirlwind
of speculative excitement over the culture of the silk-
worm which swept New England in the thirties, and
wrecked the fortunes of many too credulous fann-
ers, we have settled down to the conviction that Amer-
ica cannot grow raw silk in competition with China,
Japan, and Italy. Moreover, the silk manufacture,
like the linen, has always been highly specialized
and localized. The city of Lyons, in France, had
well-nigh monopolized the manufacture, so far as it
had escaped from the hand processes of the Eastern
nations. The skill and taste of generations have
been concentrated upon the production at these cen-
ters of fabrics which in beauty of design, in richness
of coloring, in delicacy of workmanship, alone among
the fabrics made by modern machinery, rival the
splendors of medieval textile art. England has for
centuries struggled in vain to place her silk manu-
facture on equal terms with it. Nevertheless we
have built up in America, in the last forty years, a
silk industry which among machine-using nations is
second only to that of France, and is to-day supply-
ing our people with the bulk of the silken fabrics
consumed by them.
We owe this great achievement largely to the
energy and the genius of the Cheney family, father
and sons, of South Manchester, Conn. The Cheneys
began the manufacture of spun silk about forty years
ago. About the same time, John Ryle, sometimes
called the father of the American silk industry, had
become superintendent of a little silk-mill in Pater-
son, N. J., which he afterward purchased and grad-
ually enlarged. At first sewing-silks only were made,
then ribbons were added, and in 1842 Mr. Ryle
built a number of looms for silk piece-goods — the
first to be successfully operated in America; and
the industry in all its branches has since developed
so rapidly there that Paterson, which calls itself
the Lyons of America, now occupies to this indus-
try the same relation that Fall River does to the
cotton manufacture, and Philadelphia to the wool
manufacture.
During the Civil War the high duties stimulated
the silk industry and diversified its product. The
making of plain grosgrain dress silks was then
started, and at the present time brocaded silks and
satins are manufactured on a large scale; indeed,
there is no form of fabric into which silk enters
which is not now produced in great variety. Espe-
cially noteworthy has been the recent development
in the manufacture of silk plushes and all varieties
of upholstery goods. The value of home-made silk
goods was in 1880 just about equal to the foreign
value of the goods imported. In 1890 the product
had so grown that it was more than double the
value of the imports, and more than double the
480
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
value of the product in 1 880. Mr. Briton Richardson,
the secretary of the American Silk Association, has
recently compiled statistics which show that in the
five years since the census of 1890, the rate of in-
crease has even accelerated. He points to one mill,
erected in Paterson since that date, which is already
the largest silk-ribbon mill in the world. There are
other mills in that city, notably that of the Pioneer
Silk Company, which is an outgrowth of the little
mill operated by John Ryle, and now covers an acre
and a half, which can nowhere be surpassed either
in size or in completeness of equipment.
The cotton manufacture must, on the whole, be
taken as the textile industry which best illustrates
the possibilities of this group of manufactures in the
United States. The number of cotton-spindles in
operation in 1894 is estimated at 17,126,418, and
this number has been considerably increased in 1 895,
particularly by new mills in the Piedmont region of
the South. The manufacture is there conducted
under so many advantages — particularly the cheap-
ness of fuel and labor — that careful students of
economic conditions predict that the manufacture
of the coarser grades of cotton goods is destined to
gravitate more and more to the Southern States.
New England, and especially Massachusetts
(which is the largest cotton-manufacturing State,
containing 7,160,480 out of the 17,126,418 spindles
in operation), has done much to hasten and facilitate
such a transfer by the enactment of harassing labor
laws and by excessive taxation. She possesses no
natural advantages for this particular industry, and
her manufacturers have looked with some apprehen-
sion upon the rapid growth of the industry in the
South, chiefly through the aid of New England capital.
Thus far there has been no diminution in her machi-
nery capacity, but, on the contrary, a steady increase,
which, while relatively smaller than the increase in
the South, continues to be actually greater. This
is due primarily to the increased production of the
finer grades of goods in New England, and, secon-
darily, to the rapid development of the country, with
its enlargement of a market in which the South can
share largely without injuring New England. Never-
theless the economic forces at work are of such a
character that eventually a marked change in the
geographical status of the industry seems inevitable.
From the national point of view, the important
fact is that the growth of the American cotton manu-
facture for the last twenty years, both relatively and
actually, has been greater than its growth in Great
Britain, which reported at the last enumeration a
total of 45,270,000 spindles. The whole of the re-
mainder of Europe operates less than 30,000,000
spindles. These statistics place the American cot-
ton manufacture second only to that of England,
and reveal a steady gain even upon the island which
manufactures cotton for all the world except the
United States. The American market for American
cottons constantly expands with the growth of our
own country, while our foreign markets show little
gain. The English market as steadily contracts, as
English and native capital builds new cotton-mills in
India and Japan for the supply of the vast markets
of the East. The influence of this increasing com-
petition, under circumstances which greatly handi-
cap English manufacturers, is apparent in the values
of the stocks of the Oldham Limited Companies, as
they are quoted to-day, and in the gloomy talk of
Lancashire manufacturers when they forecast the
future. On the other hand, our own cotton manu-
facturers, as they emerge from the prolonged busi-
ness depression, face the future with hope and
courage.
The casual student of first-class English and
American cotton-mills, while he will observe certain
differences, will not be able to detect any point of
superiority in the former over the latter. He will
find the English mills much more closely specialized,
and he will find a larger proportion of them engaged
upon the finer grades of goods. He will observe,
also, that in the English mill mule-spinning is the
predominating method, especially for fine numbers ;
while in the United States ring-spinning strongly
predominates. In 1870 the proportion was nearly
equal between the two systems in American mills,
there being reported by the census of that year
3,694,477 frame-spindles and 3,437,938 in mules;
in 1890 there were 8,824,617 frame-spindles and
5,363,486 in mules; and subsequent development
has accentuated this disparity. This is due to the
extraordinary advances, already alluded to, in the
mechanism of the ring-spinning frame, advances
which are wholly of American origin, and which
greatly cheapen the cost of production by increasing
the product in proportion to the increased speed of
the spindle. In mule-spinning, also, great advances
have been made during the last fifteen or twenty
years. Whichever method is employed, the develop-
ment of the industry has reached that stage where
success depends upon the closest attention to the
mechanical details of manufacturing. The margin
of profit in print cloths, for instance, has come to
depend upon the saving of a fraction of a cent in
the price of a pound of cotton, and the economy of
another small fraction of a cent in converting that
\
S. N. DEXTER NORTH.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
481
cotton into yarn and cloth. To realize these frac-
tions, which mean profit or loss, machinery must be
kept in the highest state of efficiency.
The improvements in spinning have been so rapid
since 1870 that most of our large corporations have
been compelled to replace their spinning-frames at
least twice in that interval. The bulk of the frames
now in operation have been introduced in the last
ten years, and are of the highest efficiency. A similar
statement can be made regarding no other branch of
textile manufacture ; and it is probably true that if
the American woolen-mills had been forced, as the
cotton-mills have been, to abandon machinery as
soon as it became in any degree obsolete, their abil-
ity to face foreign competition would be more nearly
in keeping with that shown by our cotton manufac-
turers. The conditions we have been narrating have .
thrown the cotton manufacture more and more into
the hands of large corporations, which now almost
universally conduct it. The wool manufacture, on
the other hand, while it numbers some of the great-
est corporations in the land, is still largely in the
hands of individuals and partnerships, and the bulk
of the mills are comparatively small in capacity.
The more recent tendency in the wool manufacture,
for obvious reasons, is strongly in the direction of
the corporate form of management.
The quantity of fine cotton goods made in Ameri-
can mills continues to be very small in comparison
with the whole production. Mr. Edward Stanwood,
the expert who made the cotton report for the
Eleventh Census, calculated that only 6.31 per cent,
of the value of the total product could properly be
classified as " fine or fancy woven goods " ; and it
follows that the bulk of our consumption of this
class of cottons is still imported. In other words,
there is ample room remaining for the further and
higher development of the American cotton manu-
facture. Into this field we are entering with char-
acteristic Yankee energy. Within comparatively few
years mills have been successfully established in New
England which spin yarns as fine as Nos. 150 or
200 ; and there are mills at New Bedford, Taunton,
and elsewhere which make, in bewildering variety,
fabrics as delicate in texture and as artistic in design
and coloring as any which reach this country from
the machine-using nations of Europe.
The range of products made in American wool
factories is as wide as the multiform uses to which
this most valuable of all the fibers is put. They
divide themselves naturally into four great groups,
leaving the hosiery and knit goods out of the classi-
fication: woolen-mills, worsted-mills, carpet-mills,
and felting-mills. There are the various sub-classi-
fications of spinning, weaving, dyeing, and finishing
mills, although, as a rule, all these separate processes
of the manufacture of wool continue to be carried
on jointly in this country, as the related parts of the
one operation of manufacturing. In this statement
is embodied the chief point of difference existing
to-day between the woolen-mills of America, and,
in fact, all our textile mills, and those of England
and the Continent. The reasons for it lie on the
surface of things. The fact remains that American
textile mills can never expect — the great body of
them, at least— to successfully compete with foreign
mills on terms which are fairly equal, apart from the
difference in wages, until they have passed through
the same evolution and approximated to the same
methods which prevail abroad.
In so saying I am not passing a wholesale criti-
cism upon our mills or their management. In the
wool manufacture, as in the cotton and silk man-
ufacture, we have many establishments which, in
completeness of structure, in perfection of machi-
nery, in all the details of mechanical equipment,
and in sagacity of management, are nowhere in
the world surpassed. Indeed, it is only in this
country that we find, on a very large scale, textile
mills in which are performed all the separate pro-
cesses for the manufacture of great varieties of
goods. Elsewhere they have learned that the great-
est economy and the best practical results are secured
by specializing the processes. Thus in Bradford,
England, are enormous establishments which do
nothing but comb wool into tops, either on commis-
sion or for sale. Other great mills do nothing but
spin tops into yarn, and generally they confine their
operations to a limited variety of yarns. Still others,
buying their yarn, devote themselves exclusively to
weaving. And, finally, a fourth class of establish-
ments take the woven goods and dye and finish
them for the merchants, who are the men who find
the ultimate market for all the specialists who have
been thus employed upon the goods.
In this specialization of the different branches of
the work exists the characteristic distinction between
the American and the foreign textile mills of to-day.
Such investigation as I have been able to make of
the two methods convinces me that the English is
far superior to the American, and that ultimately
we must gravitate into the former, if we are to cut
any figure in competition for the world's markets.
The manufacturer who devotes his whole energies
to one particular thing, and studies to do that one
thing as cheaply and as well as it can be done, can
482
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
do it better and more cheaply than the manufacturer
who is doing half a dozen different things at the
same time. This is not a theoretical deduction, but
an axiom founded upon prolonged experiment and
experience. I have talked with manufacturers in
Bradford who have- tried both methods, and who
say there is always a gain in economy when the
weaver buys his yarns, instead of spinning them
himself. Obviously the English method requires a
smaller investment in plant, secures a simpler and
more perfect autonomy in operation, involves less
waste, and avoids the accumulation of superfluous
raw material.
The American woolen-mill was evolved from con-
ditions which rendered this specialization originally
impossible. It was situated in some isolated spot,
drawn thither by a superior water-power, with no
railroad to facilitate quick transportation, and was
necessarily a complete mechanical entity, however
crude its machinery. In a word, it must perform
under one roof all the processes necessary to con-
vert the greasy wool into the finished cloth ready
for the market. Thus there sprang up all over the
country little woolen-mills, each one independent in
itself ; as the country grew some of these little mills
became large mills ; other large mills grew up beside
them ; gradually we had centers in which the wool
manufacture predominated ; but conditions were
long in appearing which tended to that specializa-
tion of processes which has marked the English
method from the very introduction of automatic
machinery. It followed that the American mill
owner, even of a small mill, was compelled to make
a variety of goods, in order to use up advanta-
geously all the grades of material which grew out of
the sorting of his wool. Naturally he could not
produce a variety of products as cheaply and as
successfully as he could have manufactured one
particular line upon which his whole attention was
centered. These habits of manufacturing, forced
upon us originally by the logic of the situation, are
tenacious. We have been slowly breaking away
from them, but it will be years yet before it is pos-
sible to fully outgrow them. In Philadelphia, which
is the largest center of wool manufacture, the pro-
gress of the evolution is very perceptible. There
they have top makers, yarn makers, dyers, and fin-
ishers, who do nothing else. And the result is ap-
parent in the large number of small manufacturers
in that city. The small amount of capital required
to equip a little weave-shed permits enterprising
superintendents and operatives to start in business
for themselves. The comparative cheapness of pro-
duction under such conditions enables them to hold
their own against the big establishments with unlim-
ited capital at their back.
The bulk of the small wool-manufacturing estab-
lishments in the United States are woolen-mills
proper, as distinguished from worsted-mills. It is
noticeable that the number and product of these
woolen-mills decrease from census to census as the
worsted manufacture gets more firmly established
here, and the more popular worsted fabric comes into
wider use. But there are certain lines of woolen
goods in the manufacture of which American
mills have earned a world-wide preeminence, and
in which they are nowhere surpassed. Prominent
among them are flannels and blankets of every grade
and variety. The American wools are peculiarly
suited for these goods, and for many years past our
American mills have practically supplied the home
market. Other mills make a specialty of woolen
dress-goods for ladies' wear with equal success. The
bulk of our woolen-mills are, however, engaged upon
the manufacture of cloths for the million— cassi-
meres, beavers, satinets, cheviots, etc., the cheaper
grades which enter into the consumption of the
wholesale clothing-houses, goods in which, under
the weight duties of recent tariffs, our American
manufacturers have controlled the home market,
and of which their production has been enormous.
Many of these goods are woven upon a cotton
warp, and into some of them enters more or less of
the revamped wool known as " shoddy." We have
much to learn, however, in the handling of this class
of materials, before we shall equal the expertness of
foreign manufacturers. It is to the success of our
manufacturers in producing a handsome, durable
cloth at cheap prices, that our people chiefly owe
their reputation of being the best-dressed people on
the globe.
The worsted manufacture was late in getting lodg-
ment in the United States, and has been slow in as-
suming proportions commensurate with its impor-
tance abroad. Early in the forties there were two
or three large worsted-mills erected in New England
for the production of worsted fabrics or stuff goods
for women's wear ; but the manufacture made little
headway until after the close of the Civil War, and
it was not until about 1870 that we began making
men's-wear worsted goods. Since then the develop-
ment of the manufacture along both lines has been
phenomenal. In 1890 we made over 73,000,000
yards of worsted dress-goods, valued at over $76,-
000,000 ; and we have to-day three or four mills, of
the most modern equipment, which turn out these
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN 'COMMERCE
goods in larger quantities than any foreign establish-
ments.
In the manufacture of fine men's-wear goods,
both in woolens and worsteds, a few of our mills
have been equally successful ; their products sell side
by side with the best makes of foreign goods, not-
withstanding the lingering prejudice among fashion-
able Americans that only foreign-made cloths are fit
to wear. Another obstacle is the high cost of labor,
which counts against us more strongly in fine-wool
goods than in the cheaper grades, or in cottons and
silks, because of the much greater care and skill and
labor that must be bestowed upon their finishing.
The manufacture of felted wool is comparatively
small here and elsewhere. Thirty-five American
mills produced a product valued at $5,329,381 in
1890, and the importations are comparatively in-
significant in volume. Felted wool was the earliest
form into which this fiber was manufactured, the
primitive races discovering, before they learned
to spin and weave, that peculiar characteristic of
wool which causes it to mat together, by the appli-
cation of heat, moisture, and pressure, into a firm
and smooth texture, susceptible of a great vari-
ety of uses. Modern machinery has utilized this
peculiarity for many purposes which, while limited,
are economically important. Table-cloths and floor-
coverings, and hats for men's and women's wear, are
the most ordinary ; but they are also used for shoe-
linings, sheathing materials, polishing purposes, etc.
The hat manufacture, formerly confined to wool for
its raw material, has found that fur is better suited
for this use ; and the processes of manufacture are
so different from those employed in spinning and
weaving mills that the hat-manufacturing establish-
ments, in Which the United States has always been
preeminent, are not ordinarily classed among the
textile mills.
Perhaps our most notable achievement in the tex-
tile line has been in the carpet manufacture. Be-
yond question the United States is the greatest
carpet-manufacturing nation in the world ; if we
leave out of account the hand-loom productions of
the Eastern countries we excel all others not only in
the quantity of our production, but in the variety of
our carpets, in the excellence of design and work-
manship, and in general adaptability to popular
needs. One hundred and seventy-three American
carpet-mills produced in 1890 carpets and rugs
to the value of $46,457,083, employing 11,223
power-looms. Their production included two- and
three-ply ingrains, Brussels, moquettes, tapestries,
velvets, Smyrnas, and the higher grades of Axmin-
sters and Aubussons. This product represented an
aggregate of over 76,000,000 square yards of car-
peting, which enter into the annual consumption of
the American people. The popular reason assigned
for this unique development is the general prosper-
ity of our people, the high wages earned permit-
ting families of all grades of life to indulge in the
luxury of floor-coverings to an extent elsewhere un-
known. Stimulated by the lucrative market thus
offered, American manufacturers have made larger
and more important contributions to the mechanism
of the carpet manufacture than those of all other
nations combined.
The real development of the machine industry
dates from the successful application of power to
the weaving of ingrain carpets by the late Erastus
B. Bigelow, of Boston, in 1844. Subsequently he
invented Jacquard looms for weaving Brussels and
Wiltons, which produced carpets pronounced by the
jury at the London Exposition of 1851 to be "bet-
ter and more perfectly woven than any hand-loom
carpets that have ever come under the notice of the
jury." A still later invention of Mr. Bigelow's was
for weaving tapestry carpets. His inventions are at
the base of all the power-loom carpet-weaving now
done in Europe. Subsequent inventors have greatly
improved them, and have added new inventions,
such as those for weaving Axminsters, and Smyrna
rugs. By their skill and enterprise the American
carpet manufacturers have not only retained the
control of their own market, except in the matter of
the Eastern hand-made rugs, but they have in some
instances successfully forced their products upon the
European markets.
In one other branch of the textile industry pro-
gress in the United States has outstripped the world
— the hosiery and knit-goods manufacture. More
machine-made knitted goods are turned out annually
here than in all other countries combined. The
explanation is somewhat the same as in the case of
carpets. Our people wear more underwear than other
people ; they are not only obliged to wear more for
climatic reasons, but they can afford to wear more ;
and the general desire for personal comfort in wear-
ing apparel results in an enormous distribution of
the products of these mills. The beginnings of the
industry are well within the lifetime of many manu-
facturers still living. Until 1832 the knitting of
socks and stockings remained mostly a household
industry— the only form of textile work which the
machine had not wrested from the housewife. In
that year Egbert Egberts successfully applied the
principle of knitting by power, at Cohoes, N. Y.
484
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
His machine was simply the square stocking-frame
of William Lee adapted to power. From that adap-
tation dates a revolution in underwear, which had
previously consisted wholly of flannel, fashioned and
sewed at home, according to the individual needs.
The revolution gathered momentum gradually, as
invention after invention— almost all of American
origin— perfected the knitting-machine; but once
the new industry was fairly and firmly established,
it spread with amazing rapidity. In the decade
between 1880 and 1890 the number of knit-goods
mills doubled, and the value of the annual product
jumped from $29,167,227 to $67,241,013.
The great variety of goods made facilitates the
tendency, peculiar to this industry, toward the build-
ing of comparatively small mills, requiring but mod-
erate capital ; and it happens in consequence that
these mills spring up all over the country, and can
now be found in nearly every State. Many of them
employ only cotton as a raw material; others use
chiefly wool ; and still others manufacture what are
known as merino knit goods or mixed goods — cot-
ton mixed with wool in proportions varying from
fifty to seventy-five and ninety per cent, of cotton,
according to the particular market sought. The
tendency to the larger use of cotton in these goods
is perceptible, not necessarily because of greater
cheapness or a desire to adulterate, but because the
liability of wool to shrink, and its excessive warmth,
lead many to prefer undergarments in which cotton
is an equal or predominating material.
In 1858 Mr. E. E. Kilbourne invented a machine
for automatically knitting full-fashioned underwear ;
and this machine has gradually wrought a second
revolution in the industry. The amount of hand
labor now done is reduced to the minimum — to the
mere sewing on of buttons, so to speak.
Having said much in this paper about the enter-
prise and mechanical ingenuity of American textile
manufacturers, I may be pardoned for concluding
with an allusion to an obvious deficiency, as applied
to the industry as a whole. They have left little
to be desired in the direction of cheapening textile
products without deteriorating quality. They have
built and equipped mills which rank with any in the
world. They have planted on this continent ma-
chinery enough to supply all the textile wants of
our people, except in a comparatively few lines of
very fine fabrics. They have managed these mills
with rare business sagacity, and as a rule with nota-
ble financial success. They have taken one specialty
after another which had never been attempted here,
and transported its manufacture from across the
water, literally inventing anew the necessary machi-
nery, as in the case of braids and plush goods,
when they could not obtain it otherwise. They have
taken these several textile industries, which have been
localized and specialized in Europe for generations,
and in less than half a century have made them
one of the chief corner-stones of our national wealth.
They have contributed far more than their share to
the mechanical development which makes the labor
of a single operative stand for that of a regiment of
hand-workers in the eighteenth century. They have
failed only in contributing their equal share to the
artistic side of textile industry. They have been
imitators instead of originators, although justice
compels us to add that there are among them many
striking and gratifying exceptions to this rule. But
American-made goods do not bear, generally speak-
ing, any distinctive artistic characteristics which
distinguish them as American-made ; and, generally
speaking, they are inferior in this respect to the best
products of foreign looms.
All this is natural — natural to a new country in
which utility everywhere predominates over the or-
namental. The next great forward step in our tex-
tile manufactures must be in the artistic rather than
the mechanical direction, for there we recognize its
weakest point. In the designing of patterns, in the
use and application of dyes, in all that goes to im-
part to fabrics the artistic element, to lift the manu-
facture into an art, our textile mills are still far
from the top of the ladder. This deficiency is not
in any sense peculiar to the textile industries. It is
an educational deficiency in which our people as a
whole may be said to share. It is incidental to a
crude country of limited facilities in art directions.
What needs to be done is to supply those facilities ;
and the time is at hand when our manufacturers
should themselves take the initiative in that work.
All over Europe there exist technical schools for the
training of textile workers, — weaving-schools, de-
signing-schools, dyeing-schools, — in which those who
manufacture goods are trained by the best instruc-
tors ; and the result is not only better workmanship,
but more beautiful and more artistic tissues. We
have but one such institution in America — the Phila-
delphia Textile School, which is doing a noble work
in elevating the standard and educating the taste of
American manufacturers. We need more like it,
need them badly, and need them at once.
CHAPTER LXXIII
AMERICAN CARPETS
A[UNDRED years ago very few woolen car-
pets were in use on Manhattan Island. A
few wealthy people had Turkish rugs, and
some ingrains were imported ; but they were so rare
that children were cautioned to tread lightly on them
when permitted on state occasions to enter the car-
peted room. No carpets were made here, except
" rag carpets," the striped combination of rags and
list which the Knickerbocker housewives wove at
home, and which are still made in small quantities
both in farm-houses and in factories. The first car-
pet dealers in New York of whom we know any-
thing were J. Alexander & Company, whose adver-
tisement in Parker's " New York Gazette ; or, The
Weekly Post-Boy," on Monday, June 30, 1760,
reads as follows :
"J. Alexander & Company have removed their
store to Mr Haynes's house on Smith St., where
Mr Proctor, watch-maker, lately lived, where they
sell Check Handkerchiefs, linens of different kinds,
Lawn and Minonets, Scot's Carpets, broad and nar-
row cloths, Shoes of different kinds, made shirts,
Hats, Stockings, with several other goods; Eine's
Scot's barley and Herrings. Also a choice parcel
of Old Madeira Wine in Pipes."
In the following year they offered for sale Turkey
carpets, and two years later state that they "have
imported some English and Scot's carpets and Hair
Cloth for Stairs and Passages." They were then
located "in the house right opposite Mr Donald
Morison Ship Chandler House, betwix the Fly
and Burling Slip." Judging from their advertise-
ments in the papers of the day, they were not only
the pioneers in the carpet business, but also the
originators of the modern department store.
From this time on the use of carpets began to
increase and the business to grow, until, according
to the city directories, there were last year 304 firms
engaged in the sale of carpets in New York and
Brooklyn, the amount of capital invested being
many millions. It was not until many years after
carpets were first used in the colonies that the man-
ufacture was introduced here, and the colonies had
then become the United States. In 1791 William
Sprague began to make Axminsters in Philadelphia.
One of his first productions was a pattern which
represented the coat-of-arms of the young Republic.
The carpet was probably not wonderful, but it has
achieved fame, not so much on account of the fact
that it was our first attempt, as because it was the
first article to which the principle of tariff protection
was applied. Alexander Hamilton was Secretary
of the Treasury, and in a report on manufactures
sent to the House of Representatives in 1791 he
recommended that a duty of two and one half per
cent, be laid on carpets. To quote his own words :
"To which the nature of the articles suggests no
objection, and which may at the same time furnish
a motive the more to the fabrication of them at
home, toward which some beginnings have been
made." (December 5, 1791.) The proceeds of
this duty he proposed to use as a bounty to encour-
age the growth of wool in the United States.
Early in the century the manufacture of ingrains
was begun, and has continued steadily increasing in
amount ever since. Probably the first ingrain mill
in the United States was that of George M. Con-
radt, who came to this country from the kingdom
of Wurtemberg, and settled in Frederick County,
Maryland. The factory was a stone building, and
was still standing not many years ago. The carpets
were made in a hand-loom on a drum having rows
of pegs somewhat like the cylinder of a music-box.
This drum worked the harness. Jacquard's great
invention was made in 1800, and soon after began
to be applied to the weaving of carpets in this
country. Among the early mills was one owned by
Henry Burdett, which was located at Medway,
Mass. Alexander Wright was the superintendent,
and the concern is notable as having been the start-
485
486
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ing-point of what became later the great corpora-
tion known as the Lowell Manufacturing Company,
whose carpets afterward were the standard goods of
the country. In 1825 Wright endeavored to gain
information touching the jealously guarded secrets
of the Jacquard machine, then in use in the manu-
facture of ingrains in Philadelphia, which city seems
to have been the second starting-point for the man-
ufacture of ingrains. He was unable to gain access
to the mills, and sailed for Scotland, whence he
soon returned with the best looms he could procure.
He also brought over with him William and Glaude
Wilson, to aid in operating the machinery. Glaude
Wilson was a skilled mechanic, and devised improve-
ments in the Jacquard loom, simplifying its con-
struction and rendering it more certain in operation.
He resided many years in Lowell, and lived to see
the Lowell Company become one of the most im-
portant manufacturing establishments in the country.
While the Medway experiment was going on, a
charter had been granted to the Lowell Manufactur-
ing Company, and on February 22, 1828, its organ-
ization was completed. In those days directors'
meetings were held at seven o'clock in the evening.
Whitney, Cabot & Company were appointed to
build the mills, employ the labor, and afterward sell
the goods. The Medway mill and machinery were
sold to the Lowell Company, which kept the looms
in operation in that place until its own factory at
Lowell was finished. Alexander Wright, referred
to above, was the first superintendent. For a long
time the enterprise was regarded as an experiment,
and many believed that the demand for carpets
would not justify paying for the skill necessary to
make them. The hand-looms of those days were
by no means as perfect as the hand-looms of our
time. The Lowell Company, however, persevered,
and ingrain factories continued to spring up in va-
rious parts of the country. The progress was slow,
and with the exception of the Hartford Carpet
Company, then operating as two separate concerns,
very few of the firms which afterward became
famous started until many years later.
E. S. Higgins & Company began to manufacture
ingrains in New York in 1841. Alexander Smith
began at West Farms in 1844. Robert Beattie
started in New York in 1840. John Bromley did
not set up his looms in Philadelphia until 1845.
This city now has some of the finest factories in
existence, and its production is larger than that of
all the rest of the country combined. More yards of
ingrain carpets are made there than in any other city
in the world, and the goods range from the highest to
the lowest grade. The imports from England and
Scotland continued to be heavy in spite of distance
and duties, as up to 1850 hand-looms only being
in use, the product of these and the other mills using
these looms was necessarily very limited, and we had
to overcome the prejudice against domestic goods.
Meanwhile Alexander Smith and J. G. McNair
had devoted much time and labor to the invention
of a patent process for weaving tapestry ingrains.
They succeeded in producing a carpet which filled
a want of the times for a strong and durable fabric
in which a large variety of color could be introduced.
The Crossleys, of Halifax, England, purchased the
rights to the invention, paying a royalty of a penny
a yard for England. Templeton, of Ayr, paid ^200
and a like royalty for Scotland. The goods became
enormously popular, and Stephen Sanford, of Am-
sterdam, N. Y., also secured the right to manufac-
ture them. The fame of the carpets spread so rap-
idly that it did much to stop the importation of
foreign ingrains.
Erastus B. Bigelow, a young medical student of
Boston, who was but twenty years of age, had seen
somewhere the manufacture of coach-lace by hand.
He was without mechanical training, and, in fact,
had never read a book on the subject ; but in forty
days after he took up the idea he perfected a power-
loom by which coach-lace weaving could be done.
At a single stroke he so reduced the cost of weav-
ing this class of goods that what had previously cost
twenty-two cents a yard was reduced to three cents.
This invention brought him into notice, and he set
to work to devise a power-loom for ingrain-carpet
weaving. Before the year was out he succeeded.
At this time eight yards a day was the product of
the ingrain hand-loom. Mr. Bigelow's loom at once
increased the product to ten and twelve yards, and,
after some defects had been remedied, rolled it up
to twenty-five yards a day, thus stimulating succes-
sive inventors of power-looms, such as Duckworth,
Murkland, Crompton, and others, who have multi-
plied the result, so that the product now reaches to
from forty to forty-five yards a day, although the
hours of labor have been materially shortened.
But Mr. Bigelow did not rest here. In 1848 he
set to work to invent a power-loom for the weaving
of Brussels and tapestry carpets. At this time the
product of a long and hard day's labor for a weaver,
including a boy to draw the wires, was seven yards
of Brussels carpet. At once Mr. Bigelow raised this
to over twenty-five, some modern machines now
getting fifty-five yards of production in a day. Prior
to the perfecting of this invention, he had, with his
SHEPPARD KNAPP.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
487
brother, Horatio N., organized the Bigelow Carpet
Company, which has the honor of being the original
power-loom manufacturer of Brussels and Wilton
carpets. The company has been very successful,
and now ranks among the foremost concerns in the
world. The Crossleys, of England, promptly pur-
chased, at a cost of ^20,000, the right to use the
Bigelow loom in England ; and A. & E. S. Higgins,
of New York, and the Roxbury Carpet Company,
of Massachusetts, also secured the exclusive use for
the United States for tapestry and velvet during the
term of the patent. Mr. Bigelow, of course, reserved
the right to manufacture Wiltons and Brussels on
his own loom. It has been my experience, in a
connection of over thirty years with the trade, that
the Wiltons, velvets, Brussels, and tapestries made
at that day by these establishments would compare
favorably in durability of wear and stability of color
with the same grades of any country in the world.
The success of Mr. Bigelow's looms stimulated
others to like inventions. The manufacture of
Axminster and moquette carpets by hand in foreign
countries was one of the slowest of trade processes.
In this two men and a boy were employed at one
loom, and could make but one and one half yards of
French moquette in a day. In 1860, Alexander
Smith and Halcyon Skinner, of Yonkers, invented an
Axminster and moquette power-loom which was per-
haps more striking in its ability to increase the produc-
tive capacity of labor than was that of Mr. Bigelow.
This was the beginning of a second era in the
trade. The invention increased the production to
about eleven yards per day, the loom being attended
by a girl. Its merits were universally conceded,
and foreign and domestic manufacturers were glad
to pay large royalties for its use. The Alexander
Smith & Sons Carpet Company became one of the
most famous in the world, and its plant in Yonkers
is to-day the largest of the kind in the country.
How thoroughly American invention and American
mechanical skill have gained control of the home
market can easily be understood from a few figures,
which I present as follows :
In the year ending June 30, 1870, there were
entered at the port of New York alone body Brus-
sels and tapestry Brussels valued at $1,355,832 ; in
1894 there were imported in the entire United States
body Brussels and tapestry Brussels valued at $58,-
208. In 1870 the manufacture of carpets in the
United States amounted in value to $21,761,573 ;
in 1890 the value of the carpets made in the United
States was $47,770,193.
The number of firms engaged in the various de-
partments, with the approximate number of power-
looms employed, was last year as follows :
PRODUCTION OF CARPETS.
VARIKTIBS.
MANIirACTUHEHS.
POWBI-LOOMI.
Ingrains
80
A KflCt
Brussels and Wilton
Tapestry and velvet .
Ib
1,200
Axminster and moquette.
6
1,700
600
These firms were capable of producing 100,000,-
ooo yards, of the value of $50,000,000. There are
also many hand-looms on ingrains, and many man-
ufacturers of damasks and Venetians, Smyrna and
other rugs and mats.
On the artistic side the improvement has been
equally as great. At the outset most of our designs
were copied or adapted from foreign patterns. It
was only a few years ago that a foreign manufac-
turer, to whom I showed a sample of the first piece
of tapestry produced by Stephen Sanford, remarked,
after examining the fabric closely, " Well, you may
be able to manufacture the goods, but you can't
design them." In less than five years from that
time, the same gentleman, on his way to Canada to
sell goods, proposed to me to exchange samples,
that he might take orders from the American pat-
terns. After looking through his line I thanked
him, with the assurance that I could find nothing
there that could compare favorably with the dis-
carded designs of last season's patterns of our
domestic manufacture. In the fully equipped
studios of the Bigelow, Lowell, Smith, Hartford,
Higgins, and the Philadelphia companies a large
proportion of the designers are Americans, and the
proportion is steadily increasing. The American
dealer of to-day has to overcome very little preju-
dice against either the fabric, color, or pattern of
American carpets, and it is long since I have heard
a customer ask, " Is it English? "
Were I able to give the exact amount of money
expended each year, from the time the wool leaves
the sheep's back until the carpet reaches its resting-
place upon the floor of our homes, to be trodden
upon, beaten, and sometimes abused, notwithstand-
ing the fact that there is no article which goes so far
to make the home comfortable and attractive, the
figures would be astonishing. The people employed
in designing, manufacturing, and selling this article
to-day would form a sufficient population for a
young republic, with abundant capital to carry on
the government.
The skill and inventive genius in carpet manufac-
488
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
tones have so built up the home industry of the
United States as to give employment to a vast army
of operatives, and reduced the cost of the manufac-
tured article to such an extent that the humblest
citizen is enabled to have a floor well carpeted with
fabrics that are attractive, and even artistic; and,
with the thrifty housewife, the addition of a rug or
two upon the carpet and a good lining underneath
is necessary, in her estimation, to sustain her status
as one of the social leaders in her humble sphere.
In no other time and no other country has such
comparative luxury been within the reach of modest
means. The white and well-scrubbed floor of the
Holland frau, the polished oak and tiling of France,
Germany, Italy, Austria, and the other countries of
continental Europe, have given no precedent for the
American indulgence in carpets ; and even England,
outgrowing the rush and straw strewn floors of the
time of Erasmus, has not yet learned to fill the great
gap between the velvet pile carpets of the homes of
the nobility and the bare boards of the Whitechapel
tenements. It is in this respect that the United
States stands forth preeminent. There are carpets
for all, and from the days when the grandmothers
wove their rag carpets, to the present, when a far
superior article is turned out from nearly every fac-
tory in the country, at a cost cheaper even than that
of the home-made article, there have been few Ameri-
can homes too poor to enjoy the comfort of neat and
pretty floor coverings.
CHAPTER LXXIV
THE CORDAGE INDUSTRY
THE infancy of this industry was marked by
great feebleness, but perhaps not more so
than the average of American manufactures.
Rope making formed one of the principal branches
of business from the early days of the colonies, and
a rope walk appears to have been first set up in 1642,
in Boston, Mass., twelve years after the town was
founded. In this connection it is interesting to note
that in 1638 Boston was "rather a village than a
town, consisting of no more than twenty or thirty
houses." Prior to that time nearly every kind of
rigging and tackle for vessels was brought from
England.
With the building of the first ship in Boston, the
Trial, of 160 tons, and probably on account of its
construction, John Harrison, a rope maker, was in-
vited to Boston from Salisbury, " on mocon of some
gentlemen of this town," and he set up his ropewalk
or " rope-field," ten feet ten inches wide, on the land
adjoining his house on Purchase Street, at the foot
of Summer Street. The work was done in the open
field. Posts were set in the ground firmly enough
to permit the suspension of cords and rope of no
inconsiderable circumference.
Harrison was granted a monopoly of the business
until 1663, when permission was granted to John
Heyman to "set up his posts," but with "libertie
onely to make fishing lines " ; but even this license
was found so to interfere with Harrison — who was
now advanced in years and had a family of eleven
persons— that it caused him to fear that he could
not support them, and Heyman's permit was ac-
cordingly withdrawn. An additional argument em-
ployed to bring about this revocation was the
scarcity of hemp! After Harrison's death rope-
walks multiplied in number, and at the West and
North Ends of the town in sixty years there were
fourteen ropewalks. In 1793 the industry was
thriving, no doubt greatly fostered by a bounty
granted by the General Court.
In a great fire, July 30, 1794, seven ropewalks
were destroyed ; and the selectmen provided that no
more should be constructed in the heart of the town,
and tendered the use of the low land west of the
Common, where six others were at once constructed,
20 to 24 feet wide and 900 feet in length. These
were also destroyed by fire in 1806. Five were re-
built, and were all once more burned in 1819. The
elder Quincy, in the first year of his mayoralty,
with his usual energy and sagacity, promptly re-
moved all of these, with marked improvement to
the neighborhood, and the land was purchased for
$55,000 on February 25, 1824.
So much for the early beginnings of this industry.
It is with a smile that we read that " in the Federal
procession of 1788 the men employed in this in-
dustry outnumbered any other class of mechanics in
Boston," and that in 1794 "over fifty men were
employed in this branch alone." The work in the
old ropewalks, although done mostly by hand, was
in some cases supplemented by horse or water
power. The workmen resented the employment of
any hands who had not served a regular apprentice-
ship at the trade, and there was bitter opposition to
the introduction of machinery.
Besides the ropewalks previously mentioned,
Nantucket had, in the height of her prosperity,
three, none of which now exists. Newburyport
had a good-sized ropewalk for those days. There
was one at Castine, Me. One was on Broadway,
New York, before the Revolution, and others were
found in other parts of the country. Early in the
century Samuel Pearson owned and operated one
in Portland, Me. His two sons, Samuel and
George C. Pearson, having learned the trade with
their father, were afterward interested in steam
plants at and near Boston. Still later they started
the Suffolk Cordage Company, which grew into the
Pearson Cordage Company, now one of the largest
mills in the country.
489
490
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Shortly after the death of his father (Samuel),
Mr. Charles H. Pearson, who had been identified
with him and the other son, became connected with
the Boston Cordage Company, and still later with
the Standard Cordage Company. Mr. Samuel
Pearson made many inventions in rope-machines
and in regulators for spinning.
Mr. A. L. Tubbs, of California, bought most of
the machinery in one of the old Boston mills and
shipped it to California. He started the business
on the Pacific coast, and at the present day controls
the two or three factories now located there.
Up to about 1850 it was the custom to import
spun yarns to be made into cordage. These yarns
were chiefly spun by Russian serfs, and could be
furnished for less money than similar ones made
here; but the introduction of improved machinery
gradually cut off these importations, and hardly any
spun yarns were bought after 1865.
The period between 1830 and 1850 witnessed the
starting of what may be termed the modern factory,
in distinction from the crude and primitive mode
of manufacture before existing. The difference be-
tween the two methods was this: In the old-
fashioned ropewalk the twisting of fibers was done
by a man walking backward down the walk, spin-
ning from the hemp round his waist, the twist being
imparted from a wheel turned by a boy. The pos-
sible length of the rope could thus be no greater than
the length of the building or ground. Longfellow's
description, in his poem on " The Ropewalk," is too
fine to be omitted, even in a commercial article :
" In that building, long and low,
With its windows all arow,
Like the port-holes of a hulk,
Human spiders spin and spin,
Backward down their threads so thin
Dropping, each a hempen bulk.
" At the end, an open door ;
Squares of sunshine on the floor
Light the long and dusky lane ;
And the whirring of a wheel,
Dull and drowsy, makes me feel
All its spokes are in my brain."
In the modern factory the twist is imparted by
rapidly rotating machinery similar to that used in
cotton and woolen mills, making it possible to spin a
rope of several thousand feet in length on an upright
apparatus occupying but a few square feet. For
some purposes, however, the ropewalk rope, as it is
called, is still held to be superior to that manu-
factured by the other process. When rope was
made without use of the ropewalk it was the custom
to call it "patent cordage," to distinguish it from
the old style of ropewalk rope, and the name is still
used by some firms.
The inventions and patents of most consequence
and in most general use are those of John Good, of
New York City, whose spreaders and breakers did
away with the use of lappers, and whose nipper and
regulator on spinning-machines have given universal
satisfaction, although with the perfecting of " prep-
aration machinery " the use of a regulator has in
many instances been discontinued.
The era of the largest mills commenced in 1878,
after the invention of the self-binding harvester.
Among the factories started during the period
alluded to were Sewall, Day & Company of Boston
(1835); Pearson Cordage Company of Boston; J.
Nickerson & Company of Boston ; Weaver, Filler
& Company of Philadelphia (afterward and at the
present day Edwin H. Filler & Company) ; Plym-
outh Cordage Company of Plymouth, Mass. ;
Hingham Cordage Company of Hingham, Mass. ;
New Bedford Cordage Company of New Bedford,
Mass. (1842); Baumgardner, Woodward & Com-
pany of Philadelphia ; J. T. Donnell & Company of
Bath, Me. ; William Wall & Sons of New York City ;
Lawrence Waterbury & Company of New York ;
Tucker, Carter & Company of New York ; Eliza-
bethport Steam Cordage Company of New York ;
Thomas Jackson & Son of Easton, Pa. ; J. Rinek's
Sons of Easton, Pa. ; and John Bonte's Sons of
Cincinnati.
The demand for cordage in those days being
largely for export and the use of ships, it will be
noticed that the manufacture was mainly confined
to Atlantic seaports. In later times, with the de-
cline of American shipping, the substitution of wire
for hemp standing rigging, and especially after the
great demand for binder twine, all this was changed,
and factories rapidly multiplied in the West, Peoria,
Miamisburg, Akron, and Xenia taking an important
part in the business.
As late as the year 1843 the total quantity of
Manila hemp manufactured in the United States
was only 27,820 bales or 7,511,400 pounds. This
amount of hemp could, in 1895, easily be brought
from Manila in three sailing-ships or in two steam-
ers— the latter capable of making the voyage in fifty
or sixty days by the way of the Suez Canal to
New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. Moreover,
one of half a dozen of the larger mills in the
country could, in 1895, manufacture the whole
quantity of Manila hemp used in the year 1843 in
the space of fifty days, by running night and day.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
491
In 1863 the business had increased to five times
its size in 1843. With the War of the Rebellion
came a great demand for cordage ; and as hemps
rapidly advanced in price, in common with all other
staples, it was an era of great prosperity for the cord-
age industry. Orders were so numerous that it was
deemed a favor to a customer to supply him ; and it
is within the knowledge of the writer that the profits
of one Eastern factory during that epoch amounted
in one year to $520,000, nor was its experience at
all exceptional.
It was in 1860 that the first importations of Sisal
hemp were made. Commencing with the manufac-
ture of about 200 tons in that year, its use rapidly
extended, and it became in a few years an important
factor in the trade. In ten years its importation
amounted to 3500 tons, in twenty years to 13,000
tons, in thirty years to 34,000 tons, and in thirty-five
years to 50,000 tons.
With the extension of the business and the in-
crease of factories, both in number and importance,
there was found to be a necessity for some regula-
tion of the prices of cordage. The first agreement
between the cordage manufacturers was entered into
on February 23, 1861, the object being to correct
certain abuses which had prevailed among firms
engaged in the trade. Weekly meetings were held
by the manufacturers in their respective cities, and
opportunity afforded for any complaints or any
suggestion about the condition of trade and the
regulation of prices. The object, as stated by one
of the Eastern manufacturers, was " to look each
other in the face and maintain prices." Various
amendments were from time to time made in this
agreement of 1861, but in July, 1874, a careful re-
vision was made and the manufacturers pledged
themselves, " as men of honor and integrity," to the
true and faithful observance of the rules. A stronger
agreement was made in April, 1875 ; but complaints
of underselling, answered with various excuses, were
frequent, and, there being no pecuniary penalty, the
ingenuity of the manufacturers finally hit upon what
was known as the " pool system." This went into
operation on January i, 1878. The business was di-
vided among the manufacturers in proportions which
seemed just, and when the business of one concern
exceeded during any month the proportion which
its share bore to the total business done according
to the returns, it would pay in so much per pound
on the excess. In case a concern fell short it would
be a recipient to that extent.
It was supposed that this arrangement would act
as a preventive to the cutting of prices, and it un-
doubtedly had that effect to some extent. The
novelty of the plan was also in its favor, and on the
whole it worked well enough amply to repay the
great amount of labor expended in securing its
adoption. The percentages ranged from eleven and
one fourth to one per cent.
In 1880 the amount of the pool was reduced from
two cents to one cent per pound, and in June of
that year to one-fourth cent; in January, 1881, the
pool was abolished. In April, 1882, it was deemed
best to reestablish it, and on the 28th of June the
proportions were again agreed upon for three years.
At the expiration of that time the new concerns
which had grown up were taken into the associa-
tion, and after much labor, lasting from February to
July, 1885, a new pool was formed, and the propor-
tions as fixed by the committee were accepted.
No one who was present will ever forget the
magnificent banquet given at Long Branch, on the
29th of July, 1885, to the members of the associa-
tion, by the Hon. Edwin H. Filler, of Philadelphia,
who, as president for many years, had been untir-
ing in his efforts to unite the members and preserve
harmony. Equal honor should be awarded to
Mr. Frederick Davis, of Sewall, Day & Company of
Boston, and to Mr. D. B. Whitlock of New York,
for many years secretary of the association, who
died in 1888.
In April, 1887, before the expiration of the time
agreed upon at the formation of the last pool, it
was broken up ; and the next event of great interest
was the formation and incorporation of the National
Cordage Company. This was composed of the four
leading concerns in New York City ; and although
their circular, dated August i, 1887, announced that
their " large facilities and long-established reputation
were a guaranty that they could fulfil all that they
promised to do," yet the successful accomplishment
of their aims would have demonstrated that the age
of miracles was not wholly past. The projectors
were, no doubt, sanguine enough really to believe
that it was possible to control the product and prices
of Manila and Sisal hemp, but the attempt was a
failure. An effort was made to subsidize the houses
and brokers engaged in the trade, but they did not
remain subsidized, and the scheme would not work.
In some remarks made by the writer, May 27, 1886,
in the Old South Church, Boston, at a meeting
called to discuss the Morrison tariff bill, he said :
" The day of monopolies in this country is past, and
there is no danger but that the competition among
ourselves, with the wonderful and ever-increasing
labor-saving appliances and economical devices of
492
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the present day, will keep down prices, in our own
products at least, to a reasonable point."
Thus it was with the attempt alluded to. The
time had gone by for any such arrangement to be
more than temporary, and measures to undermine
the project were taken by those who did not pro-
pose to give up their individual judgment in pur-
chasing raw material; and it is not strange that,
with the immutable laws of trade working in their
favor, these measures were at once and continuously
successful. The National Cordage Company was
in the position of a whale attacked by swordfish.
The whale was only one organization, and was cum-
bersome and unwieldy ; the swordfish were numerous
and extremely lively in their movements, and the
result of the conflict was what might reasonably
have been expected. The whale was exhausted by
his attempts to maintain his ground, and what was
bad rapidly became worse. In January, 1890, the
National Cordage Company made an attempt to
have all the manufacturers outside of their organiza-
tion join them. But no one who joined the National
knew the terms made with his neighbor, and it was
not long before distrust and suspicion ruined the
whole project. On the 4th of May, 1893, the
National passed into the hands of receivers, al-
though they had paid eight per cent, dividends from
1891 on their preferred, and from nine to ten and
one half per cent, on their common stock, dividends
having been declared on both three days before
their failure.
It is too early to write the history of the United
States Cordage Company, which organization suc-
ceeded the National Cordage Company. Circum-
stances scarcely controllable by any one resulted in
disaster, and, in fact, its career was never much
more than a continued liquidation. A fall in the
prices of raw material, unexpected and unprec-
edented, together with other misfortunes, cul-
minated in the appointment of receivers, June 3,
For the future the prospect is brighter, and with
lower fixed charges, strict economy, judicious pur-
chases of the raw material as needed, a substantial
cash capital, and especially with the stock of binder
twine in the country practically used up for the first
time in five years, we may hope that the interest
on the bonds may be easily earned and the industry
again give fair results.
The figures given below are the aggregate of the
sworn returns of rope delivered by the members of the
United States Cordage Manufacturers' Association.
MANUFACTURED IN 1878, 1879, AND 1880, IN POUNDS.
YEAR.
MANILA.
TOTAL.
SISAL.
TOTAL.
GRAND TOTAL.
1878...
Home Trade . 26,483,833
30,697,797
38,199,531
44,570,367
14,085,037
1,878,825
15,963,862
21,608,893
25,910,094
46,661,659
59,808,424
70,480461
1870. . .
Export 4,213,964
19,672,800
I,936,C93
1880
Export . . 4,360 127
Home Trade ... . 40,729 619
23,945,019
1,965,075
Export . 3.840 748
MANUFACTURED SINCE 1880.
YEAR.
MANILA.
SISAL.
GRAND TOTAL.
BALES.
POUNDS.
BALES.
POUNDS.
POUNDS.
1881
216,706
I93,873
184489
202,208
190,960
I77,22t
260,000
340,000
320,000
260,000
330,000
332,000
350,388
334,377
58,510,620
52,345,710
49,812,030
54,596,160
51,550,200
47,849,670
70,200,000
91,800,000
86,400,000
70,200,000
89,100,000
89,640,000
94,604,760
90,281,790
100,777
102,067
"5.239
161,800
178,650
204,008
205,000
190,000
220,000
190,000
240,000
342,000
310,369
308,193
38,803,060
40,826,800
46,095,600
64,720,000
69,673,500
78,013,230
76,875,000
71,250,000
83,600,000
68,400,000
86400,000
123,120,000
114,836,530
110,949480
97,313,680
93,172,510
95-907,630
119,316,160
121,232,700
125,862,900
147,075,000
163,050,000
1 70,000,000
158,600,000
195,500,000
233,160,000
231441,290
211,231,270
1882
1883
1884
1885 .
1886 . . .
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892 ....
I** :
1894
BENJAMIN C. CLARK.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
493
Canada is included in the years 1892, 1893, and
1 894, but not before, on manila. In 1 890 and 1 89 1
New Zealand added 20,000,000 pounds to the con-
sumption for each year; 1892, 20,400,000 pounds;
1893, 22,000,000 pounds; and 1894, 10,000,000
pounds.
There are about 10,000 spindles in this industry
at the present time, two thirds of which are ample
to supply the wants of the country. The annual
product amounts to $ 1 2,000,000. The figures given
below were collected with much care, and will give
an approximate idea of the growth of this industry.
Other fibers, such as Russian and Italian hemps and
jute, have at times been used to a considerable extent,
but the writer believes that the figures he has col-
lected practically give what is needed for statistical
purposes.
Early figures of this trade are as below :
TABLE OF QUANTITIES OF MANILA, SISAL HEMP, ETC., MANUFACTURED IN THE
UNITED STATES, 1843 TO 1877.
YEAR.
MANILA.
SISAL.
TOTAL POUNDS.
BALES op 270 LBS.
POUNDS.
BALES.
SIZE OP
BALES IN
POUNDS.
POUNDS.
i&it
27,820
48,830
47438
46,343
39,I»
62,120
48,726
72,769
60,888
87,166
106,376
90,174
100,760
114,203
119,156
110,652
129,321
143,618
105,322
120,878
»32>358
135.304
128,508
I4°>33°
'34,253
141,962
136483
133.338
157,342
155,1 73
150,629
137,608
125,904
132,231
146,715
7,511,400
13,184,100
12,808,260
12,512,610
10,559,97°
16,772400
13,156,020
19,647,630
16,439,760
23,534,820
28,721,520
24,346,980
27,205,200
30,834,810
32,172,120
29,884,140
34,916,670
38,776,860
28^36,940
32,637,060
35,736,660
36,532,080
34,697,160
37,889,100
36,248,310
38.329.740
36,850,410
36,001,260
42482,340
41,896,710
40,669,830
37,154,160
33,994,080
35,702,370
39,613,050
320
325
330
335
334
340
340
350
352
$
350
402
389
404
7,511400
13,184,100
12,808,260
12,512,610
10,559,970
16,772400
13,156,020
19,647,630
16439,760
23,534,820
28,721,520
24,346,080
27,205,200
30,834,810
32,172,120
29,884,140
34916,670
39,222,620
28,637,580
33,070,980
36.385.035
37447.50°
35,634.155
39,599,180
38,584450
41,527,780
42,676,510
42,963,810
48,372,356
49,966,671
48,734,550
47,838,610
46,581,906
51,987466
60,434402
igjj
i&K
1846
l8j.7
i8d8
jg^O
1851
1852 . .
l8C3
igec
1856
l8<7
1858
IJJCQ
1860
1,393
627
»,356
i,99S
2,774
2,797
5,120
6,871
9406
16,646
19,893
i6,733
22479
22402
30,527
3',3i3
41,864
5L538
445.760
200,640
433,920
64»,375
915420
936,995
1,710,080
2,336,140
3,198,040
5,826,100
6,962,550
5,890,016
8,069,961
8,064,720
10,684450
12,587,826
16,285,096
20,821,352
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
l86q
l87O
l87I
1872
1873
1874 .
1875
1876
1877 .
3,769,839
1,017,856,530
285,734
...
106,017441
1,123,873.971
CHAPTER LXXV
HIDES AND LEATHER
THERE is probably no industry in which the
advance in scientific attainments and busi-
ness methods during the last one hundred
years has been greater, or has wrought more impor-
tant changes, than in the manufacture of leather;
and there is likewise no product except those of agri-
culture, the application of which to the uses of man-
kind is of greater antiquity. From the earliest period
known to history the skins of animals, however
crudely prepared, have contributed to the necessities
and comforts of man, and, at the present day, there
is no product which contributes more luxury to en-
lightened humanity than " hides and leather." Dr.
Campbell, in his " Political Survey of Great Britain,"
aptly says : " If we look abroad on the instruments
of husbandry, or the implements used in most me-
chanic trades, or the structure of a multitude of
engines and machines; or if we contemplate at
home the necessary parts of our clothing, — breeches,
shoes, boots, gloves, — or the furniture of our houses,
the books on our shelves, the harness on our horses,
and even the substance of our carriages, what do we
see but instances of human industry exerted upon
leather? What an aptitude has this single material
in a variety of circumstances for the relief of our
necessities, and supplying conveniences in every
state and stage of life! Without it, or even without
it in the plenty we have it, to what difficulties should
we be exposed!"
The art of tanning is one of very great antiquity,
and it is difficult to resist the temptation to refer,
however briefly, to the fact that the ancient Egyp-
tians inscribed on their tombs tableaux which referred
to the tanner ; that the Jews, after the exodus, prac-
tised the knowledge learned of the subjects of the
Pharaohs in preparing the rams' skins for the service
of the tabernacle ; that in the sepulchers of ancient
Mexico there have been found bronze leather slices
similar to the Egyptian, indicating a knowledge of
leather working by a people possibly coeval with
those of the Eastern continent. For hundreds of
years there appears to have been no marked im-
provement in the tanning of leather, although there
are evidences of attempts to beautify it, for there
are specimens of embossed leathers made by the
Moors centuries ago. There is no accurate way of
ascertaining the nature of the preparation by the
ancients, but they subjected the skins to some treat-
ment to prevent putrefaction. There is probably
no vegetable growth containing tannin which has
not been tried and found favor; but of all these
oak-bark has held undisputed sway as the best tan-
ning agent for many years.
It is only within the last sixty or seventy years
that the manufacture of leather has taken great
strides, and, like many other industries, its advance
was made by the energy, inventive genius, and busi-
ness ability of the American people. Originally the
small tanners depended for hides upon the sur-
rounding country. With the advent of the canal,
and later the railroad and steamship, together with
the application of chemical science, the tanner of
to-day is dependent upon no one country or any
special animal for his raw material, for the birds of
the air and the creatures of the ocean assist in con-
tributing to his needs in the present age. Hides, as
the term is accepted to-day, can be divided into
three classes : ( i ) hides proper, comprising the skins
of the larger animals, such as those of oxen, cows,
and horses; (2) kips, or the skins of small or year-
ling cattle, exceeding the size of calfskins ; (3) skins,
including those of calves, sheep, goats, deer, pigs,
seals, and various kinds of fur-bearing animals, which
latter, of course, usually retain their hair after
tanning.
The heavy hides are converted into sole, belt, and
harness leather. Calfskin is a principal material for
the manufacture of upper leather for shoes and
boots, and is much used for bookbinding. Sheep-
skins are used for a variety of purposes, such as lin-
494
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ings for shoes, bellows, whips, aprons, cushions and
covers, gloves, women's shoes, etc. Goatskins are
used almost exclusively for gloves and ladies' shoes.
The morocco leather, so extensively made until
recently, has almost entirely given way to the
" glazed kid " of the present day. Hogskins are
useful for saddle-leather, traveling-bags, etc. Dog-
skins, being thin and tough, are valuable for gloves.
Porpoise-skin, on account of its durability, is used
for shoe-strings. It may be interesting to note that
among the other creatures who contribute their
skins to the tanner are found the buffalo, kangaroo,
alligator, deer, hippopotamus, elephant, rhinoceros,
walrus, and even the shark.
From the best records obtainable, it appears that
the first tannery in this country was operated about
the year 1630, in Virginia; and a year or two later
the first tannery in New England was established in
the village of Swampscott, in Lynn, Mass., by Fran-
cis Ingalls, who came from Lincolnshire, England.
The vats used by him were filled up in 1825. The
industry was much encouraged by the colonial
authorities, and there are many records of laws made
regulating the manufacture of leather and the saving
of skins for the tanners, under heavy fines for non-
compliance. In 1646 a law was made in Massa-
chusetts prohibiting the exportation of raw hides or
unwrought leather, under heavy penalty alike to the
shipper and the master of the vessel. It is a fact,
and probably a consequence of these laws, that in
a little more than twenty years, or about 1651,
leather was relatively more plentiful here than in
England.
A noted leather manufacturer, who left a consid-
erable impress upon the business in the beginning
of the period covered by this work, was Colonel
William Edwards. He commenced business in
Hampshire in 1 790, before he was twenty years of
age, and sent the first tanned leather from there to
the Boston market in 1794. He began a series of
improvements in the mechanical branch of the art,
which were adopted and extended by others, and
infused a greater spirit of enterprise into the business.
His new ideas in mechanism and in the arrangement
of the tannery were among the earliest and most
important of the advances in leather manufacture.
Probably the first incorporated company in the
business was the Hampshire Leather-Manufacturing
Company, of Massachusetts, established in 1809,
with a capital of $100,000, chiefly owned by mer-
chants of Boston, who purchased the extensive tan-
neries of Colonel Edwards and his associates at
Northampton, Cunnington, and Chester. These
works had a capacity of 16,000 full-grown hides a
year.
In 1810 tanneries were established everywhere,
the bark being cheaper by far than in England;
and 350,000 pounds of American leather were
annually exported, although some particular kinds
of English leather and morocco were imported.
The value of all the manufactures of hides and skins
at this time, according to the census of 1810, was
$J7>935i477- The actual amount was probably
over $20,000,000, as this census was very crude and
incomplete. Only the manufactures of the loom,
including wool, flax, hemp, and silk, exceeded in
importance and amount at this time those of hides
and skins. The business increased gradually and
steadily until, in 1840, there were about 8000 tan-
neries in the United States, with a capital of $16,-
000,000, and employing about 26,000 hands. In
1850 the capital employed was over $20,000,000,
and the value of the product of hides and skins
alone was $38,000,000, which in 1860 had in-
creased, including morocco and patent leather, to
$72,000,000. In 1870 there were 7569 establish-
ments, employing 35,243 hands, whose wages
amounted to $14,505,775 ; the capital engaged was
$61,124,812, and the product was valued at $157,-
237,597-
The number of establishments making leather was
enumerated so differently by the census of 1890 and
that of 1880 that the statistics do not furnish a
reliable basis of comparison. In the census of 1880
the enumerators evidently included all the small
tanners and curriers, making an aggregate of 5424
establishments. In 1890 they as certainly included
only the large establishments, for they report 1596.
The figures of 1880 are the more nearly correct.
THE LEATHER INDUSTRY, 1880 TO 1890.
1880.
1890.
Capital
$67,ioo,<74.
$81,261,696
Number of employees
34,865
34,348
$I4.CMQ 6c6
$17,825 605
Cost of material used
Value of product
'45,255.716
184,600.6^7
100,114,806
138,282,004
The very great difference between the two years
in the cost of material used and the value of product
is attributable to the remarkable decline in prices,
which were at a maximum in 1880 and at a mini-
mum in 1890.
It will be observed that the number of persons
employed was a little larger in 1880 than in 1890.
The explanation of this is found in the introduction
496
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of machinery, making fewer hands necessary to per-
form the same service. Long after all other im-
portant industries had been revolutionized by the in-
troduction of machinery, tanning and leather manu-
facturing continued to be done by manual labor.
Inventions in this line were generally frowned upon.
Formulae and processes had been transmitted from
father to son for generations, and it was considered
impossible to make leather in any other way.
While these barriers have been gradually removed,
and inventive genius appreciated, yet it is only
within the last ten or fifteen years that the most
radical changes are recorded and the old traditions
done away with.
Among the first patents taken out for the appli-
cation of a special process in the manufacture of
leather was one, in 1823, by which the tanning
liquor was forced through the skin by hydrostatic
pressure. A modification of this was introduced by
William Drake, in 1831, by which two skins were
sewed together, the liquor being put in the vessel
thus formed, and allowed to remain until the tanning
was completed. In 1826 a patent was issued for
suspending the hides in a close vessel, from which
the air was removed by an air-pump, and the con-
version of hides into leather much accelerated. To
enumerate the patents would require too much space ;
but I give below the dates when the first patent was
issued for each of the details which enter into leather
manufacture, and also the number of patents in each
item up to the present time. The total is approxi-
mated, as I have not at hand the records of the last
several years.
LEATHER PATENTS.
LEATHER PATENTS. — Continued.
PURPOSE FOR WHICH ISSUED.
DATE OF FIRST
PATENT.
APPROXIMATE
TOTAL
NUMBER OF
PATENTS
TO DATE.
Processes and apparatus for
leaching and making extracts
from tan-bark . ,
Bark-mills
Processes employing apparatus
for tanning leather. .
July 9 1808
Leather-splitting machine
Unhairing-machine . .
uly 9, 1808
75
For rolling leather
Oct IQ l8l2
2C
Scouring and setting machine . .
Tanners' vats and handling ap-
pliances ....
Nov. 21, 1831
70
Machines for boarding and grain-
ing leather
March 25 1835
/;>
1C
Compounds for depilating hides
and skins
60
For fleshing-machines. .
Compounds for bating hides and
skins
Feh 3 iJ?iS
*3
Whitening, buffing, and shaving
leather
Mav 10. 18^8
40
3O
PURPOSE FOR WHICH ISSUED.
DATE op FIRST
PATENT.
APPROXIMATE
TOTAL
NUMBER OF
PATENTS
TO DATE.
Compounds and materials for
tanning and tawing leather and
July 12, 1838
Aug. I, 1838
Aug. I, 1838
March 15, 1845
Oct. 9, 1847
Jan. 9, 1855
Feb. 6, 1855
May 6, 1856
Aug. 4, 1857
Feb. 8, 1859
Jan. 9, 1863
Sept. II, 1866
Sept. 24, 1867
Sept. 20, 1870
Aug. 28, 1877
March 27, 1883
>75
275
25
75
40
20
2O
3°
20
40
10
15
5
15
25
4
Processes for tanning leather . . .
Machines for stoning, polishing,
finishing, glassing, glazing,
flinting, creasing, and dicing
Compounds for coloring and pol-
Methods for manufacturing
enameledjapanned, andpatent
For employing mineral sub-
stances for tawing hides and
Machines for shaving or making
leather of uniform thickness. .
Apparatus for blacking leather .
Measuring-machines
Striking-out machines
The number of cattle killed in the United States
whose hides furnished raw material for the tanner is
not recorded prior to 1868 ; but since that time the
Department of Agriculture has a cattle census taken
each year. As the number killed is about one
fourth of the total, the following figures are approx-
imated. The number of cattle (cows and steers)
killed in the United States in 1868 was 5,100,000;
1870, 6,400,000; 1875, 6,800,000; 1880, 8,300,-
ooo ; 1885, 11,000,000; 1890, 13,200,000; 1894,
i3>25°>000-
The imports of all kinds of hides and skins into
the United States from 1821 to the present time
(year ending June 3oth from 1850 to date; prior to
1850, September 3oth) were valued as follows:
IMPORTS OF HIDES AND SKINS.
YEAR.
GOATSKINS.
ALL OTHERS.
TOTAL.
1821
I8-JO.
Not classified
Not classified
H
$892,530
2,409,850
l84O
u
2,756,214
1850
•
4,7qq,O7I
i860
1870
1880 .
M
((
10,524,706
13,003,560
30,002,254
1883
«
27.640.030
1881;
$4 IQ7 176
$16 "?88 QOd
20,586,280
l8qo
9 106 082
I2.77S 8OA
21,881,886
1893
1804
12,844,245
S.sS-? 211
I5»5°3>647
8 2O2 .QAI
28,347,892
16,786,1 «
1805
TO QCd. 827
it 168 nt;
26.122,042
ROBERT H. FOERDERER.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
407
No hides were imported and none were wanted
until about 1815 ; the largest tannery in the United
States at that time turned out 1 0,000 hides a year.
The imports and exports of tanned leather in the
last twelve years are shown to better advantage by
being placed side by side, and no better illustration
can be given of the superiority of the American
article, and the progressiveness and persistence of
the American manufacturer:
EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF LEATHER.
Y»AR INDING JUNK 30.
IMPORTED.
EXPORTED.
1884
$7,258,799
$6,792,574
1888
6,829,722
7,952,169
1892
6,689,506
Q.qn.lDQ
igqr
6,606,838
12,958,312
An interesting phase in the history of any industry
for the past one hundred years is developed in the
consideration of the duties levied from time to time,
and the changes made by the government during
that period. In the leather industry this subject is
embraced in the following :
TARIFF RATES ON
of the time required. This has been accomplished
wholly by mechanical improvements. Experiments
are constantly being made, however, and it is be-
lieved the day is not far distant when sole-leather
will be turned out in as many days — perhaps hours
—as it now takes weeks. In the lighter skins the
change has already been radical. About 1880 Don-
gola kid was first put on the market, being the
result of a discovery by James Kent, of Gloversville,
N. Y., which completely revolutionized the manu-
facture of kid or morocco. As far back as 1856 the
system of tanning or tawing by the use of chromium
compounds was discovered by a German chemist;
but all the early experiments failed because the tan-
nage could not be made permanent. A remedy
was finally found in hyposulphite of sodium, by which
the tannage was made lasting. The discovery of
the remedy and its successful application were made
in Philadelphia, and were the means of creating in
that city within five years what is to-day the largest
and best equipped leather manufactory in the world.
The future of the great leather industry is depen-
dent entirely upon skill and a knowledge of chemical
and scientific principles. Upon these depend the
LEATHER, 1789 TO 1894.
YRAK.
RAW HIDES
AND SKINS.
LEATHER
(Aix KINDS).
SOLE
LEATHER.
UPPER
LEATHER.
CALFSKINS.
PATENT
LEATHER.
1780
Free
A
5%
5%
4%
5%
10%
10%
10%
Free
It
H
ft
rA%
10 %
'5 %
I7X«
35 %
3° %
28 %
26 %
23%
20%
'5%
20%
200/0
35%
35%
15%
'5%
10%
10%
2O
'5
25
25
3°
3°
25
25
20
20
fc
K
Yo
ft
ft
ft
It
*
K
ft
3«
3<
3!
3!
3!
3!
•
m
'%
'%
%
%
%
%
>%
>%
I7Q2
I7QC
1804
1812
1816
1836
1841
1842
8c. per Ib.
8c. "
8c.
8c.
8c.
8c.
8c.
25%
20%
20%
20%
1846
1857
1861 (March)
1861
1866
1871
1883
1890
1804.
In the gathering of statistical information for this
article I am much indebted to Mr. F. W. Norcross,
of the " Shoe and Leather Reporter " of New York.
The various tannages are oak-bark, hemlock-bark,
union, Dongola, alum, chrome, combination, elec-
tric, sumac, and gambier, in addition to which there
have been experiments without number. In the
tannage process of sole-leather almost the only
change which has taken place is a slight diminution
acceleration and cheapening of the tanning process.
Our leather manufacturers must aim to be more
than good machinists ; they must be practical and
thorough chemists. Already they have done much ;
and to one who knows them, and what their broad-
minded and progressive efforts have done for hides
and leather, the future of that industry can never be
in doubt. It will take its place far up in the ranks
of the great industrial enterprises of America.
CHAPTER LXXVI
AMERICAN RUBBER MANUFACTURES
THE rubber industry in the United States can
hardly be said to have had any real and tang-
ible existence until the discovery of the pro-
cess of vulcanization, a little over fifty years ago. It
may, however, prove not uninteresting to go back a
half-century earlier, to the very beginnings of rubber
history in this country ; for th,e first half-century
of this industry, though it achieved little else than
failure, is, perhaps, fully as instructive as the last
half-century, which has been marked with such
constant and conspicuous success.
The first rubber ever imported into this country
was brought into Boston in the year 1800. By a
singular coincidence, Charles Goodyear was born
this same year — the man who was destined to con-
vert this useless sap of the Southern forests into a
product that should contribute in a thousand ways
to the comfort and wealth of humanity, and to the
progress of science and art. While rubber was un-
known, prior to this time, in the United States, it was
by no means a product of recent discovery. Columbus
found the natives of South America using it ; and the
Spanish soldiers, who followed in his wake, smeared
their cloaks with the liquid gum, to make them
waterproof. French savants, visiting the New World
in the earlier part of the last century in quest of
scientific information, took back accounts of the
strange forest-trees whose sap could be molded into
shoes which were as flexible as leather and as im-
pervious to water as metal.
It was not, however, until 1770, that rubber was
utilized in any civilized country ; then a few pieces
of it were sent to England to be used by artists for
erasing pencil-marks. It is a singular fact that
rubber derives its name from this trivial circum-
stance, the name " India " coming either from the
fact that it was gathered by the Indians of South
America, or, possibly, because some of the early im-
portations into Europe came from India.
It may not be uninteresting to take a hurried
glance at the nature of this substance, its origin, and
the method of its collection. Rubber, in its crude
state, is the sap of a tree which grows in great
luxuriance in hot climates and in localities that are
subject to annual inundation. This tree grows
chiefly in Central and South America, western
Africa, British India, and the Indian Archipelago.
Two thirds of the rubber product of the world, how-
ever, comes from the Amazon region, and is known
as " Para " rubber, deriving its name from the city
of Para, at the mouth of the Amazon River, whence
it is exported. The botanical name of the South
American species is Siphonia Elastica; of which
there are several varieties, ranging in height from
forty to eighty or ninety feet.
The methods of gathering differ somewhat in the
different countries. For instance, in Peru and in
Central America the destructive method of felling
the tree is pursued, cutting it into pieces, and
letting the sap run into a hollow, from which it
is gathered. The method in vogue along the Ama-
zon, briefly, is this : Shortly after the rainy season is
over — that is, in midsummer — the rubber gatherers
take to their canoes, paddle up the tributary streams
of the Amazon, build their little huts, and then start
into the forest, making small incisions, with a little
hatchet made for the purpose, in the bark of the
rubber-trees, cutting each tree in a half-dozen or
more places, according to its size. Beneath each
incision a small clay cup is placed, being made to
adhere by a daub of clay. Later in the day, the
gatherer goes his rounds and empties the contents
of each cup into a calabash, or earthen jug, which
he carries back to camp. Then, building a fire of
palm-nuts, he dips a wooden paddle into the ad-
hesive sap and cures layer after layer in the dense
smoke, continuing this process until the lump of
cured rubber at the end of his paddle becomes in-
conveniently heavy, when it is cut open and put
aside, ready for shipment. The sap of the tree, be-
fore it is cured, has the color and the consistency of
milk. Its color as it comes to this market is gener-
498
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ally a dark brown, the change being effected by the
smoke to which it is subjected in curing.
The first rubber imported into this country, in
1800, came in the form of bottles, and was looked
upon simply as an interesting curiosity. During the
next twenty years, sea-captains coming from South
American countries were constantly bringing with
them specimens of "gum elastic," as it was then
more generally called, not as an article of com-
merce, but simply as the strange product of a distant
land. It was natural, however, that a material so
pliable and elastic and so impervious to water
should suggest to the active American mind great
possibilities in the way of usefulness. But it was
not until 1813 that this activity had any palpable
result. In that year a patent was granted to one
Jacob Hummel, of Philadelphia, for a gum-elastic
varnish ; of which, however, there seems to have
been no further mention. Some ten years later, in
1823, a Boston sea-captain, coming from South
American ports, brought with him a pair of gilded
rubber shoes which excited the greatest interest.
Two years later, 500 pairs of rubber shoes, made by
the natives along the Amazon, were brought into
Boston, this time without the fantastical refinement
of gilding. They were exceedingly thick, clumsy,
and unshapely shoes, and yet they sold readily,
bringing from $3 to $5 per pair ; for, with all their
heaviness and awkwardness, it was found that they
were a secure protection against dampness. This was
the entering wedge for the Para rubber shoe. The
next year more came, and each year the number in-
creased, until during the next fifteen years probably
over 1,000,000 pairs of these shoes were brought
into this country and sold at these very considerable
figures.
It naturally suggested itself to a great many en-
terprising minds that if rubber, when crude, had so
little value (such lots as had already been imported
had sold at five cents a pound), and when manu-
factured into shoes commanded so high a figure,
there must be an excellent profit in rubber manu-
facture ; and so people began to study the rubber
problem. Among them was Mr. Chaffee, a manu-
facturer of patent leather in Roxbury, Mass. It oc-
curred to him that if he could manufacture a leather
with a varnish of rubber, which would give not only
a smooth and finished surface, but would render
the leather impervious to water, he would have
a material of obvious usefulness. He began to ex-
periment. This was in 1831. He soon discovered
that by dissolving the crude rubber in spirits of
turpentine and adding a quantity of lampblack, he
obtained a varnish which, when spread over leather
or cloth, gave a hard, smooth, impervious surface.
He was enthusiastic over his discovery, and so were
his friends. A company was formed, and the Rox-
bury India-Rubber Company, the first to engage in
rubber manufacture in the United States, was organ-
ized and received its charter in 1833. The prospect
for a very large and lucrative industry appeared
most promising. They began to make not only
rubber-coated shoes, but rubber cloth, rubber life-
preservers, and various other articles. Other com-
panies were started in the vicinity of Boston and
New York, and several millions of dollars were in-
vested in this enterprise. In fact — to borrow a
modernism — rubber " boomed " ; for here was a
new product made of the sap of a forest-tree, the
supply of which was inexhaustible, and the uses of
which, when manufactured, promised to be almost
infinite.
In the winter of 1834, President Jackson visited
Boston, and the managers of the Roxbury Company,
having an eye to a good advertisement, presented
their distinguished visitor with a suit of rubber
clothes, which he put on — the day being rainy — and
wore as he rode on horseback through the streets of
Boston. It may well be imagined that the fame of
india-rubber was notably increased thereby, and the
demand for these goods became greater than ever.
Charles Goodyear, who was then a bankrupt
hardware merchant of Philadelphia, had read about
this wonderful new product and was greatly in-
terested therein. Born in New Haven, the son of
a Connecticut manufacturer, he had acquired by
inheritance and by association a very considerable
inventive ability. He had been in partnership with
his father, conducting a branch store in Philadelphia
for the sale of their Connecticut-made hardware;
but owing to an over-extension of credits the firm
had become insolvent, and Goodyear, then a young
man but a trifle past thirty, found himself out of
business and out of health, with a large load of
debt upon his shoulders. He thought he saw in
this new product, then being put upon the market,
an opportunity to retrieve the family fortunes. Ac-
cordingly, on his next visit to New York he called
at the office of the Roxbury Rubber Company and
examined some of their goods, and particularly their
life-preservers. He showed so much intelligence, in
some improvements he suggested, that the agent,
struck by his perspicacity, confided to him that the
whole rubber industry, notwithstanding its seeming
prosperity, was but a bubble that must burst— that
the rubber shoes, and blankets, and coats, which the
500
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
factories had sent out in such large quantities were
being daily returned to them, as the rubber melted
and stuck in summer, and stiffened and cracked in
winter. The man who could remedy these diffi-
culties, said the agent, had a fortune in his grasp.
Goodyear went back to Philadelphia determined, if
possible, to solve the rubber problem.
It was a singular augury of the years before him
that his first experiment in rubber was begun in a
debtors' jail. Here, with a little lump of rubber,
and with no other tools than his fingers, he began
those experiments which were to continue until his
death, some twenty-seven years later, and which,
though for the most part carried on under circum-
stances of the utmost privation, were destined to add
hundreds of millions to the wealth of the world.
The agent of the Roxbury Rubber Company proved
a true prophet, for the great rubber industry which
had sprung up so rapidly soon came to naught.
The boots and shoes, and rubber clothing, and other
articles made of the wonderful new product did not
stand the test of actual service. The factories were
soon closed and the entire investment an utter loss.
But this general disaster did not discourage Good-
year. In a certain sense he was assisted by the ab-
solute collapse of the enterprise, as it made crude
rubber so apparently useless and so cheap that even
a bankrupt in a debtors' prison could get all he
wanted.
From this time, in 1835 and 1836, when in the
entire industrial vocabulary there was no other word
so despised as "rubber," until twenty-five years
later, the history of the rubber industry in the United
States is little else than the personal history of
Charles Goodyear. There are many other names
connected with rubber development, but they are
all simply incidental ; the one persistent, potent
force was Charles Goodyear. Taking up the rub-
ber problem as a possible means of paying his
debts, he became so absorbed in the pursuit, so
dominated by it, that from that time to the day of
his death it was the one all-engrossing purpose of
his life, from which no straits of circumstances, no
distress of physical pain, no enticements of wealth,
could serve to swerve him. It is impossible in the
limited scope of this article to follow Goodyear
through the ten years of trying and unceasing
labors which were ultimately crowned by the dis-
covery of the vulcanization process. They were
ten years of groping in the dark, ever getting a
little nearer to the light. Three different times he
thought he had reached the goal— first, when he
mixed his crude rubber with magnesia; second,
when he boiled this compound in quicklime and
water; and third, when he washed the surface of
this mixture with nitric acid ; but each time apparent
success soon turned into complete and disheartening
failure. It was six years from the time he began
his experiments before he discovered that the two
things necessary to make rubber an article of prac-
tical utility under all conditions of heat and cold
were sulphur and heat. This discovery was made
by accident — but it was such an accident as befell
Columbus when he discovered America ; it was
only such an accident as could befall a man who
had given his whole thought, his whole time, his
whole being, to one subject for many years.
How he was sitting by the kitchen stove expound-
ing his theories to his incredulous neighbors, and in
the enthusiasm of his gestures struck a handful of
rubber and sulphur against the hot stove, thus ac-
cidentally discovering the secret of vulcanization,
has been told and retold so often that it need not
be repeated here ; and yet this wonderful discovery
that heat was the thing that rubber needed to make
it insensible both to heat and to cold — a discovery
which meant to Goodyear the triumphant solution
of the problem which had remained for so many
years unsolved — signified so little to his friends —
indeed, the entire community was so weary of the
whole rubber question, and men of means viewed
the subject with so much suspicion — that it was not
until two years later, in 1840, that he was able to
interest any one in his new system of vulcaniza-
tion. In that year he secured the assistance of two
New York capitalists and built a factory in Spring-
field, Mass. Here, four years later, he took out a
patent for preparing rubber by the process of vul-
canization, and began to sell licenses for the manu-
facture of various articles under this patent. The
license to manufacture rubber boots and shoes was
sold to Leverette Candee, of New Haven, the
founder of L. Candee & Co., a company which
has continued to the present time an important
factor in the American rubber footwear industry.
The license to manufacture rubber gloves he granted
to the Goodyear's India-Rubber Glove Manufactur-
ing Company, of Naugatuck, Conn. The license
to manufacture door-springs, which seemed a very
trivial branch of the industry, but which later grew
to considerable proportions, was granted to Daniel
Hodgeman, of New York ; and various other licenses
for the manufacture of other goods were given out
under his patent to different companies, which im-
mediately began the manufacture of rubber goods
under these licenses. All branches of the rubber
CHARLES L. JOHNSON.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
business as we find it in this country to-day took
their permanent rise from the date of Goodyear's
patent. Several other companies, in addition to the
Candee Company, bought licenses to manufacture
boots and shoes ; among them Ford & Company
(now the Meyer Rubber Company), and the New
Brunswick Company, both of New Brunswick, N. J.,
and the Hayward (which later grew into the Col-
chester Rubber Company), and the Goodyear's
Metallic-Rubber Shoe Company, of Naugatuck,
Conn.
Mechanical goods, and especially belting, began
at this time to receive considerable attention. Some
rubber garments were also made. An immediate de-
mand for the poncho — a blanket for horsemen, with
a hole in the center for the rider's head — came from
the far Southwest and from Mexico ; and various
druggists' sundries also began to find their way into
the market. With the discovery of hard rubber the
field of rubber's usefulness was still further largely
extended. The prosperity of the early rubber com-
panies which took their rise from Goodyear's patent
in 1844, was sufficient to warrant them in paying
Daniel Webster, who defended the patent in a seven
years' lawsuit — ,finally adjudicated in 1852, — a fee
of $25,000 — the largest legal fee that had at that
time been paid in this country.
Still it was the day of small beginnings, for we
find that the importations of crude rubber at Salem,
Mass., to which port the greater part of the rubber
then imported was brought, amounted in 1851 only
to 334,000 pounds, in 1852 to 1,961,000 pounds,
and in 1854 to 2,055,000 pounds. In 1860 the
boot and shoe industry had a yearly output of only
1,200,000 pairs, at a valuation of $795,000.
The Civil War gave a great impetus to the rubber
industry. This was particularly true of the clothing
branch ; blankets were needed for the soldiers, and
the government gave out large contracts. The
attempt was made, and with some success, to con-
struct rubber pontoons to be used in military opera-
tions. The boot and shoe industry increased rapidly
with the other branches of rubber manufacture,
so that, from an output in 1860 of the value of
$795,000, the yearly output in 1870 had increased
to $8,000,000.
The manufacture of mechanical goods took a
rapid start shortly after the war. This was owing to
a considerable extent to the great increase of rail-
road building at that time. The railroads called for
large quantities of packing, and for hose to be used
in conveying steam and gas. The impetus given
to manufacturing in general made an increased de-
mand for rubber belting. The first rubber belt was
patented in this country in 1 836, but this particular
branch of the rubber industry reached no consider-
able size until after the war, when rubber belting
was in demand for mills, factories, and elevators,
and especially for all outdoor machinery. It pos-
sessed several advantages over leather belting: its
lower price, the greater friction between the belt
and the wheel, and the fact that it was not affected
by exposure or by moisture. The rubber mechan-
ical goods industry has increased constantly from
the time of the war to the present day, until now it
covers a vast variety of articles.
The making of rubber tires for bicycles, and to a
growing extent for other vehicles, took its rise about
fifteen years ago with the solid tire. That gave way
to the cushion tire, which some five years ago was
displaced by the now universal pneumatic tire. It
is estimated that at least 6,000,000 pounds of rubber
are now annually used in the making of bicycle tires.
Next in importance to rubber tiring — which stands
next to hose, belting, and packing — comes the mak-
ing of rubber mats. This industry has enjoyed a
constant and rapid growth, until we have mats for
floors and for stairs, pitcher-mats for tables, and
coin-mats for counters — and all in an infinite variety
of design. They have lately come into vogue in
the form of tiles, which can be laid in ornamental
mosaics, and are particularly adapted to ship use.
The introduction and rapid growth of the type-
writer industry has consumed a constantly increas-
ing quantity of rubber in various details of type-
writer construction. The humble carpet-sweeper
consumes, it is said, over $100,000 worth of rubber
yearly in the bands that encircle it to keep it
from injuring furniture. Several hundred thousand
pounds of rubber are used each year by one com-
pany alone in the manufacture of jar rings. The
making of pencil erasers consumes a large quantity,
and there is a large annual output of goring, in
which rubber thread is used. A quarter of a million
dollars' worth of rubber is used in this country each
year in the making of cushions for billiard-tables.
Probably the most widely extended branch of
rubber manufacturing — existing to some extent in
almost every civilized country — is the making of
rubber stamps. This is a large industry in this
country. Then the item of rubber balls is a very
considerable one. One firm alone makes over
$100,000 worth a year of tennis-balls, and it has
several competitors. The making of base-balls and
foot-balls, and the various foot-ball accoutrements
in which the player arrays himself, consumes con-
502
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
siderably over $1,000,000 worth of rubber each
year.
There are, in short, to-day, some thirty companies
making rubber mechanical goods, with an aggre-
gate capital of about $20,000,000, employing 4000
men, and having an annual output valued at from
$18,000,000 to $20,000,000. Our export trade
in mechanical goods amounts to something over
$1,000,000 a year.
The attempt to utilize the waterproof properties
of the caoutchouc gum in the manufacture of cloth-
ing was one of the earliest directions which rubber
invention took. In England this branch of the in-
dustry has received more attention than any other ;
but in this country very little was done in this de-
partment of rubber manufacture until the Civil War,
and the great demand to which it gave rise for rub-
ber coats and blankets. After the war rubber coats
continued to be made, but they were chiefly of
a heavy sort and almost solely for men ; women
continued their vain attempt to protect themselves
against the rain by the use of heavy woolen garments,
most inaccurately called " waterproof." These gave
way about twenty years ago to the light gossamer
garment, which was at first very popular. But ex-
cessive competition resulted in such deterioration of
quality as seriously to affect its popularity. About
twelve years ago the manufacture of mackintoshes
for both men and women was started in this country.
Some garments had been imported from England,
but they were not found perfectly suited to our drier
climate. The American mackintosh has grown
constantly in excellence and in general esteem,
until now there are some twenty factories engaged
in this branch of manufacture, with an investment
of $6,000,000, and an annual output amounting to
about the same sum. Of the several companies
making rubber garments, the American Rubber
Company, Cambridgeport, Mass., leads with a
daily capacity of 1500 garments.
Another important branch of the rubber industry
in the United States is the making of druggists' sun-
dries. The pioneer in this industry was the Union
Rubber Company, located in Harlem. It derived
its license direct from Goodyear, and began to
manufacture druggists' sundries early in the fifties,
making syringes, water-bottles, bandages, air-pillows,
air-cushions, and a variety of other druggists'
articles. The atomizer, now so generally in use,
was a later development, and came into vogue per-
haps a dozen years ago. We do a fair export
business in certain varieties of druggists' sundries.
There are some ten companies engaged in this
branch of the business in this country at the present
time, with a capital of between $4,000,000 and
$5,000,000, and with an annual output of about
$4,000,000.
The hard-rubber industry, while somewhat distinct
from the soft-rubber industry, may properly be in-
cluded in the scope of this article. After Goodyear
had brought his vulcanization process to a fair degree
of perfection he turned his attention to the making
of hard rubber, in which he was greatly assisted by
his brother Nelson, who in the year 1851 obtained
a patent for the production of hard rubber. Hard
rubber differs from soft rubber in its composition
— containing a much larger proportion of sulphur —
and in the degree of heat used in vulcanization,
which is considerably higher than that at which
soft rubber is vulcanized. The first article made in
hard rubber to any considerable extent was the comb.
It is said that Goodyear's first experiments in this
line made his combs cost twenty times as much as the
ivory combs then in use ; but the rubber comb has
now practically displaced all other kinds. Probably
five hundred varieties of rubber combs have been
made since the beginning of this industry.
For twenty years after the invention of hard rub-
ber two companies practically enjoyed its monopoly
— the India-Rubber Comb Company and the Ameri-
can Hard-Rubber Company ; but other companies
entered the field after the expiration of the Goodyear
patent, and now there are four large companies, em-
ploying 2500 operatives, having an aggregate capital
of $4,000,000, and a yearly output of over $3,000,000
in value. The principal articles of manufacture are
combs, syringes and syringe fittings, fittings for
pipes, buttons, harness trimmings, and various desk
articles, such as ink-wells, penholders, and rulers.
We do a small export trade in this branch.
It is the boot and shoe industry, however, that
has led in rubber manufacture in this country from
the very first. In fact, for many years the boot and
shoe industry used the great bulk of the rubber im-
ported into this country ; but the later development
of other branches of the rubber business has been so
large that now the boot and shoe industry comprises
probably not over forty per cent, of the rubber
manufactured in the United States.
From an annual output in 1860 of the value of
$795,000, the value of the rubber boot and shoe
product grew in 1870 to $8,000,000, in 1880 to
$16,000,000, and in 1890 to $24,000,000. There
are now a dozen or more large factories engaged in
the manufacture of rubber boots and shoes. They are
the American Rubber Company, Cambridge, Mass. ;
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
«03
tla- Boston Rubber Company, Boston; the Boston
Rubber Shoe Company, Maiden, Mass. ; L. Candee
& Co., New Haven, Conn. ; the Goodyear's Metallic-
Rubber Shoe Company and the Goodyear's India-
Rubber Glove Manufacturing Company, Nauga-
tuck, Conn. ; the Jersey, Meyer, and New Brunswick
Rubber Companies, located at New Brunswick,
N. J. ; the Lycoming Rubber Company, Williams-
port, Pa. ; the National India-Rubber Company,
located at Providence, R. I. ; and the Woonsocket
Rubber Company, with three factories in Rhode
Island— two at Woonsocket and one at Millville.
The combined daily capacity of these companies is
180,000 pairs of boots and shoes, they employ
15,000 workmen, and their aggregate capital is
$45,000,000. Their aggregate annual output in
1895 will equal 40,000,000 pairs of boots and shoes,
valued at $29,000,000.
In Europe there are some eight factories manu-
facturing rubber boots and shoes — two in England,
one at Paris (owned and managed by Americans),
two in Germany, and three in Russia. The aggre-
gate daily capacity of these eight companies does
not exceed 30,000 pairs, as against the 180,000
pairs which the American factories can daily pro-
duce. The boots and shoes made by the European
factories are uniformly heavy, and present few
varieties in widths, sizes, or shapes ; while the in-
dustry has been carried to such an extent in this
country that several of the larger companies make —
taking into consideration all the different shapes and
sizes— fully a thousand varieties of rubber footwear.
There are several reasons why this country has so
greatly outstripped Europe in the making of rubber
boots and shoes. In the first place, labor being
much higher here, we have had a greater incentive
for making inventions and improving our machinery.
Secondly, the great body of the working-people in
this country are better able to afford the luxury of
rubber footwear than they are in Europe, so that the
demand is vastly greater here. In Europe rubbers
are worn only by the well-to-do ; here they are worn
by every one, the yearly average consumption being
a pair of rubbers to every other person. Then pos-
sibly our climate, with its more intense winter se-
verity, has had something to do with our greater
consumption.
We have as yet done comparatively little in the
way of exporting rubber boots and shoes, our annual
exports in this line rarely exceeding $300,000.
The reason has been chiefly that the American
demand has been so large and has so constantly
-ncreased that our manufacturers have not yet
felt the necessity of looking for a broader field.
They have consequently made no effort to appeal to
foreign buyers by making rubbers particularly suited
to their local conditions. The rubbers which we
export go chiefly to England, the Continent, Japan,
and China.
A very important event in the history of the
rubber boot and shoe industry in the United States
occurred in the fall of 1892, when the United States
Rubber Company purchased nearly all of the large
rubber footwear interests in the United States. This
centralization of the rubber industry has already
resulted in conspicuous economies; for while the
different factories have remained under their former
individual management, they have shared their in-
dividual advantages in common, the patents and
secret processes of one factory becoming the prop-
erty of all. In this way all the improved methods,
a part of which each factory enjoyed before, are
now shared equally and fully by all the different
factories. There has been also a great saving in
the matter of purchasing crude rubber, a large single
purchase being made at a great advantage over a
number of smaller scattered purchases. In reducing
the necessity of carrying large stocks, in diminishing
the duplication of a vast number of expensive lasts,
and in various other ways, marked economies have
been effected, while at the same time the quality of
the goods has been more uniformly excellent than
heretofore. The combination of all that was best in
the methods of the different companies has proved
a potent agency in advancing the rubber footwear
industry in this country toward the universal goal of
all industrial enterprises — better prqduct at a lower
cost.
The entire rubber industry in the United States,
in its five important branches, — footwear, mechan-
ical goods, clothing, druggists' sundries, and hard
rubber, — consumes considerably more than one half
of the rubber manufactured in the world. The
consumption of rubber in this country increased
from 9,830,000 pounds in 1875 to 17,835,000
pounds in 1880, and 31,949,000 pounds in 1890;
while the consumption of crude rubber in 1895 will
aggregate fully 36,000,000 pounds. To this large
amount must be added the rubber which is obtained by
the reclaiming process, which has now been brought
to such a state of perfection that very little rubber
goes to waste, old rubber articles being collected
and subjected to a process which eliminates from
the compound everything but the rubber. This re-
claimed rubber is serviceable in several branches
of manufacture, and is largely used in certain
504
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
mechanical goods, in which the product is bene-
fited rather than impaired by its use. It is probable
that the amount of this reclaimed rubber used
annually in this country equals 25,000,000 pounds,
making the total yearly consumption of rubber
60,000,000 pounds. The rubber industry in the
United States in 1895 is ten times what it was in
1860, three times what it was in 1870, and has
doubled since 1880. There are $85,000,000 of
capital invested in the various branches of rubber
manufacture in this country, and the value of the
yearly product is fully $75,000,000, while 150,000
people depend upon it for their support.
Almost the entire rubber output of this country is
used at home, our exports amounting, all told, to
less than $2,000,000 a year ; but with our improved
machinery and superior methods of manufacture,
it is only a question of time — even though we pay
nearly seventy per cent, more for our labor than
is paid in Europe — when our export trade should
assume large proportions. As soon as American
manufacturers feel the need of a larger market, and
will sufficiently direct their attention to foreign fields
to make the boots and shoes best adapted to climatic
conditions and local preferences, there is no reason
why our export trade should not reach an importance
more nearly commensurate with the large dimensions
of our home consumption.
CHAPTER LXXVII
AMERICAN WALL-PAPERS
JUDGED from the value of its product in dol-
lars and cents, the wall-paper industry ranks
very low in the list of American manufactures.
Considered apart from its monetary value, how-
ever, it assumes an importance that can hardly be
over-estimated, due to the refining influence it exerts
in decoration and home adornment. Wall-paper has
become the key-note in the decoration of a room ;
it gives the tone. Carpets and furniture are sub-
sidiary. Criticism is chiefly directed to the wall-
paper. The design must be perfect, and its coloring
harmonious. In fact, wall-paper has become prac-
tically indispensable in furnishing a room. It is now
the custom to paper the walls of new houses as soon
as completed, instead of submitting to bare white
walls as formerly ; and builders find that they can
more readily dispose of houses whose walls are
papered, and can, furthermore, obtain a better price
for them, especially if there has been a reasonable
exercise of taste in the selection of the paper. An-
other point in its favor is the fact that it can be
quickly applied, the annoyance incidental to the
decoration of a house being reduced to a minimum
through its use ; and time is always an important
factor with the American people. It is, furthermore,
a not unhealthful agent, the ingredients entering into
its manufacture being mainly wood-pulp and pure
clay ; and, being comparatively inexpensive, it can
be replaced easily and as often as desired.
