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SANGAMO 

* 

A  HISTORY  OF  FIFTY  YEARS 


JACOB  BUNN 
1864-1926 


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I  SANGAMO       I 

1  4  HISTORY  OF  FIFTY  YEARS     | 

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2  Robert  C.  Lanphier  J 
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%  SANGAMO  IN  PEACE  AND  WAR        $ 

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^  Benjamin  P.  Thomas                       ^ 


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%  PRIVATELY  PRINTED 

1  CHICAGO  ■  1949 


COPYRIGHT   1949 

BY  SANGAMO  ELECTRIC  COMPANY 

SPRINGFIELD   •  ILLINOIS 


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Preface 


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I  IKE  most  other  successful  American  business 
enterprises,  the  Sangamo  Electric  Company 
-^  had  humble  beginnings,  and  through  the 
perseverance  and  judgment  of  management,  mutual 
loyalty  and  understanding  on  the  part  of  employer 
and  workers,  the  development  of  technical  knowl- 
edge and  the  courage  to  venture,  it  progressed  to  an 
established  position  in  its  field.  Its  story  is  one  of 
long-term  success,  not  unmixed  with  vicissitudes. 

The  story  is  presented  here  in  two  parts  by  two 
different  authors.  Part  One,  "Forty  Years  of  Sanga- 
mo," was  written  by  Robert  G.  Lanphier,  who  was 
co-founder  of  the  company  with  Jacob  Bunn  and 
succeeded  him  as  president.  Mr.  Lanphier's  story  is 
an  intimate,  personal  narrative  covering  the  period 
from  1896  to  1936.  It  is  reproduced  exactly  as  it  was 
originally  written  and  published  in  the  latter  year, 
and  this  should  be  remembered  in  reading  it.  For 
example,  when  Mr.  Lanphier  states  that  the  Ashida 
Engineering  Company  is  still  Sangamo' s  agent  in 
Japan,  the  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  this  was 
written  thirteen  years  ago.  Other  statements  in  the 


vi  Preface 

first  part  of  the  book  are  valid  only  as  of  the  date 
when  Mr.  Lanphier  wTote. 

Part  Two,  "Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War,"  covers 
the  period  from  1936  to  1949,  and  is  written  by 
Benjamin  P.  Thomas,  a  long-time  resident  of  Spring- 
field and  a  distinguished  historian  and  author.  Since 
Mr.  Thomas  has  no  connection  with  the  company, 
his  narrative  is  less  personal  than  Mr.  Lanphier's, 
but  he  has  had  free  access  to  company  records  and 
has  also  profited  from  numerous  conversations  with 
those  most  intimately  acquainted  with  company 
affairs. 

Sangamo  hopes  this  little  book — a  memento  of 
its  Fiftieth  Anniversary — will  be  of  interest  to  those 
associated  with  the  company  and  to  its  other  friends. 


PART  ONE 
FORTY  YEARS  OF  SANGAMO 

BY 
ROBERT    C.    LANPHIER 


ROBERT  CARR   LANPHIER 
1878-I939 


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FORTY  YEARS   OF 

SANGAMO 

SANGAMO  happened  this  way:— In  1892  the 
L  Illinois  Watch  Company  was  sued  by  Wal- 
tham  Watch  Company  on  the  pendant  set  of  a 
watch,  and  Tom  Sheridan,  as  Master  Mechanic  of 
the  Illinois  Co.,  acted  as  principal  expert  for  the 
company  during  this  litigation. 

As  a  result,  Mr.  Sheridan  decided  to  leave  and 
study  patent  law,  and  soon  became  one  of  the  best 
known  patent  lawyers  in  Chicago.  There,  in  1895, 
he  had  as  a  client  a  Mr.  Ludwig  Gutmann,  a  Ger- 
man electrical  engineer  whose  early  training  had 
been  with  some  of  the  great  pioneers  in  the  electrical 
art.  Dr.  von  Siemens  in  Berlin,  Gaulard  and  Gibbs 
in  France,  and  Blathy  of  Buda-Pesth.  Mr.  Gutmann 
came  to  the  United  States  in  1887  and  was  associ- 
ated with  the  Westinghouse  Company  in  various 
engineering  capacities,  principally  in  the  develop- 
ment of  street  railway  motors,  until  early  in  1 895, 
when  he  went  to  Chicago,  and  shortly  thereafter, 
to  Peoria,  where  he  became  superintendent  of  the 
Royal  Electric  Company,  manufacturers  of  trans- 
formers. 