Unquestionably the industry had its origin in
China centuries ago. Europe commenced making
wall-paper about the beginning of the last century,
the goods produced being mainly imitations of tapes-
tries and various fabrics which had, previously to
that, been employed in covering walls. In fact, the
best goods produced in Europe at this day are imi-
tations of tapestries, velvets, silks, cretonnes, and
leather hangings. In these classes of goods Eu-
ropean manufacturers have reached a high state
of perfection, imitating any particular fabric so
closely that in many cases it is impossible to detect
the difference. In this work they are most con-
scientious, not permitting the smallest detail to be
slighted. This attention to artistic accuracy neces-
sarily renders the work very laborious and expensive.
The rates of wages paid in Europe are low, how-
ever, when compared with those paid in this country ;
otherwise the prices of such goods would be almost
prohibitory. The high measure of skill acquired in
the manufacture of these goods is due in great de-
gree to the fact that several generations of one
family follow the same occupation, the son receiving
instruction in the art at an early age, and succeed-
ing the father in identically the same line of work.
This state of proficiency is seldom met with in this
country, where the opportunities of advancement are
so great that the young man is not willing to follow
in the footsteps of his parents, but strives to improve
his condition and, if possible, establish a business of
his own. This brings about a scarcity of skilled
labor which is seriously felt by every manufacturer
having advanced ideas, and which retards the pro-
gress of the business to a large extent. A more
liberal provision on the part of labor organizations
for apprentices is absolutely essential to secure the
best results. Low wages have, to a certain extent,
acted against the progress of the wall-paper industry
in Europe. They have caused manufacturers to re-
tain primitive methods that are in strong contrast
with those used in this country, where labor is better
compensated, and where, in consequence, inventive
minds have been at work to overcome, by improved
methods and increased production, the higher rate
of wages paid here.
According to the best authorities wall-paper was
first manufactured in this country about the year
1790, so that a retrospect of the business for the
last hundred years practically embraces the entire
life of this industry here. Those who introduced the
industry were two Frenchmen, Boulu and Charden,
505
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
506
in association with John Games, who had been the
American consul at Lyons, France, followed shortly
after by William Poyntell, and by John Howell and
John B. Howell, father and son respectively, who
had formerly conducted a similar business in Eng-
land. The Howells established themselves at Al-
bany, N. Y., but in a very modest way, their factory
being a few rooms in the rear part of their dwelling.
However, the amount of space required was not
great, as the method of manufacturing was very
crude, and the volume of business correspondingly
small. Paper was at that time made only in sheets,
and had to be joined before being printed. Color
was then applied by means of a brush to form the
background of the design, and the latter was subse-
quently printed upon the paper from wooden blocks,
as many blocks being used as there were colors in
the pattern, each block having a part of the pattern
upon it in one color. One block was printed the
whole length of the paper before the next color was
applied. It should be stated that this method of
printing by means of blocks still prevails, but only
in connection with designs which, on account of
their dimensions, or through some other peculiarity,
cannot be printed on the cylinder-machines that
have practically supplanted block or hand work, as
it is termed. The method of applying color to the
background by means of a hand-brush has, however,
been done away with altogether.
It does not appear that any other factories were
established until about the year 1810, at which time
a man named Boriken was engaged in the business.
The Howell firm had meanwhile sold out their Al-
bany business to Lemuel Steel, and, after a short
experience in New York City and Baltimore, had
finally, in the year 1820, located at Philadelphia, Pa.,
where they have been established ever since, the
present owners comprising the third and fourth gen-
erations engaged in the business.
It was not, however, until 1844 that any decided
advance was made in the growth of the industry.
About that time paper in continuous lengths came
into more general use, and the necessity of joining
sheets together was obviated. In that year, also,
the first machine for printing wall-paper was im-
ported from England and introduced into the
Howell factory. While very crude, as it printed
only a single color, it had a stimulating effect on the
business, inasmuch as it enabled goods to be pro-
duced at a largely reduced price, and increased the
volume of the business considerably. As near as
can be ascertained, the entire production of wall-
paper in the United States at that time did not ex-
ceed $250,000. The second printing apparatus was
imported from England in 1846, this one printing
six colors. Machines were subsequently built in
this country, at first by the machinists connected
with wall-paper factories, but after a time a specialty
of this class of work was made by William Waldron,
of New Brunswick, N. J. He was succeeded by his
son, the present John Waldron, whose conscientious
attention to the machinery requirements of the wall-
paper trade has, during all this period, secured to
him the bulk of the business in this line. Being of
a highly practical mind and very observant, he has
been quick to perceive possible improvements, and
has, furthermore, been able to render practical the
ideas of others.
The printing-machine of to-day is unquestionably
a great improvement on that originally imported into
this country, although the principle of its operation
is practically the same. It is cylindrical in shape.
The paper passes over the cylinder, the pattern
being printed on it by means of rollers on which the
design has been placed, each roller representing one
of the colors used in the design. These rollers are
registered so accurately that as the paper, in passing
over the revolving cylinder, reaches one of them, it
leaves the impression on the paper, and the succeed-
ing rollers follow in regular order. The paper is
hung up by an automatic process as it leaves the
machine, and passes into drying-racks which are
usually several hundred feet in length, after which
it is rolled up in lengths of eight to sixteen yards,
and is ready for market.
While the printing-machine is necessarily the most
prominent feature of the business, yet other factors
have contributed largely to the progress made by
this industry. Among them are the grounding-
machines, which furnish the background color to
the paper; the bronzing-machines, which apply
bronze powders to certain of the goods ; the em-
bossing-machines, which give various textures to the
goods after they have been printed ; the pressing-
machines, which are used to make goods showing
the design in relief; the machine or contrivance
that is used to hang up the paper after it leaves the
printing-machine ; and a host of similar devices that
enable the manufacturer to produce novel effects
and manufacture the goods more rapidly than be-
fore, and at a lessened expense. It is these con-
trivances that have led to the tremendous progress
achieved by this industry in the last fifty years, and
more particularly within the last twenty years (the
pace having been accelerated each year), which
have enabled us to become independent of foreign
HENRY BURN.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
807
manufacturers, and, notwithstanding a reduction in
duties on wall-paper, have caused a continued fall-
ing off in imports, so that at the present time impor-
tations of wall-paper are simply nominal.
The improvements referred to have, however,
not been so radical at any time as to enable us cor-
rectly to apportion to each individual the credit to
which he is entitled. They were such as were called
for by the exigencies of the moment, slight at the
time, but cumulative, and enabling the industry
eventually to attain its present state of perfection.
The most notable are as follows : ( i ) Soon after the
introduction of the printing-machine one McKernan
invented a contrivance for festooning the paper
automatically as it leaves the printing-machine and
passes on to the drying-racks. This was undoubt-
edly a long stride in the process of making wall-
paper, inasmuch as the speed of the printing-
machine could be increased to the full capacity of
the drying-racks connected with it. (2) The single
(or continuous) process of making wall-paper was
introduced about the year 1870. Formerly the
ground color had to be applied by one machine,
after which the paper was dried and rolled up and
next passed through the printing-machine to receive
the impressions of the design thereon. In the con-
tinuous process the paper passes through the machine
which applies a ground color for the design, and
then passes through a drying apparatus that is
termed a " hot box," or into drying-racks, and then
automatically passes into the printing-machine which
applies the colors of the design, saving a double
handling of the goods and involving less waste.
(3) The method of applying bronze powders to wall-
paper automatically was introduced about the year
1872, although, as it was conducted in secret for
some time by one or two firms, the discovery may
have been made at an earlier date. This method
reduced largely the cost of making bronze (other-
wise termed gold) papers, and led to an increased
demand and output of them. (4) The next and
most recent discovery was the application to wall-
paper of bronze powders in a liquid state ; that is,
mixed with an adhesive material (made from potato-
starch) of sufficient density to keep the bronze
powders in solution without impairing their luster.
This was first placed upon the market about 1882,
and as the new process enabled the use of as many
different shades of bronze as there were colors in
the design, the opportunity was afforded for produc-
ing many new and brilliant effects, and for supersed-
ing in a large measure bronze or gold goods made
by the former method.
While, as before stated, it would be difficult to
apportion to each individual the credit to which he
is entitled for his share of the improvements to
which attention has been directed, yet mention
should be made of those who may properly be
termed the pioneers of the business, and who by
their energy and individuality have left their imprint
on its history. The firm of Howell & Brothers has
already been mentioned, and ranks as the oldest
now in existence. Next among the firms that made
a distinct impression on the business was that which
was founded by Thomas Christie about the year
1835, and which had a most successful career until
its dissolution in the year 1881. Mr. Thomas
Christie, in connection with a Mr. Robinson, started
his factory at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and subsequently
removed to a larger factory in Twenty-third Street,
between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, New York
City. Of the firms now existing that had their
beginning about the time that wall-paper printing-
machines were introduced are Janeway & Company,
New Brunswick, and the Robert Graves Company,
New York and Brooklyn. The firms of William
H. Mairs & Company and Frederick Beck & Com-
pany, New York, began shortly thereafter, and all
of these achieved decided success. They comprised
men of ambition, perseverance, and the strictest in-
tegrity, and their success is but the result of these
qualities. Among the firms who, for a greater or
less period, claimed the attention of the trade were
those of Josiah Bumstead, of Boston, Mass., and J. R.
Bigelow & Company, of Boston, Mass. ; and Whiting
& Young, of New York City. Mention should also
be made of those firms which, though established
more recently, possess a distinct individuality, have
been highly successful, and whose future career is
assured. Prominent among these are Warren, Ful-
ler & Company, William Campbell & Company,
M. H. Birge & Sons, Henry Gledhill & Company,
and Janeway & Carpender. This list might be
extended indefinitely, for there are many others
whose work and standing in the trade deserve
commendation .
While the mechanical part of the business has
made vast strides, there is yet another feature that
outranks it in importance, and that is the artistic
element. The American people have a constant
craving for something new, and the manufacturer is
taxed to the full extent of his powers to satisfy this
demand. On no industry does this demand fall
more heavily than on wall-paper manufacture, and
by no occupation lias the demand been more fully
satisfied. To meet this call it has become necessary
008
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
to produce an entirely new line of goods each year.
Imagine, then, the labor and expense necessary to
reach this ever-heightening standard, the number
of designers necessary to produce annually several
thousands of designs, each entirely distinct from the
other. But American enterprise is equal to every
exigency. Formerly it was the custom to reproduce
foreign styles of wall-papers, but we have outgrown
that, and have distinct styles and methods of our
own. We produce elaborate schemes of decoration,
combining proper treatment of wall and ceiling so
that perfect harmony of color will prevail. We
offer these schemes of color and treatment not only
in expensive grades, but in the cheapest grades as
well. This makes it easy for the dealer or for the
consumer to insure a well-decorated room, and one
that cannot justly be subject to criticism. Talent of
a high order is necessary to secure such results, and
the staffs of the various manufacturers contain men
of exceptional capacity, whose training and experi-
ence entitle them in the highest sense to the title
of artist. The exhibit of the National Wall- Paper
Company at the World's Fair at Chicago bears
testimony to this fact, and the award of a gold
medal is a recognition of the merit there displayed.
Statistics as to the growth of the industry are
necessarily defective, but, according to the most
trustworthy information obtainable, the following
table gives some idea as to the progress made in
the wall-paper business :
YEAR.
NUMBER
OF
FACTORIES.
CAPITAL
EMPLOYED.
NUMBER OF
EM-
PLOYEES.
VALUE OF
PRODUCT.
1793
I
3
5
25
3°
35
Nominal
$30,000
150,000
3,500,000
9,000,000
12,000,000
Nominal
75
500
2,500
5,500
7,000
Nominal
$25,000
250,000
6,500,000
9,000,000
12,000,000
1810
1844 . . .
1880
1800
l8q?
Such is the record of the wall-paper industry at the
present day. While its growth in the past has been
remarkable, its growth in the future must be even
greater, as the advantages of the use of the product
become more apparent.
CHAPTER LXXVIII
AMERICAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
the introduction of the pianoforte, to
I-H which such an ennobling, educating, and
A progressively fascinating mission was in-
trusted, America is indebted to Europe. This in-
strument was invented almost simultaneously by
Christophale, of Italy, about 1710, and Gottlieb
Schroedter, of Germany, within a few years of that
date, and was greatly perfected by Silbermann, of
Strassburg, shortly afterward. The pianoforte did
not come into general use until the beginning of this
century, in either America or Europe. In London
it was for the first time publicly played in the
Covent Garden Theater in the year 1767. John
Jacob Astor, of New York, imported from Lon-
don the first pianofortes as early as the year 1784.
They were small four and one half to five octave
square pianos, having eight legs. Their tones were
feeble and tinkling. Each piano had his own name
on the name-board.
The few pianos which were used in the United
States at the close of the last and the beginning of
the present century were imported. In a short time,
however, the trying climate of North America, with
its ever-recurring dry land winds, its severe winters,
and the general heating of houses by stoves and sub-
sequently by hot-air furnaces exerted its destructive
influence upon these instruments, which had been
constructed for the comparatively uniform and moist
European climate. Again, the great distance be-
tween the American settlements, scattered over so
vast an extent of territory, with wretched roads, made
it next to impossible to effect necessary repairs, even
if trained and skilful piano repairers had been ac-
cessible; therefore to keep the instruments in any-
thing approaching a playable condition was only
possible in the largest cities. As a natural conse-
quence pianos were articles of luxury, accessible only
to the wealthy.
It was quite natural, then, that as the demand for
pianofortes gradually increased, the enterprise of
American manufacturers should have been directed
toward their production here. The first successful
attempt at building pianofortes was made in Phila-
delphia about the year 1 790, by an American named
John Hawkins. In the year 1802 he sailed to
London, taking with him two upright pianofortes
which he had manufactured, and exhibited them in
London. One of these original instruments, pre-
served for over eighty years, was exhibited at the
International Inventions Exhibition, South Kensing-
ton, London, in 1885, and there was personally ex-
amined by Mr. William Steinway, who could not but
admire the ingenuity of this pioneer of pianoforte
making in America. Drum and fife and military
music were imitated in this instrument, which, though
of no practical utility, showed great inventive genius.
There were one or two more manufacturers in
Philadelphia at the close of the last century and the
beginning of the present one, but not until the close
(1815) of the second war between England and the
United States was the industry of pianoforte mak-
ing taken up as a distinct American manufacturing
feature. From the close of that war till about the
year 1825, a great business depression prevailed in
Great Britain. In consequence a number of young
and skilled English piano makers and artisans emi-
grated to the United States and began manufactur-
ing pianofortes. Among them were Robert and
William Nunns, Geib, Stoddard, Morris, and others.
Pianofortes were gradually extended in compass
from four and one half and five octaves to six oc-
taves; but up to about the year 1830, none were
larger than six octaves, all being of square form.
About 1825 the first steps of improvement in
American piano making may be traced. In that year
the first successful attempts were made to give the
body of the instrument more durability and an in-
creased power of resistance against the " pull " of the
strings, by the application of a full frame of cast-iron
in place of one of wood, which had before been used.
509
510
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The object of this brief synopsis is to describe the
enormous dimensions to which the manufacture of
pianos has grown in the United States, and the ex-
cellence which has been attained, making the Amer-
ican piano a standard which has been recognized by
all Europe for a number of years. Consequently,
only those inventions can be mentioned which, by
their practical and lasting value, have aided materi-
ally in the development of this branch of art indus-
try. It must be mentioned, however, that a careful
search of the records of the United States Patent
Office from its beginning has revealed the fact that
a large number of most interesting inventions have
there been filed, which, though impracticable in
themselves, prove that for nearly one hundred years
there has existed a constant and earnest endeavor to
improve the manufacture of pianofortes in North
America.
In the year 1825, Alpheus Babcock, of Philadel-
phia, obtained a patent for the construction in a
square piano of a cast-iron ring, somewhat resem-
bling the shape of a harp, for the purpose of increas-
ing its power of resistance to the "pull" of the
strings. By this invention the principle was first
practically introduced of casting the iron hitch-pin
plate in one piece with that portion which supported
the wrest-plank.
In the year 1833, Conrad Meyer, of Philadelphia,
exhibited at the fair of the Franklin Institute in that
city, a six-octave square piano which was constructed
with a full cast-iron frame, substantially the same as
that used at the present time. This original instru-
ment, still in perfect condition, was exhibited by
him, together with his new pianos, at the Centennial
Exhibition of 1876. The successful introduction of
this full iron frame was aided to a great extent by
the excellence of the quality of American iron and
the perfection to which the art of casting had already
attained in the United States at that period. It
may be mentioned here that as far back as the War
of 1812, cannon using thirty-two-pound and even
forty-eight-pound balls had been successfully cast in
the United States and effectively employed in that
war, while in Europe nothing heavier than eighteen-
pounders were known.
By the year 1837, Jonas Chickering, of Boston,
who was born in 1800 and died in 1853, had greatly
perfected the application of the full iron frame in
square pianos. It was indisputable that the iron-
frame pianos thus made stood better in tune than
those previously constructed ; but one great defect
was that they had a thin and disagreeably nasal
character of tone. For this salient reason the new
invention soon had quite as many opponents as ad-
mirers, so that until the year 1855 all the New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore pianoforte manufactur-
ers made no attempt to utilize it. In fact, before
1855 not one of the prominent manufacturers out-
side of Boston employed the full iron frame in the
construction of his instruments ; but all the piano-
fortes manufactured in Boston at that time had a
full cast-iron frame, of which the wrest-plank bridge
was a portion. Across the acute edge of this iron
bridge were laid the strings, which were generally
exceedingly thin. The action used in these pianos
was, without exception, what is styled the " English
action," having a somewhat " dragging " touch.
In New York, on the contrary, the instruments
made were provided only with a small cast-iron
hitch-pin plate, and the " French action " had a
more direct and prompter touch. They differed
from the Boston pianos in possessing a much fuller
and more powerful tone, though at the same time
with a quality which was less singing. The New
York piano makers succeeded in giving their instru-
ments the capacity of standing in tune more per-
manently than had been previously accomplished,
by a greater solidity of construction and a heavy
wooden bracing of the case, and more particularly
by the use of a solid bottom or bed of wood fully
five inches in thickness, which, however, to some
extent marred the elegant appearance of the instru-
ments. By degrees anew difficulty manifested itself
in the instruments thus made, for, as their compass
gradually extended and finally reached seven or
seven and one-third octaves, it was found impossible
to obtain the necessary power of resistance against
the " pull " of the strings, even by the most solid
construction of the case, if wood alone was the
material used.
At that time (1850-55) the principal pianoforte
manufacturers were the Chickerings, Lemuel Gilbert,
Hallet & Davis, Woodward & Brown, of Boston ;
Nunns & Clark, Stoddard & Morris, Bacon &
Raven, Horatio Worcester, John B. Dunham, J. C.
Fischer, Light, Newton & Bradbury, Albert Weber,
Adam Gale, Hazelton Brothers, Steinway & Sons,
and Haines Brothers, of New York ; Conrad Meyer
and Schomacker, of Philadelphia ; Knabe & Gaehle,
of Baltimore ; and Boardman & Gray, of Albany.
There were a number of minor manufacturers in
New York and Boston and their vicinity, but with
few exceptions their firms became extinct many
years ago, and other successful manufacturers-
Decker Brothers, George Steck & Company, Ernest
Gabler, Kranich & Bach, Sohmer & Company, and
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
611
others— took their places. In the year 1849 a Ger-
man named Mathushek, who was a highly skilled
piano maker, was engaged in John B. Dunham's
piano factory. Mr. Dunham was one of the suc-
cessful piano manufacturers then established in New
York. Mathushek had invented the so-called
" sweep-scale " (increasing at the same time the
compass from seven to seven and one-third octaves
in square pianos), which greatly improved the power
of tone, but also increased the size of the instrument
and weakened its durability by narrowing the so-
prano part of the wrest-plank.
The Steinway family had arrived in New York on
June 9, 1850, and the father and three sons (among
them William Steinway, then a lad fourteen years
of age) worked for nearly three years in different
New York piano factories, familiarizing themselves
with the requirements and tastes of the American
musical community. Though possessing a reason-
able amount of capital, they did not start in business
for themselves until the fifth day of March, 1853,
when, with cautious modesty, they placed their first
shop in a rear building at 85 Varick Street, remov-
ing in 1854 to 88 Walker Street, New York. In
1855 they succeeded in constructing an overstrung
square piano with a solid front bar and full iron
frame, the latter covering the wrest-plank, the wrest-
plank bridge, however, being made of wood. With-
out describing in particular the novelty of the
instrument, it may be said that for the first time the
overstrung plan — that of placing the bass strings
obliquely across all other strings in the shape of a
fan — was successfully introduced. The results
achieved by this novel construction were in every
way most successful. The instrument, by the
unanimous verdict of the jury, received the first
prize, a gold medal, at the exhibition, in 1855, of
the American Institute at the Crystal Palace in New
York. This was located at what is now known as
Bryant Park, and was destroyed by fire in 1858.
The new method of construction immediately be-
came the standard for all American manufacturers
and soon after for all other countries, and has re-
mained so ever since.
As stated before, nearly all the pianos made in
the United States up to the year 1856 were square
pianos. Jonas Chickering, one of the leading pio-
neers of American piano manufacturing, in 1840
constructed the first American grand piano, success-
fully introducing the iron frame. A small piano
manufacturer named Buttikoffer, a former workman
of Erard, of Paris, France, also made Erard fine
pianos entirely of wood ; but the demand for grand
pianos was so limited that the great pianist Thai-
berg, who arrived in the United States in the year
1856, brought with him two Erard concert grand
pianos for his concert tour throughout the country.
In 1859 Steinway & Sons made a great improve-
ment by successfully introducing into grand pianos
the overstrung system, which was secured to them
by United States patent dated December 20, 1859.
At the same time several other standard piano
makers of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
Boston commenced the manufacture of this kind of
instrument, all of them with the overstrung system.
Overstrung grand and square pianos were exhibited
by Steinway & Sons at the World's Fair of 1862, in
the Crystal Palace, London, taking a first-prize medal ;
and again overstrung grand, square, and upright
pianos were shown by them at the great International
Exposition of Paris in 1867, these being crowned
by a first grand gold medal and the unanimous in-
dorsement of the international jury. Messrs. Chick-
ering, of Boston, also exhibited parallel-stringed
grand and upright pianos and overstrung square
pianos, and were also awarded a gold medal, so that
America's triumph in the piano department was
literally overwhelming.
The overstrung system was at once imitated by
nearly all of the prominent manufacturers of Europe,
and has ever since been known as the " Steinway "
or " American system " ; and the supremacy of the
product of all first-class American piano makers has
been conceded by the musical public of both con-
tinents. The importation of pianofortes from Europe
into the United States not only practically ceased,
but since that time the export of the American pro-
duct to all parts of the civilized world has steadily
increased, notwithstanding the somewhat higher
prices. It must also be added that, practically
speaking, almost all important novelties and inven-
tions by which the tone and durability of all three
styles, grand, square, and upright, have been en-
hanced and increased within the last half-century,
have been made by American pianoforte manufac-
turers, all being imitated in Europe as soon as the
details became known.
It may be interesting to state here that, up to the
year 1850, England and France produced more
pianofortes than all other countries, and supplied the
European continent as well as the outlying colonies.
Since that date there has been a marked change in
that direction. Germany, which undoubtedly has,
with America, the most skilled piano manufacturers
and workmen, has nearly kept pace with the United
States in the quantity of pianos manufactured, and
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
512
German piano makers were invariably the first to
see the importance of American inventions and im-
provements. Only one old house in Paris and one
old house in London still adhere to the antiquated
system of parallel strings. All others have adopted
the American overstrung system and full cast-iron
frame. As far as can be judged, Germany, produc-
ing 70,000 pianos annually, has the largest export
of pianofortes of any country in the Old World,
especially in the cheapest class of instruments ; and
there is no doubt that Germany, although making
at the present time more pianofortes than all other
European countries combined, is surpassed by the
United States of America, which, on a careful
and conservative estimate, produce annually from
80,000 to 90,000 pianofortes.
The manufacture of pianos in the United States
was formerly confined to the following four cities :
first, New York ; second, Boston ; third, Baltimore ;
fourth, Philadelphia. Within a dozen years Chicago
has stepped in, and now has become third in the
number of pianos annually produced. The list is
now : first, New York ; second, Boston ; third,
Chicago; fourth, Baltimore; fifth, Philadelphia;
and successful pianoforte manufacturers have also
located in other large cities of the United States,
such as Buffalo and Rochester, N. Y., Cincinnati and
Norwalk, O., and Erie, Pa.
In Europe the manufacture of square pianos
practically ceased about the year 1855, and only
grand and upright pianos were thereafter made. In
the United States, as mentioned before, the square
pianoforte was, up to the same time, almost exclu-
sively manufactured, and sales of grand pianos were
about as scarce as angels' visits.
During the years 1844 and 1845 a French man-
ufacturer named Henri Herz, who at the same time
was a first-class pianist, traveled through the United
States, giving concerts in the larger cities. He had
brought with him a number of French upright
pianos, and during his stay in this country imported
many others. These were readily sold, but within a
few years all succumbed to the influence of the cli-
mate and became total wrecks, from the fact of hav-
ing been made from wood alone. This caused such a
deep-rooted prejudice throughout the country against
upright pianos that they became absolutely unsalable,
and up to the year 1866 fully ninety-seven per cent,
of all the pianos which were annually made in the
United States were square pianos. In that year
Steinway & Sons succeeded in completing a system
of manufacture for upright pianos which produced
instruments that were fully as beautiful in tone and
as durable for use as the square and grand pianos.
This was speedily followed by other standard Amer-
ican piano makers, some of whom made improve-
ments of their own ; and within a few years thereafter
a complete revolution in the piano industry took
place, so that the situation of to-day is exactly the
reverse of what it was less than thirty years ago.
The manufacture of square pianos has now almost
entirely ceased. The annual production of Ameri-
can pianofortes consists of about ninety-five per
cent, uprights, less than two per cent, squares, and
a little more than three per cent, grand pianos.
There is no question that by the year 1900 not a
single square piano will be manufactured in the
United States or any other part of the world.
Setting aside, then, the effects of the business de-
pression of the year 1893, and, to some extent, of
1894, which fell with very much greater severity
upon other branches of manufacture than it did
even on pianofortes, American piano manufacturers
have every reason to feel proud of the results
achieved by them. There has not only been steady
progress in the number of the pianofortes produced
by them, but the art of piano making in the United
States has been elevated to the highest perfection —
a fact which is recognized all over the world.
Quite a number of good European pianos were
exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadel-
phia in 1876, and at the Columbian World's Fair in
Chicago in 1893 ; but none of them were sold, and
all of them had to be reexported. No grand piano
of foreign make has ever been publicly heard in the
United States since the advent of Thalberg, now
nearly forty years ago ; but many first-class Ameri-
can concert grand pianos have been, and are at
present publicly used in the art centers of Europe
by the greatest artists. Besides, the five largest
piano manufacturing concerns in the world are
located in the United States. They are: two at
New York, one at Chicago, one at Boston, and the
fifth at Baltimore. This is indeed a proud and
unique position, and American piano manufacturers
have no reason to complain of anything in their in-
dustry, with one exception, as follows :
In 1850 the overwhelming majority of piano
artisans were of American nativity, while since that
time, and now for many years, almost all of them
are either foreign-born (mostly German) or the
direct offspring of foreign-born parents, who, by
permission of the employer, are taught a certain
single branch of the business by their fathers. This
is much to be deplored, for American boys, many
of them extraordinarily intelligent and ingenious, are
WILLIAM STEINWAY.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
513
practically kept out of this important industry
through what might be called the force of circum-
stances. As far as can be learned there is now no
effective apprentice law in force in any of the States.
This is very different from the conditions existing in
Europe. Take, for instance, Germany. After hav-
ing been released from school, say at the age of four-
teen or fifteen years, a boy is apprenticed to a master
mechanic for six or seven years. 1 1 is true he receives
his board and lodging, but he has to pay, say, $100
le/irgeld (learning money), in order to indemnify the
" boss " for the time lost in instructing him, or for the
defective workmanship and spoiled material which
may result from his unskilfulness.
No American boy would be willing to be placed
in the position of an apprentice for six or seven
years, although that is the only way in which a busi-
ness can be acquired thoroughly in all its branches
and details. Thus there is no guaranty to any
employer that a boy, after one or two years spent in
learning a branch or subdivision of a business, will
not leave him and shift for himself. To enact laws
compelling a lad who is growing up to remain with
an employer and make up in the later years of his
apprenticeship the losses he has caused in the first
years does not suit American ideas, and probably
never will. Still this matter should engage the at-
tention of all those interested in social problems, for
our American boys are second to none in intelli-
gence and practical ideas. And this, too, is one of
the chief causes of the sad fact that in no civilized
country are there so many young men who are un-
skilled as in the United States.
In 1850, when William Steinway, then aged
fourteen years, arrived in New York, a very lamen-
table state of affairs prevailed in the pianoforte
and other manufacturing industries. The city was
still suffering from the effects of the cholera epidemic
of 1849; there was but little ready money in the
country, much being of the " wildcat " order ; there
were no sawing, planing, or other labor-saving
machines to do the hard work required in piano
manufacture, nor were there any elevators ; all
heavy loads having to be carried up and down stairs
on the shoulders of the artisans.
The despicable " truck " system prevailed through-
out the country. The skilled workman was not
paid his hard-earned wages, which were from $6 to
$10 a week; but he would receive, say, from $2 to
$3 of his weekly earnings in cash, and some of the
rest in orders on grocers, tailors, and shoemakers.
The remainder would be retained by the employer,
who acted as a self-constituted savings-bank for his
employees, without paying interest, and sometimes
not even paying the principal. William Steinway,
at the age of seventeen years, lost all his savings of
$300 by the bankruptcy of his employer, William
Nunns, in 1853. There were piano factories and
other manufacturers who each were thus constantly
owing over $ 1 00,000 in wages to their workmen. By
the year 1 860 this reprehensible " truck " system had,
however, entirely ceased throughout the country.
The Civil War, between 1861 and 1865, also
caused the piano manufacturers great hardships and
struggles. They lost nearly all their claims against
piano dealers in the South ; there was no immigra-
tion to speak of ; skilled artisans were scarce, many
of them having gone to the war ; and in February,
1862, the workmen in New York instituted a strike
for higher wages, in which they were perfectly justi-
fied. The currency had then depreciated, and all
the necessaries of life and rents had risen enormously
in value. The workingmen's demand for ten per
cent, was readily granted. In May following they
again demanded ten per cent, more on the increased
wages, which was also acceded to. But in October,
1863, they had formed a large society, the Piano-
Makers' Union, and suddenly demanded an aug-
mentation of twenty-five per cent, on the twice-
increased prices, being in all a raise of fully fifty per
cent, on the original rates. This was simply impos-
sible for the employers to grant, the more so as no
increase whatever had as yet been made in wages
in the same occupation in Boston, Baltimore, and
Philadelphia.
For the first time in the history of piano manu-
facture the twenty-three piano employers were driven
together by necessity, and met at Ittner's Hotel,
where it was resolved to resist the demands of the
employees. A committee of seven manufacturers
(of which William Steinway was a member) was
elected to receive the committee of fifteen who
represented about 3000 workingmen then on strike.
The spokesman of the employees first demanded the
increase of twenty-five per cent., with payment for
all the time lost by the strikers, and then announced
the program mapped out by the leaders of the
strike as follows:
" Gentlemen bosses, we, the piano makers of New
York, will now assume control of the piano business.
You shall no longer be permitted either to engage
or dismiss any workman without our consent. You
must pay us full wages irrespective of bad or good
times. You must all pay the same wages, must not
undersell one another, and must every Saturday after-
noon submit your books to our inspection, so that
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
514
we may satisfy ourselves that you have strictly car-
ried out our instructions. Now, gentlemen bosses,
what can we report to our union as your response? "
The employers' committee were simply stupefied,
when one of the manufacturers, Albert Weber (who
died in 1879), a very quick-witted man, observed:
" Gentlemen employees, your demands are exceed-
ingly moderate ; but in your very modesty you have
omitted your most important point."
The spokesman of the employees inquired, " Well,
and what might that be ? "
" Simply this," returned Mr. Weber ; " that every
Saturday afternoon, when you have looked over the
manufacturers' books, the employees shall go a-
bowling, and that the bosses should be made to set
up the tenpins for their workmen."
A deafening and unanimous roar of laughter fol-
lowed this sally. It was the right word at the right
time. The ice had been broken, and both parties
were conciliated. Half an hour later a compromise
was effected, that fifteen per cent, (instead of
twenty-five per cent.) increase was to take place in
wages, all other demands by the employees being
withdrawn.
The truce, needless to say, did not last long ; the
strike broke out anew in February, 1864, and was
completely put down, after a struggle of nine weeks,
by the unflinching resistance of the United Piano
Manufacturers. Another strike in 1872, to reduce
the daily hours of work from ten to eight, was also
defeated, and since then but few and brief strikes
have occurred. One partially successful occurred in
1880. Those in 1886 and 1890 both brought de-
feat to the strikers. As a general thing a much
kindlier feeling between employers and employees
gradually arose, and has existed for a number of
years past.
PRINCIPAL INVENTIONS OF AMERICAN PIANO-
FORTE MANUFACTURERS, WHICH HAVE
BEEN MORE OR LESS ADOPTED BY AMERI-
CAN AND EUROPEAN PIANO FIRMS.
1825. Alpheus Babcock, of Philadelphia, Pa., patented inven-
tion of a full iron frame in the form of a harp for
square pianos.
1833. Conrad Meyer, of Philadelphia, construction of an iron
frame in square pianos, except wrest-plank bridge,
which remained of wood.
1837. Jonas Chickering, of Boston, Mass., construction of a
full iron frame, with wrest-plank bridge (in square
pianos) of iron, all in one piece — an important in-
vention, although his application for a patent was
unjustly rejected for alleged want of novelty.
1840. Jonas Chickering, successful patented construction of
the full iron frame with agraffe bar in grand pianos.
1849. Mathushek (with John B. Dunham), invention of so-
called " sweep-scale" in square pianos, the compass
of which he at the same time successfully extended to
seven and one third octaves.
1855. Invention by Stein way £ Sons, of New York, of the
overstrung system and its iron frame, placing the
strings in form of a fan, in square pianos.
1859. Invention by Stein way & Sons (United States patent,
December 20, 1859) of the overstrung system, with
its strings in fanlike shape, and novel construction of
the iron frame, in grand pianos ; also the square grand
piano and novel agraffe bar (United States patent,
November 29, 1859).
1862. Invention (United States patent) by Decker Brothers,
of New York, of novel wrest-plank construction, in-
creasing capacity to stand in tune, in square pianos;
also novel apparatus to veneer round corners in
square-piano cases.
1866. Invention (United States patent, June 5, 1866) by
Steinway & Sons of double iron frame and patent
resonator (controlling tension of sounding-boards) in
upright pianos.
1868. Invention (United States patent, August id, 1868) by
Steinway & Sons of tubular metallic action-frame in
grand and upright pianos.
1870. Invention (United States patents, March 15, 1870, and
August 15, 1870) by George Steck & Company, of
New York, of the self-supporting, independent iron
frame.
1872. Invention by Steinway & Sons (United States patent,
May 28, 1872) of the iron cupola and pier frame;
also the grand duplex scale (United States patent,
May 14, 1872).
1874. Invention by Steinway & Sons (United States patents,
October 27, 1874) of the tone-sustaining pedal. The
same year Mr. Hanchett, of Syracuse, N. Y., brought
out (United States patent) a novel apparatus for pro-
longing the tone.
1875. Invention by Steinway & Sons (United States patents,
October 20, 1875) of concert grand with capo d 'astro
bar all cast in one piece, and design thereof.
1878. Invention by Steinway & Sons (United States patents,
May 21, 1878), bending into form the entire case
of grand pianos, composed of a series of continuous
veneers ; also tone-pulsator in grand pianos ; also capo
d'astro bar in upright pianos.
1879. Invention by George Steck & Company (United States
patent, January 7, 1879) of further improvements in
self-supporting, independent iron frame.
1 88 1. Invention by George Steck & Company (United States
patent, October 18, 1881) of further improvements in
self-supporting, independent iron frame.
1885. Invention by Steinway & Sons (United States patent,
March 31, 1885) of double cupola iron frame in grand
pianos.
1893. Invention by Henry Ziegler (nephew of William Stein-
way), of Steinway & Sons (two United States patents
of November 21, 1893), of the grand piano with capo
d'astro bar in upright form.
1894. Improvement by George Steck & Company in self-sup-
porting, independent iron frame in upright pianos.
1895. Invention by Henry Ziegler, of Steinway & Sons
(United States patent, January 8, 1895), of iron
frame with capo d'astro bar and suspended wrest-
plank in grand pianos in upright form.
After a careful and conservative estimate, it ap-
pears that there are now engaged in the production
of pianofortes and their component parts upward of
200 manufacturing concerns established in the
United States, representing a capital of over $40,000,-
ooo, and giving employment to about 40,000 skilled
artisans ; to say nothing of the many millions of
capital invested in, and the many thousands of peo-
ple employed by, houses engaged in the sale of these
and other musical instruments.
Next to pianofortes no class of American musical
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
815
instruments has attained the prominence of the
American reed-organs, the manufacture of which
took distinct shape about the year 1850, commenc-
ing with melodeons in small square-piano shape,
produced in great excellence by the late George L.
Prince, of Buffalo, N. Y., Carhart & Needham, of
NV\v York City, and many other makers. These
readily gave way to the superb reed-organs of
Mason & Hamlin, of Boston, Mass. ; the Estey
Organ Company, of Brattleboro, Vt. ; Burdett, of
Erie, Pa. ; the Fort Wayne Organ Company, of
Fort Wayne, Ind. ; and others too numerous to
mention. Besides the interior capacity and the
quality and quantity of tone, a variety of musical
effects and the imitation of wind-instruments, as well
as exquisite external workmanship, were introduced
by these and other manufacturers. In good season,
even before American pianofortes were exported,
shiploads of these fine American reed-organs were
sent to Europe, especially to Great Britain, Sweden,
Norway, and other Protestant countries. Of late
years, however, the importance of this branch of
industry has diminished almost in the same ratio as
the general interest in pianofortes has increased, the
latter instrument becoming more and more popular.
As the manufacture of the piano from year to year
increased, the pianoforte, with its larger compass and
its greater variety of expression, allowing full scope
for the individual touch and for novel musical
effects, has gradually taken the place of the organ.
It has become the most welcome instrument in the
American home and family circle, being especially
fitted for accompanying the voice. Of late many of
the standard manufacturers of American reed-organs
have also gone into the manufacture of pianofortes,
and several have been very successful.
Formerly, with the exception of banjos and man-
dolins, all small string and wind instruments had to be
imported. All this, by the constantly growing perfec-
tion of the American manufacture of these articles,
has been so greatly modified that the importation of
these instruments does not now cut very much of
a figure. At the present time fine harps, violins,
guitars, flutes, and all kinds of wind-instruments are
successfully produced in the greatest perfection by
American manufacturers in all the larger cities of the
country. They have greater durability, especially
against climatic effects, than the imported articles, in
which wood plays a part, can ever possess. Many
millions of capital and thousands of skilled artisans
are engaged in the manufacture of small musical
instruments, and of late Chicago seems to make the
greatest progress in this direction. Lyon & Healy,
of that city, produce excellent small musical wind-
instruments in large quantities, and their harps,
which are of superb quality, are unexcelled by the
best ones made in Europe. The latter are unable
to withstand the effects of our severe North Ameri-
can climate for any reasonable length of time.
C. G. Conn, of Elkhart, Ind., and of Worcester,
Mass., also produces most excellent brass wind-in-
struments in very large quantity. Vocalions, an
English invention by Sir Bailey Hamilton, were first
produced, and have been brought to high perfection,
by Messrs. Mason & Risch, Worcester, Mass. JEo\\-
ans are also extensively manufactured and sold.
Within a few years autoharps, manufactured by
Alfred Dolge & Sons, of Dolgeville, N. Y., have
come into great favor, and are extensively produced.
The construction of church organs during the
past fifty years has also reached large proportions in
the United States. Everything is now manufac-
tured, from the largest cathedral church organ down
to the small portable pipe church organ. They are
of the finest quality.
In all classes and kinds of musical instruments
American ingenuity has achieved great triumphs
and introduced many improvements, adding to the
quality, and especially to the durability of the article,
so that the importation of them has almost ceased.
CHAPTER LXXIX
AMERICAN CARRIAGE AND WAGON WORKS
FROM the earliest times of which there has
been any historical record, mankind has uti-
lized wheels as a means of transportation. On
the great sculptured stones now in the British Mu-
seum, taken from the ruined city of Nimrod near
Nineveh, can be seen, besides the innumerable war
chariots, carts drawn by oxen, and carts drawn by
men. The writer made a drawing of one of the
latter kind, which shows very good construction.
The wheels have six spokes and are well propor-
tioned; probably they were about forty-two inches
high. The body is framed up with posts and a top
rail, and the spaces are filled with handsome wicker
work. There is an arched guard over the wheel to
protect the latter from contact with the overhang-
ing load. The cart is loaded with logs of wood.
On another slab is shown the king's chariot, with
an elegant canopy over the royal head. This
chariot carries, besides the king, the charioteer and
an arms-bearer. In Biblical history the chariot is
very frequently referred to, those of the great army
of Pharaoh being engulfed in the Red Sea. It is
worth noting that the word "carriage" was at one
time used in the sense of goods or baggage, and we
find in the New Testament, " After those days we
took up our carriages and went up to Jerusalem."
The Greeks and Romans were, of course, familiar
with the horse-drawn vehicle, and in the story of the
Trojan war we find Achilles dragging the body of
Hector around the walls of Troy lashed to his
chariot. Carriages without wheels were used as late
as the seventeenth century, when they were known
as litters, having shafts behind and before which
were supported upon the backs of the horses. The
litter was but a form of the sedan chair, itself a spe-
cies of carriage. If we look for a carriage with
wheels but without horses, we find it in the jinrikisha
of Japan, a unique vehicle drawn by man-power.
The ancient chariot, with all its splendor of deco-
ration, was but a two-wheeled cart without springs,
and this, the starting-point in the evolution of the
carriage, we find among many barbaric peoples, the
wheels being formed of solid wood rendered cir-
cular when nature formed the trees from which
they were made. Even the triumphal and funeral
cars of early history were but springless carts;
and ages of progress lie between a gorgeous
chariot of the Cffisars and a modern buggy.
Queen Elizabeth's wonderful state coach, with its
highly ornamented and canopied body, was without
springs. It was a sort of triumphal car, for State
parades. Her usual mode of locomotion was by
water or on horse-back.
The various forms which the modern carriage
has assumed appear to be almost limitless. The
old-time stage-coach has developed into the fash-
ionable drag or tally-ho; the post-chaise and the
curricle are no more; but there are still left to us
innumerable forms of vehicles, of which the Ameri-
can buggy is perhaps the most useful and represents
the highest development of the carriage-builder's
art. Many of the forms came to us from England,
notably the brougham, named for Lord Brougham.
The landau takes its title from the town of the
same name in Germany, where it was first made.
A few specimens of the Irish jaunting-car have
found their way to America, where they serve to
remind us of the active nation with which they are
popular. The hack as a name is solely American,
but is of course a lineal descendant of the English
hackney coach.
Carriage building, as an art, began to be devel-
oped in all parts of Europe about the middle of the
seventeenth century. Steady but slow progress was
made in all the great cities, and some almost elegant
forms are shown in the old prints, profusely deco-
rated. The running parts, however, were very im-
perfect. The first relief from the jolting of the dead-
516
CHAUNCEY THOMAS.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
017
axle carriage was accomplished by suspending the
body of the carriages on long leather thorough-
braces stretched from upright iron jacks which stood
up from each end of the running part. The next
improvement was made by transforming these stiff
iron jacks into spring jacks, and by making them of
steel plates. Finally, in the early part of our own
century, the spring jack was given a bold, sweeping
curve, and the beautiful C spring evolved. The
Collinge axle now in common use all over the world
was perfected almost 100 years ago, and the elliptic
spring, the best of all springs, was invented at about
the same time. It was early in the eighteenth cen-
tury that the post-chaise came into use for journey-
ing, and the hackney coach and hackney cab came
to take the place of the sedan chair in the great
cities. This created quite a war in London between
the watermen and the chairmen on the one side,
and the coaches on the other.
In very old times the post-chaise had a small
body hung very high on its leather straps ; the wheels
were very high and far apart, and the driver rode the
wheel horse. In later times this uncouth post-chaise
developed into the elegant chariot, perhaps the most
perfectly formed carriage ever built. This carriage,
with its gorgeously draped coachman's seat, as well
as the full coach similarly mounted, is now only seen
at royal receptions and other state occasions in the
capitals of monarchical countries. As with other
inventions, the evolution of the carriage has taken
place by fits and starts, the greatest progress hav-
ing been made during the present century, and the
field in which that progress occurred having been
the United States of America.
The volume of business done by American car-
riage-manufacturers in 1795 was exceedingly small.
Technical knowledge was not wanting, however, for
there were many shops which had been established
in colonial days, where fine carriages were occasion-
ally built, and many imported French and English
vehicles repaired. But business languished for
lack of customers. Before the War of the Revolu-
tion the rich shipping merchants of Salem, Boston,
Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
Charleston lived in good style, as was common in
those monarchical times, and imported in their own
ships coaches, chariots, and phaetons, from England
and France. Repair shops sprang up in all the
large towns and cities, and skilled workmen came
from England, Ireland, and Scotland, finding ready
employment on their arrival.
A curious bit of history, clearly showing the use
of carriages in New York City in 1770, came to the
writer's knowledge some years ago from the late
George W. W. Houghton, who embodied the facts
in a lecture delivered before the New York Historical
Society. The old record, which he somewhere dis-
covered, gives a list of fifty-nine owners of carriages;
and the vehicles mentioned were twenty-six coaches,
thirty-three chariots or post-chaises, and twenty-six
phaetons — in all, there were eighty-five vehicles.
The names of the owners were Cadwallader Golden,
Daniel Horsmanden, John Watts, Oliver De Lancey,
Joseph Reade, Charles W. Apthorp, Colonel Roger
Morris, Henry Cruger, John Cruger, James De Lan-
cey, the widow of Governor James De Lancey, the
widow of William Walton, the widow of Judge John
Chambers, the widow of James McEvers, the widow
Lawrence, Mrs. Waddell, Andrew Elliott, William
Bayard, Nicholas Bayard, Philip Livingston, John
Livingston, Robert G. Livingston, Walter Ruther-
ford, Gerardus Beekman, Colonel Beekman, Na-
thaniel Marston, John Marston, Rev. Dr. Ogilvie of
Trinity Church, Anthony Rutgers, Jacob Le Roy,
David Johnson, William Axtell, Miss Lodge, Leon-
ard Lispenard, Samuel Verplanck, Lawrence Kort-
right, David Clarkson, John Van Cortlandt, Robert
Murray, James Jauncey, Dr. William Brownjohn,
Dr. Jonathan Mallet, Thomas Tiebout, Jacob Wal-
ton, John Watkins, Nicholas Gouverneur, John
Aspinwall, Hugh Wallace, Isaac Low, A. Van Cort-
landt, Gerardus Duyckinck, General Gage, John
Read, Archibald Kennedy, Thomas Sowers, Captain
John Montressor, John Leake, Abraham Montier,
and Ralph Izard. Many of these names are familiar
to the New Yorker of to-day, the prestige of the old
families having kept pace with the march of events.
It will be observed that there were but three styles
of carriages known among the old aristocracy, and
they were all for town use. No similar records are
to be found in other cities, but there are many ancient
relics of grand chariots now to be found in Boston
and vicinity, still preserved in the stables of the old
families as curiosities. One fine old chariot-body is
now at the writer's factory, sound and serviceable.
It was used by the owner's grandfather in Lon-
don in 1793. The wheels and running-gear long
ago disappeared, but the body is now being fitted
with an elegant set of runners, and, when the first
snow comes, will enter upon a new career of use-
fulness, completely rejuvenated as a stylish winter
carriage.
The effects of the struggle for independence, and
the hard times which followed, so impoverished the
people that there was but little use for carriages of
luxury in the early days of the present century.
518
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The tendency of all classes was essentially demo-
cratic, and rigid economy was esteemed a great
virtue. This state of things was not favorable for
the makers of fine carriages; but, fortunately for
them, all well-to-do people required something to
ride in, and that took the form of the two-wheeled
chaise, immortalized by Dr. Holmes. These were
in great demand as the country grew prosperous,
and were built in large numbers in Boston, Salem,
Worcester, Pittsfield, West Amesbury, Mass., New
London and New Haven, Conn., as well as in Wil-
mington, Del, and Philadelphia. They had enor-
mously high wheels, and the tops were stationary,
being supported on iron posts. Curtains of painted
canvas or leather covered the sides and back.
These chaises were often built without dashers or
aprons in the earlier times, but in later years they
had falling tops and were gay with silver plate. So
universally was this style of carriage in use that
most carriage-makers were known as " chaise-mak-
ers," as the old sign-boards of fifty years ago plainly
indicated. Chaise-making throve mightily, and up
to about 1840 it seemed that nothing could ever
fully supplant the favorite old two-wheeler. But
the buggy, which had been struggling for existence
for several years, began to come to the front.
The chaise had been for generations of nearly
the same form, no radical changes having been
tolerated; but the buggy came in a multitude of
forms, as it was new and without any recognized
standard of shape to hamper the fancy of the
builder. At last the door was open for novelties,
and has since been still wider open, with no signs
of being closed again.
The buggy is purely American in its origin, and
is without doubt the greatest achievement of Ameri-
can carriage-makers. The body may be of any
form, but the running part is always of the same, or
nearly the same, type. Its common-sense construc-
tion is wholly unlike the work of any other country.
It is simpler, lighter, stronger, and cheaper than
any other style of vehicle, and is so admirable in
all respects that it is not likely to go out of use for
at least another century.
In the early days of this century of progress a
great stimulus was given to the carriage and wagon
trade by the advent of the grand old stage-coach.
It was elegant in form, gay with paint and gilded
scrollwork, and when starting out on its journey,
rocking on its tough thorough-braces under its
load of passengers and baggage, with its team of
four or six Morgan horses, it was an inspiriting sight.
It has been said that the stage-coach was unknown
in America prior to 1810, but this is a mistake. In
1776 John Hancock stole away from his duties in
the Continental Congress to Tamfield, Conn., where
he married the beautiful Dorothy Quincy, and took
her on a wedding journey to Philadelphia by stage-
coach. The incidents of the journey, including the
upsetting of the coach, are duly set forth in the
record of William Bant, attorney to Governor Han-
cock. It is also related that Mrs. Hancock took
a similar journey with her son, who was but two
weeks old, to join her husband in Philadelphia.
This was in 1778. The roads, however, at this
early date, were little better than bridle-paths, and
the chief resource for journeying was the saddle.
In 1791 there were but 1905 miles of post-roads
in the States, and in these roads were many bottom-
less sloughs, and corduroy bridges consisting of
round logs laid crosswise over swamps, sometimes
for long distances. As the government and local
authorities improved and extended the roads, some
sort of public conveyance followed.
In New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania the
great Conestoga wagon, broad-wheeled, and with
huge canvas-covered body, was drawn over the
rough roads by six or eight horses or oxen for the
transportation of freight and passengers. This
wagon was the prototype of the famous "prairie
schooner," or emigrant wagon, of later times.
Government roads, called military roads, were
built across the mountains of Virginia, connecting
the East with the valley of the Ohio ; also through
the great forests of Maine to the town of Houlton
on the New Brunswick frontier, and in many other
parts of the country. They were for postal and mili-
tary purposes. On all these were quickly estab-
lished thriving stage lines, and the business grew very
rapidly. Capital was freely invested in the varied
interests directly and remotely connected with the
innumerable lines which radiated from all the chief
towns and cities in the country; and the investments
paid good dividends.
The carriage-maker, the harness-maker, the horse-
breeder, and the jolly old country tavern-keeper,
with his good dinners, his well-stocked and well-
patronized bar, all seem to have been prosperous
and happy in the good old slow-going time.
Stage-coaches and wagons were built in many
places at the time I write of. Salem, Mass., was
early in the field. Osgood Bradley, of Worcester,
was a large builder ; the Troy coach, of Troy, N .Y.,
was very famous in its day ; but a little later, and
still more famous, came the Concord coach, of Con-
cord, N. H. The founder of the house of Abbott,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
519
Downing & Company, now the largest wagon-build-
ers in New England, whose work is known through-
out America as well as in South Africa and Aus-
tralia, was Louis Downing, who moved to Con-
cord from Salem, Mass., in 1815. There he began
the manufacture of coaches and wagons ; and after
eighty years, this old house is still in the full tide of
active business.
So great was the coaching business from 1810 to
about 1845, that in addition to the builders hundreds
of smaller shops derived their chief income from
repairing and painting these fine old road coaches.
After the War of 1812, trade and commerce en-
tered upon a new career of prosperity. The ship-
ping merchants were piling up wealth; manufac-
turing, which had grown strong by the fact that
the war had thrown us wholly on our own resources,
was opening up new sources of wealth, and again
stylish carriages for city use were in demand. Fine
coaches and chariots, hung on C springs, and made
grand with the hammer-cloth coachman's seat, were
built in all the large cities. Boston had two well-
equipped shops for this kind of work ; New Haven
and Bridgeport were active and growing; Newark,
N. J., became celebrated for its fine productions,
and New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Wil-
mington, Del., were supplying their own wants, and
sowing the seeds of greater development in later
times.
About this time a considerable export trade grew
up with the West Indies. The carriages shipped
there were known as volantes, and were large two-
wheeled vehicles with immensely long shafts. The
wheels were placed so far in the rear of the vehicle,
in order to give greater freedom of access, that
the shaft horse had a very large share of the weight
upon his back. In addition to this, the overloaded
beast carried the postilion, while the leader did
most of the hauling. These carriages were shipped
by the sugar and molasses merchants of the nor-
thern cities to the planters of the West Indies, in
commercial exchange for their product, which was
speedily converted into rum, then in great demand
at home and abroad. Thus the carriage-maker
played his part in the interchange of commodities,
and trade nourished.
Farmers' wagons and carts had been made in
every village in the country since the earliest time,
but wagon-making as a great business began with
the development of the Western States. First came
the large emigrant wagon, and after that the lighter
farm wagon, and, later still, wagons for the great
overland current of emigration, which flowed like
a mighty river from the East to the gold-fields
of California. Happily for the emigrants, the
wagon-makers of the West were equal to the oc-
casion. Great factories quickly grew up, stimulated
by this additional demand, and among the rest the
great house of Studebaker Brothers, which had its
origin as far back as 1813, now came to the front,
reorganized and ready for business. This firm,
now the largest wagon and carriage manufacturers
in the world, was just in time to take a leading part
in supplying the government with army wagons for
the western regiments in the Civil War. It was due
to the thorough equipment of the wagon-makers of
the country that the armies of the North were better
and more properly supplied with the means of trans-
portation than any army in military history. Wagon-
building is so vast in its proportions that when one
visits such an establishment as that at South Bend,
Indiana, he wonders where purchasers can be found
for so many vehicles, a wagon being produced every
ten minutes in this one factory.
The older men of the present generation of car-
riage-makers have witnessed a great change in the
extent as well as in the method of manufacturing.
In the early years of the century, business in the
old carriage towns was done on what is called
the " dicker " system. Woodworkers, blacksmiths,
trimmers, and painters, each did business on his
own account, and swapped parts, as they termed it,
the final settlements being made in finished car-
riages. The dealer in materials also took carriages
in payment. The workmen were paid with orders
for goods, and money was almost unknown in all
the various transactions. The old operators, who
did business in this way, used to say that the plan
was much safer than the cash system, there being
fewer failures, and less danger of getting involved in
debt.
By and by the small operators with their little
shops went the way of all old-time things, and well-
organized factories succeeded them. Then a mul-
titude of inventions in machinery were eagerly taken
up and utilized. Larger and larger grew the fac-
tories, more and more perfect the machinery, until
the present time, when the limit of quick methods
and cheap production seems to be well-nigh reached.
But the end is not yet.
Much the larger number of carriages built in the
great factories where machinery is employed are
built in duplicate by the million, and are sold to
the million at exceedingly low prices. Of course,
there are many qualities among the vast variety of
vehicles built by the new processes, and many
520
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
grades of stock enter into their composition. As
in all other manufactures, the price is a very fair
indication of quality. One might think that in the
rush for low prices of both builders and buyers all
really good work would be superseded by low grades,
and that the tendency would be steadily downward
in quality ; but such is not the fact. Fine work —
I may say superb work, that which taxes the high-
est skill and care of the best designers and mechan-
ics — is still in great demand, and will probably con-
tinue to be for all time.
There are many builders of high-grade work
widely known by the public, of whom I should be
glad to speak, and who are distinguished for their
excellent productions; but I will name only one,
easily the first in this or any other country — Brew-
ster & Company of New York. A visit to this great
establishment — of which all American carriage-
builders are justly proud — will show the apprecia-
tive observer to how high a degree of perfection,
beauty, and completeness modern carriage-building
has attained.
In 1872 the leading carriage-makers of the coun-
try formed an association called the " Carriage
Builders' National Association." The good that
this organization has accomplished by means of its
annual conventions can scarcely be estimated. All
trades which have similar associations know the
value of good fellowship and good feeling among
competitors instead of the old-time jealous antago-
nism. Very early in the history of the association
the decay of the useful old apprenticeship system
was recognized; and as a substitute for this past
method of training workmen a fund was raised by
subscription for a technical school, to be established
in New York City, to teach the science of carriage
drafting and construction. This school has been a
great success. Under able teachers a large number
of talented young men have graduated, well equipped
to take charge of the constructive department in
our factories. Thus scientifically trained foremen
and whirling machinery now very largely take the
place of the skilled workmen who formerly occupied
our benches, each working by his own methods,
carefully guarded, in which there was more of the
rule of thumb than of science.
It is fortunate for the graduate of the technical
school when, in addition to the knowledge gained
in the course of his studies, he has the inborn fac-
ulty of producing new and beautiful forms ; that
keen sense of fair proportions and graceful lines
which is the necessary qualification of a designer.
Few things fashioned by human skill are more beau-
tiful than a fine carriage ; none but a true artist in
his line is fit to determine its form, and none but an
expert mechanic, painstaking and honest, is fit to
supervise its construction. The light-weight car-
riages now required, the tremendous strain and
rough usage which they must undergo without a
sign of weakness, require the most carefully selected
stock and the most watchful care in all the details
of mechanical arrangement.
The volume of business done by all the carriage-
makers in the country is clearly shown by the last
census report, from which the following figures are
taken :
AMERICAN CARRIAGE AND WAGON TRADE.
4,571
62,594
Number of establishments . .
Number of workmen employed ^
Number of all other employees 56,525
Officers, firm-members, and clerks 6,069
Capital employed $93,455,257
Miscellaneous expenses 5,495,271
Wages of workmen 34,687,827
Wages of other employees 28,972,401
Wages of officers, firm-members, and clerks . . . 5,715,426
Value of all products 102,680,341
Cost of materials 46,022,769
Value of road carts 6,074, ' 73
Value of buggies 27,345,546
Other light carriages 13,109,982
Broughams, coaches, Victorias, etc 4,279,738
Other heavy carriages 2,973,898
Light and heavy spring wagons, etc 12,640,339
Farm wagons and carts 14,146,700
Repairing 18,610,366
It will be seen from the above figures that the
value of buggies manufactured was double that of
any other style of carriage or wagon, and more than
one fourth of the total product.
That the volume of business done in the carriage
trade at the present time is fully equal to the wants
of the community is evident from the exceedingly
sharp competition among builders and dealers. The
business, however, will certainly continue to grow
as fast as the increased capacity of the purchasing
class can be made to absorb the increased product.
Given that prosperity which our country and her
beneficent institutions insure us, if wisdom rules, a
continued advance will be made, a wider and wider
market will be open to us, greater novelties will be
forthcoming to tempt the lovers of new things,
greater perfection will be attained, and a greater
number of our hard-working fraternity will find good
employment with satisfactory returns.
CHAPTER LXXX
AMERICAN SAFE-WORKS
FROM the earliest period in history, the inven-
tive genius of man has been applied to the
work of providing safe receptacles for the
storage of treasure, jewels, and other valuables.
The development has not been so rapid as in some
other industrial interests, but it has kept pace with
the demands of the commercial world, and the
evolution from the strong-box to the mammoth
chilled-iron and steel vaults, absolutely fire-proof
and burglar-proof, seems to have reached the high-
est stage that science and art can impart to the
wonderful mechanism of American safe-building.
In the early days of Egypt the organization of
government had attained a point of perfection
which made its treasury an important interest, and
the moneys obtained by the tax-gatherers upon the
industries of the country were carefully guarded in
securely-built treasure-houses fastened with locks of
elaborate design and construction. From the keys
which have been found in the ruins of Thebes it
would appear that the ancient Egyptians were ac-
quainted, even at this early period, with some of
the principles which have been supposed to be dis-
tinctive in modern improvements in locks — for ex-
ample, that of tumblers which hold the bolt fast
until it has been moved by the key. Locks rudely
constructed upon this principle were also to be
found in many European communities during the
middle ages, although its use by our modern safe-
makers has been comparatively recent.
The discoveries in Pompeii and elsewhere have
shown that among the Romans locks of intricate
workmanship were known ; and in Great Britain
keys have been found which date back to the Ro-
man occupation of that country. Among the Chinese
the art of lock-making has for a long rime been well
understood, and the locks there constructed upon
the principle of the famous Bramah lock, invented
in England in 1784, were made of wood from early
times. In these the tumblers were made of different
lengths to fit the sizes of the wards in the keys.
During the middle ages chests for the safe-keep-
ing of valuables were ordinary articles of furniture
in houses. Some were very elaborately made,
strengthened with ironwork of various kinds, and
furnished with locks which were frequently deco-
rated in very artistic ways. These chests, which
were really the safes of that period, were protected
by bands of iron. The burglar's skill and cunning
had not then attained to its present perfection, and
a modern " cracksman " would laugh at the provi-
sions then made for the security of valuables. The
oaken chest, or strong-box of that time, seems to
have been considered the acme of security. In
1707 such a chest was made and used for the safe-
keeping of the crown jewels of Scotland, and when
the Royal Commissioners desired to examine them
they were obliged to force open the chest, because
no keys could be found that would open the locks,
and no " expert " could pick them ; yet they can be
picked to-day by an ordinary expert locksmith in
three or four minutes with a simple piece of bent
wire. These safes or chests were often reinforced
with iron bands and knees, and made to look more
formidable with sharp-headed spikes or similar de-
vices. No attempt seems to have been made to
construct these articles to resist fire or heat, or to
render them to any degree fire-proof, until between
1825 and 1835.
About that date the Yankee inventive genius
produced an oaken chest that was a great im-
provement on the old style, and many of the old-
time business houses in New York and Boston still
have in their offices specimens of these first efforts
of the inventive genius of America in the " fire-
proof " safe line. A body of solid oak plank three
or four inches thick, saturated with an alkali, was
covered with sheets of thin iron. Bands of iron
521
522
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
were crossed and recrossed over these plates and
secured to the body with large round-headed iron
nails. This made a very formidable-looking affair,
and with its immense key, weighing sometimes over
a pound, was considered thoroughly fire and bur-
glar-proof. As a fire-proof safe when new it would
probably stand a severe test of two or three hours.
In the great fire of 1835, which destroyed a large
portion of the lower part of New York City, hun-
dreds of these safes were shown to be worthless in
a severe conflagration.
With the advent of paper money and the com-
mencement of our modern commercial activity,
wealth began to assume a more portable form;
large values began to be possible in conveniently
small packages, and the necessity was soon made
apparent for improved methods in safe-making.
The oaken box defended by iron bars, which had
done duty as a burglar-proof safe during the last
century, began in the early years of the present
century to be replaced by boxes covered entirely
with iron. The Hall Safe and Lock Company, of
Cincinnati, have in their possession a safe formerly
used by the Marietta Bank, and made in New York
City in 1807, which is constructed of oak plank
two inches thick, bound together by iron straps, and
thickly studded with small nails. It is fastened by
an ordinary hasp and padlock.
About the year 1820 the attention of safe-manu-
facturers, mechanical engineers, and inventors was
directed toward making safes absolutely fire-proof,
for the preservation of money and valuables. The
first attempts appear to have been made in France.
The safes were made with double walls, the space
between them being filled with a non-conducting
substance, a composition. This idea was quickly
taken up in the United States, and in 1843 the first
patent was issued to Daniel Fitzgerald, who had
conducted experiments on his own account in the
same direction. Fitzgerald had been a workman
engaged in grinding plaster of Paris. A simple in-
cident had suggested to his mind an improvement
in the construction of fire-proof safes. Being in the
habit of washing his hands daily in a tin basin, he
one day desired to warm the water, and, placing
the basin over the fire, discovered that it did not
heat rapidly; and, after stirring the fire, he threw
out the water, and discovered that a thin scale of
plaster of Paris had gradually formed in the bottom
of the basin. This he scraped out, and found that
the water heated rapidly. He concluded that if a
safe were filled with plaster of Paris it would be
a good protection from fire, and he immediately
secured a patent and began the manufacture of the
first so-called Salamander Safes.
In a short time, as the business grew, he needed
much more capital, and Mr. Azor S. Marvin was
induced to engage in the business with him. A few
years later Mr. Silas C. Herring also secured a right
to manufacture safes under this patent. Mr. Fitz-
gerald's patent was subsequently assigned to B. J.
Wilder, and the safes manufactured under it were
known as the " Wilder Patent." In these the space
between the walls of the safe was left vacant,
reliance being placed upon the non-conducting
properties of the air thus enclosed to preserve the
contents from heat. Other substances, which had
also a high non-conducting power, were proposed
for filling the space left between the walls, and
numerous patents were granted for various com-
pounds.
But other inventors were also at work upon the
problem of fire-proof safes, and asbestos, mixed with
plaster of Paris, clay, alum, fire-clay, mica, and chalk
were each used with effect, and were proclaimed in
turn absolutely fire-proof. The intense heat, how-
ever, to which safes have been subjected has demon-
strated that none of these fillings was absolutely
safe. Another plan, invented by Prof. A. K. Eaton,
of New York, consisted in using pure alumina, and
he also introduced the idea of using steam as a non-
conductor. Experiments showed that as long as
any steam was produced no excessive heat reached
the articles in the safe ; but the objection to this is
found in the dampness to which the contents of the
safe are subjected.
Protection against burglars is in modern days re-
garded as of very great importance in the building
of safes. The modern burglar has the thorough
experience of a practical mechanic, together with a
full comprehension of the details and theory of safe-
making. During the present century great atten-
tion has been given both to lock-making and lock-
picking. The invention of the Bramah lock was
regarded as a step of great importance. The lock
abandoned the use of wards, and other improve-
ments introduced into its mechanism enabled it for
a long time to retain its reputation as a lock that
could not be picked. It was finally picked, how-
ever, in 1851, by a Mr. Hobbs, by what is known as
the "tentative process." Subsequently the work
of picking the lock became comparatively easy.
The next important lock invented was Chubb's,
which was introduced in England in 1818. This
was also picked with ease by Mr. Hobbs. A lock
made by Mr. Pyes was placed in the London exhi-
WILI.IS B. MARVIN.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
bition in 1851, but it was picked by Linus Yale, Jr.,
di Philadelphia, by what he called the "impression
process." The father of Mr. Yale then patented a
lock which was regarded as absolutely safe, but it
finally picked by his son. The inventors per-
severed, however, and the modern lock-combinations
are such as to defy the skill of the most accomplished
or ingenious burglar, while the construction other-
wise renders them absolutely fire-proof. The testi-
mony of E. B. Denison, the celebrated lock-maker
of London, demonstrates the superiority of Ameri-
can-made safes over those produced anywhere in
the world. He says: "The American safes are
vastly superior to any we have ever seen made in
England; and on the whole the United States are
evidently far ahead of us in the manufacture of both
good and cheap locks."
The method of construction used in the modem
safes makes them impregnable to any appliance in
use by the most expert burglars. The doors, which
are generally the weak point of a safe, are con-
structed of plates so dovetailed, and fitting corre-
spondingly into the jambs, that the wedge, the most
effective implement used by the burglar, is powerless
against them, while the accuracy with which they
fit offers no opportunity for any crevice into which
nitro-glycerine or any other explosive fluid or sub-
stance can be introduced. The body of the safe
being also constructed of alternate plates of iron,
welded iron, and steel, carbonized and decarbonized
steel, and crystal steel, fastened together by bolts
from the inside, effectively prevents them from being
forced by sledge-hammers, jimmies, jackscrews, or
other mechanical devices. Their fire-proof qualities
are also secured by fillings of concrete which make
them absolutely proof against fire and damp.
But in addition to the building of safes much at-
tention has been paid in recent years to the manu-
facture of burglar-proof bank vaults and chests.
Among the specialties employed in their construc-
tion is a material made from Franklinite ore found
in Sussex County, N. J., which possesses a hardness
exceeding that of the finest tempered steel. This
metal, often presenting the appearance of crystal-
lized silver, is so interwoven with wrought-iron rods
that it can be battered until bent without being
broken, and at the same time the combination of
wrought and crystallized iron is such that, in any at-
tempt to drill, the tool will pierce the soft metal faster
than the hard, and, consequently, working sideways,
will soon have its point fractured and broken off.
A first-class banker's chest consists of three casings
of one-fourth-inch wrought iron with angle corners, a
casing of one- fourth-inch steel bars, a casing of one-
fourth-inch wrought bars, with angle of solid corners,
a casing of patent crystallized iron two inches thick,
with wrought-iron rods cast through it, and project-
ing rivets on each side, so that the entire thickness
is three and one fourth inches. Such a safe will not
only overcome any drill or cutting-tool, but is also a
restraint against sledging or battering, which has
always been the weak point in safes in which hard-
ened metal has formed an integral part. Many of
the vaults in use in this city are receptacles for
enormous sums of money and other valuables, the
safety of which is rendered absolutely secure by the
modern methods employed in their construction.
The safety of hundreds of millions of treasure against
the depredations of the most expert burglars, and
also from loss by fire, is thus assured. One of
the most important factors in securing absolute
safety for valuables in bank safes and vaults has
been the introduction of the combination-locks, the
evolution of the " tumbler " principle already al-
luded to. The mechanism in these locks exhibits
the highest skill. Each one is practically unlimited
in the number of combinations upon which it may
be set, thus rendering it absolutely impossible for
any person, other than the one who knows the com-
bination, to open it. In recent years a valuable
addition has been introduced in the shape of chro-
nometer or time locks. The mechanism and adjust-
ment of these are as fine as the work of the most
expertly constructed watch. Three movements are
usually inclosed in a single case, so that, should one
or even two of them get out of order, the remaining
one would still unlock the ponderous doors at the
hour appointed for them to be opened. Bank offi-
cers have in the past been compelled in some in-
stances to unlock the door of a safe at the point
of a burglar's revolver, under threat of death, but
the chronometer combination has effectually pre-
vented robbery in that way, as no human agency
can open the doors of the safe or vault until the
time on which it is set has expired.
The construction of the modern office building of
fifteen or twenty stories has induced safe-manufac-
turers to build the framework of safes much thicker
than was formerly the case, and to make use of
greater quantities of fire-proof filling, so that the safes
may withstand a fall from an upper floor to the
cellar, and also the crushing weight of heavy walls
and machinery.
There are at present about ten leading firms and
corporations in the United States engaged in the
manufacture of safes, vaults, etc. They give em-
524
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ployment not only to mechanics, who are mostly of
a very high class in the factories, but, in addition,
large numbers of salesmen, draughtsmen, and others
are connected with the work, aggregating upward of
5000 people, and producing annually in the neigh-
borhood of $10,000,000 worth of work. The
capital invested in machinery, plants, etc., for the
production of this work approximates $6,000,000.
Some of the principal manufacturing companies
are located in the West, principally in Cincinnati :
those include the Hall Safe and Lock Works, the
Mosler Safe Company, the Diebold Safe Company;
and in the East the Herring Safe Company and
the Marvin Safe Company of New York, and the
Farrel Safe Works and Remington Safe Works of
Philadelphia. These companies all manufacture
first-class work, and it is due to their energy and
business activity that the American safe is the stan-
dard for the entire world. No foreign safes are
imported to this country.
The immense superiority of the American over
the European safes was shown in the great safe test
at the Paris Exposition in 1867. An American safe
was pitted against an English safe of one of the
leading manufacturers of that country ; the Yankee
workman opened the English safe in less than three
hours, while it took the Europeans more than dou-
ble that time to open the American safe.
At the Centennial Exposition in 1876, the differ-
ence in the qualities and improvements shown in
the American safes over the European exhibits was
very marked, while the European safes were found
to be but slightly in advance of those produced
soon after the World's Fair in London, in 1850, and
were about on a par with the safes produced in the
United States twenty-five years previous. The
American safes, in both fire-proof qualities and bur-
glar-resisting devices and construction, were so far
superior to all others that the foreign safes did not
receive a single medal, or even honorable mention.
Naturally the recognized security offered by Amer-
ican safes opens the market of the world to the
products of this important branch of industry. Not
only throughout Great Britain and her colonial de-
pendencies, but throughout Europe, Asia, Africa,
and Mexico, the American safe- manufacturer finds
customers ; and great as is the volume of the trade
to-day, the possibilities of the future cannot be fore-
shadowed with anything approaching accuracy, al-
though its steady growth is assured.
CHAPTER LXXXI
AMERICAN SEWING-MACHINES
THE American sewing-machine is the sewing-
machine of the world. Not only is this
true as to the machines used for domestic
purposes, but of machines used in manufacturing for
stitching all kinds of textile fabrics and leather, in-
cluding special machines for working buttonholes,
eyelets, overseaming, embroidery, etc. It is, how-
ever, proper, in writing a brief history of the incep-
tion and invention of the sewing-machine from its
beginning down to the advent of the first American
sewing-machines which were of practical value as an
article of commerce and trade, that we refer to what
had been done in other countries in the way of in-
venting and producing sewing-machines.
The first sewing-machine of official record is that
of Thomas Saint, on which a patent was granted in
England, July 17, 1790. It is not known whether
more than an experimental machine was made ; only
the drawings on file in the English Patent Office, to-
gether with a full description of the machine in the
specifications of the patent, are in evidence to show
to what extent success was attained. Enough is
shown in the drawings and description to demon-
strate that it corresponded more nearly to the form
and mechanical arrangement of the first successful
American productions of 1850 than did any of the
several machines made during the intervening time.
Knight says in his " Mechanical Dictionary " : "The
overhanging arm, vertically reciprocating needle, con-
tinuous thread, and automatic feed, were patented
in England fifty years before Greenough's [machine]
and sixty years before the Singer attained its excel-
lence." This indicates that subsequent inventors
from 1790 to 1850 either did not have knowledge of
Saint's invention or did not choose to profit by it.
The first sewing-machine of official record that was
put into operation is that of Barthle'my Thimonnier,
patented in France in 1 830. This machine was so
far a success that in 1841, it is said, eighty of them
were made, and used in making clothing for the
French army, and were destroyed by a mob, as had
been the Jacquard loom and other labor-saving
machines years before. Thimonnier made another
attempt in 1 848 to introduce his machines in France,
and a mob again defeated his efforts. He took out
a patent in the United States, September 3, 1850,
but his machine had no important features that were
of value as compared with the sewing-machines of
that date.
Several patents on sewing-machines were taken
out in England and the United States up to the year
1846, but none of them contained the essential fea-
tures necessary for success. September 10, 1846,
Elias Howe, Jr., took out a patent in the United
States on a machine that had new and important
features, and that placed his name among the great
inventors of this age of inventions. Prior to Howe
all the sewing-machines patented made the chain
or tambour stitch, or attempted to imitate sewing by
hand, making what might be called the backstitch.
They used a short thread with a common needle
that was passed through the material and pulled
out with pincers, or else a needle with an eye in
the center, passing it through the material and
making the same stitch as is common to workers
in leather.
The chain-stitch was produced by Saint, Thimon-
nier, and others, and might properly be called a
knitted stitch, as they used a continuous thread
direct from the ordinary spool, and the stitch was
formed the same as in knitting. Howe used an
eye-pointed needle and a shuttle, passing the shuttle
through a loop of the needle-thread and producing
a lock-stitch alike on both sides of the material, with
the lock or intertwining loops of the two threads
pulled to the center ; this might very appropriately
be called a woven stitch in contradistinction to the
chain or knitted stitch.
There is a general impression that Howe invented
the eye-pointed needle, but this is not true. The
525
526
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
eye-pointed needle was invented many years before,
and was extensively used in France for the purpose
of working by hand, in a chain-stitch, the name of
the manufacturer on the ends of broadcloths. It
was also used in chain-stitch sewing-machines.
Howe's invention consisted of the combination
of the eye-pointed needle with a shuttle for forming
a stitch, and an intermittent feed for holding and car-
rying the material forward as each stitch is formed.
The mechanical device for the feed was called the
" baster-plate," and the length of the seam sewed at
one operation was determined by the length of this
plate. The material to be sewed was hung by pins
to the "baster-plate " in an upright position, and if
the seam to be sewed was of greater length than the
plate it was necessary to rehang it on the plate, which
was moved back to position in the same manner as
a log is carried back and forth in a saw-mill.
It is not claimed that any machines made after the
model of the original Howe machine were ever put
into practical use. Mr. Howe, in his application for
an extension of his patent, only claims to have made
three machines, one being the model deposited in
the United States Patent Office, and the other two
he retained and claims to have used in sewing the
seams for two suits of clothes, one for himself and
the other for Mr. Fisher, the assignee of one half of
the patent. Mr. Howe also relates that, not meet-
ing with any success in obtaining adequate capital
in this country, he sold the other half of his patent
to his father for $1000, and went to England, where
his right for a patent had been sold to William
Thomas for ^250. He engaged to work for Mr.
Thomas at £3 per week in perfecting and adapt-
ing the machine for work in the corset factory of
Mr. Thomas, in London. He was not successful in
this, and was arrested for debt and took the " poor
debtor's oath." Through the kindness of the cap-
tain of an American packet he was enabled to send
his wife and children back to the United States.
Later he took for himself steerage passage for Bos-
ton, where he found that sewing-machines had been
made during his absence that infringed his patent.
He then obtained a reconveyance of the half -interest
previously conveyed to his father, and commenced
suits to enforce his rights in Boston and New York.
In the latter city he found I. M. Singer & Company
making and selling machines, they setting up in the
courts, in justification of their right to make machines,
the claims of Walter Hunt, who established the fact
that he made a sewing-machine with an eye-pointed
needle and a shuttle that made the lock-stitch pre-
vious to the year 1834, but failed to apply for a pat-
ent on it or to produce a machine made at that
time.
Mr. Howe further says that the suits brought by
him in New York were fought with the utmost vigor
and pertinacity by I. M. Singer & Company ; but the
courts decided that Hunt's invention was never com-
pleted in the sense of the patent law and did not
in any way anticipate the patent granted to Howe.
I. M. Singer & Company submitted to the decree of
the court, and July i, 1854, took out a license under
the Howe patent, and paid him $i 5,000 in settlement
of license on machines made and sold prior to that
time. Howe then purchased the other half-interest
of his patent, and his success in the Singer suit
made it comparatively easy for the enforcement of
his legal rights with others. He obtained an exten-
sion of his patent in 1860 for seven years, and again
applied for another extension in 1867, setting up
that he had received only $1,185,000, that his in-
vention was of incalculable value to the public, and
that he should receive at least $150,000,000 for it.
His second application was very properly denied.
In 1853 Amasa B. Howe, an elder brother of
Elias Howe, Jr., commenced the manufacture of
sewing-machines under a license from his brother
Elias, in which he infringed the Bachelder, Wilson,
and Singer patents. Under subsequent arrangements
he obtained the right to use those patents, and the
machines were called the " Howe sewing-machine."
This gave an erroneous impression to the general
public as to what was really the original Howe sew-
ing-machine. The facts in regard to it came out in
after years, when Elias Howe, Jr., made an attempt
to manufacture sewing-machines that were very like
those made by Amasa B. Howe, and endeavored to
appropriate the name of Howe as a trade name for
the machines he manufactured. A suit brought by
Amasa to establish his right to the word " Howe "
as a trade name proved successful, the decision of
the court being that Amasa B. Howe was the ori-
ginal inventor and proprietor of the trade-mark of
" Howe " as applied to sewing-machines.
The next invention patented that covers a funda-
mental and important feature was that of John
Bachelder, patented May 8, 1849. Bachelder's ma-
chine was the first to embody the horizontal table
with a continuous feeding device that would sew any
length of seam. His invention consisted of an endless
leather belt set with small steel points projecting up
through the horizontal table and penetrating the ma-
terial to be sewed, carrying it along intermittently at
a proper time to meet the action of the needle.
To Allen B. Wilson must be awarded the highest
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
827
meed of praise as an inventor, and for the ingenuity
displayed in constructing and improving the sewing-
machine. His patent of November 1 2, 1850, covered
the invention of the moving feed-bar, with teeth pro-
jc. ting up through the horizontal table or plate of
tin- machine, in conjunction with a presser-foot com-
ing down on the material to be sewed, and holding
it in position for the action of the feed-bar. His
patents of August 12, 1851, and June 15, 1852, for
improvement in a feeding device, and for a revolv-
ing hook for passing the upper thread around the
bobbin containing the under thread, gave to the
world a feed that would admit the sewing of a
curved seam, which has become almost universal in
the sewing-machine, while the revolving hook is a
marvelous piece of ingenuity and mechanical skill.
It is to be regretted that Wilson did not receive
an adequate reward for his great inventions. In his
petition to Congress in 1874 for a second extension
of the three above-named patents he stated that he
did not receive anything above his expenses during
the fourteen-year term of his original patent; that
owing to his impecunious condition he was obliged
to sell a half-interest for $200 ; that for the seven-
year term of the extension he had only received
$137,000; and that he had no stock or interest in
any company manufacturing sewing-machines at that
date ; which statements were verified by his original
partner.
The sewing-machine constructed by Allen B. Wil-
son was small and light, and only adapted for domes-
tic purposes in the ordinary sewing for a family, or
on very light fabrics in manufacturing. It used a
vibratory arm for carrying the eye-pointed needle,
which was curved to meet the arc of the circle de-
scribed by the motion of the arm.
In 1873 the Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing
Company produced its first machine, with horizontal
bed and overhanging arm attached thereto, using a
needle-bar with perpendicular action and carrying
a straight needle. Its vibratory arm was actuated
by a cylinder-cam on the shaft under the table of the
machine. This defective and cumbersome mechan-
ism was not a success and was superseded by a rock-
shaft in the overhanging arm. This was again dis-
placed by substituting the revolving shaft, as used in
the original Singer machine, and giving motion to
the needle-bar and the upper thread " take-up " in
the same manner as applied on the Singer machines
at the present day.
In 1850 Mr. Isaac M. Singer visited Boston for the
purpose of promoting the manufacture of a machine
that he had invented for carving wood. His atten-
tion was there called to a sewing-machine made by
Blodgett & Lerow, after the model of the Howe
machine. That night he worked out in his mind a
machine differing materially in shape, form, and
mechanical construction, and made a rough draft of
his conception, showing its advantages over the plan
of construction of the first and only sewing-machine
he had ever seen or heard of.
The feasibility of his plans being apparent to Mr.
Orson C. Phelps, the owner of the machine-shop, and
to Mr. George B. Zieber, who had previously been
interested in the machine for carving, an agreement
was entered into by which Singer was to furnish the
plans, Phelps to do the work in his shop, and Zieber
to put in $40 in money to pay for materials and ex-
penses. It is a matter of well-authenticated history
that the first machine was made in eleven days, and
that " it went to work at once," and was the most
perfectly organized sewing-machine for practical use
that had been made up to that time.
Thus was created a sewing-machine that in its
size and the mechanical construction of its arm and
table serves as model for ninety-five per cent, of all
the sewing-machines that are being made through-
out the world to-day. It had the horizontal table,
with a continuous feeding device coming up through
an aperture in the table; an overhanging arm at-
tached to the table ; a horizontal shaft in the arm
giving motion to a needle-bar acting perpendicularly
and carrying a straight eye-pointed needle ; a hori-
zontal shaft under the table of the machine, and di-
rectly connected with and driven by the upper shaft,
giving proper motion for moving the shuttle back
and forward, and an intermittent motion to the feed-
wheel, which was an improvement over the Bachelder
feed, as it was constructed of iron, with a corrugated
surface that did not penetrate the fabric or injure
its surface. It also had a presser-foot to hold the
fabric down to the feed-wheel, which had a yielding
spring that would permit of passage over seams, or
would sew different thicknesses without requiring
any change in its adjustment. This important fea-
ture had not been shown in any other machine up
to that time. The yielding spring presser-foot was
claimed by Mr. Singer in his original application for
a patent on a sewing-machine ; but this claim was
disallowed because there was a question as to who
was the first to invent this important feature, although
the idea was undoubtedly original with Singer.
The construction of the original Singer machine,
with its straight horizontal shaft in the overhang-
ing arm, easily admitted enlargement and extension,
thus gaining increased space for handling the work.
528
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
As an indication of its capabilities in this respect it
may be stated that at this time there are over forty
distinct classes of machines made by The Singer
Manufacturing Company, that vary in size and ca-
pacity from the smallest for domestic purposes to a
machine having a bed eighteen feet in length and
capable of stitching canvas belting of any practica-
ble width and up to one and one half inches in
thickness. Mr. Singer did not confine his efforts to
his original machine and the lock-stitch, but in 1854
he invented a " latch underneedle," and constructed
a machine making the single-thread chain-stitch;
and the same year he produced a machine for em-
broidering, using two threads and making a double-
thread chain-stitch, with a very ingenious mechan-
ism for throwing another thread back and forth in
front of the needle and producing an ornamental
fringe.
In 1856 he brought out a machine making the
lock-stitch, but discarded the wheel-feed and used
the " Wilson four-motion feed " ; so that the name of
Singer, as applied to sewing-machines, did not des-
ignate any particular type of machine, or a machine
making any one kind of stitch, or using either of
the well-known feeding devices. He also turned
his attention to making attachments for the sewing-
machine, in the way of binders, rufflers, etc.
The machines of prior date to Singer, and many
of them for a long time after, used either a vibratory
arm and a curved needle or a vibratory arm and a
needle-bar carrying a straight needle. It is obvious
that a machine constructed on either of these prin-
ciples could not be enlarged without destroying its
effectiveness. The shorter the arm, the greater the
curve of the needle, and the more contracted the
space for turning and handling the work ; the longer
the arm, the more liability to spring and affect the
proper action of the needle, and the more power re-
quired to propel the machine and drive the needle
through the material to be sewed.
We have now reached a period where the inven-
tors had discovered the essential features of a sewing-
machine and made them mechanically practicable.
The time had arrived for active and practical busi-
ness men to take hold of it and make the discovery
of value to the world at large. A new industry had
sprung into existence, the product of which was not
only to be of great importance in itself, but was also
to work a revolution in many branches of manufac-
turing industry.
The men who came to the front and duly appreci- "
ated the magnitude of the prospective business were
Mr. Nathaniel Wheeler of the Wheeler & Wilson
Company, Mr. Orlando B. Potter of the Grover &
Baker Company, and Mr. Edward Clark of I. M.
Singer & Company. Mr. Nathaniel Wheeler became
a partner of Allen B. Wilson in 1851. Mr. Wheeler
brought with him energy and ambition that soon
developed into superior business ability. This, with
fine presence and engaging manners, enabled him to
obtain financial aid from some of the leading capi-
talists of Connecticut, his native State. His great
tact in the way of bringing before the public, by ad-
vertisements and otherwise, the fact that sewing by
machinery could be practically accomplished in the
household gave the invention of Wilson an enormous
sale, and its manufacture at Bridgeport, Conn., soon
became one of the most important manufacturing
industries in that city.
Mr. Wheeler became prominent in banking and
other business interests, and received political honors
from both city and State. He was president and
general manager of the Wheeler & Wilson Manufac-
turing Company from its organization down to the
date of his decease, in January, 1894.
Mr. Orlando B. Potter was president of the Grover
& Baker Sewing- Machine Company, a corporation
organized under the laws of Massachusetts, with its
factory located at Boston. Mr. Potter, however,
recognized the fact that New York was the metropo-
lis, and the proper place for him to establish himself
and the headquarters of his company.
The inventions of William O. Grover and William
E. Baker were of prime importance in some of the
sewing-machines of early date, but the great feature
was the " Grover & Baker stitch." It was formed
by interlocking the upper and lower threads on the
under side of the material, and producing on the
knitting principle a double chain-stitch. This com-
pany also made a few machines using a shuttle
and making the regular lock-stitch ; but Mr. Potter
became imbued with the belief that the Grover &
Baker stitch would be the stitch universally used in
family sewing and nearly every branch of manufac-
ture, and he apparently directed his efforts to that
end. That he had committed an error became evi-
dent, as the sales of the Grover & Baker machines
decreased, while those making the lock-stitch were
increasing in much greater proportion.
In 1875 Mr. Potter sold out the business and all
the effects of the Grover & Baker Sewing-Machine
Company to a company making lock-stitch sewing-
machines. The demand for the Grover & Baker
machines became so small that their manufacture
soon ceased, and the name of the Grover & Baker
machine and stitch soon passed out of existence.
FREDERICK G. BOURNE.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OK AMERICAN COMMERCE
The merits of a double chain-stitch are in its elas-
ticity, and in using the under thread direct from
the commercial spool without rewinding. Machines
making a similar stitch have been made since that
time for use in the manufacture of knit goods, bags,
etc., where an elastic seam is required, and the stitch
is also used in machines made by the Singer Company
for sewing the seams in carpets.
After Mr. Potter's graceful retirement from the
sewing-machine business he showed his faith in the
progress and growth of his adopted city, New York,
by large investments in real estate. He became in-
terested in politics, being twice elected to Congress,
where he was very prominent and an important mem-
ber of some of its leading committees.
The complex and important litigation of the early
days of the sewing-machine required the employ-
ment of the very best legal talent of that period ; and
soon after the establishment of the business of I. M.
Singer & Company in New York, in the early part
of 1851, they employed Messrs. Jordan & Clark as
their attorneys and counselors. The senior mem-
ber of that firm, Ambrose L. Jordan, was at that
time attorney-general of the State of New York,
and the affairs of that office so engrossed his atten-
tion that the junior partner, Edward Clark, took in
charge the new clients. They were unable to pay
the fees and costs of the extensive litigation in which
they were involved, and Mr. Clark accepted an in-
terest in the firm to secure payment for his services
and the advances he had made. Mr. Singer recog-
nized the legal ability and business sagacity of Mr.
Clark, and proposed that they should buy out the in-
terest of the other partners, Mr. Clark taking charge
of the legal and financial branch of the business,
while Mr. Singer gave his attention to the manufactur-
ing and improving of the sewing-machine. In March,
1852, they consummated this arrangement ; and from
that time up to the incorporation of The Singer Manu-
facturing Company, in April, 1863, Mr. Clark had
charge of the financial and commercial branch of the
business, and directed the affairs in litigation. That
he conducted both of these important parts of the
business with success is well attested by the remark-
able growth of the first and the well-protected inter-
est of the latter.
Mr. Clark at an early day appears to have fully
comprehended the value of the sewing-machine as an
article of trade and commerce. His policy always
contemplated the diffusion of the business in every
direction, following the most direct method of plac-
ing its products in the hands of the consumer. He
not only established agencies throughout the United
States, which were conducted by agents employed
under salaries, but he gradually extended a system
of agencies throughout Europe and all other parts
of the civilized world. In 1856 he originated and
inaugurated the system of selling sewing-machines
on the renting or instalment plan, and this method
has been adopted and extended throughout the
offices of the company all over the world. This
system has been extended by others to the sale of
nearly every article of merchandise, from a family
Bible to a railway-car, and has proved of inestimable
benefit to mankind.
Mr. Clark continued to take an active interest in
the business of The Singer Manufacturing Company,
holding the office of president of the company from
1876 down to the day of his decease, in 1882. He
was a large owner of real estate in the city of New
York, being one of the first to construct a building
for residences on the French system. Among the
notable buildings of this class erected . •/ him are the
"Dakota" and the "Van Corlear."
Mr. Clark was of a very modest and retiring dis-
position, and never permitted himself to be brought
prominently before the public ; and although he was
at the head of one of the largest mercantile enter-
prises in the world, his natural tendency for associa-
tion was with the members of his profession. If
occasion called he had an easy flow of rhetoric, and
with a pen his diction was pure, terse, and to the point.
These qualities, with clear logical reasoning on legal
questions, and an inherent love of equity, would have
insured him high standing had he continued in active
practice at the bar, or he would have graced with
ornate dignity the bench of a court of last resort.
After the validity of the patent of Elias Howe,
Jr., had been fully established, he commenced a
system of licenses to manufacturers of sewing-
machines, demanding the exorbitant price of $25 on
each machine, without any regard to its merits. In
his application for a second extension of his patent
he states that his first license was granted May 18,
1853, and that up to July, 1854, he had granted
fifteen licenses " for the general manufacture and
sale of sewing-machines." As Howe's imperfect
and impractical models did not contain the features
essential to practical sewing-machines, the result of
operation under his licenses was suits and counter-
suits by the owners of the more important patents,
and great distrust and unrest on the part of all pur-
chasers of sewing-machines.
In 1856 the owners and controllers of the
Bachelder, Wilson, and other fundamental patents
brought about a coalition, in which they included
530
ONE HUNDRKD YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Elias Howe, the Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing
Company, the Grover & Baker Sewing-Machine
Company, and I. M. Singer & Company ; thus form-
ing the famous " sewing-machine combination " in
which were pooled all the patents of the essential
features of the sewing-machine in such a way as to
protect the interest of each of its members in an
equitable manner, and enable other manufacturers
to continue in the business by the payment of only
one license-fee to the combination. Under this
arrangement any manufacturer who had a meritori-
ous machine that was not an offensive imitation of
the machine of some other licensed manufacturer
was granted a license, the rate being uniform to all,
and much less than the excessive and exorbitant
license previously demanded by Elias Howe, Jr.
There was no pooling of any other interest in
the combination excepting that of the patents ; no
restrictions were placed on the price at which the
machines were to be sold, either at wholesale or
retail, but the market was open to fair competition
on the merits of the several machines, and the result
was to be the " survival of the fittest." The com-
bination continued in existence with Mr. Howe as
a member until the expiration of the extended term
of his patent in 1867, and was then continued by
the other members in interest until the expiration of
the Bachelder patent in 1877.
No record or estimate was made as to the num-
ber of sewing-machines manufactured prior to the
date when Howe began to grant licenses, but from
that time to the termination of the combination a
report was made at stated periods by all licensed
manufacturers. Unfortunately some of the records
of the combination were destroyed by fire, and only
a partial list, showing the number of machines made
from 1853 to 1877 by each of the several manufac-
turers, can be furnished. Enough, however, is shown
in the tabular statement appended to indicate the vol-
ume of business from year to year during that period.
A PARTIAL STATEMENT FROM RECORDS OF "THE SEWING-MACHINE COMBINATION," SHOWING
NUMBER OF SEWING-MACHINES LICENSED ANNUALLY UNDER THE ELIAS HOWE PATENT.
NAME OF MANUFACTURER.
1853.
1854.
'855-
1856.
1857.
1858.
1859.
1860.
1861.
1862.
1863.
1864.
.865.
1866.
Wheeler & Wilson Mfg. Co . .
I. M. Singer & Co
799
810
756
879
1,171
883
2,210
2,564
4,591
3,630
7,978
3,594
21,306
25,102
18,556
28,202
18.106
29,778
40,062
39,157
50,132
The Singer Manufacturing Co.
t
-
,.
Grover & Baker S. M. Co. . .
A. B. Howe " " . .
657
2.034
60
I.I44
1,952
3,680
5,070
10,280
(*)
fm
(*)
Un
(*)
I
(6)
(I)
(*)
Leavitt " " ..
Ladd& Webster " " ..
28
TOO
317
268
152
73
235
'95
453
75
490
213
1,788
(*)
<*>
(*>
<*>
(*)
(*)
|
(*)
(*)
<*)
(*)
(*)
(*)
II)
Bartholf " " ..
135
55
3'
35
3'
203
747
(*)
<*>
(*)
«>
<<*>
(*)
<*
A PARTIAL STATEMENT SHOWING NUMBER OF SEWING-MACHINES LICENSED ANNUALLY
FROM 1867 TO 1876 INCLUSIVE.
NAME OF MANUFACTURER.
1867.
1868.
1869.
1870.
1871.
1872.
1873.
1874.
1875-
1876.
The Singer Manufacturing Company. . .
Wheeler & Wilson Mfg. Company
Grover & Baker Sewing-Machine Co. . .
43,053
38,055
32,999
3,638
",053
59,62,,
35,000 (a)
12,000
35,000 (a)
86,781
78,866
35,i88
19,687
45,000 (a)
127,833
83,208
57,402
35.002
75,156
181,260
128,526
50,838
39,655
134,010
219,758
174,088
52,010
42,444
145,000 (a)
232,444
119,190
36,179
21,769
90,000 (a)
241,679
92,827
20,000 (a)
20,495
35,000 (a)
249,852
103,740
15,000 (o)
21,993
25,000 (a)
262,316
108,997
'4,425
109,294
Howe Sewing-Machine Co
A. B. Howe " " .
Willcox & Gibbs Sewing. Machine Co. . .
Wilson (W. G.) " "
14,153
15,000
17,201
28,890
30,127
21,153
20,121
'5,947
I4,9°7
33,639
22,666
18,930
'5,793
I3,9'9
15,881
21,247
14,182
8,960
13,710
17,5=5
13,529
5,517
14,522
9,508
14,406
4,892
12,758
A raerican B. H. & S. M. Co
7-7?2
13,661
14,573
17,660
'7.937
2,978
Florence S. M. Co
io,534
2,692
12,000
3,000
Shaw & Clark Sewing-Machine Co
Davis " " "
8,912
13,562
11,568
10,397
7,639
4,720
4,557
18,897
11,376
49,554
11,901
4,262
6,053
16,431
8,861
40,114
7,44s
3,081
3,458
15,214
14,262
7.I8S
Fmlde & Lyon Mfg. Co. and Victor ....
/Ktna Sewing-Machine Co
Blees •' "
Klliptic " " "
2,488
2,958
3,185
2,000
3,500
',339
4,548
2,420
5,806
22,700
6,292
1,866
21,452
6,103
1,447
23,587
5,750
707
Remington Sewing-Machine Co.
Parham " " "
2,121
5,ooo
8,700
1,141
3,560
1,766
2,965
2,056
1,004
614
280
318
4,982
9,183
17,608
25,110
12,716
Bartlett Sewing-Machine Co. . .
J. G. Folsom. . ...
2,958
1,000
1,000
1,000
350
McKay Sewing-Machine Asso.
< . F. Thompson .
139
128
161
I Oi
I^eavitt Sewing- Machine Co
Goodspeed & Wyman S. M. Co
Keystone Sewing-Machine Co
1,051
1,000
771
124
Secor " " »«
Centennial " " '«
2,665
3"
217
3,430
37
4,541
i,3<>7
(a) Number estimated.
No data.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
From the beginning to the end of the combina-
tion there was an army of would-be infringers and
imitators who kept up a constant howl on any and
all occasions, claiming that the existence of the
combination tended to retard the improvement of
the sewing-machine, and that the public were the
sufferers thereby. It is now nearly twenty years
since the expiration of the last important patent on
a fundamental principle of the sewing-machine, and
it is a notable fact that two of the companies that
were members of and formed the combination in
1856 are the only manufacturers, with one or two
exceptions, that have shown any marked improve-
ment in the sewing-machine proper over those of
twenty-five years ago, or who now produce machines
that are capable of being run by steam or other
power at the high rate of speed, and doing the grade
of work, that is required in the factory use of sewing-
machines at the present day.
It may be said that the patents issued to Howe,
Bachelder, and Wilson cover all the fundamental
principles of the sewing-machine. If we divide the
various machines into two classes, the "dry thread "
and the " wax thread," it appears that the number of
patents covering all the essential elements in the
first-named class do not exceed ten, and an equal
number those in the other. Reference will be made
later to important inventions in machines using wax
thread, and only employed on leather in the manu-
facture of boots and shoes, harness, etc.
The inventive genius of the age is actively en-
gaged in the production of new developments of the
sewing-machine, and patents covering devices of
more or less utility are constantly being granted.
The annexed list shows the number of patents issued
by the United States for sewing-machines and acces-
sories, from the first to J. J. Greenough, dated
February 21, 1842, down to September 10, 1895,
the total being 7439. Of this number there were:
Sewing-machines making the chain-stitch 433
Sewing-machines making the lock-stitch 661
Sewing-machines for stitching leather 431
Feeding devices for sewing-machines 316
Machines for working buttonholes 448
Machines for sewing on buttons 33
Miscellaneous parts of sewing-machines 2,950
Attachments, rufflers, hemmers, corders, etc 1,524
Cabinet cases and tables 473
Motors : foot, hand, steam, air, and electric 170
This classification is a continuation in part of the
system adopted and used in Knight's " Mechanical
Dictionary," comprising patents on sewing-machines
issued up to March 10, 1875. It is not a complete
or accurate classification, as it enumerates each patent
only once, classifying it according to its most im-
portant feature, although it may cover several other
minor features of the sewing-machine which may
have been embodied in the same patent. For in-
stance, the original Howe patent covers the combi-
nation of the eye-pointed needle and the shuttle for
forming the stitch, and also the very important
device for feeding the material to meet the proper
action of the needle and shuttle ; yet it is entered in
the list but once, and then simply as a sewing-
machine making the lock-stitch.
SERIAL
NUMBER.
DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF EARLY U. S. PATENTS ON SEWING-MACHINES FROM 1842 TO 1855.
NAME. INVENTION.
DAT
1842.
2,466 . . . Feb. 21 J. J. Greenough Using short thread. Needle with eye in center, pointed at both ends,
pufied through the material with pincers, and making shoemaker's
stitch.
2,982 .... March 4. .
3.389
1843.
3,672 . July 22 .
4,750 . . Sept. 10 .
5,942 . . Nov. 28 .
6,099 ...Feb. 6 . .
6,437 .. .May 8.. .
6439. . .May 8. .
6,766 Oct. 2 . . .
. . . B. W. Bean Short thread, running stitch, ordinary hand -needle, cloth crimped
into ridges for passage over the needle.
. . . G. H. Corliss " Sewing Engine." Short thread. Similar to Greenough's.
1844.
. . . J. Rodgers Running stitch. Similar to Bean's.
1846.
. . ELIAS HOWE, Jr Eye-pointed needle in combination with shuttle for under thread, con-
'timious thread from spools, lock-stitch, automatic feed the length of
taster-plate.
1848.
. . . J. A. Bradshaw Lock-stitch, reciprocating shuttle.
1849.
. . C. Morey & J. B. Johnson Chain-stitch, barbed needle.
}. S. Conant Chain-stitch.
. BACHELDER Two or more threads, chain-stitch,continuousfeedingdevice, horizontal
table, and overhanging arm.
. . .S. C. Blodgett & J. A. Lerow. . .Lock-stitch, shuttle rotating in a lateral annular race. Continuous
feed by endless rotating baster-plate.
532 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF EARLY U. S. PATENTS ON SEWING-MACHINES.— Continued.
NUMBER DATE' NAME' INVENTION.
1850.
7,296 April 16 D. M. Smith Running stitch, short thread.
7,369 May 14 O. L. Reynolds Chain-stitch.
7,622 Sept. 3 B. Thimonnier, Sr Chain-stitch.
7,659 Sept. 24 J. Bachelder Chain-stitch.
7,776 Nov. 12 A. B. WILSON Lock-stitch, vibratory shuttle feinted at both ends, reciprocating
feed-bar.
7,824 . . .Dec. 10 F. R. Robinson Short thread.
1851.
7,931. .. .Feb. ii W. O. GROVER & W. E. BAKER . Chain-stitch, two or more threads.
8,282 Aug. 5 W. H. Akins & J. D. Felthousen . Lock-stitch.
8,294. • • 'Aug. 12 1. M. SINGER Lock-stitch, feed-wheel, thread controller.
8,296. . . Aug. 12 A. B. Wilson Lock-stitch, rotary hook, for carrying upper thread around bobbin
containing under thread.
1852.
8,876 . . . April 13 1. M. Singer Lock-stitch, thread controller, and tension device.
9,041 June 15 A. B. Wilson Lock-stitch, rotary hook. Four-motion feeding bar.
9,053. • • June 22 W. O. Grover & W. E. Baker. . .Chain-stitch, two threads.
9,130 . . .July 20 C. Miller Back-stitch, vibratory shuttle.
9,338 . . Oct. 19 .... O. Avery Chain-stitch, two needles, two threads.
9,365 .... Nov. 2 C. Hodgkins Chain-stitch, two needles, two threads.
9,380 . .Nov. 2 J. G. Bradeen Short thread, running stitch.
i»S3-
9,556. . . Jan. 25 F. Palmer Feeding device.
9,592 . . .Feb. 22 W. H. Johnson Chain-stitch, two needles, two threads.
9,641 .... March 29 . . . .T. C. Thompson Lock-stitch, magnetic shuttle and race for keeping shuttle in contact
with race.
9,665 ... April 12 . . . . W. H. Johnson Cloth holder and feeding device.
9,679 . . April 19 W. Wickersham Sewing leather, barbed needle, two threads.
10,344 . . .Dec. 20 H. L. Sweet Binder, for binding hats, etc.
10,354 . . . Dec. 20 S. C. Blodgett Chain-stitch, two needles, two threads.
1854.
10,386. . . Jan. 3 S. C. Blodgett Hemmer, for sewing umbrellas.
10,597 March 7 W. H. Johnson Chain-stitch, one thread, needle feed.
10,609 ••• March 7 C. Miller Buttonhole, two threads.
10,615 March 7 W. Wickersham Sewing leather, chain-stitch, two needles, two parallel rows of 'stitching.
10,622 March 7 C. Hodgkins Chain-stitch, two threads.
10,728 ... April 4 W. H. Akins Cop for shuttle.
10,757 April II S. J. Parker Lock-stitch, transverse reciprocating shuttle.
10,763... .April ii J. Harrison.Jr Lock-stitch, reciprocating shuttle. Upper and under thread con-
troller.
10,842 May 2 I. M. Singer Chain-stitch, two threads ; embroidery attachment carrying third
thread.
10,875 • • • May 9 S. Coon Lock-stitch ; reciprocating shuttle, thread controller.
10,878.... May 9 H. Crosby, Jr Lock-stitch; revolving hook, thread controller.
10,879 . May 9 C. Hodgkins Feed-wheel movement.
10,880 May 9 O. Avery Chain-stitch, two needles, and two threads.
10,974. • • -May 30 1. M. Singer Chain-stitch, one thread; latch underneedle, lifting presser foot.
10,975 ••• May 31 1- M. Singer Lock-stitch, shuttle-thread controller and tension.
10,994. • • May 31 M. W. Stevens & E. G. Kinsley. . Lock-stitch, reciprocating shuttle in cylinder bed, with feed-wheel.
11,161 . June 27 .... Walter Hunt Lock-stitch, reciprocating shuttle. Needle feed.
11,240. July 4 W. Butterfield Chain-stitch, waxed thread for leather. Barbed needle, wheel feed.
11,284 July ii G. A. Leighton Chain-stitch, two threads.
11,507. . . .Aug. 8 A. Swingle Sewing leather, chain-stitch, one thread.
11,531 ...Aug. 15 S. H. Roper Short thread, backstitch.
11,571 . . Aug. 22 E. Shaw Sewing leather.
11,581. . . . Aug. 22 M. Shaw Sewing leather. Clamp-guides.
I1'! Ag' 22 T S' Turner Sewing leather. Single thread, chain-stitch.
11,615. . • • Aug. 29 ... J. B. Nichols Binder and folder.
"•SI! • • • • AuS- 29 s- s- Turner Sewing leather, wheel-feeding device.
"'fi8 ' ' 'Mpt '2 P" Shaw Wheel-feeding device.
„'„ 4 ' ' ' ttov- 7 5' ?- Ambler Lock-stitch, two needles, werseaming for felling lap-seams.
11,934. • • -Nov. 14 D. Harris Lock-stitch, upper-thread controller?
1 1,971 .... Nov. 21 C. Parham Lock-stitch, shuttle carrier.
I2,on . . .Nov. 28 T. E. Weed Thread controller.
12,014. . • .Nov. 28 ... .O. G. Boynton Binder.
"'°jl ' • • Nov. 28 T. J. W. Robertson Lock-stitch, stationary shuttle.
12,066. . . .Dec. 12 .... W. Lyon Feeding device.
I2'°74 • Dec. 12 G. W. Stedman Chain-stitch.
12,116. . .Dec. 19 A. B. Wilson Feeding device.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OK AMERICAN COMMERCE
CONDENSED CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF U. S. PATENTS ISSUED FROM 1842 TO SEPTEMBER 10,
1895, ON SEWING-MACHINES AND ACCESSORIES THERETO.
1842 to 1855 As per preceding list 70
1855 to 1867 Expiration of Howe's patent • - -
1867 to 1877 End of sewing-machine combination and expiration of Bachelder patent
1877 to 1887 ....
1887 to Sept. 10, 1895 I.J
Total.
7,439
The large number of patents indicates that inven-
tors have not been idle or neglected the sewing-
machine. But there is something required aside from
the mere invention. The inception of the original
idea is only the first essential ; it is equally necessary
to have the place and opportunity to experiment,
and to get the machine into practical operation and
test it on the class of work it is required to do.
In the larger factories of the present time the
experimental department is one of the most impor-
tant and expensive. Here the inventor's idea is
carefully wrought into form and receives preliminary
tests of its efficiency. After carrying it to what
seems to be a perfect condition, involving months,
and sometimes years, of patient toil and disappoint-
ment, the machine or attachment is then sent to
various factories engaged in the class of work for
which it is intended, and there it is put to the sever-
est tests of practical use. If its operation appears
to be satisfactory, then a special plant of machinery
is installed to make this new machine, attachment,
or part, so that it can be perfectly duplicated in any
number required. After all this expensive prepa-
ration and experiment, the invention may soon be
replaced by something better and be abandoned.
Notable instances of this are shown in the develop-
ment of the Goodyear machine for stitching soles to
shoes. It was a matter of several years of devoted
labor before the inventors succeeded in getting this
machine to perform satisfactory work, and within
the past year improvements have been made that
render a change from the old to the new machines
desirable.
The same can be said of the latest production of
the Singer Company for sewing breadths of carpet
together. The older machine is propelled by hand-
power, and the operator walks along by the side of
the distended breadths, working the machine, and
using some skill and labor in getting the carpet
properly matched and stretched. The new machine
is operated by mechanical power, and is constructed
so as to hold the carpet in position by means of
clamps, that also assist in matching the figures prop-
erly, and then stretch it so that it will lay perfectly
fiat on the floor after it is sewed. The little sewing-
machine, which passes along on a track in proper
position to do the sewing, is propelled by electric or
other power. It starts and stops by means of auto-
matic devices that work in conjunction with the
clamps that match and hold the carpet in position.
When it arrives at the end of the seam it unlocks
itself from the forward motor-power and grasps
another, that takes it quickly back to place of be-
ginning. The production of the hand-machine is
equal to that of eight or ten hand-sewers ; but the
new power-machine has a capacity eight or ten times
greater than the hand-machine, and one operator
can handle the increased quantity of carpet with
greater ease and less labor. There is no royalty on
the product of this machine, but it is sold outright,
as are all machines made by the Singer Company.
Under the title of " motor " are classed devices
for driving a sewing-machine by hand and foot
power, and engines to be attached to the machine
and propelled by water, steam, air, and electricity.
The sewing-machines prior to Singer had no arrange-
ment for applying power for driving them except
the common hand-crank. This required the use of
the right hand, and only the left hand could be used
for arranging and guiding the material to be sewed.
The machines were put on a bench or table of home
construction. Singer, in traveling about exhibiting
his original machine, utilized the box in which it was
packed for shipment as a table, and conceived the
idea of using a treadle similar to that employed on
the old spinning-wheel, and having a pitman attached
to the handle on the driving-gear to assist him in
working the machine. He used an ordinary door-
hinge as a fulcrum for the treadle, which was longer
than the depth of the box, and projected therefrom.
He therefore placed the hinge about where the in-
step of the foot would be, and attached the other
half of the hinge to the box, and thus found that he
had a rocking motion on the treadle that aided in
securing uniform motion to the machine. He soon
discovered that, with the addition of a balance-wheel
on the upper shaft for increasing the momentum
when the machine was once in motion, he could run
it by foot-power with his rocking treadle, operated
by heel-and-toe motion, and so have the use of both
534
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
hands for guiding and arranging the material. This
was a great gain in utilizing the machine, and he
soon after produced an iron stand having a rocking
treadle constructed for the use of both feet. Mr.
Singer did not realize that he had made a great and
important discovery, and failed to apply for a pat-
ent. He was very much chagrined after having
used the invention for two years and thus debarring
himself from a patent, to be informed of his over-
sight by a rival manufacturer.
Many devices have been made for driving the
sewing-machine by foot-power since that time, the
latest being the revolving treadle with the bicycle
movement; but none of them have been as good
as the rocking treadle. Backus, in 1874, made a
water-motor that had some sale ; Ericsson made an
air-engine in the same year ; and a number of small
steam-engines and a great many devices using
springs, weights, etc., have been tried, but no effi-
cient motor has been successfully put on the market
until the development of the use of electricity for
power. The " Diehl electric sewing-machine motor "
can be directly connected to the main shaft of a
sewing-machine, and is a great success on account
of its convenience, compactness, and effectiveness.
In its smallest form, for driving individual machines,
the field-magnet is secured to the arm of the machine,
the armature being carried inside a brass wheel
which acts as a balance-wheel. The rheostat is at-
tached to the ordinary foot-power table or cabinet
case, and is connected by a pitman with the treadle,
so that the machine may be started and stopped and
the speed regulated as desired by pressing the foot
on the treadle. The versatile inventor of this motor
has made a notable demonstration of the uses of
electricity by applying it to the operation of a sew-
ing-machine drop-cabinet and its contents for the
purpose of public exhibition. The cabinet stood in
a show-window on Broadway, and, apparently of its
own volition, the cover of the case opened, the
sewing-machine was elevated from its receptacle
under the table, the doors to this receptacle were
folded back, and the machine began operation at a
high rate of speed. After a few minutes this oper-
ation ceased, the machine descended to its former
position, the cabinet was fully closed, and became
an elegant and useful table, appropriate to the most
ornate furnishings.
For the factory operation of sewing-machines
there are ingenious devices for their stable support
on tables which are made in sections, carrying the
shafting, and so arranged as to be readily con-
nected in longer lengths as desired, and adjusta-
ble to any unevenness of floor. These tables are
made for the operation of one or of two rows of
machines from one line of shafting, which is so
carried beneath the tables that it is easily adjusted.
The tables have a thick wooden top that may be
entirely flat, or it can be provided with convenient
work-holding troughs. In point of convenience,
cleanliness, safety, and economy these tables leave
nothing to be desired, for they seem to satisfy all
requirements in these respects. In the matter of
power transmission from the shaft to the machine
there are several devices to enable the instant stop-
ping and starting of the machines. The use of
electricity has demonstrated the feasibility of at-
taching the electric motor directly to a shaft for
transmitting power at the point where it is needed.
Much economy is gained by this method over the
old system of successive countershafting and belting,
with its dangers, its expense, and the loss of efficiency.
The ideal system will have been reached when the
motor is attached to the head of each sewing-ma-
chine, so that all objects intervening between the
source and the subject of power, other than the wire
for the electric current, can be dispensed with.
The reports to "the sewing-machine combina-
tion " of the sales of sewing-machines during the
four years 1873-76 show a total of 2,303,941, the
average for each year being about 576,000. As
these reports terminated with the year 1876, we have
no other information as to the extent of sewing-
machine manufacture since that time than what is
indicated by the United States census reports of 1880
and 1890. The total value of production reported
at the census of 1880 for one year was $13,863,188,
the census of 1890 showing a value of $12,823,147.
These figures indicate that the average number of
machines made annually during the last twenty years
has been from 500,000 to 600,000.
A comparison of the census reports of 1880 and
1 890 shows a decrease of fifty per cent, in the num-
ber of establishments engaged in the manufacture of
sewing-machines, but also shows that the number of
persons employed was about the same, and that their
average wages increased about ten per cent, during
the decade. In 1880 the average wages were $485,
and in 1890 they were $567 per annum, thus show-
ing the class of labor employed to be of a very high
order. The reports, at the census of 1890, from
fifty-six establishments showed the employment of
9121 operatives, whose wages amounted to $5,170,-
555. The market value of their product was $12,-
823,147, so that the cost of their labor constituted
forty per cent, of this value.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The table on pp. 536 and 537, relating to exports
of sewing-machines, shows the value of such exports
to have exceeded $67,000,000 during thirty years,
1865-95, the annual average during the last ten
years exceeding $2,500,000. This sum does not,
however, adequately represent the foreign use of
the American sewing-machine, because American
establishments are extensively engaged in the manu-
facture of these machines in other countries. An
active foreign demand for the American sewing-
machine was developed during the Civil War, 1861
-65, and the value of machines exported during
the year ending June 30, 1865, was nearly $2,-
000,000. The foreign selling-price per machine
was less than the domestic price, but the high
premium on foreign exchange and the depreciated
United States currency made the business fairly
remunerative at that time. As previously stated,
the cost of labor in the manufacture of a sewing-
machine is forty per cent, of its total cost at the
present time; but during the period from 1861 to
1865 wages did not increase as fast as the value of
the currency decreased, and thus the machine could
be sold at a price in specie very much below its
value in United States currency.
Upon the gradual restoration of that currency to
its normal specie value, however, the rates of wages
were not reduced to correspond to their increased
purchasing power ; on the contrary, these rates have
steadily increased, as has been shown. Thus the
cost of the domestic manufacture became too high
to enable competition in the world's markets with
the numerous imitators who were manufacturing
in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe.
Therefore some of the American manufacturers
established factories in foreign countries, and sup-
plied them with American machinery and tools for
producing facsimiles of the machines made by these
manufacturers in the United States.
The " American system " of making all parts of
the finished product completely interchangeable has
been carried to its highest development in the
manufacture of sewing-machines, every piece being
made to gauge and tested before assembling. In
no branch of manufacture has the use of automatic
machines and tools of fine precision become more
essential than in this. The special tools required to
make the various parts of some of the many varieties
of sewing-machines often require greater inventive
talent and ingenuity than that displayed in the ma-
chine produced.
The Singer Company have continued the manu-
facture in foreign countries of duplicates of the ma-
chines made in this country ; and the factories erected
by this company at Kilbowie, near Glasgow, Scotland,
are equal in capacity to the factories at Elizabethport,
N. J., and have produced about 400,000 machines
annually during the past four years. The total
number of all the machines made by I. M. Singer
& Company and their successors, The Singer Manu-
facturing Company, from 1853 to October i, 1895,
is 13,250,000, and of this number 5,877,000 have
been made in factories located in foreign countries,
but under the direct control and management of the
American company.
The average value of the exports of sewing-ma-
chines, including cabinet-work and parts of sewing-
machines, from the United States, indicates that
about 150,000 machines are exported annually; and
it is a fair estimate that the total number of Ameri-
can sewing-machines sold annually in foreign coun-
tries, including those made abroad, is equal to the
sales in the United States by all the American com-
panies.
The export of sewing-machine cabinet-work is
a matter of considerable importance, because the
United States easily surpasses all other countries in
the wealth of its woods for this purpose, in the in-
genuity of its cabinet-makers, and in the efficiency of
its woodworking machinery. The different climatic
conditions of other countries and continents do not
admit of finishing the woodwork in this country ; but
it is cut " in shape " and exported " in the white,"
so that it can readily be put together and finished
where it is to be used.
The number of tables and cabinet-cases for foot-
power stands, and of cases for hand-machines, ex-
ported by the Singer Company aggregate about
694,000 annually ; of this number the cases for
hand-machines constitute about seventeen per cent.
The proportion of hand to foot-power machines used
in Europe and in Asiatic countries is far greater than
in the United States, where the operation of a sewing-
machine by hand is very exceptional, and usually
confined to those crippled and physically unable to
apply foot-power. The great difference in social
conditions is largely accountable for this peculiarity,
and the increased use of the hand-machine in Europe
is also largely due to the itinerant character of the
urban population, who find the tables and stands an
impediment in their constant moving from house to
house.
The most remarkable industrial development in
connection with the sewing-machine has been its di-
versification and adaptation for use in a great variety
of manufactures, which have thus been enabled to
(536
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
VALUE OF AMERICAN SEWING-MACHINES EXPORTED.
COMPILED FROM STATISTICS OF THE UNITED STATES TREASURY.
NO DATA FOR THE YEAR l866.
EXPORTED TO
«
1867.
1868.
1869.
1870.
1871.
1879.
1873.
1874.
1875.
1876.
1877.
1878.
1879.
CONTINENTAL EUROPE:
$
$
So
9,102
138,437
362,244
'33
604
IOO
3,407
358
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
40
$
$
$
$
$
5,754
55,96i
465,425
628
20
661
28,433
5,728
107,781
377,7'°
8,107
'85,234
706,709
8,228
148,059
33°
'59
823
14,190
5,734
6,400
10,623
277,013
359
IOO
'33,9'5
456,640
IOO
19,800
92,111
462,264
33°
5°
8,723
57,23°
367,369
854
280
8,95'
38,281
587,684
1,131
1,284
10,416
41,135
539,i87
605
1,881
289
17,670
59,987
563,9">
2,810
835
363
7,650
208
50
72,886
33°,i99
6,588
52
S3,°86
214,965
'34
400
84
3,228
200
Holland
150
120
2,912
3.539
'50
400
9,762
14,019
330
6,700
1,900
103
1,677
902
722
"5
So
662,070
22,169
120,776
2,182
204
'39
926,896
23,621
149,144
2,906
2,245
',5°9
986,553
35,030
59,869
3.845
6,870
180
512,328
60,752
140,524
8,617
410
2,040
68,610
8,552
54
1,010
9,268
121,530
504
287
567,764
72,518
82,480
7,4'4
','37
3,294
58,979
4,534
112
457
24,237
114,436
4,217
90
363,431
23,811
1 18,671
4,23'
1,256
2,897
48,289
2,962
753,792
25.724
135,626
7,295
',233
1,805
94,213
474
3,059
618,965
12,665
91.758
'.743
436
90
80,659
300
1,462
723,003
16,285
57,763
1.094
770
72
103
859
898,405
53,49°
97,406
5,620
3, '75
3.884
71,224
1,985
12,004
768,903
49,953
176,295
7,500
3,443
4,7'5
128,046
3,367
1,632
699,016
70,987
'°3,'54
9>5°7
3,556
4,238
87.074
i,4°3
65
625
14,327
75,577
3,872
610
486,842
'24,34'
77,632
5,393
4,616
',283
63,471
757
805
588
10,257
"5,97°
5,632
',°49
482,574
'9,785
110,221
3,°84
5,<»7
2,901
66,631
',298
1,103
',293
9,35'
'53,574
13,222
'36
BRITISH NORTH AMERICA
WEST INDIES:
British West Indies
Haiti
Cuba
22,049
363
809
37,633
442
549
66,969
'.436
683
Danish West Indies and Den-
French West Indies
1,218
6,863
158,124
11,125
26
12,282
102,424
3,276
2,249
10,316
805
140
3,702
36,945
1,199
65
2,178
26,657
1,215
6,447
43,928
987
10,683
38,950
988
21,881
60,339
2,780
17,668
110,786
6,051
58
SOUTH AMERICA:
British Guiana
French Guiana
Dutrh Guiana , ,
76
22,959
161
103,879
54,037
91.548
20,180
16,567
55.623
'37,'3S
209,201
174,289
"5,734
90,227
8o,734
93,800
Bolivia
Ecuador
Brazil
74,55°
59,539
46,336
10,442
i°,449
'2,359
2,851
70
102,785
64,142
19,041
3,297
3,985
'0,993
2,020
246
360
125,149
46,439
26,615
6,669
4,348
22,099
1,858
7.6
123,284
66,037
I7,°93
4,086
11,063
28,842
2,042
617
867
2,649
940
4,259
152,841
59>496
16,521
5,993
18,942
38,392
4,136
4,004
774
',674
'59,534
37,530
4,775
7,194
37,393
46,924
5,344
849
1,669
1,950
272,513
28,718
34,659
11,820
45,967
39,072
2,161
10,673
22,644
1,660
61,958
66,486
6,752
22,528
'7,685
43,321
',398
9,654
1,976
72,071
33,244
70S
29,614
15,641
35.522
7,7'3
1,654
9, '95
'.SS6
72,446
",937
3,444
30,958
19,466
7,694
11,638
296
1,272
3,'38
29,483
'4,77'
469
58,208
5,210
'7,444
3,°°5
1,144
1,244
3,425
21,158
10,081
60
38,668
8,803
36,112
'.'43
',353
921
4°
1,922
21,814
l8,34l
5' 7
3°, '74
'5,356
','59
552
1,066
2,786
8,68.
39,997
28,700
1,883
2i,493
15,811
2,356
5,34*
1,305
871
20,966
586
9,o83
Peru
Chile
AFRICA
CHINA
JAPAN
HAWAII
EAST INDIES
6,418
17,070
1,59'
4,279
841
33,43'
ALL OTHER
13,613
8,118
4,108
1,893
2,325
3,'87
9,667
3,661
Totals by years
'.999,274
1,650,340
1,657,942
2,051,581
2,233,326
1,898,864
2,436,085
2,150,720
',594,296
',797,929
1,742,764
1,743,293
1,661,715
1,648,914
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
637
VALUE OF AMERICAN SEWING-MACHINES EXPORTED.— Continued.
COMPILED FROM STATISTICS OF THE UNITED STATES TREASURY.
NO DATA FOR THE YEAR l866.
TOTALS iy
1880.
1881.
1882.
1883.
1884.
1885.
1886.
1887.
1888.
.889.
1890.
1891.
1891.
i«93.
•894
'«95.
COUNT HICS
rou 30 YEAM.
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
»
$
16,381
5,565
1,945
1,889
3,736
1,111
1,417
14,492
3,850
2f99O
* ,41^
I2,l6o
«4,'35
16,683
33.630
3',4«
56,956
63,944
56,671
55,862
41.5'S
40,337
34.022
50,626
43.302
53,938
3*^* J
48,363
36,200
01,709
780,846
50,269
41,160
59>9" '
72.074
49,059
67,027
99.46'
102,026
7",457
92,885
115,978
116,046
269,387
5", 757
91,346
98,566
',645,045
542.4°7
522,564
708,950
814,176
1,136,037
814,114
680,604
384,610
398,'M
"'3,904
456,884
609,750
616,936
563,401
255,407
47","03
15,417,683
a,304
5,656
6,178
3'.574
41,437
49,533
53,377
41,15"
5,8"9
'",471
34,4'7
3",869
47,365
4,673
"2,613
403,800
"0,449
3,628
5,120
13,054
9,866
10,093
13,443
21,527
38,350
3,956
4,059
10,832
15,820
12,307
8,696
8,756
204,821
13
5IX
OO7
3,044
',763
1,069
3O
1,630
370
1,666
950
7 'A I
99
O4
yyj
261
3i,6g6
6,010
682
722)
/T*
li2TO
77
15,039
667
yr
»3i
5°
863
* vj
3,038
j*,vyv
5.525
6,953
3,945
5,950
2,309
"47
8,578
3. '""
166
i**J
437
J»*/v
X>340
1.3M
130,580
78,977
1 60
315
11,379
7,830
'6,573
2,512
13,240
21,558
17,981
1»°97
8,010
, -
7
4"
736
3>546
1,154
2,430
352
u»y*y
100
8,729
210
746
18,822
1,607
337
262
359
835
137
35,685
387,668
559,177
820,813
1,043,7"
1,280,135
1,040,235
994,052
813,225
847,211
822,730
1,028,442
848,493
809,391
848,540
712,411
645,847
22,952,623
32,007
57,340
"7,583
158,542
138,025
133.321
109,415
87,790
102,891
7',434
63,370
64,059
60,108
90,320
"4,"99
111,388
2,123,023
85,957
169,472
'9','79
152,212
'25,375
129,524
"7,255
124,626
103,162
243.787
"7,555
268,578
366,058
73, '74
310,948
"24,875
4r4»5.os6
6,688
9,064
6,922
8,301
9,126
7,366
7,575
7,375
'3,9"9
12,105
12,940
15,101
16,983
10,249
'3,853
13,628
"4',436
»>9'3
3,739
3,364
2,778
4,889
3,013
2,164
2,242
8,282
3,39"
14,381
7,3'4
6,619
9,217
11,967
4,906
123,428
3,894
3,000
3,084
4,282
3.3"
1,5OI
2,095
', 3'3
1,020
3,227
4,4o6
2,921
',377
3.723
1,962
1,817
70,908
70,434
73,257
73,014
55,2'6
60,443
"9, "75
68,261
53,965
29,222
4",57i
60,741
"2,319
246,218
95,630
212,696
16,114
2,241,264
4,292
4.476
3,737
3,025
2,810
3,42"
784
1,150
2,34'
2,220
l,9°3
3,961
2,574
2,910
1,191
1,069
68,841
782
3'8
162
170
2,669
',337
43
loo
10
66
1,166
128
876
776
404
',958
34,161
3,117
1,130
992
i,5'4
2,841
1,032
1,687
997
1,029
2,208
2,495
2,728
",533
750
93"
1.849
32,239
8,701
3,0'4
2,965
11,848
2,753
1,219
1,485
1,246
1,647
4,227
3.9'3
2,760
5,2'5
4,618
3,534
2,230
212,768
«35,823
179,555
305,595
3'2,854
207,018
198,634
68,570
125,699
146,398
160,723
"3'."45
174,546
165,132
142,764
'S',239
'3»,84'
4,018,182
"3.97'
21,922
21,199
15,040
57.0M
44,"9"
47,704
49,445
7i,3'9
73,393
92,468
104,492
76,841
59,'77
32,066
64,976
903,967
1,107
395
'93
1,648
980
35
405
225
1,112
509
850
1,093
1,116
',965
2,862
3,189
21,182
170
492
256
320
'03
97
1 68
241
222
4H
509
"34
473
361
627
I.3M
5,9"
ICO
IO7
7°
190
150
230
"5
165
e
115,152
158,105
128,415
130,857
83,841
41,453
55.619
VJ
4',503
47,101
82,598
95,136
120,248
99.790
65,204
49,674
3*4
39»924
*»C44
", 630,533
"53
280
178
1,294
199
"95
830
_
19,018
29,522
19,168
12,009
16,171
9,0'5
16,738
14,116
11,4,.'
3»3*9
147.249
40,645
39,100
35,663
46,363
55,555
"4,396
28,232
41,831
46,599
78,751
60,558
78,393
72,976
89,832
101,719
***Ty*
140,054
3,310,349
23,611
29,216
42,654
50,921
43,081
73,763
63,276
83,832
109,625
109,862
66,243
24,420
22,892
67,886
7',5'3
53,504
1,481,760
7,804
6,721
3,742
7,0^5
6,520
15,802
7,298
13,029
'0,454
16,199
"5,358
5,68s
",035
",569
7,"56
13,317
329,784
26,928
27.330
25,185
37,533
30,014
36,786
23,814
26,821
49,68'
59,949
62,828
76,631
70,744
5",673
45,3o6
46,248
979.615
9,411
33
1,015
'5,995
15,774
19,865
25,238
17,077
22,551
33,907
36,105
3',?63
19,503
13,743
8,609
493,712
',507
4»a9'
i6,473
8,712
30,135
21,770
8,189
9,980
9,228
18,654
13,288
I7,o79
22,665
19,842
18,126
21,894
569,122
11,141
6,763
8,977
1,950
3,468
i,550
2,739
2,230
8,130
13,069
13,764
10,623
6,303
6,428
4>958
7,«»3
162,681
3,042
3,01 x
2,038
332
1,018
3,292
1,688
3,790
i,99"
4>°4"
3,020
6,021
6,956
8,933
5.35"
3,001
90.317
1,015
',730
303
5.042
2,221
707
1,487
736
3,363
2,030
1,522
«,453
1,052
",499
1,265
3,465
91,633
M,°75
i7.»74
"3,894
23,'45
16,804
8,847
9,240
13,634
10,606
10,367
16,876
16,289
7,026
7,3'8
8,818
9,968
269,649
6*;
5 TO
2.O2Q
811
1,386
3,162
3,483
4,685
3,942
4,573
6,815
3,993
1,363
48,028
6,297
13,866
6,46'
v*3
8,75'
•**
»4,336
fy\J**f
16,222
"j*
15,35"
7,057
6,35"
6,289
7,365
6,888
8,387
7.479
8,983
9.S77
276,378
11,649,367
1,983,334
2,647,5'S
3,061,639
3,552,814
2,898,698
",584,7'7
2,212,853
2,245,110
2,247,875
2,793,780
2,883,577
3,'33,99"
2,476,446
2,347,354
2,260,139
$67,»45,"43
;
538
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
increase the quantity, quality, and value of their pro-
duct, and to cheapen its cost to the consumer.
In the census reports relating to the principal
manufacturing industries that use the sewing-machine
largely, the figures show that the total value of their
products in 1890 had increased about seventy-five
per cent, from 1880. These census figures are given
in a tabular statement which is appended, and which
contains comparative data for seventeen classes of
industry in the operation of which the sewing-
machine is an important factor. These industries
employed 661,000 hands in 1890; they had about
$437,000,000 invested in machinery, tools, and
implements of all kinds, and the value of their
product approximated one thousand million dollars
($1,161,196,659).
introduced, and demonstrated that neater and more
uniform work could be done on the machine. The
result was the concentration of the scattered home
industry into convenient factories, and the use of
steam-power for driving the machines. The use of
machines for stitching the uppers suggested the need
of machines for sewing on the soles, and in 1861
the machine known as the McKay, under patents to
L. R. Blake and others, was first put into successful
operation. The time and money put into experi-
ments on this machine, and the large amount of
work which it performed, caused the owners of the
patents to place a royalty on each pair of shoes
sewed on it, as the only way to obtain a fair remu-
neration for their invention. The value of the inven-
tion to its owners may be estimated when it is stated
CENSUS STATISTICS FOR 1880 AND 1890 RELATING TO MANUFACTURES IN WHICH THE
SEWING-MACHINE IS USED EXTENSIVELY.
NAME.
YEAR.
NUMBER OF
ESTABLISH-
MENTS.
CAPITAL,
NUMBER OF
HANDS
EMPLOYED.
VALUE OF
PRODUCT.
Awnings, tents, and sails
1880
890
$
J
2,Oo2
6. loo
1 '§^2
20,811
"3
205
li
29
300
324
489
70S
73
8
90
139
7.999
7.93 1
549
869
3
3i
$522,700
3,063,009
2,425,900
6,015,685
5,798,671
10,062,034
42,994,028
95,282,311
79,861,696
182,552,938
8,207,273
34,142,607
1,611,695
6,640,056
54.300
376,130
3,724,664
12,299,011
3,379,648
5,977,820
5,455468
13,724,002
746,828
1,709,650
1,121,834
6,057,987
13,703.787
16,508,019
35,346,620
6,841,778
14,273,611
410,000
1,028,523
1,268
3.872
2,242
3.769
10,612
111,052
139.333
160,813
25)192
109,606
8,802
"*S
364
11,174
22,21 1
7.697
8,669
17,240
27,193
l!705
I4I3
6^68
9,802
21446
30,326
25,687
32,75°
565
952
$1,968,942
7,829,003
9,726,600
'6,355,365
11,976,764
17,067,7*0
166,050,354
220,649,358
209,548,400
378,022,815
32,004,794
'25.235.751
6494.705
12,401,575
119,600
455.849
11,506,857
29,870,946
7,379,605
10,103,821
21,303,107
37,3 ii. 599
2,217,250
3465,524
1,769,036
2,165462
13,751,724
18,708,917
38,081,643
52,970,801
20,130,031
33.638,593
695,000
1,572,265
Bags, other than paper
Bookbinding )
Boots and shoes (factory product) 5
Clothing (men's) >
Clothing (women's) 1
Corsets
Flags and banners
Furnishing goods (men's) 5
Gloves and mittens
Hats and caps, not including wool hats
Hat and cap materials
Pocketbooks ., 5
...j
Rubber and elastic goods . . )
\
Saddlery and harness
Shirts
Horse clothing
.11 «,',rs'~«SrT for.l88° relating to the manufacture of women's clothing do not include custom dressmaking establishments. In the figures for 1800
h establishments are included that had a product exceeding $500 in value.
In no branch of manufacture has a greater revo- that as many as 900 pairs of shoes have been sewed
lution occurred than in boots and shoes. The fitting on one machine in one day of ten hours ; that the
)f the uppers was formerly accomplished by sending average license was at the rate of two cents per pair ;
them out in small quantities to be sewed and stitched and that over 350,000,000 pairs of shoes had been
by hand in the homes of the operators. The hand- made on it up to the year 1877 in the United States,
workers bought sewing-machines when they were and probably an equal or greater number in Europe.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The McKay machine made the chain-stitch with
a waxed thread. The outer sole was stitched to
the inner sole by removing the last and placing the
shoe on an arm similar in its general appearance to
the human arm, with elbow bent to hold up the
hand and swing around on the shoulder-joint, so as
to bring the needle and awl in the overhanging arm
into position above the shoe, to take up the thread
from a very ingeniously worked underneedle in the
arm inside of the shoe. The awl also had a lateral
movement, and acted as a feed to move the shoe
forward as each stitch was taken. This very useful
and meritorious machine has been superseded to
some extent by the Goodyear machine, which makes
the lock-stitch with waxed threads and sews on the
sole in the same manner that it is done by hand. In
the Goodyear process the last is left in the shoe, and
the welt is sewed to the inner sole and upper by a ma-
chine making the chain-stitch, that not only does the
sewing, but also draws the upper tight on the last
and greatly assists in " lasting " and giving proper
shape to the shoe. The outer sole is then sewed to
the welt in a manner that successfully imitates the
very best of hand-work. The Goodyear machines
are sold on a royalty plan based on their production.
The next sewing-machine of great importance
was for working buttonholes, and was made under
patents to Vogel, Humphrey, and others. After
years of experimenting the Union Buttonhole
Machine Company produced a machine that was a
marvel in its line. It worked buttonholes that had
the peculiar " purl " of the best hand-made button-
holes, to which they were superior in strength and
finish. The manufacture and sale of this machine
was not profitable to the Union Buttonhole Machine
Company, and in 1867 it passed to the Singer
Company, and by that company was still further
improved and became a great success, having a
large sale in the United States and Europe.
The Reece buttonhole machine was brought out in
1880; it is a wonderful organization of machinery,
and has had a large sale on the royalty plan, making
it very remunerative to the owners of the patents.
During the early years of the sewing-machine, its
use by clothing manufacturers was confined to the
production of the medium grades, the custom tailors
showing a great prejudice against machine sewing.
This prejudice gradually disappeared as it became
apparent that seams made on the machine were
equal to the best handwork, and the sewing-machine
is now in general use for making the finest garments.
The enormous increase during ten yean in the
factory production of clothing is remarkable, and it
may fairly be claimed that the development of this
industry has been coincident with the invention of
special appliances and attachments adapting the
sewing-machine for factory operation in the per-
formance of all stitching processes, including button-
hole and eyelet making, attaching buttons, staying
seams, etc.
The concentration of clothing manufacture into
factory operation has effected greater economy in
the marketing of the cloth, especially the cheaper
fabrics, such as jeans, shirtings, denims, etc. These
are now sent from the mills where they are woven
directly to the manufacturers of clothing, shirts,
overalls, etc., thus saving the cost of commissions
and handling, formerly incurred through the whole-
saler, the jobber, and the retailer to the local tailor
or housewife. Several hundred sewing-machines are
sometimes operated in a single power plant for the
manufacture of clothing.
By the use of improved methods for cutting to
standard sizes in great variety, well-fitting garments
are now as easily obtained in " ready-made " as
in "custom" clothing. By the use of the sewing-
machine they are as well made, and are furnished to
the wearer for what the material formerly cost him.
Economies of equal importance have been effected
in many other industries in which the sewing-machine
is the principal element of productive force.
While these industries have thus been enabled
to more than double their output during the last
decade, the population of the country has only in-
creased about one quarter. It is evident, therefore,
that the quantity of sewing done in the home has
been greatly reduced, and that domestic burdens
have been correspondingly lessened ; also that the
cost to the consumer of the products of the sewing-
machine has been reduced, all of which may fairly
be claimed as the results of inventive genius and
executive ability in the field of sewing-machine
manufacture, its development and improvement.
In the preparation of this article the writer has
received invaluable information and assistance from
Mr. John F. Elliott, who has been intimately con-
nected with the sewing-machine industry in many
capacities for nearly forty years ; and much credit
must be awarded him for the research and inves-
tigation which have given this brief history whatever
of value it may possess.
CHAPTER LXXXII
AMERICAN WATCHES AND CLOCKS
CLOCKS were among the first articles of a
complicated construction which were made
in America. In 1765 there was in Grafton,
Mass., a remarkable family named Willard, all of
whom were clock-makers. There were three bro-
thers, named Benjamin, Simon, and Aaron. The two
former removed to Roxbury, Mass., in 1771, and
established themselves there as clock-makers, on
Roxbury Street, at the " Sign of the Clock," where
Simon remained over seventy years, dying at the
age of ninety-six. He was the best workman and
the most ingenious of all the Willards, as he not
only made several kinds of clocks, but invented a
number of machines for various other purposes.
He was only thirteen when he made his first clock,
all the work being executed by him, thus showing
the character of the boy. There was no machinery
in those days by which labor could be saved, and
everything was filed out from the rough. Some-
where in the latter part of the last century or the
early part of the present, he invented and patented
the " timepiece," so called, which very soon super-
seded the tall eight-day clock, which before was the
only method of recording time. He was also the
inventor of perambulators for accurately measuring
distances, cook-jacks, alarums, chimes, etc. He
made many turret clocks for public use in Boston,
New York, and Philadelphia, as well as one for the
University of Virginia. In Virginia he became
intimately acquainted with Thomas Jefferson, our
third president, and James Madison, our fourth
president, corresponding with them for years. Jef-
ferson had a strong mechanical turn of mind, and
liked to divert himself with curious problems. Wil-
lard made and set up the clocks in the United
States Senate Chamber and in the House of Repre-
sentatives, performing the latter labor after he was
seventy-five years of age. He never considered
profit, the quality of work being everything. His
clocks, great and small, are just as good, after the
lapse of a century, as when they left his hands.
Aaron, a younger brother of this family, set-
tled in Boston, Mass., building what, for the times,
was a large establishment, on Washington Street,
Boston Neck, near the Roxbury line. His particu-
lar branch of business was the tall striking clocks for
halls. These he manufactured almost exclusively;
they were of excellent workmanship, and stood
every test. His clocks were largely sold in Virginia
in exchange for Haxall flour, a trade which proved
very advantageous to him. He died at about the
age of eighty-five. The fourth Willard, Aaron, Jr.,
was also a clock-maker, being the son of the one
just mentioned. He was born in Boston, Mass.,
and was taught clock-making by his father, after-
ward setting up in business not far from where
his father was located, and there making various
forms of clocks for common and extra use. His
business was not large, no more than four or five
workmen being employed, the most of whom were
apprentices. The shop he occupied was thirty by
fifty feet, and one story high.
My connection with clock-making commenced
at the age of sixteen, in 1829, under the in-
struction of Aaron Willard, Jr., with whom I
served an apprenticeship of five years. The aggre-
gate production of Mr. Willard in money value
would not exceed $8000 per annum. During my
five years of apprenticeship not a single tower or
hall striking clock was made by us, although now
there are hundreds, if not thousands, of these kinds
of clocks made every year. In 1875 there was only
a small amount of such work done, as compared
with what has been accomplished during the last
twenty years. Then there were only a few clock-
makers scattered throughout New England, — mostly
in Connecticut, — whose united production only
amounted to a few thousands of clocks yearly, while
540
EDWARD HOWARD.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Ml
now there are numerous clock factories of immense
size, filled with the most ingenious labor-saving
machinery. The demand then was limited to the
United States alone ; now we have the whole world
for a market, and the demand and supply run into
millions every year. Then the forms, styles, and
finish were few ; now they are almost innumerable,
it seeming impossible to conceive of anything novel.
Clocks were then often set by the noon sun-dial,
but now we make them to run so close to true
time that we sometimes think the sun has gone
wrong. The tower-clock business has had a won-
derful growth in the past thirty years, and more have
been made and put up in that time than during all
the preceding period from the time of the landing
of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Some that I made
fifty years ago are now running, being still in good
working order.
I went in business for myself, as a clock-maker, in
1840, continuing up to 1882, when I retired from
active industry. During that time I manufactured
various kinds of clocks, many being specially de-
signed for halls, churches, offices ; also electric watch
clocks, tower clocks, etc. I began in a shop not
over thirty feet square, and ended with a number
of buildings, one of which was one hundred and fifty
feet long, seventy feet wide, and seven stories high.
The clock-manufacturing companies are not very
numerous in the United States, not exceeding
twenty-five in all ; but their size and facilities are so
great that it does not take long to flood the market
when they are all in operation. I commenced the
clock business single-handed, but later employed
from 100 to 200 hands. The amount of capital
invested in clock-making in 1 795 is very much a
matter of conjecture, as well as the amount of yearly
production at that time, but it is probable the
former did not exceed $100,000, and the latter could
not have been over $250,000.
The most extensive clock factories at the present
time are located as follows : New Haven Clock Com-
pany, New Haven, Conn. ; Waterbury Clock Company,
Waterbury, Conn. ; Seth Thomas Clock Company,
Thomaston, Conn.; J. E. Ingraham Clock Com-
pany, Bristol, Conn. ; Gilbert Clock Company, Win-
sted, Conn.; Phelps & Bartholomew Clock Com-
pany, Ansonia, Conn.; E. M. Welch Clock Com-
pany, Forestville, Conn.; E. Howard Clock Com-
pany, Boston, Mass.; F. Knoeber Clock Company,
New York City ; Ansonia Clock Company, Brook-
lyn, N. Y. Their combined capital in 1860 was
about $885,000, and production about $2,300,000.
The combined capital in 1892 was $5,550,000, and
the production in that year, $10475,000. No suf-
ficient data exist before 1860 to make any satisfac-
tory estimate of the capital invested or the amount
of yearly production; but it can be seen that for the
last thirty years there has been a large and con-
tinued increase of capital and production, and it is
fair to believe that it will continue to grow.
Watchmaking did not exist in the United States
as an industry in 1795. There were watchmakers,
so-called, at that time, and there are great numbers
of the same kind now, but they never made a
watch ; their business being only to clean and repair.
Watchmaking, as a business, was not started in the
United States until 1850. Its commencement on
a comprehensive and systematic method was the
result of many deliberations during the years 1848
and 1849, between Mr. Aaron L. Dennison and
myself. Mr. Dennison was a first-class watch re-
pairer, none being better, and he knew from expe-
rience that there was no proper system employed in
the manufacture of watches. In watches purporting
to be of the same size, of the same makers, there
were no two alike, and there was no interchangea-
bility of parts. Consequently it was " cut and try,"
by which a great deal of time was wasted, and many
imperfections resulted. Mr. Dennison being a
watch repairer, and myself a clock-maker, we made
a good combination to systematize watchmaking,
and to invent labor-saving machinery for producing
perfect and interchangeable parts. With such views
and intentions, we began the watch business in the
spring of 1850, building a factory in Roxbury, Mass.
It is almost needless to say that we met with
many obstacles. We were told by importers and
dealers in watches that we would never be able to
carry out our plans, and that our project would be an
utter failure. Some of our friends even told us we
were crazy to attempt such an undertaking, but we
were Yankees, both of us, and had a sufficient quan-
tity of the proverbial " grit," and at least believed
in ourselves, even if others did not have so much
faith. We could not import and use foreign help,
unacquainted with our methods or tools, so we had
to instruct our men from the beginning. There
were many times when we felt that the predic-
tions of the importers would prove true, but per-
severance, money, and brains conquered. The
financial problem was a hard matter to solve, as the
unbelief in our success was universal. Frequently
it was difficult to raise the necessary funds to cany
on the work. This struggle was continued for six
years before the tide turned. The company's best
friends during that time were Samuel Curtis and
542
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Charles Rice, both of Boston. Without the finan-
cial assistance of these gentlemen, watchmaking
would probably not have existed at the present time
as an organized industry in the United States. This
may seem to be a sweeping statement, but no one
can conceive the trials and tribulations that Mr.
Dennison and myself endured. We hear and read
about going through purgatory, but that must be a
species of pleasure compared with what we expe-
rienced at that time.
We were trying to establish under one roof an
industry embracing at least a dozen distinct trades.
Such a thing had never been done before, and we
were still further handicapped in our undertaking by
having only inexperienced assistants. We had to
teach ourselves first, and then teach others, making
our progress slow and expensive; and there was
much bad work that we were obliged to throw
away. We did not know how to make a jewel, or a
dial, or a tempered hair-spring, or to do proper
watch-gilding or to produce a mirror polish on steel.
Each one of these operations was a feat of which
the ways and means had to be studied out and
worked over until, after many attempts, one at last
would be successful.
All the tools to make the different parts, after
being designed or invented, had to be made in the
factory by the machinists then employed, under our
own supervision, in order to have them perfect and
durable. Attempts were made to have them exe-
cuted outside, but it was impossible to get them
constructed carefully. When it is understood that
if many of the parts of a watch are one five thou-
sandth of an inch thicker or thinner, longer or
shorter, larger or smaller, than the proper sizes, the
watch will not run well, it will be seen at once that
the tools must be as near perfection as possible, to
produce the exact and uniform sizes needed. It
was more than three years before the establishment
had fairly and fully started in the business of making
watches, and then it was found that it would re-
quire ten times as much room as had been provided,
and we set about building a very much larger factory
at Waltham, Mass., where the American Waltham
Watch Company's works now stand. We removed
there in 1854. The company remained at Waltham,
making watches, until 1857, when it met with finan-
cial reverses, and the property was sold to Royal E.
Robbins in settlement of its affairs. Up to that
time the watch factory had been under the name
and style of the Boston Watch Company. I then
returned to the first factory at Roxbury, when a
new company was formed as successor to the Boston
Watch Company. It was entitled the Howard
Watch and Clock Company, and had a nominal
capital of $150,000. It was necessary to begin at
the bottom and make all tools anew. Mr. Dennison
left me in the early part of 1857, but after Mr. Rob-
bins bought the factory at Waltham, Mr. Dennison
was employed by the new company for two or three
years.
During the War of the Rebellion the Waltham
Watch Company became a great financial success
as well as a mechanical one. At that time the pre-
mium on gold increased the price of watches so
much that very large dividends were paid, which
occasioned the establishment of several new watch
factories in different parts of the country. Nearly
all the companies were obliged to increase their cap-
ital from two to four times the amount originally
believed to be necessary before they were success-
ful, while several never did succeed.
Previous to 1853, many thousands of English and
Swiss watches were imported into the United States
yearly. At that time the American manufacturers
had begun to control the market, and in a few years
more the importation of English watches had gen-
erally declined. At present this trade is of little or
no account. The importation of Swiss watches was
also very much reduced at the same time, but the
Swiss have in the last five years regained a part of
their trade by adopting American methods and ma-
chinery.
In 1866 the American market was not only mostly
supplied with American watches, but extensive offices
were also opened by the American Waltham Watch
Company in London, where their watches met with
ready and extensive sales, the business continuing to
this day. An attempt was made several years ago
to introduce the American plan of watchmaking
into England, a set of American machinery being
set up there, but it did not prove a success. There
was also a plant started in Switzerland by two
Americans about the year 1869, to be carried on in
the American manner. The machinery was all made
here and sent over. A plant was started in the
West a few years since, which had a lingering life,
after a while being moved to San Francisco. It did
not succeed there, so it continued its journey to
Japan, where it is a fixed institution, and soon will
be in competition with Americans in their home
market. This will be hard to meet, as a workman can
live there on four cents a day and get rich on eight
cents a day. It would sometimes seem that Amer-
icans are altogether too good and accommodating,
desiring to let the whole world know what they can
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
do, and just how they do it. On the other hand, I
do not believe they care to learn of the Japanese
how to live on four cents a day.
A well and properly made watch has wonderful
qualities as a machine, considering the labor it has
to perform and the length of time, if treated with a
very little care, it will continue to do its work. It
is conceded that every person in the world has a
distinct individuality, and it is just so with every
watch that is made. Some of the parts are so mi-
nute that, although you suppose you have them all
alike, the fact is that no two have been made with-
out some little variation, having an appreciable effect
on its action as a timekeeper. That is where the in-
dividuality comes in. The lowest or medium, grade
watch may be found, occasionally, to be keeping bet-
ter time than some of those which have had a great
deal of time spent on them to make them as nearly
perfect as possible, yet if you take the latter in
pieces, and thoroughly examine them in all the parts,
you cannot find any cause for the defect. Therefore
I say that each watch has an individuality of its
own, as all human beings have, and we must make
the best of such a condition. Does any one ever
consider the amount of labor that is performed by a
watch during its lifetime, which is fifty years at
least? In its daily duties the balance vibrates
18,000 times each and every hour, 432,000 times a
day, or 157,680,000 times a year. The hair-
spring makes the same number of vibrations and an
equal number of ticks from the escapement. The
first thought would be that the machine would be
worn out in a year, but this does not prove true. If
it is a good watch you can multiply 157,680,000 by 50,
which would give 7,884,000,000 pulsations, and yet
the watch will still be in good condition. This is a
wonderful record, considering the small amount of
food that has been consumed by its constant action.
I say food, for whatever labors must be fed, and the
watch lives on about sixteen inches of mainspring
every twenty-four hours. It is cheap feeding, how-
ever, as the spring is not digested, but only the
power which is stored in it, which costs nothing to
renew daily. Thus it goes on, with very little care,
year after year, having no palsied hands.no wrinkled
or care-worn face, no failing heart-beats, but with
the same vitality as ever.
The people of the United States are to be con-
gratulated on the successful establishment of such
an important industry as watchmaking within their
borders, on such a magnificent scale as at present,
and with so great a future before it. There have
been wonderful strides in the last twenty years in
the quantity and quality of the movements. There
has been so much improved automatic machinery
that the cost of production has been greatly reduced,
at the same time that the quality has been improved.
At the present time there are no key-winders made,
but all are stem-winders and stem-setters. They are
also nearly all made so that if the mainspring should
break, while wound up, no damage would happen to
the train, which is an advantage over all others.
The principal watch-manufacturing companies do-
ing business on an extensive scale, at the present
time, are located as follows :
NAME. PLACE. ORGANIZED.
The E. Howard Watch Company . . . .Boston, Mass. . . 1850
American Waltham Watch Company. .Waltham, Mass. 1859
Elgin National Watch Company Elgin, 111
Illinois Watch Company Springfield, 111 .
Rockford Watch Company Rockford, 111 . .
United States Watch Company Waltham, Mass.
Trenton Watch Company Trenton, N. J. .
Hamilton Watch Company Lancaster, Pa. .
1870
1874
1883
1883
1892
The combined capital of the above at the com-
mencement of the business, as nearly as can be as-
certained, was $1,502,110. Five years later the
yearly sales were $3,379,344. The capital in 1892
was $10,550,000, and sales in that year, $15,838,817.
CHAPTER LXXXIII
AMERICAN TYPE-WRITERS
THOSE who tell in these pages the story of
the progress of a century in the many lines
of life's activities, record a history of achieve-
ment which, for growth in volume, in character,
and in method, is marvelous and unequaled in the
history of any other nation or of any other time.
But all who write will concede that the American
type-writer has been a factor in the growth and
progress of other lines of commerce, and it must be
admitted that had the American type-writer come
into being in the early part of the century, instead of
toward its close, a greater advancement would have
been recorded in every particular line of industry,
because of the assistance which the type-writer
would have rendered.
The type-writer, world-wide in its use, is essen-
tially and almost entirely American. True, the
idea of reducing the manual labor of writing, so far
as the records show, first occurred to an Englishman.
The earliest patent on mechanical writing was
granted to an Englishman nearly two hundred years
ago. He thought that there might be an easier
method of writing than that practised by his fore-
fathers ; but the machine which he devised did not
prove to be practicable. One hundred and fifty years
elapsed between the first and the second English
patents on writing-machines. The Englishmen are
slowly awakening, for there have been issued up to the
present time 375 English patents for improvements
in type-writing machines. Many of these have, of
course, been granted to American inventors, and
those which have been granted to Englishmen have
made no mark in writing-machine history; for no
machine has yet been made in England, nor, for
that matter, anywhere outside of the United States,
which has found any extensive sale, or which has
equaled, in any way, any one of the leading Ameri-
can type-writers.
While our English cousins slept, and while they
have been rubbing their eyes and partially awaken-
ing, American genius and ingenuity have been at
work. Beginning in 1 836, when the first American
patent on a type-writer was granted, patents were
taken out at an average of about one a year for
forty years. Our early American inventors were,
however, not very successful in their attempts to
produce a practical writing-machine. For thirty
years nothing of especial value was evolved, or, if
any practical machine was, during that period, in-
vented and patented, the faith and the capital
requisite for commercial success were not enlisted in
its behalf. We can, therefore, not fairly date the
beginning of the history of the type-writer as a
factor in commercial life further back than the
patent granted in 1868 to C. Latham Sholes (now
deceased), who was then collector of the port of
Milwaukee, and an editor, a scholar, and a man of
genius. His inventions, patented in 1 868 and later,
formed the foundation of the first American type-
writer, and covered a basic principle upon which all
successful type-writers have since been made. Since
the patent was issued to Mr. Sholes some 1200
American patents on type-writers have been issued,
including, it would seem, every conceivable modifi-
cation which can be made in such an instrument,
and yet no one has devised any plan of constructing
a machine on a better principle than that invented
by Mr. Sholes.
In discussing the American type-writer and the
type-writer business, therefore, we may be said to
be considering the whole field of the type-writer in-
dustry, for our American type-writer manufacturers
have no competition from abroad, either in home or
in foreign markets. We are discussing, too, a busi-
ness which has grown from nothing in twenty years.
The first type-writer was offered for sale in 1875 ;
but so few were made and put in use in that year
that it may properly be said that the beginning of
the business dates from the introduction of the
machines at our Centennial Exhibition held in Phil-
544
CLARENCE W. SEAMANS.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
adelphia in 1876. Shall we be able to show that
within twenty years the type-writer has won its way
into usefulness and popularity to an extent such as
justifies the assignment to it of a place in these
pages among the first one hundred American indus-
J Let us see.
When the type-writer made its bow and offered
itself as a candidate for public favor, it was looked
upon as a plaything rather than as an instrument of
genuine utility, as a toy rather than as a practical
labor-saving implement. It wrote in those days
with capital letters only, and though the work which
it produced was a great improvement over the illeg-
ible chirography of many lawyers and business men,
objection was nevertheless raised to it on account
of its monotonous appearance. Notwithstanding
these objections, the early machine, cumbersome
and unsatisfactory as it was, was accepted as a
helper by men whose business required an amount
of writing which was irksome ; and 3000 or 4000 of
them, writing capitals only, were made and sold
within three years from the first introduction of the
machine, and before the makers had worked out a
plan for constructing a machine which should write
with both capital and small letters. The sale of
3000 or 4000 machines by no means established the
business upon a firm basis, nor did it even result in a
general acceptance of the machine itself as a useful
article. While a few men here and there used the
type-writer with acknowledged advantage in their
work, just as a few of the older boys of that time
used and appreciated the bicycle (velocipede) of a
quarter of a century ago, the great majority of busi-
ness and professional men failed to see any real
merit or advantage in it. Even after the machine
writing both capital and small letters was, in 1878,
presented to the public, the type-writer salesman
was generally looked upon as offering an article of
no real merit ; and the men who have been from
fifteen to twenty years in the business well re-
member the discouragements and rebuffs which
they met in their endeavor to show business men
that a writing-machine was a useful adjunct to a
business office. Even the judges of some of our
courts refused to accept type-written documents,
strange as such a thing may seem in these days,
when it is a rare exception to find any legal docu-
ment not written with a type-writer.
But this condition of public sentiment could not,
and did not, long prevail. The type-writer had
merits which could not be permanently ignored.
From its inception there were a few men connected
with it who knew its usefulness and realized its pos-
sibilities, and they pinned their faith and their future
to it, and never wavered nor lost faith in it during
the half-dozen years of its early history, when the
skepticism and the opposition of the people who
might have used it with profit made the cost of sell-
ing the machines much greater than the profit
realized upon them. So much was this the case
that, when the first 10,000 machines had been sold,
not only had no money been made in their manu-
facture and sale, but the business had been con-
ducted at an actual loss of something like $250,000.
It will, perhaps, serve no useful purpose to narrate in
detail the history of the struggles of the invention
during the first half-dozen years after its introduction
upon the market, and the names of the men who,
during that period, labored to make it a success.
Some of them were men of marked ability who had
achieved success in other lines of trade.
Men of equal faith and energy, with steadfastness
of purpose and the benefit of the experience of those
who had preceded them, came later, and to these
new men fell the control of the sale of the machines.
New plans for the education of the public were
adopted. Advertising was done in a more systema-
tic and a more extensive manner. The public was
given to understand in an emphatic way that the
day of doubt was passed, and that the type-writer
was a mechanical and a commercial success. The
wheels began to revolve more rapidly. The growth
of the business became more marked. Americans
believe in success. We like to buy of successful
houses. Convince us that an article is useful and
that it has passed the experimental stage, and we
adopt it. The latest ideas, the most improved
methods and machinery, are none too good for us.
We revere the memory of our fathers, but we are
willing to use better tools than they had, and not,
like some of our foreign cousins, adhere to the cala-
mus, the stylus, or the quill, because they were used
by their ancestors ; and so when the writers in busi-
ness and in the professions once realized that the
type-writer would lighten their labors, the machine
found ready sale.
Then began the competition ; for as soon as
success attends the manufacture or sale of any
article in this country, just so soon does some enter-
prising American devise a modification or a substi-
tute for the original article, and he launches it upon
the market in the hope of getting a share at least
of the profits of the business. At first, competition
came slowly. When the first machine, the Reming-
ton, had been on the market ten years, two compet-
itors were in the field. Since that time several new
546
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
machines have been launched each year, until now
they aggregate, taking them all, about i oo. Per-
haps this statement ought to be modified. About
100 have been at one time or another on the market
during the past ten years ; but the law of the sur-
vival of the fittest has been in operation, and the
manufacture of eighty or more of them has been
discontinued. The mention of the names of the
machines which have thus come and gone can
hardly prove of interest. They have had their day.
We shall see them no more. Let them rest in peace.
Neither is it the purpose of this article to particular-
ize the machines which have survived. Is it not
better to group them together and to treat them as
a whole, showing what they have unitedly accom-
plished in the two decades since the leader made its
appearance upon the market ?
Gradually, the usefulness of the type-writer began
to be appreciated. First the professional stenog-
raphers— court reporters — took it up. Then the
lawyers saw that the reports furnished them by the
court reporters were more legible when written with
the type-writer than with the pen, and they became
purchasers. Commercial men still held aloof. They
thought it might be all veiy well for legal docu-
ments, but not for business correspondence. The
mercantile agencies realized the great usefulness of
the machine, and they began to use it in their offices,
scattered over the world. Presently the machine
was found in the counting-room of the leading dry-
goods house in America, and other houses in the
same line of trade followed the example. One after
another the principal houses in each branch of
manufacture and of trade realized that a type-writer
could be made useful, and adopted it. A list of the
early users of the type-writer would show that those
who were the first to appreciate its advantages were
then, and are still, the leaders in the professions and
in commerce. When once the leaders had com-
mitted themselves to it, the smaller concerns followed
in that, as they usually follow in other things.
Until 1880 the sale of the machine suffered for
lack of skilful operatives. Business colleges, schools
of commerce, and similar institutions were then pre-
vailed upon to engage in the work of qualifying
young men and young women for employment in
the use of the type-writer. The schools helped
greatly the type-writer business, and the type-writer
people helped the schools. The increased adver-
tising and soliciting of salesmen, as one machine
after another made its appearance upon the market,
brought the machine more prominently to the notice
of business and professional men. Curiosity was
awakened, then interest aroused ; investigation fol-
lowed, then purchase. By 1885 the permanence
of the machine as an institution, and its prosperity
as a commercial enterprise, were assured in America.
From that date until the present the business has
had a steady growth, uninterrupted in its yearly in-
crease, except by the temporary set-back due to the
commercial depression of 1893 and 1894, from which
it is now rapidly recovering. Starting with i ooo in
1880, increasing to 5000 in 1885, the sales had
reached the respectable figures of 60,000 per year
in the early part of 1893, exclusive of the many
thousands of low-priced machines which were annu-
ally sold, and which are not considered in this arti-
cle except to give them credit for the work they do
as educators, used, as most of them are, as toys, but
serving a useful purpose by convincing thousands of
people of the value of a better machine in the actual
business of life.
As this article is not intended to be a detailed
history of the type-writer as an invention and as a
business, but rather to show its origin and what it
has accomplished, few names are mentioned and few
figures given. Commercially it occupies no mean
position among our business enterprises. Beginning
within a very few years, it has grown from nothing
until it now occupies ten acres of factory-floor space,
and furnishes employment in its manufacture and
sale to 15,000 people; but those who derive their
income and their livelihood directly from their con-
nection with the manufacture and sale of the
machine are few compared with those who are fur-
nished employment through its use. Let us consider
the changed conditions regarding its popularity.
For years rejected and its usefulness denied, it has
worked its way by its own merit into every profes-
sional office and every counting-room of prominence
in the land. It is found in every State and national
capitol, and even in the Vatican. It figures in
every political movement, and the first step in any
political campaign is the opening of a headquarters
and the installation of a corps of type-writer opera-
tives and machines. One of the first articles in
furnishing a new office or in starting a new business
is a type-writer. Even if there be no work for it to
do, it is put in to give an appearance of business.
Considered a few years ago as fit for only the most
unimportant documents, it is now used for the most
important work of the American and foreign govern-
ments. Nearly 2000 machines are used in the
offices of the government departments at Washing-
ton, and it has been formally adopted for govern-
mental use in England and her colonies, France,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
547
Germany, Russia, and, indeed, in nearly every
country on the globe. Many of our States have
placed laws upon their statute-books legalizing its
work. Judges who once objected to it now require
that it be used in the production of all papers sub-
mitted to them. It is used for drawing deeds, for
writing wills, for state and diplomatic correspon-
dence. Even foreign noblemen and potentates have
adopted it. The Queen of Madagascar has her
type-writer; the khedive of Egypt has his. The
czarina of Russia acts as secretary for her husband,
the czar, and does her work on the type-writer.
The little machine, once so unpopular, has invaded
the realm of fashion. Our English cousins were
more slow to admit the propriety of using the type-
writer for personal correspondence, but merit and
usefulness have won. Among the wedding gifts to
Princess May of Teck was an American writing-
machine. The acknowledgments of the wedding
presents of another one of the royal family were
written upon a type-writer, and the Prince of Wales
himself has recently brought Marlborough House
up to date by the introduction of an American
writing-machine. A representative of one of the
leading American manufacturers has been decorated
by a foreign ruler with a distinguished order, in
token of his appreciation of the ingenuity and value
of the American writing-machine, which is used ex-
tensively by his Excellency's government, and even
by his Excellency in person ; and the leading firm
of American manufacturers has received the appoint-
ment from her Majesty, and his Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales, of contractors to her Majesty's
government.
So much as to its present popularity at home and
abroad. Now what has it accomplished? It has
made itself a factor in the increase of business in all
lines of trade. It has enabled a telegraph operator
to supply at one writing every newspaper in New
York with the news of the day. Its speed has re-
sulted in an abbreviation of the original Morse sys-
tem. By the use of the new code the capacity of a
telegraph wire is doubled, resulting in great savings
to the telegraph companies. It has shortened the
number of hours during which a business man is
confined to his correspondence, and has given him
a greater portion of the day to devote to other
things, to the advantage of his business. It has
improved the correspondence itself, so that letters
are more easily read and the contents more quickly
grasped. The greater legibility of its work prevents
many errors and consequent loss. The head of a
Wall Street house, overloaded with a certain stock,
and desiring to realize upon a little of it without
affecting the value of the rest, sent a message to his
broker on the floor of the Exchange : " Sell quietly
1000 shares." Illegible handwriting made the mes-
sage read, " Sell quickly i ooo shares." The hasty
sale demoralized the market, broke the price, and
the house failed. Had the message been type-writ-
ten the failure would not have occurred. It has in-
creased the trade of those who have used it, and
has driven the fogies out of business, or compelled
them to adopt it. It has educated the public in
spelling, in punctuation, in capitalization, and in
paragraphing, to a great degree. Compare business
letters of twenty years ago, all of them written by
hand, with business letters of to-day, nine tenths of
them written on a type-writer, and observe the im-
provement in these respects. It has lessened the
laboring hours of thousands of men, giving them
more time for recreation, and perhaps lengthening
their lives. It has in a measure solved the problem
of women's work. It has opened an avenue of
genteel and profitable employment to an army of
educated women.
To those who are permitted to look back over
their connection with the business from its infancy,
and recall the struggles and discouragements of the
first few years, its present popularity is naturally a
source of pride ; but even more gratifying is the
contemplation of the vast army of young people
who, as the outcome of those struggles, have found
congenial and profitable employment. To fully
impress upon the reader what the type-writer has
accomplished in this respect is no easy task. One
writing-machine company, realizing the mutual ad-
vantage which would result, began in 1882 the work
of finding employment for type-writer operatives.
Employment bureaus were established in the princi-
pal cities of the country, and have been continued
until now, at a cost of many thousands of dollars,
serving without charge both employers and em-
ployees. If the young people — mostly women —
who have found employment through the agency of
this one house could march through one of our city
streets, shoulder to shoulder, from curb to curb, it
would require from daylight to dark for them to
pass in review. Would the size of this army be
more easily comprehended if the number is men-
tioned ? Here, then, it is— -70,000.
What, too, of the earnings of the legion of young
people who, by means of the type-writer, not only
support themselves, but in many instances contrib-
ute to the support of others ? The entire amount
paid as wages to operatives has been found to be
548
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
$150,000,000 yearly — a sum greater than the customs
receipts of the United States; greater than the cost
of maintaining the army and navy or the entire
civil list of the government ; a sum equal, in fact, to
the entire cost of the public schools of the nation.
This vast amount of money has been earned without
corresponding loss of employment by any other
class, and may certainly be said to have added an
equal amount to the wealth of the nation.
Who deserves the greatest credit for these accom-
plishments? A measure of credit must be given to
those who first conceived the idea of decreasing the
labor and of increasing the speed and legibility of
writing; but this credit must be divided among
many persons. Credit is also due to the men of
business acumen who, taking up the enterprise when
the crust of opposition had been broken, used their
ability, their money, and their energy in establishing
the business firmly in public favor and confidence,
and made it profitable. Space will not be taken to
discuss those whose inventions have added to the
value of writing-machines, but who were not pioneer
inventors in the field; nor those who, having in-
vested their money, devoted their time to getting
a share of the profits of the business, after the
leaders in its introduction had demonstrated that it
was an enterprise which could probably be embarked
in with profit.
Above all others, credit seems due to three men,
all of whom have finished their work and entered
into their reward : James Densmore, who, when the
idea was unpopular, invested several thousands of
dollars, — all that he had, — and who, when he had
used all of his own means, had the faith and the
courage to borrow from others many thousands
more, all of which he spent in converting the public
to his ideas; George W. N. Yost, Mr. Densmore's
lifelong friend, who with no less faith worked with
him from the beginning, and who possessed in a re-
markable degree that enthusiasm and tenacity of
purpose required to overcome public prejudice ;
and William O. Wyckoff, who believed in the ma-
chine from the time he saw the first crude model,
and was among the very first to use and sell it, and
who, with better business ability than either of the
others, had not only the faith to invest his money in
the enterprise at the dawn of its history, in spite of
the protests and the ridicule of his friends, but had
also that prescience which told him that sooner or
later the whole civilized world would want type-
writers. When the hour came it found him ready.
Dropping all other tasks, he put into the work all
that he had of means, of energy, and of enthusiasm,
with results so magnificent as to command universal
wonder and admiration.
To revolutionize commercial methods; to give
employment even indirectly to hundreds of thou-
sands of young people ; to add annually to the
nation's wealth hundreds of millions of dollars, are
no mean accomplishments. These results have been
attained through the instrumentality of the Ameri-
can type-writer.
CHAPTER LXXXIV
THE BICYCLE INDUSTRY
THOUGH the idea of man-power locomotion
is an old one, its practical development is a
modern achievement. What appears to be
a machine of the hobby-horse type is illustrated in
a stained-glass window of the old English church at
Stoke Pogis, whose graveyard is famous as the scene
of Gray's " Elegy " and the final resting-place of the
poet's remains. This window bears the date 1642,
but as no records throw further light on the subject,
it must be taken as an isolated point in the history
of wheeling, or perhaps be considered merely the
strange product of an artist's imagination.
Within the space allotted to this subject it would
not be of advantage to describe, even in outline, the
crude devices which appeared during the early ex-
perimental period ; yet their number and variety are
of interest as showing how persistent inventors were
in their search for a vehicle with which the muscular
force of the human body could be used to such ad-
vantage as to secure an easier and more rapid tran-
sit than was attainable on foot.
The first rudimentary bicycle of which we have
a fairly satisfactory record was a machine used by
Baron von Draise, of Mannheim-on-the-Rhine. It
was of great service to him in the performance of
his duties as Master of the Forests of the Grand
Duke of Baden. From him it took the name
"draisine," though the claim of priority in inven-
tion has been questioned, as a wheel of the same
type — the celerifere — was exhibited in 1816, in the
Garden of Tivoli, a favorite Parisian resort of the
day. The construction of this machine was very
simple, consisting of two wheels in line, connected
by a perch on which the rider sat, and to the fore
end of which the front -wheel fork, bearing a cross-
bar for steering, was swiveled. The rider propelled
this contrivance by quick thrusts of his feet upon
the ground, but on down grades they were held
up and the machine allowed to coast. Johnson's
pedestrian curricle, brought out in England in 1818,
was an improvement in detail over the draisine or
celeiifere, and at once came into favor under the
names of " dandy-horse " and " hobby-horse." In
1819 machines of this kind were introduced into
New York, where people took kindly to them, riding
them on the Bowery, through the parks, and even
speeding them on the decline to City Hall Park. It
was during this year that W. K. Clarkson was granted
a United States patent for an improvement in the
velocipede. Little or no progress was made for a
number of years after this, but a great problem was
successfully solved by Lallemont, a Frenchman, who
hung cranks to the front axle of the modified form
of the hobby-horse, so that the machine could be
propelled entirely by the feet and steered by the
hands. Lallemont's machine, the original "bone-
shaker," was exhibited by his employer, M. Michaux,
at the Paris Exposition in 1865, but little attention
was attracted by the improvement in driving-gear.
The next year, however, Lallemont worked his pas-
sage to America, where he at once built a wheel,
and aroused considerable interest by riding it through
the streets of New Haven. In November, 1866, a
joint patent was granted to Lallemont and Carrol,
and this is the first one in the United States show-
ing the two-wheeled velocipede with foot-cranks —
in fact, the first complete patent actually obtained
anywhere for such a machine.
This vehicle consisted of two wooden wheels, of
nearly equal size, one before the other, shod with
iron tires and surmounted by a wooden perch, from
which projected downward, near its rear end, two
arms on either side of the rear wheel, each pair of
arms meeting at the end of the hub and forming a
bearing for the axle. A similar device projected
from the fore end of the perch on either side the
forward wheel, furnishing bearings for its axle, and
arranged with a pivot in the perch near the upper
end, so that, by means of a handle-bar above, the
front wheel could be turned to the right or left in
549
550
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
steering the machine. The perch was curved down-
ward in the middle part, and from a joint near the
front forks, backward to a joint over the rear wheel,
extended a straight steel spring bearing a saddle
about midway between and above the two wheels.
From this position the rider could place his feet upon
the balanced pedals on the cranks connected with
the front axle, the latter being fixed in the wheel.
Thus seated, he started the machine in motion with
his feet on the ground, and then put them on the
pedals and propelled it. This was certainly a better
contrivance than any other yet brought out, but, at
best, it was clumsy and awkward, and lacked the
important features which were essential for the suc-
cess of a practical road vehicle. The application of
power was disadvantageous, as the thrust, instead
of being directly downward, was forward and down.
It required several times as much propelling force
as is used on the modem bicycle. Historically it is
a rare curio, and as such is preserved in the collection
owned by the Pope Manufacturing Company.
The popularity of the velocipede in America
reached its height about 1869 or 1870, and the
makers who had gone into this line of work had all
they could do to supply the demands of the trade.
The " Velocipedist," a journal devoted exclusively
to the new interests, was issued, and a book written
on the sport ; and yet — so suddenly come the
changes of public sentiment — two years later these
machines had entirely disappeared, save here and
there one in the hands of a boy. The reason for this
short-lived popularity was the fact that the carriage
builders who put out these wheels neglected to use
proper bearings and such other devices as would
have made riding more easy and enjoyable. Some
steps looking to improvement in this direction were
taken, however. C. K. Bradford, an American, had
suggested the use of rubber tires, and experiments
were tried with larger front wheels and antifriction
bearings. In point of fact, one of our carriage
manufacturers made velocipedes of a type similar to
the high or ordinary bicycle, but the improvements
came too late to save the trade, so that in 1870 he
was caught with his store-rooms well stocked with
these wheels, and no market for the goods.
The Franco- Prussian War retarded for a time the
progress of cycling interests in France, though
during that period there was a slow and steady
growth in England, and the United States Patent
Office reports show that our inventors were earnestly
endeavoring to solve the problem. Meanwhile the
use of wood gradually disappeared, giving place to
wire spokes, steel hubs and felloes, and the tubular
backbone, handle-bars, and forks. The round con-
tractile rubber tire, too, came to be used in place of
steel, and added materially to the comfort and ease
of riding.
The first bicycles seen by me were some English
machines shown at the Centennial Exhibition in
Philadelphia in 1876. They attracted my attention
to such an extent that I paid many visits to this ex-
hibit, studying carefully both the general plan and
the details of construction, and wondering if any but
trained gymnasts could master so strange and ap-
parently unsteady a mount. Some eight years had
passed since the velocipede had excited interest in
man-motor vehicles. This cumbersome machine,
which had failed of success and gone out of use, be-
cause it was wrong in design and poorly constructed,
had yet served a purpose in awakening the desire
to possess a light and easy running mount suitable
for every-day road service, and it naturally followed
that many of the early devotees of the bicycle were
men who had enjoyed a foretaste of its pleasures in
riding the old bone-shakers.
The sport had by this time become more or less
popular in England, and early in 1877 I had a
bicycle constructed under the personal supervision
of an English gentleman who was a guest at my
house. This wheel, completed in August, was made
entirely by hand, and cost the somewhat extravagant
sum of $3 1 3. As soon as the machine was mastered
I became so interested in it that I at once took
active steps toward introducing wheels in America.
The Pope Manufacturing Company had already
been organized, and in September, 1877, an order
was sent to England for a small quantity of bicycles,
which were received late in that year. The initiative
step in this great industry, however, was an order for
the construction of the first fifty Columbias. It was
given to the Weed Sewing-Machine Company, of
Hartford, Conn., in the spring of 1878. During
that season we marketed all told ninety-two wheels.
A trip to England and a careful review of the
field abroad confirmed me in the opinion that this
line of manufacture could be made profitable in the
United States, and that Americans could be brought
to look upon wheeling without unfavorable prejudice.
The wheels seen at the Centennial Exhibition had
been turned over to a Baltimore firm, who imported
a few more, but soon went out of the business. In-
terest having been aroused, however, importers ap-
peared in the market, and some years subsequent
to our beginning to make wheels other companies
were organized and took up the manufacture of
bicycles ; but from an historic point of view it is of
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
interest to note that the Pope Manufacturing Com-
pany is the sole survivor of all the concerns started
during the first few years.
As soon as the possibility of the industry being
pushed to success was realized, owners of patents
became aggressive in their demands, so that, at the
inception, the manufacture of bicycles was threat-
ened with financial disaster. It was at this point
that we adopted the policy of purchasing outright
whatever patents proved to be valid and of value ;
or, if this was impossible, we took licenses. In this
way a control of the business was secured, the in-
dustry was practically protected, and we were en-
abled to go on with the work and license others to
manufacture under our rights. It became necessary,
also, at the outset, to educate the people to the ad-
vantage of this invigorating sport, and, with this end
in view, the best literature that was to be had on the
subject was gratuitously distributed. At first the
prejudice against the bicycle was so intolerant that
its use was prohibited in many parks and public
thoroughfares ; and it cost many thousands of dollars
to carry through the cases which resulted in the
courts classing the bicycle as a vehicle, and granting
to wheelmen the same privileges that were enjoyed
by the users of carriages and other vehicles. We
spent over $8000 in the Central Park case alone.
During the life of the ordinary or high bicycle,
wheeling was a sport, pure and simple, and the trade
was pushed practically to its ultimate limit, as the
demand was naturally confined to those brave men
whose courage and love of the sport could not be
dampened by an occasional header. With the ad-
vent of the safety those of maturer age and more
timid temperament gradually took up the exercise,
and their enthusiasm, backed by its beneficial re-
sults, added thousands of new riders to the list of
wheelmen.
The first safeties were necessarily heavy, — fifty
pounds or more, — and, equipped with solid rubber
tires, were not particularly comfortable. The next
step in the development, therefore, was the adoption
of the cushion tire, which, with the spring frame, so
lessened the jar of riding over uneven surfaces that
the weight of the machine could be reduced. The
comfort thus secured broadened the demand. Then
came the introduction and perfection of the pneu-
matic tire, which did away with the jars to such
an extent that the manufacturer could with safety
again decrease the weight, thus adding greatly to
the speed and practical utility of the wheel as a
means of easy transit.
With added years of experience the manufacturers
have scientifically developed the bicycle as a whole,
and put into use hundreds of devices in the detail
of its construction. The results are seen in the
wonderful wheels of to-day, ranging in weight from
seventeen to twenty-four pounds. Wheeling can
now be enjoyed by young or old ; any one who is
able to walk has the strength necessary to propel
the bicycle. Furthermore, as the demand increased,
makers of medium-grade bicycles came into the
field, putting out machines for boys and girls, as
well as for men and women, so that now bicycles
are practically within reach of even the most
moderate means. The cardinal points of develop-
ment noted above show quite clearly the reason
for the increased use of bicycles, and the way in
which the field has been broadened, starting with
daring young men and ending in the adoption of
the wheel by all classes and conditions of mankind.
From the outset many doctors have believed in and
recommended the use of the bicycle, and now prac-
tically all physicians indorse wheeling as one of the
best and most health-giving of outdoor sports.
As an industry the manufacture of bicycles is very
important. There are now about 200 of these
concerns in the United States, many of them large
and substantial companies, representing in the ag-
gregate an investment of $20,000,000, exclusive
of those who devote their attention to making and
marketing accessories. There are 25,000 men en-
gaged in this line of work, and as many more in
distributing the product. The center of the best
bicycle manufacturing is in the Connecticut Valley.
The Pope Manufacturing Company alone employs
a force of over 2500 men, and has, in addition to
this, branch houses in the large cities and 3000
agencies throughout the entire country.
Early in 1893 a bicycle insurance company, care-
fully reviewing the field for data on which to estimate
chances of loss, concluded that there were in use at
that time in the United States not less than 1,000,-
ooo wheels. A very reliable estimate of the product
for 1895 puts the number of bicycles at about
550,000, and present prospects indicate that at
least fifty per cent, more will be made a.nd sold
in 1896.
As the success of one leading merchant assists hun-
dreds of smaller concerns, so the healthy develop-
ment of a new industry is of material advantage to
those who supply the increased demand in special
lines. The perfection of the bicycle has opened a
large market for steel and rubber, has resulted in
revolutionizing the methods of drawing seamless
steel tubes, and has wonderfully improved the man-
552
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ufacture of rubber goods. Instead of importing
tubing from England, as was done in the early days
of the trade, this product is now supplied by Amer-
ican makers, and some of it for the purpose is better
than any other tubing now known. It took years
to advance from the old-fashioned solid-rubber tire
to the single-tube tire of to-day. This one line of
development has cost a great deal of money, both
in the way of experimentation and in the equipment
of plants. There are hundreds of patent devices
covering tires, and the methods of attaching them
to the felloes of the wheel. A cardinal point of in-
terest to the trade is the fact that a few years of
actual use have so changed the public demand that
the single-tube tire is now called for by about ninety
per cent, of the riders. In addition to these impor-
tant branches there have grown up side by side with
the bicycle industry such profitable lines as the
manufacture of saddles, lanterns, bells, costumes,
and all the other articles classed under the term
" accessories."
The inception of the agitation for good roads was
coincident with and started by my early bicycle
experience on the suburban roads about Boston.
Pioneer work cost high, in both time and money,
and though at first it seemed a thankless undertak-
ing to reform the road management throughout the
country, recognition was finally obtained as the
result of constant attacks on the old system through
addresses before meetings of the Carriage-Builders'
National Association, Chambers of Commerce, and
other assemblies of representative men, as well as by
a liberal distribution of pamphlets, and contributions
to the press.
At the first meeting of the League of American
Wheelmen we took a decided stand on this subject,
and urged the advisability of the organization work-
ing unitedly for this reform. To-day all wheelmen
are earnest advocates for good roads, and much of
the success already attained is due to their hearty
cooperation and support. To comprehend the
financial advantage of good roads one has but to.
consider that there are throughout the United States
over 1,000,000 miles of highways, and that a saving
of a few cents per mile in hauling produce to and
from the railway stations and shipping points would
in one year mount up to a sum sufficient for the
construction of a majority of the roads now needed
east of the Mississippi River. The increased valu-
ation of property caused by the construction of
good roads is well illustrated in Union County,
New Jersey, where in one year property advanced
$1>359>6o°- The legislatures of New Jersey and
Massachusetts were the first to pass road laws
which by actual experience have proved to be
practicable.
On several occasions I had the honor to memo-
rialize Congress, and once submitted a monster peti-
tion on the importance of this reform ; and the
national government formally recognized the public
demand when, in 1893, a clause was introduced
into the Agricultural Bill appropriating $10,000 to
"enable the Secretary of Agriculture to make in-
quiries in regard to the system of road management
throughout the United States, to make investigations
in regard to the best method of road making, to
prepare publications on this subject suitable for dis-
tribution, and to enable him to assist agricultural
colleges and experimental stations in disseminating
information on this subject." A special agent was
put in charge of this work, and the information col-
lected is being published in convenient tabulated
form and freely distributed. Many of the States
have followed the example of Massachusetts and
New Jersey, while others are formulating plans with
the view of adopting such legislative measures as
will be most effective in improving the common
ways of the various States.
It is believed that the United States will enlarge
its work in this direction, thus in time making
American highways second to none in the world.
The plan followed by the Old Bay State commends
itself because of the good work already accom-
plished. Massachusetts has a permanent Highway
Commission, with the terms of office so arranged
that two out of the three members will always be
men familiar with the work in hand. Each com-
missioner receives a salary of $2000 a year, with an
additional allowance for traveling and other neces-
sary expenses. The State provides offices for the
use of the commissioners, who can be freely con-
sulted during certain hours by town and county
commissioners and others having the supervision of
road construction. The original enactment has
been so modified that, instead of petitioning the
legislature for the construction of each highway, a.
large sum is appropriated annually to be expended
at the discretion of the commission. As each sec-
tion of State road is intended to be an object-lesson
in road construction, wisdom has been shown in
distributing the work throughout the entire State by
building here and there small portions of an elabo-
rate system which, when completed, will furnish an
excellent means of communication throughout the
commonwealth, and, joining with through roads in
other States, will facilitate interstate traffic. Every-
ALBERT A. POPE.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
thing is done in the most systematic manner, and
there is being collected a valuable amount of data
bearing on the rock deposit suitable for road con-
struction and repair. As this work progresses, sec-
tional topographical maps are being published,
showing the exact location of all materials suitable
and available for work on the public highways.
The advent of the motor-carriage is bound to in-
crease the interest in good roads. The day of the
horse is already beginning to wane, and as soon as
a practical motor-carriage can be had by men of
moderate means we must have good roads, not only
in and about the cities, but throughout the entire
country.
CHAPTER LXXXV
THE DRY-GOODS TRADE
IN the beginning of the century the dry-goods
trade of this country presented but few fea-
tures of interest. Indeed, textiles were so often
combined with other commodities to form the mer-
chant's stock in trade, that it was difficult to deter-
mine where the former began or the latter ended.
Trading of all kinds was of a generalized character,
merchants handling alike dry-goods, groceries, and
sundries in the same establishments. The stocks
represented in such stores were incongruous in the
extreme ; cottons and silks from India, and velvets
and woolens from Europe, were placed in juxtaposi-
tion with groceries and hardware.
The trade in textiles in those early days was
almost entirely of an import character, and the
wholesale merchants, as a class, were either directly
or indirectly importers. The extent of American
cloth manufacture, as a factor in commerce, was in-
considerable. There were then but few specialized
industries or departments in trade or traffic, as we
now understand such distinctions. The distaff, the
spinning-wheel, and the hand-loom were part and
parcel of nearly every well-regulated household.
The flax and the wool were raised, carded, spun,
and woven at home, and the same hands that per-
formed these offices also frequently fashioned the
fabrics into wearing apparel for the use of the fam-
ily. This state of things, as a matter of course,
applied more fully to the common people. The
rich or more prosperous classes of the community
then, as now, imported many of the articles which
formed their wardrobes, as well as their bed and
table linen. Comparatively little attention was
given to the culture of cotton at this period by the
American people, and its use in the household, in
connection with wool and flax, was by no means
general. Its manufacture in an organized way, like
wool, was confined to one or two establishments of
crude construction and operation. They produced
fabrics of no great commercial importance, save
that they served to mark the initial stage or starting-
point for the greater multiplication and diversifica-
tion which have followed.
When it is considered that the inventions of Har-
greaves, Arkwright, Paul, Crompton, and Cartwright
had barely been adopted in this country at the close
of the eighteenth century, the development of our
textile industries since has been simply marvelous.
At the time referred to, our home products, in an
organized way, represented, in woolens, a few coarse
cloths ; in silks, a few lace and braid sundries ; and
in linens, some coarse sheeting and toweling. Our
imports of foreign textiles during the same period
were also of moderate proportions, being probably
about double the value of the home product. In
fact, from the close of the Revolutionary War until
1795, our imports of foreign dry-goods averaged
yearly about $24,000,000 to $26,000,000, while the
value of the home product varied between $12,000,-
ooo and $13,000,000. The latter, being almost
wholly of household manufacture, had but little
representation in merchants' stocks.
The village stores in those early days were few
and far between, and where they did find location,
their stocks, so far as dry-goods were concerned,
represented only a few of the coarser textures in
woolens, linens, and cottons, with buttons and
thread, associated with goodly supplies of rum,
molasses, and groceries. A considerable trade with
towns located on the banks of inland streams was
transacted by means of flatboats similarly stocked.