4  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

Prior  to  leaving  Westinghouse,  and  harking  back 
to  his  association  with  Blathy,  one  of  the  first  persons 
to  conceive  of  the  induction  watthour  meter,  Mr. 
Gutmann  had  also  conceived  the  idea  of  such  a 
meter,  embodying  several  novel  ideas  in  the,  then, 
very  primitive  meter  art. 

It  was  in  connection  with  patent  applications  cov- 
ering these  ideas  that  Mr.  Gutmann  went  to  Mr, 
Sheridan,  and  when  he  told  the  latter  that  he  want- 
ed to  find  a  manufacturer  to  make  his  meter,  Sher- 
idan, through  his  former  association  with  Illinois 
Watch  Company,  immediately  thought  of  them,  as 
an  electric  meter  required  a  recording  train,  which 
he  felt  the  Watch  Company's  equipment  was  suit- 
able to  produce.  Furthermore,  at  that  time,  the 
watch  business  was  just  beginning  to  recover  from 
the  depression  of  1893-4,  so  the  Illinois  Company 
had  much  vacant  space  and  idle  machinery,  which 
Mr.  Sheridan  thought  might  well  be  utilized  in  the 
manufacture  of  Gutmann's  meter. 


Mr.  Bunn's  OO  Sheridan  told  Mr.  Jacob  Bunn,  Jr.,  then  Vice 
first  meeting   ^  President  of  the  Watch  Company,  about  Gut- 
g  ■  mann,  early  in  1 896,  and  after  a  meeting  with  Gut- 

mann, Mr.  Bunn  told  his  father,  Mr.  Jacob  Bunn, 
Sr.,  about  this  invention,  and  suggested  that  the 
Illinois  Watch  Company  consider  making  electric 
meters.  However,  the  idea  did  not  appeal  to  Mr. 
Bunn,  Sr.,  so  Mr.  Jacob  Bunn,  Jr.,  decided  to  "back" 
Gutmann  on  his  own  account,  sufficiently,  at  least, 
to  find  out  whether  there  was  anything  to  his  ideas. 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  5 

Mr.  Bunn  therefore  arranged  with  the  Watch  Com- 
pany to  make  the  mechanical  parts  for  the  models 
Mr.  Gutmann  wished  to  build,  while  Mr.  Gutmann 
himself  wound  the  coils,  and  assembled  and  tested 
the  two  models,  at  Peoria. 

These  were  completed  in  the  summer  or  early  fall 
of  1896,  and,  as  Mr.  Gutmann  did  not  have  ade- 
quate testing  facilities  at  Peoria,  he  sent  these  models 
to  his  friend.  Prof.  R.  B.  Owen,  Professor  of  Elec- 
trical Engineering  at  the  University  of  Nebraska,  for 
complete  tests  and  for  his  opinion  as  to  the  com- 
mercial possibilities  of  such  a  meter. 

At  that  time  meters  were  not  in  extensive  use, 
especially  on  alternating  current  circuits,  and,  out- 
side of  the  Thomson  commutator  meter,  which  was 
then  used  on  A.C.  as  well  as  D.C.,  all  alternating 
current  meters  made  in  the  United  States  up  to  1 895 
were  amperehour  meters. 

That  year  the  Diamond  Meter  Co.  brought  out  an 
induction  watthour  meter,  not  correct  on  inductive 
loads,  but  it  was  not  until  1896  that  the  first  true 
induction  watthour  meter  was  brought  out  by 
Westinghouse,  embodying  the  Shallenberger  inven- 
tion of  compensation  to  make  the  meter  correct  on 
inductive  load. 

Thus,  when  Prof.  Owen  tested  Mr.  Gutmann 's 
models,  there  was  practically  no  standard  of  good 
performance  in  induction  meters  to  compare  with, 
so  his  report  simply  stated  that  there  were  possibili- 
ties in  the  meter,  when  further  developed  and 
refined. 