In the cities the wholesale trade was almost entirely
confined to the importers, who dealt in those foreign
and home commodities, crude or manufactured,
which were in the greatest demand and yielded the
best profits. With the retail trade in the cities like-
wise, the distinction in the kind of goods handled
by different dealers was not very marked, most of
the shopkeepers selling a little of everything. In
some of the larger cities, however, a slight tendency
554
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
m
toward separate classification began to appear ; that
is, dry-goods and notions, in the more pretentious
establishments, were to some extent sold to the
exclusion of other commodities. But the general
condition of the people— the fact that they supplied
themselves with the manufactures of the household,
and preferred in many cases to barter rather than
pay the cash — did not tend to develop early any
very large retail establishments in separate lines of
goods, even in the most populous cities.
In this connection it may be interesting to note
that the imports of foreign merchandise paying ad
valorem duties into the United States from 1795 to
1800 inclusive, amounted to nearly $212,000,000, of
which the textile part represented about two thirds.
The kind and character of the latter — especially at
New York, which was then, as now, the chief im-
porting city of the country — may be readily inferred
from the following names, given in the orthography
of the day. They represented goods chiefly from
India and China, and the cities of Amsterdam,
Hamburg, Liverpool, and London, such as cottons,
woolens, silks, velvets, linens, laces, edgings, hosiery,
gloves, and shawls, including damasks, dimities,
callimancoes, durants, tabarets, platillas, listadoes,
mamoodies, gurrahs, cossas, baftas, russets, satinets,
duffels, britannias, etc. Among the more important
firms in New York importing or handling such
goods about 1800 were : Bethune & Smith, Murray's
Wharf; John Knox, 97 Water Street; McCready &
Reid, 97 William Street ; Hector & Scott, 125 Pearl
Street; John & William Tabele, 260 Pearl Street;
Richard & John Thorne, 141 Pearl Street; Benja-
min I. Moore, 103 William Street; Charles J. Vogel
& Company, 92 Maiden Lane; William Blackstock
& Company, 163 Pearl Street; A. S. Norwood, 127
William Street ; Robert & John Sharp, 93 Maiden
Lane. These firms, with the exception of A. S.
Norwood, who dealt almost exclusively in carpets,
rugs, and bedsides, handled dry-goods more largely,
perhaps, than other houses, although among the lat-
ter, who sold them in connection with other foreign
and domestic commodities, might be mentioned:
Archibald Gracie, 52 Pine Street; James Stuart, 10
William Street ; Eben Watson & Company, 36 Old
Slip ; Fergurson & Crichton, 84 Broadway ; Rogers
& Lambert, 232 Pearl Street; H. G. Rutgers &
Company, 145 Pearl Street ; Rutgers, Seaman &
Ogden, 93 Front Street; Thomas Bulkley, 241
Front Street ; Suydam & Wyckoff, 2 1 South Street ;
Robert Weir & Company, 16 Gold Street; John
Knox, 97 Water Street ; Thomas Warren, 61 Maiden
Lane ; John MacGregor, 84 Broadway ; and Min-
turn & Barker, Thomas Napier & Company, Robert
Lenox, Frederic de Peyster, Gouverneur & Kemble,
John Murray & Sons, and others.
From 1800 to 1815 the country, its trade and in-
dustries, passed through some very trying ordeals-
complications arising with France, the Embargo and
Non-intervention acts going into effect, and every-
thing finally culminating in the war with Great
Britain. The restrictions upon our import trade
during this period tended rather to foster our home
industries than otherwise. In 1803 a serious panic
prevailed in Great Britain, which materially affected
our trade interests both at home and abroad. In
1804 the first consignment, for sale, of American
cottons was made by Almy & Brown, of Provi-
dence, R. I., to Elijah Warren, of Philadelphia, Pa.,
who became their agent for yarns and threads, and
afterward for stripes, plaids, checks, ginghams, tick-
ings, etc. The amount of domestic cottons sold
in Philadelphia, the produce of New England fac-
tories, from 1804 to 1806 inclusive amounted to
only $17,670.
The Embargo went into force in 1807, and as a
matter of course, almost wholly cut off our foreign
trade. The cotton-spindles in the United States at
this date amounted to about 4000, showing that the
progress made in this line of industry had been slow,
although before the end of the year they had doubled,
and by 1809, seventeen mills were in operation in
Providence, R. I., and vicinity, working 2296 spin-
dles, and producing about 510,000 pounds of yarn.
About 1000 looms were employed in weaving cotton
cloth. The census returns for 1810 also gave further
evidence of more or less rapid advancement being
made in the manufacture of cottons and woolens, as
well as in other industries. In round figures, accord-
ing to the Treasury Department, the value of our pro-
duct in cottons and woolens, exclusive of clothing
and other goods, in 1810 was nominally about $46,-
000,000. The invention of the cotton-gin by Eli
Whitney in 1794 had brought about a great change
in both the production and the manufacture of cot-
ton, so that from this time forward it became our
leading textile product.
In the years 1815-16 our imports of foreign dry-
goods were so enormous as not only to glut our
markets, but to paralyze our cotton and woolen in-
dustries as well. In fact, many of the leading im-
porting and other merchants of the time were almost
ruined by the unprecedented fall in the prices of
goods and the general stagnation of trade and busi-
ness resulting. This state of affairs was not entirely
due to the results of the war, and the reopening of
556
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
our ports to foreign traders who took advantage of
the low rates of the ad valorem duties then prevail-
ing, but was caused largely by the cotton and woolen
manufacturers of Great Britain who unloaded their
surplus stocks in our markets at prices below the
cost of production, with the view to cripple our
textile mills and control the trade of this country.
In this they succeeded for the time being and for
some years later. From this period onward, through
the decades ending with 1820, 1830, 1840, and
1850, there is but little reliable official informa-
tion to be gleaned from the census reports respect-
ing our advancement in manufactures, if the year
1850 be excepted; but that it was gradual and
steady is evidenced by the increased production of
the spindles and the looms, especially in cottons and
woolens, distributed by the general dry-goods trade.
Our imports of textiles also kept growing apace, but
not in like ratio to those of home production. This
long period was eminently one of preparation and
organization for both our dry-goods and our general
textile-manufacturing interests. Many important in-
ventions and processes were perfected during this
time, such as the sewing-machine, power-loom,
knitting-machine, and other mechanical devices,
which not only changed but multiplied and diversi-
fied the textile manufactured products of the world,
and thus created many of the subdivisions which
are such important factors in the dry-goods trade
to-day.
The wars, panics, depressions, conflagrations, and
other vicissitudes through which the trade and
country passed in the first half of the century seemed
to spur manufacturers and merchants to make re-
newed efforts in the upbuilding of our industries.
In the latter decade of it there set in a more marked
tendency toward the diversification of products, and
the inauguration of improved methods in their sale
and distribution. The classification of goods was
then carried to a much finer point than formerly,
and the general trade, both wholesale and retail, out-
side of the regular dry-goods jobbing houses, began
to make more or less separate distinctions in the
goods which it sold. There were importers and
wholesale dealers who handled special or distinct
lines of goods, as silks and dress-goods; cloths,
coatings, and cassimeres ; notions and small wares ;
hosiery, underwear, and gloves ; laces and embroi-
deries ; white goods and linens ; and hats and caps.
In the retail trade in the cities these distinctions, in
many cases, were equally well outlined, although the
stores in the larger towns and villages throughout
the country still adhered more or less closely to the
original policy of carrying miscellaneous stocks of
merchandise. The evolution of the clothing trade,
and, still later, that of made-up articles for women's
and children's wear, not only brought the immigrant
garment workers to the front in these particular lines
of trade, but also, in the succeeding decades, made
the classifications in manufacturing, wholesale, and
retail circles still more minute and numerous. If there
be added to these the development and more general
utilization of the commercial agency and the com-
mercial traveler systems, we have the grand factors
which are so potential in the extension and prosper-
ity of the dry-goods trade of to-day. Indeed, when
the year 1850 dawned we had reached the basis on
which to build a broader national and industrial de-
velopment. With the founding of new towns and
cities in the interior, West and South, there came a
larger and more diversified demand, with an increase
of stores and shops, while newer and more varied
articles of merchandise, suitable to the growing
wants and tastes of the people, were being produced.
In 1850 the value of our cotton and woolen pro-
ducts aggregated about $112,000,000, while our
combined textile output reached $129,000,000.
Our imports of foreign dry-goods for the same
year approximated $59,000,000. As compared with
1795, the former had increased about tenfold, while
the latter had only about doubled. However, this
is not altogether a fair showing, for the reason that
the dry-goods trade, both wholesale and retail, then,
as now, handled large quantities of miscellaneous
merchandise not strictly included in the textile
class, but which, if enumerated in value, would
largely swell the total in sales, and make the in-
crease in general distribution for the fifty-five years
the more noteworthy and significant.
Thus it will be seen from the foregoing, that the
year 1850 marked a new era in the history of the
dry-goods trade of this country. Prior to it there
was practically no domestic commission business
done in New York City. Boston, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore were then the domestic commission cen-
ters. The product of the New England mills was
mostly controlled by Boston houses. Philadelphia
had twenty or more commission-houses selling all
kinds of domestic goods, and it was the chief market
for what were then designated as "blue goods,"
which comprised denims, checks, stripes, etc. Some
of the Philadelphia houses were organized as early
as 1832. About this time, also, a large quantity of
dry-goods were sold in Hartford, Conn. New York
was the market of this country for imported goods,
and the importance of opening domestic commis-
JOHN N. BEACH.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
sion-houses in that city then began to be recognized.
At ftrst the Boston merchants, who were the agents
of the Eastern mills, discouraged the project, and
only a few of them were induced to open small
offices in New York. Soon, however, it was found
that in these small offices a larger business was being
done than in the parent houses in the East, and so
one house after another, and mill after mill, opened
agencies in New York for the sale of the goods
represented or manufactured by them, and the busi-
ness soon developed into extensive proportions.
At this date the jobbing business of New York was
still largely done downtown, on Broadway, Cedar,
Pine, Liberty, and Broad streets ; there were no retail
houses above Howard Street. Our home manufac-
tures of textiles were still mostly of a common staple
character, all the finer goods being imported from
Europe.
In 1857 occurred the memorable panic, which
for the time paralyzed the business of the country ;
and the dry-goods interest, being the largest and
most diversified, suffered the most severely. A daily
record of one of our New York houses, kept con-
tinuously from 1847 to tne present time, notes
August 27, 1857, "the failure of the Ohio Loan
and Trust Company, as the beginning of horrors."
October of that year is recalled by all who took part
in the struggle as a time which tried men's souls
—and their bank-accounts. Numerous failures
occurred, and many were the accounts of fortunate
turns and of hairbreadth escapes from suspension
and failure.
The imports of foreign dry-goods into the United
States in 1860 amounted to $112,350,000, while
the value of our combined textile manufactures
reached $215,000,000. As contrasted with 1795,
the former had increased nearly fivefold, and the
latter nearly eighteen times. The war between the
North and South succeeding, it may be interest-
ing to particularize some of the more important
commercial and financial events that ensued, and
which specially affected our dry-goods interests.
In December, 1861, cotton goods began to advance,
and the average increase in prices during the first
two years of the war was about 300 per cent. The
following year showed a still sharper rise, and the
high prices of the war culminated in the fall of 1864,
when the average advance in prices of cotton goods
from December, 1861, was about 1000 per cent.
In April, 1864, raw cotton sold at $1.90 per pound,
and on July nth gold reached 299. The period
intervening between 1861 and 1864 was one of the
sternest trials the mercantile world has ever known.
In Europe it was known as the "cotton famine,"
regular shipments of the staple from the United
States being almost entirely suspended. General
Lee's surrender occurred April 9, 1865, and on June
30th of that year cotton sold at forty cents per pound.
Manufactured cottons, however, did not show pro-
portionate decrease in price. In October following
cotton had risen to sixty-four cents per pound, while
prints, sheetings, etc., were about half the price which
had been current for them in the fall of 1864. It
was during this year that the largest dry-goods job-
bing house not only in this country, but in the world,
distributed goods broadcast throughout the Union
to the enormous amount of $72,000,000. Turning
again to our imports of foreign dry-goods and the
home manufactures of textiles, we find that the
former in 1870 aggregated only $98,290,000, while
the value of the combined product of the latter ex-
ceeded $520,000,000. The increase, as compared
with 1795, in imports was barely fourfold, while in
home products it represented about 2500 per cent.
From this date vast strides were made in the
character and scope of our domestic manufactures.
The rapid increase in immigration, the develop-
ment of the great Northwest, causing an enlarged
demand for dry-goods, were met by our manufac-
turers with largely increased and improved facilities
for producing them. A special impetus was also
given to the production of the finer and better
grades and more varied styles of merchandise by
the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Our people
then began to realize what could be done in this
country.
By 1880 the value of our textile products was
nearly $533,000,000, while our imports of foreign
dry-goods approximated to $136,000,000. The
showing in this decade for the former, as compared
with 1870, did not exhibit a very large increase ; still
it must be borne in mind that our manufacturers
encountered some very severe vicissitudes during
this period, and besides, from the close of the war
onward, there had been a gradual and steady de-
cline in the prices of nearly all kinds and classes
of textiles, due to the improving and cheapening of
facilities for production. While the value of the
output showed but little appreciable augmentation,
the increase in quantity and variety was especially
noteworthy. From 1881 to 1887 inclusive, Mulhall,
one of the most reliable of foreign statisticians,
estimates the aggregate value of the output of
American textile manufactures at $3,250,000,000,
which would give an annual average value for the
seven years of $465,000,000. But he was consider-
558
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ably below the mark in his figures, since the output
three years later (1890), according to the census
reports, represented nearly $722,000,000. This
large amount, added to our imports of foreign dry-
goods for the same year,— nearly $156,000,000,—
made the grand total of $878,000,000 of textiles
imported from abroad and produced at home.
Compared with 1795, this shows an increase of
nearly 4600 per cent. The home manufactures
alone show a gain of over 5500 per cent., while the
imports exhibit a gain of less than 170 per cent. On
the basis of an increase of at least fifteen per cent,
from 1890 to 1895 in the value of the product of our
textile manufactures, it would make the same ap-
proximate in the latter year to $830,000,000, which,
if added to the imports of foreign dry-goods for
the fiscal year ending June 3oth,— $137,000,000,—
would swell the grand total of textile manufactures
for sale or distribution to $967,000,000. However,
the foregoing estimates do not include the freight,
insurance, duties, etc., on foreign dry-goods, nor the
sellers' profits on the same, as well as on domestic
goods. If all these be added, the annual aggregate
value of textiles alone handled by the dry-goods
trade of the United States to-day would largely ex-
ceed $1,000,000,000.
We have now the final comparison of 1795, with
$40,000,000, and of 1895, with nearly $1,000,000,-
ooo, to show the growth and the development of
the dry-goods business of the country for the cen-
tury. This would give the ratio of increase for the
one hundred years as about 4000 per cent. This is
wonderful, considering all things. But textiles only
have so far been considered, while the dry-goods
merchant of to-day, both wholesale and retail,
handles multitudes of articles not included in that
category which serve to increase his sales to a very
large extent. Owing to the great subdivisions now
existing in the trade, as well as to the fact that the
large commission-houses, importers, jobbers, and re-
tailers have intermixed dry-goods proper with many
other lines of merchandise, it is utterly impossible
to get at the exact value of the annual distribu-
tion. In fact, in the later decades of the century
there has been a manifest disposition on the part
of the large retail houses in our cities and more
enterprising towns to buy and sell, like the early
importers, promiscuous merchandise and wares in
connection with dry and fancy goods proper. The
census reports of the United States have divided the
manufacturing industries into 363 classes, of which
the dry-goods establishments of the present day
contain not less than one sixth of the whole. In
many of these stores are to be found nearly all the
modern appointments and conveniences that serve
to attract, please, and satisfy the wants of customers.
The refectories, cash, delivery, sample, mailing, and
express systems are now some of the more prominent
features of some of these establishments, which have
patrons living thousands of miles away that perhaps
never visit the store, having their wants as efficiently
attended to as those living nearer at hand.
While the retail branches of the trade have grown
apace, the wholesale departments have not lagged
behind. The older importing and jobbing centers
still maintain their due share of the country's trade,
but it is nevertheless centralized in fewer houses.
The gain in trade and traffic by interior, Western,
and Southern distributing centers represents no very
material loss to the older Eastern cities, from the
fact that there has been in many instances such an
unprecedented increase in the wants of the people
of those sections, due to growth of population, geo-
graphical and other reasons, that the organization of
wholesale distributing houses there became a neces-
sity. An estimate of the textiles manufactured in
this country during the past century, based upon the
United States census reports and upon the figures of
reliable statisticians, would place the aggregate value
of the same at over $20,000,000,000, while the im-
ports of foreign dry-goods for the same period would
probably represent one third of that amount, or
nearly $7,000,000,000. Adding to this total of
$27,000,000,000, the freight, insurance, exchange,
and duties on the foreign part, and the sellers' profit
on the whole amount as the goods reach the con-
sumer, we would have the enormous aggregate of
nearly $40,000,000,000.
The merchants of America who have handled the
immense quantity of merchandise instanced have, as
a rule, been men who have borne favorable compar-
ison with those in other varied walks of life. A
standard of integrity and honor was formed by the
early merchants, which their successors have main-
tained. Before the days of " rapid transit," when a
journey from Buffalo to New York was more of an
undertaking than is now a trip to California or to
Europe, the village merchant who made his annual
or semi-annual visit to the city was the oracle of his
neighborhood. His return home was hailed as an
important event. He was immediately surrounded
by his neighbors, anxious to hear all the news
from the city. The answer as to whether goods
were " high or low " settled the market with them
for the season, as " new goods " would not again
make their appearance for six months at least.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Those who were in a position to secure the first
selections were to be congratulated. After the ad-
vent of new goods ceased to attract attention the
merchant would find time to attend to certain du-
ties which, by virtue of his position in the commu-
nity, were apt to be placed upon him. As a rule,
he held the office of postmaster, town clerk, school
trustee, and exchange banker, for his customers.
He wrote their wills, and in due time executed
many of them.
Numbers of such old-time retail merchants can
now be recalled by our city jobbers. They were, in
the main, honest men — as is true of the great major-
ity of the merchants of to-day. While dishonest
failures occur, and always have, and always will,
they are the exception and not the rule. The safety
with which wholesale merchants distribute millions
upon millions of dollars of merchandise far and
near, throughout the length and breadth of this
land, lies essentially in the fact that they are dealing
with honest men, whose ambition is to make them-
selves more and more worthy of credit. Mutual
confidence exists, and forms the basis of the im-
mense volume of business of the present day. The
aggregate transactions of a single day in any of
our large houses often reach hundreds of thousands
of dollars, and many of them are based upon the
simple word of honor. A prominent dry-goods
merchant, accustomed to large offhand transac-
tions with his fellow-merchants, was recently closing
up a real-estate deal. Being somewhat wearied
with red-tape delays and repetitions, he exclaimed,
" I suppose all this is necessary with you real-estate
people ; but in my office I would have transacted
ten times this amount of business, with perhaps not
a written word between my customer and myself,
and our obligations to each other would have been
carried out as faithfully as will these which you
have taken volumes to express."
In the early days of mercantile paper, and not
very far back in the century, a banker said to a
dry-goods merchant, " Where is your collateral upon
which you ask for this loan? " The merchant, with
becoming dignity, replied, " My collateral is in my
warehouses, upon the pages of my ledger, and in
my bank-account. These constitute my ability to
pay, and you must have faith in my simple promise
to do so." Faith thus wisely placed is not very
often betrayed, and commercial paper has become
a safe and favorite means of investment. A leading
member of the New York bar, upon a recent visit
to one of our large dry-goods establishments, was
greatly surprised, and expressed it as " a new reve-
lation " to him, that thousands of packages of mer-
chandise were shown him, the contents of which
had never been examined since they left the mills,
and would, without examination, be shipped in
every direction, some of them thousands of miles
distant, with the minimum risk that they would fail
to conform to the invoice or that unjust claims
would be made against them. Transactions of this
character are enormous, and are made with safety.
The present facilities for finding out the correct
standing of "far-away merchants," not only as to
their financial ability, but also as to their moral
character, business habits, and general reputation,
are so good that in adjusting credits space is in a
great measure eliminated.
Since the establishment of the first mercantile
agency in 1841, these agencies have multiplied and
improved so as to be of vast service in determining
credits. While far from infallible, they are indis-
pensable. The uniform courtesy existing between
merchants in the exchange of references is also of
great value, and with all the means of information
now at hand the "far-off merchant" worthy of
credit suffers no disadvantage by reason of distance
from market. While rivalries exist, and rightly so,
between merchants and between cities, it is worthy
of note that petty jealousies are rapidly fading
away. The development of this country is so
great, and the interests of the people are so closely
allied to one another, that anything affecting one
part of the country affects the whole, and sectional
differences and strifes are rapidly disappearing.
The constant growth of this country in population
and wealth, and in the legitimate means of obtain-
ing the latter, has a broadening influence upon the
people. With our enormous immigration, reaching
as high as 750,000 in a single year ; with the admis-
sion of five States into the Union within the past
five years, having an area exceeding that of Ger-
many, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium, and
Holland combined ; and with four Territories yet to
be admitted, equaling the area of the United States
in 1800, the industrial and commercial interests of
this country must continue to make rapid strides
forward, and the dry-goods trade will not fail to
maintain its prominence as the chief distributing in-
dustry of the country.
In point of capital and labor employed, and
magnitude of proportions, it has no equal. The
tendency of this country to concentrate and to cen-
tralize business interests applies to the dry-goods
trade in a very marked degree. The business is
being more and more merged into large establish-
560
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ments. The present number of dry-goods houses
in New York, for example, falls far below that of
twenty-five or even fifty years ago ; but the aggre-
gate amount of merchandise sold there exceeds by
far that in any previous period in the history of the
city, and this notwithstanding the numerous large
and important outlets which have since been added
to the list. As an illustration of this it may be re-
lated that the head of one of the prominent dry-goods
houses of New York, upon reaching his counting-
room one morning since the "days of large things,"
opened the sales register, and proceeded to compare
the sales of the preceding day with those of his
first year in New York. Turning to one of his
partners, he remarked, " It is rather a singular
coincidence that the sales yesterday of this house
exactly represent the aggregate sales of the first
six months of its existence." This is but a single
instance pointing to the fact that New York City,
as well as the other older cities, maintains its
supremacy as one of the great commercial centers
of this country.
CHAPTER LXXXVI
THE CLOTHING AND FURNISHING TRADE
THE history of the manufacture of ready-
made clothing in the United States is compre-
hended in a period of perhaps seventy years.
There do not appear to be any records of the earliest
days of the trade, and its origin is lost in the obscurity
of time. It is probable, however, that the cradle of this
important industry, in which vast fortunes have been
made and lost, was at New Bedford, Mass., where,
so far as I can learn, the first ready-made clothing
was manufactured to supply the immediate and
pressing needs of the sailors returning from whaling
voyages, or to stock their slop-chests for new adven-
tures on the sea. These goods were of the coarsest
materials, but they served the purpose. This first sys-
tematic attempt to make up clothing for immediate
wear must have been at least as early as 1830, and
it is possible that it was before that date. At the
beginning of the century whose commercial history
is comprehended in the present work, every man
went to the draper, as he was called, for his raiment,
as in England and in Europe generally he still does.
Clothing ready to wear, according to our modern
development of the idea, had not then been thought
of. Whoever he was who first conceived the idea
of ready-made clothing, though he left no name for
posterity to honor, his invention was destined to have
a great influence upon the industries of his day, and
upon the commercial history of his country. Be-
ginning in a small way by supplying returning sail-
ors who could not wait for the usual slow processes
of shears and goose, the demands increased so that
presently many dealers found it expedient to make
up in advance a small stock of garments, to meet
a sudden, if not overcritical, demand. The idea
reached Boston in due course, and then New York
City, where the trade was stimulated, a few years
later, by the requirements of emigrants to the newly
discovered gold-fields of California. The business
soon assumed a considerable importance, and the
dealers began systematically to operate small fac-
tories on their premises.
In the earlier days the demand for ready-made
clothing grew fastest in the West and South. In
those then somewhat remote parts of the country
there were not the facilities for manufacture that
existed about the commercial centers of the East.
The wholesale production of ready-made clothing
here naturally followed. George Opdyke, once
mayor of New York, was one of the earliest to en-
gage in this business. About 1831 he commenced
to manufacture clothing in Hudson Street, opening
a store in New Orleans. Some three years later, his
brother-in-law, John D. Scott, moved from Baptist-
town, N. J., to this city, and took charge of the busi-
ness of the factory, the firm being changed to John
D. Scott & Company. They subsequently opened
retail stores in Charleston and Memphis, which with
the wholesale store were carried on until 1 865, the firm
being then dissolved by the death of Mr. Scott. They
made their clothing of the coarser grades, largely
for field hands in the South, but supplied the plant-
ers with garments of good quality. John T. Mar-
tin, who is still living in Brooklyn, went to St. Louis,
where he did a very prosperous business in the days
before the war, retiring upon a large fortune many
years ago. Mr. Thomas Chatterton, still alive and
hearty, began in New Haven as a dealer about 1 840,
and in 1 846 he first handled ready-made clothing and
entered the field as a manufacturer. In 1856 he
came to New York, where his store was at 60 Lib-
erty Street. It is interesting to note that he paid a
rental for the whole building that he occupied of
but $2800 a year. He afterward moved to Warren
Street, the firm then being Lewis, Chatterton & Com-
pany. John H. Browning, the father of the writer of
this article, commenced business in New York City
in 1832 as a dry-goods jobber, under the firm name of
Browning & Hull. In 1848 Mr. John H. Browning
561
502
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
started a branch store in California, making his first
shipments mostly of dry-goods; but soon changed
it into a clothing store and forwarded large amounts
of cheap clothing, mostly gray flannel shirts and
trousers for the use of the miners. The writer
of this article commenced to take charge of the
clothing department of his father's business in 1850,
and remained with him until the spring of 1858,
when he became associated with John E. Hanford,
formerly of the firm of Lewis & Hanford, and en-
gaged in the manufacture of clothing for the South
and West. Their business was exceedingly prosper-
ous until the breaking out of the war, when they
had over $500,000 worth of assets in the Southern
Confederacy confiscated. After the war broke out,
the firm of Hanford & Browning, in the month of
May, 1 86 1 , procured a contract from Quartermaster-
General Thomas, of Philadelphia, for $1,250,000
worth of clothing, which in those days was consid-
ered a very large undertaking. After this large con-
tract had been entered into and the cloth purchased
from the mills, one Saturday afternoon the firm
received a telegram from Quartermaster-General
Meigs, of Washington, repeated by Quartermaster-
General Thomas, of Philadelphia, which read :
" We understand you have awarded a contract to
Hanford & Browning, of New York City, of $1,250,-
ooo for army clothing. Is it possible ? If so, stop
it at once, as it is largely in excess of any possible
demand.
"(Signed) Quartermaster Meigs."
John E. Hanford immediately started for Washing-
ton, and arrived there as our soldiers were return-
ing from the unfortunate battle of Bull Run, and,
on being admitted to Quartermaster-General Meigs's
office, and with him going over the figures at which
the contract was taken, the firm was again ordered
to go ahead and supply the goods as quickly as
possible. So rapid was the demand for army goods
that cloth purchased for overcoats under that con-
tract at seventy-six cents a yard, from Hunt & Till-
inghast advanced to $1.50 a yard before the con-
tract was completed. The original price to the
government for the overcoats was $6, but the price
had to be raised to $10. The firm of Hanford &
Browning dissolved about 1862, and the business
was conducted for the next three years under the
firm name of Browning, Button & Kimball, and
then changed to William C. Browning & Company,
under which name it continued until 1868, when the
present firm of Browning, King & Company was
started. The house has retail stores to-day in fifteen
cities, a wholesale house in Chicago, and a large fac-
tory in New York City.
It is impossible at this date to preserve anything
like a chronological order in recalling the names of
others of the early manufacturers whose operations
developed the industry that to-day has attained such
great proportions. But among them, as they are
called to mind haphazard, were John T. Martin &
Company, from whom, through a succession of
changes, has sprung the present house of Rogers,
Peet & Company, in which Mr. Martin is a special
partner, and his son, William R. H. Martin, is a part-
ner ; Brooks Brothers, who started business at Cath-
erine and Cherry streets in 1845, trading with the
sailors along the water-front, and whose descendants
still conduct the business at Broadway and Twenty-
second Street; Lewis B. Brown & Company, who
were in the Southern trade, and the head of which,
having been forced under by the war, went into the
real-estate business and founded the New Jersey
summer resort called, in imitation of his own name,
Elberon ; A. T. Bruce & Company ; Little, Pyan &
Carhart, afterward, in 1862, becoming successively
Schaeffer, Whitford & Company, Carhart, Whitford
& Company, and, in more recent days, Hackett,
Carhart & Company ; H. & J. Paret ; Daniel Devlin ;
C. T. Longstreet & Company ; Archibald Young &
Company ; and Garrett, Young & Scott. Among
other ante-bellunrclothiers who have since achieved
distinction in other fields of activity are the late Jesse
Seligman, who began as a clothing dealer, then en-
gaged in selling British dry-goods, and finally wound
up in the banking business in Wall Street ; and John
J. Cisco, at one time assistant subtreasurer of New
York. In those early days there was but a single
Hebrew in the wholesale business ; but a large number
of Hebrews went to California as retailers of goods
made in New York. They made a great deal of
money, partly by the difference in exchange. Now
the big wholesale business is largely in the hands of
the Jews, as one may see by the bewildering array of
signs in Broadway ; while the retail business is largely
in the hands of Christians.
The breaking out of the war caused great changes
in the clothing business. Many New York manu-
facturers having a large trade with the South lost
enormous sums, while others whose trade was in the
West and North derived great benefits by the sud-
den demand for clothing in large quantities. Mr.
John T. Martin and many others did a very
large business in manufacturing uniforms for the
government troops. These goods were made in the
homes of the workmen at first, but afterward, as the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
demands increased, factories were established, and
the business was greatly stimulated. The unsettled
conditions, due to the prolongation of the war and
the depreciation of the certificates with which the
government paid, made the business one of many
hazards ; but a few of the larger and more respon-
sible dealers, having faith in the government, reaped
their reward in the reestablishment of credit and the
corresponding appreciation of the government certi-
ficates from seventy or eighty cents to par. In the
fall of 1865, when the war closed, the clothing busi-
ness took its greatest jump, and the manufacturers
were not able to supply the immediate demand for
clothing for the soldiers returning home. Millions
of dollars were spent for clothes that year.
The first circumstance to increase the powers of
production to a point somewhat equaling the de-
mand for cheap clothing was the introduction of the
Singer sewing-machine about the year 1850. It was
not regarded as wholly satisfactory at first, because
machine-stitching would rip, and the hand-made
garments were much firmer. The invention of the
lock-stitch, remedying the principal fault, brought the
machines into general use, and made possible the
manufacture of the enormous volume of clothing
used during the war. Previous to the invention of
the sewing-machine clothing had of necessity been
made by hand, and great quantities of it were sent
out to the country towns round about New York,
Boston, and Philadelphia, to be sewed by the wives
and daughters of farmers and sailors through the
winter. This clothing was used to supply the coun-
try trade, and was not as fine as that made in the
cities ; for, as a rule, the labor employed in the vil-
lages was cheap and unskilled.
It was not until some years after the war — per-
haps about 1870 — that cutting-machines were first
introduced into the wholesale manufacture of cloth-
ing. The long knife was the first improvement upon
the old-fashioned shears of former years, and this,
operating something like a saw, made possible the
cutting of some eighteen thicknesses of clothing to
one thickness cut by shears. The Fenno and Worth
cutting-machines came later, the blade being a cir-
cular disk, revolving rapidly, and cutting as many as
twenty-four thicknesses of clothing with the speed
and accuracy of a buzz-saw. By these modern
agencies hundreds of suits can be cut and sewed
by machinery in the time formerly required by the
delving draper in fashioning a single garment. The
ancient goose still holds its supremacy, however, as
the only accepted implement for pressing garments,
no improvements having suggested themselves in its
form. Electricity has, however, taken the place of
the furnace, in some instances, for heating the goose.
As the industry grew apace, and the number of
persons to whom it gave employment increased, a
certain method was naturally evolved, and a division
of labor was arranged by which specialists in differ-
ent details of the work of manufacture were devel-
oped. Formerly one tailor made a whole suit ; now
a dozen hands may be employed to advantage on a
single garment. There is, first of all, the skilled de-
signer, upon whose taste much depends in these Jin
de stitle days ; the cutter, who in the best-regulated
shops is a deft artist in his way ; another sews cer-
tain parts of a garment only ; there are vest makers
and "hands on pants," as the phrase is; and still
others make buttonholes, that difficult operation now
being performed by machinery.
Clothing for boys developed separately and along
its own lines. Smith & Davidson were among the
earliest to devote themselves to children's garments.
During the war the firm became Peck, Randolph &
Smith, and in 1865 Mr. Smith went to Williamsburg
and started the present house of Smith, Gray & Com-
pany. W. T. Runk & Company was another pio-
neer house in the manufacture of clothes for boys, and
it continues to-day under the firm name of Hippel,
Tillard & Runk, a son of the founder of the house
perpetuating the name. Dayton & Gilbert were very
large handlers of children's garments, and the house
still survives as Dayton & Close. William Banks &
Company, in Chambers Street, and Barrett & Schaef-
fer, in Murray Street, were also in the business up to
the time of the war. Previously children's clothing
had been made at home, as women's gowns are
nowadays, by dressmakers.
With all these vast improvements in the methods
of manufacture came a wider demand for clothing
of higher grade, and at about the time of the close
of the war persons of taste began to wear ready-made
garments. A few leading houses in New York led
the way, and, though progress was slow, little by
little the early prejudice, founded upon the charac-
ter of the " slop " clothes first introduced, was over-
come. Men who had fancied that they could never
wear "hand-me-downs," as they were vulgarly called,
soon found that neither in respect of style nor mate-
rials was the best ready-made clothing inferior to the
handiwork of the merchant tailor. That point being
once made clear, there was a wonderful advance in
the quality of goods manufactured, until to-day one
can hardly fancy what an uphill road the early manu-
facturers traveled before the high quality of their
wares was recognized. Now perhaps nine tenths of
564
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the men and boys of the country wear clothing made
ready to put on, and they are as well dressed as the
other one in ten. The custom tailor still has, and I
do not doubt will retain, a monopoly of those extreme
fancies of the fashionable which justify their claims
to exclusiveness. But the multitude is clothed by
the clothier, not by the tailor, if that distinction be
recognized. And if it be true, as I think it is, that
the condition of a people is indicated by its cloth-
ing, America's place in the scale of civilized lands is
a high one. We have provided not alone abundant
clothing at a moderate cost for all classes of citizens,
but we have given them at the same time that style
and character in dress that is essential to the self-re-
spect of a free, democratic people. In Europe no
such advance has been made as yet, although a con-
siderable quantity of ready-made clothing is manu-
factured in Germany, France, and England. They
have not, however, progressed far beyond the point
at which we started.
Statistically speaking, the figures of the trade are
difficult of access. In 1860 there were 303 manu-
facturers in New York, making goods to the amount
of $17,011,370; and there were 352 manufacturers
in Philadelphia, producing goods worth $9,984,497.
According to the Census Office reports we find that
in 1890 woolen goods and worsteds manufactured in
the United States amounted in value to $338,000,-
ooo, and cotton and silk manufactures respectively
to $268,000,000 and $87,000,000. In the same
year the importations of the materials reached $120,-
000,000, showing a consumption of more than $800,-
in this country is consumed in the manufacture of
ready-made clothing, the remainder going to the in-
dividual merchant tailors. A considerable propor-
tion of imported woolens is used also in goods of
the better class.
The figures that follow are from the United States
census returns for the five years indicated in the table.
They present, more compactly than I could put the
facts in any other form, a view of the extent and
development of the clothing industry since 1850. It
must be stated that the figures for 1850 include the
clothing and tailoring trades together. Here is the
summary :
PRODUCTION OF MEN'S GARMENTS.
YEAR.
CAPITAL.
WAGES.
MATERIALS.
PRODUCTS.
1850.
1870 '. '.
1880 .
$12,509,161
27,246,093
49,891,080
79,861,606
$I5>°32>34°
19,856,246
30,535,879
45,940,853
$25,730,258
44,149,752
86,117,231
131,363,282
$48,311,709
80,830,555
147,650,378
200,548,461
1890. .
154,202,672
70,143,627
206,622,553
308,726,786
It was about the year 1870 that art entered defi-
nitely into the manufacture of clothing. Following
the panic of 1873 there was a great increase in the
patronage of the ready-made clothing dealers. At
that time the quality of the goods made was raised,
and the competition between the clothiers and tail-
ors was more nearly on even terms.
The following table shows in what degree the
business of manufacturing clothing has spread out
over the country in recent years.
MANUFACTURE OF CLOTHING IN THE PRINCIPAL CITIES IN 1890.
NUMBER OF ES-
TABLISHMENTS.
CAPITAL.
WAGES.
MATERIALS.
PRODUCTS.
New York
1,554
186
222
191
459
125
199
24
20
88
ii
34
93
92
14
23
$48,591,055
19,564,525
17,561,257
15,792,768
14,841,040
11,897,563
7,488446
1,618,178
3,587458
2,407,849
2,655,888
2,089,957
1,251,287
2,422,392
1,202,772
1,230,237
$22,548,892
3,I47>822
4,63',99I
3,3".837
4,302,121
4,178,971
1,644,334
868,179
632,237
1,228,063
639,774
686,378
850,945
588,379
368,323
515,381
$31,240,450
17,557,792
12,318,810
10,916407
8,309,323
8,120,981
5>I72,l85
2,431,169
2,099,612
1483,256
1,583,292
1,584,806
708400
1,176,692
1,144,547
$68,630,780
32,517,226
21,103,220
19,672,404
17,982,123
15,032,924
9-538,962
3,972,392
3.54J.369
3,315,043
2,833,308
2,520,143
2485,395
1,776,500
1,920,250
1,884,747
Chicago ....
Philadelphia
Boston
Cincinnati
Baltimore
Rochester
Cleveland
Milwaukee .
San Francisco
Utica
Buffalo
Newark, N. T. .
Syracuse
Louisville
New Orleans
000,000. It is estimated that the value of clothing
as sold to the people and made in part of these mate-
rials could not have been less than $1,500,000,000.
More than three fourths of the woolen cloth made
Of the furnishing-goods trade I can speak only at
second-hand. In the year 1820 nearly all of NTew
York's wholesale business was located in Pearl,
Water, Cliff, and adjacent streets south from Fulton
WILLIAM C. BROWNING.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Street ; and William Street was the great thorough-
fare of the New World metropolis — then a city of
120,000 inhabitants. Two years later, in 1822, was
established the firm of Luke Davies, which later be-
came Luke Uavies & Son, and subsequently passed
out of existence with the failure of their successors,
Robert K. Davies & Company, in 1890. Mr. Luke
Davies was not only the father of what has since
grown to be a large branch of trade, but also the
godfather, as he gave the industry its name of " fur-
nishing goods." It was in a building at the corner
of William and John streets that this firm had its
rise. At that time traveling salesmen had not been
invented, and the annual or semiannual visit of the
country merchant to New York was an event for
him, — and for the jobber, — for during the spring and
fall seasons the rush of trade was enormous. Of
the country buyers visiting New York, those from
the East and North came by Long Island Sound
or the North River on sloops or schooners. Over
the wholesale and retail stores were boarding-houses
where the country merchants stayed while buying
goods. There were not many American manufac-
turers then, and nearly everything that one could
wear was imported.
The origin of the men's furnishing trade began
with the demand for custom shirts ; and as the busi-
ness of manufacturing shirts increased, other lines
were added, as, for example, the making of " stocks "
(for neckwear), suspenders, and jean underwear.
Out of the house of Luke Davies have come
nearly all of the long-established houses now exist-
ing in the trade. In 1857 Joseph S. Lowrey left
Davies to organize the firm of Lowrey, Donaldson
& Company, which is now conducted under the firm
name of Joseph S. Lowrey & Company; in 1867
Messrs. Fisk and Flagg also left the Davies establish-
ment, and founded the present firm and business of
Fisk, Clark & Flagg ; and from these two branches
have grown many of the firms which now control
the largest lines in special departments in the manu-
facture of men's wear.
In 1832 the shirt trade of America was founded as
a systematic industry by David & Isaac N. Judson,
at that time prosperous clothing merchants in William
Street. They had considerable trade with the South,
—for in that day luxurious expenditure was mainly
confined to that section,— and orders for clothing
were frequently accompanied by orders for " cus-
tom-made " shirts, whose execution they intrusted to
casual seamstresses. Orders for this class of goods
increased steadily, and soon a regular department
became necessary ; and out of this grew the manu-
facture of "stock" shirts, in distinction to custom-
made. What was incidental before 1832, in that year
had become of sufficient importance to require a sep-
arate establishment, and the first shirt factory in
America was founded at the corner of Cherry and
Market streets, New York. The old building is
standing yet, in a district not much altered by the
passage of sixty years, and looking much as it did
then, except for the change in the human surround-
ings that attends the expansion of a little city into a
great metropolis. For eight years the Judsons were
the only manufacturers of shirts. In 1840 the house
of Davies established their factory, and the firm of
T. A. Morison & Company also began operations, the
latter firm still existing under the title of Hutchinson,
Pierce & Company. The manufacture of each of
the articles which are comprised in the aggregation
known as men's furnishing goods has become a sep-
arate industry within the last decade, and the trade
is now divided into many branches, of which shirts,
collars and cuffs, underwear, neckwear, hosiery, etc.,
each forms a distinct industry, requiring special skill
and special machinery in its manufacture.
It is interesting to recall the fact that the in-
ventor of the Winchester firearms was one of the
early manufacturers of shirts ; and the circumstances
under which he found himself in the business are
curious. He was a carpenter in Baltimore, and had
fitted up a furnishing-goods store there for a man
who had previously failed. Mr. Winchester took
the stock as security for his bill, and came to New
York for advice as to the expediency of continuing
the business himself. He went to New Haven in
the early forties to open a shirt factory, and began
with one assistant to cut out shirts. It was not
long before he was turning out 2000 dozen a week.
But Mr. Winchester was a restless genius, and with
the outbreak of the war he turned his attention to
firearms, and became interested in the manufac-
ture of the weapon that has since made his name
famous.
CHAPTER LXXXVII
THE BOOT AND SHOE TRADE
THE progress of the last century has brought
a marvelous change to the "gentle craft"
of St. Crispin. The huge, many-windowed
factory has superseded the quaint little shop, and
whirring wheels and busy machines have replaced
the lap-stone, waxed thread, and awl of the old-time
shoemaker. Everywhere there are changed meth-
ods ; supply, manufacture, and demand have varied
with the times and are now altered permanently.
The only unchanged fact is that the children of men
are born barefoot and must devise their own protec-
tion. History goes not back to the time when this
need has not been recognized and met. The sandal
of Greece and Rome, the sabot of the European
peasant, the moccasin of the red man, the queer lit-
tle stilts of Japan and China, as well as the footwear
of our modern civilization, all show that the boot
and shoe industry is founded on man's necessity —
that the business is a legitimate one, and, when con-
ducted with prudence, industry, and enterprise,
should offer a fair return to men who have been
trained to it.
The shoemaker was among the earliest of the
craftsmen to seek the American colonies, and we
find recorded in an old document, under date of
1629, that Thomas Beard, with "hides, both upper
and bottom, was shipped out " on the Mayflower.
The governor was recommended "to give him
lodging and diet." Fifty acres of land were also
allotted to him.
One Isaac Rickman is also mentioned as having
been sent out at this time, but no further trace of
him appears ; whereas Thomas Beard arrived duly,
is frequently mentioned in the chronicles of that day,
and is undoubtedly the first in the great army of
workers that has since raised Massachusetts to the
industrial distinction of producing annually more
footwear than any similar area of country in the
world. Lynn, the " city of shoes," was a later set-
tlement; Philip Kertland and Edmund Bridges
arrived there as early as 1635 and worked at their
trade of shoemaking.
In the years 1633, 1634, and 1635 we find
Thomas Wardhall, Richard Scott, Angel Holland,
Edmund Jackson, and James Everell shoemakers in
the town of Boston. The latter was selectman from
1647 to 1649. Employing several journeymen, he
built up a considerable business, including some for-
eign trade. He owned the property now bounded
by Hanover, Elm, and Union streets. In 1641 the
town authorities gave him permission to sink a pit,
"so he cover the same," to water his leather in.
He died in 1683, possessed of considerable wealth
for the times. In consequence of his efforts Boston
at that time took the lead in the manufacture of
shoes.
William Copp, who owned Copp's Hill, carried
on the business in 1640. In 1648 the General
Court passed a law incorporating the " shewmakers "
of Boston and vicinity, to regulate the trade, for
three years. These and others like them manufac-
tured in a small way, without much change during
the next hundred years, making shoes to measure
for the well-to-do, and a commoner article to be sold
in the country stores. Many goods were imported
from England ; still the number of shoemakers in-
creased with the population, and the production of
ready-made footwear kept pace with the growth of
the country, especially in Lynn, where in 1750 there
were three manufacturers who employed journey-
men. In that year one John Adam Dagyr, a
Welshman by birth, began manufacturing, and won
a reputation for his shoes throughout the colony.
During the Revolution most of the shoes worn by
the Continental army, as well as nearly all ready-
made shoes sold throughout the colonies, were pro-
duced in Massachusetts, and we find it recorded
that " for quality and service they were quite as
good as those imported from England." Immedi-
ately after the Revolution, in consequence of large
56G
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
til
importations, the business languished somewhat. It
soon recovered, however, and was pursued with
such vigor that in 1795 there were in Lynn 200
master workmen and 600 journeymen, who pro-
duced in the aggregate 300,000 pairs of ladies'
shoes. One manufacturer in seven months of the
year 1795 made 20,000 pairs. In 1778 men's shoes
were made in Reading, Braintree, and other towns
in the Old Colony, for the wholesale trade ; they were
sold to dealers in Boston, Philadelphia, Savannah,
and Charleston, a considerable portion being ex-
ported to Cuba and other West India islands.
About the year 1795 the business was established
in Milford and other Worcester County towns,
where brogans were made, and sold to the planters
in the Southern States for negro wear. The custom
at this time was for the manufacturer to make
weekly trips to Boston with his horse and wagon,
taking his goods in baskets and barrels, and selling
them to the wholesale houses. He was often met
at Charlestown Bridge or Boston Neck by the more
enterprising dealers, who were thus able to get the
first selection of whatever the manufacturer had to
sell. Until 1815, with the exception of a few shoes
which had been made copper-nailed for export to
Cuba, all footwear was hand-sewed ; the coarse and
heavy boot was welted, while light shoes and slip-
pers were turned. But in the year 1 8 1 1 wooden shoe-
pegs were invented. They came into general use in
1815, and may be said to have brought about the
first revolution in the method of shoe manufacture.
Before that time, for centuries, the industry had
remained at a standstill so far as improved methods
were concerned. The shoemaker sat on his bench
or "seat," cut with a knife the upper and sole
leather from the side, stitched the upper, while held
in a clamp, with awl and waxed end, hammered the
sole on a lap-stone, and sewed it on by hand, turn-
ing out a complete shoe from beginning to end with
hardly any other tools than a hammer, awl, and
knife, and a wooden shoulder-stick, with which he
finished the edges. Every operation was done pre-
cisely as his fathers had done it before him. In-
deed, the shoemaker himself often fashioned the
lasts from the wooden block to fit the feet of his
customer.
Now began what has developed into that marvel
of mechanical ingenuity and perfection of method
—the modern shoe factory. In Randolph, Abing-
ton, Holbrook, and Quincy, in the Old Colony ; in
Lynn, Salem, Topsfield, Georgetown, and Haverhill,
in Essex County ; in Stoneham, Reading, and Marl-
boro, in Middlesex County ; and in Milford, Brook-
field, and Spencer, in Worcester County, shoemakers
hired a few of their fellows and gathered them into
what was then called a shop, one cutting the leather,
others fitting or sewing the uppers together, and still
others putting the uppers and soles together, or
bottoming them, much the same as had been done
when each shoemaker worked individually. The
partial division of labor was a success at once, and
soon the uppers were sent out to women and chil-
dren to be stitched together and bound. " Hannah
binding shoes " might have been found in almost
every home in the shoe towns in eastern Massachu-
setts. Little eight-by-ten-foot shops were scattered
all through the South Shore, in Essex and Middlesex
counties, and in some portions of Worcester County,
where the shoemaker with his sons, and perhaps
a neighbor, made a " team " which took the fitted
uppers and the understock from the manufacturer in
a near-by town and bottomed the shoes or boots.
One did the lasting, another the pegging (the boys,
and sometimes the girls, were taught this branch),
another the trimming, and still another the edge-
setting ; but all was done by hand. When the shoes
were made they were taken to the factory, which,
although considered at that time a wonder, was but
little larger than the offices of some of our modem
establishments. Here they were finished, packed in
wooden boxes, and sent to the market. In this way
the industry prospered, being carried on without any
further marked improvement in methods until about
1850, when machinery was introduced.
The first machine to be of practical use was the
rolling-machine, by which a man could do in a
minute what would require half an hour's hard
work with a lap-stone and hammer. Next came
the splitting-machine, in 1855; then, in 1857, the
racing-machine, to cut the leather from the side into
strips. These were all worked by a crank and
turned either by hand or foot, and were used to
prepare the sole-leather for the shoemaker. The
sewing-machine had been invented by Elias Howe
in 1845, and came into practical use in 1854. A
patent for a hand pegging-machine had been taken
out in 1833 by Samuel Preston, of Danvers; but it
seemed not to have been a commercial success, for
most of the shoes were pegged with hammer and
awl until 1851, when A. C. Gallahue, Elmer Town-
send, and B. F. Sturtevant patented a pegging-
machine which cut and drove a peg from a prepared
strip. Although this machine was invented in 1851,
it was not perfected so as to become of practical
use until 1858 or 1859, when power had been
applied to drive machinery.
568
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
In 1855, William F. Trowbridge, of Feltonville,
Mass, (then a part of Marlboro, now the town of
Hudson), a partner in the firm of F. Brigham &
Company, conceived the idea of driving by horse-
power the machines then in use. In a building
attached to the factory he established a sweep,
around which a horse known for a score of years in
that section as the "Old General" provided the
first power other than manual which ever drove
shoe machinery. For some years prior to that
time two or three stout Irishmen had supplied
the motive power in this factory. Soon afterward
steam power was used in the factory of John Hill &
Company, Stoneham ; and one after another of the
larger manufacturers throughout the Eastern States
found it necessary to adopt modern methods, so
that after the year 1860 there were very few of any
pretension who did not use either steam or water
power to drive their machinery. This opened up
the way for numerous improvements. None was of
more importance than the Howe sewing-machine,
which was now brought into general use. Waxed-
thread sewing-machines were also introduced in
1857, by which the uppers of nearly all heavy shoes
are stitched together. Buffing-machines had been
run by foot as far back as 1855, but were now all
driven at high speed by power. Power-machines for
dicing out soles and heels were introduced in 1858.
Probably no other machine has caused so great
a revolution in the business as the McKay sewing-
machine, which came into use in 1860. With it
a man can sew the soles of 500 or 600 pairs of
shoes in a day. In 1874 there were 1200 of these
machines in use in the United States; in 1878
there were 1600, sewing 60,000,000 pairs annually ;
in 1881 there were 2000 machines, sewing 82,000,-
ooo pairs; and in the present year (1895) there
are 4000 machines working more or less, business
being rather dull, and the production is estimated at
120,000,000 pairs. The Bigelow heeling-machine,
which presses into a solid mass the leather heel and
sets the nails ready for driving, and also a machine,
called the Bigelow attacher, which drives the nails
and attaches the heels, were introduced in 1870.
The McKay heeling-machine, which does the same
work and also trims the heel, came into use in the
same year. In 1871 heels were put on to over 10,-
000,000 pairs of shoes by the McKay and Bigelow
machines; in 1876 over 27,000,000 pairs; in 1881
over 45,000,000 pairs; in 1886, 59,000,000 pairs;
and in 1890 over 72,000,000 pairs.
Heel-burnishing machines had been used since
1865. Another important invention shaping the
advance in shoe manufacturing was the cable screw
wire-machine, invented in 1869, which fastened the
sole and upper together with wire, very much as
had been done before with pegs. This machine
was superseded in 1875 by what is now known as
the standard screw wire-machine, which connects
the sole with the upper by turning in a screw and
automatically cutting off just the right length,
making one of the strongest fastenings possible.
The edge-trimming machines, chief of which is the
Buzzell, were generally introduced in 1876. Vari-
ous attempts have been made since 1860 to intro-
duce machines for lasting, and there have been in
use for some years several which successfully perform
the work ; they are fast superseding hand-work.
Another great change in the industry has come
with the Goodyear welt-machines, which were in-
troduced in 1877, and are now in general use
throughout the United States and many foreign
countries. By the Goodyear process a shoe is
produced very much the same as by the hand-sewed
workman, one machine sewing on the welt and an-
other afterward stitching the sole to the welt. In
1880 250 of these machines were running, on which
were sewed 2,000,000 pairs of shoes; in 1885 500
machines sewed 4,000,000 pairs; in 1890 1500
machines sewed 12,000,000 pairs; in 1895 2500
machines will sew 25,000,000 pairs. The Campbell
lock-stitch machine for stitching the out-sole to the
welt was perfected and brought out in 1884, and
is used extensively. The Campbell welt-sewing
machine was successfully introduced in 1890. The
Eppler welter and stitcher have been in successful
operation for several years.
All of these machines have shortened and simpli-
fied the processes until it is quite within the truth to
say that the product of the labor of one man in the
modern factory is equal to a dozen on the bench in
1830. While the improvement in method has
greatly cheapened the cost of shoes to the wearer,
the skilled shoemaker has earned steadily increasing
wages. Early in the century, after having served
his seven years' apprenticeship, the journeyman
shoemaker, if he were active and industrious, could
earn $4 to $6 a week. In 1895 the skilled work-
man is not satisfied with less than three or four
times as much.
Although on going through a modern shoe factory
one would think perfection had been reached, no
season passes without the introduction of some new
machine which works a revolution in its particular
sphere.
Until well along in the present century there was
WILLIAM B. RICE.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
little attempt to establish the shoe industry outside
eastern Massachusetts. Yet it was not to be ex-
pected that other enterprising sections would be
content always to depend entirely on New England
for so important an article of merchandise as shoes.
In New York City and other cities of New York
State, especially in Rochester, the industry has at-
tained large proportions, and has reached a perfec-
tion not excelled anywhere. In Newark, N. J.,
where the business was early established, are made
many of the finest shoes for men's wear. Philadel-
phia has made the shoe industry a leader among the
many manufacturing industries for which she is
celebrated. At Cincinnati and St. Louis ladies'
shoes are produced in great quantities, and of a
style and finish that have won a reputation. Chicago
has taken up the business with an energy that has
already placed her in the front rank. Many of the
pioneer shoe jobbers of her early days came from
Massachusetts, where they had learned the business ;
and in the year 1895 she boasts of several factories
which equal any others in the country. There is
hardly a town of any pretensions that has not its
shoe factory, either built or projected. Too many
of them, however, are already monuments which tell
the old story that a fine building, even when backed
by capital contributed by the citizens of a town, is
not a guaranty of financial success. In these days of
produced within her borders an aggregate output
valued at about $ 1 50,000,000. Boston is the center
from which are sold nearly all the goods made in
New England, amounting to about two thirds of the
entire production of the country. The following
table, giving the number of cases shipped annually
from Boston for the years mentioned, will show the
steady increase in the business. This represents but
a part of the New England production, many goods
being shipped to the West and South directly from
the factories.
YEAR.
1859 684,708
1865 718,660
1870 1,250,201
1875 1,449. «8o
1880 2,263,890
«885 2,717,795
l89° 3.533,239
"892 3-709.564
When it is further considered that the flourishing
New England cities and towns of Lynn,' Brockton,
Haverhill, Marlboro, Milford, Whitman, the Wey-
mouths, and many others, are built up and main-
tained solely by the boot and shoe and allied inter-
ests, the force which this industry has exerted on
the community at large becomes apparent. Among
the cities of the country where the manufacture of
boots and shoes in 1 890 constituted all or a portion
of the manufacturing industry were the following :
CITIES.
FACTORIES.
CAPITAL.
WAGES.
MATERIAL.
PRODUCT.
Lynn . .
j«
$10. ^60,470
$6,832,9^8
$14. 7C7.o8o
$25,850,005
Philadelphia
Q7
A. 1 8 C, 7Q4
2,701, COQ
3, ICI.Q27
6,851,834
Rochester
CT
-7.7-34.O2C
i. 017.621;
7.4X6. 38c
6,489,782
Brockton .
71
6,l8o,l88
4.016.036
8,844,4.74
16,171,624
Haverhill
2O I
5,926,222
4,44C, 164.
7,330,8lC
14,963,642
San Francisco
ee
2. 42^.617
1,228,063
1. 483,256
3. ? 1C. 04 3
Brooklyn
65
I. 327. IIQ
I.O32, C47
1,432,934
2,813,209
St. Louis
24
4,I7O,O27
i.ice.D3<
2,107,854
4,250,961
Detroit
7
O7C.QO7
476,424
QI3,Ql6
1,611,700
Cincinnati
28
2,O2O, IQ4
1,554,416
2,622,293
5,032,980
Newark
17
I IQO O8l
800.707
804.807
2,216,129
Worcester
22
2.O42.743
027,084
2,125,358
3,503,877
Milwaukee
17
I.QOQ,2CC
483,472
818,070
1,617,534
New York
76
2,077,273
1,994,163
2,473,015
5,306,411
Chicago
A A
7. 173.280
I.740,OQC
3,977,429
7,257,034
Marlboro, Mass
18
1.477.861
1,463,897
3,889,988
5,831,028
sharp competition a knowledge of the business and
a corps of trained shoemakers are requisites which
cannot be dispensed with. Still throughout the West,
including the Pacific coast, there are many thoroughly
equipped, financially successful shoe factories.
Notwithstanding the enterprise of other parts of
the country, New England still maintains the lead
as the home of this industry. She has steadily ad-
vanced, the average increase being about $4,000,-
ooo a year, until in the year 1894 there was
To show the magnitude and importance of this
industry to the whole country, and its steady growth,
the following comparison from the census of 1880
and 1890 will be interesting:
BOOTS AND SHOES — FACTORY PRODUCT.
1890. 1880.
Establishments reporting 2,082 1,959
Hands employed 139,333 m.«S*
Value of material $118,735,831 $102,442,443
Value of product $220,649,358 $166,050,354
570
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
BOOTS AND SHOES — CUSTOM WORK.
1890. 1880.
Establishments reporting 20,803 16,013
Hands employed 35,448 22,667
Value of material $10,403,383 $12,524,133
Value of product $34,856,651 $30,870,127
Besides the above, in 1890 there were $3,346,-
ooo worth of boot and shoe uppers manufactured
and sold. In this same year there were sold about
$3,500,000 worth of boot and shoe findings, about
$3,000,000 shoe-blacking, and nearly $18,000,000
boot and shoe cut stock. There were manufactured
and sold about $1,239,065 worth of lasts.
For an intelligent understanding of the position
this industry has secured in the various sections of
the United States, the following table, made up for
the year 1890, will be interesting:
STATES AND TERRITORIES.
ESTABLISHMENTS
REPORTING.
VALUE OP
PRODUCTS.
California
56
20
3
56
6
6
II
17
53
28
1,057
12
8
29
64
109
257
4
63
158
3
3
7
7
32
13
$3>395,043
1,535,125
18,542
8,756,824
179,936
574,378
526,387
968,017
10,335,342
1,533,761
116,387,900
2,065,531
2,032,814
4,841,004
11,986,003
7,255,409
23,661,204
«55>900
8,489,728
10,354,850
158,800
109,850
529,486
1,279,069
2,972,233
546,222
Connecticut
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana ,
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan . .
Minnesota.
Missouri
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Texas
Vermont
Virginia.
Wisconsin. . .
All other States and Territories
Totals
2,082
$220,649,358
No account of the manufacture of boots and
shoes could be complete without reference to the
employment of convict labor. The business offers
many advantages to the authorities of prisons who
are seeking work for the men and women in their
charge which will bring some remuneration to the
State. The great number of operations in producing
a shoe make it possible to use all classes of convicts,
from the strong to the weak ; and as far back as
1850, even before machinery was introduced, it was
not an uncommon thing for houses of correction and
prisons to produce footwear not only for their own
convicts, but to be sold in the market. After the
introduction of machinery, and during the demand
for cheap shoes which followed the close of the
Civil War, many of the States leased the labor of
their convicts to shoe manufacturers. In the year
1870 there were employed in this industry in twenty-
six different States 6581 convicts, while there were
only 129,989 employed in the industry in the same
States outside the prisons. In the fiscal year 1886
there were made by 7609 convicts 6,634,960 pairs,
valued at $10,990,1 73. It is difficult to get reliable
figures since 1886, but it is probable that the number
employed and the annual production are steadily
increasing. In States where the system was believed
to have a harmful influence on the wages of the
workmen outside the prisons the business has been
conducted on the States' account, and in some
instances, at least, the result has been disastrous.
Attempts have been made, in the supposed interest
of labor, to forbid prison authorities to use the con-
victs in any industry which would compete with
outside labor. At the present time, and in view
of the fact that the boot and shoe factories of the
United States can produce in nine months all of the
shoes required for consumption in twelve months,
and that convicts must be worked nearly every
week-day of the year, their employment at shoe-
making must have more or less effect on the market.
What were called "gum shoes" had been im-
ported from South America for some time prior
to the discovery of the vulcanization of rubber by
Goodyear in 1844, although this event laid the
foundation of the present prosperous business of
manufacturing rubber boots and shoes. In its dis-
covery and early manufacture this industry is purely
American, and as early as 1847 we were sending to
foreign countries, in limited quantities, the product
of our American rubber factories. The business was
first established in Rhode Island and Connecticut ;
later several large concerns were located in New
Jersey. Its growth has been steady and sure until
the present time. The following table, taken from
the census, will show that the business nearly doubled
in magnitude from 1880 to 1890:
1890. 1880.
Establishments reporting n 9
Hands employed 9,264 4,662
Value of material $11,650,787 $6,023,053
Value of product $18,632,060 $9,705,724
Wages paid $3,966,875 $1,469,038
The amount exported is shown by the following
figures: 1885, $89,216; 1890, $149,000; 1892,
$183,000; 1893, $252,000. In 1894, probably on
account of a sharp rise in prices, it fell to $153,000 ;
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
571
but there is now evidence that the export trade in
these articles for 1895 will show a large increase.
In the colonial days there was but one profit, to
be paid by the consumer ; the shoemaker and retail
dealer coming directly together. The merchants
sold shoes over the same counter with rum, molasses,
dry-goods, hardware, and provisions. It seems
certain that one Isaac Ellerton, of Plymouth Plan-
tation, was the first American shoe dealer. In 1628
he was commissioned by Governor Bradford and a
syndicate of colonists to proceed to England and
purchase a stock of shoes, hosiery, and linen cloth.
The syndicate subscribed $250, with which capital
the venture was made and proved successful. It
was only in the more remote districts and among
the poorer settlers, who were contented with a coarse
grade of goods, that ready-made shoes found much
favor. Barefooted men and women about the clear-
ings and farms were not rare, but the wealthy classes,
merchants, and landed gentry all employed the
custom shoemakers. For these reasons the boot and
shoe trade was but an ordinary item in the ledgers
of the general store until well along into the second
and third decades of the present century. Nearly
all the wholesale dealers of that day were jobbers
as well, and the South and West were the great
markets. St. Louis was the distributing center for
the Southwest, and Savannah for Georgia and the
Southern coast region. The New England whole-
sale dealers sold boots and shoes to the grocers, dry-
goods and hardware men throughout the country
as well as to the shoe dealers proper. Cases of
Massachusetts shoes were kept in country stores all
through the South and West, for which the small
trader paid only as he sold.
Among the men who were identified with the
boot and shoe trade and leather manufacturing
about the time the present century opened were
Perez Bryant & Company (1810), Isaiah Faxon
(1812), Silas Tarkel, Asa Hammond, Amos Stetson,
Samuel Train, E. Thayer & Company, Lee Claflin,
and T. & E. Batcheller, of Boston ; Sheppard Knapp
and Gideon Lee & Company, of New York ;
Nathan Tufts, of Charlestown ; the Southwicks, of
Vassalboro, Me. ; Hunt & Loud and H. H. Reed,
of Weymouth ; Arza Keith, of Abington ; and Isaac
Prouty, of Spencer.
In 1828 the total sales from Boston by jobbing-
houses were over $1,000,000, and there were four
jobbing-houses in New York, who together sold
$600,000. From 1828 on, with the exception of
1837 and 1838, the trade in Boston increased very
rapidly, until in 1856 there were 200 wholesale and
jobbing houses, with domestic and foreign trade
annually of over $50,000,000. In New York City
there were fifty-six houses, that sold annually $15,-
000,000. From 1830 on, jobbing-houses were
established in all the larger cities of the West and
South, which handled boots and shoes and hats and
caps. They bought their boots and shoes of East-
ern manufacturers on six, eight, and ten months'
time, and sold them to their customers to be paid
for when the crops came in. The manufacturer
seldom received any ready cash. He took notes
and depended upon discounting them in bank for
money to carry on his business, although at that
time he bought his leather on time and made con-
tracts with his help for six months. Settlements
were made only at the close of the contract. The
employer issued a species of currency called
" orders," which could be used at certain specified
country stores, so that the workman could obtain
necessary supplies ; but very little money was ever
seen excepting on the semi-annual settlement day.
To be sure, by allowing a large " shave," the work-
man was sometimes able to get his " orders " cashed.
It was not uncommon for a well-to-do employer to
add to his gains by shaving his own orders.
It can be readily seen that this system of extended
credits was dangerous, and the usual result followed
in the panics of 1837 and 1857, when many of the
large jobbing-houses and manufacturers suspended
payments, the Eastern manufacturer having his own
notes to take care of and also the notes of his cus-
tomers which he had indorsed for discount in the
bank. It was not an unusual thing for men who
were, without question, perfectly solvent to suspend
and get an extension on their notes. It was a
common thing for the Southern and Western jobbers
to expect an extension without any suspension of
business. When the Civil War broke out in 1861
large sums were owing to Northern manufacturers
by the jobbers in the Southern States. To their
great honor, some who were able paid their indebt-
edness in full at the close of the war ; others paid
what they could; but more were so impoverished
that they could pay nothing. The losses were so
great in 1861 that many manufacturers who had
supposed themselves wealthy became insolvent.
But values, measured by the currency of the coun-
try, rose so rapidly after the breaking out of the
war that men of enterprise quickly recovered their
financial position. It was only necessary to buy
merchandise ; the profit was secured by the steady
advance until toward the close of the war. During
this time paper money had grown so plentiful that
572
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
there appeared in the market an occasional dealer
who was ready to pay cash ; the usual terms of sale
were six months' time or five per cent, off for cash
in thirty days. Still the old-time jobber, although
he might believe himself wealthy, remained steadfast
to his plan of giving his six months' note, selling his
merchandise on time, and often extending to his
country customer an additional six months, charg-
ing and receiving his twenty-five to fifty per cent,
profit; while at the end of each year he had less
money than the year previous, he could figure on
paper that he had made a handsome gain.
But the dealer who paid cash for his goods, get-
ting all the discounts and all the advantages that
cash may bring, could sell to retailers who paid
him cash at a very much less profit than the old-
time jobber thought it was possible to do business
upon. Very naturally this new class of jobbers
gathered round them the best and more enter-
prising of the trade, leaving the chaff for their
less active competitors. The panic of the year
1873 brought this condition of affairs to a climax.
Many of the long-credit houses were forced to sus-
pend payment, and few paid anything more than a
fraction of their indebtedness. Since that time on
the business has been on a much better basis, so far
as losses by bad debts are concerned ; but the in-
tense competition, by both manufacturers and deal-
ers, has reduced the profits to a point where a large
business must be done in order to make any consid-
erable volume of annual gain. While in 1860 a
jobbing-house that did a business of more than
$300,000 was an exception, there are in 1895 sev-
eral throughout the country that claim to do between
$4,000,000 and $5,000,000 annually, and the house
that does less than $1,000,000 is considered of third
or fourth rank.
In 1860 one or two styles of lasts were considered
sufficient for a manufacturer to use on any particular
line of goods ; now no stock is complete that does
not have many different styles and many widths of
each style, so that there can be found something
that will fit nearly every foot.
The quality of the goods, also, has been so
materially improved that the tastes of the average
consumer can be met at the counter of any good
retail store. For this reason the custom of making
shoes to measure is passing away. The factory-
made goods are in such complete variety that the
most fastidious can find something to their taste
without the delay of waiting for special workman-
ship. This great variety compels the wholesale
dealer who will be up to date to carry a large stock,
and in the busy season it is not uncommon to find
$1,000,000 worth of boots and shoes under one roof,
while the average stock of all large dealers runs up
into hundreds of thousands.
The old-time method was supposed to give first
a profit to the manufacturer, then to the jobber, and
then to the retailer; and the losses accruing from
extended credits made it necessary to charge profits
so large that by the time the shoe reached the con-
sumer the price asked for it would be twice the
factory cost of production. By the later and im-
proved cash methods the greater portion of factory
production reaches the counter of the retailer at a
cost often not in excess of ten per cent, over the
net cost at the factory. These close profits have
compelled manufacturers to adopt the most direct
methods of reaching the consumer. Some have
made alliances with jobbers who take most of
their production and sell it at a nominal profit.
Others have opened on their own account retail
stores in the larger cities of the country, and claim
there is but one profit from the manufacturer
to the consumer. In all these methods we are
but following out the history of the trade in
Great Britain, in Germany, and in France, where
now the most of the better retail stores are owned
by large manufacturers who supply their goods di-
rectly from the factory. It would seem as though
this shortening of the road between the manu-
facturer and the consumer were now complete.
Able, enterprising men, with ample capital and
every facility for producing footwear, find it possi-
ble to make only the most meager margin of profit.
Happily for the consumer, there is and can be no
combination to control the price of shoes. If it
were possible to buy up all the factories and put
them under one control, hundreds more would
spring up, like mushrooms, in a season. The sharp
competition has forced the manufacturer to practise
every economy and to study every possible improve-
ment in machinery, until to-day the United States
is far in advance of every other nation in the per-
fection, quality, and low cost of its footwear. While
our workmen earn more, they produce more. The
conditions under which they work are more favor-
able to large production. To be sure, the industry
is not without its labor troubles. Shoemakers, like
other men, have learned that by combination they
can secure advantages, and they have occasion-
ally attempted to exercise that power in a way to
threaten the prosperity of the industry. The much-
talked-about conflict between labor and capital
sometimes temporarily appears, but the intelligence,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
good sense, and pecuniary interest of both so far
:il\\,tys have, and no doubt always will assert them-
selves so strongly as to bring peace, without which
there can be no business success.
As has already been said, there is no question but
that the United States leads all other countries in
die production of footwear in quantity, cost, qual-
ity, style, and perfection of manufacture. Our
superiority was generally admitted after the World's
Fair at Chicago. Here expert shoemakers and shoe
dealers came from all parts of the world, and, after
complete examination of our methods and our pro-
duction, returned to their own countries and made
clear the fact that in this industry, at least, the
United States need not fear foreign competition.
But our facilities for production are very much in
excess of the home demand for consumption. We
need a larger market for our goods.
Our early manufacturers were able to export to
the West Indies, and more especially to Cuba, and
up to the time of our Civil War the export business
was prosecuted with vigor and profit. In 1810 ten
per cent, of all the boots and shoes sold in Boston
were for export. In the year 1865 we exported
more than $2,000,000 worth. From that time on
the trade fell off sharply. Perhaps this may be
accounted for by the great advance in 1866, when
values rose at least fifty per cent. This is illustrated
by the fact that where 1,214,468 pairs sold for ex-
port in 1863 for $1,329,000 (about $1.10 per pair),
214,567 pairs exported in 1866 brought $590,000
(over $2.75 per pair).
Probably on account of the demand for home
consumption little effort was made during the next
twenty years to secure any foreign business. The
trade seldom rose above $500,000 a year. An ex-
amination of the figures will show, however, that
after 1872 this was not caused by excessive cost of
materials, because our export trade in leather in-
creased sharply from that time on, until in 1 894 we
exported about $14,000,000 worth.
Within the last few years renewed interest has
arisen in the export business. Our manufacturers
have become convinced that there is nothing in the
conditions which will prevent competition with Eng-
land, France, or Germany for any part of the trade of
the world. We have the raw materials in our own
country. While we import many hides and skins,
the supply of our domestic product is constantly in-
creasing, and our leather manufacturers have been
able to produce, in both quality and price, materials
for making shoes as advantageously as any other
country. We now need to adapt our styles to the
wants of such countries as import their footwear.
Large dealers from England, from Australia, from
South America, Central America, and South Africa,
have visited our market within the past two years,
ready to buy our goods if we will meet their views
as to shapes. Some of our leading manufacturers
are alive to the situation and are making an effort
to secure a portion of the world's trade.
It must be admitted that a more determined,
energetic spirit on the part of the boot and shoe
manufacturers of the United States is necessary if
they are to extend their trade to profitable markets
they are now neglecting. The export trade of Great
Britain in boots and shoes is far greater than our
own, but the larger portion of her exports go to
Australia, South Africa, and other of her colonies.
France, Germany, and Switzerland each exceeds us
in amount of exports.
Annexed will be found a table giving our exports
of boots and shoes and of leather and manufactures
of leather since 1857.
EXPORTS, 1857 TO 1895.
YEAR ENDING
JUNE 30TH.
BOOTS A^
D SHOES.
LEATHER AMD ALL
MANUFACTURES
OF LEATHER.
:857.
Pairt.
;'.i.;i'i
$813,00";
$1. 35Q.O5O
1858. .
609,982
663, QOC
,777.873
i8co.
627.850
820.17?
,420,228
1860 .
678,17,6
782.C2C
,547,177
1861
655,808
770,876
,404,054
1862.
670. CQ4.
721.241
. IQI.O56
1865.
1,214,468
I,32Q,OOQ
, 140,013
1864
1,415,775
,931,126
1861;.
2.008, i6c
, 193,648
1866
214*1:67
coo, 307
,033,829
1867
313,200
681,706
,049,615
1868
363.4.10
578,650
,414,372
1869
3O7,,884
475,607
925,283
1870
276,179
419,612
673,331
1871 .
301,216
445,466
1,897,395
1872 .
325, 296
502,689
3,684,029
187-2 .
26O.7CQ
421,548
5,305,494
1874.
243. COO
383,417
4,786,518
187? . .
393,051
429,363
7,324,796
1876.
263.508
368,633
10,008,985
1877.
300,484
414,630
8,167,30!
1878
151.152
468,436
8,080,030
1870.
-129.351;
402,557
7,769,069
1880
778,274
441,069
6,760,186
1881
•200,968
374,343
8,088,445
1882
389, 1 2O
488,815
8,999,927
1883..
442,687
539,957
7,923,662
1884.
502,122
602,025
8,305,779
1885 . .
4Q2.qo6
598,151
9,692,408
1886
51:4,365
648,069
8,737,682
1887.
623.714.
732,517
10,436,138
1888
561,871
654,896
9,583,411
1889
518,750
585,902
10.747.71°
1800.
587,IO6
662,974
12,438,847
1801 . .
CCI,343
651,343
13,278,847
1892 .
745. 1 12
914,974
12,084,781
1897 .
4.Q3.O27
590,754
11,912,154
1894
647,318
777,354
14,282,936
1895 (9 months) .
700,836
880,652
12,279,480
574
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
For the first nine months of 1 89 5 our export trade in
shoes amounted to $880,652. Shipments of leather
and its manufacture for this same period amounted
to $13,885,842.
A comparison of the export trade in boots and
shoes of Great Britain and the United States, from
1865, is shown by the following table :
YEAR.
ENGLAND EXPORTED.
UNITED STATES
EXPORTED.
186?.
$7.^lO.e;2£;
$2.008. i6c
1871
8. c 20.721;
1876.
7.OI7.33O
368 633
1800. . .
8, 460, ooo
662 Q7J.
1802.
8 AQQ 8?O
1804.
777 tCA
For convenience in figuring, the English pound
sterling is figured at $5.
The total export trade of Europe in footwear is
estimated at $35,000,000. There is nothing to pre-
vent our securing a respectable part of this except
our indifference.
In this industry American genius has contributed
more than any other factor toward the universal de-
velopment. Americans are better shod than the in-
habitants of any other country. Titled Europeans
may wear as fine shoes, but the great, strong middle
class, which supports not only itself and the aristo-
cratic pretension, but the very nation, has neither
the comfort, elegance, nor convenience in footgear
that American invention and enterprise have placed
within the reach of every citizen of our land. Sup-
porting more people now than ever before, paying
more wages, and rearing up great tributary occupa-
tions, the boot and shoe trade has lifted itself into
the front rank of American manufacturing interests.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII
THE HARNESS AND SADDLERY TRADE
THE harness and saddlery industry of the
United States in the early part of the pres-
ent century seems to be shrouded in obscur-
ity. In its incipiency this industry showed much
crudeness and large room for improvement. Agri-
cultural development was extremely slow. The soil
was turned by a wooden plow to which oxen were
attached, bearing a heavy wooden yoke tied with
coarse rawhide thongs. The process of harvesting
was equally crude. The roads were in an almost
impassable condition, very little improvement hav-
ing been made in this direction, except in the towns
and cities of the New England States. The condi-
tion of the roads to the interior settlements was such
that freight could be conveyed only on pack-horses,
and later by two-wheeled carts drawn by oxen.
Under these conditions it may be easily understood
that there would be a very small demand for harness,
least of all of the lighter grades, because light vehi-
cles would be entirely unsuited to such roadways.
The horse was chiefly used for saddle riding. The
United States mails, the news, and important mes-
sages were sent by mounted messengers, the major-
ity of the equipments for this use being imported from
England. The saddle-trees, buckles, bits, etc., re-
quired for the few riding-saddles made in the United
States were necessarily imported, for the reason that
those made in this country were of a very primitive
form. Saddlery hardware, one of the important ac-
cessories to the saddlery business, was first made by
Seth J. & Alvin North, at New Britain, Conn. They
conducted a blacksmith shop, where, among a large
variety of articles that they made, were bridle-bits,
harness and shoe buckles and rings. These were
produced from wire drawn out at first by hand, but
later by horse-power. All the finishing work on
these goods, such as polishing, welding, and putting
on the tongues of the buckles, was executed manu-
ally, naturally a slow process, and but few goods
could be turned out in any given month or year.
Learning that a more rapid process than hand-
polishing was in use at Middletown, Conn., Alvin
North, one of the partners of the above-named firm,
went there to learn the process. After paying $25
for the secret he was told to take an old woolen
stocking and, after darning the holes, fill it with the
articles to be polished, and add a number of small
pieces of soap. The whole was to be dipped into a
pail of warm water, the stocking then being rubbed
between the hands. This process was certainly a
quaint and simple one, but the firm found that it
would save the labor of half a dozen girls. Sub-
sequently they substituted canvas bags for the stock-
ings, which were used until the introduction of tum-
bling-barrels.
As civilization advanced, there came a demand
for better roads and driveways, and with this arose
a greater need of saddlery. Factories were estab-
lished, the chief of these being in Newark, N. J.,
Hartford, Conn., Wheeling, W. Va., St. Louis, Mo.,
Louisville, Ky., and Cincinnati, O. The greater
part of the harness made at this time was for heavy
stages and wagons, used for transportation of pas-
sengers and in business traffic for agricultural pur-
poses. The deep black soil of the Western prairies
made carrying goods by wagons during certain sea-
sons of the year impossible, and as a result the call
for riding-saddles became urgent. Saddles made in
foreign countries were not suited to the undevel-
oped West, with its rude frontier life, nor were they
adapted to the South, where conditions were equally
peculiar. Thereupon the inventive genius of the
Yankee produced a tree made of wood, covered
with rawhide. With its long skirts and fenders it
was a protection from the elements and the numer-
ous and deep quagmires.
The inconveniences under which manufacturers
labored, especially in the West, were those of obtain-
ing their supplies of saddlery hardware for making
these horse equipments. It was necessary to import
575
576
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
largely from England, and it required many months
after the order was placed before the goods were
received. This was because they were shipped by
sailing vessels to New Orleans, and then sent up the
Mississippi and Ohio rivers to their respective desti-
nations. During the years from 1822 to 1833 the
importation of foreign saddlery hardware was large,
such things as bits, buckles, spurs, stirrups, rings, and
also webs of all kinds being imported. In 1828 the
Franklin Institute awarded a medal to Seth Boyden
for the first buckles and bits made of annealed cast-
iron. It is said that the process was first attempted
by putting a few pounds of cast-iron into an ordi-
nary cooking-stove. In this manner it was discov-
ered that the cast-iron by being baked became an-
nealed, and thus a great stride was made toward the
successful manufacture of saddlery hardware in this
country.
It might be proper at this point to note a little
of the personal history of one of the most remark-
able men in the saddlery trade — one to whom more
is due for the progress and prominence of the sad-
dlery interest than to any other man. This was
Peter Hayden. He was born in Oneida County,
New York, in September, 1806, and was brought
up in Cummington, Mass. He was a member of a
family of inventors, and gave evidence in early life
of his predilections for mechanical pursuits. About
1828, when Hayden was twenty-two years of age,
he commenced the manufacture of hames and sad-
dlery at Auburn, N. Y. Few men were employed
at the start. When the stock accumulated he would
load up a wagon or sleigh and sell his stock in cen-
tral New York and Canada. In 1835 Mr. Hayden
entered into a contract with the State of Ohio for
the employment of convict labor in the manufac-
ture of hames, saddle-trees, saddlery hardware, and
chains, employing at different times from 100 to 300
convicts, besides a large force of free labor. He
was eminently qualified for the business of manu-
facturing, as his mechanical skill and ingenuity en-
abled him readily to determine the best means for
accomplishing results. He had industry and perse-
verance, and united with these a ready willingness
to take hold of any branch of his business and by
personal effort bring it to a successful issue. As
his business increased he extended it into other de-
partments, ultimately opening connection with mer-
cantile houses for the sale of his manufactures in
Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Galveston,
San Francisco, and New York City. Thus from a
very small beginning, aggregating at the start a few
thousand dollars per year, his business increased
until it reached millions, and the importation of
foreign saddlery ceased almost entirely through his
efforts.
The business of making horse-collars was first
undertaken in this country by Timothy Deming in
1828, at East Hartford. He invented the short-
straw collars and the blocks on which to make them,
patenting the latter. Previous to this time collar
makers lived the life of itinerants. Their practice
was to go from place to place and hire themselves
to any of the harness makers whose stock of collars
needed replenishing.
There was but little change during these years
in the mode of manufacturing saddlery. The cus-
tom in vogue for twenty-five years still prevailed.
Such harnesses as were turned out were intended for
hauling and for agricultural uses. Machinery was not
in use in the earlier years of this period, and few,
if any, wholesale establishments existed during this
quarter-century. It needed the introduction of
machines to bring about the concentration of capi-
tal and the massing of workers into large factories.
This may be attributed to the fact that without ma-
chines the large establishments would have no par-
ticular advantage over the smaller ones, and there-
fore there would be no incentive to manufacture on
a large scale. The principal manufacturers were
jobbers as well, and carried a stock of saddlery
hardware. They were located in the larger cities,
supplying small makers throughout the surrounding
territory. In those years the buyers visited the mak-
ers— quite a reversal of present-day practices. The
modern traveling salesman carries the market to the
buyer.
In 1853 the first wax-thread chain-stitch sewing-
machine was patented by a New England company.
Three years later it was brought into practical use,
but was employed almost exclusively upon the sew-
ing of boots and shoes in the New England States.
It was nearly ten years later before it was used in
the manufacture of harness. The prejudice was
very great against machine-stitching. Many years,
therefore, passed before it was used to any extent.
The rapidity with which the work could be done
by this machine, and the great reduction it effected
in the cost, gradually brought it into favor with the
maker. Another very important improvement was
the creasing-machine. This was originally invented
by W. K. Thornton, of Niles, Mich., about 1858,
and proved to be a great labor-saving device. The
small trade, however, was quite slow to adopt any-
thing which made a radical departure from old-time
and traditional methods, and the inventor was obliged
ALBERT MORSBACH.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
877
to introduce his machines from shop to shop by leav-
ing them on three months' trial. A few years later
he entered into partnership in Cincinnati under the
firm name of Thornton & Perkins, the business be-
ing in 1865 sold out to Randall & Company, now
the manufacturers of the modern and improved
machines.
The New England sewing-machine and the creas-
ing-machine were the only two important inventions
of which we have any record that proved to be of
lasting benefit to the trade, and to them may be
credited the beginning which led to the revolution
in the manufacture of harness. Probably the most
important invention up to this time relating to har-
ness was the iron gigtree. E. A. Cooper, of Lan-
caster, N. Y., patented a tree April 3, 1866. The
most practical gigtree, and one almost universally
used by the saddlery trade, was subsequently pat-
ented by Samuel E. Thompkins, of Newark, N. J.,
on January 30, 1872. The importance of this in-
vention may be better understood when it is stated
that all the buggy saddles purchased up to this time
were made on wooden trees, most of these being im-
ported from England, and it was only a few years
after the iron tree was introduced that the wooden
tree was discarded.
The government census of the industry made at
the close of this period will serve to show its extent.
Considering the primitive ways of producing the
goods, it is no wonder that the value of the product
was small as compared with the report of twenty
years later, which, it should be remembered, included
only one third as many establishments. The num-
ber of establishments was 7607 ; the total capital
employed, $13,935,961 ; the wages paid, $7,046,207,
and the number of employees, 35,555 ; the total pro-
duct, $32,709,981.
The progress in the saddlery business at this time
was phenomenal. Improvements and labor-saving
machinery were introduced into the large factories.
As a result the cost of products was naturally less-
ened, and as a logical sequence the demand for the
goods was increased. Light driving or buggy har-
ness, which previous to this time was sold in small
quantities only, now found a large market. Fac-
tories were taxed to their utmost capacity to supply
the needs. The low-priced carriages and buggies
which now appeared in the market contributed in
no small degree toward swelling the call for harness.
Hitherto such vehicles were turned out by hand pro-
cess only ; but now machinery entered into their pro-
duction, with the inevitable result of cutting down
the cost and increasing the demand. A greater use
of vehicles of this sort meant, of course, a great
stimulus to the manufacture of light harness, which
was revolutionized. The apprentice system of turn-
ing out skilled mechanics seems to have been abol-
ished, it being no longer the rule to serve long years
at the bench. The work was now accomplished by
a division of labor. No single workman made a
complete harness. He exercised his skill upon the
production of single parts, and hence became profi-
cient in turning out that subdivision for which he
had special aptitude.
Many labor-saving devices and machines were
now used. Space will not permit mention of many
of these, but as illustrative of the changes and con-
ditions which were now operative reference might be
made to one or two of the principal machines. The
Bosworth lock-stitching wax-thread sewing-machine
was patented in March, 1872, and reissued in 1880
and 1882; and later the Campbell lock-stitching
machine, which was patented in 1880 and reissued
about 1888, to a great extent supplanted hand-sew-
ing. The stitches were interlocked, making the sew-
ing alike on both sides, and giving the appearance
of hand-sewing. This was a great boon to this in-
dustry, for the harness-sewing machines previously
used were objectionable to a great degree, as they
made a chain-stitch, and the work was not as satis-
factory. These new machines were leased upon a
payment of a bonus and an additional rent of five
cents for each 1000 stitches. Subsequently compe-
tition brought about a reduction in the cost of oper-
ating the machines, the charge taking the form of a
regular monthly rental.
The following kinds of harness machinery have
been great labor-saving inventions, and are consid-
ered indispensable in well-equipped factories : tubu-
lar riveting-machines, dispensing with the hand-riv-
eting entirely ; box-loop sewing-machines, sewing up
all the long loops, formerly sewed by hand ; quilt-
ing-machines for quilting pads, gig and riding sad-
dles ; power trace-trimmers ; power trace-polishers ;
power splitters ; and dieing-out machines. This list
takes no account of the many smaller but important
tools. Of these a great number could be mentioned.
In 1863 Barbour Brothers established at Paterson,
N. J., the first factory for making harness threads
in this country, all this product previous to this time
having been imported from Ireland.
The introduction of hard-rubber-covered harness
trimmings was an event of note. Mr. Andrew Al-
bright, of Newark, N. J., patented this process in
1867. It is purely an American invention, and has
figured conspicuously as a mounting for fine harness.
578
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
In the manufacture of horse-collars great progress
was made. Many experiments were undertaken to
stuff horse-collars by machine, but all efforts seemed
futile. It was commonly held that such a thing
could not be done. Old-line collar makers insisted
that to stuff a collar by machine involved so many
difficulties that only an exceedingly visionary per-
son would ever seriously consider the scheme. As
usual, the seemingly impossible was accomplished.
The successful inventor in this instance was William
Foglesong, living in Dayton, O., who took out his
first patent in 1883. By the use of his machine
an immense stride was taken in the manufacture of
collars. Large establishments absorbed the many
small and insignificant collar-shops. The old slow
and laborious hand process gave way to the rapid
machine method, its products being astonishingly
smooth. It quickly won a place with the trade.
No other improvements of special note were
made until the year 1892, when R. Brownson, of
St. Paul, Minn., invented a metal-staple machine for
sewing collars with metal staples. This was a great
innovation in the manner of preparing collars ready
for the stuffing-machine, and the rapidity with which
this work can be done is marvelous. A set of these
machines will do as much work as was formerly done
by twenty men.
Machinery, push, and enterprise had by this
time raised the business of making harness and sad-
dlery goods from a position of inferiority to a com-
manding place among the industries of the land. A
glance at the brief statistics following will convey
some idea of the present proportions of this trade.
The number of establishments was 7931; the
number of employees, 30,326 ; the total wages,
$16,030,845; and the total value of products,
$52,970,801. We have only returns as to invest-
ment from 159 cities over 20,000 population. It
amounted to $20,618,104.
By comparison with the returns of the previous
decade, which included 7999 establishments, with
a total product of $38,081,643, it will be seen that
the value of the output the last census year was
$14,889,158 more than in the year 1880. It might
be interesting to compare the total products of some
of the principal cities of the United States, which are
as follows :
COMPARATIVE PRODUCTION BY SELECTED
CITIES.
CITIES.
1880.
1890.
Chicago
$746 247
$1 486 2Cfi
Baltimore
857 810
Louisville
882 542
Newark
I 88o.4O4
New York .
1,037,768
•«*o^la
St. Louis
2 364 8 sS
I.TCC efij.
The fever of combinations, trusts, and associa-
tions which was spreading throughout the country
reached the saddlery manufacturers in 1890, and a
move toward organization for conference and mutual
improvement was made in that year. The Western
manufacturers called a meeting at St. Louis, at
which a few manufacturers were represented. An
organization was formed which called itself "The
National Wholesale Saddlery Association of the
United States." The object of the association, as
agreed upon at the first gathering, was to correct
abuses, adopt uniform terms, and to encourage a
fraternal feeling among competitors. Annual meet-
ings and elections were held, and men prominent in
the trade were chosen as presidents. A list of those
who have been successively elected is as follows :
A. F. Risser, of A. F. Risser & Company, Chicago,
111. ; Owen Gathright, of Harbison & Gathright,
Louisville, Ky. ; B. W. Campbell, of Perkins, Camp-
bell & Company, Cincinnati, O. ; J. S. Medary, of
the Medary-Platz Company, La Crosse, Wis. ; I. S.
Gordon, of the Gordon-Kurtz Company, Indianapo-
lis, Ind. ; Albert Morsbach, of Graf, Morsbach &
Company, Cincinnati, O.
The last meeting was held in the city of New York,
July, 1895, when about fifty manufacturers were
added to the membership, making a total of 175 to
date.
CHAPTER LXXXIX
THE FUR TRADE
VARIOUS species of animals which inhabit
cold climates have a covering upon the skin
called fur, coexistent with another and longer
covering called the over-hair. The fur differs from
the over-hair in that it is soft, silky, curly, downy,
and barbed lengthwise, while the over-hair is straight,
smooth, and comparatively rigid. Owing to the pe-
culiar properties of fur, it is rendered valuable for the
purposes of felting, while silk and wool, which it in
some measure resembles, are not well adapted to
felting, but must be spun or woven. The over-hair
gives the distinctive peculiarity to the various furs,
and contributes much to their marking and beauty.
Fancy fur is that kind of fur that is considered in
connection with and as a part of the pelt, while staple
fur is fur that is useful apart from the pelt in the
manufacture of the various felts. The manufacture
of fur into felt is of comparatively modern origin.
The use of fur pelts as a covering for the body of
man is not and was not necessarily a barbarous ex-
pedient utilized for want of something more civilized.
It is to be noted that the utmost perfection to which
the manufacture of woolen garments has been
brought does not admit of their substitution for the
pelts and furs of animals in high latitudes. The
scientific explorers from the centers of civilization
take a leaf out of the Eskimo's book and array them-
selves, as he does, in garments taken from the backs
of the native animals. There is good reason for this.
The pelt or skin acts as a shield against the driving
storm of rain, snow, or hail, while the fur keeps out
the piercing cold. Used thus in certain localities
as a necessity, furs as apparel have developed into a
luxury for the fashionable and wealthy. To supply
the demand for furs in earlier times led to troubles
among the Indian tribes, and to fierce quarrels and
bloodshed among the members of different nations.
Furs have played their part in history, and take
their place alongside of precious gems, gold, and
jewels in the field of ornamentation. Marco Polo
has described with enthusiasm the elegant and
sumptuous furs worn by the khan of Tartary. They
have always played an important part in the decora-
tion of Russian royalty and nobility. They are inter-
woven with the history of the French and English
in Canada, and exerted an important influence upon
the early history of New England, New York, and
Virginia.
The history of furs is so interwoven with romance
that it is difficult to break away from that branch
of the subject. The adoption of fur robes by the
Venetians was the evolution of the semi-Turkish
dresses of the sixteenth century, which gradually
merged in the gorgeous fur costumes of the Renais-
sance ; and an ancient diary tells how " ten mules
carried the boxes which contained the furs belong-
ing to my lady the duchess [Lucretia Borgia], the
majority of which came from the East." The origin
of the term "ermine" is interesting from the fact
that it was based on a mistake. A recent writer ex-
plains that "the Byzantine emperors exacted from
the conquered or tributary princes an annual tribute
of furs and skins of beasts, and undoubtedly it is to
them that we owe the introduction of the ermine as
a royal fur. The Greeks, who were very fond of
ermine, believed it to be the skin of a white rat. . . .
The Byzantines called it the Armenian rat-fur —
hence the word 'hermine' or 'ermine'; and until
quite late in the seventeenth century it was always
termed in France le rat <TArmtnie" The ermine
is of the same family as the English stoat, and its
beautiful whiteness is due to the high northern lati-
tude which forms its habitat. It is stated that the
late czar of Russia had coronation robes made out
of no fewer than 250,000 ermine-skins. " Miniver "
is ermine spotted with astrakhan, and "The'ophile
Gautier, in an essay on Cinderella, assures us that
young lady's famous glass slipper was not made of
glass at all, but simply lined with ver or miniver,
wrongly interpreted as verre." Ermine became a
579
580
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
"royal" fur by decree of Edward III. of England,
who also regulated the wearing of furs by his sub-
jects. He decreed that " no person whose income
did not amount to £100 a year should wear furs,
under penalty of forfeiting them." A letter from
Margaret Bryan — who was governess to the children
of Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Sey-
mour— to the king asks that money be sent her, as
the garments of his Grace, Prince Edward, "are
barely decent, and he much needs a fresh set of
furs, his being mangy."
Of all industries that of manufacturing the pelts
of animals into articles for the use of mankind is the
most ancient, and hardly a country exists in which,
to some extent, the skins of different beasts are not
so used at the present time. The manufacturing of
skins into articles of apparel and luxury is an in-
dustry apart from all others, and one requiring great
knowledge and experience, as the stability as well as
the appearance of most furs depends much upon the
mode of curing, drying, and making up. From the
Arctic circle, where furs are a necessity of existence,
to the tropics, and again southward into the Antarctic
regions, the furs of wild animals have from time im-
memorial contributed to the needs and the comfort
of mankind ; and even in the temperate zone we
have learned, from the sudden changes of tempera-
ture to which the vagaries of our climate subject us,
thoroughly to appreciate the luxury and utility of
furs. The rich peltries of North America were the
magnet, holding forth the promise of commercial
gain, that drew hitherward the pioneers and pre-
cursors of civilization. But for the hardy and ad-
venturous Frenchman and Briton who early sought
fortune in the traffic in furs, the settlement and ad-
vancement of the country would have been much
delayed, as it is only after the path through the
wilderness has been blazed that the somewhat
timorous steps of agriculture and civilization can be
led into a newly discovered region. In the early
days the fur trade played a most important part in the
settlement of the country, those engaged in it jour-
neying into the most distant and inaccessible parts,
and being the founders of very many of the first
settlements; in fact, the fur traders are to be re-
garded as the chief pioneers of North America.
Important as the business was even in those days,
the more general use of furs has made it at present
one of the most important factors of our trade and
commerce.
The Canadian provinces owe their first start on
the road to prosperity to the fur trade. The stimulus
of gold mining was lacking there, and in seeking for
an outlet for their energy the French pioneers dis-
covered that as the Indians were ignorant of the
value of the furs which they accumulated, an enor-
mous profit was possible to the successful trader in
those articles. In the infancy of the industry there
was absolutely no limit to the percentage of profit,
as the Indians would exchange the most valuable of
peltries for European trinkets that were worth noth-
ing except the cost of transportation. The trade in
furs with the natives soon created a class known as
coureurs des bois, or rangers of the wood, whose un-
tamable licentiousness brought scandal upon the
traffic, and led to the licensing system, which itself
soon became subject to abuse. During twelve or
more months these men would be absent from the
trading-posts, when they would return with canoes
laden with packs of beaver and other skins, with the
proceeds of the sale of which they would indulge in
the most extravagant dissipation. Their funds would
thus soon become exhausted, and they would again
disappear on a voyage for subsistence.
The British merchants of New York soon began to
encroach upon the business of the Canadian traders,
which led to bitter feuds regarding the infringement
of territorial rights; and matters were still more
complicated upon the formation of the Hudson's
Bay Company, which was chartered by Charles II.
in 1670, having the exclusive privilege of planting
trading stations on the shores of Hudson's Bay and
its tributaries. When, in 1 7 6 2 , France lost possession
of Canada, British subjects gained almost exclusive
control of the fur trade. Prior to 1795 the trade
was almost wholly monopolized by great trading
companies, the Dutch East India Company having
been first in the field, with trading-posts at New
Amsterdam (New York), Beaverwyck (Albany), and
several points on the Delaware and the coasts of
Maine. The Hudson's Bay Company for almost
two hundred years monopolized the trade in furs,
although after 1790 it had a somewhat powerful
rival in the Northwest Company. In 1805 the
latter company established trading-posts on the
Pacific coast. In 1808 John Jacob Astor estab-
lished the American Fur Company, with its line of
posts across the continent, intending to form a depot
for furs at the mouth of the Columbia River, and to
ship the furs directly to China and India from that
point. He subsequently changed its name to the
Pacific Fur Company, and was on the highroad to
success, when, in 1813, his resident partner there
treacherously sold out the whole establishment to the
Northwest Company, on the plea that the British
forces, with whom we were then at war, would have
F. FREDERIC GUNTHER.
(DIED DECEMBER 3, l8c,5.)
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Ml
captured it. The Russian-American Fur Company,
having its trading-post at Sitka, in Alaska, and
subordinate posts on the Yukon, carried on an im-
im-nse traffic for many years, but in 1867 transferred
its property and rights to the United States, simul-
taneously with our purchase of Alaska. Mr. Astor,
after the treacherous transfer of the Pacific Fur
Company to the Northwest Company, confined his
operations to the region east of the Rocky Moun-
tains, and with his partner and successor, Mr. Ram-
say Crooks, transacted for many years a profitable
business in furs.
The name of John Jacob Astor is so interwoven
with the history of the fur trade of America that I
deem it appropriate at this point to glance briefly at
the career of that remarkable man. He was born in
Walddorf, near Heidelberg, Germany, July 17, 1 763,
and his death occurred in New York, March 29,
1848. He sailed for Baltimore in 1783, with a
quantity of musical instruments to sell on commis-
sion. One of his shipmates was a furrier, who ex-
cited young Astor's imagination by stories of the
large profits made by purchasing furs from the
Indians and trappers and selling them to the whole-
sale dealers. Arrived in New York, he entered the
establishment of a Quaker furrier, in order to famil-
iarize himself with the details of the trade. On his
return to New York, after a visit to Europe, he
opened a warehouse for the sale of musical instru-
ments, which was the first regular house of the kind
in America. It was about 1809 that he conceived
his great scheme to render American trade inde-
pendent of the Hudson's Bay Company, and to
spread the civilization of the East throughout the
country. To carry out this scheme he asked the aid
of Congress. His idea was, briefly, to establish a
chain of trading-posts from the lakes to the Pacific
Ocean, with a great central depot at the mouth of
the Columbia River ; to acquire one of the Sandwich
Islands, and establish a line of vessels between the
west coast of America and the Indian and Chinese
ports. Expeditions were sent out, and in 1811 the
settlement of Astoria was formed at the mouth of
the Columbia, but was abandoned, owing to the
War of 1812. Irving's "Astoria" gives a graphic
description of the gigantic enterprise. Mr. Astor
extended his fur business widely, establishing trade
with many countries. The last twenty-five years of
his life were passed in retirement. At the sugges-
tion of Washington Irving he left $400,000 for
founding the Astor Library. His fortune at the
time of his death was estimated at $20,000,000.
William Backhouse Astor, the son of John Jacob,
was interested with his father in the fur trade, and
when, in 1827, the firm of John Jacob Astor & Son
was merged in the American Fur Company, he be-
came its president. He retired from businew, how-
ever, before his father's death, and succeeded to his
vast fortune.
St. Louis was one of the principal depots of the
fur trade from 1763 to 1859. The first great estab-
lishment there was founded by Laclede, Maxon &
Company in 1763. The brothers Auguste and
Pierre Chouteau were connected with it very early ;
up to 1808 they employed a large number of trap-
pers and voyageurs, and were very successful.
In 1808 the brothers Chouteau and several of their
associates formed the Missouri Fur Company,
which prospered greatly until 1813 or 1814, when,
in consequence of the war with Great Britain, it
was dissolved, and several of its members conducted
the business independently. In 1827 the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company, of St. Louis, was formed,
and sent its trappers to the Pacific coast. The
perils of the business were very great, forty out of
every hundred men perishing in its service ; but
such was the fascination of this life of adventure
that enough were always ready to supply the places
of the slain. After some years of successful busi-
ness this company was dissolved. In 1834, Pierre
Chouteau, Jr., who had been brought up in the
business with his father and relatives, organized the
firm of Pierre Chouteau, Jr., & Company, a name
which for the next twenty-five years was familiar to
all the trappers and hunters from the Mississippi and
the Great Lakes to the Pacific. In 1859 the busi-
ness was sold to Martin Bates and Francis Bates, of
St. Louis and New York. After the consolidation
of the Northwest Company with the Hudson's Bay
Company, in 1821, and the expiration of the latter's
charter and license in 1859, the fur trade became
more widely diffused in the hands of individuals.
While the aggregated amount collected each year is
much greater than it was forty years ago, the op-
portunities for acquiring colossal fortunes in the trade
have gone. Furs are made up now at more than
twenty points in the North and West, and London
and Leipsic are becoming the best markets for the
sale of American furs, as they have long been for
those of Europe, Asia, and South America. While
the trade in furs in the United States of late years
has been very extensive, it has, in a large measure,
been the result of individual enterprise rather than
that of gigantic corporations. The ancient monop-
olies of the fur trade have died a natural death, and
the immense business in fancy furs alone proves that
582
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
individual enterprise has taken every advantage of
its opportunity.
A writer in "Silliman's Journal" for January,
1834, gives such a lucid review of the fur trade at
that time that I feel that it will be instructive to
quote a portion of it here. He says :
"The Northwest Company did not long enjoy
the sway they had acquired over the trading regions
of the Columbia. A competition, ruinous in its ex-
penses, which had long existed between them and
the Hudson's Bay Company ended in their downfall
and the ruin of most of the partners. The relict of
the company became merged in the rival associa-
tion, and the whole business was conducted under
the name of the Hudson's Bay Company.
"This coalition took place in 1821. They then
abandoned Astoria, and built a large establishment
sixty miles up the river, on the right bank, which
they called Fort Vancouver. Mr. Astor has with-
drawn entirely from the American Fur Company, as
he has, in fact, from active business of every kind.
That company is now headed by Mr. Ramsay
Crooks. Its principal establishment is at Michili-
mackinac, and it receives its furs from the posts
depending on that station, and from those on the
Mississippi, Missouri, and Yellowstone rivers, and
the great range of country extending thence to the
Rocky Mountains. This company has steamboats
in its employ, with which it ascends the rivers, and
penetrates to a vast distance into the bosom of those
regions formerly so painfully explored in keel-boats
and barges, or by weary parties on horseback and
on foot.
" In addition to the main companies already men-
tioned, minor associations have been formed, which
push their way in the most intrepid manner to the
remote parts of the far West, and beyond the moun-
tain barriers. One of the most noted of these is
Ashley's company, from St. Louis, who trap for
themselves, and drive an extensive trade with the
Indians. The spirit, enterprise, and hardihood of
Ashley are themes of the highest eulogy in the far
West, and his adventures and exploits furnish abun-
dance of frontier stories.
"Another company of 150 persons from New
York, formed in 1 83 1 , and headed by Captain Bonne-
ville, of the United States army, has pushed its en-
terprises into tracts before but little known, and
has brought considerable quantities of furs from the
region between the Rocky Mountains and the coasts
of Monterey and Upper California, on the Buena-
ventura and Timpanogos rivers.
" The fur companies from the Pacific east to the
Rocky Mountains are now occupied (exclusive of
private combinations and individual trappers and
traders) by the Russians, and on the northwest
from Bering's Strait to Queen Charlotte's Island,
in north latitude fifty-three degrees ; and by the
Hudson's Bay Company thence, south of the Colum-
bia River ; while Ashley's company and that under
Captain Bonneville take the remainder of the region
to California. Indeed, the whole compass from the
Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean is traversed in every
direction. The mountains and forests, from the
Arctic Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, are threaded,
through every maze, by the hunter. Every river and
tributary stream, from the Columbia to the mouth of
the Rio del Norte, and from the Mackenzie to the
Colorado of the West, from their headsprings to
their junction, are searched and trapped for beaver.
Almost all the American furs which do not belong
to the Hudson's Bay Company find their way to
New York, and are either distributed thence for
home consumption or sent to foreign markets.
"The Hudson's Bay Company ship their furs
from their factories of York Fort and from Moose
River, on Hudson's Bay ; their collection from
Grand River, etc., they ship from Canada ; and the
collection from Columbia goes to London. None
of their furs come to the United States, except
through the Indian market.
" The export trade of furs from the United States
is chiefly to London. Some quantities have been
sent to Canton, and some few to Hamburg ; and an
increasing export trade in beaver, otter, nutria, and
vicugna wool, prepared for the hatter's use, is carried
on in Mexico. Some furs are exported from Balti-
more, Philadelphia, and Boston ; but the principal
shipments from the United States are from New York
to London, from whence they are sent to Leipsic, a
well-known mart for furs, where they are disposed
of during the great fair in that city, and distributed
to every part of the Continent.
"The United States import from South America
nutria, vicugna, chinchilla, and a few deerskins;
also fur-seals from the Lobos Islands, off the river
Plate. A quantity of beaver, otter, etc., is brought
annually from Santa Fe\ Dressed furs for edgings,
linings, caps, muffs, etc., such as squirrel, genet,
fitchskins, and blue rabbit, are received from the
north of Europe ; also cony and hare's fur ; but the
largest importations are from London, where is con-
centrated nearly the whole of the North American
fur trade."
Even at this date it was feared that the fur trade
must rapidly decline, as there were no new countries
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
to be explored, and the indiscriminate slaughter
practised by the hunters bade fair to exterminate fur-
In-, iring animals. In many cases this fear has
proved to be without foundation. Many fur-bear-
ing animals have increased in numbers, especially
mural ornament. The valuable fur-seal bidi fair to
follow the buffalo into the shades of oblivion ; but
as neither of these useful fur-bearing creatures is
actually extinct I have included them in the following
table of
PRINCIPAL AMERICAN FUR ANIMALS.
COMMON NAME.
SCIENTIFIC NAME.
HABITAT.
COLO*.
Uu*.
Beaver
Castor fiber
N. America, N. Europe, Asia. .
Northern latitudes
Chestnut brown
Muffs, trimmings, robes.
Muffs, trimmings, bou,
robes.
tt
tt
•
tt
H
Robes, rugs, gloves.
Robes, muffs, trimmings.
Muffs, boas.
Muffs, boas, capes.
Robes, muffs, boas, collars.
Robes.
Muffs, collars.
Rugs, robes.
it
tt
tt
Ladies' goods.
Painters^ brushes, muffs,
boas.
Coats, muffs, collars, caps.
Muffs, collars.
Mantles, cloaks.
Robes, rugs.
(4
Sleigh-robes.
Robes, coats.
Coat lining, capes.
Silver fox
Canis vulpes
Cross fox
Red fox
Arctic fox.
•
« «
tt
H
« «
Red
M
f(
<« tt
White
Slate or purple . . .
Gray
Blue fox. .
Alaska, Greenland
Gray fox
Racoon
•
Procyon lotor . .
Grayish yellow . . .
Wolverene
Fisher
Gulo luscus
N. America, Europe, Asia ....
N. America. .
Mustela pennant! ....
Mustela vison . .
•
•
Mink
Lynx
Felis Canadensis
N. America, Europe
Wildcat
Felis rufa.
N. America .
Yellowish brown.
White and black .
Black
Skunk
Mephitis mephitica..
Ursus Americanos . . .
Ursus cinnamonum . .
Ursus ferox
Ursus maritimus
N. America .
Black bear
Northern latitudes
Cinnamon bear . . .
Grizzly bear
« «
Dark brown ....
Polar bear
High latitudes
White
Isabella bear
Northern latitudes . . .
Badger
Taxidea Americana . . .
Enhydris lutris
N. W. America
Sea-otter
N. Pacific
Otter
Lutra Canadensis ....
Callorhinus ursinus. . .
Lupus Occidentalis . . .
Lupus latrans
Felis concolor
N. America, Europe
Chestnut
Fur-seal
American wolf
Prairie-wolf
Panther
Alaska, Shetland . .
Yellowish gray . .
Black, gray, white.
N. America
•
All America
Musk-ox
Ovibos moschatus . . .
Bison Americanus ....
Mustela Canadensis . .
Upper Canada
Dark brown
Drab brown
Buffalo
N. W. America
Marten
N. America
the small mammals, which seem to thrive in the
neighborhood of settlements, feeding on the farmers'
crops ; but others, especially the larger species, such
as bears, beavers, etc., are much reduced in numbers,
though it is to be hoped that they will not meet the
fate of the buffalo (Bison Americanus), which is now
reduced to a few scattered herds in southern Canada
and the Yellowstone Park, probably numbering less
than 500 all told in the United States. Up to 1875
these animals, whose skins were an important com-
modity in the trade, existed in countless herds on the
Western plains, and were valuable alike to the Indian
and the white man, whose needs, in the way of food
and clothing, they supplied. From 1871 to 1874 it
is estimated that between 4,000,000 and 4,500,000
of these animals were recklessly killed, merely for
the sake of their hides. The extinction of the
buffalo has created among the Indians a need which
must now be supplied by the United States govern-
ment in the shape of meat rations. The Indians
excel all others in dressing the skin. The head of
the male buffalo is in great demand at present as a
The fur-seal is of paramount interest to the trade.
There are many varieties, but four of which are ex-
tensively used by the trade, viz., the Alaskan, Vic-
toria or Northwest coast, Copper Island, and Lobos
Island.
The Alaskan fur-seal fishery is the most extensive
in the world. It was a material element in the
value of that province when purchased by the
United States from Russia at a heavy cost, and one
of the principal inducements upon which the pur-
chase was made. Since Alaska became the property
of the United States this fishery has afforded a very
considerable revenue to the government by the lease
of its privileges, and has engaged a large amount of
American capital and the industry of many Ameri-
can people. The product is an important article
of commerce and of manufacture, a substitute for
which could not easily be found.
For sixty years prior to 1862 these fisheries had
been leased by the Russian government to the
Russian-American Company, a corporation com-
posed mainly of Siberian merchants ; but upon the
584
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
sale of the province to the United States govern-
ment the latter became possessed of all its rights
there. Even at that time the question of the re-
duction of seal and their subsequent extinction was
being agitated, and soon after acquiring the territory
Congress passed laws forbidding the killing of seal
upon the islands of St. Paul and St. George, except
during the months of June, July, September, and
October ; prohibiting the killing of females and the
use of firearms, none under one year old to be killed,
and none to be taken in the adjacent waters or on
places where they haul up to remain ; also limiting
for twenty years the number to be killed on these
islands to 100,000 annually, reserving the right to
restrict the number if at any time it appeared ne-
cessary or advisable to do so in order to prevent seri-
ious reduction of the species. In 1870 the Alaska
Commercial Company obtained its lease, expiring
May i, 1890, at a rental of $50,000 per annum and
$2 revenue for each seal taken. The headquarters
of this corporation were in San Francisco, John F.
Miller, afterward Senator from California, being the
first president, succeeded by Mr. Lewis Gerstle, one
of the original stockholders. The affairs of the com-
pany were principally managed by Messrs. Gerstle,
Sloss, Niebaum, and Neumann on the Pacific coast,
by Mr. Hutchinson at Washington, and by Sir Curtis
Lampson (since deceased) in London. The number
of seals taken by the company during its lease has
been startling in its magnitude, and the amount of
rent and revenue paid to the United States has
corresponded with it.
During the last year of the lease the company
was restricted to 60,000 skins, but took only 21,000.
At the expiration of the term of the Alaska Com-
mercial Company the North American Commercial
Company succeeded in obtaining the lease from the
government for the ensuing twenty years, expiring
1910. The government leased to the North Ameri-
can Commercial Company, for twenty years from
May i, 1890, the exclusive right to take seals in
Alaska Territory, for an annual rental of $60,00.0
and a tax of $2 upon each fur-seal taken. It is
claimed that during the year ended on April ist last
16,031 skins were taken. At the present time the
case of the United States against the North Ameri-
can Commercial Company of California to recover
$214,293.37, alleged to be due on the contract since
April i, 1895, is pending in the United States Cir-
cuit Court. The case is regarded as one of great
importance.
The first seals to arrive at the Pribylov Islands
are the bulls, each one of which immediately locates
for himself and future harem a homestead averag-
ing about ten feet square. At first, when they are
merely straggling in,— that is, about the ist to 5th
of every May, — the competition among them is not
great ; but later, when the breeding grounds are be-
coming more crowded, the efforts of late comers to
oust those who have already ensconced themselves
result in the most terrific combats, attended with
great mutilation and sometimes death. The bulls
who do not succeed in obtaining places are obliged
to separate themselves from the others. They are
mainly those from five years old and under, though
some old bulls weakened by age or combat are in-
cluded in the number. They are called "bachelor
seals " by the whites and " holluschickie " by the
Aleuts. They number from one third to one half
of the whole aggregate of seals at the islands. It
is from these bachelor seals that the lessees of the
islands take the skins, which are shipped in batches
of 200 to 300 casks through San Francisco and
New York to London, where they are subsequently
sold at public auction at the great " sales " there.
Each cask contains forty to forty-five skins, rolled
up separately, tied with cord, and packed in salt.
The seals are not killed at the rookeries, but are
driven up to near the villages. At daybreak, while
the seals are still asleep, a few natives, by stealing
along the shore, can turn thousands of the " bache-
lors " back inland. They walk behind and on the
flanks of the herd, and drive them to the killing
grounds. This is done slowly, and frequent oppor-
tunity is given them to rest and cool off, as the seal
is unwieldy and makes very hard work of travel-
ing on terra firma. If they become overheated the
fur suffers injury ; but notwithstanding all the care
taken in driving them, many become exhausted and
die on the march, especially the old full-sized bulls
or such as may have been injured in combat. As
far as possible in starting these drives, the natives
select seals about three to four years old, as at this
age the fur is at its best. Old bulls are allowed to
fall behind on the march and make their escape, as
their skins have no commercial value to speak of.
Upon arriving at the killing grounds they are per-
mitted to rest for an hour or two, after which the
killing takes place. Each member of the killing
gang carries a long club, a skinning-knife, and a
whetstone. About 100 to 150 of the corralled seal,
making what is termed a " pod," are driven out at
a time from the others, and after the chief has indi-
cated such as are not to be killed (being too old, or
perhaps having been bitten), the others are slaugh-
tered by blows on the head with the clubs, and by
ONE HUNDRED YEA*S OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
incisions with the knives, after which the skins are
removed as quickly as possible, to avoid " heating."
The Victoria fur-seal, of which so much has been
heard of late years through the recent diplomatic
controversy and subsequent arbitration with Great
Britain before the Paris tribunal, is next in im-
portance.
Most of the vessels engaged in this fishery are
owned by Canadians. Many of them carry Indians,
who are very experienced hunters. When a herd of
seals is discovered a canoe is launched. If the
animals are asleep they are approached as quietly as
possible and speared, otherwise they are shot ; but
in the latter case many are lost, as they are apt
to sink before the canoe can reach them. The
Victoria seals taken are chiefly females, with the
exception of a few old bulls, and are generally cap-
tured at a rather earlier period of the year than the
Alaska seals.
During the past few years the government has re-
stricted the lessees of the Alaska seal-fisheries to a
limited catch each year. The following table shows
the restriction and the number taken.
FUR-SEALS TAKEN.
YEAR.
CATCH RESTRICTED TO
NUMBER TAKEN.
1890
2O,OOO
1801
1802
7 1OO
1803 .
7 SOO
1894 .
7,500 to 20 ooo
16 ooo
1805 . . .
7.1OO to IS ooo
le OOO
As the matter now stands, the government annu-
ally fixes a maximum and minimum number which
may be killed, and before the season opens the exact
number allowed is fixed upon by an agent stationed
at the Alaska fisheries.
Copper Island seals are taken on one of the
islands of the Aleutian group, called "Copper
Island," which is still the property of Russia, close
to Kamchatka. The fur is inferior to that of the
Alaska seal, although it is probably the same animal
taken at a different season of the year. The color
is also lighter, being usually dark brown, and the fur
not generally of such good quality. The quality of
the fur, owing probably to climatic influences and
nature of food, varies considerably, being some-
times equal to the Alaska, and at others vastly in-
ferior. The yearly catch of these skins is about
40,000 to 50,000.
The decision of the Bering Sea Court of Arbitra-
tion was made public at Paris on August 15, 1893.
A close season was established, to begin May ist
and to continue until July 3 ist; this season to be
observed both in the north Pacific Ocean and in
Bering Sea. A protected zone was established, ex-
tending for sixty miles around the islands. Pelagic
sealing was allowed outside the zone in Bering Sea
from August ist. The use of firearms in sealing
was prohibited. In spite of these precautions it is
generally conceded that the Paris Court of Arbitra-
tion was a signal failure as a means of preventing
the extinction of the seals. So alarming has been
the slaughter of seals in northern waters that re-
cently an important step has been taken in the
direction of discovering new fields. Governor
Sheakley, in a report submitted to the Secretary
of the Interior, in October of this year, on the con-
dition of affairs in Alaska Territory, says the extinc-
tion of the sea-otter and other fur-bearing animals
in that region is inevitable. Speaking of the rapidly
diminishing seals, he says that the official inspection
of skins taken by pelagic sealers last year showed
anywhere from fifty-five to eighty per cent, of female
skins, thus confirming previous investigation on this
point. The governor explains that so long as buck-
shot is being picked from the hides of young males
killed in the Pribylov Islands, and maimed and
wounded seals limp about the hauling grounds, and
so long as from fifty-five to eighty per cent, of the
pelagic catches sent to London are females (none
of which is ever taken on the islands), it is needless to
inquire further for the cause of demolition of the seals,
both upon the hauling and the breeding grounds.
He did not see anything in the method of handling
seals at the islands which would warrant the views
as to decadency presented in the British case. The
rehabilitation of the rookeries would be an easy
matter if adequate protection were afforded the
females. He states that better protection than that
afforded by the findings of the Paris tribunal will be
necessary for their restoration.
The catch along the northwest coast by American
vessels the last spring, Governor Sheakley says, did
not reach too skins per schooner, while the British
average was about 200. Great Britain gave to the
Canadian sealers increased facilities by availing her-
self of a technicality and violating the clear intent
of the Paris regulations relating to firearms. The
governor recommends that the Treasury Depart-
ment issue such instructions as will insure the taking,
between the ist of June and the loth of August
of each year, of every marketable sealskin on the
Pribylov Islands.
586
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
I am led to enlarge somewhat upon this question
of the Alaskan fur-seals from its manifest importance
to the fur industry, seal-fur being at once the most
useful and the most popular of all furs. In Septem-
ber of this year Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
Hamlin received from Agent Crowley, stationed on
the Pribylov Islands, a report to the effect that the
lessees were permitted by him to ship 15,000 skins
for the season, this figure being the maximum set
by the department. In connection with this report
Mr. Hamlin is reported to have said :
" Mr. Crowley was permitted to allow a catch of
15,000, including all the skins left over from last
season, if in his judgment the condition of the herd
on the islands would warrant it. The reports pre-
viously received indicated that a considerable num-
ber of skins were left over from last season, which
have been counted in this year's catch ; and, in ad-
dition, we assume that the 15,000 will be found to
include a considerable number of young male seals,
so that it will hardly be safe for the trade to count
on 15,000 full-grown skins. While it had been as-
sumed that owing to the reports from the coast
Mr. Crowley would only permit 7500 to be taken, it
should be remembered that a 15,000 catch is really
very small indeed, and would be wholly insignificant
if the seal-herd were not being depleted so rapidly.
You will remember that under the modus vivendi
7500 seals were permitted to be taken by the natives
for food. I cannot now say exactly what the de-
partment will do during the corning winter, but no
effort will be spared to save the remnant of the
herd."
It is of interest to note that for some years after
the discovery of the sealing grounds of Alaska by
Pribylov, in 1786, the slaughter of seals was unprec-
edented. In the year following the discovery,
500,000 seals are said to have been killed by the
Russian hunters. The natural result followed, and
in 1807, when the order was issued to kill no more
seals for five years, the herd was on the verge of
extinction. That the slaughter of seals progressed
at the rate of 100,000 a year for twenty years after
the acquisition of Alaska by the United States, is
proof of the wonderful recuperative possibilities of
these animals, and an earnest and honest effort on
the part of the nations interested might yet save
from extinction this interesting herd of mammals.
It is not for sealskins alone that the fur trade is in-
debted to Alaska. That territory sends its quota of
the pelts of the sea-otter, the land-otter, the beaver,
brown bear, black bear, fox, mink, marten, lynx,
wolf, muskrat, and wolverene. The total value of
furs shipped from Alaska and Russian America
from 1745 to 1890 amounted to $93,102,970. The
number of Alaska fur-seal skins sold in London
from 1868 to 1890 inclusive was 2,411,099. Of
these the Alaska Commercial Company shipped
1,861,052 (salted), other traders 412,254 (salted).
Of dried furs there were 50,288, and of dressed,
87,5°S-
In reviewing the fur trade of the United States it
is impossible to ignore the relationship that it bears
to that of other countries. Many of the great
American houses have partners resident in London
and Leipsic and in other parts of the world. London
is still the great fur auction mart of the world, al-
though America leads all countries in the art of
manufacture, furs in the raw state being admitted
here duty free. Leipsic still holds spring and au-
tumn fairs, in which exchanges are made of Leipsic
wares for the skins from Russia, Austria, and Turkey.
The chief fur fair of European Russia is held at
Nijni-Novgorod. Siberia exchanges furs with China
for commodities, and a fair for the purpose is held
annually at Kiakhta. Staple furs, used largely in the
making of hats, are principally those of the hare and
rabbit, and come from France, Russia, Germany,
England, the western part of America, and from
Australia.
The preparation of most skins for packing and
transportation is by no means so difficult as might
appear. After being stripped from the animal
they are carefully cleaned of fat and flesh, and
dried in a cool, dry place. When thoroughly dry
they are ready for shipment. This method does
not apply to the fur-seal, which is an exception
to the rule, the manner of packing which is told
elsewhere.
The variety of furs is so great, and the cost so
variable on account of the fickleness of fashion, that
the record of consumption is never the same for two
years running. Some of the most exquisite of the
peltries are obtained from animals whose habitat is
in regions remote and uncultivated. That all of
those kinds having the most beautiful fur are not
exterminated is due to the sudden and unaccount-
able changes in fashion. The demand for a certain
class of fur ceases for a season or two, and with it
ceases the destruction of the animals, who thus have
a period in which to recover their normal status as
to numbers. A record of the annual collection of
furs in America is at best far from reliable, except
as to the year to which it refers. The following list
is as accurate an average as can be obtained from
the data available.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
AVERAGE ANNUAL COLLECTION OF
AMERICAN FURS.
Badger S,ooo
Bear 15,000
Heaver (formerly) 300,000
lo (bison) (formerly) 100,000
Kisher I2.OOO
Fox, silver (Asia and America) 2,000
" cross ^Asia and America) 10,000
* blue (Europe and America) 7,000
« red 60,000
'• gray 30,000
" kit 40,000
Marten 130,000
Mink 250,000
Mu-krat 3,000,000
Opossum 250,000
Racoon 500,000
Sea-otter 2,000
Skunk 550,000
Following the rule that applies to all modern
business and professions, the fur trade has been
split up into departments, and very few firms carry
on all the branches of the business, as was formerly
done, under one roof. The taxidermist may be said
to conduct a collateral branch of the fur industry.
The manufacturing furriers and fur dealers represent
an enormous investment of capital, and most of them
are importers and exporters as well. There are a
large number of important manufacturing firms in
America, notwithstanding the hold on that branch
held by London and Leipsic, and furs made here
are, as a rule, of superior manufacture. In 1890
the whole number of establishments handling fur
goods in the United States was placed at 484.
These firms paid $4,749,191 in wages to 8075 em-
ployees. The cost of materials used amounted to
$11,742,508, and the value of products, including
receipts from custom-work and repairing, is set down
as $20,526,988. That New York is the great center
of the American fur industry is shown by the fact
that her proportion of the above totals for 1890 was
as follows: establishments, 281 ; employees, 4983;
wages, $3,113,762; cost of material used, $6,897,-
292 ; value of product, $i 2,434,272. These figures
show that New York does considerably more than
half of the entire fur business of the country. Of
the value of Alaskan business I have spoken else-
where. Of the Western States, Minnesota makes an
excellent showing, with 25 establishments, employ-
ing 488 persons, whose wages amount to $276,393.
The cost of materials is $727,117, and the value of
the product $1,152,369. These figures apply to
1890.
The manufacture of hats and caps can only be
referred to as a branch industry allied to the fur
trade, inasmuch as the felt is made from fur. Of
course there are hats and caps made directly of fur,
which come within the province of the furrier. The
passing of the beaver hat appears to be permanent,
although that species of head-gear had a temporary
revival during Mr. Harrison's presidential cam-
paigns. The relative value of the beaver and silk
hat is thus written about by George Augustus Sala :
" Let us now take the case of men's hats. The
costliest hat, in my youth, was the beaver one. The
last occasion when George IV. was seen in public
was at Ascot races in 1828 or 1829. He wore a
brown beaver hat, and brown beavers for a season
or two were fashionable ; but ultimately the black
or the gray beaver resumed its sway. The very best
ones were made entirely of the fur of the beaver,
and cost from three to four guineas. A second-class
beaver consisted of a body or foundation of rabbit's
fur, with a beaver nap ; but the latter was frequently
mixed with some other fur. This article could be
purchased for a guinea or thirty shillings.
"The life of a real beaver hat extended over
about three years ; the adulterated article wore out
in about a twelvemonth ; whereas the most economi-
cal of gentlemen at present can rarely consume less
than four silk hats a year. If he pays ready money
for his hats he may obtain them for a guinea each,
so that he stands, financially speaking, in a position
worse than that of a gentleman of the Georgian era,
whose genuine beaver cost four guineas, but lasted
four years.
"This is one of the instances in which modern
cheapness is only apparent."
It would, of course, be impossible in this article
to go into details regarding the processes of manu-
facturing furs. As a guide to the subject generally
I will briefly outline the process by which the skin
of the fur-seal is made ready for the market. These
skins, on their arrival at the furrier's, packed in salt,
are both evil-smelling and unsightly. The first step
is to remove the salt by washing. The fat or other
extraneous matter adhering to the inside of the pelt
is then carefully removed, after which the skins are
stretched upon frames and slowly dried. They are
next soaked in water and thoroughly washed with
soap. The fur is then dried, leaving the skin moist.
At this point the operator removes with a knife all
of the long hair, leaving nothing but the soft under-
fur. This process is both tedious and delicate. The
pelts are then subjected to moisture and heat on the
skin side, and shaved until a smooth, even surface
is obtained. The next process is that of drying and
softening the skins. This is done by treading them
with bare feet in tubs in which is a quantity of fine
hard-wood sawdust, which absorbs any natural oil
which may still adhere to the fur. The delicate
588
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
operation of dyeing next takes place, wherein the
dye is applied with a brush to the points of the fur,
which is then gently agitated to evenly distribute
the coloring-matter. After drying and brushing,
another coat is applied, and this is continued until
eight to twelve coats have been given to the skin.
At this point the English process ceases, but the
American furriers continue to wash and dry the
skins with sawdust after the application of the dye.
This insures a beautiful, finished, and lasting product.
Mere mention of a tithe of the enterprising men
who are making the fur trade what it is would be im-
practicable here, the business being so minutely sub-
divided, as I have before stated. The fur trade of
the United States has in the past had associated
with it many honored names. Among them were
J. J. Astor, William B. Astor, John G. Wendel,
Christian G. Gunther, Sir Curtis Lampson, Ram-
sey Crooks, Gabriel Franchere, J. Carson Brevoort,
and Martin Bates. But few, however, of the fine
old houses have lineal descendants at present en-
gaged in the trade, which has passed largely into
other hands. There are, in addition to the branches
mentioned, jobbers of furs, proprietors of skunk
farms, dealers in hatters' furs, fur sewing-machine
houses, and firms making machinery and material
used by furriers, such as muff-blocks, head-forms,
skulls, and down muff-beds. All of these branches
are represented by houses of enterprise and charac-
ter. That there are dishonest and disreputable men
in the trade, who thrive by dubious practices, is both
true and regrettable. They do not last long, how-
ever, owing to the fact that their sin soon finds them
out, and the customer once tricked by them is more
careful in selecting a reputable firm for future deal-
ing. The opportunities for trickery in the fur trade
are limitless, and the wonder is that so few scamps
have crept into it.
The volume of business shown by the exports and
imports of furs can only be approximated as to the
early years of the present century, except in regard to
Alaska, where by means of the Russian and Chinese
records it is tolerably complete for a period of more
than a century. The following table gives the
value of imports and exports of furs in this country
from 1869 to 1894 inclusive:
FURS AND MANUFACTURES OF FURS.
YEAR.
IMPORTS.
EXPORTS.
i860 .
$3,094,115
&2.O3Q 163
1870 . .
2,236,229
I.Q4I I3Q
1871 ..
7,217.334
I.5QO.IQ3
1872 .
3,503,176
3.343.OO<;
1877 . .
3.725 mo
1874 .
3,770,288
3.334.36";
IS?;
1876 .
4, CHI, 372
4,398,883
1877 .
3,063,444.
3,788,802
1878
3,Q44,27O
2,6l8,IOO
1870 . .
4,5l6,2QO
4,828,1 58
1880
6,424,112
5.404.418
1881
7.OOI ,640
c,4c i.aio
1882
8,O3O,Q7O
1883
7_QCQ.7CQ
3.035.603
1884 .
8,1 78,124
3.008.182
1885
5.2S7.547
4.1 C3.287
6,813,887
3.32I.IO2
1887 . .
7.28s;.6iQ
4.8O7 227
1888
6,735,344
4.777.2l6
1880
7.4l6.223
C.O34 435
1800 . .
7,553 816
1801 .
0,828,840
3.236. 7O5
1802
IO IO7.I3I
3,c86 33Q
i&n . .
10,567,807
3.600.570
1804 . .
7,620,284
4 238 OQO
The total domestic exports of furs and fur skins
during August, 1895, amounted to $115,985, as
against $60,851 for the same month of 1894.
In the interval snatched from business cares it is
impossible to do anything like justice to this great
subject. I have endeavored, however, to outline a
few of its salient points. The difficulties and dangers
attendant upon the securing of them lend to furs a
sentimental value. They come from the frozen
islands of the Arctic Sea, the barren wastes of
northern Russia, and the jungles of Africa and
India. They are hunted by sea and by land, on
snow-shoes and under the equatorial sun. Comfort
in furs lies in the use rather than in the pursuit of
them. The historian of the American fur trade has
before him a subject of entrancing interest. The
furs which adorn the beautiful women of America,
and ornament their homes, are part of the history of
the country. They have been obtained at the sac-
rifice of much human ingenuity, of marvelous en-
durance, and, in many instances, of the lives of the
adventurous men who have borne the heat and
burden of the day in order that our civilization
might not lack one of the greatest requisites of
elegance and refinement.
CHAPTER XC
THE JEWELRY TRADE
THE manufacture of jewelry in this country
is one of the oldest industries of which there
is tangible record. It antedates the United
States, the foundation of the colonies, and even his-
tory itself; for history takes us back only to the
discovery of America in 1492, and it is merely a
matter of speculation how many centuries previous
to that the native Indians had lived on this soil.
Next to his girdle of scalps the Indian loved nothing
better than his beads and his necklaces of wampum
and of bits of ivory, bone, and metal. These were
his articles of personal adornment — our definition
of jewelry. It is, then, to the native American In-
dian's love of personal adornment that we trace the
origin of jewelry in America. The Indian chiefs
covered themselves with the best that the handi-
work of their tribes could produce, and we are told
that their wrists, ankles, heads, ears, and even noses,
all bore tribute to their vanity and their love for
adorning their persons with trinkets, though they
were entirely indifferent to our modern necessity of
clothing.
The history of the early Dutch settlers informs
us that they brought with them such articles as they
needed for their personal adornment in the new
settlements, and it is evident that they were as thor-
oughly human in this respect as all known races of
the human family are reputed to have been ; for
from the very foundation of the colonies no one's
attire was considered complete in the English-speak-
ing towns without buckles, brooches, and rings made
of the metals in vogue at that time.
These being the customs of the early settlers, the
industry of gold and silver smithing was soon estab-
lished, and by reference to the history of the three
principal towns in the colonies we learn that in each
there were numerous gold and silver smiths, whose
principal products were medals and other trinkets
for Indian chiefs, and snuff-boxes. The use of snuff
was then universal, and every man took a pinch
when proffered, whether he liked it or not. This
usage led to considerable rivalry in the production
and possession of beautiful snuff-boxes. Another
product of the early silversmiths much in evidence
was elaborate boxes in which were inclosed the
parchments conferring the freedom of the city upon
distinguished guests. These boxes or receptacles
were usually made of silver with a lining of gold,
and frequently of gold studded with precious stones.
After Andrew Hamilton defended the liberty of the
press in New York in 1 734 the corporation bestowed
their citizenship upon him, inclosing the parchment
conferring this in a very elaborate box; and later
others were presented to Lafayette, Washington, and
Scott. The making of ornamental insignia conferred
upon distinguished men developed into an important
feature of the goldsmith's work, and the craft received
so many accessions to its ranks that in 1788, when
the adoption of the Federal Constitution was cele-
brated in Philadelphia, thirty-five goldsmiths and
jewelers turned out in the procession.
More than twenty years before this, previous to
the Declaration of Independence, the profusion of
silverware, jewelry, and other evidences of wealth
in a prominent New York residence, it is said, in-
cited Townshend to introduce the historic bill known
as the Stamp Act, the entering wedge by which the
colonies were finally separated from the mother
country. The viands and the silver in the Walton
house were so rich and in so great abundance that
English officers who dined there declared that they
could see no reason why a country whose inhab-
itants could afford to live so extravagantly should
not be taxed. This fell on Townshend's willing
ears, and as a result the British House of Commons
began to attempt the collection of revenue from the
colonies. Those of them which had the richest
inhabitants, and as a consequence those who spent
most in personal adornment, were South Carolina,
Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and
589
590
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Massachusetts. Connecticut, although populous,
had few citizens distinguished above the rest for
means.
There are no returns in the earlier censuses giv-
ing the quantity of production or the places where
the various arts which are loosely grouped under
the head of jewelers and gold and silver smiths were
carried on. Providence, Newark, Philadelphia, New
York, and Attleboro have long been, and still are,
noted centers of the trade. The tools used in the
earlier days were much like those used by workers
in other metals at that time, except that they were
smaller and better finished for finer work. The ex-
treme tenuity and the lack of brittleness of gold and
silver gave play to great ingenuity in varying ordi-
nary patterns with fanciful designs, and the attain-
ing of a polished or burnished surface made neces-
sary a more tender treatment. In the earlier years
of the century the frosting of gold and the satin
finishing of silver were unknown arts, everything
coming from the workshop with a glittering surface,
most of the ornamental or decorative work being
either crude enameling, applied work, or engraving.
Later the precious metals were also used con-
jointly with other metals, wood, mother-of-pearl,
glass, porcelain, pearls, and gems ; but most of these
attempts were ambitious efforts to realize the ideals
formed from studying, in books and single engrav-
ings that from time to time found their way to this
country, the illustrations of metal-work. However,
nearly every one who engaged in the business at
that time learned it thoroughly, in the old-fashioned
way that embodied all branches of the trade. A
good workman could chisel out a ring or repair a
clock, could fix your spectacles, put a new spout on
your coffee-pot, or " doctor " your watch. What-
ever was to be done mattered little to him, for he
was equally competent in every branch ; and good
honest work was invariably the rule, resulting in
articles not equaling in delicacy of workmanship
those of the present time, but substantially made
and suited to the requirements of the day. A
hundred years ago it was impossible to draw a dis-
tinction between the occupation of jeweler and either
goldsmith or silversmith, or between watchmaker
and either clockmaker or maker of fine mathemat-
ical instruments— each of these branches involving
the others. An artisan, though expert, rarely found
sufficient work to employ all his time in any one
department of his handiwork, and thus, from no
matter of choice, but from compulsion, divided his
time and skill between his own and kindred trades.
The seller of these goods then was a workman
rather than a dealer, and it was essential for him to
have an intimate knowledge of all kinds of metal
and fancy work. The more progressive of these
artisans developed by degrees into manufacturers,
beginning usually with one, two, or three articles in
stock, such as spoons, forks, rings, and other small
pieces ; and later hollow silverware, coffee-urns, tea-
pots, etc.
Providence became early one of the centers of
the trade ; for the industry secured a footing in that
city soon after the Revolution, when the manufac-
ture of silverware was begun by Messrs. Sanders &
Pitman and Cyril Dodge. In 1805 four establish-
ments were located there. These belonged to Ne-
hemiah Dodge, Ezekiel Burr, John C. Jenckes, and
Pitman & Dorrance. Their products were chiefly
silver spoons, gold beads, and finger-rings, and they
employed in all about thirty men. Some of them
soon branched out into cheap gold jewelry, silver
and other alloys being largely used, with a very
small fraction of gold, while large articles were
plated by the hammering process. Breastpins, ear-
rings, sleeve-buttons, and key-rings, in addition to
the articles mentioned, were among the early pro-
ducts at Providence. About the same time work
was also begun in Attleboro, which town for many
years held preeminence in the trade. In 1812 it
was stated that there was then sufficient gold and
silver ware manufactured to meet every demand in
the United States. In Newark the business of man-
ufacturing goods of this kind began early in the
century. The town was favorably situated for man-
ufactures, and the men originally interested in the
enterprise, Hinsdale & Taylor, combined industry
with enterprise. Philadelphia was always very prom-
inent as a manufacturing town, and a large trade,
particularly with the South and West, sprang up
there. Bailey & Company were one of the jewelry
houses early established in that city, and the firm,
under a different name, still exists.
More than sixty years ago Maiden Lane, of New
York City, became the great center of the jewelry
business in this country, and throughout the world
the name of that thoroughfare is inseparably linked
with the trade. With the improvements in manu-
facturing elsewhere, new ideas began to affect the
trade. People had grown tired of things which had
been always in their possession ; they valued the
jewels of their ancestors for their associations, but
they wanted for their own use something new, some-
thing different in design ; and this feeling gave an im-
petus to the trade, New York becoming the natural
market for the introduction of every new product.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
001
Among the New York houses that became early
prominent in the trade was the firm of Marquand &
Gelston, later Marquand & Company. In the New
York "Mercantile Register" of 1848-49, in the
chapter devoted to manufacturers of silverware,
watches, jewelry, etc., we find the advertisements
of the following houses, in the order named : Ball,
Tompkins & Black (late Marquand & Company),
247 Broadway; Allcock & Allen, 341 Broadway;
Gale & Hayden, 116 Fulton Street; Tiffany, Young
£ Ellis, 271 Broadway; Wood & Hughes, 142 Ful-
ton Street; Samuel W. Benedict, 5 Wall Street;
George C. Allen, 51 Wall Street; Squire & Brother,
93 Fulton Street and 182 Bowery ; and others. Some
of these houses have gone out of existence, one still
retains its original firm name, and three are con-
ducted under different firm names, which yet em-
body some part of the original title.
All branches of art education have been devel-
oped to a remarkable degree. In 1830 there were
probably not in the entire country as many good
paintings as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in
Central Park, contains to-day ; and the same holds
true, in other departments of art, of fine bronzes and
marbles, of ceramics, pottery, and glass ; indeed,
cultivated taste and artistic discrimination find no-
where better expression than in the selection of
choice bits of ceramics, porcelain, and bric-a-brac.
If, as a nation, we have made, during the past fifty
years, exceptional progress in mechanical improve-
ments and inventions that enter into the practical
part of life, our artistic faculties have in no sense
been neglected ; and although all have not become
connoisseurs, appreciation of the artistic and the
ornate in form and color is a feeling that knows no
social or territorial distinction, existing in the largest
cities and the smallest hamlets. It finds expression
in the beautiful landscape-work of our parks and the
architecture of our buildings; in the wares offered
in our shops, and in the manner of their display ; in
the binding and the press-work of our books ; in the
illustration of our periodicals and other publications ;
and in divers other directions ; but in nothing is it
more pronounced than in the art metal-work of the
gold and silver smiths, which has long since placed
American products at the head of the art metal- work
of the world.
With our increased spending capacity, our greater
appreciation of the artistic, and our wider knowledge
of articles into whose manufacture good taste enters
as an important factor, it is not surprising that, rela-
tively to the population, far more jewelry and silver-
ware are demanded than formerly. The designers
now employed by gold and silver smiths are men of
liberal education, who can, if required, draw and
model from life, and paint in oil or water-colon.
They have been specially instructed as artists, and in
many instances their training in the art schools and
the designing-rooms of the workshops here is not
restricted to the study of art from books and engrav-
ings, but is supplemented by visits to the galleries
and museums of Europe ; and in their work on jew-
elry and silverware, although guided by the universal
principles of their art, success depends largely upon
the individuality of their work and upon their ability
to unite utility of form with appropriateness of color
and decoration.
Much work in ornamental gold and silver ware
has been done in this country within the past forty
years, notably in the way of loving-cups, vases, me-
tallic designs, and presentation pieces. As conspic-
uous among these may be mentioned the gold med-
als, valued at $1000 and $500, presented by the
State of New York in 1858 to Dr. E. K. Kane and
Commander H. S. Hartstein, the Arctic explorers ;
and the silver vase made in honor of William Cullen
Bryant, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The testimonials presented to Cyrus Field upon the
completion of the Atlantic cable in 1866 include a
gold medal struck for the occasion, a gold box, and
many pieces of silverware. Other notable specimens
are the silver services presented to the arbitrators of
the Alabama claims in 1873 ; the silver centerpiece,
" Liberty Enlightening the World," presented to
August Bartholdi in 1 886 ; the testimonial pre-
sented to William Ewart Gladstone in 1887; the
loving-cup to Edwin Booth; and a great number
of yachting trophies for international and other
regattas. Many of these trophies annually made
are of exceptional merit, and examples of art metal-
work that cannot be duplicated or equaled in any
other country.
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 and
1849 gave us a home supply of this metal, and gave
employment to metallurgists and miners. The open-
ing of the expositions in London and Paris revealed
to us the forms of art and the increasing business of
the manufacturing jewelers in this country, and made
comparatively easy the acquirement of inventions in
machinery and tools necessary to reduce the cost of
products. Great improvements have been made in
machinery. At present many articles are prepared
by the aid of electro-metallurgy. Since 1860 all
kinds of goods for which plating is employed have
been largely made in this way, the center of pro-
duction being chiefly in Connecticut, there being
592
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
also large plants at Newark, N. J., and Providence,
R. I. This process is highly valuable, because it
places within the reach of people of limited means
attractive tableware and other articles of utility now
deemed indispensable, which, if not as artistic and
as highly finished as solid silverware, are service-
able, and in many instances possess exceptional
merit.
The production of silver-plated ware, although a
great industry, has not retarded or encroached upon
the demand for solid silver ; in fact, many instances
of recent date would indicate that, with the present
low valuation of silver bullion and the mechanical
improvements that have further reduced the cost of
production, solid silver is rapidly increasing in popu-
lar favor and making serious inroads upon the sale
of all small articles still manufactured in plated ware.
The production of watches is another American
industry closely related to the jewelry trade. They
are manufactured in a number of States, notably
Massachusetts, Illinois, and New Jersey, the making
of the watch-cases forming a separate industry, which
thrives especially in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. The
highest grades of watches, such as complicated
chronographs, calendar and stop watches, and very
small watches for ladies, are still imported from
Switzerland.
Until about 1850 precious gems and articles of
virtu of high order were seldom sold in the United
States. Wealthy families bought such things abroad,
and these sometimes, owing to reverses or other
causes, found their way, in the course of time, to
the jewelry shops ; but the great variety of beautiful
and artistic products that can now be purchased at
many establishments could not be found on sale in
this country fifty years ago. New York or Phila-
delphia jewelers acted merely as agents to obtain
for patrons some desired articles from a European
house. But this state of things no longer exists.
The objects of art and other accessories of a mod-
ern jeweler's stock represent many thousands of
dollars, and include opera-glasses, Sevres ware, fine
pottery, ceramics, enamels, glass, objects in rock-
crystal, clocks, bronzes, marbles, plaques, antiqui-
ties, curios, and many costly pieces of bric-a-brac
and cabinet ornaments that appeal chiefly to collec-
tors and connoisseurs of art.
In diamonds and precious stones, that most costly
and important department of a jeweler's stock,
America is in the front rank of nations, not as
producer, but as consumer. It is now conceded
that New York is the largest market for gems and
precious stones in the world, and that more precious
stones are annually consumed— or purchased, in
other words— in America than in any other country.
The art of diamond cutting and polishing, al-
though established here for a number of years, re-
cently, through the changes made in the tariff regu-
lations, received such an impetus as to attract many
diamond cutters from Holland to this country ; and
if further revisions are made in the tariff, admitting
diamonds in the rough free of duty, it is not unlikely
that the industry, which for generations has centered
in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, will be centered be-
fore many years in New York, Brooklyn, and other
cities of the United States.
In the matter of statistics the earliest figures that
we have as to the production of jewelry are that in
1812 $100,000 worth was produced in Providence.
But as late as 1860 the returns were small. The
jewelers and watchmakers of Philadelphia produced
in that year $691,430 worth; the silverware men,
$516,000; makers of gold watch-cases and chains,
$1,714,800. In New York the production was: of
gold chains and jewelry, $2,497,761 ; gold watch-
cases, $337,690 ; silverware, $1,250,695. Newark
made $1,341,000 worth of jewelry; Providence,
$2,251,382 of jewelry, and $490,000 in silverware.
No summary has yet been made at Washington
of the general results of the census of 1 890 in manu-
facturing, but the products of particular towns are
given, from which it is learned that the production
of jewelry in the previous year in Providence was
$7,801,003; New York, $5,605,634 ; Newark, $4,-
631,500; Philadelphia, $3,139,596 ; San Francisco,
$1,512,571 ; Brooklyn, $1,323,234 ; Cincinnati, $i, -
317,000; Chicago, $873, ooo ; and Boston, $66 1,300.
The production of silverware was : Providence,
$2,509,869; New York, $1,322,235; and Phila-
delphia, $272,997. Philadelphia leads in watch-
cases, with $1,914,222, followed by Brooklyn, with
$i,553>993', Newark, with $1,004,584; and New
York, with $628,660. Taking the total production
in all these articles by cities, Providence comes
first, and then, in order, are New York, Newark,
Philadelphia, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Cincinnati,
Boston, and Chicago. The bulk of the gold and
silver products of Providence, Newark, and other
Eastern manufacturing centers is sold in New York.
These statistics, however, do not indicate what
has been accomplished from an artistic standpoint.
American jewelry and silverware have steadily ad-
vanced in the quality and the character of products
as much as the mere quantity. When the indus-
try was in its infancy we looked to London and
Paris for our ideas, our designs, and our models.
CHARLES L. TIFFANY.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
.103
Paris, the unchallenged arbiter of all fashions, long
held supreme sway in things beautiful and artistic,
and in nothing more than rich gems and jewelry ;
and though we still look to Paris and London for
our fashion-plates and many artistic creations which
we have not yet mastered here, we no longer accept
the models and ideas of our French and English
cousins in the designing of our jewelry and silver-
ware. We have marked out a path of our own in
this country that has led American products to the
foremost ranks of the world. Dealers no longer
import foreign jewelry and silverware into this coun-
try, because American products are fully equal, and
in most cases superior, to those of other countries,
in both correctness and originality of designs and
workmanship. How our gold and silver manufac-
tures are accepted abroad can best be indicated by
a review of some of the press comments in connec-
tion with the Paris International Expositions of 1878
and 1889. For obvious reasons the firm names
which appeared in these extracts are omitted.
The London " Spectator " of September 21, 1878,
says : " It is a modern mistake to assume that the
production of good silver-work demands neither
special training nor high artistic power. It will not
suffice to study old models, however excellent, unless
fresh inspiration be gathered from nature, assimilated
by the trained mind, and wrought out by the skilful
hand into forms of fresh and seemly designs. . . .
We confess we were surprised to find at the Paris
Exposition that a New York firm . . . had beaten
the old country and the Old World in domestic
silver plate."
A Parisian publication wrote, about the same
time : " Of the many awards which the American
section of the Universal Exposition has received,
there are certainly none that will excite so little
jealousy as those bestowed upon the house of ...
It has been generally conceded that nothing in the
whole Palace of the Champs de Mars so richly de-
served recognition as the remarkable display made
by this famous firm of New York jewelers and
silversmiths. Hence the jury were as one with the
public, and the palm of honor will be borne away
to Union Square."
Speaking of the Parisian awards to American gold
and silver ware, the " International Review " of Feb-
ruary, 1879, wrote: "The taking of the coveted
Grand Prize by an American exhibitor, with the ad-
ditional distinction of the decoration of the Legion
of Honor, is the highest possible official recognition
of the supremacy of our metallic art-work."
Closely following these honors and generous trib-
utes, an American house received appointments by
Royal Letters as Jewelers, Gold and Silver Smiths,
to the following courts of Europe :
Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen of Eng-
land;
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales ;
Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales ;
His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh ;
His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia ;
Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of Russia ;
His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Vladimir ;
His Royal Highness the Grand Duke Alexis ;
His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Paul ;
His Royal Highness the Grand Duke Sergius ;
His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Austria ;
His Majesty the King of Prussia ;
His Majesty the King of the Belgians ;
His Majesty the King of Italy ;
His Majesty the King of Denmark ;
His Majesty the King of Greece ;
His Majesty the King of Spain ;
His Majesty the King of Portugal ;
His Majesty the King of Roumania ;
His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Brazil ;
His Majesty the Khedive of Egypt ;
His Imperial Majesty the Shah of Persia; and
other distinguished potentates.
The American displays of gold and silver ware at
the Paris Exposition of 1889 resulted in a repetition
of the earlier triumphs, and evoked, if possible,
even greater enthusiasm and more generous press
comments. " Le Figaro," of Paris, June 16, 1889,
said among other things, in a review of the exhibit
of American jewelry : "It has only taken a few
years for the master jeweler and goldsmith of New
York to acquire this preeminence in this beautiful
art, where the nineteenth century rivals the Renais-
sance. In the future the metals and precious stones
are in his hands, as the potter's clay is in the hands
of a Falquire and a Dalou. If the committee of 1878
gave him, joined to the gold medal, the supreme
reward of the Cross of the Legion of Honor, I ask,
what crown can they give in 1 889 ? "
The selection of press comments from eminent
publications, chiefly foreign, deemed free from any
bias favorable to American products, has been an ex-
tremely embarrassing task, as in every instance the
writers included in their laudatory remarks the name
of an individual or firm identified with the products,
which excited their favorable comment, which
names have been eliminated from the extracts
quoted.
In conclusion, what additional progress has been
594
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
made, and shown at the World's Columbian Exposi-
tion, is of too recent date to present in detail in this
article. Much has been written and printed upon
the art metal display of the gold and silver smiths,
publications at home and abroad for many months
dwelling with lavish and minute detail upon the
many extraordinary features of the exhibit, which
the London " Art Journal " summarizes in an elab-
orate review, October, 1893, as follows: "Judging
by the productions exhibited, one may well be in
doubt whether our much-boasted European pre-
eminence in these things is to last much longer, and
whether, after all, we shall not in the near future be
compelled to regard the firms of New York as at
least our equals, if not superiors, in the production
of high-class gold and silver work."
*" ?<S£?<5fc?(3t?<!EXIO<l
-"-.i/-. i/,, *'«• A-. '
CHAPTER XCI
THE GROCERY TRADE
IN all the category of trade there is, perhaps, no
one line so distinctively popular in its minis-
trations as that of the grocery. Other branches
of business meet the wants of many and sometimes
of the majority of the people, but to none does the
universal demand turn as it does toward this one.
The grocery stores of the country are the hoppers
through which in bountiful supply pours the great
grist of life-sustaining products ground out by the
mill of national industry. Abundance such as no
former time and no other nation on earth have ever
known loads the American board. The humblest
citizen enjoys and demands as necessities many of
those things considered luxuries even by the wealthy
a half-century ago.
The advance which has rendered this possible,
however, has had another and a more imperative
cause than the increased exactions of the public re-
quirement. This cause has been the marvelous
growth which has brought a population of 5,000,000
in the course of a century up to nearly ^70, 000,000.
With the facilities and resources of a century ago
and the population of to-day New York would be
starving inside of forty-eight hours, and famine
stalking over the land in another day. Thus it will
be seen that our progress has had a most potent
moving cause, and that the wonderful development
which has placed us in advance of all other nations has
come only in response to an equally great necessity.
In the methods by which are obtained and pre-
pared for the market the great food products of
which the grocer is the proper distributer many
changes have come during the past century. With
these changes and their wide-spreading effects the
history of the grocery trade is so bound up that it is
impossible to separate the one from the other. The
perfection of a system of flour-milling which permits
an annual production of 80,000,000 barrels at an
average profit to the miller of about five cents per
barrel has had too great an effect upon the grocer
to be ignored. So, too, have the canning and pack-
ing industries, each of which worked its own revo-
lution, reacting always upon the grocery trade too
powerfully to be passed over in any history of the
latter. Transportation, also, with its increased fa-
cilities of railroads and fast steamers, has completely
formed anew the wholesale and jobbing grocery
trade, as the manufacturers' skill and taste, with the
resultant neat and conveniently prepared packages,
have transformed the retailer's store into a sightly
and attractive salesroom. All of these changes,
however, have come about in great part during the
last thirty years. Prior to that time the grocers were
among the most conservative members of the mer-
cantile community, and kept along much as their
fathers had before them.
One century ago the grocery business proper of
this country was centered in the cities. The general
or country store had not yet appeared, the remote
and provincial districts being still too thinly popu-
lated. In the cities, notably New York, Philadel-
phia, and Boston, the grocery store, as such, was
already in operation. " Flour and provisions " was
the favorite announcement of these early grocers,
and their shops were more like the wholesale ware-
houses of to-day than the elegantly finished stores,
with their shelves, glass show-cases, and waxy neat-
ness, now familiar to the grocery patron. These
early stores dealt mainly in staples handled in bulk
— sacks, barrels, boxes, hogsheads, etc. — and trans-
ferred in small quantities to the customers' market-
baskets. They were scarcely attractive places, for
molasses would draw the flies, rice and coffee escape
underfoot in harassing quantity from rents in the
sacks, while a general odor of vinegar, oil, and soap,
indicating the immediate presence of these commod-
ities in quantity, pervaded the atmosphere. West
India rum, brandy in pipes, ales, porter, and stout,
with Madeira, port, and Bordeaux wines, also lay
about the shops in pipes, casks, and barrels, in
595
596
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
quantity to delight the bibulous, and of quality and
price to attract them equally. Such was the retail
trade of one hundred years ago, which centered then
and for years afterward in New York, in and about
Coenties Slip and Front Street in that immediate
vicinity. Its custom was drawn from the same
sources, and its proportionate amount in the general
business of the day was about the same as now, its
lack of dainties and luxuries being offset by the more
simple habits of living prevailing at that time. The
prices which ruled were relatively high, and as labor
was cheap, skilled tradesmen, carpenters, and smiths
getting only a little over three shillings per day, the
people were forced to live very frugally. Tobacco
was sixpence per pound ; pork and butter, each eight-
pence per pound ; cheese, fivepence per pound ;
potatoes, one shilling per bushel ; Indian corn, three
shillings twopence per bushel ; and coffee, tenpence
per pound.
The wholesale trade at this time had scarcely dis-
associated itself from the general import trade,
although it was beginning to show the first signs of
a distinctive existence, and during the next twenty-
iive years reached quite respectable dimensions. At
the beginning of the century, however, the great
merchants, whose ships were so rapidly seizing the
carrying trade of the world, did the general business
of importation, and rum, brandies, wines, and liquor,
coffee, spices, tea, sugar, and fruits, figured promi-
nently upon their invoices. In addition to these the
East India merchant princes were tea importers to
a man ; and from the time of the Revolution up
to the great failure of 1826, when Thompson, of
Philadelphia, through questionable practices, and
Thomas W. Smith, of New York, through inability
to pay the government the duties owed, went under,
this trade was in the hands of a very few men.
Besides the two already mentioned, Perkins, of Bos-
ton, and John Jacob Astor, of New York, were the
two largest East India merchants. Other well-
known houses operating in the China tea trade were
Broome & Platt, who were among the very first to
engage in it when Canton became a free port after
the Revolution, and later N. L. & G. Griswold and
Hoyt & Tom. At that time the annual imports of
tea amounted to a little over 3,000,000 pounds ; and
as it was cheaper in New York than in London, it
follows that Americans imported their tea from
Canton direct. Bohea tea at that time was worth
thirty cents per pound ; souchong or black tea,
seventy-five cents per pound; and hyson skin or
green tea, $i per pound. The duties here on tea
were two or three times as much as the first cost of
the article at Canton, and a single ship often had to
pay from $200,000 to $300,000 in duties alone. It
follows, therefore, that only the largest merchants
were engaged in this trade. It was nevertheless
immensely profitable once the requisite credit was
secured, as the government allowed duties to go
over from a year to eighteen months without inter-
est, merely upon the security of a bond deposited.
It was this method of doing business that lost the
customs several millions of dollars and prostrated
the tea trade for some years after the failures of
1826, to which I have before referred. Among the
other great tea importers who have been prominent
since then are Rowland, Aspinwall & Company ;
A. A. Low & Brother; Talbot, Olyphant & Com-
pany ; and Wetmore & Company.
Returning again to the grocery trade proper, the
opening of the nineteenth century witnessed the
advent of the wholesale grocer. He was almost
invariably a retailer as well, with the distinction that
he carried a larger stock in bulk and catered to the
provincial trade, which was then commencing to
seek New York as the metropolis. This trade was
active only in the spring and autumn, when the
country buyers came in. Goods were shipped
almost entirely by water, the river and coasting
sloop taking them as far as possible, when they
would be landed and transferred to carts to continue
to their destination. For this trade the wholesalers
could only prepare at these particular seasons, and
during the rest of the year their market was limited
to the local trade. It was the custom of these old-
time grocers — among whom were Peter A. Schenck,
66 Front Street ; Isaac Clason, 5 1 Broadway ; Sam-
uel Tooke & Company, 74 Coenties Slip ; Benjamin
Mead, 13 Coenties Slip; Thomas Storm & Son, g
Coenties Slip ; Benjamin Sands ; and Voorhees &
Scrymson — to club together, and when some large
importer received a cargo of coffee, tea, sugar, etc.,
purchase the whole consignment, which they would
then apportion among themselves. Among the im-
porters with whom this early syndicate dealt were
Henry A. & John G. Coster, 26 William Street, who
dealt in coffee, sugar, rum, and Holland gin ; E.
Stevens & Sons, no South Street, who sold French
prunes, Italian fruit, Antigua rum, and wines and
brandies ; and Bouchard & Thebaud, who dealt in
cognacs and wines. The Griswolds also did a
heavy West Indian trade, being large exporters of
flour, as well as importers of the usual staples. The
War of 1812 brought great times to the grocers;
but, preceded as it had been first by the Embargo
and later by the depredations of privateers, the im-
JAMES E. NICHOLS.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
port trade was caught with the shortest of stock.
Prices ran up at an unprecedented rate ; speculation
\v.is rife, and thousands of dollars were lost in the
summer of 1814 through the rumor, brought by a
foreign sloop, that peace had been declared. This
rumor served to prick the bubble of speculation, and
prices again became nearly normal ; but as an indi-
cation of how far the trade had been carried away
by the fever of the time, a few of the prices quoted
just prior to the collapse are given : sugar in quan-
tity, forty cents per pound ; hyson skin tea, $3 per
pound ; and molasses, $2 per gallon. Tea at this
time or a little later was paying duty of sixty-eight
and thirty-four cents per pound for green and black
varieties respectively.
The War of 1812, if it did nothing more, made
patent to the country at large the increasing impor-
tance of New York. The commercial and mercan-
tile interests were rapidly expanding, and owing to
its shipping and maritime enterprise it was already
becoming the chief port of entry. For this reason,
perhaps, its trade being so intimately connected with
the leading imports, the grocery business was rapidly
centering upon Manhattan Island. The conclusion
of the war saw a fresh impetus given to the trade.
A venturesome young firm, R. & L. Reed, left the
traditional precincts of Coenties Slip and established
themselves at 125 Front Street. It was the first
grocery house opened above Wall Street, and the
course of the Reeds was considered suicidal. They
prospered, however, and others followed. Peter G.
Hart opened at 196 Front Street, and ten years
later, from 1825 to 1830, there were in this neigh-
borhood Reed & Sturges; Lee, Dater & Miller;
Jackson & Mcjimsey ; Harper & Sons ; Pomeroy &
Bull ; Wisner & Gale ; S. Whitney ; Smith, Mills &
Company ; Isaac Van Cleef ; and A. V. Winans. A
little further on in the century and we find such
names added to our list as Morgan & Earle, 61
Front Street, of whom the senior partner, E. D.
Morgan, was at one time governor of this State ;
Spofford, Tileston & Company, 125 Pearl Street;
and Lippincott, Stephens & Company, 52 Front
Street. Benjamin Stephens, of this latter house, was
the father of Stephens the great explorer. In addi-
tion to the importers and wholesale and retail deal-
ers already mentioned in connection with these early
days, was the great auction house of M. Hoffman &
Sons, 63 Wall Street. This firm sold all the prin-
cipal cargoes of wines, fruits, molasses, tea, coffee,
etc., that were not captured by the wholesalers at
first hand, and was a great power in the American
grocery world of that day.
Having thus briefly reviewed the personnel of the
trade in its earlier days, it becomes necessary to
leave the consideration of this phase of the subject
for a space, in order to study the conditions and
forces which were already working to bring about the
development that the last twenty-five years have
seen. Many of the men and houses of whom we
take leave in 1835-40 we shall find again when we
resume the thread of the narrative in 1870. They
were the founders of the American grocery trade of
to-day, and in their names and achievements have
rendered possible the present enormous emporiums
and extended commercial interests.
The germ of the greatest and perhaps the earliest
force that aided in the evolution of the grocery trade
appeared in 1837, when Thomas B. Smith, of Phil-
adelphia, commenced the canning of corn in that
city, after the process brought out thirty years before
by the Frenchman Appert. It is claimed that Ezra
Daggett and Thomas Kensett, of New York, were
the first packers in America, having secured a pat-
ent for a canning process in 1825. If they were,
they failed to introduce their product to general
notice; and, indeed, neither Mr. Smith nor Henry
W. Crosby, who first placed canned tomatoes on the
market in 1847, had achieved any great success up
to 1849, when the rush for the California gold-fields
began. This created a brisk demand for canned
goods, which continued, but in a more or less des-
ultory way, up to the breaking out of the Civil
War. The impetus then received has since kept
canned goods in the very forefront of the grocery
interests. To-day all manner of meats, fowl, fish,
fruits, and vegetables are preserved in this way.
There are nearly 2000 canning factories in the
United States, or more than in all the rest of the
world combined.
A second great influence in the enlargement of
the grocery trade, that followed the beginning of
canning by some years, was the improvement and
cheapening of the methods of sugar refining. Fifty
years ago raw sugar was worth about ten cents per
pound, and as the refiners wanted too per cent,
more for handling it, a great quantity of raw sugar
was imported for direct consumption. This contin-
ued until the time of the war, and a feature of the
old-fashioned grocery store was the portable sugar-
mill in which the " boy " ground the raw and lumpy
muscovado from Cuba into such forms as could be
sold. Cut loaf-sugar was first known in this coun-
try in 1858, when it was brought out by Havemeyer
& Moller, the sugar refiners. The same firm has
the credit of having introduced granulated sugar
598
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
some ten years earlier. The war tariff first turned
the American consumer toward refined sugars, and
the later invention of the centrifugal machine, which
reduced the time required for refining from two
weeks to twenty-four hours, settled the fate of the
raw sugars. Under these conditions, the sugar re-
finers, who formerly got ten cents per pound for
handling, are now able to do it for less than one
cent per pound, and the old brown sugar of twenty-
five years ago is no longer seen on the table of even
the poorest working-man.
It was in this formative period, also, which I have
placed between 1840 and 1870, that fancy groceries,
table delicacies, prepared condiments and sauces,
and the hundred and one little tidbits for the gour-
met first began to appear upon the retailers' shelves
and in the stock of the great wholesale houses.
French fancy groceries first appeared in the Ameri-
can market in 1858, imported by G. G. Yvelin,
later Yvelin & Smith, and A. Godillot. The do-
mestic manufacture and trade in these fancy lines
antedates the importation of them from France or
elsewhere by nearly ten years, and the firm of E. C.
Hazard, then located in Barclay Street, is credited
with being the pioneer.
Among the canned products, corn, tomatoes,
fruits, and corned beef were the earlier goods in the
markets. Lobsters were first put up in 1848 at
Harpswell, Me., and the salmon from the rivers of
that same State was in the market, canned and de-
licious, as early as 1841, or just twenty-five years
before his Western cousin from the Columbia River
was introduced to the public. Of the progress this
one branch has made since it started it is only
necessary to say that from an output of 4000 cases
the first year the annual production is now, in round
numbers, 1,750,000.
The curing of meats, hams, and flitches of bacon
makes another chapter in the story of American
progress in the lines under review. The marked
improvement seen in this direction to-day is scarcely
to be attributed even in its inception to the early
period in which we find the other causes moving,
but it has proceeded so directly from them that it
may most properly be considered here. It accom-
plishes in a day and a half what formerly took nearly
a month and a half. In addition to the economy
in time, these improved methods have also resulted
in a superior product.
Summarizing thus the influences which for three
decades were quietly but steadily tending toward
advancement, we come to the year 1870, which may
be said to have marked the advent of modernity
into the grocery trade and its methods. The retail
store was still distinguished by many of the charac-
teristics familiar to the early traders of Coenties Slip.
Staples in bulk, doled out in brown-paper parcels to
customers, were still the rule ; the " shelf goods " of
to-day were almost unknown. Fruits in barrels and
casks, sugar in boxes, and molasses in hogsheads
still stood in unsightly cumbersomeness in the mid-
dle of the floor. The sun-cured fruits of California
were unknown, the vast resources of that State in
this direction being still undeveloped. Evaporated
stock, too, was still of the future. The stores were
small dingy places compared with the great estab-
lishments of to-day ; the old sugar-mill, the back-
breaking " fall," and stuffy little offices, in place of
light and airy counting-rooms, were prominent fea-
tures. Despite all this the spirit of progress had
entered, and innovation in one form or another was
an almost daily event.
Of the famous firms of that day, including import-
ers, only a few need be mentioned in tracing the
trade descent. Among these were the O'Donohues ;
E. & R. Mead, Jr., & Company ; E. D. Morgan &
Company ; Carter, Hawley & Company ; H. K.
Thurber & Company ; Fitts & Austin ; Rufus Story
& Company ; Philip Dater & Company ; Arnold,
Sturges & Company ; E. C. Hazard ; F. H. Leggett
& Company ; Rufus Park & Company ; Stanton,
Sheldon & Company; Bonnett, Schenck & Com-
pany ; Hoppock & Greenwood ; Pool, Nazro, Kim-
ball & Company ; Apgar & Company ; Henry
Welsh; Woodruff, Spencer & Stout; Williams &
Potter; S. Burkhalter's Sons; J. & H. Van Nos-
trand ; Penfold, Charfield & Company ; Reeves,
Osborn & Company ; and many others.
The business done by these houses was scarcely
of a magnitude that would have placed them in the
front ranks to-day. An annual trade of $1,500,000
was rare, and large houses were looked upon as
having a very comfortable sales account when it
ran above $750,000 per annum. The trade of the
country was at that time in its infancy. Buyers still
kept up the old-time custom of coming in to pur-
chase stock but twice a year. The railroad systems
that have since bound us to every little town and
hamlet were then but in their commencement, com-
paratively speaking. The price-list of the great
wholesale house, quoting everything from a barrel
of molasses to a ten-cent bottle of flavoring extract,
was unknown to the rural shopkeeper, as was its
accompanying advantage of being able to drop a
postal-card order in the evening and receive the
goods by first freight. The delivery systems of the
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
large houses were but meager in their facilities as
compared with those by which thousands of dollars
and tons of stock are to-day passed smoothly and
swiftly through the shipping departments of the
great New York establishments.
Fancy groceries were still regarded as a specialty,
and the few houses which carried them to any ex-
tent considered themselves outside of that general
wholesale trade which dealt mainly in the regular
staples, such as tea, coffee, sugar, rice, molasses,
starch, flour, spices, oil, soap, etc. Raisins, grapes,
and olive-oils and fruits from the Mediterranean, in
casks and boxes, were also stocked, but to a great
degree the liquor department of the business had
become a separate trade. A few of the large houses
still carried wines, liquors, and cigars, but the pro-
portionate amount of sales for that account, as
compared with the total volume of business, was and
is much diminished.
The West Side houses have always had the larger
and more assorted stocks, and many lines of luxu-
ries and proprietary goods appeared in their inven-
tories nearly twenty-five years ago, although the dis-
tinctively fancy lines, including canned specialties,
were in the hands of a few dealers. Gradually the
increasing demand caused an expansion of stocks
and business that drove many of the large firms
from their old quarters ; and no buildings in that
section of town being commodious enough for their
rapidly growing needs, the great grocery warehouse,
erected and designed solely for that purpose, began
to appear. The West Side trade centered naturally
around Chambers Street, where it was in easy reach
of the ferries and great railroads, gradually moving
slightly north ; and this section has since remained
grocers' territory. Here to-day within a radius of
a few blocks are no less than six large establish-
ments, and two whose annual business aggregates
about $25,000,000. Within their great warehouses
centers the grocery trade of New York. Huge
retail establishments uptown and around town, im-
porters over on the East Side and in the lower part
of town, all do an enormous trade, but they lack the
distributive scope of the West Side warehouses. Not
only as distributers, but as importers and manufac-
turers as well, do these establishments figure. Direct
to their depots the products of the whole world are
brought. Freights, the bugbear of the grocery mer-
chant, either wholesale or retail, a quarter of a cen-
tury ago, have been reduced to a degree directly
appreciable to the consumer in the prices he pays
to-day. Grain and beef are now transported from
Chicago to New York for one third and one half
respectively of the rates charged in 1870; canned
goods and fruits from California come through for
less than one quarter of the old-time rate. Ocean
freights, too, have fallen, and this is likewise appa-
rent in the prices of many imported articles.
Improvement and invention have everywhere
worked changes in methods and processes that have
aided equally in lowering prices to the consumer.
The great abattoirs of Chicago, where thousands of
cattle can be slaughtered in a day and not one scrap
of the carcass from the hoof to the horn be lost,
make, it is claimed, so small a profit as $i per head
a most remunerative business, simply through the
magnitude of the totals. The old-time butcher
would have starved to death had he had no wider
margin of profit than this. At the same time the
price of both the dressed and the preserved or
canned meats has fallen far below that formerly
charged. In the matter of canned meats especially,
as being most closely connected with the grocery
interests, the prices in forty years or a little more
have dropped fully sixty per cent. So in all the
other lines a cheapening of the necessaries of life has
resulted, in which the national progress may easily be
measured. Flour, better than any ever known since
the first miller dusted his white cap, is now in the
market at a price that, after deducting handling,
transportation, and manufacture, leaves a per-barrel
profit so small that only the figures which show that
the United States annually consumes about 65,000,-
ooo barrels and exports over 15,000,000 more could
make its small cost to the consumer possible. A
barrel of flour in 1870 was worth $6.75, that to-day
is quoted at less than one half that price. Sugar,
which in 1870 cost nearly fourteen cents a pound
when granulated, has fallen to between four and five
cents. Here again with the narrowed margin of
profit is found the vastly increased consumption, the
figures having more than doubled, and sixty-four
pounds in round numbers being placed to the credit
of each inhabitant, where thirty-one pounds per
capita were consumed in 1870.
Coffee is one of the few staples that have not
fallen in price proportionately as they have increased
in general use. This has been due to the fact that
the supply has never yet been able to outrun the de-
mand. The establishment of coffee exchanges here
and in Europe has also had a sustaining effect on
prices, as it has made coffee an article of speculation
proportionate to other speculative products limited
in quantity and easily controlled, so that capital and
skilful manipulation have often sustained prices on
a weak market. The effect of the exchange is to
600
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
concentrate the coffee trade largely in New York,
and to-day this market to a considerable degree
makes the markets of the world. The United States
consumes annually in the neighborhood of 300,000
tons of coffee, and with the exception of the period
of three or four years around 1885, when the price
for fair grades of green Rio declined as low as nine
cents per pound, the price has been uniformly main-
tained, the greatest variations noticed in nearly thirty
years, apart from this brief period, being only a trifle
over four cents per pound. Butter, cheese, rice,
canned goods, molasses, — nearly everything, in fact,
that could be specified, — has meanwhile shrunk in
price, and, with but a few exceptions, increased in
amount consumed. The exceptions in nearly every
case are to be noted where the article in question has
been superseded by an improved product. Wines,
liquors, and cigars, perhaps, ought to be named as
the only lines which fall outside the application of
this rule. The increase in the sale of fine brands of
these three specialties has been in no way propor-
tionate to the advance noted along other lines ; yet
it has been sufficiently great to exhaust the choicer
qualities of the supply, and hence prices have not
diminished.
One other article in the grocery trade of which
mention has to be made is tea. It follows along
under the general rule of increased quantity and
lessened price. From China this country has turned
largely to Japan teas, as well as to a few from India.
Where nearly all the tea consumed here prior to
1857 came from China, the total imports now show
about one half to the credit of that country, with
Japan a close second. The increase of the total
trade is shown from the fact that one hundred years
ago the entire imports were only about 3,000,000
to 4,000,000 pounds, where to-day they are be-
tween 90,000,000 and 100,000,000 pounds. Keep-
ing step with this advance, the price has fallen
from fifty per cent, to sixty per cent, in most of
the grades.
The significance which lies in the foregoing fig-
ures is the epitomized story of the grocery trade.
It tells more eloquently even than can the immense
emporiums where the business has its homes to-day
of what the wants of a great people can do in the
development of their resources. Huge establish-
ments, frequently having their own manufacturing
plants in various lines, furnish price-lists of thou-
sands of articles ; and yet with all their mammoth
undertakings and endless facilities they are simply
filling the field that the grocer of one hundred years
ago filled quite as completely after his own fashion.
Whether or not that fashion was as satisfactory as
the present one is quite beside the question. Even
had it been, it would still have failed to-day, just as
all the crops of that day would have failed to feed
the world of our time, through sheer inadequacy.
Millions of capital invested stand to-day where
hundreds would have been hard to find a century
ago. Transactions have also increased in like pro-
portion. All over the country thousands of stores,
neat and commodious, furnish to the poor man what
the nabob of a century ago could not have obtained ;
the larger dealers drawing their supplies from head-
quarters at New York, the smaller retailers from
near-by cities where the stores are larger again and
the wholesale dealer appears. These city whole-
salers as intermediaries draw on the great central
depot of New York, where through the medium of
the greatest importing, manufacturing, jobbing, and
commission establishments in the world is flowing
steadily the current which supplies life with its first
and greatest necessity — food. The description of
business as conducted in one of these systematically
organized great houses thus comes properly to form
the final chapter in the history of the American
grocery trade.
Beginning with the building itself, the great
grocery firms of New York are similar in that they
occupy their own homes, some of them covering the
greater part of a city block — enormous ten-story
buildings, where from basement to top story is stored
the most complex stock to be found outside of a
department store ; lighted by electric lights, reached
by fast-running elevators, and filled with every pro-
duct demanded by the perennial hunger of the
human race. On the ground floor is located the
shipping department, where from twenty-five to
forty great two-horse trucks and delivery wagons
can be loaded at once with expedition and accuracy.
Another floor is usually given over to the offices and
counting-rooms, handsomely finished off, where a
force of clerks, the pay of whom alone would have
swamped the old-time merchant, is kept busy record-
ing the infinite detail of the firm's transactions. A
few houses have their own facilities for roasting
coffees, grinding spices, etc., our own house having
a modern coffee-roasting plant that is capable of
turning out 100,000 pounds a day; also a fireproof
spice-grinding room, with high-speed steel mills with
a capacity of over 10,000 pounds. Extensive plants
for packing various lines of farinaceous goods and
olives, and also for compounding and manufacturing
extracts, essences, etc., can be found in some of
these mammoth wholesale establishments.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
In the fancy lines, and in preparations of all sorts,
the modern grocery establishment is itself a whole
food exposition. With floor-spaces frequently aggre-
gating acres, there is scarcely a square foot not
utilized, and thousands of dollars have to be kept
locked up in single items of the large stocks required
in the business of to-day. Single firms who do an
annual business of nearly $5,000,000 are not ex-
traordinary, these figures being frequently exceeded,
and in one or more cases nearly trebled. What the
aggregate volume of the grocery business of the
country is at present it is impossible to say, owing
to the great variety of interests connected with it.
That it is many hundreds of millions is as certain u
it is that in these millions is represented a greater
equivalent than ever before in the history of the
world. Above all, it is an actual value that they
represent, based, as is the grocery trade itself, upon
the real worth which attaches to the necessary things
of life as contrasted with the long list of its super-
fluities. With such a foundation, and in the light of
the evolution of the last century, there would seem
no future too broad and successful for the grocery
trade in the United States.
m
CHAPTER XCII
THE FRUIT TRADE
THE fruit trade is among the youngest and most
recent of those commercial undertakings
which have attained a national importance
within a comparatively few years. Based as it is upon
the increased prosperity and improved conditions
which have rendered the luxury of yesterday the ne-
cessity of to-day, it is still further strengthened by the
variety of the interests it unites. The grower in dis-
tant California finds his welfare inseparably bound up
with that of the great eastern commission houses in
New York which look to the retail merchant, who
in his turn falls back upon the small street-fruiterers
who, from upwards of 10,000 stands, are daily sup-
plying the population of the big city with fresh, ripe,
and luscious fruit from orchards thousands of miles
away. For a penny the poor man has to-day what
the dollars of the nabob could not have procured a
century ago. The hot-house of fifty years ago, with
its limited and practically priceless production, has
been superseded, and Nature herself, circumvented
by human invention, sees her seasonable gifts to
tropic climes whisked in a moment over hundreds
of miles to relieve the rigors of northern barrenness.
The strawberry that ripened in Florida is scarcely
picked before the power of steam is bearing it north-
ward to the winter and the snow-drifts of New York,
where it is none the less a strawberry because June is
still far away. As it is with this, so with all other
fruits, whether quickly perishable or more enduring,
their handling is a business where celerity is of the
utmost necessity. System and organization, availing
themselves of the facilities of the railroad and the
steamship, have accomplished wonders ; but the fruit
trade must always be considered as peculiarly sus-
ceptible to market conditions, owing to the fact that
a few days, or even a few hours, sometimes suffice
to render worthless invoices valued at thousands of
dollars. In spite of these risks the fruit trade has
increased, and in the face of its most serious difficul-
ties have been evolved some of the most noteworthy
of those improvements which have contributed to
its development.
One hundred years ago the fruit merchant as such
did not exist in this country. Some of the larger
importers occasionally received, among the other
articles of an assorted Mediterranean cargo, a few
half casks of dried prunes, currants, raisins, or grapes,
but beyond these even the luxurious did not aspire.
It was some years before even so simple a custom as
selling native fruit brought to town in season by the
neighboring farmer became at all general with the
old New York grocers. Having reached this point
of development, the fruit trade rested, and it was not
until 1830 and later that the importation of foreign
fruit was considered seriously. Prior to this, how-
ever, in 1804, the first bananas were imported into
the United States. Captain John N. Chester, of the
little schooner Reynard, was the skipper of this orig-
inal West Indian " fruiter," and thirty bunches were
about as many as he thought the American market
would stand at one consignment. For twenty-six
years after that bananas were only occasionally
brought to this country and in but small quantities,
until in 1830 John Pearsall, of the firm of J. & T.
Pearsall, imported the first cargo. He chartered the
schooner Harriet Smith, and from her he landed in
this city 1500 bunches of bananas — the first large
shipment. From that time the banana trade con-
tinued in a modest way — a few cargoes annually for
a score of years.
The fruit trade meanwhile was not waiting for this
branch, but was developing steadily in other direc-
tions. In 1832 there arrived at New York by sailing
ship the first cargo of oranges from Sicily. Lemons
followed almost immediately, and the Mediterranean
fruit trade became a recognized interest from that
time. The next thirty years saw the Italian fruits,
oranges and lemons, holding full possession of the
602
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
American market. Sailing ships chartered here and
sent across brought back the fruit, much of which
was bought from the importers by dealers and
speculators before it had been a day at sea, and
while its quality and condition were largely matter
of guess work. The transatlantic cable not being
laid at this time further increased the speculative
nature of this trade. From this somewhat hazard-
ous method of buying, and the difficulties it so fre-
quently led to, through the buyer's disappointment
with his purchase, arose the auction system of sell-
ing fruit. Minturn & Co. were the auctioneers to
whom all the early foreign fruit sales in this city
were intrusted, and the transactions under the ham-
mer were usually small. Five thousand boxes was
a good-sized cargo in those days, and among the
many buyers on one invoice those who refused their
contracts were so few as to render the auctioneer's
services but seldom needed. Little as was the
amount thus sold, however, it was not long before
some of the shrewd old merchants began to notice
that fruit, even when so unsound as to induce a
buyer to refuse his contract, was sold in this auction-
room readily and at a fair figure. The natural de-
duction from this was that, if unsound fruit could be
sold to advantage at auction, sound fruit could be
sold to still greater advantage. Based upon this
reasoning, and having the further advantage of
quick returns, the auction-houses came into exist-
ence, and have continued ever since as important
factors in the fruit trade. This method of disposing
of fruit did not come in all at once, however, the
great importing houses having intrenched them-
selves too firmly. Until so late as 1865 these houses
controlled the market for foreign fruit in this coun-
try, and bought directly from Italy. Among these
firms, famous thirty-five years ago, were Devlin &
Rose; Chamberlain, Phelps & Co.; James Robin-
son & Co.; and Lawrence, Giles & Co., of New
York ; Daniel Draper & Co. and Conant & Co., of
Boston; Dix & Wilkins, of Baltimore; and S. S.
Scattergood & Co. and Isaac Jeanes & Co., of Phila-
delphia. In this latter year the wholesale commis-
, sion house having come to be a generally recognized
feature of the fruit trade, many of the Italian grow-
ers began consigning their fruit directly to American
firms. This arrangement, dispensing with the Ital-
ian middleman, was found the more profitable for
both the grower and the American jobber, and for
fifteen years the Mediterranean trade continued on
these lines. About 1880, the third and last change
in the methods governing the Italian fruit trade be-
gan with the establishment here of representatives
by several of the large Italian houses. Since then
they have increased, and now practically control the
Sicilian and mainland output, the foreign shipper
naturally preferring to deal with a compatriot rather
than with strangers. Spain, once a large shipper of
oranges, has been forced from the American market
by the Italian growers, and excepting her grapes, of
Almeria and Malaga, and latterly her lemons, she
sends little now to this country.
The foreign fruit trade of the United States,
briefly summarized in the foregoing, has undergone
great changes in the last quarter of a century. This
period has been the one within which interests
amounting to thousands of dollars have been mul-
tiplied to millions, and quantities expanded from
cart-loads to car-loads. Up to 1867, the foreign fruit
grower and shipper saw no cloud on the horizon of
the American market. The lemon of Sicily and the
sweet Messina orange competed only with the apple
for Yankee favor. Grapes, raisins, currants, prunes,
every European fruit — green, dried, or preserved —
found in the United States a market that was never
glutted except by itself. Bananas and pineapples
from the West Indies, Cuba, and Central America,
cocoanuts and tropical fruits of every description,
came, but in limited quantities, and an auction
house that could do a business of a million a year
would have been considered an impossibility.
Nevertheless it has come, and the causes which
have led to this marvelous advance are to be found
wholly in the development of American resources.
Prior to the Civil War and for several years after-
ward the small fruits of New York, New Jersey,
Long Island, and Delaware were the only competi-
tors of the foreign fruit. Occasionally a sloop loaded
with watermelons would roll up from one of the
Southern ports, or a few crates of the same fruit
came by rail, but there was no systematized trade as
there is to-day. Peaches were to be had in season,
but if the much-bewailed Delaware crop really did
fail, the market and prices both appreciated it, and
California was not just behind waiting to come to
the rescue as she is to-day.
Such was the condition of affairs in 1867, when the
first consignment of green fruit from California was
shipped by express to New York. It was an ex-
periment, and neither in the condition in which the
fruit arrived, nor in the expense involved in its trans-
portation,can it be said to have been a success. De-
spite this fact, however, the idea having been thus
exploited, there were others ready to make trial of it,
and in November of the following year one car of
grapes and three cars of pears were received in this
604
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
city, having come through from California consigned
to N. R. Doe. The pears were in good condition,
and brought from $3 50 to $5.00 per box, while the
grapes, principally Tokays, brought from $10 to
$15 per forty-pound crate. The transportation
charges on the grapes were $1200, and the venti-
lated car containing them came through attached to
a passenger train. Contrasting the prices brought
by this early consignment with those of to-day, it
seems scarcely possible that so short a time can have
worked so great changes. The California overland
fruit trade has been one that has grown steadily
since its commencement. It has built up the won-
derful garden State itself, profits ranging from $500
to $1000 an acre having frequently rewarded the
growers ; it has swelled the receipts of the transpor-
tation companies by hundreds of thousands of dol-
lars ; rendered this country independent of external
sources of fruit supply ; established great agencies
in the Central and Eastern cities, and is even now
reaching out across the Atlantic to an English mar-
ket on the other side of the world. Thousands of
car-loads of fruit are shipped every year, of which
from 1000 to 1500 come to New York. California
has been wise enough, furthermore, to see that her
best interests are conserved by direct dealings, and
the attempt of Chicago a decade ago to intercept
all through fruit trade from the West and distribute
it, with herself as the center, failed completely.
For the transportation of the California fruit pro-
duct, private enterprise has provided refrigerator
cars, of which there are now several lines. The
California Fruit Transportation line was the first to
start, and by carefully looking after its interests this
line has been largely instrumental in making the
cross-continent fruit trade a success. In these cars
the fruit is packed and refrigerated in California, and
taken out later in New York in practically the same
condition as when it left. The great drawback to
the California trade at present is the freight rate,
which for so long a journey is necessarily far too
high to allow the realization of proper profits by all
connected with the fruit interests. Already a dispo-
sition has been shown to remedy this evil, to some
degree at least. The through rates from San Fran-
cisco to New York have been reduced in some
cases as much as fifty per cent, in the last twenty-five
years, and the facilities accorded by the railroads in
the matter of speed, and by private enterprise in the
way of rolling-stock, have been improved to an
equal extent.
In addition to the golden peaches and pears and
full clustered Tokay and other grapes so well known
on the fruit-stands and peddlers' carts as the pro-
duct of California, this State also produces a large
crop of oranges and perhaps the largest of apricots,
and it will also in the near future give us a full sup-
ply of lemons superior to and more plentiful than
the Sicilian product. In the matter of oranges
California is a new comer, not 5000 boxes of
fruit, from that State, having been sold in New
York up to two years ago, although the Western
markets knew them earlier. The California orange
groves developed more rapidly than those of Flor-
ida, and for this reason their product is already as-
suming a larger importance than that of the latter
State, which has, however, grown them much longer.
The commencement in the Florida fruit trade was
made early in the seventies, just after California with
her pears, peaches, and grapes had so successfully
crossed the continent. Oranges were then, as now,
the strong advantage of Florida, and with them
she first presented herself to the Northern market.
Their quality speedily secured their popularity, and
in the few years between 1875 and 1880 the foreign
dealers began to realize that the American fruit
growers of the Gulf Peninsula were seriously in
competition with them. While the direct con-
sumption of foreign fruits, .notably oranges and
lemons, has increased very considerably since that
time, it has been due to the growth of the country
and the consequently greater demand, and prices
have declined materially, the consumer reaping the
advantage. Between the foreign and the home
dealer in fruits the advantage in freights has, sin-
gularly enough, always rested with the former.
The Sicilian shipper can box, transport, pay cus-
toms duties in New York, and still land his oranges
in Washington street, New York, at a less expense
than can the Florida grower. Excessive rail rates
for local freights, together with the almost inevitable
transshipment at Jacksonville, make a great part of
the Floridian's expense. Compared to the freight
charges from Florida those from California are con-
siderably lower proportionately, although in their
gross amounts they exceed the former. In both
cases the Italian product is cheaper to its market
by from 30 to 60 per cent., exclusive of the original
cost and whatever difference the cheaper labor of
Italy might make in that item. Nevertheless the
native fruit holds its own and more. Excluding the
abnormal conditions of last year, when the fruit in-
terests of Florida received such a disastrous blow
from the freezing weather, there would have been
no reason why the orange crop of that State and
California to-day should not have approximated
JOHN W. Nix.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
•
8,000,000 boxes at the least. Three years ago,
Florida shipped 900,000 boxes of oranges to New
York, and this amount was estimated to be only
about one quarter of the total crop, which would
therefore have been 3,600,000 boxes. California in
the same year was producing 2,500,000, which gave
as the total for the American crop, not including
the Louisiana and Arizona yield, 6,100,000 boxes.