6  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

As  Mr.  Gutmann  had  neither  the  time  nor  the 
faciUties  to  work  out  the  necessary  improvements, 
and  as  there  was  no  one  of  electrical  training  asso- 
ciated with  the  Illinois  Watch  Co.,  Mr.  Bunn  de- 
cided to  let  the  matter  rest,  for,  as  he  told  me  the 
next  year,  he  had  spent  "a  couple  of  hundred 
dollars"  on  these  models  and  experiments,  and  did 
not  feel  like  throwing  away  more  money  on  Mr. 
Gutmann's  invention  unless  he  could  see  some  defi- 
nite plan  under  which  to  develop  the  idea. 

So  the  models  were  put  away  in  a  box  in  the 
drafting  room  at  the  Watch  Company,  and  there 
they  stayed  through  the  Spring  and  early  Summer 
of  1897,  and  there  the  matter  might  have  ended 
except  for  one  of  those  chances  which  often  occur  in 
this  life. 

Mr.  Bunn  ^  I  ^HE  writer  had  graduated  from  Yale,  in  elec- 
first  tells  me     JL  trical  engineering,   in  June,    1897,   and  came 
ventu    —  ^^"^^  t°  Springfield  for  a  short  vacation  before  going 
July  4,  i8gy.  to  Schenectady,  to  enter  the  student  course  of  the 
General  Electric  Company,  then  just  starting,  hav- 
ing  no   thought   of  any   electrical   occupation   in 
Springfield. 

The  evening  of  July  fourth  he  was  at  a  dinner 
where  he  saw  Mr.  Jacob  Bunn,  Jr.,  who  asked  about 
his  electrical  studies,  and  what  he  intended  to  do, 
then  remarked,  "Oh,  by  the  way,  I  got  interested 
last  year,  through  Tom  Sheridan,  in  some  kind  of 
electric  meter  invention  of  a  man  named  Gutmann, 
who  lives  over  in  Peoria,  and  had  a  couple  of  models 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  7 

made,  which  are  in  a  box  out  at  the  factory.  I  don't 
know  anything  about  these  electrical  devices,  so 
maybe,  if  you've  learned  anything  at  Yale,  you 
could  tell  me  whether  there's  anything  to  this  me- 
ter." With  the  rashness  of  youth,  I  said  I  should  like 
to  see  the  models  and  Prof.  Owen's  report,  so  Mr. 
Bunn,  with  a  smile,  asked  me  to  come  out  to  the 
Watch  Factory  the  next  day,  which  I  did,  and  we 
dug  the  box  out,  to  find  a  jumbled  mass  of  castings, 
coils,  brass  cylinders,  and  odds  and  ends. 

Even  with  my  very  slight  acquaintance  with  watt- 
hour  meters,  for  little  was  then  taught  about  them 
to  electrical  students,  I  recognized  the  purpose  of 
some  of  the  parts,  and  tried  my  best  to  make  Mr. 
Bunn  feel  I  knew  "what  it  was  all  about."  He  very 
kindly  suggested  that  I  think  some  more  about  the 
meter  during  my  absence  on  a  short  trip,  and  that  he 
would  ask  Mr.  Gutmann  to  come  over  to  Springfield 
and  talk  to  us  early  in  August. 

In  the  meantime,  I  wrote  to  my  dear  friend  and 
teacher  at  Yale,  Prof.  Henry  Bumstead,  later  Yale's 
greatest  physicist,  asking  him  to  tell  me  where  I 
could  "read-up"  on  meters,  and  he  gave  me  such 
references  as  he  could,  which  were  few  and  far 
between  in  those  days. 


s 


O,  primed  as  best  I  could,  I  met  Mr.  Gutmann  Mr.  Gutmann 


cross- 
questions'"  me 


early  in  August  at  Mr.  Bunn's  office,  and  never 
before  nor  smce  have  1  gone  through  such  a  cate-  _^y^aust  i8q7 
chism,  to  test  my  meager  electrical  knowledge.  How- 
ever, the  upshot  was  that  Mr.  Gutmann  told  Mr. 


8  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

Bunn  he  thought  "that  boy"  could  do  some  experi- 
menting with  his  models,  "if  watched  carefully"  as 
to  mistakes,  and  Mr.  Bunn  then  talked  to  me  about 
temporarily  dropping  my  plan  of  going  to  Schenec- 
tady, and  of  spending  "a  couple  of  months"  trying 
to  find  out  whether  it  would  be  worth  while  to  go  on 
with  Mr.  Gutmann's  invention. 