The groves were at that particular age where each
of the next few succeeding years produced a great
increase in the bearing, and had it not been for the
unprecedentedly severe weather of last winter, a crop
of even so much as 12,000,000 boxes might have
been produced. All this has, of course, been altered
by the blizzard of December, 1894. Where Italy
was sending but i 000,000 boxes of oranges to 900,-
ooo from Florida in 1893, the present year will see
her figures many times greater proportionately ; and
in the other lines as well, notably lemons, the prices
will show that the foreign growers and shippers are
again controlling the American market as they have
not done before in twenty years. With the excep-
tion of these staple fruits, however, Florida is still a
purveyor to the northern markets to the extent of
about 10,000,000 pineapples annually, while $250,-
ooo worth of limes are grown each season. Around
the fruit raising industry in its great strongholds
has grown up, in the packing for shipment, a branch
which now employs many hands, and which in the
supplying of its boxes and wrapping papers has
created a most lucrative trade. An expense of thirty-
five cents for boxing, nailing, wrapping, packing, and
cartage is not excessive for each box of oranges or
lemons shipped, and when the shipments run into
the millions of boxes, the importance of this one
item can be easily appreciated.
Before coming to the fuller discussion of the mag-
nitude and condition of the fruit trade to-day, espe-
cially as it centres around the great market of New
York, there is one other phase of the general Ameri-
can situation that must be mentioned. This is the
export trade, consisting largely of dealings in Ameri-
can apples. A half century ago America sent only
a few thousand dollars' worth of dried apples abroad.
The sun-drying of California and the evaporated
stock of to-day were unknown. In 1850 the expor-
tations of American fruit amounted to only $24,974.
Its increase since then is shown in the following table :
FRUIT EXPORTS.
Year 1850. 1860. 1870. 1880.
1894.
Value $24,974 $206,055 $S42»502 $2>°9°>634 $2,299,006
England is the great receiver of our exported
product, and a million barrels of apples can be
absorbed by the capacious auction houses of Liver-
pool, London, and Glasgow during a season. Of
the recent experiments to make the Briton a buyer
of our finer fruits from California, it is still too early
to speak. The insular prejudice which induces the
English buyer to demand that fruit brought from Cal-
ifornia shall be guaranteed to keep sound a week,
while he buys fruit from across the channel without
any guarantee, is simply in the nature of those encoun-
tered at the outset by every American product that
has attempted the markets of the United Kingdom.
Eventually there can be little doubt that California
fruit will find a ready and profitable market on the
other side of the Atlantic.
In the meantime, while this advance is still largely
in the future, it is most satisfactory to consider the
present condition of the fruit trade as contrasted with
its status fifty years ago. The last year for which the
statistics are complete, that of 1894, shows the total
importations of fruit into this country to have been
$i 7,353,559. In the transportation of this great bulk
of so fragile and perishable a nature there is now en-
gaged a special marine which has been built for this
especial service. The raking and piratical-looking
little schooner built for lightness and speed that plied
to the West Indies and Central America ten years
ago has now been largely superseded by the spe-
cially constructed fruit steamer, a fleet of which ves-
sels, numbering more than a hundred, plies between
New York and the foreign fruit-shipping ports. These
steamers, between the steel outer hull and the inner
one of wood, are packed, as is the household refrig-
erator, with charcoal, a non-conductor of heat. Sep-
arated deck planks, insuring to the cargo below a
free circulation of air, are also a feature of these
ships, which are otherwise equipped in all respects
as first-class carriers, with triple expansion engines
capable of great and sustained speed, steam steering
gear and applied power.
It is in this fleet that the greater part of the $10,-
000,000 worth of fruit comes which is taken by New
York as her share of the total annual importations.
Once arrived here, it is handled in any one of the
variety of ways that its shippers may have chosen
from the methods now in operation among metropol-
itan fruit-traders, either through the auction room,
the wholesale commission merchants, jobbers, bro-
kers, or representative buyers. All these offer avenues
along which can be discharged the newly-arrived
cargo within twelve hours after passing quarantine.
Their particular functions are too apparent to require
description. In the further distribution of the fruit, the
606
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
retail local merchant, the out-of-town dealer, and the
regular demand for consumption are important fac-
tors. Upon the latter of these depend the two former to
a great extent, and this in its turn is dependent upon the
weather to a degree little understood. Cold, rainy
weather, raw and unpleasant, will invariably depress
in a marked degree the price of the more perishable
fruits; while, on the other hand, a hot spell, creating
a double demand, drains the market and puts prices
up as if by magic. Behind the weather, however, we
see in this the ultimate responsibility falling upon the
character of the stock. Its perishable nature and
the many opportunities that irresponsible dealings
in consequence offer for fraud, have led the trade of
New York, and every other great center as well, to
establish certain safeguards and seek in organization
to combine the better elements against questionable
methods. Among the larger and better known of
these organizations are the New York Fruit Exchange,
operating on the same principle as the other great
exchanges ; the Fruit Buyers' Union, which aims to
regulate the methods of the green-fruit import and
auction business so as to render corrupt practices im-
possible; the National League of Commission Mer-
chants, the aim of which is to secure uniformity and
integrity of method and purpose in the commission
business ; and such organizations as the great Florida
and California Fruit Exchanges, which are designed
to support the same ends, for equally potent if some-
what different reasons. Through the medium of these
organizations — the other large cities, such as Boston,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New Orleans,
having similar ones — is transacted the greater part of
that business, which, as already shown, aggregates in
its exports and imports very nearly $20,000,000 an-
nually. In addition to this must be reckoned the
domestic product, which, while variable, and not re-
ducible to exact statistics as is the customs-classified
foreign product, still amounts to at least an equally
great sum. A total verging toward $50,000,000
is not excessive to give in representing the annual
interests of the fruit trade. The invested capital,
either in the growing or in the more mercantile
branches of the industry, cannot be estimated. There
is no possible standard from which to figure, but the
investment is certainly very great and far in excess of
what the annual movement might be considered to
indicate. A last illustration of the magnitude of the
fruit business can be gathered from the fact that fruits
considered in the unit have small value, and yet fig-
ured from pennies the dollars run into the millions.
There are from 13,000,000 to 15,000,000 bunches of
bananas imported annually, and last year the sum
of $4,285,278 was needed to pay for the lemons im-
ported. Even supposing that so few as twenty-five
lemons could be purchased for a dollar, the total
number of lemons thus consumed would amount to
well over 1 00,000,000, exclusive of the domestic prod-
uct. Other values, which will give some idea of the
itemized magnitude of the fruit- trade in 1894, are
oranges imported, $1,127,005; bananas, $5,122,503;
raisins, $554,087; cocoanuts, $786,777; currants,
$774,802; plums and prunes, $416,342; and dates
and figs, $779,626. For pears, peaches, grapes, apri-
cots, and all the infinite variety of domestic fruits,
the figures are even greater. The last crop of Florida
oranges was estimated at 6,000,000 boxes, and from
California this year 2,500,000 boxes of the same
fruit are expected. The apple crop for this season is
estimated at upwards of 60,000,000 barrels — a great
trade of itself. Around the handling of these large
quantities of home fruits has grown up an interest
affording employment to an immense force of labor-
ers. The cultivation of the orchards, the gathering of
the fruit, the packing, shipping, and handling on the
market ; all these branches furnish work for thousands
of people, and give the fruit trade an economic as
well as a commercial importance.
Sufficient has been given to show how vast an in-
terest has grown up around this youthful enterprise.
With the progress of the past to encourage, and the
conditions of the present to assist, there seems no
reason why the next quarter century should not wit-
ness a steady advance in the business.
CHAPTER XCIII
THE DRUG TRADE
VERY different was the drug-store of old
from the modern counting-room and clean
warehouse, and very different the business
methods pursued. The development of the drug
trade during the last century has kept pace with the
wonderful progress achieved in all lines in this period
of advancement and discovery. Pharmaceuticals
and chemicals, in this short span of years, have been
raised to foremost places in the list of the world's
productions, and the United States to-day is able to
furnish the world with anything it needs in medicinal
wares, having in many instances displaced home
products in foreign countries which are now buying
our goods.
In order to obtain a comprehensive idea of this
wonderful evolution and development it must be
borne in mind that the apothecary of old went
through a form of apprenticeship, the initiatory steps
of which were making the fire, sweeping out, and
washing mortars and bottles. Then, after going
through various graduations, he was trusted to make
up prescriptions, no examination into his qualifica-
tions being ever made. Occasionally one with am-
bition, by study and experiment, would make some
discovery in medicine or science.
Formerly a large part of the wholesale druggist's
stock consisted of glassware, oils, paints, putty, in-
digo, and madder, and in dull seasons the appren-
tices and clerks were kept employed at putting up
essences, paregoric, castor-oil, and the like in small
vials for the retail trade. Dealers in England and
in the Old World generally were then, as to-day, on
the lookout for new remedies ; so when trade was
opened with America all " yarbs " and roots from
here were examined for medicinal virtues, and it
would seem as if the catalogue of the New World's
products is not yet complete, for only very recently
cascara sagrada, yerba santa, and damiana have
been found valuable. Doubtless many of the old
remedies were favorites with the Indian medicine-
man, and some are still known by their Indian
names. One of the chief advantages which the
world derived from the discovery of America was,
according to the learned men of that day, the intro-
duction of new and powerful drugs. For a long
time, tobacco, sassafras, and Jesuits' bark were com-
monly used medicaments. The vegetable and ani-
mal kingdoms being very different here from those
of Europe, it is not surprising that physicians, as
well as the unlearned, fancied that among so many
new drugs some must be very valuable. All the old
chroniclers dwelt much upon the health-giving qual-
ities of American herbs. Everything that grew here
was tried. But it would not be fair to put upon the
shoulders of our cousins across the ocean the whole
burden of this almost superstitious belief in the cur-
ative properties of American plants ; we must bear
a little of it ourselves. Great faith is still placed, in
some sections of our country, in the various snake-
roots, once popularly believed to be specific for
snake-bite.
Throughout the whole history of medicine and
pharmacy may be found the misnamed "patent,"
properly the secret, medicine. The earliest manu-
facturing druggists were those who made these
secret remedies, which are not the outgrowth of the
present century, but have been made for hundreds
of years. The public used to believe in them even
more blindly than to-day ; powers were claimed for
them far beyond what are claimed for any that are
now sold,— extraordinary as this may seem,— and
stopped at one limit only, namely, they were not
guaranteed to raise the dead. By their use every-
thing else could be accomplished, from the knitting
together of a broken arm to the receiving of sight
by one born blind. These pretensions had dimin-
ished by the beginning of this century, but there was
still more natural faith in the community than now,
607
608
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of which the makers of patent medicines availed
themselves, and their preparations formed an im-
portant item in drug stocks.
Prominent makers of patent medicines in this city
fifty years ago were A. B. & D. Sands, Dr. S. P.
Townsend, Dr. Jacob Townsend, Dr. Moffat, and
Dr. Brandreth. The names of two Drs. Townsend
are given, because the two appeared as rival makers
of sarsaparilla, although there was always a doubt
about the existence of Dr. Jacob Townsend. Both
(always assuming that there were two) took advan-
tage of the belief in the curative quality of sarsapa-
rilla, then newly made known to the public, and
claimed that their preparations would cure every ill
that flesh is heir to. It was difficult for the pub-
lic to understand the controversy in the newspapers
which followed. Young Dr. Townsend (S. P.)
accused old Dr. Townsend (Jacob) of imitating him.
The old doctor, on the contrary, insinuated that the
young doctor stole his ideas and his methods, and
they had columns of abuse and denunciation of each
other in the papers, and were the largest advertisers
of the day ; but the mystery surrounding Dr. Jacob
Townsend has never been solved. Despite the
amusing and mixed condition of the Drs. Townsend,
the public continues to have great faith in sarsapa-
rilla, and the manufacture of it is still a source of
wealth to the old-established concerns. But aside
from patent medicines, which were characteristic of
the times and the credulity of the people, the drug
business had a much sounder basis for existence and
progress. Staples, legitimate drugs, were gathered
from all quarters of the globe, and as widely redis-
tributed. The development of American commerce
was apparent in this branch of commercial activity.
Drugs, such as jalap, ipecac, sarsaparilla, and bal-
sams, imported from Mexico, Central and South
America, were exported largely to Europe from New
York.
In 1820, through French investigation, the sep-
arate alkaloids in cinchona bark — quinine, cincho-
nine, etc. — were determined, and Pelletier shortly
after began their manufacture. About the same
time John Farr started a quinine factory in Philadel-
phia, which was followed at a later day by the
building of another in New York by John Currie.
Our first supplies of cinchona bark came to us
through Spain, but when the ports of South America
were opened to our commerce shipments were re-
ceived direct. A few words might be interpolated
here relative to the later history of this most impor-
tant drug. In 1854 the Dutch government imported
some young cinchona-trees and some seeds from
South America to Java, where they were planted in
the Government Botanical Gardens. It was from
this beginning that numerous plantations were set
out in the mountains, at proper elevation, which,
proving successful, formed the source from which
the principal part of the world's consumption is now
derived. In India, Ceylon, and Africa plantations
were also started, which in a short time increased
the supply of bark so greatly that the production
exceeded the consumption, resulting in a consider-
able decline in the market price. In a comparatively
few years the prices realized on shipments did not
pay the growers for the expense of keeping up their
plantations and the cost of transportation. The
superior quality of the Java barks, and the low
prices accepted for them, tended to reduce the ex-
ports from South America, and for the same reasons
the shipments of cultivated barks from India and
Africa have also been decreasing. For a certain
period, while our government continued to tax for-
eign-made quinine, our manufacturers were able to-
supply the entire home consumption ; but with
quinine admitted to our free list in 1879, and the
lower cost of manufacture abroad, the foreign mak-
ers were enabled to ship their surplus stock to this
country. They soon secured a foothold in our
market, and now supply more than one half the
quinine consumed in the United States.
Stone-oil or Seneca-oil, now known as petroleum,
was first found in West Virginia, where it rose to
the surface of the ground, heavy and dark ; it was
locally popular as a liniment. In 1829 a well was
drilled in Cumberland County, Kentucky, which
yielded a quantity so large as to be then considered
a phenomenon. The bulk of it was wasted, but a
little was bottled, and sold in Europe under the
name of American oil. The device on the label — a
derrick — first suggested a means of securing a suffi-
cient supply of crude oil to pay for refining. From
so small a beginning has grown an enormous in-
dustry, and "a new light has come to the world."
From the first it was a medicinal remedy, and later
the filtered paraffine residuums have proved valuable,
and are known as petrolatum, vaseline, etc. These
also have become articles of export, introduced
abroad presumably by the demand from our own
citizens visiting or residing there.
The earliest mention of the manufacture of drugs
in this country is in the instructions given to Sir
Francis Wyatt, governor of Virginia, in 1621, to
invite attention to the making of oil of walnuts, and
to employ apothecaries in its production. The in-
habitants were likewise to search for dyes, gums, and
JOHN MC-KESSON.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
drugs. The South Carolina Agricultural Society in
1785 offered premiums for the cultivation of drugs
V.KII as senna, cassia, rhubarb, hops, madder, and
figs. But it is vain to attempt the description of
individual articles and their employment in those
olden days ; a word or two may be said, however,
of the business methods then current. In the retail
branch it was largely " go as you please," and in the
wholesale line, sixty years ago, the hours of business
were from seven in the morning until nine at night.
There were no railroads, and after the opening of
the Erie Canal there was a rush of trade in the
spring, and again before the close of navigation, so
that at such seasons clerks would often be at work
until midnight. Mr. Samuel B. Schieffelin informs
the writer that he has seen the leading druggists of
that time standing at their desks writing late at
night, and that he himself often worked until mid-
night. He says further : " They were generally a
superior class of men, of high social position, edu-
cated gentlemen, and successful in business ; many
of them had their country-seats, and some of them
kept their carriages."
The selling terms were six months, or five per
cent, off for cash. Interest was charged after six
months, and sometimes the Southern trade would
take an additional six months when the cotton crop
failed. But as banking facilities improved credits
were shortened. With the outbreak of the Rebellion
large amounts outstanding had to be canceled ; but
though many houses went out of business, compar-
atively few failures occurred among the wholesale
trade. A perusal of the advertisements of wholesale
druggists of one hundred years ago gives the idea
that their stock embraced a great variety of articles.
Stocks of the present day are about as varied ; but
we find that the old articles of materia medica have
been combined and presented in many new shapes,
and these, in connection with the thousands of new
articles, present to-day a list whose complexity of
nomenclature can be equaled by few lines of trade.
The extent of drug stocks of a century ago, com-
pared with those of to-day, might be approximated
by a comparison of one of the earlier pharmacopoeias
with the present edition of 1890. That of 1830
will, perhaps, reflect the condition of affairs for two
or three decades previous to its issue. In it 272
articles of materia medica are mentioned, and 349
processes are given for preparations, making a total
of 62 1 titles. The " United States Pharmacopoeia "
of 1890 has 994 titles, and the "National Formu-
lary," a semi-official work of almost equal practical
importance, has 435, making a total of 1429 articles
or preparations which the apothecary is supposed
to be ready to furnish upon demand. In order to
further show this comparison, the following table is
presented, and some figures are added showing
approximately the number of preparations or article*
under the same heading now carried in stock by the
wholesale druggist of 1895. The latter figures are
necessarily only an approximation, and are averages
compiled from the price-lists of various manufactur-
ers and jobbers.
STOCK DRUGS IN PHARMACOPOEIAS,
1830 AND 1890.
ARTICLES OK PREPARATIONS IN " UNITED STATES
PHARMACOPCEIA."
AUTICLEIOR
PREPARATIONS
UNDER SAME
HEADINGS
LISTED BY
WHOLESALE
DRUGGISTS.
ARTICLE OR PREPARA-
TION.
1830.
1890.
««95-
Acids
7
32
140
Alcohol
i
7
4
Alum
2
2
9
Ammonia
6
7
59
1
19
Arsenic
i
i
14
i
4
35
Cerates
IO
6
17
Confections
7
2
10
Copper. .
3
I
33
15
3
20
121
780
Gold
i
I
6
7
22
1
5
23
63
Lead
2
5
37
4
6
25
Liniments
II
9
14
1
15
4°
I
5
29
Medicinal waters
Medicinal wines
8
7
ii
'9
10
12
5'
35
47
IO
4
22
2
4
Oils
1C
50
I8j
2O
23
78
pills
27
IS
500
Plasters
II
13
51
IO
2O
76
Powders
6
9
8
Silver
i
6
>9
4
23
»5
Spirits
6
25
34
3
4
9
17
32
202
42
72
267
3
5
ii
Zinc
3
IO
46
The first column shows, with a few minor excep-
tions, the classification and number of preparations
in the " Pharmacopoeia " of 1830 ; those of the work
of 1890 are as follows: acids, 32; cerates, 6;
610
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
charta, 2 ; collodions, 4 ; confections, 2 ; decoctions,
3 ; elixirs, 2 ; emulsions, 4 ; extracts, 30 ; extracts,
alcoholic, i ; extracts, compound, i ; extracts, puri-
fied, i ; extracts, fluid, 87 ; extracts, fluid, com-
pound, i ; glycerites, 6 ; honeys, 3 ; infusions, 5 ;
liniments, 9 ; liquors, 24 ; masses, 3 ; mixtures, 4 ;
mucilages, 4 ; oils, fixed, 1 1 ; oils, volatile, 39 ;
ointments, 23; oleates, 3; oleoresins, 6; pills, 15;
plasters, 13 ; powders, 9 ; resins, 5 ; soaps, 2 ; spirits,
25; suppositories, 2; syrups, 32; tinctures, 72;
triturations, 2 ; troches, 15 ; vinegars, 2 ; waters, 19 ;
wines, 10.
The wholesale druggist of fifty years ago carried,
as do his successors of the present day, many arti-
cles not mentioned in the pharmacopeias of that
time, and this feature of the business has so rapidly
increased that reference to recent price-lists of prom-
inent jobbing-houses shows an average number of
5700 articles in the department of drugs, chemicals,
oils, etc., and of 7600 articles in the department of
" patent " or proprietary medicines. If the vast
number of articles known as "druggists' sundries"
were included the figures first quoted might be
doubled, and by including the large number of se-
cret proprietary medicines with which the country is
flooded, but which are confined to local trade and
do not appear upon general price-lists, the figures
upon patent medicines would also probably double ;
so that it seems fair to estimate that the drug trade of
to-day handles 25,000 articles.
One notable feature distinguishing the methods of
the drug trade of to-day from those of a century ago
is the division of manufacturing into distinct depart-
ments. The retail apothecary was then depended
upon to prepare from the cru^e material the medi-
cines required by the physician. To-day, while his
knowledge must include an acquaintance with all
processes, his convenience impels him to buy the
greater portion of his stock in such a stage of man-
ufacture as renders it ready for dispensing. This
has caused the building up of the business of man-
ufacturing pharmacy, developed most extensively
during the last quarter of a century, and the partial
development of the manufacture of chemicals.
A review of the drug trade would be incomplete
without some data respecting the progress made in
chemistry, for in no other branch of physical science
can such advancement be chronicled as in this. It
is scarcely one hundred years since Priestley laid
the foundation of our modern chemistry by the dis-
covery of oxygen, that most abundant of all ele-
ments. To Scheele chemistry owes many of its
early and most important discoveries, some of which,
like glycerine and prussic acid, were of great value
to the pharmacist. Lavoisier, the unfortunate
French chemist who was beheaded in 1794, is also
deserving of mention as one of the fathers of mod-
ern chemistry. The discovery of morphine by Ser-
tiirner in 1804, and the discoveries of strychnine
and quinine some years later by Pelletier and
Caventou, were of vast importance and interest to
the physician and pharmacist, furnishing as they
did the active ingredients of valuable remedial
agents, and serving as examples of the value of
alkaloids and their salts. One of the important
alkaloidal discoveries of later and recent years was
cocaine, which, in the shape of muriate of cocaine,
is very extensively and successfully used as a local
anaesthetic. Laughing-gas, chloroform, ether, and
their application as anaesthetics, have played so im-
portant a part since their discovery as alleviators
of the sufferings of humanity, that anaesthesia, an
American discovery, and modern antiseptic surgery
are ranked with the greatest achievements of the
nineteenth century.
The evolution of organic chemistry is one of the
scientific triumphs of the latter half of the century.
The discovery by Wohler in 1828 that urea could
be manufactured artificially from isocyanate of
ammonium was the first step in the synthetic pro-
duction of organic compounds, for until that period
chemists held that no organic compound was possi-
ble except through the medium of "vital force."
Since 1828 innumerable compounds of an organic
nature have been prepared synthetically, and many
of them are of such importance that they are pro-
duced commercially in extensive quantities, as, for
instance, alizarine, the chief coloring principle of
madder root, of which perhaps $i 5,000,000 to $20,-
000,000 worth are manufactured annually ; oxalic
acid, formerly prepared from the juice of the sorrel,
is now made at one tenth its former cost from saw-
dust and caustic soda ; while salicylic acid, instead
of being derived from oil of wintergreen, is now
produced by the action of carbon dioxide upon car-
bolic acid and caustic soda.
The chemist has not only been enabled to prepare
many of the organic compounds in his laboratory,
but during the past ten or fifteen years a vast num-
ber of new and interesting synthetic chemicals which
plants and animals do not produce (such as antipy-
rine, exalgine, phenacetine, etc.) have been discov-
ered. This number is continually increasing, and
many of the compounds are of importance thera-
peutically, and of much interest to the druggist and
the drug trade. So great has been the advancement
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
611
of synthetic chemistry that the chemist of the pres-
ent day is willing to predict that it is only a question
of time when he will be in a position to produce
every organic molecule synthetically.
All this progress, this discovery in allied science
and labor, has of necessity exerted a powerful in-
fluence upon the drug trade, and contributed in no
small degree toward making it what we find it to-
day. But other agencies, other factors, have been
equally operative and effective in molding and shap-
ing it. Of the first in importance among these
agencies in its direct effect upon the retail trade, and
through it upon the wholesale branch, has unques-
tionably been the " United States Pharmacopoeia."
During the three or four decades following the
year 1795 the handling of drugs was carried on in
a manner which would be far from reassuring to the
invalid of to-day. Between 1810 and 1820, how-
ever, was inaugurated a movement which may be
designated as one of the most important of the cen-
tury—that of an authoritative agreement, upon the
part of those dealing in and prescribing drugs, regard-
ing the identity and purity of the various medicinal
agents then in vogue. This movement resulted
in the appearance in 1820 of the "United States
Pharmacopoeia," a work which has passed through
successive decennial revisions up to the present
time, and which is recognized as the standard in all
the various manipulations of drugs and chemicals,
from the identification of the crude material to its
proper preparation for the use of the invalid. Al-
though this great work is the result of what might
be called private initiative or purely scientific devo-
tion, and is essentially the work of a distinct profes-
sional class, it has received governmental recognition
to such an extent that the statutes of most of the
States recognize it as an authority in legally deter-
mining the purity of drugs sold ; and as a contribu-
tion to the literature of applied science it receives
the indorsement of the medical and pharmaceuti-
cal professions of all countries. Another successful
movement was inaugurated during the period be-
tween 1820 and 1830, by the trade and profession
as represented by the then newly established colleges
of pharmacy at Philadelphia and New York, having
for its object governmental inspection of imported
drugs, a function which is still exercised by the
national government, to the great benefit of all con-
cerned.
From these two movements, which marked what
might be called the starting-point for the immense
development, both commercial and professional, of
pharmacy in this country, may be traced the addi-
tional legislation, tending to promote the eitablmh-
ment of correct trade standards, which now appears
upon the statute-books of most States, and is known
popularly as the "Pure Food and Drug Laws."
At the present time such legislation is receiving
much earnest attention from the press, the public,
and the trade, and unfortunately its assumed theo-
retical advantages are hampered by suspicions of
undue political influence or of governmental pater-
nalism. In keeping with this general trend of
affairs are the laws of the various States regulat-
ing the handling and sale of drugs, chemicals, and
poisons at retail. As it becomes more apparent
that skill and experience in handling such articles
are necessary to the public welfare, this class of
legislation receives increased attention. This feature
of the drug-trade history of this country is one of
comparatively recent growth, the first law having
been passed by Rhode Island in 1870, since which
time all the States, with but few exceptions, have
taken similar action. Although there is a lack of
uniformity of detail in such laws, their effect is to
restrict the dealings in drugs and the compounding
of prescriptions to those who are able to bring satis-
factory evidence of their qualifications before a
board of pharmacy, which is authorized to license
those whom it deems qualified to engage in the
business. The beneficial effect of such legislation
is at present only partially felt ; for it was decided,
as a matter of justice, upon the enactment of such
laws, that all those already engaged in the business
should be allowed to continue without reference to
the new conditions imposed, and as a consequence
there are yet many in the retail trade whose qualifi-
cations have not been officially determined. But
this is a condition which a few years will serve to
set right.
The necessity for the better educational qualifica-
tion of those engaged in the drug business being
recognized, the first college of pharmacy — that of
Philadelphia— was founded in 1821. In 1826 it
graduated three students. During last season its
students numbered 757, of whom 197 graduated.
The New York College of Pharmacy was organized
in 1829, and at about this time colleges were started
in Baltimore, Boston, and Cincinnati. There are
now about fifty institutions in the United States and
Canada where instruction in pharmacy is given,
twenty-four of which are regular colleges or schools
of pharmacy, the others departments of pharmacy
in universities. The first department of pharmacy
in a State university was that of Michigan, founded
in 1868. During the past year 4200 students— 125
612
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of whom were women — attended these schools and
colleges of pharmacy, and of this number 1 100 were
graduated.
Associations or organizations for the conservation
and advancement of the material and professional
interests of the drug trade have exercised a power-
ful controlling influence. The first organization was
effected in the retail branch when, in 1852, twenty-
one active men formed themselves into the Ameri-
can Pharmaceutical Association, having for its object
the advancement of pharmacy through increased
educational facilities, and the formation of a body
which should represent the then newly recognized
professional side of the drug business in its relations
with the medical profession. This object has been
attained in the most gratifying manner, and the list
of membership includes the names of the ablest men
who have been or are identified with the scientific
advancement of pharmacy. The association holds
annual meetings for the discussion of scientific
questions, trade and educational matters, and has a
membership of 1533. One of the features of its
work is the annual publication of its proceedings,
which contains a review of the scientific progress of
pharmacy. Volume xlii., embracing the year ending
July, 1894, is a work of nearly 1400 pages, of which
815 are devoted to the progress of pharmacy during
the year. Other organized bodies in the retail ranks
are the State pharmaceutical associations, the oldest
of which is that of New Jersey, founded in 1870
with 44 members, but which now has 350. There
are at present forty-six such State associations.
In the wholesale drug trade a notable event of
the century was the formation, in 1876, by many of
the Western wholesale firms, of an association named
the Western Wholesale Druggists' Association, called
into existence by the demand of the times. The
Civil War caused expansion, which was followed by
collapse and a general unsettling of all trade rela-
tions. To hold trade, competition became sharp,
and concerns that had been doing a prosperous
business found it impossible to make profits. A
meeting was held in Indianapolis, which was at-
tended by a majority of the prominent druggists of
the neighboring cities; and, although no positive
action was taken at that time, a better feeling was
created. Shortly afterward, at a special meeting, a
committee was appointed to try to put into effect
what is now known as the "rebate plan." This
system was planned and adopted by the proprietors
of patent medicines and the wholesale druggists to
enable the latter to get a fair profit on patent medi-
cines, which they had formerly been obliged to sell
on very close margins. Buyers had to sign a con-
tract that they would maintain established prices,
and by so doing were entitled to ten per cent, dis-
count, or rebate, on the wholesale price ; but should
they sell at cut rates, they would be placed on a
" cut-off " list and be debarred from buying from
the proprietors.
In 1882 many of the Eastern druggists joined
with those of the West at a meeting held in Cleve-
land, and the name of the association was changed
to the National Wholesale Druggists' Association.
The following year its first meeting was held in New
York. While the various committees have worked
hard and reported annually on matters of trade in-
terest, such as the national bankrupt law, fire-insur-
ance, legislation, credits, etc., the committee on re-
bates has really effected the most important change
in trade matters. Up to that time there had not
been more than a dozen large distributing centers
in the United States ; now, by the working of the
rebate system, almost all towns of 50,000 inhabitants
have one or more wholesale druggists, who are
placed on an equal footing with the largest buyer,
and each one supplies the retailers in his neighbor-
hood. The National Wholesale Druggists' Associ-
ation now numbers 258 active and 153 associate
members.
One of the undoubted factors in the growth of
the drug trade in this country is the pharmaceutical
press. It has fostered a spirit of emulation by pre-
senting records of current scientific investigation and
progress, and has been a means of bringing the
members of the trade or profession into closer touch
and sympathy. The people of the United States
are said to be the greatest readers in the world, and
the large number of ably edited journals devoted to
pharmacy shows that the druggist is no exception to
this rule. Prominent on its list of publications are
the following monthly journals : the " American
Journal of Pharmacy," Philadelphia ; the " Drug-
gists' Circular and Chemical Gazette," New York ;
" Pharmaceutische Rundschau," New York ; the
"Western Druggist," Chicago; the "National
Druggist," St. Louis ; and the " New England
Druggist," Boston. Of semi-monthlies may be
mentioned the "American Druggist and Pharma-
ceutical Record," New York ; and of weekly publica-
tions, the " Pharmaceutical Era," the " Shipping and
Commercial List," and the "Oil, Paint, and Drug
Reporter," all of New York. In addition there is a
considerable number of similar publications issued
by the various colleges and societies and by several
of the prominent drug and manufacturing firms.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
There are also several devoted to the allied sciences
of chemistry, botany, microscopy, etc.
Leaving this phase of the subject, it would be
well to make a comparison, hasty and necessarily
imperfect, between the conditions governing trade a
century ago and those prevailing to-day. In those
days the apothecary cut and rolled his pills by hand,
and made his plasters with a " spreading-iron."
To-day machinery greatly simplifies these opera-
tions, and the manufacturing pharmacist by power-
machines is enabled to turn out 100,000 pills per day,
and plasters ad libitum. For making compressed
tablets power-machines are used which turn out 500
tablets per minute. Seidlitz powders are mixed,
measured, and put up in packages by machinery,
and bottles are filled, corked, and labeled by similar
means. Marvelous has been the progress in opera-
tive, manipulative pharmacy, and the benefit to the
drug trade from the results of inventive skill is
shown when we consider that the combined rating
of 270 wholesale druggists and manufacturers of
chemicals and pharmaceuticals is nearly $50,000,-
ooo. Of these, eleven are rated at $1,000,000 each ;
over twenty-nine up to $500,000 each; thirty-seven
at $250,000 each ; and the balance from $20,000 to
$25,000 each. There are eight large factories en-
gaged in manufacturing fine chemicals, and over a
dozen firms making pills and other pharmaceutical
preparations on an extensive scale. It is stated in
the census report of 1890 that the production of
pharmaceutical preparations then amounted to
$16,747,043; it would be fair to say that it now
amounts to $20,000,000.
Let us enumerate a few of the most noteworthy
improvements: Fluid extracts, as constituting a
class of pharmaceutical preparations, are essentially
an American invention. They are made by perco-
lation or displacement, a process in which the pow-
dered drug in a suitable vessel is deprived of its
soluble constituents by the descent of a solvent
through it. The value of this process cannot be
overestimated, as the progress made in pharmacy in
America during the last half-century is largely due
to the study and development of percolation, and
the introduction of preparations which are the direct
outgrowth of the process. Percolation was made
official in the " Pharmacopoeia " of 1840, and has
been continued in the various revisions of that work
to the present time. None of the pharmacopoeias
preceding that of 1850 gives formulas for the prep-
aration of fluid extracts; in that year only seven
formulas were given ; in 1860 the number was in-
creased to twenty-five, and in the present edition
613
there are eighty-eight. This number does not at all
represent the great variety of fluid extracts manufac-
tured, for they have become almost as numerous as
the vegetable drugs in popular use. Another inno-
vation is the elixirs, which are aromatic, sweetened,
spirituous preparations containing small quantities
of active medicinal substances. The term " elixir,"
used by manufacturers as designating a class of
pharmaceutical preparations, was introduced prior
to 1840, but the first formula published under the
name " elixir " for the use of the druggist did not
appear until 1859. During the seventies the popu-
larity of this kind of medicament had reached its
height, although elixirs of various kinds are still
largely prescribed.
In the adaptation of labor-saving machinery to
the manufacture of pharmaceutical preparations the
American inventor has found a field worthy of his
genius, and of the greatest importance to the phar-
macist. A century ago the old-fashioned iron or
stone mortar for powdering drugs was to be found
in every pharmacy. Drug-milling, as understood
to-day, was then unknown. Iron and stone mills
have been superseded by new machinery which has
greatly improved the quality of the product and
cheapened the cost of production. Among the
most important innovations is the process of grind-
ing by attrition. Rapidly revolving arms in a
cylinder soon reduce the introduced substance to
any degree of fineness desired. For substances
more friable, the nimbler, a revolving cylinder inside
of which are porcelain balls, works better, and it
requires very little attention. Centrifugals have also
brought about great changes in chemical production,
and percolators have displaced the wide-mouthed
jar and stirring-stick.
Sugar-coated pills were first made in this country
by the Tilden Company, of New Lebanon, N. Y.
In a recent interview with the president of the com-
pany, S. J. Tilden, he told the writer that he had
some filled capsules of copaiba and cubebs made
over forty years ago, which were as good as they
were the day they were made up. The populariz-
ing of gelatine capsules as a means of administering
nauseous remedies in a readily assimilable condition
is largely due to American push and inventive
genius. The process originally outlined for their
manufacture was that of Mothes, of Paris. H.
Planten & Son claim to have been the first to make
and introduce them in the United States. In the early
seventies the invention of improved machinery for
their manufacture gave the industry a strong impetus,
and the business became one of magnitude.
6U
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Pure fruit-juices have become a very important
article to the retail drug trade. For making " soda-
water," fruit flavors from artificial essences were for
a long time used, until more cultivated tastes required
the natural flavors. The manufacture of these is
now carried on on a large scale, and great quantities
of fruits, which sometimes become a glut on the
market, are thus utilized.
In special fields "of manufacturing pharmacy the
development of new ideas and processes has been
equally prominent. Perhaps one of the most inter-
esting of these special developments has been that
characterizing the discovery, commercial exploita-
tion, and rapidly increasing commerce in what are
known as the digestive ferments, of which pepsin is
the best known. In keeping with the crude specu-
lative views of the ancients on all physiological
phenomena, the most absurd theories were advanced
to explain the process of digestion in the stomach.
It was not until the first quarter of the present cen-
tury had nearly elapsed that the correct conception
of the nature and agencies of the digestive secretions
and process was reached, namely, that the solvent
action upon food is due to certain peculiar, soluble
organic principles or ferments.
Consideration of the commercial and practical ap-
plication of these digestive ferments leads us easily
to America ; for here the commercial importance of
pepsin and the other digestive ferments is far greater
than in any other country, and in America their
value and practical usefulness as therapeutic agents
and in the artificial digestion of foods have been
most fully developed. In physiological chemistry
we owe a great debt to the researches of the chem-
ists of the older countries, especially France and
Germany ; yet the practical significance and prom-
ise of these researches have been most clearly con-
ceived and realized by American invention, saga-
city, and enterprise. It was an American surgeon,
Beaumont, who made (1825-33) trie famous clas-
sical observations upon the phenomena of digestion
in the living stomach, which revealed the functions
of the gastric juice and did much to stimulate and
suggest the direction of subsequent inquiries. The
active principle of the gastric juice was discovered
by Schwann, 1836, to which he gave the name of
pepsin, although unable to separate it ; diastase by
Payen and Persoz, 1833; the albumin-digesting
ferment of the pancreas, described by Corvisart,
l857~58> but not accepted until confirmed by
Kuhne, 1867, who separated the ferment and named
it trypsin ; the emulsive ferment by Eberle, 1 834.
The history of American commerce in pepsin prac-
tically begins with the introduction of Scheffer's pep-
sin, 1872. Scheffer has the merit of proposing the
simple and practical " salt " process, which, being a
great improvement over previous methods of obtain-
ing the ferment from the stomach, was soon widely
adopted. Pepsin prepared by this method appeared
in commerce principally as "saccharated pepsin,"
the ferment being incorporated with a large propor-
tion of milk-sugar. In 1879 Fairchild introduced
the original form of pepsin in scales, "free from
added substance or reagents." The appearance of
this pepsin of phenomenal strength, with the recog-
nition of the fallacy of administering the ferment in
the largely diluted form then in vogue, was the sig-
nal for great activity in the manufacture and im-
provement of commercial pepsins. The obvious
importance of stomach digestion naturally directed
attention chiefly to the stomach ferments, and the
medicinal use of the digestive ferments still remains
popularly identified with pepsin ; yet the other diges-
tive ferments, especially those of the pancreas, pos-
sess far wider scope of activity and are relatively of
wider importance. Practical recognition and appli-
cation of these pancreas ferments must fairly be at-
tributed to Fairchild, who in 1880 introduced the
extractum fancreatis, containing diastase for the
conversion of starch, trypsin for the conversion of
albumin, the emulsifying ferment for the digestion
of fats, and the milk-curdling ferment. Fairchild
demonstrated the very remarkable practical value
and adaptability of these pancreas ferments, espe-
cially in the artificial digestion of foods for the sick.
In the preparation of infant foods both diastase
and trypsin have been extensively employed. In
view of the indigestibility of starch for infants, Lie-
big proposed that the farinaceous foods commonly
used with milk as food for infants should first be
predigested into soluble form by means of malt
diastase. In 1884 Fairchild proposed a method of
modifying and adjusting cows' milk to a resemblance
to human milk in digestibility and composition.
Fairchild's method is based upon the conversion of
caseine, by means of trypsin, into the soluble and
peptone-like bodies which give to human milk its
peculiar digestibility, in contrast with cows' milk.
Pepsin now appears in a great number of popular
as well as officinal forms, and is prepared generally
by pharmaceutical manufacturers everywhere. We
have in the United States the only house in the world
engaged, as an exclusive specialty, in the manufac-
ture of the digestive ferments and predigested foods.
The digestive ferments occupy a brilliant position
in modern therapeutics, and the progress of physio-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
logical chemistry suggests still further utilization of
the animal organic principles, as recently shown in
the successful and important treatment of disease by
the thyroid gland.
The india-rubber porous plaster, which was the
first improvement made on old methods of applying
plaster masses to the human body, was invented by
Dr. Shecut, a naval surgeon, who attempted to
popularize it with the aid of Horace Day, known
in the rubber trade. They conducted the business
under the name of Day & Shecut, but later sold it
to Thomas Allcock, who was in the employ of
James Aspinwall. Allcock failed to make it a suc-
cess, and sold out to Dr. Brandreth. There were a
number of manufacturers of plasters doing business
at that time, whose products were made chiefly of
isinglass and resinous mixtures, the latter being
spread on cloth and plaster skins. Besides there
were several makers of common adhesive plasters in
five-yard rolls. In this group the following are the
most familiar names : Ellis, Husband, Davidson,
De la Cour. Of the makers of isinglass, court, corn,
bunion, and kid plasters should be mentioned Rob-
bins, Mitchell, Littlefield, Wells, Herrick, and Hol-
loway, who all made specialties of certain lines.
About 1867 Seabury & Porter commenced to
experiment with rubber, in order to introduce a
general line of improvements. In those days, and
up to 1876 or 1877, many of the mixtures were in
solution, and the plaster mass was spread on frames
with a brush, then cut, and made porous. Seabury
was the first who conceived and practically worked
out the idea of the use of rubber in medicinal and
surgical plasters. All pioneer manufacturers have
their trials and tribulations before they perfect their
work, but the beginning of the great object striven
for was attained when the firm changed from rubber
solutions to the mechanical working of plaster
masses. Later the firm name was changed to Sea-
bury & Johnson.
Another distinctively American form of medication
unknown to our forefathers was introduced in 1878
in New York by Dr. R. M. Fuller, under the name
of " tablet triturates." These preparations are made
by triturating the active ingredient with either plain
sugar of milk or a mixture of sugar of milk and
cane-sugar, forming the mixed powders into a paste
and pressing the paste into tablets in appropriate
molds. In this way small quantities of potent rem-
edies, such as alkaloids, concentrations, etc., could
be administered in convenient, palatable, and readily
soluble form. The idea was a taking one with the
medical profession, and manufacturers began to
produce them upon an enormous scale. An idea
of the magnitude of this work may be gleaned from
the statement that a single manufacturer lists no less
than 500 different varieties of these preparations.
These instances of development in individual lines
prepare one for a presentment of statistics showing
the magnitude of the commerce in which the drug
trade is to-day engaged. One of the advantages
secured by the organized trade bodies that have
come into existence during the past fifty years has
been the keeping of statistics and the recording of
current history. If such organizations had existed
a hundred years ago the work of the present com-
piler would be comparatively simple. Our govern-
ment did not keep records of imports and exports
of drugs prior to 1 830, and even then the list com-
prised but few items. The exports of medicinal
drugs from the United States were then stated as
$130,238. For the year ending September 30,
1 835, they were reported at about $200,000, whereas
last year the exportations of medicines of all kinds
amounted to about $8,000,000. Of these, ginseng
root alone amounted to 233,236 pounds, valued at
$826,713, all of which was exported to China.
Our own continent and the West Indies have been
the only fields for exports as far as the introduction
of our manufactured articles is concerned. Except
for a few specialties, Europe has taken our simples
only. Probably tobacco was the earliest indigenous
drug exported, and its consumption has so increased
that it is now of sufficient importance to be classed
by itself. Oil of peppermint, which we find quoted
in 1804 at fifty cents per pound, for the past few
years has been selling at from $1.50 to $3 per
pound. It was first cultivated in New York State
about seventy-five years ago; and the exports of
this product last year amounted to 93,879 pounds,
valued at $244,716.
The statistics of imports earlier than 1835 are
wanting, and for that year only camphor, 62,134
pounds, castor-oil, 471 casks, and opium, valued at
$172,415, are enumerated. For the fiscal year end-
ing June 30, 1875, the Bureau of Statistics reported
the importation of drugs, chemicals, and dyes at
$38,263,067, and for the fiscal year ending June
30, 1895, at $45,552,569. In these figures crude
drugs and manufactured articles are combined.
That the imports in 1895 do not more largely exceed
those of 1875 may be accounted for by the increase
in the number of our home producers, who now
supply many articles formerly imported. For com-
parison the importation of a few selected articles is
given, which will afford an interesting study.
616
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
COMPARISON OF LEADING IMPORTATIONS,
1876 AND 1895.
ARTICLE.
AVERAGE IMPORTS OF
FIVE YEARS ENDING
JUNE 30, 1876.
AVERAGE IMPORTS OF
FIVE YEARS ENDING
JUNE 30, 1894.
2 810 422 lb.
81:4,062 "
I.746,OI7 "
Ext. licorice ....
1. 777,7lt; "
1,031,070 "
168 qc8 "
64,643 "
Manna .
22,726 **
24,71:6 "
28,186 oz.
Nux vomica . ...
364, QQC. lb.
1,455,446 lb.
16,468 "
38 IC.2 "
bergamot
42,642 *'
CA.Q4V "
cassia
52,l86 "
51,263 "
4.7. ZQ2 lb.
•538 640 lb.
croton
4,7« "
106 "
•26.72O "
Q7 ^60 **
lemon and orange .
70,642 "
210,996 "
10 018 lb
Opium
l8q,Q62 "
eg? 777 ««
Pitch Burgundy
Quicksilver . .
39,178 "
I2^.44C ff
238,882 "
250 065 <(
Root gentian . . .
crcge lb
60 466 "
" licorice. .
10.182 c^i **
" orris
4I.?4C **
" rhubarb
" sarsaparilla ....
Seed canary
72,411 "
646,517 "
II5,IO6 "
716,214 "
" caraway
1:76.604 lb
lt cardamom
<( castor '
29,838 "
42,039 "
" mustard
2 689 884 lb
Senna
180,365 "
51,457 "
A few leading articles are worthy of individual
and more extended consideration. Among these
one of the most important is opium. The earliest
government statistics value the importation of this
drug for the year ending September 30, 1835, at
$172,415, but the number of pounds is not stated.
Probably the cost per pound was much higher than
at the present day. During the year ending June
30, 1895, crude opium to the value of $730,669
was imported, representing 388,455 pounds. This,
however, is below the average quantity imported
during several preceding years. When we take
into consideration the increased quantities of mor-
phine and opium now imported, together with the
many new remedies for pain and sleeplessness that
have been brought into use, we may form a slight
idea of the terrible strain our nervous organism is
subjected to as compared with that of our ancestors.
The average importation of opium for the years
1869, 1870, 1871, viz., 90,000 pounds, has increased
to 562,618 pounds, the average of the years 1892,
1893, 1894; and the average importation of mor-
phine, covering the same period, has increased from
1934 ounces to 30,000 ounces.
To show further the extended use of narcotics,
we find the average importation of opium prepared
for smoking, for the same period, was 14,333
pounds, against 74,151 pounds. Last year the im-
portation of " smoking-opium " greatly exceeded
that of any previous year, amounting to 139,765
pounds; of this, 35,638 pounds were carried over
in bond at the end of the fiscal year, making the
amount entered for consumption 104,127 pounds.
It would hardly seem possible that the actual
amount consumed could increase so suddenly, and
the only deduction is that some speculation has
taken place in the article on the Pacific coast, and
that the government has been more vigilant than
heretofore in stopping smuggling.
IMPORTS OF OPIUM DURING THE PAST TEN
FISCAL YEARS.
YEAR ENDING JUNE 30™.
POUNDS.
AVERAGE
IMPORT COST
PER POUND.
1886
471 276
1887.
c;68 261
1888
4.4.7. 02O
2 76
1889
3QI, C63
2 O7
1890
4.7"? OCK
1891
62I.74Q
2 Ci
1892
eg? Q24.
Z-54
I 7fi
180-? . .
612 519
1894
7l6,88-?
2 36
189;
2C.8 4CC
Cinchona bark has touched during the current
year, in the public sales at Amsterdam and London,
the lowest figure ever known ; and quinine in 1892
also reached its lowest limit, seventeen cents per
ounce. Since the above date the surplus stock of
quinine has been greatly reduced, and during the
past year the market has ruled at from twenty-four
to twenty-five cents per ounce. For the fiscal years
ending June 3oth the importations of cinchona bark
were as follows :
IMPORTATIONS CINCHONA BARK, 1885 TO 1895.
YEAR ENDING JUNE
30TH.
POUNDS.
VALUE.
AVERAGE
COST
PER
POUND.
1891; . .
I.QI I.dSo
$1 17 2Q7
Cents.
6 2
1894
2,502,224
14,2, IQA
Z..7
189^
2 •27/f O4I
196 867
8 *
1892
3.423.Q4.I
2QQ QoS
8.8
1891 .
1890
2,838 306
282 737
Q Q
1889
2,878,184
•371 c?2
12.8
1888.
1887
4.787 111
741 S^O
T C C
1886
4,447.o82
Q2C.744.
20. 2
1885 . .
?.CCQ 6QI
2C. 7
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
617
For comparison we add a table of importations of
sulphate of quinine for ten years, ending June ist:
IMPORTATIONS QUININE, 1886 TO 1895.
YEAH ENDING JUNE
1ST.
OUNCES.
VALUE.
AVERAGE
VALUE
PER
OUNCE.
!886
1,251,556
$887,599
Cfnts.
71
1887
2,180,157
1,098,547
w
j888
1,603,936
647,654
40. c.
jSSg
2,825,008
917,322
32. 5
1890
2,990,239
886,430
29.7
1801 .
3,079,000
805,821
26.1
1892
2,686,677
542,440
20. 2
iS<n
3,027,819
556,782
18
1804
2,141,130
740,816
21. q
1801;
1,420,649
342,348
24.1
Senega or snakeroot has become a popular drug.
It was formerly found in the Eastern States, but is
now found in sufficient quantities to pay for digging
only in Minnesota, Dakota, and Manitoba, except
some small quantities that come from the South.
This root was quoted at twenty-five cents one hun-
dred years ago. It went up to sixty cents, but dur-
ing the last five years has declined, until now it is
at the old figure. The annual production is esti-
mated at between 300,000 and 400,000 pounds, and
about one third the amount now gathered goes
abroad to meet the increasing foreign demand.
Serpentaria, or Virginia snakeroot, as it is sometimes
called, comes mainly from Texas. This was quoted
in 1804 at twenty-five cents, and during the past
five years it has fluctuated between twenty-two and
thirty cents. A demand exists for it for export, as
also for goldenseal, sassafras, and mandrake roots,
damiana and lobelia herb, and slippery-elm bark ;
but of all the indigenous drugs exported, cascara-
sagrada bark probably is the largest in quantity, al-
though ginseng root doubtless leads in value.
Borax, although not an article of export, has
considerable importance as a home product. For-
merly our supply came from England or indi-
rectly from Italy. It was first discovered in Cali-
fornia in 1856, and later in the deserts of Nevada;
now these two States supply the country. Before
1872 borax sold at from twenty-eight to thirty-five
cents per pound ; since then the increased produc-
tion has brought the price down to between five and
eight cents per pound.
Although we are still large importers of drugs and
chemicals, the reason for this is a purely economic
one, or rather it is a matter of convenience. The
natural resources of the United States will, when
developed, furnish nearly everything in the way of
medicines. Borax has been cited as an example,
but there are many others, especially those materials
which enter into the inorganic compounds, and
which are easily accessible, such as quicksilver, iron,
lead, copper, zinc, aluminium, sulphur, lime, potash,
soda, gold, silver, manganese, etc. With a climate
ranging from frigid to torrid, nearly all the medicinal
products of the vegetable world could with proper
care be propagated in this country. Experiments
with camphor, cork, licorice, opium, olives, and
other foreign plants have demonstrated this fact.
It only remains to mention the personnel of the
drug trade of long ago and that of to-day. We
have no data as to the number of druggists doing
business in the United States a hundred years ago ;
but though there are now 38,000 in the country,
the New York City Directory of 1786 gives the
names of only five. On Queen Street, now a part
of Pearl Street, there were two, Effingham Lawrence
being at No. 227, and Besley & Goodwin at No.
228. Hanover Square had three: at No. 23 was
Francis Wainwright ; at No. 24, Timothy Hurse ;
and at No. 26, Oliver Hull. Effingham Lawrence
was the druggist and apothecary to the Medical
Society, a committee of which examined his store
quarterly and certified that his drugs were genuine
and his medicines faithfully prepared. Two whole-
sale drug houses of the present day were founded
about a century ago, but only one of these continues
under the original name, though quite a number
date back fifty or sixty years. The principal houses
of that day were Lawrence & Keese, J. A. & W. B.
Post, Thomas S. Clark, John & William Penfold,
John M. Bradhurst, R. & S. Murray, Silas Carle,
John C. Morrison, and Olcott & McKesson.
The firm of Schieffelin & Company, of New York
City, is the oldest house in the drug line continuing
under the same name in this country. It was
founded by Jacob Schieffelin in 1794, and has been
continued by his descendants. Mr. S. B. Schief-
felin, the oldest living representative, now retired
from active business, was a lifelong friend of the
father of the writer, to whom it gives great pleasure
to testify to the long and honorable career of a
worthy house. Business in the past generation
seems to have had one specially pleasant feature,
and that was the fraternal relation that existed be-
tween the different houses. The oldest and best
friends of the writer's father were his competitors in
trade.
The firm of Powers & Weightman, of Philadel-
phia, was established in 1818 as Farr & Kunzi. In
1821 they purchased the property still occupied by
618
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
the present firm ; it was then fairly on the outskirts
of the city. Mr. Kunzi retired in 1838, and two
years later Mr. John Farr took Mr. Powers and his
own nephew, Mr. Weightman, into partnership.
After the decease of Mr. Fair, in 184 7, the firm
Decame Powers & Weightman. Mr. Thomas H.
Powers died November 20, 1878, but the firm name
has continued unchanged. The history of this firm
is identical with the history of the growth of chem-
ical manufacture in America. Commencing in a
small way, its great business has been reared by
legitimate enterprise, and its reputation made solely
by the excellence of its products and its upright
business dealings. Mr. Farr, as before noticed, was
among the first to manufacture quinine in the
United States. He was, in fact, pursuing investi-
gations of the alkaloids contained in cinchona bark
about the time that the discovery of quinine by
Pelletier, in France, was announced to the world.
McKesson & Robbins, of New York, established
in 1833 under the name of Olcott & McKesson,
were the first to make and introduce gelatine-coated
pills. They were also the first drug house to start
an extensive separate laboratory to manufacture a
general line of pharmaceutical preparations in a
large way with improved methods, and they have
kept step with the advance in pharmacy. In order
to facilitate the carrying on of the firm's increasing
business the system of departments was adopted by
the house. Some of these are: the importing of
drugs and chemicals ; the buying department ; the
manufacturing of pharmaceutical preparations ; the
making of chemicals ; the cork factory ; the drug-
grinding department ; the printing department ; the
export department for supplying the West Indies,
Central and South America, and another for Europe,
Asia, and Africa ; one for supplying city pharmacists,
and one for out-of-town buyers ; one for fancy
goods, and one for sponges. Over 450 persons are
employed by the firm.
As is natural, much of the early history of the
drug business in this country centers around Bos-
ton. Half a century ago there were in that city
sixty-seven drug-stores. Of these about a score are
still on the precise spots where they were situated
in 1845, or are still carried on under the same
names, but in new places. Perhaps the most inter-
esting relic of the old days is the store of the Theo-
dore Metcalf Company, for the founder was engaged
actively in business until his death a comparatively
short time ago. At present there are two stores
bearing his name. Another sign familiar to the
residents of fifty years back was that of T. Res-
tieaux, a modern copy of which is still to be seen
on Tremont Street, near Metcalf's. On Green
Street may be seen the shop where for a good half-
century Emery Souther has been and still is dis-
pensing medicines. On Hancock Street Ashel
Boyden's store is carried on by his son. What
used to be William Brown's store, at the corner of
Washington and Eliot streets, is now owned by
William B. Hunt. Carter, Carter & Kilham are
the direct successors of the house which, in 1845,
bore the name of Carter & Wilson, and was in
business on Hanover Street, not far from where the
firm is now situated. A drug-store on Prince Street,
originally H. D. Fowle's, is now owned by Alfred
W. Tilton. George W. Colton's shop, on Cambridge
Street, near the bridge over the Charles, which was
a landmark for Harvard students, still exists. So,
too, do the old stores of D. Henchman and T.
Larkin Turner, on the same street, though they
have since passed through the hands of several
owners. Charles E. Eames carries on to-day the
shop at the corner of Hanover and Charter streets,
over which W. P. Howard formerly presided. In
Maverick Square, East Boston, James Kidder had
a drug-store which is open even to this day. Little-
field's pharmacy, in the United States Hotel, has
been kept up all these years, with Chapin & Com-
pany as the present owners. Dr. R. C. McDonald's
Parmenter pharmacy, on Hanover Street, was the
modest drug-store of G. W. Parmenter in the
forties. John South wick's shop, on Tremont Street,
at the corner of Eliot Street, is to-day Joseph L.
Parker's. As far back as 1826 what is now the
house of Cutler Brothers & Company was estab-
lished by Lowe & Reed, so that the firm claims to
be the oldest wholesale importing and jobbing drug
house in New England. In 1861 the firm became
Reed, Cutler & Company, through later changes
acquiring its present name. The drug house of
Thomas Hollis is one of the oldest in Boston, the
stand at 23 Union Street, with the sign of the
Golden Mortar, having since 1826 been favorably
known to the citizens of Boston and New England
generally. The founder, Thomas Hollis, died in
1876, and his sons, Thomas and Francis Hollis,
continue the business under the old name.
The first drug-store in Washington was opened
in 1 796 by Frederick Miller, but its location cannot
now be identified. Of the firms who have been
fifty years or more in business in that city there
are now but four. The store of Z. D. Gilman was
established in 1822 by Seth Todd, who was suc-
ceeded in 1842 by Z. D. Gilman, since whose
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
' •
death a few years ago the business has been con-
ducted in his name for the widow. The present
firm of Sheller & Stevens was established in 1828
by William Gunton, and through a series of suc-
cessions is maintained now under the name just
quoted. Whiteside & Walton's store was established
early in the thirties, as was also Thomas L. Crock-
ley's business, whose founder was George W.
Sothoron. The oldest druggist now doing business
in Washington is Mr. John E. Bates, who entered
the business in 1836.
Probably the oldest drug house in the West is
that of T. H. Hinchman & Sons, of Detroit, Mich.
The business was started in that city in 1819 by Dr.
Marshall Chapin, presumably as a branch of the
firm of Chapin & Pratt, of Buffalo. In 1833 Dr.
Chapin took as a partner John Owen, of Detroit,
the firm thus becoming Chapin & Owen. Theodore
H. Hinchman went to Detroit to enter the employ
of that firm in 1836, was admitted as a partner in
1846, and in 1848 succeeded to the business. His
brother, James A. Hinchman, was admitted as a
partner in 1852, and continued in business with him
until 1860. In 1868, 1869, and 1871 the three
sons of Theodore H. Hinchman were admitted
to partnership, since which latter date the style has
been T. H. Hinchman & Sons. Mr. Theodore H.
Hinchman died May 12, 1895.
The earliest Chicago wholesale druggists of whom
we have any record are the following, named in the
order of establishment : Dr. Clark ; Dr. Brinkenhoff,
now Peter Van Schaack & Sons ; Dr. John Sears ;
Stebbins & Reed, afterward J. H. Reed & Com-
pany ; F. Scammon & Company ; and Fuller &
Roberts, now the Fuller & Fuller Company.
Among the many firms manufacturing medicinal
chemicals worthy of mention are : Rosengarten &
Son, Philadelphia ; Charles Cooper & Company,
New York ; Charles Pfizer & Company, New York ;
Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, St. Louis ; Larkin &
Scheffer, St. Louis ; Herf & Frerichs Chemical Com-
pany, St. Louis. The most recently established of
the chemical manufacturing concerns is the New
York Quinine and Chemical Works, Limited. Al-
though this corporation was formed in 1886 only,
the quality of its products has placed it in the front
rank. It was the first in this country to make, on
an extensive scale, caffeine, cocaine, aloin, and ace-
tanilide, and is the second largest American pro-
ducer of quinine and morphine.
The United States can boast of many extensive
laboratories devoted to the manufacture of pharma-
ceutical preparations. A pioneer in this line was
Dr. £. R. Squibb, who in 1854, at • passed assis-
tant surgeon in the United States navy, organized
and ran the United States Naval Laboratory, fur-
nishing the medical supplies for the navy for three
years. In 1858 he started his present manufactur-
ing business. He has written much, and is consid-
ered an authority on matters pertaining to pharmacy.
Among other prominent houses in this line may be
mentioned the Tilden Company, Lebanon, N. Y.
(one of the first) ; Billings, Clapp & Company, and
the E. L. Patch Company, Boston ; Sharp & Dohme,
and the Burroughs Brothers Manufacturing Com-
pany, Baltimore ; Henry Thayer & Company, Cam-
bridgeport, Mass. ; William R. Warner & Company,
John Wyeth & Brother, and H. K. Mulford Com-
pany, Philadelphia ; Parke, Davis & Company, and
Frederick Stearns & Company, Detroit, Mich.;
William S. Merrell Chemical Company, Cincinnati,
O. ; Eli Lilly & Company, Indianapolis, Ind. ;
Charles S. Baker & Company, and the Searle &
Hereth Company, Chicago. In addition, many of
the wholesale drug houses maintain extensive labo-
ratories devoted to this branch of manufacturing.
Henry Troemner, of Philadelphia, was, as near
as can be ascertained, the pioneer manufacturer of
druggists' balances or fine scales. He came here in
1836 from Marburg, Germany, and started in busi-
ness in Philadelphia two years later. At that time
scales for druggists were made to order by jewelers,
and were generally of hammered silver, and conse-
quently very expensive. Mr. Troemner sold his first
scales in New York City to Mr. Schieffelin. Now
the house does a large business in fine scales.
American pharmacy has worthy representatives
abroad, the most successful firm being Burroughs,
Wellcome & Company, in London, England. Mr.
Burroughs received his training with John Wyeth &
Brother, and Mr. Wellcome represented McKesson
& Robbins for some years in various parts of North
and South America, India, and England. As far
as New York City is concerned, the number of
jobbing druggists has decreased, and much of the
importing is now done through foreign agencies.
Likewise all the leading manufacturers throughout
the country have agencies in this city, which condi-
tion tends to divide up the jobbing business ; but there
is a population of 4,000,000 in its immediate neigh-
borhood to be supplied, in addition to its still being
the largest distributing center for the whole country.
CHAPTER XCIV
THE PAINT, OIL, AND VARNISH TRADE
IMITATION of the colors that he found in
nature was one of the earliest arts of man.
Pigments of one sort or another were known
to the rudest nations of antiquity, and every civiliza-
tion has had its colors and its painters. The crude,
earthy ochres with which the savage smeared his
body, and the gaudy colors of the Egyptian and the
Hebrew, were succeeded by the brilliant tints and
lead-bodied oil paints of Rome and Greece. Var-
nish, whether as the heavy lacquer or japan of China
and the island realm of the mikado, or as the waxy
preservative beneath which the mural paintings of
long-buried Herculaneum and Pompeii still stand
forth bright and clear, is of almost equal antiquity.
Coeval with all these are the oils, which were recog-
nized in utility and application long before science
had learned to differentiate between the animal
and vegetable kingdoms, whence their supply was
derived.
Between the early civilizations which developed
the painter's art and the later era which resumed
and carried it to still greater prominence stretches,
however, the long break of the dark ages, when
Europe relapsed into the barbarism of feudal strife.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw the re-
turn of many of the peaceful arts, and among them
that of the painter. Then and a little later were
developed those wonderful pigments that have left
the old masters famous. Never since then have
such colors been attained by the artist, and, greatly
as modern skill has surpassed them in many respects,
the secret which produced some of the glorious and
indestructible tints of that time still remains among
the lost arts. Apart from its artistic application the
use of paints gained but slowly in Europe. Grad-
ually houses and ships took color under the paint-
er's brush, woodwork was preserved by its use, and
ornamentation by colors became general. The
manufacture and the application of paint became
established and recognized industries, and were of
considerable importance at the time when the great
English companies began despatching colonists to
the shores of the New World.
The early American settlers, however, had small
use for paint in the wilderness they came to conquer.
Log cabins and the roughest mode of life required
little of decoration or ornament. They were emi-
nently practical, too, even in the Virginia, Maryland,
and neighboring settlements, and so neglected ap-
pearances as unconcernedly as the austere and self-
mortifying Puritans of the New England colonies.
To the commercial rather than to the esthetic side
of the colonial character must be attributed, there-
fore, the first step in establishing the great paint and
oil industry of this country. It was in response to
home requirements, a strong foreign demand, and
the inducement of good prices that the culture of
flax, both for the housewife's distaff and to obtain
the seed for export, was begun. Once commenced
it spread rapidly, and soon in the interior localities,
where transportation to the seaport settlements was
difficult and expensive, oil-mills were started to crush
the surplus flaxseed.
The manufacture of this, the linseed-oil of com-
merce, was begun in New York in 1715, and three
years later John Prout, Jr., commenced it in Con-
necticut. In 1750 an old record states that the
" Dumplers " in Pennsylvania had established among
other industries an "oyl-mill." These so-called
" Dumplers " were probably the sect of Bunkers in
Lancaster County, which view is still further sup-
ported by the fact that by 1786 there were four
oil-mills in operation in this county and within ten
miles of Lancaster. So early as 1774 the first co-
lonial Congress had recommended the growing of
flax and the expression of the oil from its seed, and
in 1792 this manufacture was established at Easton,
Mass. Water, cattle, and wind power were used in
operating these early oil-mills, and an annual pro-
duct of 2000 gallons was very large. The use of
620
DANIKL F. TIEMANN.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
031
windmills in crushing the seed was confined chiefly
to New York, where the Dutch customs still pre-
vailed. So late as 1 790 there was an old windmill
which crushed flaxseed in New York City, and was
located within a quarter of a mile northeast of the
city offices. The price of flaxseed at this time was
from two shillings to two shillings sixpence per
bushel, and flax was extensively grown throughout
all the colonies, and especially in Virginia, Mary-
land, and Pennsylvania.
The rapid growth of the linseed-oil industry had
not been without its effect in stimulating the use of
paints. These colors were, however, wholly im-
ported, and grew but slowly in general favor. So
intolerant was the prejudice against paint as a badge
of worldliness and vanity in the Puritan settlements
of New England in 1630 that a clergyman of
Charlestown was actually brought before the coun-
cil on charges of having certain interior finishings
of his house painted. Forty years later an official
list of mechanics and tradesmen discloses the fact
that there was not a single painter in Massachusetts
Colony. Nevertheless by 1714 painters' colors were
for sale in Boston, and while their employment, even
for painting the churches, was frowned upon by the
Puritans, they grew slowly in use among the wealthy
until the time of the Revolution. In New York
whitewashed walls and woodwork painted a sort of
bluish gray were quite general so early as 1 748, and
both here and in Philadelphia the use of paint in-
creased far more rapidly than in New England. In
1767 painters' colors were among the articles taxed
in the colonies by England. The disturbance cre-
ated by this act caused its repeal by Parliament three
years later. But to the sentiment aroused by the
Stamp Act and this one can be attributed some of
the earliest of the symptoms of American revolt.
The Revolutionary War, followed as it was by an
internal development necessary to maintain our po-
sition of independence, changed conditions in this
country very greatly. By 1795, the beginning of
the past century of progress, the use of paint had
become common. In the towns even the ordinary
householder used paint about his dwelling. If he
was too poor to indulge in the luxury of an outside
coat, the interior woodwork, at least, was painted,
and the churches and public buildings all showed
the work of the painter. The white house with
green blinds was then and for many years afterward
the single type of ultra-esthetic decoration. In the
New England States, especially in the country dis-
tricts, this combination of colors is still found as
prevalent to-day as it was all over the United States
seventy-five yean ago. The sole accepted modifier
tion of this style was the use of a tort of red paint
in the place of the more expensive white. Economy
was the only reason for the use of the red, however,
and except for school-houses, churches where the
congregation was very scanty, and homes where
the inmates were poor, the white was always used.
The introduction of more tasteful colors and shades
and more harmonious tints began early in the pres-
ent century, but their general adoption as seen in
present effects is still a comparatively recent matter.
The first successful attempt to manufacture white
lead in this country was made in Philadelphia by
Samuel Wetherill in 1804. Red and white lead
were made by him of as good quality as that im-
ported, and other manufacturers of these products
soon followed him. In 1806 color making was be-
gun experimentally by Anthony Tiemann, who regu-
larly started in the manufacture in 1807. His first
products were rose pink, Dutch pink, French green,
and blue. The manufacture of Prussian blues was
begun in 1809, and in 1820 chrome yellow was
added to the products of this firm. This latter color
was first made in this country by William Guest, of
Baltimore.
Meanwhile by 181 1 there were twenty -two differ-
ent colors of paint being made in Philadelphia, while
three small red-lead factories in Pittsburg, the first
west of the Alleghanies, were turning out annually
a product valued at $13,000. Chrome paints of
the first quality commanded in the early days $3 a
pound, and their manufacture was a profitable one.
Extensive deposits of chromic iron discovered in
Chester County, Pennsylvania, gave an added im-
petus to paint grinding, and its growth was strong
and steady.
The succeeding decade saw the industry firmly
established in New York. By 1820 there were ex-
tensive works in Brooklyn and New York producing
red and white leads, chrome and other colors, while
a factory in Rensselaer County, New York, was
turning out annually $4500 worth of Prussian blue.
This establishment used the shavings of leather in
obtaining its color, after the process described by
Dr. John Pennington in 1790. Factories in Albany,
Boston, and other cities, as well as the extensive es-
tablishments in Philadelphia, showed how firmly the
paint industry had established itself at this time, and
the next twenty years brought the natural and re-
sultant development not only of this but of the
related manufactures of varnishes and oils.
Prior to 1828 all the varnish consumed in this
country was imported. Its use, while less common
622
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
than that of paint, was nevertheless sufficiently gen-
eral to recommend it to manufacturers as a profit-
able product, and accordingly the first establishment
for making it was founded by P. B. Smith at 202
Bowery, New York City, in 1828, and the following
year he was joined by a Mr. Hurlburt. This part-
nership was of brief duration, however, and in 1 830
the second factory was established by Tilden &
Hurlburt, and was the first permanent concern in the
business. In 1836 Mr. Smith removed to Newark,
N. J., where in company with D. Price he estab-
lished the first of the great Newark varnish-works.
Another early manufacturer of varnish was Christian
Schrack, of Philadelphia, who established the indus-
try in that city.
The first importations of gum copal, direct from
Zanzibar and the west coast of Africa, were largely
used by Tilden & Hurlburt, and this firm was the
first to export American varnish, they consigning a
quantity to South America and Mexico in 1836.
The quality of the American goods proved so excep-
tional that they not only competed with, but to a
great measure supplanted, the exportations of the
European manufacturers. The stimulation of a
heavy foreign demand joined to increased domestic
consumption so augmented the business that the
matter of obtaining supplies of the gums used be-
came of great importance. In 1851 such quantities
of these raw materials were being used that the
manufacturers began the establishment of the sys-
tem of direct trade relations with the west of Africa.
The growing importance of both the paint and
varnish production of the country had meanwhile
early affected the oil-mills. Until 1836 these mills
used only home-grown seed, and a capacity of fifty
bushels a day was a very fair average output. Under
the increasing use of linseed-oil new methods were
found necessary, and the firm of J. & L. K. Bridge,
of Brooklyn, in that year imported the first cargo of
flaxseed from Sicily. Odessa, Alexandria, and, In
1846, Calcutta were successively opened as supply
points of this rapidly increasing trade. It was dur-
ing this transition period, also, that the use of ma-
chinery other than the old-fashioned screw, lever,
and wedge was introduced by Thomas Rowe. To-
day a good-sized oil-mill will easily produce from
5000 to 6000 gallons of oil per day— more than the
mill of earlier days turned out in a year.
In 1850 the paint industry in this country entered
upon a new era. The zinc deposits of New Jersey,
opened in that year, gave an adequate and cheaply
worked supply of ore from which the oxide could
easily be reduced. This zinc oxide, in the form of
a white powder, had been recognized since the last
decade of the preceding century as a valuable sub-
stitute for white lead as a body for paints. It had
up to this time, however, received little attention,
owing to the restricted amount available for the
market. The new and abundant supply turned the
manufacturers to experiments in this direction, and
its use since has been general. While of an inferior
body and opacity to the better qualities of white lead,
the zinc oxide was still a most excellent substitute,
and in some respects it even excelled the former,
particularly in point of decreased cost, and in being
unaffected by many of the gases, such as sulphu-
reted hydrogen, which blackened, by chemical reac-
tion, the lead paints. Several mines were immedi-
ately opened, and the ore reduced and turned in a
furnace, where resultant white and powdery zinc ox-
ide floated upward, was caught in bags, pressed, and
sold to the paint manufacturers. Mineral paints,
too, made from different earths, came into promi-
nence at about this time, much being claimed for
their fire-proof and indestructible qualities.
Of the chemical and technical discoveries and
appliances by which new colors, finer and more
delicate shades, the bright and vitrifiable pigments
of the decorative potter and art-tile manufacturer,
and the paints of the artist, either in oil or water-
color, have been produced it would be tedious to
the general reader to speak. The art of mixing
colors to produce the almost innumerable tints of
to-day has developed with the increased volume
and discriminating demand of the trade. The first
paints ready for use were made in 1852 by my
house. They were tinted colors in paste form. To-
day almost every conceivable shade of color is found
thus prepared in hermetically sealed cans, and each
country grocery and cross-roads store has an assort-
ment of paints, before which, even in New England,
the green-shuttered white house is slowly retiring
from the landscape.
About 1857, D. F. Tiemann & Company, who had
succeeded Anthony Tiemann, made carmine from
cochineal, a monopoly theretofore held by France.
In 1860 they made a blue soluble in water for laun-
dry use, and free from acid, that previously made
having been a mixture of ordinary Prussian blue
and oxalic acid. In 1860 they established, also,
the manufacture of quicksilver vermilion, which had
previously been monopolized by England.
The manufacture of oil and varnish meanwhile
proceeded along the same lines and in response to
causes similar to those affecting the paint industry.
In all the earlier years of this century, and to some
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
extent even to-day, the use of these substances has
been more or less influenced by the fact that lumber
w.is cheap and abundant. To preserve wood at the
expense of paint would have been indeed gilding
the tinsel. Its use was therefore rather a luxury, a
deference to the esthetic sense, than a necessity re-
pace with its demand the annual output has nearly
doubled during each of the past three decades. The
exact proportions of this industry since 1870,11
given in the census reports, are as follows:
The manufacture of varnish has remained, in the
mean while, in the hands of separate large concerns,
THE VARNISH INDUSTRY, 1870 TO 1890.
YlAK.
No. ESTAB-
LISHMENTS.
CAPITAL.
EMPLOYEES.
WAGES.
COST or MATERIALS.
VALVE or
PRODUCT.
l87O
en
&2.l68 7AO
l880
l800. . .
1?
I4O
3,778,100
T»3
§73
I SCI
$$;$
$3,311,097
3.699,684
$4.99' 4<>S
5-7*1.5*4
7,005,003
'3.795.510
suiting in practical economy. Gradually it dawned
upon men's minds that even if lumber were cheap,
wood was not the only expense in construction, and
the economy of preservation was seen. So, also,
with varnish; and by the middle of the century
both of these articles were being used for practical
reasons as well as for purposes of decoration or
ornamentation. By 1860 there were three varnish
factories west of the Alleghanies, and many in the
Eastern States, while its consumption was steadily
increasing both at home and in the foreign trades.
Since then its growth in importance and extent has
been steady and rapid, and it is to-day a great factor
in the industries of which this chapter treats.
These three allied manufactures have been, in
common with the other industrial interests, subjected
of late years to modification in methods and appli-
ances. Of the three, the manufacture of varnish
has, perhaps, been the one in which Americans have
been the most successful in foreign markets. The
recognition of the excellence of our product, follow-
ing almost immediately upon the first exportation in
without consolidation or combination, although ef-
forts have been made at various times to organize
the trade.
The lead, paint, and oil interests of the country
have, unlike the varnish manufacture, come during
late years to certain centralizations of management,
tending to greater uniformity and economy. In
paints, of which lead still remains one of the most
important components, this movement has resulted
in the formation of the National Lead Company,
which controls the greater part of the output of
white lead in this country. In itself this company
includes and operates its own oil and paint-grinding
mills, as well as the lead factories proper, and with
a capitalization of about $30,000,000 is the largest
single interest in the paint business, although there
are many great individual firms equally prominent
relatively to their output. There is also a large in-
terest concerned in the import branch of the paint
and color trade, making a specialty of foreign earths,
leads, and mixtures. The development of the manu-
facture is shown by the following figures :
THE PAINT INDUSTRY, 1870 TO 1890.
YEAR.
No. ESTAB-
LISHMENTS.
CAPITAL.
EMPLOYEES.
WAGES.
COST or MATERIALS.
VALUE or
PRODUCT.
1870 .
143
244
382
$11,156400
I3.555.292
2,940
4*83
8.737
$I,567,037
2.'32>255
5,605,626
$11,468,728
17,062,555
24.930,532
$16,932,405
23,290,767
40438,171
1880
1890
1836, has increased rather than diminished as time
has gone on. To-day we export more than five
times as much varnish as we import, the official
figures for the year 1 894 showing total exportations
of $282,278, as against importations during the
same time amounting to but $54,746. During the
present year our shipments abroad have still further
increased. The growth of home consumption has
meanwhile continued so rapidly that in keeping
The growth thus indicated in this industry during
the thirty years given does not, however, represent
the full increase in consumption for that time, owing
to the fact that imports of paints and colors have
always exceeded the exports. American colors are
found in many foreign countries, and the trade is
one that will grow. From a total exportation of
only about $20,000 in 1835, the shipments sent
abroad in 1894 amounted to $825,987, only about
624
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
$150,000 less than the imports of the same period.
For the fiscal year of 1895 the exports were only
$729,706, while the imports had swelled to a total
of $1,246,924 for the paints, pigments, and colors,
and $679,637 for clays and earths largely consumed
in the production of paint.
Coincident with the development of the paint in-
dustry has been the improvement of methods. Mills
of modern design and construction obviate much of
the danger to the workmen arising from the poison-
ous nature of the substances used, notably white
lead. While the basic principles, both in the manu-
facture of the staple leads and in the grinding of all
paints in oil, remain practically unchanged as they
have come down to us from remote times, there are
many innovations which have increased the safety
and facility of paint manufacture. New processes
and radical departures are also being urged and even
experimented with on a practical scale.
The manufacture of linseed-oil, formerly divided
into numerous small interests, has likewise been
largely consolidated by the formation of the National
Linseed-Oil Company, which has a capital stock of
$18,000,000, and controls the bulk of the product.
The single cargo of flaxseed imported from Sicily
sixty years ago has become a vast import trade in
modern times, and during the present year, owing
to the shortness of last year's home crop and the
demand for Calcutta seed, its volume has increased
to unprecedented proportions. In the first eight
months, ending September ist of the present calen-
dar year, the importations of flaxseed reached the
enormous amount of 2,772,718 bushels. Neverthe-
less the linseed-oil manufacturers have had much to
contend against in the adulterated oils produced so
largely of late years. Not only have inferior imita-
tions become common, but the residual products, in
the shape of oil-cake and meal, are being supplanted
to a great extent by the cotton-seed cake and meal.
That linseed-oil will ever be superseded, however,
as the most reliable vehicle for paints and varnishes
is extremely improbable. The census of 1890 gave
the annual output of the sixty-two linseed-oil mills
of the country at $23,534,306, in producing which
2073 employees earned $1,286,062.
Summed up briefly, the foregoing figures show
that the industries of which I have just written have
an aggregate annual production of $77,767,987, and
distribute in wages to the workmen every year
$8,640,749. These are the bare and unadorned
figures, expressing neither the benefit nor the mag-
nitude of the contributory branches, in the mining
and grinding of earths and ores, the sums paid to
the transportation companies of the country, the
consumption of tins, the trade in brushes, and the
opportunity for labor afforded to artisans and paint-
ers all over the country in the application of the pro-
duct. When it is remembered that in 1795 we were
utterly dependent upon foreign countries, I think I
need say nothing further or more commendatory of
the American paint, oil, and varnish trades.
One of the important features of the trade to-day
is the Paint, Oil, and Varnish Club. Nearly every
large city in the Union has an organization bearing that
name, and so closely are they affiliated that they might
be called one body. The idea originated in Boston,
Mass., in 1867, but the first club was not formed until
1873. It was preceded in 1871 in the same city by
the Boston Commercial Association, the membership
of which was composed chiefly of paint and oil man-
ufacturers, with Charles Richardson as president.
The experience of the New England club in organ-
ized effort and cooperation attracted attention
throughout the country, and on a similar basis other
organizations have been formed. The clubs, since
their formation, have been called upon to deal with
many matters of importance to the trade, and in
nearly all cases where misunderstandings or wrongs
existed amicable adjustments have been made.
A great achievement of these clubs has been the
formation and maintenance of credit bureaus, which
have not only worked to the satisfaction of all the
members, but have accomplished much good to the
trade. The paint and oil merchants of New York
City had for several years endeavored to organize
a business association, but without success, until the
Boston club of a social order came into existence.
The formation of the New York club was due to
the efforts of W. B. Templeton, the present secretary
and treasurer. One of the most valuable features
of the club is the membership of a subcommittee in
the New York Board of Trade and Transportation.
This committee was created in order that the trade
might have substantial backing in case of particular
legislation being required. The accomplishment of
the coalition with the Board of Trade is regarded as
an important step, as it gives the club strength and
importance that it could gain in no other way. The
organization of the Boston and New York clubs was
closely followed by the formation of similar clubs in
Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Chicago, Kansas City, New
Orleans, and other cities.
CHAPTER XCV
THE CONFECTIONERY TRADE
THE early history of the confectionery busi-
ness of this country is somewhat obscure,
as little was published in relation to it until
within the last fifty years. The term " confection-
ery " embraces a vast number of edibles or compounds
that have sugar as a base or principal ingredient.
The art of manufacturing confections and sweet
preparations was at first largely confined to apothe-
caries and physicians, who used sugar and honey
to disguise their medicines ; but in later years the
making of confectionery became a separate and
distinct branch of business, although the druggist
is still dependent upon the manufacturing confec-
tioner for an important line of his goods, known as
medicated candies. Few modern industries have
experienced more frequent or more radical changes
during the last century than the confectionery busi-
ness. Previous to the year 1851 the manufacture of
"boiled sweets" was largely an English specialty,
and its extension to other countries had its origin in
the unique display of these goods made by the Lon-
don confectioners at the first international exposition
in that city in that year. The interest then attracted
to the business gave it a new impulse and caused it
to extend to Germany, as well as to France, which
in the manufacture of chocolate bonbons and com-
fits excelled all other countries.
In the United States we find that as early as the
year 1816 there were published the names of twenty
confectioners in the city of Philadelphia who were
manufacturing and selling candies. Among the
pioneers in the business appear the names of Sebas-
tian Henrion, who was succeeded by Henrion &
Chauveau in the year 1844, and Sebastian Chau-
veau, who was the first to manufacture gum-drops,
jujube paste, and marshmallows in this country.
Another was Paul Lajas, who in 1831 changed his
business from the manufacture of confectionery to
that of sugar refining; George Miller in 1833, Wil-
liam N. Herring in 1834, S. S. Rennels in 1838,
and J. J. Richardson. In the city of New York,
among the old-time confectioners were Ridley &
Company, established in 1806, R. L. Stuart in 1828,
James Thompson, John Stryker, and Delmonico
Brothers. In Boston, in 1816, the names of Arnold
Copenhagen, Lawrence Nichols, and William Fenno
occur ; and in Baltimore, Joseph Bouvey, Augustus
M. Price, and John L. Bridges were pioneers in the
business before 1831.
Previous to the year 1845 l^e manufacture of
confectionery was in a somewhat crude state. As
a rule each confectioner made his own goods, his
stock in trade being limited to the ordinary stick
candies, sugar-plums, and molasses candy, while all
fancy goods were imported from France and other
foreign countries. The introduction of machinery
in the manufacture of confectionery has added much
to the development and increase of the business.
The foreign manufacturers were using some machines
in their factories, but very little had been done in
the United States in this way until about the year
1845, when Sebastian Chauveau, of Philadelphia,
imported the first revolving steam-pan used in the
country ; and in the year 1 846 the first machine for
making lozenges was invented and built in the city
of Boston by Oliver R. Chase, who with his brother
formed the firm of Chase & Company, and began
the manufacture of lozenges as a special branch of
business. In the year 1866 the first machine for
making printed work or conversation lozenges was
built and used by Daniel G. Chase, also of Boston.
Many improvements are constantly being made,
and new and improved machinery has been invented
that is adapted to the manufacture of the various
kinds of goods, and to meet the constantly growing
demands of the business, so that the manufacture of
special machinery for confectioners' use has become
a separate and important industry. Nothing can
convey a more complete idea of the wonderful
growth and increase of the industry in the United
625
626
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
States in the last half-century than the official cen-
sus returns, as published at Washington from 1850
to 1890, with the following comparisons:
to 1876, when the returns showed 87,955 pounds,
valued at $18,500; and this increase continued in
successive years until 1892, when confectionery to
THE CONFECTIONERY INDUSTRY, 1850 TO 1890.
YEAR.
No. OF ESTAB-
LISHMENTS.
HANDS
EMPLOYED.
CAPITAL
INVESTED.
TOTAL WAGES
PAID.
VALUE OF
MATERIAL USED.
VALUE OF
PRODUCT.
1850
383
1,733
$J,035.55I
$458,904
$1,691,824
$3,040,671
541
2,340
1,568478
668,423
2,991,186
5,361,100
1870... .
1880 ....
l8qo. . .
941
1,450
2,921
5.8*5
9,801
27,212
4,995.293
8,486,874
23,326>799
2,091,826
3,242,852
11,633,448
8,703,560
17,125,775
31,116,629
15,922,643
25>637,033
55,997,101
Imposing as these figures are, they are somewhat
misleading as to the real growth and magnitude of
the business. They take no account of the large
amount in the aggregate that is produced by the
small manufacturers in all sections of the country.
They give only the result of production in the large
manufactories, that are chiefly centered in the great
cities. The great increase as noted between the
years 1880 and 1890 shows a gain of more than
100 per cent, in value of production in the ten
years, and it has been estimated by careful and
conservative men in the trade that by the end of
the present century the annual output of the large
factories of the country will reach a total value of
$100,000,000. In addition to the great increase of
home production, the growth of the import trade
has been an important factor. Previous to the year
1837 all confectionery that was imported was classed
with sugars, but in that year the total importation
as reported was 8386 pounds, valued at $912. In
the ten years following that date the total of im-
ports, as reported for the whole time, was only 12,-
ooo pounds, at a value of $1400. From 1847 to
1857, 258,374 pounds were imported, valued at
$34,447 ; from 1857 to 1867, 260,860 pounds, valued
at $39,169 ; and from 1867 to 1877,865,812 pounds,
valued at $145,797. From 1877 to 1887 the total
value of imports was $151,632; and in the eight
years following, up to the present time, there has
been a gain of more than 150 per cent., the total
value being $387,152. The analysis of the returns
shows that from the year 1837 up to 1849 the value
of foreign confectionery imported in no year equaled
that of 1837. But in subsequent years there was a
gradual increase in the amount and value up to
1855, when the figures reached 74,371 pounds and
$8949 in value. From that date there was an irreg-
ular falling off in the importations until 1865, when
there were 35,388 pounds, valued at $4094. Follow-
ing that period there was an irregular increase up
the value of $97,741 was received from foreign
countries. This was the largest amount in any one
year, the figures rapidly falling in the three follow-
ing years, the amount in 1895 having dropped to
$30,745. While the rapid increase and growth of
our home market has made large demands upon the
facilities of our manufacturers for their productions,
the enterprise and push of the men who have been
and are now engaged in the business has led them
to reach out into other fields and larger markets.
The foundation of the American export trade in
confectionery was laid in 1865, when goods to the
value of $26,429 were exported. This was a good
start, and with the exception of the following year,
when none was shipped or the amount was over-
looked, this branch of our foreign trade showed a
fairly steady increase between that date and 1880,
when the total export was valued at $81,757, the
quantity in pounds not being given. Since then the
United States has sent large amounts of confection-
ery to foreign countries every year, as shown by the
following table, covering from 1881 to 1895, in-
clusive :
EXPORTS OF CONFECTIONERY, 1881 TO 1895.
YEAR.
AMOUNT,
YEAR.
AMOUNT.
YEAR.
AMOUNT.
1881 . .
$73,253
1886. .
$98,570
1891 . .
$181,501
1882..
62,391
1887. .
173.570
1892..
204,609
1883..
1884..
103,290
112,046
1888. .
1889..
155,521
151.685
1893
!894. .
334,607
491,748
1885..
88,549
1890. .
179,276
1895.
712,552
From the above statistics it appears that while
our home market has been constantly broadening
and extending, and the consumption of the products
of our factories has largely increased, the markets
of the world are being opened to us. Our foreign
trade is steadily enlarging, American confections
meeting with much favor in all markets where they
have been introduced.
ALBERT F. HAYWARD.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OK AMERICAN COMMERCE
m
Of the important factors that have largely con-
tributed to the wonderful development and growth
of this industry, more especially in the last thirty-
five or forty years, may be mentioned the rapid
growth and increase of our population during this
period, the opening up of new territory, and the
development of new industries that have resulted in
bringing general prosperity to all classes of our citi-
zens. The low price of sugars and other materials
used in the manufacture of confectionery, together
with the introduction of new and improved machi-
nery in our factories, has made it possible to pro-
duce goods of superior quality at a comparatively
low price, thus bringing them within the reach of
the poor as well as the rich. There has been con-
stant rivalry among our leading manufacturers to
improve the quality of their productions.
The late Edward A. Heintz, of Philadelphia, who
in the year 1874 established the "Confectioners'
Journal," the pioneer trade paper in the interests of
our business, and who through its columns constantly
advocated progress and suggested improvements,
thereby giving to the members of the trade a new im-
pulse and inspiration, rendered incalculable service
in popularizing the confectionery business among
the people. The two great international expositions
of Philadelphia and Chicago, where the fine display
made by our manufacturers attracted the attention
of the world, gave new importance to the industry
and added much to the extension of the business.
The organization of the National Confectioners'
Association of the United States in the year 1884
was an important and prominent factor in this de-
velopment. It was organized by and included in
its membership all the leading manufacturers of the
country, having for its declared purpose, as stated in
its constitution, " to advance the standard of con-
fectionery in all practicable ways, and absolutely to
prevent hurtful adulterations ; to promote the com-
mon business interests of its members, and to estab-
lish and maintain more intimate relations between
them ; to take united action upon all matters affect-
ing the welfare of the trade at large."
The results of the work of this association are
clearly manifest on every hand in the securing of
necessary legislation in the different States whereby
the manufacture or sale of any candy containing
any harmful ingredients or poisonous colors is pro-
hibited by law ; by the effectual stamping out of
adulterations in the manufacture of our goods, and
by establishing in the minds of consumers a feeling
of confidence in the purity of our productions.
The results of this combination of factors are
shown in the investment of many millions of capital
in this industry; in the building of large factories
and warehouses for the transaction of its business ;
in the employment of many thousands of working-
people in the manufacture of confectionery ; in the
enormous value of the annual product of all these
establishments; and in the birth and successful
growth of a competition in the United States against
the markets of the world. Of the men who have
been actively engaged in this development and
growth of an important industry we may not speak
in detail. Those who have honored their calling,
men of sterling integrity and uprightness of charac-
ter, men of courage, energy, and foresight, con-
stantly pushing forward toward larger and better
achievements than their predecessors, would make a
long list of names. Their work is evidenced in the
record that has been made of the growth and devel-
opment of an industry which, though small in its
beginnings, has in these latter days of the century
become a business of such large proportions as to be
entitled to rank with other important manufacturing
and mercantile industries of our country.
CHAPTER XCVI
THE FURNITURE TRADE
IT is a singular fact that we should now, after a
century of commercial independence, return to
the same modes and fashions in furniture which
prevailed one hundred years ago ; and although we
adapt them to our present requirements, we cannot
refrain from admiring even to-day the lines on which
our forefathers built their chairs, tables, bedsteads,
and other articles of furniture. Although we had
become politically independent of England, she was
to impress us for a long time to come with her lit-
erature and arts ; so that the American furniture of
that time differs but little from that of England, not,
however, being so ornate. This furniture, known
under the name of colonial, has frequently been
exploited lately, and is too well known to need de-
scription. At that time, if we except those who pos-
sessed ample means, people had little furniture, and
it was of the most simple character.
The early cabinet-shops were like the second-hand
repair-shops to be seen to-day in New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, and other large cities. A great many
cabinet makers continued to use for years the pat-
terns they had produced, and consequently made
furniture until late in the century on simple Chippen-
dale lines. It is impossible to state the amount of
furniture- made during this early period, but it must
have been small when we consider that the popula-
tion of this country was then only about 4,000,000
people. Gradually the Empire fashions, which were
making themselves felt all over Europe, spread to
America, and shapes became heavier and more pre-
tentious, mahogany being used almost exclusively.
Heads of animals were used, and claw-feet became
a general feature. Common furniture was heavy
and unattractive. The condition of things at this
time was not particularly favorable to the develop-
ment of art industries. Europe was a great battle-
field, and even this country became involved in war
with England.
Under these conditions little thought was given
to the manufacture of furniture, and for some years
there was a decline in this industry, which was con-
sidered of so little importance that no mention is
made of it in the official records. Cabinet makers
soon after changed their style, and began producing
a debased rococo style, which did not have the
elegance or character of the Louis XV., but was
covered with a florid ornamentation in which the
only consideration seems to have been that of dis-
play. The extravagance of curves and lavish orna-
mentation brought about a reaction, and toward
1830, following the fashion in England and France,
an attempt was made to construct furniture in the
Gothic style, but with very unsatisfactory results.
The lack of artistic training of the manufacturers,
who were, as a rule, cabinet makers or carvers by
trade, made it very difficult for them to handle a
method of decoration and construction so little
appropriate in itself to the requirements of home
comfort. This Gothic style of furniture, monu-
mental in appearance, was made to a limited extent
only, although its influence is to be noticed on other
furniture placed on the market at this time and later.
The making of rococo furniture was kept up by a
large number of cabinet makers, the cheaper furni-
ture being for many years made in this style. It
was also during this period that steam, applied to
cabinet-makers' machinery for the first time in 1815,
occasioned a revolution in the manufacture of furni-
ture, bringing labor-saving devices into more general
use, and enabling the cabinet maker to supply the
rapidly increasing demand for his product. In
1825, Mr. Richardson, of Philadelphia, introduced
the circular saw, and Taylor, Rich & Company at
this time erected the first mahogany-mill in America,
a number of these saws being used there. Ordinary
furniture, which until now had been very plain, was
covered with endless scroll-work and moldings, pro-
628
GEORGE W. GAY.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
duced so easily by the new machines. The manu-
facturers indulged for a time without restraint in this
ornamentation.
The use of machinery in shops, and the increased
facilities for transportation, wrought a wonderful
improvement in the furniture trade ; and the cabinet-
shop, which had until this time been of small impor-
tance, making to order various kinds of furniture and
kindred articles produced from wood, suddenly
assumed large proportions, and confined itself to
furniture only, using in the making of it the new
devices which were constantly being brought forth
by ingenious inventors. The value of the furniture
product in the year 1850 may be estimated at about
$15,000,000, and the industry gave employment to
37,000 people, out of a population of a little over
23,000,000.
For a long time a great number of hand-shops
survived, making to order special high-grade work ;
and they succeeded in impressing their patrons with
the idea of the inferiority of machine-made furniture,
which at this early stage in the introduction of
machinery was not entirely without foundation.
The extensive use of machinery in shops had the
immediate effect of again changing the style of
furniture. Manufacturers looked for a fashion in
which they could use their facilities to the best ad-
vantage, and at the same time retain the attractive-
ness of their earlier work. This they found in the
Renaissance, which for a number of years super-
seded all other styles in the best class of furniture.
Up to this time the furniture industry had been
confined to the Eastern States, principally in and
around Boston ; but a number of factories were now
started in the West, which, situated as they were in
proximity to large forests and regions where popu-
lation and wealth were rapidly increasing, soon
became important factors in the production of furni-
ture in the United States. These factories, equipped
with new machinery and using native timber, such
as oak, ash, walnut, etc., produced at first a low
grade of furniture in which art seems to have been
but very little considered, the main object being to
supply this prosperous population with the articles
that their new conditions enabled them to buy.
Those who wanted more artistic furniture purchased
it from the East. The art revival which had taken
place in Boston and New York was fostered by in-
creased travel in Europe, where exhibitions were
taking place at short intervals in London and Paris.
Moreover, the consideration that old furniture was
beginning to receive brought forcibly to the people
the inferiority of that then made, and manufacturers
gave more attention and study to its appearance
than before. Trade kept increasing with the general
wealth, and in 1860 the production reached $25,-
500,000 ; but the number of working-men employed
in this industry, owing to the improvements in
machinery, had fallen to 28,000. The population
had then reached almost 31,500,000.
Industries in general were now to receive another
blow, on account of the War of the Rebellion. As
soon as this conflict was over, the extraordinary
activity which had prevailed in military circles was
transferred to the industrial field, and from this time
on it is by leaps and bounds that improvements can
be noted. The furniture trade was in the hands of
two classes of manufacturers, one class of whom,
having taken the place of the old hand-shop work-
ers, made high-class work to order,— not only furni-
ture, but interior woodwork and decoration as well,
—continuing the old traditions, but now using
machinery extensively. The other class of manu-
facturers studied the wants of the people, and pro-
duced suitable articles at prices which were within
the reach of the masses. It is to them that we are
indebted for the gigantic development of the indus-
try, they having placed within the reach of all,
strong, ornamental, and practical furniture. We
have seen that men of taste had recognized for some
time that our furniture was inferior to that made at
the end of the last century, and had begun to study
not only the styles of that period, but also those of
the English and French prevailing in the past. As
a result we find that a great variety of styles were
employed in the productions of the leading firms,
who were always striving for novel effects.
A work published in London, England, in 1868,
entitled " Hints on Household Taste," by Mr. C.
Eastlake, had a great influence on the purchasers
and makers of American furniture at this time.
This publication created unbounded enthusiasm in
America as well as in England. It waged war on
modern work, and advocated returning to the primi-
tive principles of Gothic construction, more intelli-
gently interpreted than in the first attempt; and
gave positive instructions as to what was right or
wrong, not only in the line of furniture, but in dra-
peries, carpets, and other household decoration, as
precisely as if the art had been a science. This
book was looked upon as a sort of gospel treatise on
furnishing, and however much we may at this time
ridicule some of the ideas conveyed, it directed the
public mind in its search for more artistic surround-
ings at home. From that time the other styles-
rococo, Renaissance, etc. — were discarded, and de-
C30
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
signs in accordance with the newly developed taste
took their places. The movement in favor of more
perfect construction and the use of straight lines
exclusively became general, the stiff appearance
being relieved by an abundant use of arches, spin-
dles, turnings, etc. This style allowed the manufac-
turers to do the greater part of the work by machi-
nery, for which it seemed specially adapted. The
increased interest that the public took in furniture
developed the trade in an unprecedented manner,
the production for 1870 being $68,500,000, or two
and one half times that for 1 860. The number of men
employed at this time shows a similar increase, being
55,800, out of a population of 38,500,000 people.
The financial depression of 1873 caused a reaction
in the furniture industry, as it did in all other
branches ; but, without doing any more harm than to
reduce the output for a time, it stimulated manufac-
turers in making better goods so as to meet the
keener competition in trade. The Centennial Ex-
hibition in Philadelphia in 1876 had a far-reaching
influence, especially on Western manufacturers, who
until this time had not had occasion to compare
their products with those of the best manufacturers
of America and Europe. This exhibition marks the
highest point that the Eastlake or early English —
whose most able exponent was the English architect
and designer, Mr. B. J. Talbert — was to attain. A
number of the most prominent manufacturers of this
country had their exhibits made in this particular
style. It was quickly taken up by the manufactur-
ers of cheaper furniture, who until then had given
very little attention to artistic form, and they are re-
sponsible for the enormous quantity of furniture of
this description that can yet be seen in the auction-
rooms of large cities, the only relation of which to
the true Eastlake seems to be the quantity of spin-
dles introduced in its construction. The strife for
originality, which was soon to be one of the charac-
teristics of Western manufacturers, had now begun
to show itself ; but an insufficient knowledge of art
subjects rendered many of their designs more strange
than beautiful, and more noticeably so when they
were working on the lines of any given style ; but
through diligent efforts their designs were steadily
improved, and this, in connection with their superior
facilities, has secured to them a large part of the
Eastern trade.
The volume of business showed a substantial in-
crease during this decade,— 1870 to 1880,— although
not as large as during the preceding period. The
value of the output of furniture for 1880 was $77,-
845,000— an increase of thirteen and five tenths per
cent, in value, but a decrease from $1.77 to $1.55
per capita of the population.
The Eastlake style, based on foreign ideas, and
little in keeping with our style of work, could not
possibly get a lasting hold on the American people.
It was accepted only as an improvement over pre-
vious styles. The wonderful changes which occurred
in architecture, investing it for the first time in Amer-
ican history with a purely American spirit, could
not fail to have a strong influence on furniture.
Mr. H. H. Richardson, a man of extraordinary
ability, after having brought out several original and
striking architectural designs of classic excellence,
won general admiration for his later works, in which
he revived the beauty of the old Romanesque decora-
tion, adapted to modern ideas and modern needs.
A monument to his genius is Trinity Church, Boston,
designed early in the seventies, and which attracted
considerable attention by its radical departure from
the generally accepted Gothic style of church archi-
tecture ; but it was not until subsequently to 1 880,
after Mr. Richardson had used the Romanesque for
private residences, and had himself designed a part of
the furniture, that it became popular. Once started,
however, its growth knew no bounds. In fact, in a
few years everything was Romanesque or Byzantine,
— houses, furniture, house decoration, jewels, etc., —
and it looked at one time as though it were eventu-
ally to become our national style. As much was
claimed for it by eminent men. Furniture manu-
facturers eagerly welcomed this departure, for the
ceaseless demand for new things, as strong then as
it is now, obliged them to change their patterns very
frequently. Unfortunately, by passing through the
hands of manufacturers of cheap furniture, it lost all
of its original beauty. There is a delicacy required
in the Romanesque carving which cannot be pro-
duced cheaply ; and the universal use of the pointed
acanthus leaf as the only type of decoration soon
became monotonous, and, under the enormous pro-
duction of inferior goods, the public lost the interest
which the work of eminent artists had succeeded in
creating.
During this decade great improvements were
made in woodworking machinery, and a large num-
ber of new devices were invented. Among them,
and probably the most important, was the carving-
machine, which enabled manufacturers to ornament
even the cheapest kind of furniture, sometimes to
excess; and although this machine is not yet per-
fected, it has reached a high state of usefulness.
The amount of business done in 1890, large as it'
was, did not keep up with the increase of population,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
0.11
and the present depression, which has been by many
attributed to over-production, is certainly the result
of lessened consumption as well. The value of the
product in 1890 was $86,362,685, an increase of
eleven per cent, over that of 1 880 ; but the amount
per capita of population dropped to $1.38, as com-
pared with $1.55 in 1880, and $1.77 in 1870. No
doubt the facilities for the production of furniture are
such that even should the home consumption reach
the level of 1870 it would not be sufficient to absorb
the possible output of our manufacturing institutions.
The International Paris Exposition of 1889,
where the French cabinet makers showed a great
quantity of eighteenth-century furniture, especially
of the Louis XV. style, generally beautifully designed
and of excellent workmanship, revived a taste for
the costumes and furniture of that period which
spread rapidly to other countries, and was quickly
followed by the people of the United States. In
spite of the seeming difficulty of making such work
by machinery, our manufacturers made, and are
making to-day, a great quantity of furniture in that
dainty mode, which certainly equals that of the same
class made in Europe, and is generally better con-
structed. At this same time the style of the First
Empire, which had been largely used in the higher
classes of ordered work and decoration, was receiv-
ing some attention, but without such brilliant suc-
cess as had attended the Louis XV. ; the chasing and
gilding of the brass ornamentation being too expen-
sive for most of the manufacturers, and lacquered
castings were used instead, which, a short time after
being made, assumed a faded appearance, that lost
for this furniture the public favor.
All the eighteenth-century styles, French or Eng-
lish, have been used by our manufacturers — Louis
XV., Chippendale, Louis XVI., Sheraton, Hepple-
white, Empire, and also the Flemish Renaissance,
so well suited for oak work, with its bold carvings
and heavy turnings. So far all the efforts of manu-
facturers and designers have not succeeded in evolv-
ing a style of our own epoch, and we will probably
continue to use for some time to come the ideas of
the past, and more particularly those designs which
were used in this country in the latter part of the
last century, which, in addition to their beautiful
simplicity, always appeal to the heart of an Ameri-
can. At the Chicago World's Fair, although the
furniture trade had a very creditable exhibit, the
public could not fully realize its importance, as, un-
fortunately, a large proportion of manufacturers did
not display samples of their goods ; and it is all the
more to be deplored that among these retiring ones
were some of the most important of the furniture
manufacturers of the United States. But the furni-
ture exhibited can be taken as a fair sample of the
products of our factories, very little having been
made especially for this display. The greater part
of the work exhibited was taken from the regular
stock of the various manufacturers, and compared
favorably with the product of other countries.
Many of the numerous articles of furniture manu-
factured are distinctively American. The bureau,
the rocking-chair, the folding-bed, the chiffonnier as
now made with toilet, and in general most of the
combination pieces of furniture made with a view
of economizing space in apartments in large cities,
are of this class.
The American bureau is a combination of the old
chest of drawers and the dressing-table, having the
drawer-room of the one and the swinging mirror
and table-top of the other. This has been imitated
in Europe to a limited extent, in the production of
what is known as the English dressing-table. As
made in this country, the bureau is one of the most
practical pieces of furniture used.
The rocking-chair, almost entirely unknown in
Europe, is found in every home in this country, yet
it is difficult to ascertain when it was first put in
use. We do not find any mention of it in the
descriptions of articles of furniture in the last cen-
tury. The first patent issued for improvements in
rocking-chairs is dated as far back as 1830.
The folding-bed, in the shape of a sofa, with a
box-seat for bedding, has been used in Europe for
over a hundred years, but America can claim the
folding-bed in other forms, such as the wardrobe,
the cabinet, the mantel, and the combination ; some
of these were made as early as 1847. The demand
for folding-beds, which reached its climax a few
years since, is now showing a material decline.
The woods used in the manufacture of furniture
are varied, and subject to frequent changes. Early
in the century, mahogany, maple, and black walnut
were in favor ; then cherry and ash became fashion-
able; toward 1880, oak, so long forgotten, took a
prominent place. At the present time black walnut
is almost entirely out of use. Oak has kept its
popularity for the hall, the library, and the dining-
room. Mahogany, curly birch, and maple are still
extensively used ; all of them for the bedroom, and
mahogany for the dining-room and the drawing-
room in the better grades of furniture.
The changes in furniture coverings have been
more frequent and radical than those in the woods.
Haircloth and other coverings in use thirty years
632
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ago have been superseded by materials more varied
in texture and coloring. Their variety is almost
endless, and they show, perhaps as much as any-
thing else, the advance that art as applied to furni-
ture has made in this country.
The present centers of the furniture industry are,
with one exception, the largest cities, which, with
their densely populated suburbs and surroundings,
offer large markets. Of the cities whose produc-
tions amount to more than $4,000,000 per annum,
I find as follows :
FURNITURE PRODUCTION.
New York $15,661,491
Chicago 14,764,435
Philadelphia 8,288,333
Grand Rapids 5,688,240
Boston S.455.389
Cincinnati 5.339,394
St. Louis 4,461,546
Grand Rapids, a city of less than 100,000 popu-
lation, occupies a unique position as a furniture-
producing center, in that the principal buyers of the
country visit this market twice a year, in January
and July, and this has become so general that manu-
facturers from the larger producing centers have
their samples here at the regular trade sales. A
celebrated writer, in describing this industry in
Grand Rapids, refers to " furniture of the sort that
proclaims Grand Rapids the mother of art and
comfort."
The furniture industry of the United States has
to-day reached a magnitude unknown elsewhere,
and the perfect equipment and organization of our
mammoth factories, capable of an enormous produc-
tion, make it imperative that some outlet should be
found for it outside of the home demand. Intelli-
gent efforts are now being made in this direction by
a number of manufacturers, principally from the
West, and there is every prospect of our being able
eventually to secure a large foreign trade for our
American product.
CHAPTER XCVII
THE HARDWARE TRADE
HARDWARE is essentially a business that be-
longs to a new section of country. It has
been pertinently said by the pioneer, going
into a new and unsettled district, that the first thing
he wants is " grub," and simultaneously with that,
something in the hardware line with which to cut and
cook it. Following this line of thought, it can readily
be seen that the larger distributing centers for the
hardware business would naturally be in the central-
western country, where for the past twenty years the
United States has been so rapidly growing. In the
eastern part of our country, on the contrary, the
necessity has been for improvement and enlarge-
ment rather than for pioneer development. At the
present time it is safe to say that there are larger dis-
tributers of hardware (jobbers) in the cities of Chicago
and St. Louis than anywhere else in the world.
There is no other branch of manufacturing in this
country which is so distinctly American as hardware ;
that is to say, there is no other line upon which the
peculiar Yankee ingenuity so distinctly impresses
itself; no other line that is so entirely free from
imitation of the ideas of the Old World ; no other
line that has so quickly asserted its claim to its own
birthright and turned the universal import trade into
a great and constantly increasing export business.
All this has been done within the brief period of
the last half-century. Prior to that, the American
hardware trade was but in its swaddling-clothes,
struggling against the flood of cheap and ill-con-
structed foreign goods, but with victory already in its
grasp ; for, with far-seeing ken, it had been founded
on broad and deep principles of success. Knowing
well the temper of the people, it lay awake at night
inventing and scheming for better and more economi-
cal methods, while the slow-going makers of the Old
World were content with the ways that their grand-
fathers knew.
Hardware is very comprehensive, for, at the pres-
ent time, it embraces almost everything that is not,
strictly speaking, assignable to any other specific line
of trade. At the beginning of this century it meant
chiefly mechanics' tools and builders' hardware,
whereas at this time it includes so vast a variety
of goods as to make it difficult to enumerate them
correctly. Comprising, as it does, almost all the
small articles made of metal that are patented and
used in the construction of houses or for household
purposes, as well as tools for all classes of mechanics
or professional men, it simplifies farm labor and
economizes the time of the housewife ; it covers all
that could be classed as house-furnishing goods for
kitchen and dining-room service, the product of the
tin-shop and of stamped-ware manufactories, as well
as tin-plate, sheet-iron, barbed wire, etc., and has
within its range sporting goods, such as guns, rifles,
pistols, ammunition, base-ball supplies — in fact,
goods for all kinds of outdoor sports, not least
among which are found bicycles. An idea of its vast
range is conveyed by the fact that one hardware
house in this country alone has in its catalogue
about 45,000 kinds and sizes of articles, all of which
it carries regularly in stock.
Before the first commercial treaty with England,
in 1795, all of our supplies in this line, substantially
speaking, came from England and Germany. Emi-
grants could frequently be seen bringing with them
their hoes, rakes, and forks, upon which were strung
their bundles of clothing. Later the German goods
made great gain over the English. As will be seen
by a more specific reference later on in this article,
these goods were, as a rule, very crude, poorly made,
and not at all to be compared with the articles that
were manufactured even at first in this country.
The genesis of hardware in the United States was
undoubtedly in Connecticut, where the village black-
smith was the manufacturer of such goods (chiefly
implements and tools) as were wanted, which he
fashioned to order as best he could. A very impor-
tant individual was this same village blacksmith.
634
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
He was, so to speak, an autocrat in the community ;
without him it was impossible to obtain the necessary
implements for the cultivation of the soil.
But little progress was made in this line of manu-
facture until the last half-century, so slowly did this
industry take root in America. In 1850 the manu-
facture of hardware, speaking generally, was com-
menced in the United States. Until that time it is safe
to say that an exceedingly large percentage— say,
perhaps, four fifths of all that was used in this country
— was imported from England and Germany. The
goods were still practically the same crude and rough
products they were a hundred years ago. No change
worth noting had been made in the method of manu-
facture of these goods in Germany.
At the present time this country excels the rest of
the world immeasurably in the manner and method
of putting up hardware, as well as in the superiority
of the goods in style, finish, quality, temper, and
durability. Who that was in business during the
decade of 1850-60 cannot remember the Spear and
Jackson hand-saw, made in Sheffield, England, the
then recognized only good saw in the world ; and
the stiff English paper in which these goods were
wrapped, three of them constituting a shipping
package ; and what an ungainly seeming bundle it
made after one had been taken out, leaving the re-
maining two to be done up as best they could in
this unmanageable paper? Who can forget the old,
and at that time the only good, horse-nail, " Griffin,"
with the letter G stamped upon the head of each
nail, which came to us in twenty-five pound sacks,
with almost as many points sticking through the
bags to lacerate our hands as there were nails in the
package? And who fails to recall the Butchers' file,
which came in paper bundles, three dozen in a pack-
age, with the sharp point of every file peeping out
of its cover, as if trying to see what America looked
like?
Small goods, such as padlocks, door-locks, screw-
drivers, scissors, rules, etc., were all put up in rough
but strong English paper, which, while substantial,
was very clumsy and inconvenient. All these goods,
and many more, have long since ceased to be im-
ported, and are made in this country of a quality so
superior to foreign manufacture as to leave no room
for comparison. It must be borne in mind, however,
even at the risk of repetition, that the manufacturers
of this country particularly excel in their method of
packing and putting up for the convenience of the
retailer. Files we put in half-dozen or dozen wooden
boxes, with dovetail corners and slide-lids— an im-
mense convenience to the retailer. Hand-saws come
in compact pasteboard boxes (four in a package),
and the box looks as well on the customer's shelf
when partly empty, or entirely so, as when filled.
Horse-nails in wooden boxes have long since
superseded the bag or sack of the English maker;
and all small goods, even such commonplace and
cheap articles as screws and tacks, are put up in
boxes of most convenient form and shape for the
small dealer, yet preserving — in fact, enhancing —
the neatness of their appearance on the shelves.
The makers of American hardware seem to have
had one central idea at all times ; that is, to produce
the best, most suitable, most economical, and hand-
somest articles that could be manufactured, and then
to incase them in the best possible package. If it
was an edge-tool, it avoided the clumsiness and over-
weight of the English on the one hand, and the home-
liness and poor quality of the German on the other ;
if a measuring-tool, it exceeded even the French
product in accuracy and beauty ; if a file, it was pro-
duced by machinery, insuring absolute regularity and
evenness of cut, and produced at a cost, perhaps, of
one half of the foreign hand-made file.
All this time the introduction of labor-saving
machinery was continued, so that the foreign article
could compete with ours neither in price nor in qual-
ity. It has come to pass that our imports of hard-
ware have almost entirely ceased, although there is
yet some cutlery imported, and each year our export
business in hardware shows a considerable and sub-
stantial gain. As will be noted in the detailed items
which follow, we send our hardware all over the
world ; and in London, and even Sheffield itself, the
birthplace of mechanical ingenuity, our American
edge-tools are advertised as special attractions.
Figures convey but a faint idea of the magnitude
and extent of the business, but it will be interesting
to the readers of this article to know that one
wire-nail factory in this country has a capacity of
1,000,000 kegs per annum; and that one horseshoe
manufacturer, employing 2000 men, has an output
of 750,000 kegs of horseshoes yearly.
There are enough screws and tacks made in this
country, or at least there is a sufficient manufactur-
ing plant to produce enough, to supply all the world
and have a large quantity left over to be gathered
up, like the loaves and fishes.
The experience of the last few years has thor-
oughly demonstrated the fact that the hardware
business and its kindred lines is the pulse of the
country's prosperity or depression ; for so closely is
it allied with the iron-producing interests, as also
with the railway interests, that it shows more quickly
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
than any other branch the first approach of storm,
and recovers sooner from the effects of it. When
the hardware business prospers, so is the whole
country prospering ; when it is depressed, so also is
every other line. Hardware is essentially a business
based on utility and necessity, and as it comprises
goods that are not luxuries, they seldom go out of
fashion; although in one of its branches— builders'
hardware — patterns and designs are often quickly
superseded by something more modern, which drives
out the first product by reason of the superiority of
the improvement.
It is a fact worthy of attention that of all the
goods that are sold by the hardware jobbers of the
United States to-day fully thirty-five per cent, have
been made or originated within the past fifteen years,
so rapid has been the development of this business
within the last quarter of a century. The difficulty
of giving space, in detail, to the varied items of
hardware can be realized in some slight degree from
the statement that one single jobbing hardware
house in this country purchases goods from about
3000 manufacturers, both foreign and domestic,
although the number of foreign manufacturers from
whom purchases are made does not amount to three
per cent, of the sum total. No article upon hard-
ware, however, would be complete without specific
mention of a few of the leading items.
In the item of door-locks, latches, padlocks, and
small builders' hardware, Americans have been par-
ticularly successful. In point of fact, their goods
possess so many advantages over those made abroad
as to defy comparison. In England, France, and
Germany, they are still using a large, weighty
wrought-iron door-lock, with its heavy brass key
eight or ten inches long, clumsy and awkward ; while
in America that class of goods has long since been
superseded by a smaller, more compact, and hand-
somer lock, with a small, flat steel key not more than
an inch and a half in length, and easily carried in
the waistcoat pocket.
Door-lock manufacture was first begun in Con-
necticut. Authorities differ as to just where it origi-
nated, some claiming the honor for New Haven and
others for New Britain. From the best information
obtainable it appears that this industry was begun
in both these places at about the same time — 1 834.
The first goods manufactured were the cheaper
grades, chiefly plate and wood stock locks; and
later English patterns in wrought-iron were copied.
Very soon thereafter, and not later than 1 840, door-
locks were made successfully from cast-iron, and
these immediately supplanted the old and clumsy
wrought-iron locks, which have since that day almost
entirely passed out of use in the United States.
There is no article in the hardware business which to
distinctly bears the impress of American originality,
Yankee ingenuity, and New World progressive ideas
as door-locks. Foreign locks and hardware are in
each country the outgrowth of its civilization and
the characteristics of its people. They differ mark-
edly in each case. European peoples are conserva-
tive in their tastes, and changes occur very slowly.
The influence of this characteristic is adverse to the
development of inventors, and operates to discour-
age the few who appear by making their work un-
appreciated and unprofitable. The conditions in the
United States are the reverse of this, invention
being encouraged and rewarded, with consequent
stimulation to fresh endeavor. As a result, the
art of using cast-iron freely and effectively in light
forms, so well known in this country, has never
been acquired in Europe, and a prejudice in favor
of wrought-metal exists there, which condemns, un-
heard and without trial, many American products
because they are made of cast-iron, although the
latter is often better adapted than the former to the
intended use. These conditions have always stood
in the way of the introduction of American hardware
into Europe, but this prejudice is gradually melting
under the absolute merit of the goods made by
American manufacturers. American locks have
been sold all over Europe for many years, but the
trade in them grows slowly and is limited to the
wealthier classes, and more especially those who by
travel here, or by contact with Americans, have be-
come imbued with the American spirit of progress.
American builders' hardware has in recent years
been lifted to a new and higher plane in both de-
sign and execution. Formerly each new article was
originated by the pattern maker or the lock maker,
working with sheet-metal and file. Now, in one or
more establishments, and perhaps in a number, the
work of designing and originating proceeds in the
same manner as similar work relating to the design-
ing of machinery, steam-engines, or other mechanical
and engineering productions, viz., by skilled drafts-
men and designers working at the drawing-board,
guided by the best obtainable skill and knowledge,
and assisted by the fullest record of experience and
data pertaining to the art. There is no reasonable
doubt that a very large export trade in door-locks
and builders' hardware generally will be had in the
near future, because the merit of the American
goods has been more thoroughly appreciated within
the past two or three years than at any other time
636
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in the past century. There are fifteen manufacturers
engaged in making door-locks and builders' hard-
ware in this country, with a capital of perhaps
$25,000,000, employing 20,000 people, with an an-
nual product of over $20,000,000. An item of in-
terest is the fact that there are melted for use in the
manufacture of these goods annually over 100,000
tons of metal.
There is probably nothing in the hardware line in
which the American dealer takes more pride than
saws, and especially hand-saws and such other small
saws as are used by the carpenter and cabinet
maker. It is believed that the first saws of any
kind manufactured in the United States were made
by William Rowland, in the year 1806, in Phil-
adelphia. In 1823 a small plant was started by
Aaron Nichols in the same place. In 1828 or
1829, in New York City, the firm of R. Hoe & Co.
began to make circular saws from English steel,
which were about the first manufactured in this
country. In 1835 Noah Worrall started in New
York City the manufacture of small circular saws.
The following year (1836) William & Charles John-
son commenced the manufacture of saws in Philadel-
phia ; and it was with this firm that Henry Disston,
who afterward achieved a world- wide reputation for
his wonderful success, learned his trade. In 1840
the firm of William & Charles Johnson failed, and
Henry Disston accepted from them some tools,
steel, and such material as he could get in the saw
line, on account of wages that were due him, and
with these he began to manufacture saws in his own
name. After this there were several small industries
started — by Jonathan Paul in 1840, J. Bringhaust
in 1842, James Turner in 1843, and Walter Cresson
in 1845. These four were each in turn bought out
by Henry Disston. William Andrews was one of
the first saw makers in this country, and his nephew
still possesses the anvil brought here by his uncle in
1819. This is said to be the first saw-anvil used in
this country.
Prior to 1 863 all of the steel used in this country
in the manufacture of saws was brought from Eng-
land. In that year Henry Disston built and operated
the first crucible-steel melting plant for saw-steel in
the United States. He also built a rolling-mill, and
from that time on used nothing but steel of his own
production. It was a long and hard struggle for
Henry Disston to secure recognition and command
trade for his American-made goods, but how well he
succeeded is known to all Americans. Up to this
time the American market was supplied almost en-
tirely by English manufacturers ; but the growth and
development of this business in the United States
since have been phenomenal, and for many years
past there have been, practically speaking, no saws
imported into this country, while, on the other hand,
the American-made goods are exported largely to
every civilized nation on the face of the globe. But
little or no advances were made in the manufacture
of hand-saws before the time of Henry Disston, so
that practically all the improvements in quality,
style, methods of manufacture, etc., were made by
him and his successors since the year 1865, and to
them is due the credit of placing American saws in
their present position, at the head of the "market
of the world " for quality, finish, and correctness of
pattern. The American manufacturers, having im-
proved on the old patterns from time to time, aim-
ing to make each as perfect as possible and distinctly
suited to the particular class of work for which it
was intended, have entirely passed the foreign
maker, who is still producing the old clumsy style,
with inferior finish, with none or scant improvements
over the goods turned out a hundred years ago. It
is safe to say that there is no other manufacturing
concern in the hardware line in the United States
that reflects more credit upon American genius, skill,
ingenuity, and enterprise than that of Henry Diss-
ton & Sons, whose works are located at Tacony, a
suburb of Philadelphia.
There are about 2700 persons employed in this
industry, with an annual product of about $5,000,-
ooo ; and there is nothing made in this country
that advertises the United States better, more sub-
stantially, more practically, or more permanently
than American hand-saws, so excellent is their qual-
ity, and so beautiful are their design and finish.
There are consumed annually in the factory of
Henry Disston & Sons 12,000 tons of steel, all of
it used in their various productions. They make
an average of 2500 dozen hand-saws each week in
the year, every one of which is a practical illustration
of the superiority of the American manufacturer.
The capital invested in the manufacture of saws in
the United States is $7,000,000 to $8,000,000.
The item of small farming-tools, such as forks,
hoes, and rakes, is one of the exceedingly interest-
ing manufactures in the hardware line, because, as
has been stated, they were one century ago being
brought here literally on the backs of the emigrants,
and from them were suspended their bundles of
clothing and household goods. Immediately there-
after the village blacksmith began to make them,
forging the goods by hand in his crude attempt to
copy those that were brought over by the emigrants.
EDWARD C. SIMMONS.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
....
Iron was the sole material used (except the handles,
which, of course, were wood). The goods were very
clumsy, unshapely, awkward to use, and heavy. In
the decade of 1820-30 the introduction of the trip-
hammer revolutionized the entire business and made
possible the production of goods by machinery. At
the present time there are probably twenty-five differ-
ent manufacturing works in the United States en-
gaged on these goods, which are commonly called
"hand agricultural tools," employing perhaps 1500
people, with a capital of $1,500,000, and an annual
product of over $2,000,000. The steel consumed
in these productions is more than 4000 tons annually.
Of this product of $2,000,000, at least $250,000,
and perhaps twice as much, is exported to foreign
countries, leaving about $1,500,000 for home con-
sumption.
It is a thoroughly well-recognized fact all over
the world that American forks, hoes, and rakes are
greatly superior to those made in foreign countries,
chiefly because of their lightness and great strength,
as well as their marked superiority of finish. In this
one single class of goods foreigners have improved
in their quality by reason of our competition — a
condition that does not exist in any other line of
hardware. These goods are exported to England,
France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Nor-
way, and Sweden, and the demand for them in those
countries is steadily growing.
The cutlery business of the United States has an
interesting history. While the American manufac-
turer of table cutlery has to a large extent — in fact,
almost wholly — driven out the foreign goods, by
reason of the excellence of quality and the economy
of manufacture, the pocket-cutlery makers have not
been so successful. However, they are to-day mak-
ing a very considerable proportion of the goods that
are consumed in the United States, and the goods
they manufacture are fully the equal of anything
made abroad. But when it is remembered that the
cost of making pocket-knives is eighty-five per cent,
labor and fifteen per cent, material, it can be seen
how difficult it is for the manufacturer of pocket-
knives in this country to compete with the cheap
labor of England and Germany, and that he must
rely greatly upon their excellence of quality, their
beauty of design, and their taste in finish. The
origin of pocket-knives in this country is traced
back to the State of Connecticut, as is so much in
the hardware line, beginning in the year 1842. The
first factory was quickly followed by the establish-
ment of five others in the same State. The result
of this was that many of the best English operatives
from the works in Sheffield came here, because they
could find steady employment and higher wages
than they had previously known. After a while
some of these operatives combined their experience
and savings, and formed a new company in the
village of Walden, N. Y., on the cooperative plan,
which is to-day the largest concern of the kind in
the United States. The pocket-knife industry of
this country is unquestionably in New York and
Connecticut. Of fifty-five ventures since 1 844 more
than thirty-two have experienced failure, owing
chiefly to their short-sighted policy of making goods
for price rather than for merit — attempting to com-
pete with the cheap labor of the old country in price
rather than in the excellence of quality and finish.
The successful ones (as is always the case) have been
the long-headed business men, following the time-
honored principle that " the best is always the cheap-
est." A large majority of these pocket-knife manu-
factories have been founded on the cooperative plan,
locating in small villages where cheap water-power
was abundant. To-day the investments represent
about $1,800,000, with the employment of about
2000 persons. During prosperous times the con-
sumption of pocket cutlery in the United States is
in the neighborhood of 1,200,000 dozen per annum,
representing perhaps $3,000,000. The larger part
of this is imported from Germany and England, in
the proportion of two to one in favor of Germany.
Prior to 1850 the American market was supplied
almost entirely from England, but the cheaper Ger-
man grades are gradually driving out the higher-
priced English goods. The home-made product has
steadily improved in quality, and while it is not al-
ways as absolutely uniform as the English product,
yet the best American knives are not surpassed by
anything produced in Sheffield, and are far superior
to the German in quality, temper, and finish. The
genius of American manufacturers is much handi-
capped in one respect, by the impossibility, so far,
of employing any labor-saving machinery worth
mentioning, since the quality of the knife depends
entirely upon the skill in manipulation and tempering
of the mechanic. Although there is no export busi-
ness in pocket cutlery, the manufacturers, at times,
have given evidence of what they can do in the line
of cheapness. Recently a single-blade knife with a
wood handle, all handsomely finished, of a quality
of steel which would take a razor edge, was produced
by the manufacturers so cheaply that after the jobber
and retailer had each had his profit it passed into
the hands of the consumer for ten cents. I do not
recall in all my business experience where an article
638
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of so much value was given for so little money. Let
me put it more plainly and emphasize it. I think
this ten-cent knife is the cheapest thing I have ever
seen, quality and usefulness considered. And bear
in mind it is made in the United States. The com-
plexity of the business may be gathered from the
statement that in the manufacture of pocket-knives
it is necessary to import mother-of-pearl from the
Philippine Islands, tortoise-shell from the Indies,
stag-horn from the parks and forests of Germany
and India, ebony from the spicy isle of Ceylon and
from Madagascar, cocoa-wood from unhappy Cuba,
and rosewood from South America. Those of us
who can recall our boyhood experiences when the
village blacksmith was the recognized cutlery maker
can well marvel at the enormous output, the amount
of capital to-day invested in this branch of cutlery,
and the exceedingly low prices at which these goods
are sold.
Table cutlery was first manufactured in this
country in 1832, before which period everything in
this line came from England. Within thirty years
thereafter, or say by 1865, the business was pretty
much in the hands of the home manufacturers, and
has been drifting steadily that way ever since, so
that in the year 1893 the entire amount of foreign
table cutlery imported into the United States was
only $195,000, and there was not five per cent, of
the consumption of this country exported. The
table cutlery made in the United States, and espe-
cially the medium-grade article, far excels in beauty,
finish, and design all foreign goods. Attempts have
been made by foreigners to copy American pat-
terns of table cutlery, but in no instance were they
successful in producing so good an article, and the
effort was finally abandoned. The State of Maine
was probably the birthplace and cradle of the manu-
facture of table cutlery, the first effort being made at
Saccarappa. In the " market of the world " there is
no such great middle class as there is in the United
States, and for that reason there is specifically a de-
mand for medium-grade, well-finished goods in this
country which does not exist in others, and which
makes it possible to manufacture more largely of
this class of table cutlery here than elsewhere. The
amount of table cutlery exported is a mere trifle-
probably not more than five per cent, of the product
of the country. The estimated value of the produc-
tion of the various table-cutlery manufactories of this
country is $3,000,000.
American shear makers have set the pace for the
world in that line of goods. They were the first to
solve the problem of welding a high-grade steel blade
to an iron backing or soft casting made to fit the
hand. This was the invention of Seth Boyden in
1826. The manufacture of shears in this country
was started in a crude way the year before, at
Elizabethport, N. J. Welding by hand was carried
on from that date until early in the sixties, when a
drop-hammer was constructed by Mr. H. Wendt, the
ram of which was raised by the friction of a rope
pulled by hand around a revolving wheel or pulley.
This rope later gave way to a flat leather strap, and
was afterward succeeded by power drop-hammers
operated by friction-rolls upon a flat board, under
perfect control by the foot of the operator, the hands
being free for the proper manipulation of the work.
Our American shears are far superior to those made
in foreign countries, and are exported in great
quantities, especially to England, South America,
and Australia. None of the foreign countries has
adopted our method of manufacturing shears, and
for that reason their goods do not compare with the
American product. There are eight manufacturers
engaged in this business in this country ; total capital
about $750,000, employing about 1000 people, with
a product of about $1,500,000.
In the manufacture of fine mechanics' tools, such
as are used by the higher class of machinists, the
United States is the peer of any country. To-day
one of the foremost concerns in this line, located
in Providence, R. I., sends its tools to England,
France, and Germany, where they are called for
and given preference because of their great accuracy
and almost infallible uniformity of manufacture. An
illustration of the esteem in which they are held is
shown in the fact that these American tools are used
in the manufacture of the new French rifle which is
attracting so much attention. Some idea of the
exactness of such work may be gathered from the
statement that in the production of fine firearms it
is necessary that thousands of parts should be inter-
changeable, and should not vary by the thousandth
part of an inch. Some of the micrometer calipers
from these works will measure the two-hundred-and-
fifty- thousandth part of an inch with accuracy ; and
this same firm, the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing
Company, have in their office a tool whereby the
difference in diameter between two steel bars of the
ten-thousandth part of an inch is made perceptible
to both the eye and the touch. In the face of such
excellence as this, is it any wonder that the export
business in this class of goods should be growing
rapidly?
The manufacture of wire cloth, such as is used for
window and door protection, to keep out mosquitos,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
flies, insects, and similar pests, has become a large
industry in this country, although its beginnings date
back only about twenty-five years, at which time the
price was ten cents per square foot, and it was all
made by hand-looms in a small way. It was first
introduced into this country from Germany in the
year 1870, and it cost at that time to import it from
ten to twelve cents per square foot. In 1873 an
improved hand-loom was operated in Cortlandt,
N. Y., made by Mr. Wickwire; and in 1874 he in-
vented and patented a shuttle motion known as the
positive motion, the shuttle being carried through
the cloth instead of being thrown, as was the case in
former manufacture. With this principle to work
upon he succeeded in making a power-loom in 1876,
which was the first power-loom to make a hard-
drawn wire cloth. This principle is now used by all
manufacturers of wire cloth. The present price is
less than one and one half cents per square foot,
which is only a small fraction of the price of twenty-
five years ago. In 1876 the consumption in this
country was about 10,000,000 square feet. At the
present time it is about 125,000,000. There is a
total capital of about $3,500,000 invested in the
manufacture of wire cloth in this country, consum-
ing about 6000 tons of steel. The export trade in
wire cloth is chiefly with Canada, Nova Scotia,
South America, Mexico, and the West Indies, and,
although light at present, is growing steadily. The
American product far excels that of foreign manu-
factories in quality. There is no country that uses
screen-cloth in windows and doors so generally as
does the United States, because there is no country
that approaches the magnitude of manufacture that
we do.
The manufacture of files in this country was
begun half a century ago in Providence, R. I. The
product at first was entirely hand-cut, with the old-
fashioned hammer and chisel ; for although machines
were invented at an early date, they were not used
until about 1858. These first machines, however,
were not successful, and it was not until 1865 that
machine-made files can be said to have been fairly
under way. The first year's output was only about
90,000 dozen, whereas now it is something like
2,500,000 dozen, aggregating over 5000 tons in
weight. Up to 1870 the importation of files from
England and from Switzerland was very large ; but
in that year imports began to fall off rapidly, and
have now practically ceased, with the exception of a
few fine Swiss files which are still brought over for
special purposes. On the other hand, the exports
are steadily growing, American files now being used
in China, Japan, India, Africa, in many of the
European centers, and in Great Britain iuelf. The
merits of the American files are so pronounced, both
as to wearing qualities, handsome appearance, and
cheapness of price, that the preference is given them
over files made in other countries. The manufacture
is extremely intricate and involves the most careful
inspection, and the marvel is that so few imperfect
files manage finally to come through. It is a well-
recognized fact in this country that machine-made
files are more evenly cut than hand-made files can
possibly be ; and as nearly all the foreign files are
still made by hand, the American product has a great
advantage. In addition to this, Americans put up
their files in very much better, more convenient, and
more attractive packages than does any manufac-
turer in foreign countries. This particularly appeals
to the trade of Australia, South America, and the
West Indies. A very large percentage of the files
manufactured in the United States is made by the
Nicholson File Company of Providence, R. I., and
Henry Disston & Sons of Philadelphia, in the vari-
ous factories which they own or control. There are
148 file manufacturers in this country, employing
2400 people. The estimated capital invested is
$3,000,000, and the total value of the annual pro-
duct about $3,200,000.
The name of wood-screws recalls the somewhat
familiar, time-honored joke of the would-be legis-
lator who was one of the committee to revise the
tariff, and who visited New England to consult the
manufacturers of wood-screws. He was a native of
the wild and woolly West, and saw no reason why
New England manufacturers needed a tariff on
wood-screws, for, according to his observation, the
raw material, in the shape of growing trees, was
abundantly cheap all through the New England
States. There seems to be good evidence, as in the
case of many other apparently modern inventions,
that the gimlet-pointed screw was made as far back
as 1755. The first application of machinery on rec-
ord for making screws was in France in 1569. The
first English patent was obtained in 1760. From
1846 to 1849 came the inventions of Thomas J.
Sloan, and these, in connection with the inventions
of Mr. Harvey, form the basis of the screw-
machinery of to-day. Screw-machinery was in
operation in this country in 1810 in threading
wood-screws, and was known as French machinery,
having originated in eastern France. Some of it
was in use as far back as 1 798 in New York State.
In 1835 came the invention of machines for head-
ing, nicking, and shaving screws, and in 1842 the
640
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
very important invention of the automatic feed for
supplying blanks to screw threading and shaving
machines.
One of the earliest manufactories in this country
was established in 1838, with a capital of only
$20,000. About 1841 the first American gimlet-
pointed screws were placed on the market. Since
that time screw-machinery of this character has
been exported to England, France, Germany, Rus-
sia, Austria, and Italy. At present there are twenty
screw-manufacturing concerns in this country, em-
ploying many thousand men, and with many mil-
lions of dollars' capital invested, as the business is
very complicated, requiring large capital and deli-
cately organized machinery. The machinery itself is
among the most perfect ever invented, working
with almost human intelligence and precision. Few
screws are exported, owing to the severe competition
of the great screw-manufactories of Birmingham, but
the American article is generally regarded as more
perfect than any made abroad.
Shovels and spades were manufactured in this
country, in Massachusetts, as far back as 1776, in
a small way; but since that time the methods of
manufacture have improved so rapidly and intelli-
gently that the American product now far outstrips
that of the rest of the world. The Ames factory at
North Easton, Mass., has a world-wide reputation,
and exports its goods in great quantities to almost all
parts of the civilized world. There are many other
large factories in this country, producing an enor-
mous quantity of these goods annually. The Ameri-
can goods are greatly preferred to the foreign article,
because of their being vastly superior in quality and
attractiveness, giving far greater satisfaction, and
having less weight, whereas the foreign goods are
heavy and much more clumsy. There are about
fourteen shovel-manufactories in this country, with
a total product of about 400,000 dozen shovels and
spades.
Horseshoe-nails are prominent among the manu-
factured articles distributed by the hardware trade.
In 1859 Mr. Putnam, of the Putnam Nail Com-
pany, undertook to make a black horseshoe-nail the
same as the English " Griffin," and was the only
manufacturer in this country who succeeded in mak-
ing one identically the same, unless, perhaps, it was
the old Forge Village Nail Company. The progress
of horse-nail making in this country was very slow,
and it was not until 1872 that much had been done
in this line. After that the progress was rapid, and
soon thereafter the foreign goods were entirely driven
out of the market. Nails in this country are made
by what is called the hot forging process, and are
hammer-pointed. None are made in this manner
abroad, and for that reason the American horse-nail
is far superior to those made in other countries.
There are twelve horseshoe-nail manufacturers in
the United States, employing about 1000 people,
with a capital of about $2,000,000, having a total
product of, say, 9000 tons, which have a market
value of over $2,000,000.
Wire nails, which have so rapidly superseded the
cut nails, were not made in this country until 1 886,
at which time they were first produced and put up
in kegs the same as cut nails. The total production
that year was 600,000 kegs. In 1887 this output
was doubled, and continued increase has been shown
each year since until the year 1894, when the pro-
duct was 5,681,801 kegs, with an estimated product
for the year 1895 of from 7,000,000 to 7,500,000
kegs. These goods are made so cheaply in this
country that they have been exported to some ex-
tent. One single order for American wire nails was
taken in London for a lot of 60,000 kegs, in Janu-
ary, 1895, the goods being produced and sold
cheaper in this country than anywhere else in the
world. At present there are sixteen wire-nail mills
in operation in the United States, controlled by ten
different companies, with a capital invested of about
$8,000,000. The value of the product, based upon
present prices, is $15,000,000. There are 5000 peo-
ple employed in the wire-nail mills.
Barbed wire was first manufactured in the United
States in 1874, at De Kalb, 111. In that year there
were not over 500 to 600 tons produced, and the
price was twenty cents for painted wire. The next
year the product increased to 3000 tons, and five
years later (1880) it had made such a great gain
that the record was 100,000 tons; while for the
year ending March i, 1895, the total product was
190,000 tons, at which time the average price, which
was originally twenty cents, was reduced to about
one and one half cents per pound. Of all the
barbed wire manufactured in the world fully ninety
per cent, is produced in the United States, and
there are annually exported from 20,000 to 30,000
tons. Of this amount the Consolidated Steel and
Wire Company, with headquarters at Chicago, 111.,
are exporting about ninety per cent.
At the present time there are seventeen barbed-
wire mills in operation, with a capital invested of
$8,350,000, and a total product, based upon present
prices (1895), of $14,000,000, and employing 7000
people.
Tin-plate making is among our youngest manu-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
041
factures, considered in reference to the amount of
its product. No industry in the United States has
shown such phenomenal growth as has that of the
production of tin-plate. It is safe to say that
there was substantially none of it prior to 1891.
Since that time, or in the brief space of, say, four
years, about seventy manufacturers have entered the
field, nearly all of them equipped with the most
modern plants and with ample funds to do the work
in the best and most economical manner possible.
The result is that home manufacturers are to-day in
position to supply this country with at least one half
of its consumption ; and when it is realized that the
annual consumption is about 6,000,000 boxes, or
in the neighborhood of $21,000,000 in value, the
importance of this wonderful growth can be ap-
preciated. Prior to 1891 almost all of it was im-
ported from England, whereas now it is a question
of only a short time when the home manufacturers
will not only control the entire market of the
United States, but will be seeking other fields to
conquer. The native product is superior to the
foreign both as to the quality of steel used for
tinning, and again in that advantage which Yankee
ingenuity almost invariably brings — labor-saving
machinery of every kind. The Welsh tin-plate
makers have progressed very little since they began
the industry, and the prospects are that a hundred
years from this date will find them just where they
are now ; while the American manufacturers have
already made radical changes and introduced a num-
ber of marked and valuable improvements.
The American hardware man has often been said
to be a philanthropist rather than in the ordinary
sense a merchant or shopkeeper, for the reason that
he gives better value for the money that is spent
with him than is done in any other line of business.
An investment of a dollar in his store will last
longer, be more useful, do better work, give greater
satisfaction, and receive a higher degree of apprecia-
tion than will a similar investment in any other
article or class of goods that is made. A mechanic
will frequently, after using a tool for which he has
paid perhaps one dollar, become so attached to it
by reason of its excellence that he would decline to
sell it for five dollars. It is a fact that many times
a barber who has purchased a razor for a single
dollar will, after years of use, be offered five or ten
dollars for it. In this sense, perhaps, the claim of
philanthropy may be defended. Another view of it
was presented recently in the case of a distinguished
lawyer who was traveling over one of the Northwest-
ern railways, having with him his son, a young man
just from college, to whom he was showing the road.
The latter asked for what purpose the ax and hand-
saw which were covered with glass at the end of the
car were used, to which the father replied :
" That is for a very peculiar use in this country.
The railroad companies have found from experience
that when accidents occur and people are killed the
surviving heirs usually bring a damage suit for about
$5000, that being the customary figure for which
suit is brought ; whereas if a passenger is wounded,
maimed, or mutilated, he brings suit for $25,000,
$50,000, or $100,000. Hence these saws are placed
at the end of the car, so that in the event of accident,
where passengers are wounded, the conductor and
brakemen may immediately kill them, saw them up,
and thereby reduce the amount of damages that will
be asked for."
CHAPTER XCVIII
THE STATIONERY TRADE
IN early days dealers in books were denomi-
nated stationarii, probably from the open stalls
at which they carried on their business ; though
statio is a general term in Low Latin for "shop."
They sold, among other things, materials for writ-
ing, which have retained the name of stationery,
although now embracing thousands of articles then
wholly unknown. Indeed, long before the invention
of printing there flourished a craft or trade called
stationers. D'Israeli, in his "Amenities of Litera-
ture," says : " They were scribes and limners, and
dealers in manuscript copies, and in parchment and
paper and other literary wares." The stationer's
stock consisted largely of books or works in manu-
script, which were transcribed, loaned, or sold. To
these were added parchment, paper of various kinds,
ink, quill pens, sealing-wax, etc. But after the in-
troduction of printing, and the commencement of
the manufacture of paper in an organized way,
he became, as it were, a dealer in all kinds of arti-
cles which pertained to the literary vocation. To-
day he is not only stationer per se, but also, to a
greater or lesser degree, designer, printer, engraver,
lithographer, photo-engraver, and bookbinder; for
in the ramifications of his business he brings into use
all of these different callings, in order to satisfy the
multiplying wants of his customers. The latter
nowadays include merchants, bankers, brokers, rail-
way and steamship men, lawyers, doctors, jour-
nalists, and ministers, as well as all classes of the
body politic, each of which, in turn, requires some-
thing different from the others in the general sta-
tionery line. Such being the case, it is difficult to
define in the large modern wholesale or retail estab-
lishments of this description that part of the stock
or business which is strictly stationery and that which
belongs to fancy goods or to other kindred branches
of trade and manufacture. The tendency of the
modern distributing trade in nearly all lines is to
return to first principles ; that is, to group together
under one roof a heterogeneous assortment of arti-
cles that bear no direct relationship to one another.
This tendency is as manifest in the stationery busi-
ness as in other departments of merchandise. The
crude hand-paper, old inkhorn, and "gray goose-
quill " of older days have been supplanted by almost
numberless articles of greater beauty and conve-
nience answering like purposes.
The Guild of Stationers in London, England,
which was the earliest organization of the kind
known in England, was formed in 1403, many years
prior to the introduction of the art of printing into
that country by Caxton. It was chartered as the
Stationers' Company by Philip and Mary in 1556.
The charter was renewed by Queen Elizabeth in
1559, exemplified in 1684, and confirmed by King
William and Queen Mary in 1690, and as such
exists to this day. The guild owns and occupies
the building known as Stationers' Hall, in which is
kept a book for the registration of the copyrights
granted in the United Kingdom.
Toward the close of the seventeenth century,
when New York had been under the domination
of the English for over a score of years, it was
resolved to establish printing here on the same plan
as that already in existence at Cambridge, Mass.,
and at Philadelphia, Pa., where William Bradford,
printer, had located. In connection with Ritten-
house, Bradford built the first paper-mill in this
country, which was erected on a branch of the
Wissahickon, known even to this day as Paper-
Mill Run. Conjoined with Bradford and Ritten-
house in this enterprise were Robert Turner, Thomas
Tresse, and Samuel Carpenter, also of Philadelphia.
The mill was built in 1690, and was composed of
rough, unhewn logs put up in the same style as were
many of the dwelling-houses of those early days.
Some years later Bradford removed his printing-
642
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
press from Philadelphia to New York, and estab-
lished himself there ; thus depriving the former city
for a number of years of a printing-press.
It may be well in this connection to particularize
the printing-presses which had been established in
this country up to this date. Cambridge, Mass., had
one as early as 1639; Boston, one in 1675; Vir-
ginia, one in 1682, which was stopped by Lord
Effingham in 1683, and no printing again allowed
to be done there until 1729; Philadelphia, one in
1685, which was removed to New York in 1693,
and none again until some years later ; New York,
one in 1693 ; Connecticut, one in 1709 ; and Mary-
land, one in .1726. As to paper-mills, with the
exception of the one near Philadelphia, none had
been established in this country until 1725 or 1726,
when Bradford erected one at Elizabethtown, N. J.
Up to 1742 Bradford continued in the printing and
stationery business in New York, when he was suc-
ceeded by James Parker, who carried on the trade
successfully for a number of years afterward.
Hugh Gaine was another of the old printers and
stationers of New York. He came originally from
Belfast, Ireland, and became a journeyman for
James Parker. In 1752 he began business for him-
self, and in that and the succeeding year brought
out " Hutchins's Almanac," and a journal entitled
the New York " Mercury," which continued to be
regularly published until the close of the Revolution-
ary War. His store was in Hanover Square, where
he sold books and stationery, as well as carrying on
printing and binding. He occasionally issued books
on his own account. When the colonial army took
possession of New York he retired to Newark, N. J.,
and remained there for a time, publishing a loyalist
newspaper. At the close of the war he petitioned the
legislature of New York for permission to return,
which he obtained. He stopped his journal, but
continued his printing, book, and stationery business.
He died in 1809, leaving a fortune.
Aside from those already mentioned we have very
few authentic records of other stationers in New
York until about the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Printing was then very much improved,
as was also the manufacture of paper. In 1812,
New York, besides one periodical (a medical quar-
terly), had seven daily, three triweekly, and two
weekly journals, in which the booksellers and station-
ers especially had the largest advertisements, as they
had the greatest number of articles for sale. They
had supplies of stationery, including paper, ink,
wafers, pumice, pumice-boxes, shining-sand and
blossom-blotting paper, not to mention books,
013
pamphlets, and a quantity of quack medicine*.
Printed forms then were few, u every lawyer en-
grossed his own matter. There were no printed
cards like those which have since come into use.
Probably the whole of the job printing then done in
the entire United States was not, in amount, equal
to that done at the present day in some interior vil-
lage.
Stationery was not distinct from printing and
bookselling until 1810 and even later. It was de-
clared by a stationer who did business shortly after
that time that " the stock of the stationer proper
usually consisted of a few quarts of ink, a ream or
two of writing-paper, and a barrel or two of black
sand, the people making their own quill pens."
Writing-paper until after 1830 always had a rough
surface, and was made only in three or four sizes.
Sealing-wax was then an important article; enve-
lopes were not practically in existence, although
some few crude hand-made affairs had been shown
earlier in Europe.
The early directories of the city of New York
give the names of no paper dealers, and but a mod-
erate number of those engaged in the kindred lines
of printing, publishing, and bookselling. David
Longworth published directories at the Park. The
exact location was where Hitchcock's music-store
now is, on Park Row.
From 1786 to 1796, Robert Hodges, stationer
and bookseller, was located at Maiden Lane, and
carried on a very successful trade. Following him,
the name of Doubleday appears more or less prom-
inently in the trade, in which it continued for over
three quarters of a century. Contemporary with
him in the early days was Duyckinck, located at 1 10
Pearl Street, who continued in business for a long
time. He was a very extensive publisher. In 1831
we first hear of David Felt, of Boston, who estab-
lished himself here, and afterward at Feltvflle, N. J.,
where he engaged in the manufacture of station-
ery, etc. He was a man of strong individuality,
with almost revolutionary tendencies in his methods
for the advancement of the stationery trade. He
was carried down in the panic of 1857, and never
was a factor in business afterward. In 1837 the
name of Louis I. Cohen first appeared as an import-
ing stationer of prominence. He amassed a compe-
tency, and lived to a ripe old age in which to enjoy
the fruits of his industry. Among the names that
have been continuous in the stationery and kindred
trades for the last fifty years, and whose successors
are still active in business in New York to-day, are
Bowne & Company, established in 1837 ; E. B. Clay-
644
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
ton & Sons, in 1846 ; Francis & Loutrel, in 1844 ;
and W. A. Wheeler, in 1849.
About 1845 Richard Bainbridge first came to
New York, and a change was introduced in the
mode of doing business. He began the English
and continental method of traveling with samples,
and obtained large orders from the start, not only
from the few importers on the coast, but from job-
bers, who from this time were prominent buyers of
foreign goods. About 1850 the house of Richard
Bainbridge & Company was established in New
York, and began to carry a stock here. After the
panic of 1857 Mr. Bainbridge left the stationery
business, and the firm was changed to Bainbridge
Brothers. In 1861 the firm became Henry Bain-
bridge & Company, which still continues at 99 and
1 01 William Street, where it originally was formed,
being familiarly known throughout the United States
as a legitimate and exclusively wholesale house. Mr.
Benjamin Lawrence began the importing of station-
ery about this time, and afterward, as B. & P.
Lawrence, became the largest importers known in
the history of the trade. Henry Cohen was estab-
lished in Philadelphia at this time, and his son,
Charles J. Cohen, worthily succeeded his father,
more, however, as a manufacturing stationer than
as an importer.
In Boston, Benjamin and Josiah Loring, twin
brothers, had established themselves in business as
bookbinders in 1798, and were located on Water
Street, where they continued together until 1805,
when they separated, Benjamin remaining at the old
place and Josiah being on Devonshire Street. In
1810 the latter was located on School Street as a
bookbinder and paper ruler, removing thence in
1813 to i South Row or Maryborough Street, oppo-
site School Street, where J. L. Fairbanks has been
since his death. Benjamin Loring in 1807 removed
to State Street, where he remained until 1810, then
changing his place to 50 State Street. About this
time Edward Cotton was doing a good business
on Marlborough Street, and some ten years later, in
1820, David Felt was also largely engaged in the
stationery business at 83 State Street. This was the
David Felt who afterward removed to New York,
and finally to New Jersey. Charles Himpson, the
publisher of the "Boston Directory," Samuel G.
Goodrich ("Peter Parley"), Leonard C. Bowles, and
Andrew J. Allen, all on State Street, were also
among the principal stationers of the same period.
Lemuel Gulliver succeeded David Felt, and Thomas
Groom, an Englishman, from New York, shortly
afterward took the place of the former, especially
in the stationery line, in which he had not proved
very successful. There were also about this time
many stationers in Cornhill, Boston, doing a moder-
ate country trade ; but there were few successful
ones among the number. Jones & Oakes, Jones &
Holman, Oliver Holman, and Aaron R. Gay suc-
cessively occupied 124 State Street. Mr. Gay is
still in business at the old quarters, which are now
known numerically as 122.
About the year 1816, John Hooper, a young
Englishman, who had been in a newspaper printing-
office in New York, came to Benjamin Loring to
learn the bookbinding business ; but his employer,
finding him useful and efficient in the store, kept
him there, and finally, in 1826, admitted him to a
copartnership interest in the firm, which at that date
was known under the style of Benjamin Loring &
Company. Thus it will be seen that Thomas Groom
& Company and Benjamin Loring & Company were
prominent stationers in Boston at this early date ; and
while the former name still continues the same, the
latter was succeeded by Hooper, Lewis & Company,
both being favorably known throughout Europe and
the United States as extensive importers of and deal-
ers in all counting-house requisites.
Previous to 1845 travelers in this line of business
were unknown. At the present day most of the
wholesale business is done either by travelers or by
mail. The principals in the trade seldom meet one
another, except occasionally in an incidental or social
way. Formerly it was thought necessary for all the
large dealers at a distance to visit New York, Bos-
ton, and Philadelphia once or twice a year, as also
for the importers to go to Europe. Travelers and
samples, through our excellent mail and railway
facilities, have changed all this, and the merchants
living in remote sections of the Union can now get
their supplies as promptly and satisfactorily as if they
were on the spot in person to select for themselves.
Chicago fifty years ago was of little importance
from a stationer's point of view, but in less than ten
years afterward it developed some of the largest
buyers of stationery. Among the great Chicago
houses the firm of A. H. & C. Burley may be men-
tioned as large manufacturing stationers and jobbers.
When the Illinois Central, Rock Island, and other
railroads running out of Chicago were being built,
foundations were laid for a progress in that city that
makes it to-day the market to which our manufac-
turers and importers are equally attracted. Chicago
can boast of more first-class stationery-stores than
any other city in the United States. The farther
west we go, attractions increase. St. Louis has many
JOHN G. BAINBRIDGE.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
large manufacturing and jobbing houses in this line,
that are substantial and impressive. The business
established by Mr. Loring in that city is now known
as the Robert D. Patterson Stationery Company, and
has been active in the trade for more than half a
century.
San Francisco has several houses worthy of that
enterprising and favored land of sunshine and flow-
ers. H. S. Crocker & Company have one of the
most complete manufacturing establishments on the
Western coast. Payot, Upham & Company, another
enterprising house in that city, are favorably known
on the Eastern as well as the Western coast. The
large firms in San Francisco are probably better
equipped for work than most of our Eastern man-
ufacturers, because, being farther from the center
of activity, they have naturally become more self-
reliant.
The growth of labor-saving office devices has
been remarkable during the last twenty-five years.
In all modern offices will be found files, clips, and
filing-cases of varied and complete manufacture, so
carefully and economically arranged that it is no
longer necessary to overhaul a lot of old boxes and
bundles of former years' accumulation, but one can
go directly to his index and in a few minutes exam-
ine any records required, each being readily return-
able to its proper position in the files, neither defaced
nor damaged. Cameron, Amberg & Company, of
Chicago, were the first in the market with their
cabinets, filing-cases, and indexes, and reaped great
benefit from them almost from the beginning. Up
to this day this firm is prominent in labor-saving
devices, favorably known in mercantile and legal
offices. Shannon's files, indexes, and filing-cases
have a world-wide reputation, and are second to
none in usefulness and popularity. Brower Brothers,
of New York, came later in the field, but steadily
and surely won their way to public favor. The
Globe Company, of Cincinnati, has gained a well-
deserved reputation for many novelties in counting-
house requisites, and its fame has reached the utmost
limits of the United States, and its wares are famil-
iar to many parts also of the outside world.
Turning now from the consideration of the per-
sonnel of the stationery trade to its methods, fea-
tures, and business operations, we find great changes
since 1795. Papeteries, pads in all styles, and de-
vices from the cheapest pencil paper to the fine
stamped initial have seriously injured the stationer,
upon whom we formerly relied for the sale of the
monograms and special styles which are so neces-
sary for every well-regulated writing-desk and library.
The paper maker may not regret the change this clasc
of manufacture has brought about, but the stationer
proper has great cause to do so, as all chutes of mer-
chants throughout the country can and do sell a pad
or papeterie, with or without envelopes to match, for
a nominal profit. No technical knowledge or train-
ing is required to sell a package for ten cents that cost
nine. The department-stores have been the greatest
detriment to this part of the stationer's business.
Envelopes as now made and used are of very
recent origin, yet their occasional employment as a
covering for letters extends back several hundred
years. The first ones were very crude, hand-made
affairs, and, aside from the purposes for which
they were used, bore but little resemblance to the
machine-made article of to-day. In the English
state-paper office there is said to be one bearing the
date of 1696, which in shape or style resembles
some of those in use to-day. In " Gil Bias," pub-
lished in 1715, allusion is also made to the use of
envelopes. But with the exception of the instances
noted, envelopes, used as a covering for letters or
written communications, made no showing whatever
in a commercial way until after the introduction of
penny postage in England, in 1840. Then they
became common in that country, and in America
some four or five years later. Congress made a
marked reduction in the cost of postage, and made
it uniform for all distances, in 1851 or 1852, lead-
ing to increased correspondence between the people
of the various sections of the Union. The use of
envelopes became still more common soon there-
after, and they were in great request. Up to this
time they had been made by hand, and the process
was necessarily slow and expensive. They were not
self-sealing, but wafers and sealing-wax were then in
every household and office, whereas to-day these
articles are almost obsolete except for parcels.
The earliest manufacturer of envelopes in New
York was an Englishman named Dangerfield, who
began about 1846, and was followed by Samuel
Raynor, whose successors, the Raynor Envelope
Company, are to-day to be found in William Street,
where in the manufacture of millions of this article
they employ machines which are beautiful examples
of perfected mechanism, and which go through with
all the varied processes of the making in about one
second. The daily consumption of envelopes alone
in this, country is almost beyond computation, for
the reason that the letters which go through the
mail form but a part of those used locally and other-
wise in an unstamped condition.
The pencil was probably the first instrument used
646
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
by artists. It consisted of lumps of colored earth
or chalk, cut in convenient form for holding in the
hand. With such pencils were executed the line-
drawings of Aridicies the Corinthian and Tele-
phanes the Sicyonian, and also the early one-col-
ored pictures or monochromata of the Egyptians and
Greeks. The manufacture of lead-pencils by ma-
chinery, however, is of very modern origin. In
this country the first lead-pencils were made by Mr.
Louis J. Cohen, about 1837, who soon discontinued
their manufacture, and the German lead-pencil began
to control our markets. The rapid growth of do-
mestic pencil manufacture, fostered by protection in
the closing decades of the century, has driven im-
ported pencils almost out of the country, save the
higher grades, which cannot as yet be produced
here with profit to the makers. The export trade
in medium grades of pencils has already reached
important proportions in our foreign commerce, and
promises to attain to still greater enlargement in the
near future.
The earliest pen, we are told, was a kind of reed,
split or so fashioned as to retain and give off, as
required, colored liquid, or ink, as it is now gener-
ally termed. Quill pens came into use about the
time of the introduction of modern paper. At the
beginning of this century pens began to be made
wholly of metal. They consisted of a barrel of very
thin steel, and were cut and slit so as to resemble
the quill pen as closely as possible. They were,
however, but indifferently successful, and, being ex-
pensive (the retail price at first being half a crown,
and subsequently sixpence), they made but little
headway. Their chief fault was hardness, which
produced a disagreeable scratching sound on the
paper. In England, in 1820, Joseph Gillott, who
dealt in the metal pens then made, hit upon an im-
provement which, by removing this great defect,
gave a stimulus to the manufacture which caused it
to be developed to an extent truly marvelous. This
consisted in making three slits instead of the single
one formerly, and by these means much greater
softness and flexibility were acquired. He also in-
troduced machinery for the purpose of carrying out
his improvements. In this country the old-fashioned
quill pen held supreme sway until about 1844 or
J845i when the steel pen began to be more gener-
ally used, at least commercially, although the former
was employed for many years later to a very large
extent in households, schools, and colleges. To-
day, however, the rising generation hardly knows
what a quill pen is, so rapidly have metal pens of
all grades taken its place.
We are told that nothing much was known about
ink by the ancients. The use of the stylus, however,
indicates the employment by them, as well as by
Asiatic peoples in general, of carbon inks. Indeed,
Pliny, Dioscorides, and other ancient writers give
evidence that carbon in the form of soot was the
essential constituent of ancient ink ; and in early
modern history we know that liquid preparations
made from various vegetable and mineral substances
were used. But ink corresponding in kind and
character to that employed to-day for writing pur-
poses came into use in Europe about the time that
paper manufacture and block printing were intro-
duced there. In this country Thaddeus Davids
was probably the earliest one to engage in the man-
ufacture of ink on a large scale or in an organized
way. He made ink for writing and copying pur-
poses, and he has been followed by several noted
manufacturers. In printing-inks especially the busi-
ness has assumed enormous proportions, and as
to writing-fluids of the various descriptions, they
have become household and office necessities,
the manufacture and sale of which are also of
large proportions. Of late years the type-writer,
with its prepared self-inking ribbon, for general
commercial purposes, has made a serious inroad in
the sale of writing-ink proper. Slates and slate-
pencils are doomed and are going out of use very
rapidly.
In the foregoing but a few of the chief articles
made or handled by the stationery trade, wholesale
and retail, have been enumerated. Among those
most commonly sold by the retail trade of the present
may be mentioned the following : arm-rests, albums,
rubber bands and rings, backgammon, chess, and
checker boards, baskets, alphabet and kindergarten
blocks, blotters, pads, book-covers, boxes, tin, bone,
wood, and japan paper-cutters, penholders and pens,
paints, writing-papers (flat, folded, and boxed), paper-
weights, rubbers, rulers, school-bags, school-books,
scales, sealing-wax, seals, shears, scissors, twine, slates,
sponge-cups, straps, tags, suspension rings, tapes,
tape-measures, toothpicks, tracing-cloth, wafers, eye-
lets, pins, wires, etc.
Many of our retail stationers have also news-
rooms, book-stores, small printing outfits, and to-
bacco and cigars united with their other business,
so that it is often difficult to tell what part or parts
belong strictly to stationery. In fact, as previously
observed, the stationery business, both in the man-
ufacturing and selling departments, in the United
States is so closely related to the paper manufacture
proper, the printing, bookbinding, and booksell-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
647
ing trades, as well as other industries, that it is hard
to get any accurate figures with which to make a
numerical exhibit of its progress. The census
reports do not afford any very definite idea of its
growth or present status. From the imports and
exports as reported by the government it is possible
to obtain some idea, although there are certain gen-
eralizations in the classification of articles under this
head that render exactitude impossible.
The importation from abroad of writing and book
papers has fallen off materially of late yean. Ex-
cept hand-made papers for drawing and ledger pin-
poses, the American papers are equal to all require-
ments. Without going into a detailed analysis of the
above summary, however, it will be seen that our im-
ports of paper and paper manufactures are still largely
in excess of our exports of the same articles, includ-
ing stationery not made of paper.
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS OF STATIONERY, 1869-1894.
ARTICLES.
1869.
,870.
1875.
ARTICLES.
,*,
1885.
ARTICLES.
mo.
<*M.
IMPORTS :
$"59.353
1460,268
568
$132,480
SH.Sg2
740,258
646
IMPORTS:
Paper, and mfrs. of.
EXPORTS :
(Dom.)
Writine-paper and
envelopes
Stationery, except
$1,671,110
» 1,189,498
$j,59»,8o»
395. "3
793.037
IMPORTS:
Paper, and mfrv of
EXPO«TI :
(Dom.)
Writing-paper and
envelopes
Stationery, except
All others •
$.,816,860
115,041
49°.*73
1,009,144
84.305
683.171
«,7>3.9»»
EXPORTS:
(Dom.)
Paper and stationery. .
1 Includes paper and manufactures of paper.
> Includes stationery, except paper.
CHAPTER XCIX
OTHER INDUSTRIES
ALUMINUM 648
AMMUNITION 667
ARTIFICIAL FEATHERS AND FLOWERS.. 671
ATHLETIC AND SPORTING GOODS 649
AWNINGS, TENTS, AND SAILS 650
BAGS AND BAGGING 669
BASKETS, RATAN AND WILLOW WARE. . 674
BILLIARD-TABLES 655
BLACKING AND STOVE-POLISH 672
BOATS, CANOES, AND SHELLS 662
BOTTLING AND BOTTLERS* SUPPLIES.... 673
Box MAKING 664
BROOMS AND BRUSHES 657
BUTTONS 657
CELLULOID 656
CHOCOLATE AND COCOA 672
COLLARS AND CUFFS 668
COOPERAGE 663
CORK 673
CORUNDUM 671
DYESTUFFS AND DYEING 671
ELEVATORS 653
ENVELOPES 666
FELT 674
FIREARMS 665
FIRE EXTINGUISHERS 665
FLAGS AND BANNERS 674
GLOVES AND MITTENS 666
GLUE 653
HATS 654
LAMPS 663
LAMP CHIMNEYS 664
LEAD-PENCILS . 670
MATHEMATICAL AND ENGINEERING INSTRUMENTS. 659
OPTICAL GOODS 658
PAVING MATERIALS 670
ALUMINUM
PAGE
PENS 660
PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIALS 632
PINS 66a
PIPES AND SMOKERS' ARTICLES 655
PLAYING-CARDS 660
PRECIOUS STONES AND GEMS 668
PRINTING-PRESSES 630
SCALES AND BALANCES 659
SCHOOL FURNITURE 673
STRAW HATS 656
SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS 650
TOYS 661
TRUNKS AND VALISES 670
TYPE-SETTING MACHINES 649
UMBRELLAS 652
UNDERTAKERS' FURNISHINGS 651
WINDOW-SHADES 672
YACHTS — SAILING AND STEAM 661
THE aluminum industry in the United States
has become of considerable importance, and
though still young, it promises to be one of
the greatest of American industries. The American
manufacture has grown from practically nothing in
1 884, until now the value of the annual output amounts
to $450,000, one third of the total supply of the world
coming from the United States. The manufacture
of pure aluminum in this country for industrial pur-
poses was begun by the Pittsburg Reduction Com-
pany at Pittsburg in 1888, under what are known
as the Hall patents (an electrical process). Three
years previous to this the Cowles Company, located
at Lockport, N. Y., made aluminum alloys, but the
Pittsburg Reduction Company is now the sole Ameri-
can producer. Its founders were Charles M. Hall,
inventor of the electrolytic process, Alfred E. Hunt,
now president of the company, and George H. Clapp,
at present secretary. In 1891 the company's plant
was moved to New Kingston, Westmoreland County,
Pa., where its works cover ten acres of ground.
Within the past year the company has opened works
at Niagara Falls, being the first manufacturing plant
to receive electric power from the falls. In 1884
the price of aluminum was $16 per pound. The
first metal produced by the Pittsburg Reduction
Company in 1888 was sold for $8 per pound. In a
short time the price was reduced to $4, then to $2 ;
but aluminum is now sold by the Pittsburg Reduc-
tion Company in large quantities at prices as low as
thirty-five cents a pound. The metal is now able to
compete with copper and brass in price, when the
relative specific gravities of the two metals are taken
into consideration, the specific gravity of aluminum
being 2.56, brass about 8.21, and copper 8.93. It
is thus seen that from the beginning of the produc-
tion of aluminum by electricity in the United States,
ten years ago, the metal has steadily forged to the
front, as one of the most important in the useful arts.
The greatest single achievement in the use of alumi-
num to date was in the use of the metal in the con-
struction of the yacht Defender, the American cham-
pion in the great international yacht-race for the
America's cup, off the New Jersey coast, in 1895.
The Defender's plates above the water-line, her deck-
beams, and all of her fittings were entirely of alumi-
num. By thus using this substance on her topsides,
deck-beams, and fittings, the Defender was given great
lightness above the water-line, and more weight
could be put in her keel, which greatly added to her
stiffness. Within the next few years it is believed that
several American yachts will be constructed wholly
or in part of aluminum, and that the metal will also
enter into the construction of large ships. Sev-
eral aluminum torpedo-boats have been constructed
abroad during the past year for foreign navies.
One of the most beneficial results of the use of
aluminum is to give the country a substitute for
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
wood for many articles. Owing to its lightness it
has been substituted for wood in parts of machin-
ery where no other metal has heretofore been found
practicable. In marine work, particularly, alumi-
num, it is said, will replace ordinary timber, as well
as other metals, in upper works, rigging, and fitting.
There seems to be no limit to the number of uses to
which it may be put, owing to its great strength and
lightness ; and, though the youngest of the metals in
practical application, it is apparently destined to be
one of the greatest and most useful.
TYPE-SETTING MACHINES
TYPE-SETTING MACHINES have now been in use in
the United States more or less since 1850, and have
been known through patents since 1840. The first
one of the kind, however, which was actually at
work for any length of time was the Mitchell, which
was employed in New York from 1855 till 1867 or
1 868. It dropped types on belts of different lengths,
so that the characters standing furthest from the
operator reached the line as soon as those nearest.
One dozen of these were all that were made, and they
were used in only one office. About 1870 the Burr
machine came into use, followed by the Thorne and
the McMillan. All are constructed with keyboards
like a type-writer, and touching a key displaces a
type from the end of a line stored much higher
than the keyboard. It drops into grooves which
are so contrived that the letter cannot turn around
while falling, all the grooves converging toward a
common center. When the character reaches this
place it is stopped in its fall and gently moved for-
ward against the preceding letters by means of a flut-
ter-arm or beater. After sufficient letters have been
dropped to complete a line it is spaced and justified
by hand. After being used the characters are sep-
arated and returned to their grooves by a distribut-
ing-machine. A set of these machines requires the
labor of about two men and a half, and it is able to
perform the work of from four to eight compositors.
Another type of machine, entirely distinct from this,
is one in which the molds or matrices for the
characters are assembled, spaced, and justified, a
cast of the line then being made. It requires no
thought for the spacing or justification, these oper-
ations being automatically performed ; nor does it
need to distribute, as, when the lines have once
been used, they are thrown into the melting-pot.
This machine was invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler
as early as 1876, but experimenting continued until
1 886, minor changes having since been made. In
the year just mentioned machines were put into the
offices of the Louisville " Courier-Journal " and the
New York "Tribune." Until about 1891, how-
ever, the expenditures of the company were much
greater than the income, and the projectors were fre-
quently in financial straits. The machine has been
adopted in nearly all the larger daily newspaper
offices of the United States, and in many of those
of the second and third rank, between aooo and
3000 now being employed. This machine does
work equivalent to that of four or five men. Fac-
tories have been built in Brooklyn, Baltimore, Mont-
real, and Manchester, England. The capital in-
vested in the company is about $5,000,000, and
its annual out-turn at present is about $3,000,000.
This machine is a marvel of ingenuity, as are several
of the machines which handle movable types. The
most largely used of the latter is the Thorne, with
an output of about $300,000 a year. Recent nota-
ble advances in popular favor must be credited to
the Empire machine, which is now being introduced
into the office of the New York " Evening Sun."
The McMillan machine has been found adaptable
for book composition, and is in use at the De Vinne
Press. An invention which casts individual types as
well as sets them, is known as the Lanston Monotype
Machine, and is now in operation in the compos-
ing room of the " Philadelphia Inquirer." Immense
sums of money have been lost in the invention and
exploitation of these machines. It is understood
that $600,000 has been sunk in the Paige, probably
the most ingenious and complicated machine ever
invented by man ; while the Mergenthaler is said to
have lost $1,300,000 before it reached the paying
point. Perhaps 1200 persons are employed in the
manufacture of all that at present are for sale.
ATHLETIC AND SPORTING GOODS
ATHLETIC goods are a product chiefly of the last
thirty years. Gymnasiums existed before that time,
having been begun as early as 1 850 ; and dumb-
bells and a few other articles were made in small
quantities previous to that year by a few manufac-
turers, being sold to the general trade as hardware,
books, stationery, and toys are now sold. Guns and
gun implements, of course, are not included in this
statement. Peck & Snyder, of New York, began
dealing in base-ball goods in 1865. That game had
become common in 1855, but was then always
played by boys ; and cricket was really introduced
into this country by an English team about 1856,
although the game had then been played by an
650
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
English club in New York for several years. In
1858 there was no special ball employed in base-
ball, and no regulation style of club. Other lines
of goods were added by Peck & Snyder to their toys,
games, and miscellaneous articles. They were the
first to inaugurate what might be called the special
sporting-goods business. The A. J . Reach Company,
of Philadelphia, began business in the same way in
base-ball goods about 1867, and Wright & Ditson
in Boston in 1871. A. G. Spalding & Brother took
up the same line of trade in Chicago in 1876, con-
fining themselves exclusively to sporting-goods, base-
ball requirements being the chief part, for that sport
at the time was the only one which commanded any
very great attention. In 1878 they began at Hast-
ings, Mich., the manufacture, especially for their
trade, of base-ball bats, Indian clubs, fishing-rods,
and all athletic goods in which wood predominates.
This factory burned down, and the goods were sub-
sequently made in Chicago. They have since added
several factories in other parts of the country. A
number of other houses have embarked in the man-
ufacture of this class of goods, which includes bi-
cycles, the equipment for fishermen, hunters, and
canoeists, with their special garments, and everything
necessary for games. The total amount of business
transacted in the United States, excluding guns and
bicycles, is between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000 a
year, the number of hands being about 5000, and the
amount of capital employed exceeding $3,000,000.
AWNINGS, TENTS, AND SAILS
IN the dry and sunny climate of the Orient there
is not the imperative necessity for a house which is
found in England and the United States. There are
particular advantages in a tent in Arabia, the Holy
Land, or the Great Desert of Africa, which render it,
on the whole, more desirable than a solidly built edi-
fice. One chief advantage is in the ease with which
migration can be effected. At night a traveler is in
one place ; to-morrow he may be fifty miles distant.
Tents are chiefly used in Europe and the United
States as shelters for soldiers, although the first hunt-
ers in this country, following the Indians, made par-
tial use of them. But since 1860 many people who
have good houses with every comfort desert them
in the summer-time, and pitch their tents on the
edges of lakes and streams or upon the mountains.
The Adirondacks are filled with them in the summer-
time, and they are in great abundance on the shores
of the minor lakes of New York, Wisconsin, and Min-
nesota. Awnings became common here first in the
South, and have moved farther North only within
forty years. Originally they were introduced into
Europe by the way of Spain, when the Mohamme-
dans penetrated that country. Sails also are of great
antiquity. The adventurous mariners who left Phe-
nicia and went to the far-distant coast of Britain to
obtain tin undoubtedly employed sails on their ves-
sels ; and to this day, great as is the number of steam-
vessels, they bear no comparison with those which
depend upon wind as a motive power. Sails are
chiefly made of duck or canvas, as are tents ; awn-
ings can be made of a lighter and less substantial
cloth. The places of manufacture for all of these
are on the seaboard, but none of them are large.
Duck manufacturing is carried on in New England.
The total value of the product in the last census year
was $7,829,003, and the number of establishments
was 581.
PRINTING-PRESSES
PRINTING-PRESSES were not manufactured in the
United States before 1795. When needed they
were constructed by an ordinary carpenter and
joiner. At about that time, Adam Ramage, a native
of Scotland, began making wooden hand-presses in
Philadelphia, continuing the business through the
whole of a long life. A great improvement was
made in England in 1802, by which the whole of
the apparatus was made of iron instead of wood,
as had been the custom previously ; and this was imi-
tated in America in 1818, John J. Wells then devis-
ing a new iron hand-press. He was followed by
Rust, Turney, and others. Peter Smith, a brother-
in-law of Robert Hoe, invented another one about
1822, and induced Hoe to embark with him in
its manufacture. It proved successful, and Hoe
afterward bought out the press of his principal
competitor, Rust, which after a time drove out all
competitors, then being known as the Washington
press. It is still in use, but as the patents have long
since expired it is now made by several firms. Both
the metal press and the wooden press were, however,
very slow, and in 1821 and 1822, Daniel Treadwell,
an ingenious Yankee, devised a machine that did
twice as much work as the hand-press. This was
burned up in a fire which consumed his printing-
office in Boston, and he invented another type of
machine, which was in successful use in the Bible
House in New York in 1828 and 1829. Two
mechanics named Tufts and Adams made improve-
ments upon it which led to its being superseded.
The Tufts did not continue in use for more than fif-
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
teen years, but the Adams, which was largely sold,
is not yet entirely laid aside. The great success,
however, which had been attained by the machine
invented by Konig in London in the year 1814 led
to the importation of an improved form of it for
use in New York about 1827. Within two years
Hoe was engaged in the manufacture of machines
similar to it, which in 1 830 were employed in several
offices. They were what was known as the Napier
press. By 1836 a double cylinder was in use, in-
vented by Colonel Richard M. Hoe, who had suc-
ceeded his father. In 1847 he succeeded in pro-
ducing a rotary press, in which the types were fast-
ened upon a revolving cylinder, each turn of the
machine producing four sheets. A little later, Ap-
plegarth, an English engineer, produced a machine
somewhat similar in idea, but not so well contrived ;
and this, after twenty years of use, was finally super-
seded in England by Hoe's machine. The four-
cylinder not proving fast enough, six, eight, and ten
cylinder presses were made, the latter being of im-
mense size. Up to about 1853 Hoe had really no
competitors in his own line of presses except A. B.
Taylor, of New York, who had once been a fore-
man in his establishment and had begun for himself
about 1840 ; and they, with Adams, of Boston, con-
trolled all the press building in the United States for
many years. Between 1850 and 1860 appeared,
however, a number of persons who contested the
market with Hoe and disputed his theories of con-
struction. Each began the building of machines.
The successors to them are the Potter, Campbell,
Babcock, and Cottrell companies, whose machines
have been excellently made and are very popular.
At about the same time small presses came into use,
although they had been made to some extent for
twenty years before. The earliest successful makers
in numbers were Ruggles and Gordon; Degener
followed during the Civil War ; and later came the
universal press, now made by Gaily and Thomson,
but by the latter under another name. A mul-
titude of changes have taken place since 1850.
Ink is better distributed, the castings are truer and
the jar less, and the extensive introduction of wood-
cuts has necessitated the employment of workmen
of higher skill, who in turn have demanded better
presses. It was once the custom to print everything
on wet paper, but now almost everything is printed
on dry. Just before the beginning of the war, paper
stereotyping was introduced, which enabled two or
three presses to be employed at the same time upon
the same pages of a newspaper. More presses were
bought by each establishment, so that they might be
available for contingencies. By the use of paper
stereotyping, also, smaller cylinders could be em-
ployed, and the whole size of the machine could be
lessened. Bullock succeeded in making a press in
which he availed himself of these advantages and
of the use of a roll of paper to feed the press, no
hand-feeding being required. This was elaborated
still further in England, and reintroduced into Amer-
ica with modifications by R. Hoe & Company about
twenty years ago. Printing thus became much
cheaper, and a great impetus was given to the man-
ufacture of presses. Instead of a newspaper having
only one press, as was the case with the New York
"Sun" in 1850, and requiring eight hours to print
its edition on one side, newspapers of 50,000 circu-
lation now have half a dozen presses, capable of
printing 50,000 copies in half an hour. Other press
builders also make these machines, notably Scott and
Potter ; and, in fact, nearly all the builders pay at-
tention to all lines, except job presses. There are
about thirty builders in the United States, Chicago
and New York being the chief centers of sale. The
figures for this industry are not separated by the
census, but the production is about $6,000,000, and
the number of men employed about 3000.
UNDERTAKERS' FURNISHINGS
THE undertaker's business is now a very much
easier one than fifty years ago. Everything he re-
quires he can obtain ready-made. In 1847 there
were about twenty coffin warehouses in New York,
but they manufactured little else. In small towns
throughout the country it was the habit to make the
coffin after the decease of the person for whom it
was required, this being a regular part of the cabinet-
maker's work ; and nearly every body was buried
in a shroud. In Europe carpenters still make
coffins. About 1850 it was seen that as every coffin
required a lining, and as there were other fittings
needed besides the wooden part, there might be a
future for a house in this line dealing chiefly in
trimmings and dry-goods. William Fernbacher en-
tered upon the manufacture of robes and linings,
and Adolph Tuska, who kept upholstery goods and
cabinet-makers' supplies, imported some German-
silver plated trunk-handles, which were used for
coffins. This trade in handles rapidly increased in
its proportions, finally falling into the possession of
J. M. Shanahan, who is still in business. The dry-
goods part of the trade in New York is in the hands
of five firms, who manufacture nothing but the
goods required by undertakers. They also import
652
'ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
from Europe. These firms are Arnstaedt, Shana-
han, Baxter, Tiedman, and Frank & Lambert. The
capital now invested is $1,000,000; twenty-five
years ago it was $250,000. There are about 75
manufacturers of handles and plates in the country,
and 200 manufacturers of coffins and caskets. Ap-
proximately, there are about a dozen manufacturers
of embalming fluids and implements, half a dozen
firms making hearses, and as many making coffin
trimmings, such as fringes, cords, and tassels. There
are also outside boxes of metal and slate, as well as
hinges and springs. Taken altogether, the goods
annually manufactured for funerals in the United
States are worth $20,000,000. Of this $8,000,000
worth are in dry-goods. If we add to this sum the
coffins made in remote districts, the profits and the
work of the undertakers, and the hire of horses and
carriages, the burial of the dead cannot cost less than
$100,000,000 a year. There are over 5000 funerals
a day in the United States.
PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIALS
PHOTOGRAPHY was discovered by Daguerre at
Paris in 1839, and three years later the art was in-
troduced in America. The Scovill Manufacturing
Company, which was established at Waterbury,
Conn., in 1802, is the pioneer manufacturer of Ameri-
can photographic goods, for in 1842 they made the
metal plates for the daguerreotype process. As pho-
tography became popular, the department of the
Scovill Manufacturing Company devoted to this
branch became the Scovill & Adams Company, which
has since become one of the largest manufacturers of
photographic goods in the world. One of the other
founders of American photography was Edward
Anthony, who soon after the introduction of da-
guerreotypes established at New York City the first
factory in America devoted exclusively to the man-
ufacture of photographic goods. In 1852 H. T.
Anthony became connected with the business, and
the firm became E. & H. T. Anthony. Both of the
founders are now dead.
The discovery of collodion in 1851 made photog-
raphy easier and greatly increased the manufacture
of photographic supplies. The next notable ad-
vance was the commercial production of gelatine
dry plates in 1880. Though the use of collodion
was an improvement over the daguerreotype process,
it had many drawbacks until the advent of dry
plates made photography possible among amateurs
as well as professionals. John Carbutt, of Philadel-
phia, is considered the founder of the dry-plate pro-
cess in America. After dry plates, the most impor-
tant event in photographic annals was the develop-
ment of photo-engraving, especially the half-tone
process, which, though discovered in Germany, was
never successful until improved upon in the United
States. An important introduction which may be
classed as distinctively American was the substitu-
tion of a sensitive paper for albumin-paper. No al-
bumin-paper is made in America, and certain tariff
changes increased the price, which resulted in the
manufacture of several papers which are now con-
sidered superior to albumin. With the introduction
of dry plates came amateur photographers in amaz-
ing numbers, and it is through the needs of ama-
teurs that some of the best inventions in photo-
graphic apparatus have been made.
The manufacture of photographic supplies has
grown tremendously within the last few years, and
unique apparatus which have produced pictures with
wonderful accuracy have been invented. In photo-
graphic inventions and in improvements the United
States is now far in the lead, and its cameras, lenses,
etc., are even exported to the very countries where
photography originated. American photographic
supplies are now known the world over, and it is
estimated that there are at present $10,000,000 of
capital invested in the industry, to satisfy the home
and foreign demand. There were only $250,000
of capital invested twenty-five years ago, and only
$25,000 fifty years ago. One of the old firms to
engage in manufacturing photographic apparatus
was the American Optical Company, which started
in New York in 1858, and subsequently moved to
New Haven, where it now turns out a fine grade of
cameras, lenses, etc. In late years a number of fac-
tories have opened in Rochester, N. Y., devoted
mainly to amateur photographic goods. These fac-
tories have patented apparatus, and a new style of
plate known as the film variety, in which the gela-
tine is spread on celluloid instead of glass, as in the
common dry plates. The pioneer in this line is the
Eastman Kodak Company, of Rochester, whose
kodak cameras have gained a wide reputation.
UMBRELLAS
THE growth of the umbrella industry has been
rapid in the United States during the past thirty
years. Authorities in the trade agree that the man-
ufacture was commenced here about 1800, at Phil-
adelphia, Pa., by E. J. Pierce, W. A. Drown, and
Edmund Wright. It did not progress very rapidly
until about 1865. Prior to that date the materials
ALBERT CLARK STEVENS.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
used in the manufacture were mostly cotton and
alpaca. But five years earlier, or about 1860,
American manufacturers began to use silk. Previ-
ous to that time all or nearly all silk umbrellas used
in this country were imported from Europe. At the
present time the estimated total amount of capital
invested is placed at $3,000,000, as compared with
$1,000,000 twenty-five years ago, and $250,000 fifty
years ago. The approximate total number of um-
brellas manufactured in the United States aggre-
gates 9,000,000 per annum. Among the well-known
manufacturers of umbrellas in the United States
may be mentioned the following : Follmer, Clpgg
& Company ; Ellis, Knapp & Company ; the Excel-
sior Umbrella Manufacturing Company ; and Charles
Le Bihan & Company, of New York. In many
respects umbrellas manufactured in this country
excel those of any other, but particularly as regards
finish, neatness, and close roll.
GLUE
GLUE is made from the trimmings of hides, bones,
and sinews. It can be justly said that Peter Cooper
was the founder of the glue industry in the United
States, when, in 1827, he established works in
Brooklyn, and from this business laid the founda-
tion of his immense fortune. Though the West is
now the center of glue manufacture, Peter Cooper's
Brooklyn works have grown and are still in active
operation, turning out the finer grades of this pro-
duct. From this beginning in Brooklyn in 1827,
and the establishment of another works in Phila-
delphia by Charles Baeder and William Adamson
about the same time, American glue manufacture
has progressed until now it is estimated that there are
over $10,000,000 of capital invested in the industry,
and the yearly sales amount to some $15,000,000.
This is more than double the money invested twenty-
five years ago, and ten times what it was fifty years
ago. Glue is required in all sorts of woodwork, in the
manufacture of clothing, in stiffening straw hats, and
in a thousand and one industries where a gelatinous
material is essential. The greatest quantity of glue
is used in what is called the sizing trade. Paper is
glazed with it, and oil and turpentine barrels are
lined with it.
As the tendency of the times is for manufacturing
plants to locate where cheap raw materials abound,
so glue makers have opened plants at the chief cattle
markets. Of late years the enormous packing-houses
of Armour & Company and Swift & Company, of
Chicago, and the Cudahy Packing Company, of
Omaha, have built big glue plant* of their own,
thus utilizing the by-product* of their own abattoir*
These cities have now become the great glue center*.
The glue factories of the East draw their supplies
largely from imported hides and from the bone refuse
of the big cities. When the Australian rabbit-pent
slaughter was at its height quantities of rabbit hides
were imported to this country and boiled into glue.
Many of the glue factories in the Eastern State*
are engaged in the manufacture of sand and emery
paper as well, which industry is a large one and con-
sumes much glue. Glue is best produced in a dry
climate, and consequently the United States is favor-
able for glue making ; though a dry climate is not
absolutely necessary, as England, which is noted for
its moist weather, has successfully engaged in glue
making for years. American glue manufacturers no
longer fear their English rivals, however, as consid-
erable American glue is exported to the British Isles
and to the world at large, the exportation amount-
ing to about $500,000 annually. France is the only
country which now makes a finer grade of glue than
can be produced in the United States. The French
have a process of their own of turning out the finest
glues and gelatines from bones. They are imported
and used in America mainly for straw hats. In the
United States the finest glues are made from the
sinews of cattle, and several factories are now ex-
perimenting to produce a glue equal to the best
grades of France. In this the trade believe they will
ultimately be successful. Among the distinctively
American achievements in glue manufacture are
methods for artificial drying, by which it is made
much more quickly and cheaply. Another improve-
ment is in manufacturing all the year around. It
was formerly the custom to close in the summer-time,
but now some of the American works have such
improved methods that they can run the entire year
without annoyance to the surrounding community.
As Mr. Armour, of Armour & Company, expresses
it, "I make my own weather." There are at the
present time about i oo glue factories in the United
States, all located north of Mason and Dixon's line.
ELEVATORS
THE business of manufacturing elevators in the
United States has grown remarkably during the past
quarter of a century, as a result of the erection of
tall office buildings and other structures in which
the machines are used as a convenience. The cap-
ital invested has increased from $20,000 in 1850
and $3,000,000 in 1875 to $15,000,000 in 1895.
654
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
The output in the United States in money value
would, no doubt, amount to $20,000,000 per annum.
The manufacture of freight-elevators was com-
menced in this country as far back as 1849, but it
was not until 1859 that the manufacture of passen-
ger-elevators was begun. In the latter year Otis
Tufts and Henry Waterman started in the business
at Boston, Mass. The business founded by them
is now continued by the McAdams & Cartwright
Elevator Company, who, with Otis Brothers & Com-
pany, the Reedy Elevator Company, the Crane Ele-
vator Company, the Whittier Elevator Company, and
Morse, Williams & Company, comprise the more im-
portant manufacturers in the United States. Al-
though it is true the United States cannot claim the
discovery of any of the broad principles on which
either steam, hydraulic, or electric elevators are con-
structed, it can nevertheless be claimed that the ma-
chines have reached a higher stage of perfection in
this country than in any other.
HATS
HAT MAKING is one of the most peculiar of all
industries, as it is probably the only one in which
the maker takes the crude raw material and turns
out the completely finished product. In this re-
spect the manufacture of hats has not changed even
with the introduction of labor-saving machinery and
the general specialization of all branches of industry.
The old-time hatter flourished in communities that
bought many hats. Wherever there was a city or
town, there were hatters to cap and hat the male
population. The hatter formerly cut the fur from
a felt, felted it, and after making the hat would wait
upon the customer as well. The modern hatter has
a factory where all this is done by skilled workmen
and machinery, and the hats are now turned out by
the thousands daily. Some of the first places in
America to make hats and start shops were the
towns of Danbury, Bethel, and Norwalk, Conn.
The records speak of hat making in Danbury as
early as 1734. Great hat factories have since been
built in these towns, and they form to-day one of
the leading hat centers in the United States. Among
the other towns that early established hat facto-
ries was Albany, N. Y., where Benjamin F. Noahr
started one in 1829. A few years later, Andrew
Rankin and William Rankin opened shops in New-
ark, N. J., which city is now one of the important
hat centers of the country. The business has grown
from the time of these first days in hat making,
until there is now estimated to be $30,000,000
capital engaged in the manufacture of all kinds
of hats in the United States. We now furnish
almost all of our own hats, do some exporting in
felt hats to the South American countries, and
send straw hats all over the world. There are
also $250,000 of certain grades of hats imported
annually. The material for making the various
kinds of American headgear is nearly all imported.
Beaver fur was the main material sixty years ago for
fine hats, and at that time America could supply her
own fur; but beaver hats have since become silk
hats, only retaining the shape somewhat of the old
beaver hats, but made with silk plush. This plush
comes almost entirely from France, and all attempts
to produce it in America have as yet been unavail-
ing. Beaver nowadays is too expensive a fur for
hats, and besides it is not considered as desirable as
the imported silk plush.
Charles Knox was one of the early specialists in
beaver and silk hats in New York City, and his son,
E. M. Knox, now has one of the largest hat facto-
ries in the world, at Brooklyn, where all kinds of the
finest silk and felt hats are manufactured. Robert
Dunlap, of New York, has also an eminent name in
the hat trade. Nine tenths of the felt hats worn in
the United States are made from the fur of the rabbit
and the hare. Other furs used are those of the nutria,
the muskrat, the otter, the racoon, and the beaver.
The rabbit and hare felts are entirely of foreign im-
portation. Much wool is also used in the cheaper
grades of felt hats and in the cloth of cloth hats.
Felt is the principal material for the great bulk of the
hats made in America. Cloth as a hat material has
become much in vogue in recent years, owing to the
great demand for all sorts of outing and uniform
caps and bicycle caps for all seasons of the year.
The styles of hats worn in the United States have
changed with the freaks of fashion during the past
one hundred years. After the three-cornered hat
of the Revolutionary period came the regulation
beaver, which held sway for many years, and finds
its modern descendant in the silk hat. During the
middle of the century the white cassimere high hat
became popular and had a long run, but it is now
out of style. When the Hungarian patriot Kossuth
visited America he wore a soft hat trimmed with a
black ostrich feather, and the soft hat then became
fashionable in America, though never worn with the
feather. The soft hat has always been a favorite
in the Southern and Western States. Stiff hats, an
English fashion, have been more or less in style for
some time. A Tyrolean hat that was brought to
this country by some American traveler has since
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
been modified and has become the United States
army campaign hat. While no style of felt hat has
originated in the United States that can be called dis-
tinctively American, many of the European shapes
have been greatly improved upon and have become
so common here as to be considered of American
design. In cloth hats a number of new designs have
originated in the United States. The finest soft
hats are now manufactured in the United States,
and are becoming more popular everywhere.
BILLIARD TABLES
THE origin of the game of billiards is lost in an-
tiquity. Some historians believe that the game
dates back as far as the time of Cleopatra and
Marc Antony, while others state that it originated
with the French and Norman-French. Billiards in
America came into vogue with some of the early col-
onists, and at the time of the American Revolution
was a popular pastime with many of the noted
Americans of the period. George Washington,
Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and other
patriots enjoyed the game, and Washington and
Hamilton had billiard-tables of their own. While
Lafayette was in America he played billiards as
one of his favorite pastimes, and introduced many
French characteristics of the game, which have re-
sulted since in the American game being modeled
more after the French than the English. Several
inventions have been made in billiard materials
during the present century which have greatly im-
proved the game. One is the leather-tip cue, in-
vented by a Frenchman named Mingaud while in
prison in 1823, and the same year the cues were
imported to the United States. Another improve-
ment was the use of india-rubber cushions for the
tables, which originated in England in 1835. In
1854, Michael Phelan, of New York, produced a
new style of india-rubber cushion, which with some
slight improvements is the cushion in general use
to-day. Mr. Phelan's cushion had a sharp edge,
while the old-style cushions were round. The first
billiard-tables produced in America were made in
part of cabinet work, and turned out only as some
man of means would order them. About the first
tables manufactured as a distinct business were
made by Tobias O'Connor and Hugh W. Collender,
who formed a partnership in New York in 1850.
In 1854 Michael Phelan became interested in
the firm, and the title was then changed to Phelan
& Collender. Mr. Phelan died in 1871, and Mr.
Collender carried on the business under his own
name until 1879, when he organized the H. W.
Collender Company. With the growing popularity
of billiards and the valuable patents held by thU
company its business rapidly increased, and in order
to still further expand, the H. W. Collender Com-
pany in 1884 united with the J. M. Brunswick &
Balke Company, of Chicago, and the firm has since
been the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, with
factories in New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, St.
Louis, and San Francisco, and branch stores in all
the principal cities in the United States, and also in
Europe and Canada. Of these founders of the bil-
liard-table industry in the United States, Michael
Phelan, Hugh W. Collender, J. M. Brunswick, and
Julius Balke, all are dead.
The United States now leads other nations of the
world in the design and workmanship of its billiard-
tables and accessories. American tables are in de-
mand wherever the game of billiards is played,
which leads American manufacturers to believe that
they will before long supply the world's markets.
But while our tables lead, billiard-table cloth used
on the tables comes entirely from abroad. The
ivory for the balls is, of course, imported. Some
of the woods for the tables are imported, but the
complete table is manufactured entirely in the
United States. There are now $2,000,000 of capital
invested in the billiard-table industry. To show the
wonders of ivory in its native state the Brunswick-
Balke-Collender Company have a fine collection of
ivory tusks at their New York salesrooms. There
are elephant tusks on exhibition over eight feet long
and weighing over i oo pounds each, and also ponder-
ous tusks of mammoths from Mozambique. The fin-
ished billiard-balls of ivory have to be carried in a dry
room for five to ten years before being fit for use.
Nothing has yet been found equal to ivory for bil-
liard balls. The demand for billiard-tables, cues, balls,
etc., has increased largely during the past few years
with the growing popularity of the game in families.
PIPES AND SMOKERS' ARTICLES
THE manufacture of the more expensive pipes
and most other smokers' articles began about 1860.
Previous to that time they were imported ; but the
ordinary clay pipe has been in use for seventy years,
if not more. The earliest manufacturer whose
name is now recorded was Thomas Smith, tobacco-
pipe maker, of the city of New York, in 1847. 'rhe
high tariff during the war stimulated manufactur-
ing. This was commenced on the smallest possible
scale by two or three enterprising German workmen,
656
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
now dead, with hardly any machinery or experience.
The goods could not be compared with the Euro-
pean product, and they were almost as expensive,
even with the high tariff paid on the imported arti-
cles. Trade itself previous to the war was very
small. Edward Hen, who before 1860 was almost
the only importer of note, was known as the pipe
man of the United States. His pipe business was
less than $50,000 per year. William Demuth, a
pupil of the celebrated Edward Hen, began the
making of pipes in 1861. The prices of goods be-
fore and during the war were twice as high as they
are now, and American goods in many instances
were not up to the standard of European goods.
But now the pipe industry in the United States is
not only equal to that at the celebrated factories in
Vienna, Ruhla, and St. Claude, but surpasses the latter
in many respects. Many improvements and inven-
tions were made in America, which were later intro-
duced into Europe ; but it was years before Euro-
peans utilized them, thus giving great help to the
American industry, as it afforded still more time
to improve, and, with the tariff protection during
these years, gave ultimately a still better chance to
compete.
The capital then invested could not have been
over $150,000, but that now used in this business is
over $2,000,000, fully seventy-five per cent, of this
amount being invested in domestic manufactures
and their products. The sales of smokers' articles
will not fall short of $3,000,000. At the prices that
were paid thirty to forty years ago this would have
represented a value of at least $6,000,000. Machi-
nery, study, enterprise, and protection have enabled
the manufacturers here from year to year to reduce
the cost of production.
STRAW HATS
THE first straw hats produced in the United States
were of the palm-leaf variety, the material of which
was imported from the West Indies and braided
in this country, about 1800. Mountain leghorn
hats were next worn, made from imported Italian
material, and they, in time, became fashionable.
Maracaybo hats and Panama hats were next manu-
factured of imported material, and at one time
were highly prized, good Panama hats bringing as
high as $120 apiece. By 1840 straw braids brought
from Italy were shaped into hats, and the produc-
tion of straw hats received an impetus in which it
has hardly slackened since. Straw braids are now
imported from Italy, China, and Japan. The straw-
hat factories, through wise tariff laws, have had a
very rapid growth. They sprang up so fast that it
is difficult to tell who were the founders. The first
manufacturers of straw goods in America made mil-
linery goods, and from this took up the manufacture
of hats. One of the earliest was J. D. T. Hersey,
who had a factory at Monson, Mass. Another was
Flagg & Baldwin, at Milford, Conn., which has now
become Vanderhoef & Company, with several fac-
tories ; and another was William Knowlton & Sons,
who have a large straw-hat factory at Upton, Mass.
Other places leading to-day in the manufacture of
straw hats are Brooklyn, N. Y., Newark, N. J., and
Amherst, Westboro, and Foxboro, Mass. The
American straw-hat industry was never so prosper-
ous as to-day, and no other country equals the
United States either in quality or in cheapness
of straw hats. America sends straw hats to every
civilized country in the world.
CELLULOID
CELLULOID has been known since about 1869,
having been brought out shortly before by Messrs.
John W. Hyatt and I. S. Hyatt, the latter of whom
is now dead. It is a compound of guncotton and
camphor, which has a high luster, admitting of an
excellent finish, and can be used for almost everything
for which ivory and horn are employed. Business was
begun in Albany in a small way, the inventors char-
acterizing the new product by the name of celluloid.
They patented their discoveries and formed the
Celluloid Manufacturing Company. Running short
of capital, they interested some New York parties
with them, among the more prominent of whom
were General Marshall Lefferts, Tracy R. Edson,—
both of whom are now dead, — Joseph Larocque,
and Joseph M. Cook. The business was moved to
Newark, N. J., in 1870. The first few years were
spent in experimenting and in perfecting the pro-
cesses, and as soon as this had been accomplished
a large business resulted, which has shown constant
growth ever since. The original policy of the com-
pany was to confine itself to the manufacture of crude
material only, and to sell it to sub-companies formed
for the purpose of manufacturing special lines of
goods under a license from the parent company.
About 1880 a competing company sprang up,
which resulted in long and expensive litigation in-
volving the patents owned by the Celluloid Manu-
facturing Company, the decisions finally being ren-
dered in favor of the latter company. As a result,
in 1890, a consolidation of the different interests
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
was brought about by the formation of the Cellu-
loid Company, which purchased the plants and
other properties of not only the companies compet-
ing in the manufacture of the material, but also of
the principal sub-companies. The actual amount
of capital invested at that time probably did not
exceed $25,000. As the business grew more capital
was invested from time to time, until now the com-
pany is capitalized at $6,000,000, employing about
1 500 hands directly in its manufacture, besides sell-
ing the raw material in the form of sheets, rods,
etc., to a large number of manufacturers throughout
the country, who probably employ some 4000 or
5000 hands in working it up into goods. It is im-
possible to state the annual out-turn of the goods,
owing to the fact that it is scattered among so many
manufacturers; but it runs into a number of mil-
lions of dollars per annum.
BROOMS AND BRUSHES
" A NEW broom sweeps clean " is a saying which
experience has proved true ; but the old adage could
never have been fully appreciated until the produc-
tion of American broom-corn brooms. Europeans
use to this day a broom made from hickory withes
for rough sweeping, and the long-haired brush for
housework, and it was not until 1850 that Ameri-
cans discovered the valuable properties of a variety
of the indigenous Indian maize for broom making.
An unknown farmer who used a tuft of corn for a
brush was, tradition tells us, the unconscious inventor
of corn brooms. The first factory established for
the manufacture of brooms from corn was in 1859,
by Ebenezer Howard, at Fort Hunter, Montgomery
County, N. Y. Before that time the industry was
carried on in a desultory way. Mr. Howard sub-
sequently took his son in partnership, and the firm
became E. Howard & Son, continuing in busi-
ness for forty years, when it became a part of the
American Broom and Brush Company, in November,
1894. Other broom factories were soon started in
Fort Hunter by John D. Blood, who formed the
firm of Blood & Herrick, and also by Ebenezer
Howard, who formed another firm, Howard & Bron-
son. All of the broom factories established at Fort
Hunter have since become absorbed by the Ameri-
can Broom and Brush Company, and are all in
operation to-day, with the improved machinery
which has come with time. Another old-time fac-
tory which was acquired by this company was that
of Myers & Parker, at Fultonville, N. Y. Of the
pioneers in broom making at Fort Hunter all are
dead except Mr. Herrick, who has retired from
business and live* at Amsterdam, N. Y. The broom
and whisk-broom industry is now carried on in «he
Eastern States almost entirely by the American
Broom and Brush Company, which, besides the fac-
tories named, also have works at Buffalo, N. Y., Dal-
las, Pa., Baltimore, Md., and Richmond, Va. The
business in the Western States is in the hands of the
Cupples Woodenware Company, of St. Louis, and
Roseboom & Company, of Chicago. All of the
brooms are now turned out by machinery which
is entirely of American invention, and which en-
ables the manufacturers to produce 3,000,000 dozen
brooms annually, supplying the home market and
exporting $250,000 worth as well. There are now
$2,500,000 invested in the industry, while twenty-
five years ago there were only $100,000, and fifty
years ago none whatever.
Many brooms are made by hand in various peni-
tentiaries throughout the country. There are also
many brooms made in blind asylums, as the work is
found especially adapted to blind men. The United
States is particularly fortunate in having so much
territory adapted to the cultivation of broom-corn,
which requires a certain quality of soil and climate.
The only place where broom-corn has been cultivated
to any degree of success outside of the United States
is on a narrow strip of land in Upper Italy, but the
corn is of an inferior quality. In this country
broom-corn flourishes in Kansas, the southern part
of Nebraska, a strip of land in Oklahoma, one
portion of Illinois, and a narrow strip of land in
Tennessee. A little broom-com was once raised in
New York State, but this has given way to other
crops.
BUTTONS
BUTTONS are among the small things of daily use
the importance of which as industrial factors is out
of all proportion to their size. It is now estimated
that there are from $8,000,000 to $9,000,000 worth
of buttons made in the United States every year, and
that there are from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 in-
vested in the industry. The manufacture of metal
buttons was the first branch tried in America, and
dates back to 1802, when Abel Porter & Company
opened a shop at Waterbury, Conn. The firm has
since become, through the successive management
of Leavenworth, Hayden, and Scovill, the Scovill
Manufacturing Company, and is now a large cor-
poration, manufacturing brass goods and making
buttons as well. The second American button
factory was established at Waterbury by Aaron
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
Benedict in 1812, for the manufacture of bone and
ivory buttons. In 1823 Mr. Benedict became as-
sociated with Bennett Bronson, and they took up the
manufacture of gilt buttons also. At this time there
was no sheet-brass rolled in America, so the firm
erected a brass-rolling mill to supply their button
business. In 1849 the button industry was put by
itself, and has since become the Waterbury Button
Company, the largest firm engaged exclusively in
the manufacture of metal, cloth, and ivory buttons
in the United States.
The founder of the cloth-covered button industry
was Samuel Williston, of Easthampton, Mass., who,
with his wife, in 1825, made the first set of cloth
buttons ever produced in America. In 1830 Mr.
Williston formed a partnership with Joel Hayden,
and together they built a button factory at Hayden-
ville, Mass., Mr. Hayden being the mechanic and
Mr. Williston the proprietor. In a few years the
business was moved to Easthampton, and has since
become the Williston & Knight Company. In
1859, A. Critchlow, an Englishman, began to make
buttons from vegetable ivory at Leeds, Mass., and
subsequently became connected with the Williston
& Knight Company, which has continued making
a great variety of cloth and ivory buttons ever since.
All of the pioneers of the American button industry
are now dead.
In the manufacture of pearl buttons, which are
a most expensive kind, America has not done much
until late years. The Newell Brothers Manufacturing
Company, of Springfield, Mass., was one of the first
firms to begin it. This company was established at
Longmeadow, Mass., in 1848, by Nelson C. Newell,
his brother, S. R. Newell, and D. Chandler. The
firm has always made a great variety of buttons, in-
cluding cloth-covered, vegetable-ivory, composition,
india-rubber, and pearl buttons. Of the hard but-
tons, vegetable ivory is one of the principal materi-
als, as it can be dyed any color and makes a hard,
durable button. Composition buttons have come
into use largely of late years, while cloth-covered and
pearl buttons are always in demand for dress-wear.
Button making is an industry in which the cost of
production is in large part labor, so that, with the
high wages paid in America in the face of foreign
competition, it has not reached the proportions of
some other industries. Despite this it is estimated
that ninety per cent, of the cloth buttons consumed
in the United States are of domestic manufacture,
and a like percentage of the brass buttons. This
showing is made when all of the material of cloth-
covered buttons— even the iron backs — is imported,
and also the raw material of pearl and vegetable-
ivory buttons. It is American machinery and a tariff
duty that gives American manufacturers a chance to
compete with the cheaper European labor. In brass
buttons a vast number of styles and designs have
been produced in this country, one firm alone mak-
ing 5000 varieties of army, navy, railroad, and other
uniform buttons. The styles of cloth buttons are
mainly taken from France and England and im-
proved upon here. The Eleventh Census reported
1 06 establishments engaged in making buttons, and
turning out an annual product valued at $4,216,795.
OPTICAL GOODS
UNTIL thirty-five years ago America depended
on Europe for its eye-glasses and spectacles. Now
the United States furnishes its own optical goods
and sends some to the rest of the world as well.
The first American manufacturer of eye-glasses
is said to have been a New-Englander named
Salsbury, who ground lenses in a small way at
Salsbury, Conn. He was followed by the firm of
Brown & Kirby, of New Haven, Conn., in 1850,
and then the manufacture was taken up and devel-
oped by J. E. Spencer, who established works in the
same city. Other optical works have since been
built throughout the country, until there are now
about $4,000,000 of capital invested in the business,
with an annual output equal to this amount. That
the industry should have grown to such proportions
is natural enough when the number of people wearing
spectacles is considered. It is common practice
nowadays to have one's eyes examined. Twenty-five
years ago there was but one noted oculist in New
York City, Dr. C. R. Agnew ; to-day there are hun-
dreds. The fine print of newspapers, the custom of
reading while on moving trains, and the glaring lights
of modern times tend to the benefit of the oculist and
the optician.
The mode of making eye-glasses has entirely
changed with the requirements of the times. Prop-
erly fitting lenses are now ground from an oculist's
prescription. In fact, it is seldom now that eye-
glasses are made in any other way. This is one of
the improvements that has come with American
manufacture, for before the home supply, importa-
tions were made of assorted lenses, but accurate
adjustment to the eyes was not possible as it is to-
day. To further illustrate how the industry has
advanced it is interesting to note that thirty years
ago the Spencer optical people made but one style
of nose-piece ; to-day they make over 700. French
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
and German goods are the only competitors now
with American eye-glasses and spectacles, and even
then in but a very moderate degree. In the depart-
ment of lenses for telescopes and microscopes the
United States now manufactures its own. The firm
of Bausch & Lomb, of Rochester, N. Y., are noted
for microscopes, and Alvan Clark, of Cambridge-
port, Mass., is famed for the grinding of mammoth
telescope lenses. Opera-glasses still come from
across the water, mainly from France.
MATHEMATICAL AND ENGINEERING
INSTRUMENTS
As the American optical industry has grown and
expanded in the last twenty-five years, so has it been
in the manufacture of surveying and mathematical
instruments in the United States. The industry first
sprang into existence through repairs, and then in
making instruments to order, and finally the regular
instrument factory came, until it is now estimated
that there are over $5,000,000 capital invested in
the industry. One of the first to make American
instruments was the firm of William Stackpole &
Brother, who opened a shop in New York some
thirty years ago, and have made all kinds of survey-
ing, navigation, and drawing instruments ever since.
Other shops were opened in Boston and Washing-
ton, and gradually some of the instrument importers
started factories of their own. One of these firms
is the Keuffel & Esser Company, of New York,
which has built a large factory at Hoboken, N. J.,
and has salesrooms in nearly all the larger cities of
the country. America now manufactures all of its
own instruments, and sends many to foreign lands.
SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS
SURGICAL-INSTRUMENT manufacture in America
began, so far as learned, in 1826, when George Tie-
mann, a German, commenced to grind, repair, and
make instruments in New York City. Prior to that
time all surgical appliances were imported from Eng-
land and France. Germany is the greatest competitor
of the United States in this direction to-day. The
industry in the United States has flourished solely on
its merits, for skilled labor enters so largely into the
cost of surgical instruments that this country has not
been able to hold its own with the cheap grade of
instruments of foreign makers. It is to quality, not
quantity, that American surgical-instrument makers
have turned their attention, and in firmness, light-
ness, and durability of their wares they have no
equals. American surgeon* are noted a* practical
men with original ideas who have invented and
have required of the instrument maker* a great
variety of surgical appliances. There are many new
designs being brought out continually, and, with
constant changes required and keen foreign compe-
tition in cheaper but inferior lines of goods, surgical-
instrument making has not become a large industry
here. The pioneer of the business in this country,
Mr. Tiemann, established the firm of George Ticmann
& Company, which has been in successful operation
for sixty-nine years. Among other large American
manufacturers of surgical instruments are Shepard
& Dudley, of Brooklyn ; John Reynders & Com-
pany, of New York ; and F. G. Otto & Sons, of
Jersey City. Another old-time New York maker
is W. F. Ford. A number of American firms have
gone out of business of late years, being unable to
withstand the cheap goods of foreign manufacturers.
Quantities of instruments are now imported from
Germany, but for high-grade surgical instruments
American surgeons turn to American manufacturers.
SCALES AND BALANCES
THE weighing-scales, which to-day form one of
the most useful adjuncts in almost every commercial
house, public market-place, and town square in the
land, are the product of American genius alone. The
first platform-scales ever made were invented and
patented by Thaddeus Fairbanks, of St. Johnsbury,
Vt., in 1831. Before that time transactions by
weight were confined to the even balance and the
Roman steelyard. Mr. Fairbanks was associated
with his two brothers in a small business in which
quantities of hemp were handled. Finding the
method of weighing by the steelyard slow and labori-
ous, he conceived the application of the principle
upon which modern weighing-machines are made,
and from this beginning sprung the use of plat-
form-scales in all parts of the world. The manufac-
ture of these scales was then commenced by E. &
T. Fairbanks & Company, who have made them
ever since and have introduced them in all parts of
the world. At an early date the Fairbanks patents
were sold in England, and most foreign platform-
scales are made from the earliest patterns manufac-
tured in the United States. Before the introduction
of these improved weighing-machines, comparatively-
few articles were sold by weight, and those only of
such a nature that to count or measure them was
very difficult, while at present nearly every class of
merchandise is sold by weight. This revolution
660
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in commercial usage has not been confined to the
United States, but has taken place in almost every
country of the world ; and the Fairbanks scales have
in many instances been the pioneer articles of
American make to be introduced into foreign coun-
tries. In recognition of these services, Thaddeus
Fairbanks was knighted and decorated by the Em-
peror of Austria and other foreign sovereigns.
Among the other pioneers in the scale business
was Mr. John Chatillon, who began business in
New York in 1835. Mr. Chatillon's business has
been confined almost entirely to the making of
spring-balances. The industry he built up is still
conducted by his sons on a part of the original site
of the factory. The manufacturers of scales in the
United States successfully compete with foreign
makers in the markets of the world. Weighing-
machines produced here are the recognized stand-
ards of foreign countries. They include every
known variety, from the delicate mechanism of the
laboratory to determine the weight of infinitesimal
objects, to the ponderous levers arranged to weigh
a loaded train of cars or a canal-boat with its cargo.
There are now $2,500,000 capital invested in the
manufacture of scales in the United States, and the
annual production, according to the last census re-
port, was about an equal amount.
PENS
IT has been declared that each man, woman, and
child in the United States uses, on the average, four
pens a year. The same authorities also say that
three of these four pens are of American make.
Some idea of the growth of the pen industry may
be obtained, therefore, when it is known that thirty
years ago nearly all the pens consumed in this coun-
try were of foreign manufacture. The first pens
made in the United States were those turned out by
a small factory established in New York in 1858 by
Harrison & Bradford. At that time America pos-
sessed neither the men nor the material for making
pens, and both had to be brought from abroad. In
1860, Richard Esterbrook, his son Richard, and
James Bromgrove founded a pen factory at Cam-
den, N. J. The business was a success from the
start, and in 1866 the firm was incorporated as the
Esterbrook Steel- Pen Company.
Steel from which pens can be made has not yet
been produced in this country. Manufacturers are
unable to say whether the trouble lies in the handling
of the steel or in the material itself. The steel must
possess a fineness and toughness that has thus far
been found in the products of England and Sweden
only. Pens, therefore, can be made in England
more cheaply than in the United States ; but in
foreign countries, where a greater amount must
necessarily be charged for the American article, the
latter finds a ready market, despite the fact that it
must be classed as a fancy article. Twenty-five
years ago not more than $10,000 were invested in
the pen industry, while to-day the combined capital
of American manufacturers is more than $1,000,000.
Besides the Esterbrook Company, prominent pen
manufacturers in the United States are Miller
Brothers, Meriden, Conn. ; Turner & Harrison and
Malpass & Company, Philadelphia ; and the Eagle
Pencil Company, New York.
PLAYING-CARDS
THE origin of playing-cards is shrouded in mys-
tery, and of their manufacture in the United States
we have few records prior to 1832. Though his-
tory tells us that Columbus carried them with him
on his voyage of discovery in 1492, certain sec-
tions of the American colonies prohibited the en-
trance of cards into the country. The Quakers
of Pennsylvania were shocked at them, and the
Puritans of New England called them "devil's
books." But in other parts of the country playing-
cards have found favor as simple instruments of
amusement, and nowadays they are generally used.
In July, 1832, Lewis I. Cohen, of New York, en-
tered into the business of card making, and started
the concern which is now known as the New York
Consolidated Card Company. Mr. Cohen made
the first pack of cards himself, which is still pre-
served at the company's works in New York. For
a long time the Consolidated Company was the
principal card producer in the United States, its
only competitors being a few small manufacturers.
Another old-time card maker was Andrew
Dougherty, of New York, who is still in the busi-
ness. In 1879 the Russell & Morgan Company
was started at Cincinnati, and in 1 889 the National
Company at Indianapolis, for the manufacture of
playing-cards. The Russell & Morgan factory was
in 1893 reorganized under the title of the United
States Playing-Card Company, which is now the
largest producer in the United States, and with
the Consolidated Card Company manufactures nine
tenths of the total American card output. This now
amounts to 25,000,000 packs of cards annually.
Playing-cards are at present nearly all made with
enameled paper by improved machinery, and printed
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OK AMERICAN COMMERCE
-
by rapid-working presses. The United States ex-
ports cards to nearly every country in the world,
besides supplying the entire home demand. It is
calculated that there is not now over $700 worth of
cards imported into this country a year, while the
only countries to which America does not send cards
are those in which the government controls the busi-
ness, as in France and Italy. The United States
Playing-Card Company has even established an office
in London. There is at present an internal revenue
tax of two cents on each pack of cards used in the
United States. The capital invested in the industry
is $5,000,000.
TOYS
DURING the first half of the present century young
America's toy supply came entirely from across the
water. Germany, which is even to-day the great
toy country of the world, supplied the larger part,
and Japan also a share. About 1850, however,
several toy-shops started in a small way in the
United States, and, as in nearly all the industries,
Yankee ingenuity has since put this country in the
front rank of toy makers. One of the first to devote
his attention to the business was John McLaughlin,
who with his brother established the firm of Mc-
Laughlin Brothers, in 1855, at New York, makers
of children's picture-books and games, which are
considered a part of the toy business. Another
pioneer was Milton Bradley, now treasurer of the
Milton Bradley Company, at Springfield, Mass., mak-
ers of games and kindergarten supplies. Both firms
are successfully carrying on the toy business to-day.
America, being a forest country, soon began produc-
ing wooden toys of grades which could be turned
out by machinery. In the manufacture of these
wooden toys the United States had an advan-
tage, as Europe had but little wood and worked
mostly by hand, while America had an abundance
of wood and her inventors were always perfecting
machines to do the work. Then, also, wooden
toys were bulky to import. But the principal ad-
vantage of the American wooden-toy manufacturers
was in the wonderful woodworking machinery, cer-
tain patented forms of which even the Germans
have found it necessary to buy in order to keep
abreast of their American rivals. All the wooden
toys used by young America which can be produced
by machine-work are now of domestic manufacture,
and large quantities are also sent all over the world.
The wooden-toy factories are in no particular section
of the country, but are found in nearly all of the
wood-bearing States.
A branch of toy making which may be cUuMified »»
distinctively American is that of iron toys. MCMT».
J. & E. Stevens, of Cromwell, Conn., were among the
first to take up this branch. Iron toys are now made
into an amazing variety of forms, and many of the
designs have been copied by foreign manufacturers.
The making of musical toys is another part of the
business which has become prominent in the United
States. Schoenhut & Company, of Philadelphia,
make nearly all the musical instruments in miniature
sizes, even including toy pianos. Mechanical toys,
with their clockwork and fascinating movements,
have likewise flourished in the United States, but
there is not a great demand for this class at present.
Toy tools are another of America's chief productions.
The toy business is of such a nature that it is con-
tinually changing, both in respect to the goods and
the firms engaged in it. Novelties and fresh inven-
tions drive out old styles very speedily, and unless a
manufacturer keeps well up with the times he will be
out of the race. The growth of the toy industry
has led to the establishment of several toy empo-
riums in New York City and elsewhere. Among
the oldest toy merchants in New York are the Hin-
richs Company and Robert Foulds. The returns
of the last census place the number of establish-
ments in the United States engaged in the manu-
facture of toys and games at 139, employing 3440
hands, and turning out an annual product valued
at $3,749.755-
YACHTS-SAILING AND STEAM
THE small speedy vessels which the Dutch called
yachts were familiar in the waters around Manhat-
tan Island before they were known in England. But
yachts in the modern meaning of the word have
been evolved during the last half-century. In no
other country are there so many yachts and yachts-
men as in America. There are more than 200 yacht
clubs scattered throughout the country, having about
4000 yachts. But of these vessels only about 700
are above 40 feet in length, and only a little over
half of these are propelled by steam. The New
York Yacht Club, the oldest in the United States,
having been organized in 1844, has a membership
of over 1000, but there are only about 140 steam
yachts and launches on its list. Thus the small
sailing yacht is the normal type of American plea-
sure craft. There are two distinct kinds of yacht,
whether propelled by sail or steam— the racing yacht,
in which comfort is sacrificed for speed, and the
commodious, well-proportioned cruiser yacht; but
662
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
even in the latter every modern discovery tending
to increased speed is incorporated.
Popular interest in yachts may be dated from the
victory of the yacht America in the international con-
test around the Isle of Wight in 1851. She repre-
sented certain American ideas in the shape of her
hull and the fit of her sail, which were immediately
copied in England. From that day to this the his-
tory of sailing yachts has been a steady improve-
ment in speed through the efforts of such yachtsmen
as James Gordon Bennett, General Charles T. Paine,
C. O. Iselin, J. Pierpont Morgan, and William K.
Vanderbilt, and such designers as the late Edward
Burgess, A. Gary Smith, J. Beaver Webb, formerly
of England but now of America, and Nat G.
Herreshoff. The last-named designer was the author
of both the latest international cup-racers, Vigilant
and Defender. The same designers have won golden
opinions for their work in the field of steam-yacht-
ing, as have also Gustav Hillmann, Lewis Nixon,
C. D. Mosher, and Charles M. Seabury ; and Ameri-
can yards can now turn out steel steam-yachts equal
to the best made in England.
BOATS, CANOES, AND SHELLS
THOUGH America is the home of the famous birch-
bark canoe, the modern sailing canoe was developed
almost entirely from English and Canadian models.
The birch-bark canoe is still used on some of the
inland waters, but it has been largely superseded by
the modern wooden type, which was introduced in
the United States from England about 1863. The
first canoes built in this country, following those of
Indian manufacture, were constructed by individual
boat builders. Among the early canoe builders was
James Everson, who began to build them from
English models at Greenpoint, N. Y., in 1869.
Another was Davis, an Englishman, who built fine
canoes at Ithaca, N. Y., in 1871. From these and
other early canoe builders regular companies have
been formed to build canoes and skiffs. One of the
large and successful corporations is the St. Lawrence
River Skiff, Canoe, and Steam-Launch Company,
founded by Charles G. Emery, John D. Little, and
J. G. Fraser, in 1887, at Clayton, Jefferson County,
N. Y. Another large builder is J. H. Rushton, of
Canton, N. Y. ; and among the celebrated builders
of sailing canoes for racing are Captain G. W.
Ruggles, of Charlotte (Rochester), N. Y., and
Stevens, of Lowell, Mass. In the building of row-
boats and small sail-boats the United States turns
out as fine models as any nation, but no records are
obtainable of the early history of the industry. The
boat-construction industry is so widely scattered
throughout the country that no figures can be given
of its annual output, but it must be very large.
One class of boats in which the United States
takes undisputed precedence is in the construction
of naphtha-launches, first patented in the United
States. The Gas-Engine and Power Company, of
Morris Heights, New York City, has the American
rights for the naphtha-engine, and in 1885 Jabez
A. Bostwick, Clement Gould, and John J. Amory
established this industry on the Harlem River, New
York City. At the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893
the General Electric-Launch Company, of New
York, had fifty electric launches running in the waters
of the lagoons, and the spectacle was one of the
features of the fair. The American electric launches
are probably destined to have as brilliant a future
as the naphtha-launch has had.
The manufacture of racing shells has rather dis-
appeared as an industry of itself in the United States ;
the demand is limited and the most of those con-
structed are made to order by boat builders who
are also shell experts.
PINS
PINS were made in Rhode Island during the Rev-
olution by Jeremiah Wilkinson, the heads being made
by twisting fine wires firmly at one end. Samuel
Slocum at about the same time commenced in Prov-
idence in the same line. In 1 824 a machine for mak-
ing solid-headed pins was invented by Lemuel W.
Wright, of New Hampshire, which was soon after
introduced into England, patents also being granted
there. It was, however, crude compared with those
of later construction, and did not complete all the
operations of pin making. In 1831 the first machine
for making perfect solid-headed pins like those
now in use was invented by John Ireland Howe, a
physician of Bellevue Hospital, New York City, and
in the next year a company was started in that city.
Six years later the business was removed to Derby,
Conn., where it is still carried on. Associated with
Dr. Howe was Mr. Fowler, of Seymour, Conn., who
was the inventor of several machines for sticking
pins on paper. In 1835 another company was
formed by Dr. Howe, which continued its operations
under his charge till 1865, many improvements
being made. Samuel Slocum, an ingenious Con-
necticut man, also invented a pin-sticking machine,
which was used in Howe's factory in 1841, and was
improved in 1843, ne and Mr. Slocum becoming
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
joint owners of the two patents. The United States
takes the lead in the production of superior ma-
chines for use in the manufacture of pins. The num-
ber of pins made daily is probably about 30,000,000,
or nearly 10,000,000,000 per annum — enough to
allow 150 pins per year to each man, woman, and
child in the United States. The chief place of manu-
facture is Connecticut.
COOPERAGE
IF Africa is the hunter's paradise, America is cer-
tainly the joy of the cooper, for no other country
has possessed such boundless forests of oak, from
which the bulk of the barrels are made, and no
other nation has produced such ingenious cooperage
machinery. The quantity of timber cut up every
year in the United States for barrels, casks, and
staves has been such a steady drain on American
forests that barrel manufacturers are beginning to
apprehend a scarcity of oak and are buying up large
tracts of forest land to prepare for the future. The
Canadian forests are already depleted of oak, and
so are those of some of the Western States, the
main supply now coming from the South. The
scarcity of timber, however, has not yet made an
impression on the barrel market, for barrels and
casks of all kinds are as low in price as they have
ever been, and the number of barrels manufactured
for home and foreign needs is as enormous as ever.
Barrel making in the United States is supposed to
have begun with the early settlement of the country.
Everything was at first done by hand, while now all
are made by machinery. One of the first machine
barrel manufacturers in the United States was An-
son T. Briggs, of New York, who manufactured
flour-barrels in quantities along in 1860. Staves
were turned out by machinery as early as 1855, but
the first manufacturer to use machinery for cooper-
age was George S. Salter, of Baltimore, in 1869.
He was followed a year later by Lowel M. Palmer,
of Brooklyn, who is now president of the Brooklyn
Cooperage Company, and who began making bar-
rels in 1865.
The introduction of machinery in cooperage met
with headstrong opposition from the coopers, and
Mr. Palmer had a strike at his works, which lasted
for four months before the men could be convinced
that they could earn more money by the use of
machinery than with the old hand methods. This
was proved by Mr. Palmer, who for one year from
the time of the introduction of the machinery gave
the coopers in his employment fifty cents more a day
than they had previously. The Brooklyn Cooper-
age Company now turns out 35,000 barrel* of all
kinds a day in its factories at Brooklyn, Jersey City,
Boston, New Orleans, and San Francisco; while
other manufacturers also produce cnormou* quanti-
ties. The staves are sawed out at the timber-mills
and shipped to the cooper-shops in this country if
the barrels are for domestic use, while quantities of
staves are also shipped to foreign countries to be
made up into barrels. No material has been found
equal to oak for casks, while for sugar and flour
barrels elm is employed. The barrel has always
been a popular means for transporting produce and
merchandise in America, and its handiness is also
appreciated abroad, so that the production is now
valued at $38,617,956 annually, which supplies the
United States and a large part of the rest of the
world with barrels, casks, and staves. The num-
ber of establishments is 2652 ; the number of em-
ployees, 24,652 ; the amount paid out for wages each
year, $11,665,366; and the cost of materials used,
$20,636,911.
LAMPS
WHEN the Pilgrims landed they had no other
lights than those which were afforded by candles
and whale-oil. The former required candlesticks,
and the latter, lamps. A temporary lamp was made
by filling a dish with oil, while on it floated a piece
of wood through which passed a wick. Torches
and temporary lights were afforded by pine knots.
Both candlesticks and lamps were occasionally made
in ornamental forms, but the light was always poor.
Even theaters could be lighted in no better way than
by candles. No radical improvement was shown in
the construction of lamps until 1784, when Aime"
Argand, a Frenchman, conceived the idea of a cir-
cular wick and a double wick-tube, thus obtaining
a round flame. Air was admitted both inside and
outside, thus insuring a more perfect combustion.
Around this wick he placed a glass-chimney. But
these lamps were used only in the houses of the rich,
and tallow candles remained the ordinary illumin-
ant for all others. In the first quarter of the nine-
teenth century, at which time whale-oil was very
cheap, moderate-priced oil lamps came into use.
They were composed of a closed reservoir for hold-
ing the oil, and two small, round tubes through which
the wicks were passed. On the sides of these tubes
were two small slots through which the wicks could
be picked up.
In 1845 the camphene or burning-fluid lamp
became prominent. These were two different kinds
664
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
of oil obtained from turpentine and alcohol, but
giving a much brighter light than candles. The
lamp in which these oils were burned was also much
cleaner and neater. This lamp had two round wick-
tubes, to which two small caps were attached, to be
placed over the tops when the lamp was not in use,
in order to prevent the evaporation of the camphene,
which went on very rapidly if measures were not
adopted to prevent it. About 1856, when petroleum
was discovered in Pennsylvania, lamps were made
for its use ; but there was considerable smoke from
them, and the oil had a very pungent odor. There
were, consequently, but few lamps made especially
adapted to this product ; but as soon as the unplea-
sant odor had been eliminated to some extent and
the price of oil became lower, kerosene lamps were
introduced everywhere. Many, however, still con-
tinued to burn camphene in 1860 and 1861, and did
not stop until the war, which, by preventing the
receipt of turpentine from North Carolina, raised
the price of camphene so high that people turned
to petroleum. At that time an ordinary camphene
lamp gave twice as much light as a tallow candle,
and a kerosene lamp six times as much. Lamps
for whale-oil were occasionally used till the same
time, but this oil bore no comparison with the min-
eral product for cheapness, and was also driven out
of the market. The light obtained from it was about
equal to that from tallow candles.
Since 1862 there has practically been no other
lamp used than the one just spoken of. It was fitted
with a flat wick, and required a glass chimney,
although from time to time since some lamps have
been made without chimneys. Many patents have
been granted for improved lamps, the most valuable
of which have been for a central draft. Duplex
burners were a great improvement, and Argand
burners and chimneys were also used. The latter
were employed in what are known as student lamps.
The metal button or flame-spreader was also intro-
duced, and it is still employed in central-draft lamps.
Mr. Leonard Henkel, of Rochester, N. Y., in-
vented a few years ago what may be said to be a
distinct improvement in the lamp. The contrivance
consists of a small cap placed over the top of the
central-draft tube, the sides of the latter being filled
with holes, thus permitting the air to pass through
the tube up to the flame.
These various improvements have resulted in
lamps which are far superior in power and steadi-
ness of light to those formerly known. If the power
of an ordinary petroleum light is taken at six times
that of a candle in 1858, the larger lights had in-
creased to 20 candle-power in 1868. But the more
recent improvements have raised this in ordinary-
parlor lamps to 60 or 80, and in hall and church
lamps to 200 and beyond. They are also less trou-
blesome and give a better kind of light. A large
trade is carried on in them. In one city alone the
manufacture is carried on to the extent of $400,000,
and the value of the annual product of lamps and
reflectors, as reported by the census of 1890, was
$4,039.359-
LAMP CHIMNEYS
THE idea of having a glass tube around the flam-
ing wick of a lamp belongs to Aime" Argand, as
has been said. It prevented cold air from directly
impinging upon the flame at the sides, it greatly
assisted the draft, and it acted as a shield against
currents of air. Wherever Argand lamps were
afterward used, a chimney was required, but none
seems to have been made in this country till 1856,
at Pittsburg. At about that time chimneys were
required for coal-oil lamps, which smoked very
much without them. With the increase in demand
for them, other factories began, and new methods
of making were introduced. Very few chimneys
made in the first ten years of the beginning of the
petroleum industry lasted any length of time, the
unequal contraction and expansion made by cold
and heat breaking them by dozens on the same
lamp in one year. The later methods have much
improved either the chimneys or the methods of
lamp construction, so that each chimney lasts for
a considerable time, and occasionally one may be
found that has been employed for two or three
years. In 1875 there were thirty-one concerns en-
gaged in the manufacture of glass-chimneys, and
while at the present time there are but twelve, the
price of chimneys has been greatly reduced, and the
number manufactured largely increased, the annual
output being about 750,000 boxes. Pittsburg is the
center of this industry.
BOX MAKING
Box MAKING has now become a considerable in-
dustry, particularly in those cities largely engaged
in distributing manufactured goods, such as New
York and Chicago. In the early part of the cen-
tury packing-boxes were made by carpenters as they
were required, or by any persons possessed of a
little mechanical skill. But with the development
of the dry-goods industry it was found necessary to
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OK AMERICAN COM Ml-: I ' I
have them made regularly, in large numbers, and in
the forms and shapes desired. This required special
kinds of boards and construction, and it was found
tiny could be more cheaply bought than made. It
was about 1840 before there were many firms thus
engaged, but the number has been increasing ever
since. The introduction of machinery for sawing,
assembling, and nailing the boxes has much increased
the facility of manufacture, as mechanical gauges
determine the length of each piece, and saws divide
a dozen or twenty boards at once. The total amount
of business done in this line is about $20,000,000 a
year, New York and Chicago each producing about
$3,000,000 worth of packing boxes. The capital
required is about $4,000,000, and the number of
hands employed is 8000 or 9000.
FIREARMS
THE rifle, originally invented in Leipsic in 1498,
was first brought into general military use in Amer-
ica during the Revolutionary War. The riflemen
in Kentucky, Tennessee, and the other wildernesses
of the United States had long been accustomed to
the use of this firearm, and so far as they could be
procured, rifles were the arms of the American sol-
diers in that struggle. In 1813 G. H. Hall proposed
a new idea. He suggested that the rifle be loaded
at the breech, so that the ball and powder, united
in one cartridge, might be inserted without delay,
and the piece loaded and fired as rapidly as the
muzzle-loading smooth-bore. Hall's idea did not
attract much attention in the United States. The
army, for the most part, was supplied with flint-locks,
and it would have involved considerable expense to
change them all over. He also proposed to manu-
facture the locks and other pieces of the guns by
machinery, so as to make the parts of the different
guns interchangeable. He was employed at the
government armory at Harper's Ferry to introduce
the latter idea and experiment with the former. In
this he was successful, and the interchangeable sys-
tem was soon introduced into all the armories of the
United States. In 1827 100 of Hall's guns which
had been sent to Springfield in 1824 were brought
back to Harper's Ferry and placed with 100 guns
of current make. The 200 were taken apart, the
pieces thoroughly mingled, and the guns then re-
mounted from pieces picked up at random. The
whole 200 fitted perfectly. They attracted much
attention abroad, and England afterward obtained
machinery in the United States, so that she might
introduce the system in her factory at Enfield. Prior
to 1853 every gun made in England was manufac-
tured by hand. The percuMJon-cap wan proponed
by Shaw, of Bordentown, in 181 7, and was really an
indispensable part of any improved system of fire-
arms.
The principal weapon of a new type brought out
a little before the Mexican War was a purely Amer-
ican invention, namely, the repeater. Samuel Colt,
a seaman, while on a voyage to Calcutta, devised a
six-barreled revolver to be used with percussion-
caps. In 1835 he improved upon this and perfected
a six-barrel rotating breech. Prior to this there
were two common types of pistol: one the small
pistol, suitable for use on a small object at thirty
yards ; and the other the large horse-pistol, which
was almost equal to a gun. Patents were issued to
Colt for his revolver, and the manufacture com-
menced in 1835 at Paterson, N. J. He later built
a factory at Hartford, Conn., and turned out 60,000
weapons a year. The large sales brought many
competitors into the field, including the manufac-
turers of the Allen, Derringer, Volcano, Pettinger,
Whitney, Smith & Wesson, and Lowell. The pistol
was very much employed during the war, and many
are even yet sold. Hall's idea of a breech-loading
rifle was never put into general use, but in 1852,
Stark, of Philadelphia, invented a breech-loading
rifle that met with great success. He built a factory
at Bridgeport, Conn. The first of a new class of
rifles to come into notice was the Spencer, the chief
idea of which was applied to other American guns.
This was a repeating rifle, but was almost too heavy
to be successful. It was too great a burden for the
men to bear in addition to their other accoutre-
ments. The Remington, which has acquired great
success, is produced at a factory at Ilion, N. Y.,
founded in 1825 by Eliphalet Remington. One
great cause of the growth of the industry was the
War of the Rebellion. The capital invested in 1840
did not exceed $200,000; in 1870 it was over
$3,000,000, while at the present time it is about
$10,000,000. The annual output of rifles is 1,000,-
ooo, and the same number each of shot-guns and
revolvers. The United States takes precedence in
the manufacture of sporting rifles, metallic ammuni-
tion, and revolvers.
FIRE EXTINGUISHERS
FIRE EXTINGUISHERS have now been regularly
manufactured since 1867, but attempts were made
years before that time to devise something which, on
its receptacle being broken or the contents poured
666
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
out, would prevent combustion. Those who were
associated at its inception as a regular business were
Dawson Miles (now dead), B. F. Jacobs, F. W.
Farwell, and S. F. Hayward. The places where
factories were earliest established were in Boston
and Chicago. Small hand-extinguishers were first
made, but now the size has so much increased that the
production includes large engines drawn by horses.
The total of manufacture is about $150,000.
GLOVES AND MITTENS
THE glover's art is centuries old in Europe, but
its beginnings in this country are almost or quite
within the memory of men now living. Mittens
were not unknown to the Indians, and the earliest
settlers in the country made for themselves rude
hand-covers from the skins of wild animals; but
glove manufacture as an American industry is only
about sixty years old. A Vermonter named Burr
was among the earliest to establish it, at what is
now the city of Gloversville, N. Y. Deer were
plenty in the neighboring forests, and their skins
were the chief material used. The early products
were no doubt quite crude, but they sold and their
sale was profitable.
For many years deerskin, usually called buckskin,
was the only leather thought to be suitable for a
driving or working glove. Sheepskin was used, but
it was weak and pulpy. Two or three towns in
New Hampshire attained a good reputation for buck
gloves, and in later years factories have been estab-
lished in various parts of the country, notably in
Illinois, the Northwest, and California ; but the chief
seat of the industry is at Gloversville and Johnstown,
Fulton County, N. Y.
Buckskin remains the preferred material for heavy
gloves, and varies much, from the thick "jack"
hide of the torrid zone to the thin, tough cuticle of
the Rocky Mountain deer. Other leathers are ap-
proved. Sheepskin is now so dressed as to make it
durable in all weathers, and the equine, bovine, and
porcine hides are all valuable for hand-wear pur-
poses of the rougher sort. Genuine dogskin is
made up by a few firms, the stouter skins entering
the above category, while the finer ones may do for
street wear.
For the purpose last named many skins are
utilized. Among them are the goat, kid, lamb,
antelope, calf, colt, Egyptian sheep (mocha), and
cabrita or South American kid. Chamois is some-
times used. The best castor gloves are made from
antelope. Coltskin has a fine surface and wonder-
ful durability. Mocha and cabrita resemble castor,
having a velvety finish. The former has the grain-
side outward, while the latter reverses that order.
Goat, lamb, and kid are the staple leathers for street
and dress purposes. Reindeer has been added in
recent years, and makes a good street glove.
Kid and lamb skins dressed are extensively im-
ported to be made up here; but these and all the
other kinds are also brought in a raw state from all
over the earth, to be made into glove-leather in the
scores of tanneries in Fulton County, New York.
The manufacture of the finer classes of gloves —
kid, castor, etc.— in the United States is hardly
twenty years old, but within that time great progress
has been made. In fact, the last five years have been
a period of rapid growth. Formerly it was thought
necessary to label domestic gloves with foreign
brands, but it is not so now. The importations of
gloves of European make are still large, owing to
the excellent reputation of some lines and the ex-
treme cheapness of others ; but probably four fifths
of all the leather gloves used in this country are of
home manufacture.
Considerable development has taken place of late
years in knit gloves of wool and silk. What are
known as Scotch-wool gloves have become popular,
and our manufacturers have shown much ability in
matching the foreign product, excellent as it is, with
creditable goods at low prices. Silk gloves of high
merit are made here, and several new factories for
this purpose have recently been started. The total
value of the American glove manufacture is prob-
ably well above $10,000,000.
ENVELOPES
ENVELOPES were not in general use in any coun-
try prior to 1840, when, after the passage of the
penny postage bill, they became common in Eng-
land. Until about 1845 nearly all letters in this
country were folded so that an unwritten portion
came on the outside, and the address was placed
there. By that time envelopes were well known, and
by 1850 all letters were inclosed in them. The first
maker of envelopes in New York was an English-
man named Dangerfield, who began about 1846;
and by 1850 Alderton and several others were in
the field. Only 2000 or 3000 could be made in a
day, as machinery had not yet been employed. The
blanks were cut out by chisels and pasted and folded
by hand. Machines were invented in England in
1845 by Warren de la Rue and Edwin Hill, but
these were never employed in America. Our
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
machinery was invented here, but not until just
before the outbreak of the Civil War. Many im-
provements have been made, and the speed is now
so great that on some of the machines the output
will reach 55,000 a day. It is supposed that the
consumption of envelopes in this country is from
8,000,000 to 1 0,000,000 a day, or not far from 3,000,-
000,000 a year, of which 600,000,000 are stamped
envelopes. The latter are all supplied by the Mor-
gan Envelope Company, of Springfield, Mass., and
the Plimpton Manufacturing Company, of Hartford,
Conn. There are about thirty large firms engaged
in the business, besides a number of smaller manufac-
turers. The principal towns thus employed are New
York, Philadelphia, Hartford, Rockville, Holyoke,
Worcester, and Springfield.
AMMUNITION
AMMUNITION may loosely be defined to be the
articles which are required in firearms to render the
mechanism effective. It includes shot, bullets, pow-
der, cartridges, caps, and wads. The last are chiefly
used by hunters, and are supplied by them from any-
thing that is convenient, which is generally some-
thing of no particular value. They therefore do
not enter into commerce. From the earliest period
of settlement shot and bullets have been made by
Americans. Lead was brought with them from Eng-
land and Holland, and cast in molds, many of which
are still preserved in old houses in New England,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia. They differed only in
size, so whether each projectile weighed an ounce or
the twentieth of an ounce, the same plan was adopted.
It will readily occur to any one that these molds
left a seam where the two points joined together,
and that the operation of casting must necessarily
have been very slow. Shot-towers, therefore, were
invented at an early date, and for the sizes required
for shot-guns are still necessary. The metal, a com-
pound of lead and arsenic, the latter forming one one
hundredth, is melted at the top of a high tower and
poured into a colander. The lead passes through in
drops instead of streams, each assuming a perfectly
spherical form, and falling into a basin of cold
water, there being instantly chilled in the globular
form. After this the shot are rolled down an inclined
plane, those which are not truly spherical falling off
at the sides, while the perfect ones continue in a direct
course. The holes through which the liquid metal
passes are from one thirtieth to one three hundred
and sixtieth of an inch in diameter. Shot is much
used for killing small game, which would be torn in
pieces by a heavy bullet ; and a shot-gun alto require*
less accurate marksmanship than a rifle. Mullet* are
still cast in molds, but in the factories this operation
is performed with great celerity. The ridge caused
by the meeting of the two parts is automatically re-
moved by a knife. Swaging of bullets is also prac-
tised. The total quantity of shot made in New York
annually is valued at $400,000, there being three
shot-towers. Baltimore also makes shot. Early in
the last century no method was commonly known of
getting accurate results from a gun, but it was noticed
that a bullet was nearly always flattened or smashed
at the end nearest the powder. If the ball was large
for the bore of the gun it reached its mark more cer-
tainly than if the bore was large. It was therefore
the common practice for hunters to put a patch or
wad around their bullet, which prevented the powder
from falling out, and also kept the bullet straight till
it had left the muzzle ; and it was also discovered
that if there were grooves inside the barrel which
twisted more or less, a rotary motion was imparted
to the bullet, which added much to its range and its
power of reaching its aim. This constituted the rifle,
and after its method of construction became gener-
ally known no other weapon was used for hunting
large game. They were used to some degree in
armies even fifty years ago. Gradually the smooth-
bore musket was driven out and soldiers were sup-
plied alone with rifles. But another article was
necessary before this could be completely accom-
plished. Until the second quarter of the century
the fire which was required to be communicated to
the powder came from a blow of the hammer of the
gun upon a piece of flint. Frequently there was a
miss. Percussion-caps were introduced about this
time. They depended for their value upon the
quality of igniting with a blow, their shape, like that
of a cup, being only requisite in order to keep them
on the nipple of the gun. They were much more
certain in action than the flint had been, and soon
drove it out everywhere. A later improvement in
ammunition was by the introduction of cartridges,
the powder and bullet being together. The metallic
cartridge is an invention made in France about 1831
and introduced here shortly after. A great improve-
ment was also made in France in 1845 in the shape
of the bullet, which did not become known here till
the time of the Crimean War. It was the Mini6
bullet, having for its peculiarity an elongation of the
projectile. Hitherto all others had been round. The
part which was foremost tapered to a point, but the
rear was flat, as if the bullet had been cut from a
round rod of lead. A heavier bullet was thus at-
668
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
tained, a more thorough rotation was imparted, and
little resistance was experienced from the air. The
new projectile would carry twice the distance of the
one it superseded, and would even at that point be
more destructive. The total production of ammu-
nition in the United States in the year 1890 was
valued at $6,538,482 ; business was carried on in
35 establishments, which had 2267 workmen, paid
$1,110,482 in wages, and used materials valued at
$4,645,850.
COLLARS AND CUFFS
DETACHED collars and cuffs of plain linen or cot-
ton are, like the shirt-bosom now in use, of modern
development, if not strictly of recent origin. The
men of the Revolution and the first presidency wore
no visible collar, but only a voluminous white cravat,
wound about the neck and tied in front, the soft
ends mingling with the bosom-frill of the shirt.
With the new century came the high collar and ex-
tension of the shirt. Much of it was hidden by the
large neck-cloth or stock; but its fashion closely
resembled the cut long known to the trade as the
"bishop," the upper edge rising gradually toward
the front and terminating abruptly at the sides of
the chin, the corners forming a slightly acute angle.
This style was not uncommon thirty years ago, and
a few old gentlemen still wear it. Sometimes the
upper edge was turned over the cravat. Lord By-
ron wore his high collar in that negligee manner, and
when the turned-down article was introduced as a
fashion it was named after the poet, and was so des-
ignated for many years.
The plain, deep wristband, or cuff, as it is now
called, came into being later than the collar. Long
after the linen band had been adopted for the neck
gentlemen wore lace at the wrists ; but the advent
of the steam-engine seems to have banished all such
marks of effeminacy from the apparel of men. The
deep wristband was, like the collar, an extension of
the shirt, and, in further resemblance, it was some-
times turned up out of the way.
Just when the first detached collars and cuffs were
made and offered for sale may not be ascertainable,
but it could not have been far from a half-century
ago. No doubt they were considered to be a cheap
shift to avoid changing one's shirt when its exposed
portions became soiled — a vulgar expedient, not in
keeping with true gentility. Dickies, or false shirt-
bosoms, were also used for the same reason. How-
ever that may be, they found a market ; but their
manufacture was small until after the invention of
the sewing-machine. With the perfection of that
instrument collar and cuff making on a large scale
became possible and profitable.
The collar industry was started in a modest way
at Troy, N. Y., by one or two men. Their success
incited emulation, and several other firms entered
the field. Some of the concerns now prominent in
the business date back to quite near the beginning.
The convenience of detachable pieces of linen was
so easily apparent that the demand for them outran
even the rapidly increased production. This, how-
ever, continued to enlarge, until it seemed that the
limit of consumption must have been fully reached.
Competition gave birth to many new fashions, and
there have been several periods which might be
called freakish and fantastic ; but reaction to less
radical forms invariably supervened.
Some English collars had long been imported, and
about twelve years ago German collars were intro-
duced. Both classes have their admirers, but there
seems to be room enough for all. With occasional
pauses, the development of the domestic manufac-
ture has proceeded with great strides. Singularly
enough, the business is almost confined to the city
of Troy, where it started. Several of the twenty-
odd firms engaged in it there have very large estab-
lishments, employ many hundred persons, and main-
tain warerooms in a half-dozen cities. There is no
trust or combination, but the freest competition.
Many grades, from fine linen to all cotton, are pro-
duced, and the workmanship in all classes has been
brought to a high degree of excellence. Good wages
are paid, and the industry as a whole is a fine illus-
tration of American skill, integrity, and persistent
enterprise. The value of the annual production of
collars and cuffs at Troy exceeds $5,000,000, and
there are one or two thriving concerns at Glens Falls,
N. Y. Paper collars and cuffs, which were at one
time very greatly used, now turn out an annual pro-
duct valued at only $301,093, while in 1880 the pro-
duction was valued at $1,582,571. Celluloid, at one
time also employed, is now little used. The total
production of linen collars and cuffs is not given
separately in the last census report.
PRECIOUS STONES AND GEMS
THE mineral wealth of the United States so far as
the so-called precious stones are concerned is only
at the threshold of its development. Discoveries
embracing almost the entire list of gems have been
made in this country from time to time, but with few
exceptions the production up to the present year has
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
been simply incidental to other mining operations.
Among the few precious stones for which regular
mines are worked the turquoise probably stands at
the head in point of commercial importance, the
American turquoise selling readily in the market both
here and abroad. Mines in the Southwest which
have been worked for some time have yielded nearly
$200,000 worth of these stones in a single year.
Tourmaline is another mineral which is found in
sufficient crystalline purity and excellence of color
to warrant its being mined systematically, although
in a small way. The most important mine for this
gem is in Maine, and a single crystal from these
workings has brought as much as $1000. The dia-
mond has never been found in sufficient quantity in
this country to give it commercial importance, al-
though crystals of more or less value have been dis-
covered in Wisconsin, North Carolina, California,
and Michigan. In North Carolina many important
discoveries of precious stones have been made, and
emeralds have been found in some quantity in Mit-
chell County, while certain other sections of the
State are being very carefully searched, with more
or less successful result, by expert miners and min-
eralogists. Important discoveries of rubies have also
been made in this same State in Macon County,
and valuable workings in the not distant future are
highly probable. The sapphire has been found in
Montana, of a very pure blue color, and both there
and in one or two of the adjacent States crystals
have been found of sufficient fineness and variety of
color to cut into gems inferior only to the Oriental
rubies, sapphires, and topaz. The beryl, from which
the gem called aquamarine is cut, has also been found
in this country to some extent. The most valuable
discoveries of this crystal have been in Maine, where
not only the green and blue varieties of the aqua-
marine have been obtained, but also the golden beryl
and the clear white, both of which cut into gems of
great brilliancy. Beryl has also been found in Con-
necticut and North Carolina. Amethystine quartz,
false topaz, and cairngorm-stone are also found in
considerable quantities, and garnets of more or less
value may be added to the list. Opals of fine qual-
ity have been mined to some extent in Idaho. Be-
sides these many minerals that might be classed as
precious are brought to light from time to time.
What the total annual production of precious stones
in this country has been for the last few years is im-
possible to say. Specimen hunters, enthusiastic min-
eral collectors, and professional prospectors annu-
ally gather thousands of dollars' worth, which find
their way into cabinets all over the country. In the
commercial phase of the matter both producer! and
dealers show a marked disinclination to give figure*.
The report of the census of 1890 gives the total pro-
duction of precious stones in the country during the
ten years preceding as $851,138, which is probably
far below the true amount. The U nited Slates Geo-
logical Survey gives the figures for the year 1893 a*
$264,04 1 , which shows that even in that year of finan-
cial depression a marked increase took place over
the average annual production of the preceding
decade.
BAGS AND BAGGING
BAGS, as a separate industry, have not been made
for more than half a century. Originally they were
put together by hand, one piece of cloth making the
sides and another the bottom, if the bag was to con-
tain much, or simply by sewing the length of the
side and then across the bottom, if it was not to be
of large capacity compared with its height. Van-
ous contrivances were made for the mouth. An
immense number, however, are needed throughout
the country, and as soon as the sewing-machine was
perfected factories were fitted up to prepare them
faster than had theretofore been possible. Later the
bags were woven, both bottom and sides being com-
pleted, but the top hemmed by hand. The first large
factory where this was done was the Stark Mills, at
Manchester, N. H. Since that time many other
firms and companies have engaged in this business,
and it has extended to the West. There are six large
manufacturers in New York, who at times turn out
100,000 bushel-bags a day, and small bags for salt
and other substances amounting to twice that num-
ber. The importations from Europe average 10,-
ooo bags daily. There are a large number made
by small dealers owning a single machine, and many-
are made by the families of farmers residing in the
vicinity of great cities. The burlaps for making
bags are imported in large quantities. One of the
curious subdivisions of this industry is a bag-loaning
company. Shippers of goods from this country can
borrow as many bags as they like, paying for the
use a certain specified sum, and returning them after
they are emptied. The number of establishments
engaged in bag making in the United States is 64 ;
the number of employees is 3769 ; the wages paid
are $1,462,01 1 ; the cost of materials is $12,657,270,
and the value of products is $16,355,365, very nearly
twice the amount in 1880.
Bagging, which is a very important article in the
South, where it is employed as a covering for cot-
ton-bales, is also used more or less in many other
670
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
industries. The number of firms employed in its
manufacture is 16; the number of hands is 3149;
the wages paid are $905,213 ; the cost of materials
used— flax, hemp, and jute— is $2,520,995 ; and the
total out-turn is valued at $3,852,440.
Paper bags have now become very common.
They are used in a thousand industries, from heavy
packages like those of flour to light and graceful
forms utilized in the dry -goods trade. In 1890 there
were 56 paper-bag factories, employing 1382 hands,
paying out $580,092 in wages, using materials valued
at $3,167,717, which produced goods worth $5,023,-
793. The bags are made either wholly or partially
by machinery. In the latter instance the cost for
apparatus is a great deal less, and the labor of chil-
dren and women is utilized to complete the work
of the machines. Every sheet is of exactly the size
needed, so there is no waste, and the pasting is done
mechanically.
PAVING MATERIALS
UNTIL a hundred or a hundred and fifty years
after the first American colonies were settled there
were few paved streets in our cities. Stone Street,
in New York, was thus called because it was the
first thoroughfare which had a pavement. This was
about two hundred years ago, and the stones were
probably cobbles. When the Revolution came, most
of the streets in our cities were muddy from side to
side in winter, including the footpaths, and in summer
were mountains of dust. The first paving material
largely employed in our towns was brick, which is
still considerably used in Philadelphia and some other
cities. This was only needed for sidewalks. The
center of the street was macadamized or Telforded
as long ago as sixty or eighty years, and smooth
flagstones were employed in sidewalks even before
that period. As time passed plank roads were laid
down in many localities throughout the United States,
and at one time it seemed as if all good country roads
would be constructed of wood. They were much in
vogue between 1840 and 1860, but have almost dis-
appeared since. Central Park, of New York, prob-
ably furnished the first instance of the use of an as-
phalt roadway on a large scale. This has since been
much employed, but in this climate it sometimes
becomes hard in winter and cracks, and in summer
becomes soft. Blocks of wood, end up, and blocks
of stone, have been employed largely during the last
thirty years, and have proved valuable. In Western
cities artificial stone has been much used for side-
walks, being made of a beauty and evenness not
found in any other material. Chicago has many
miles of these sidewalks. By the last census paving
and paving materials were handled by 704 firms,
employing 22,730 men. and paying $10,450,970 in
wages. The cost of materials used was $11,030,-
916, and the total output was valued at $30,644,072.
TRUNKS AND VALISES
IN few industries have there been greater changes
than in this occupation. Every taste may now be
suited. Modern materials have been added, and
frames are made of both metal and wood. In 1795
few trunks or valises were needed, as there was little
traveling. The business of manufacture was then
generally conducted by those who were saddlery
and harness makers. In the " Business Directory "
of New York in 1841 eleven names appear as trunk
makers, one or two of them still being remembered.
Later improvements in machinery and traveling now
diminished the cost of some portions of the work
materially, but not enough, on the whole, to lessen
the prices of goods generally. There are five large
manufactories having their offices in New York and
their shops either here or near by, whose sales
amount to $2,000,000 a year. In the United States
there were 395 firms engaged in the manufacture of
trunks and valises in 1890. They employed 6785
men, paid out $3,513,749 in wages, used $4,703,-
982 in the purchase of materials, and produced goods
valued at $10,821,621.
LEAD-PENCILS
LEAD-PENCIL manufacture in the United States
did not begin until 1860, but there is now estimated
to be $4,000,000 capital invested in the industry,
and American lead-pencils are sold all over the
world. This country is particularly adapted to the
production of lead-pencils, for it has rich graphite
mines, and extraordinary facilities, also, for obtain-
ing this substance from elsewhere; it also has the
only great forests of cedar in the world, from which
the stock of the pencil is made, and even sends
quantities of cedar to foreign pencil makers. Above
all, it has had numbers of ingenious mechanics to
originate labor-saving machinery. Germany is the
pioneer country in lead-pencil manufacture, and
from that nation came many of the founders of the
industry in the United States. Among the first in
this country were Eberhard Faber, Joseph Reck-
endorfer,— both of whom are dead,— and Henry
Baulzheimer, who returned to Europe after opening
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
671
a factory here. New York City and vicinity have
always been the seat of lead-pencil manufacture in
this country, and among the prominent manufactur-
ing firms now located there are the American Lead-
Pencil Company, the Eagle Pencil Company, and
the works and office of Eberhard Faber ; while just
across the Hudson River, in Jersey City, is the big
plant of the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company, with
its office and salesroom in New York. The Dixon
Company was founded by Joseph Dixon at Salem,
Mass., as early as 1826, and moved to Jersey City
in 1840, but the company did not begin to make
lead-pencils until 1872. It is the pioneer graphite
company in the United States, if not in the world.
The plumbago crucibles (which are identical with
graphite) were invented by Joseph Dixon. Graphite
now enters largely into every department of the me-
chanical arts. The American output of pencils is
calculated to be 5000 gross per day. American
lead-pencils now supply nearly all the home demand
and are sold everywhere. Many novelties in pen-
cils have originated in the United States.
ARTIFICIAL FEATHERS AND FLOWERS
ARTIFICIAL feathers and flowers have long been
made in the United States. It is probable that the
industry was brought here by French immigrants,
who had fled from their own country. The number
of French people here was soon increased by those
who had come hither from the island of Hayti. It
was necessary that these strangers should live, and
one of the first industries they took up was artificial
flower making. We had at that time few green-
houses, and those which existed contributed very
little to the daily supply of the citizens. But arti-
ficial flowers are permanent, lasting a year or two
if required ; and they serve as cheap decorations for
ladies' hats and bonnets. For the same purpose
feathers were used, and it became the custom to
unite the two industries in the same shop. As long
ago as 1840 there were ten manufacturers in this
line in New York, T. Chagot apparently being the
chief. He was an importer as well as a manufac-
turer, his place being at 24 Maiden Lane. The
others were nearly all in William Street. In 1847
the number had increased to twenty-four. No sep-
arate enumeration of these products appears in the
early census returns, but the quantity demanded in-
creased greatly. Within the past few years a great
change has taken place : the flowers are of a much
finer quality than formerly. The importations have,
usually speaking, been of a higher grade in flow-
ers than are made here ; but this is now changed,
except for a few very expensive kind*, and America
ranks with the world. Feathen arc used on ladies'
hats and bonnets, as trimming on ladies' dresses, nd
as boas and collars. New York is the principal seat
of the industry. The amount of goods produced in
the United States, including receipts from custom-
work and repairing, was valued in 1880 at $4,879,-
324, and in 1890 at $9,078,683. There are now .251
establishments in this line, having 6835 employees,
and paying out annually $2,681,185 in wages.
DYESTUFFS AND DYEING
ALMOST the first industries established in the
American colonies, after they were settled, and after
they had taken measures to establish a food supply,
were spinning and weaving, and dyeing came soon
after. New dyestuffs were found here, and perma-
nent dye-houses were established sooner than woolen
factories. Butternut was a very common dye, but
logwood and other substances prevented it from
being used in any other than the most common work.
Indigo, cochineal, annotto, quercitron, and brazil-
wood were among those introduced from abroad
shortly afterward, and have stayed in use up to the
present time. Mordants afterward became known,
and later mineral dyes. Within the lifetime of the
present generation a new and exceedingly brilliant
series of colors for dyeing has been evolved from
coal-tar. The industry of dyeing is now very widely
spread. Nearly every mill devoted to textiles has a
dye-house, and there are many independent works
throughout the country. In dyeing and finishing
textiles there were, in 1890, 248 establishments, em-
ploying 20,267 hands, paying them $9,717,011 in
wages, using materials worth $12,385,220, and turn-
ing out a total product valued at $28,900,560. Dye-
stuffs and extracts were made in 62 factories, em-
ploying 2302 hands, whose wages were $1,289,987,
and using $6,500,928 worth of materials. The total
value of the product was $9,292,514.
CORUNDUM
CORUNDUM has been known for only a few years,
and has come into popularity on account of its being
harder than emery. It is used for polishing, and
although it is very hard and jagged, it serves well
the purpose for which it is used. The article to be
polished is acted on by one wheel after another, less
and less rough, until the surface becomes of a glassy
smoothness. An emery-wheel is an ordinary wheel
672
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
in shape, around the circumference of which emery
is impressed, glued, or pasted. Corundum is inter-
mingled with emery, with which it is closely allied.
Both are together on the same wheel. In hardness
corundum is next to the diamond. Some speci-
mens of it are the well-known gems, topaz, sapphire,
and ruby. Common corundum comes from North
and South Carolina and New Jersey, but some is
imported. The total product is $105,000 a year.
WINDOW-SHADES
THE manufacture of window-shades is a large
industry in many of the cities of the Union. The
extremely bright days we have in this country, to-
gether with the heat, necessitate a protection from
the sun. Practically, shades are curtains, but are
rolled up instead of being divided and looped up.
Curtains have been known from remote times. In
the "Arabian Nights" there are constant refer-
ences to curtains, and in the description of the Is-
raelite tabernacle are elaborate instructions of the
way in which the curtains are to be made and looped
up. In modern communities dwellings are required
having windows from which light can be excluded,
although admitting air. This is afforded by outside
or inside shutters, or by curtains of rushes or reeds.
But some forty years ago it was found that the shades
or curtains then made could be rolled up on a stick,
held to the right height, or pulled down when re-
quired, the power being furnished by a spring. So
common has this contrivance become that almost
every house is now supplied with shades moving in
this way, and the manufacture of them has become
a great industry. Some are moved by weights, and
there are various minor contrivances. The cloths
used generally imitate a brown holland. The total
production is $5,812,428, the number of factories is
48, and the number of employees is 1307.
CHOCOLATE AND COCOA
THE chocolate and cocoa trades of the United
States have assumed vast proportions during recent
years. There are 1 1 establishments engaged in the
manufacture of various preparations from these com-
modities, the capital representing about $3,000,000,
and furnishing employment to 963 hands. The en-
tire product is valued at $4,221,075.
Chocolate as a beverage was introduced into
Europe by the Spaniards in 1520. It is prepared
from a West Indian bean. The ancient Aztecs were
very skilful in making this drink, and by them it was
regarded as a necessity and a delicacy. In the West
Indies the product is gathered, dried, and packed
for this and other markets. In the manufacture of
chocolate the beans are generally roasted, and the
development of a peculiar aroma indicates the com-
pletion of the process. Subsequently the beans are
reduced to a paste, mixed with one half to equal
parts of sugar, and a small quantity of vanilla-bean
is generally used for flavoring. Chocolate is easy of
adulteration, and is often diluted with farinaceous
substances such as arrowroot, sago, wheaten flour,
and animal fats, although the standard brands on
the market are guaranteed to be chemically pure.
No record is preserved of the time when the first
chocolate was made in America; but in 1794 a
chocolate-mill in the North End of Boston turned
out twenty-five hundredweight daily. In 1829 a
factory in Lynn annually made sixty tons.
Cocoa, or, more correctly, cacao, is produced by
the same plant from which we get chocolate. The
latter is from the kernels of the fruit of the choco-
late-tree, while the former is from the nibs. Cocoa
has much less fatty matter than chocolate, and is
consequently preferred by many persons. In the
preparation of cocoa as an article of food the aid of
science has been invoked, and in the form in which
it is placed on the market it is regarded as one of
the most valuable food products. The statistics of
this industry are included with those of chocolate.
BLACKING AND STOVE-POLISH
SHOE-BLACKING has long been made in this coun-
try. Fifty or seventy-five years ago gentlemen
blacked their shoes as they do now, but at the
earlier period it is not probable that any polishing
preparation was known. Two and three centuries
ago shoes were worn of the natural color, but for
a couple of centuries shoemakers and tanners have
made a compound containing some coloring matter
which is applied to the surface of the leather han-
dled by them. Polishing shoes probably originated
either in London or Paris, and the production of
blacking for this purpose has become a very exten-
sive business in the former city. It was in a black-
ing factory that Dickens was employed as a boy,
as he has recorded for us in the pages of " David
Copperfield," although he does not there state the
identity of himself with his hero. This must have
been about 1821. As far back as 1841 there were
seven manufacturers of blacking in New York, and
there were doubtless others in Boston and Philadel-
phia. For fifty years a bootblack has been a neces-
sity for every hotel in America, and there are many
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
boys and some men employed in this calling in the
streets. Although five or ten cents is the usual price
for a box of blacking, there are so many boxes sold
that the business in the aggregate is a large one.
The number of manufactories was, in 1890, 71.
They had 1039 employees, paid out $561,644 in
wages, used $1,484,203 in material, and sold $2,900,-
402 worth of products.
Stove-polish is plumbago, in a comminuted form,
applied to stoves, and rubbed on them with a brush
till they shine. Other articles are mixed with black-
lead, so called, by some manufacturers, but simply
for the purpose of cheapening it. Plumbago alone
will accomplish the desired end. In its present form
stove-polish has been known for a little over fifty
years. No statistics are available on this industry,
but its output probably exceeds $1,000,000 a year.
BOTTLING AND BOTTLERS' SUPPLIES
A GREAT demand exists in all the brewing districts,
and in those producing wine, for bottles, and to put
up these beverages with quickness and economy re-
quires specially trained workmen and modern appli-
ances. Beer, wine, and spirituous liquors demand
nearly all the strong, heavy bottles made in the glass
factories sixty years ago, but with the temperance
agitation, the inquiry for wine and beer lessened very
much, and new beverages, in the shape of soda-
water and root-beer, became popular. They had
been known before, but those who were temperance
advocates then began drinking the non-intoxicating
liquids freely. An apparatus was contrived about
that time by which the right quantity of fluid could
be injected into bottles, the cork driven in, and the
top wired ; but it took many years before the inven-
tion was perfected. Much of the progress made
was owing to the great springs at Saratoga, the water
from which was beginning to be called for through-
out the United States. Bottling was continually
going on, and there were many contrivances per-
fected. Later mineral waters and ginger-ale were
produced in quantities, each requiring separate bot-
tles and to some extent separate devices. Much
capital is invested in this business, and there is a
national association composed of manufacturers.
Returns are made by nearly all these firms and
companies to the association, from which it appears
that this industry employs nearly 30,000 persons;
it serves 4,489,038 customers, owns 22,940 horses,
employs a capital of nearly $51,000,000, and owns
bottles to the value of $12,747,633. Its loss of
bottles annually is $3,522,804. In this line are
•M
consumed annually, besides bottles, cork* in great
number, wire, patented arrangement! for doting
bottles, paper boxes for holding bottles, — nl^
wax, and labels. The cost of these materials fc
given at $7,937,001.
SCHOOL FURNITURE
VERY little was made in the way of school furni-
ture before 1850. What answered for grown peo-
ple was suitable for children, so that small seats and
desks were constructed by the local carpenters when
needed ; blackboards were prepared when used, or
were dispensed with ; and all the little accessories
which are now a necessity in the school-room were
then unknown. Threescore years ago, through a
large part of the United States, the children sat upon
rough planks or even upon slabs ; the desks were
simply boards, with a little ledge on the lower side,
and there were no steel pens and very little paper.
In the United States now there are over 100,000
school districts, and each school-house and each
child must be supplied with facilities which were then
not dreamed of. In high schools globes, orreries,
and cabinets of specimens must be provided, and in
all there must be a great number of contrivances to
lessen labor, to make the results more uniform, and
to impress more certainly the lessons to be incul-
cated. Much school furniture is made by those
whose names are not known in that line, but the
regular trade is carried on separately from that of
other dealers, the estimated annual value of the busi-
ness being about $15,000,000.
CORK
CORK is not a product of the United States, but
is imported, chiefly from Spain. It is the bark of a
species of oak. When it arrives here it is cut into
smaller pieces by specially devised machinery, and is
thus prepared for many uses. The chief one is for
bottling. Nothing has ever been discovered that is
equal to cork for this purpose, as it is very elastic,
can be driven in easily, and cannot be removed
without special effort. It is also employed for cork
jackets, life-preservers, and buoys for nets, for
which its extreme lightness makes it advantageous.
The factories where these articles are produced are
in the four large seaboard cities, which are chiefly
engaged in the Mediterranean trade. Cork cutting
is carried on in 65 factories, employing 2138 persons,
to whom wages amounting to $762,518 are paid.
The raw materials cost $1,501,962, and the value of
the annual product is $2,840,359.
674
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
FLAGS AND BANNERS
FLAGS have long been produced in this country.
In the early days of flag making here these emblems
were made of almost any stout woven material, the
stars and stripes on the national colors being sewed
on separately in order to complete the design
adopted. Subsequently a cloth of a homogeneous
character was manufactured for the purpose, that
part comprising the stripes being in one piece and
the stars in another. During the war a stimulus was
given to flag making, many patriotic persons being
anxious to make a display of their loyalty by pub-
licly exhibiting the national colors. There was also
a large demand for flags by the armies in the field.
In the early colonial days there was no standard em-
blem for the Americans ; but with the beginning of
the War of the Revolution the design of the present
national colors, then composed of thirteen stars and
stripes, representing the thirteen original States, was
adopted. As each State was added to the Union,
one star was added, until the present design, com-
prising forty-five stars, was completed. Thus the
flags change for every decade.
At the present time New York is the center of
the flag-manufacturing industry of the United States.
The large quantity of bunting consumed in flag
making is chiefly produced in Massachusetts. There
are some concerns in New York City and Brooklyn
which hire or lend flags for special occasions, and
there are artists connected with the industry who
decorate doorways, public and private buildings,
highways, and arches.
The manufacture of banners— many of them very
elaborate in design and finish, for indoor ornamen-
tation—is also being developed. According to the
census reports there were 29 firms engaged in the
flag and banner business, having 364 employees, and
turning out an annual product valued at $455,849.
FELT
IT is probable that the making of felt preceded
weaving, as many substances can be made into cloth
or its equivalent simply by rubbing or shaking them
together. They are interlaced by being agitated
and tossed in the air, then falling upon a table with
the utmost irregularity, and finally forming a thin
sheet. Layer after layer is added till the required
thickness is attained. Felt is used most largely for
hats, but is also required for shoes and a variety of
other purposes. Many improvements have been
made in felt-making machinery, and the business is
now very extensive. It is impossible to tell exactly
the quantity of goods manufactured, as the propor-
tion of hats made of felt cannot be ascertained. But
felt goods are reported in the census as being made
in 34 establishments, the value of the product being
$4,654,768.
BASKETS, RATAN AND WILLOW WARE
ONE of the earliest industries in the East was that
of basket making. No countries, except the most
degraded, are without this calling, and since the set-
tlement of America it has been carried on in all sec-
tions. Many persons are employed at it who can-
not exert much physical force, and a considerable
quantity of goods is manufactured in asylums and
homes. Any species of willow can be used, but
there are some particularly adapted to this business,
as they are tougher and more flexible than others,
or the trees are more accessible. The twigs are also
used for many other purposes, such as baby-carri-
ages, basket phaetons, and seats in railway-cars. The
trade does not appear so large as it really is, for
much is sold by the maker direct to the consumer,
and a great deal is also placed in the hands of retail
men, and all this remains unclassified. There is a
wider extent of usefulness for ratan goods. The
raw material is obtained from the ratan palm, found
in the island of Borneo and elsewhere in the East,
which is imported here in vast quantities. It can
be employed for nearly everything that willow can
be used for, and in addition for walking-canes, hats,
and many other things. There are 403 establish-
ments now engaged in the manufacture of baskets,
ratan and willow ware, employing 3732 men, and
payingthem$i, 269,135 in wages. The raw material
cost $i ,398,483, and the annual value of the product
was $3,633,634.
CHAPTER C
THE NEXT ONE HUNDRED YEARS
IT has been a labor of love as well as instruction
to edit the articles which appear in this vol-
ume. Such a review of our remarkable cen-
tury can be found nowhere else. Assistance has
been sought, not among literary men and profes-
sional writers, but from the experts in each depart-
ment of industry. The encyclopedia is largely
professional work. This is purely practical. Gentle-
men absorbed in the management of the enterprises
which are the growth of the century have stepped
aside from their engrossing duties and cares to put
into enduring form, each for himself, a plain, clear,
and lucid statement of the section of the material
world with which he is familiar, and in which he
has won his position, fortune, or fame. No one
can rise from a perusal of these papers without
having an increased admiration for the nineteenth
century and unbounded hopes for the twentieth.
The stories of battle and conquest, of the founding
of dynasties and the dissolving of empires, of the
sieges of cities and the subduing of peoples, which
constitute the body of written history from the
beginning of recorded time, are in ghastly contrast
to this glorious, beneficent, and humanitarian picture
of the achievements of the nineteenth century.
A philosopher has said that he is a benefactor of
mankind who makes two blades of grass to grow
where only one grew before. We celebrate harvests
in inventions and discoveries where existed only
Saharas. We find that the nineteenth century has
not only added enormously to the productive power
of the earth, but, in the happiness which has at-
tended its creative genius, it has made the sunlight
penetrate where the sunbeam was before unknown.
Our own country is peculiarly the pride of this
century. It is the most complete example ever
presented of the working out under favorable con-
ditions of the principles and opportunities of civil
and religious liberty. The marvelous development
of the United States cannot be attributed solely or
mainly to climate, to soil, to the virgin forests, or to
unlimited and unoccupied territory. South America,
Central America, and Mexico were as well, if not
better, equipped in these respects. The garden of
Eden, that fertile and fruitful portion of Asia, which
for ages was the seat of empire, civilization, art, and
letters, and for centuries the hive from which
swarmed the conquerors of Europe, has returned
to aboriginal conditions of desert and wilderness.
Every industry whose birth and growth are features
of this volume is the expression and witness of the
beneficent principles of the freedom and liberty of
individual action.
One hundred years ago the first cotton-mill was
running with 250 spindles. Whitney discovered the
cotton-gin, which created the wealth of the Gulf
States and made the cotton industry over all the
world tributary to them. Other inventors improved
the machinery, and the single mill of one hundred
years ago has expanded into 1000, and the 250
spindles have increased to nearly 18,000,000. One
hundred and one years ago the first wool-carding
machine was put in operation, under the impulse
mainly of American invention. There were in 1895
2500 wool manufactories. The production of tex-
tile fabrics in this country supports 512,000 em-
ployees, paying to them in wages $176,000,000
yearly, and receives from the product $722,000,000.
At the beginning of the century a few thousand
tons of iron were manufactured. In 1890 the
United States produced over 9,000,000 tons of pig-
iron, being more than any other country ; while in
the manufactured products of iron and steel we are
also in the advance of nations.
These astonishing figures give only the basic results
of production, for from them collaterally flow car
building, the miracles of the sewing-machine, of the
vast employment and earnings of machinery manu-
facturing, of building and building materials, of the
manipulation and composition of other metals, as
675
676
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
silver and gold and copper and brass, of the singu-
larly rapid rise of American glass interests, of the
incalculable demands made upon furnace and mill
and shop for railway appliances, of the immense
production of utensils useful in domestic life and in
agriculture, of the great supplies of material compre-
hended under the name of dry-goods, and of the
machinery required for the telegraph, the telephone,
and the creation of electrical energy.
The twentieth century will be a truth-seeking
century. The nineteenth has been one of experi-
ment. Invention and discovery have made the last
fifty years of the nineteenth century the most re-
markable of recorded time. Nature has been forced
to reveal her secrets, and they have been utilized
for the service of man. Lightning drawn from the
clouds, through the experiments of Franklin, has be-
come the medium of instantaneous globe-circling
communication through the genius of Morse, of
telephonic conversation by the discoveries of Bell,
and the element of illumination and motive power
by the marvelous gifts of Edison. Steam, which
Fulton utilized upon the water and Stephenson upon
the land, has created the vast system of transporta-
tion which has given the stimulus to agricultural and
manufacturing products by which millions of people
have been enabled to live in comfort where thou-
sands formerly dwelt in misery and poverty. The
forces of destruction, or rather the powers of de-
struction, have been so developed that while the
nations of the earth are prepared for war as never
before, the knowledge of its possibilities for the
annihilation of life and property is so great that peace
generally prevails. Physical progress and material
prosperity have led to better living, broader educa-
tion, higher thinking, more humane principles, larger
liberty, and a better appreciation in preaching and
in practice of the brotherhood of man over all the
globe.
The nineteenth century closes with civilization
more advanced in the arts and in letters than in the
best days of Greece or Rome or the Renaissance ;
with a development in mechanical arts, in chemistry
and in its appliances, in agriculture and in manufac-
tures, beyond the experience of all preceding cen-
turies put together. The political, social, and pro-
ductive revolutions and evolutions of the period
mark it as unique, beneficent, and glorious in the
story of the ages. It has been the era of emanci-
pation from bigotry and prejudice, from class dis-
tinctions and from inequalities in law, from shackles
upon the limbs and padlocks upon the lips of man-
kind. It has been conspicuously the century of
civilization, humanity, and liberty. As its presiding
and inspiring genius looks proudly over the results,
he may well say to the angel of the twentieth cen-
tury, " You can admire, you can follow, but whither
can you lead? "
The imaginary line drawn on the thirty-first day
of December, 1899, between the past and the future
cannot stop the wheels of progress nor curb the
steeds, instinct with the life of steam and electricity,
which are to leap over this boundary in their resist-
less course. The twentieth century will be preemi-
nently the period for the equitable adjustment of
the mighty forces called into existence by the spirit
of the nineteenth century, and which have so de-
ranged the relations of capital and labor, of trades
and occupations, of markets and commercial high-
ways. There will come about a oneness of races
and nationalities by which the moral sense of civili-
zation will overcome the timidity of diplomacy to
prevent or to punish such atrocities as are now
being perpetrated in Armenia. The Turk will either
adopt the laws and recognize the rights of life,
liberty, and property commonly recognized among
Christian nations, or his empire will be dismembered
and distributed among the great powers of Europe.
Militarism, which is crushing the life out of the great
nations of the Continent, will break down through
the burdens it imposes and the conditions it exacts.
The peoples of those countries, groaning under this
ever-increasing and eventually intolerable load, will
revolt. They will teach their rulers that that peace
is not worth the price which can only be maintained
by armaments which are increased on the one side as
rapidly as on the other, so that peace depends upon
an equilibrium of trained soldiers and modern im-
plements of war. They will discover closer ties of
international friendship, which will strengthen year
by year, and in the camaraderie of international
commerce they will come to maintain amicable re-
lations with one another before tribunals of arbitra-
tion and under the principles of justice. The world
will discover, as we found in our own country in
our Civil War, that a free people quickly respond to
the call of patriotism to meet every requirement of
war in defense of their nation, and that armies
of citizen soldiers, when the danger is passed, re-
sume at once their places in the industries of the
land. The twentieth century will realize the proph-
ecy, " They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks."
The pessimist has proved with startling accuracy
that with the exhaustion of fuel-supplies in the forests
and in the coal-mines, the earth can no longer sup-
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
port its teeming populations, and that we are rush-
ing headlong into anarchy and chaos. The twenti-
eth century will find in the methods of the produc-
tion of electrical power an economy of fuel and an
increase of force which will accelerate progress and
conserve our storage of supplies. Transportation
both by land and by sea will be done solely by
electricity. The same power will run the mills, the
furnaces, and the factories. It will revolutionize
and economize the processes of domestic life. It
will shift and alter centers of production to places
where electrical power can be more cheaply evolved,
and that power will be utilized at long distances
from its sources.
The hospitals of the world have reached their
highest and best conditions in the nineteenth century
for the care and cure of the sick and the injured.
The hospitals of the twentieth century will perform
this work as well, if not better, but they will also be
schools of investigation and experiment. It is the
peculiarity of each generation that it accepts as a
matter of course that which was the astonishment
and wonder of its predecessor. The antiseptic
principle, which has made possible modern surgery,
— the discovery of a surgeon still living, — is the
commonplace of our day. So are the wonderful
revelations which came through the trained brains
and skilled hands of Pasteur and of Koch. System-
atic and scientific research under liberal and favor-
able conditions will make the hospitals of the twen-
tieth century the very sources of life. As the Gat-
ling gun and the mitrailleuse enable the explorer in
central Africa to disperse hordes of savages and
open up unlimited territories for settlement and civ-
ilization, so will the leaders of the hospital laboratory
produce the germicides which will destroy the living
principles of consumption, of tuberculosis, of cancer,
of heart, nerve, brain, and muscular troubles, and
of all the now unknown and incalculable enemies
which give misery and destroy life.
Continuing concentration and centralization of
capital in great enterprises and in every field of
production will be compelled by small margins of
profit and the competition of instantaneous and
world- wide communication. At the same time
labor, more skilled, better educated, more thoroughly
organized, finding a larger purchasing power in
wages, and intelligently commanding its recognition
by international compacts, will improve its condition,
will find the means of quick and peaceable settle-
ment with capital, and the relations of these two
great forces will be much more beneficent and
friendly.
Artists, whether with brush or chisel, or upon the
lyric or dramatic stage, will require (or MCCCM pro-
founder study, broader experience, and more uni-
versal masters ; but they will secure these essenttab
in schools at convenient centers, not only of coun-
tries, but of territorial divisions of countries. The
great artist who can produce a picture which will
rank with the works of Raphael or Titian and of the
best exponents of modern schools will receive as
adequate reward as ever for his masterpieces, and at
the same time the processes of copying by the assis-
tance of nature and chemistry will be so accurate
that, with a copyright, his revenues will be increased,
and his picture, perfect in every detail and expres-
sion, as well as in its general effect, and cheaply
reduplicated, can be the delight, the inspiration, and
the instruction of millions of homes.
Then there will be an increase in socialistic ideas
and tendencies. The aim will be for a full and
complete experiment of the principles of State
paternalism and municipal communism. As we
face the future we have no doubts as to the result,
nor do we doubt that the inherent vigor of nations
is greater as their institutions rest upon the liberty
of the individual ; yet, like the French Revolution
and the theories and experiments which carried
away the best thought and the highest aspirations
of our own country fifty years ago, the popular
tendency is for the trial of these methods of escape
from ever-present poverty and misery and old-age
disability. Human nature, however, has in all ages
manifested itself in the social organization according
to its lights and its education. Light and intelli-
gence both accompany opportunity and experiment,
and control them; and the twentieth century will
close with the world better housed and better clothed,
its brain and moral nature better developed, and on
better lines of health and longevity. It will also
exhibit increased and more general happiness, and
the relations of all classes and conditions with one
another will be on more humane and brotherly lines
than we find them as we look back.
Let us reckon American manufactures from the
infancy of the cotton and wool production in 1 794
at practically zero on the one side, and on the other
Europe, with the accumulated capital of over a
thousand years and the accretion of the skill of all
the centuries. The race-course of progress was open
to the Old World and the New. Father Time kept
the score, and Liberty said, " Go." To-day, after
one hundred years, the American farm has become
the granary of the world ; the American loom and
spindle and furnace and factory and mill supply the
678
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE
wants of 70,000,000 people in our land, and send
annually $200,000,000 in value of product abroad
for other countries. Europe, pushing forward on a
parallel course, finds herself outstripped at the close
of the century by this infant of its beginning in
agricultural production, in manufactured products,
in miles of telegraph and of railway, and in every
element of industrial and material production and
wealth. She finds one after another of her indus-
tries leaving her to be transplanted to this country,
even with the conditions of labor, which makes up
ninety per cent, of the cost of all manufactures,
nearly fifty per cent, in her favor. American in-
ventive genius has cheapened the cost of production
on this side of the Atlantic to the advantage of
American wages, and the principles of the Decla-
ration of Independence have done the rest. Our
population has grown from 3,000,000 to 70,000,-
ooo; our accumulated wealth from less than $100,-
000,000 to about $70,000,000,000 ; the number of
our farms from probably about 100,000 to nearly
5,000,000; our agricultural products from just
sufficient for the support of 3,000,000 people to an
annual commercial value of $4,000,000,000. The
workers upon our farms have increased from about
400,000 to 9,000,000 ; the operatives in our facto-
ries from a handful to 5,000,000 ; and their earnings
from a few thousand dollars to $2,300,000,000.
The increase in wages has been correspondingly
great. Even since 1870, it has been sixty per cent,
and the purchasing power of money has enhanced
about the same. Our public-school system was very
crude at the beginning of the century, and the con-
tribution of the States for its support very small.
Now we spend for education annually $i 56,000,000,
as against $124,000,000 for Great Britain, France,
Germany, Austria, and Italy combined.
It is easy to see that Europe, with its overcrowded
populations, its more difficult and almost insoluble
problems, and with the limitations imposed upon
development and opportunity by its closely peopled
territories, must advance in wealth and material pros-
perity and the bettering of the condition of the masses
by destructive revolutions or by processes which are
painfully slow. The United States, with a country
capable of supporting a population ten times in ex-
cess of that with which this century closes, with its
transportation so perfected that it can be quickly ex-
tended as necessity may require, with its institutions
so elastic that expansion strengthens instead of
weakens the powers of the government and the
cohesion of its States, will advance by leaps and
bounds to the first place among the nations of the
world, and to the leadership of that humanitarian
civilization which is to be perfected by people speak-
ing the English tongue.
^L^.
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