This  appealed  to  me,  so  after  completing  some 
other  work  I  was  doing  for  the  Weather  Bureau,  I 
went  out  to  the  Watch  Factory  on  September  13, 
1897,  was  given  a  small  space  in  which  to  work,  and 
introduced  to  Otis  White,  then  one  of  the  principal 
tool  makers  in  the  Watch  Factory  machine  shop,  and 
with  whom  Mr.  Bunn  had  arranged  to  do  the  fine 
mechanical  work  that  I  might  require  in  the  course 
of  my  experiments. 

At  that  time  the  watch  factory  was  lighted  by  gas 
made  in  their  own  plant,  and  had  no  electricity, 
power  for  the  machinery  being  obtained  from  one 
large  Corliss  engine,  so  that  I  had  to  seek  elsewhere 
for  a  place  to  do  any  experimenting.  Mr.  Bunn  soon 
arranged  with  the  old  Springfield  Electric  Light 
Company,  then  having  a  power  station  at  Seventh 
and  Adams  Sts.,  for  me  to  have  the  use  of  their  arc  light 
testing  rack,  provided  with  a  bank  of  lamps  for  load. 
That  still  left  the  question  of  instruments,  but,  after 
some  digging  around  at  the  electric  light  plant,  I 
found  an  old  ammeter,  considerably  used  up,  which 
we  succeeded  in  repairing  somewhat,  and  with  this 
elaborate  equipment  all  my  tests  for  the  next  few 
months  were  carried  out. 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  9 

As  my  experiments  required  frequent  mechanical 
changes  at  the  watch  factory,  I  made  a  box  in  which 
to  carry  the  rather  large  and  heavy  meter  model, 
which  I  lugged  back  and  forth  on  a  bicycle,  some- 
times four  or  five  times  a  day,  good  exercise,  if  not 
engineering  experience. 

MR.  GUTMANN  insisted,  from  the  start,  that  I  Reports 
should  write  him  in  detail  every  evening,  of  ^^^^^^^^  ^y 
my  experiments  and  results  for  the  day,  to  which  he  ^^  '  .    •      ,  , 
replied  at  length  two  or  three  times  a  week,  and  work. 
came  over  to  Springfield,  first,  at  intervals  of  a  few 
weeks,  but  later,  every  two  or  three  months.  This 
report  procedure  was  kept  up  for  over  a  year,  and  as 
my  letters  were  all  in  long  hand,  with  many  dia- 
grams, they  filled  three  big  copy  books,  which,  un- 
fortunately,   were    accidentally    burned    up    when 
cleaning  an  accumulation  out  of  the  Watch  Com- 
pany office  a  few  years  later. 

By  the  latter  part  of  November,  after  many,  many, 
changes  had  been  made  in  the  model  as  I  found  it, 
especially  in  the  adoption  of  spiral  instead  of  vertical 
slots  in  the  cylinder  (in  the  belief  that  infringement 
of  the  Tesla  patents  would  thus  be  avoided),  Mr. 
Gutmann  and  I  agreed  that  the  meter  was  suffi- 
ciently improved  to  justify  recommending  to  Mr. 
Bunn  that  a  final  design  be  made,  and  a  small  lot  of 
meters  made  to  such  design,  before  considering  defi- 
nite plans  for  commercial  manufacture. 

So  I  prepared  a  report,  which  is  still  in  our 
"archives,"  detailing  my  experiments,  which  was 


10  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

given  to  Mr.  Bunn  late  in  November,  '97,  and  at  his 
request,  I  then  made  in  December,  a  perspective 
color  drawing  of  the  proposed  meter,  to  show  him 
about  "what  it  was  going  to  look  like,"  which  old 
drawing  greatly  faded,  was  resurrected  in  our  draft- 
ing room  about  twenty  five  years  later,  and  now 
hangs  in  my  office. 

After  discussing  the  situation  with  Mr.  Gutmann, 
Mr.  Bunn  decided  to  see  the  matter  through  further, 
at  least  to  the  extent  of  building  some  new  models,  so 
from  December,  '97,  to  March  '98,  Otis  White  and  I 
worked  on  these  in  the  Watch  Company  machine 
shop,  Otis  doing  all  the  fine  work,  while  I  did  the 
more  elementary  machine  work,  wound  the  coils, 
and  assembled  the  models,  in  the  meantime  gaining 
invaluable  help  from  Otis  in  the  knowledge  of  jigs, 
dies  and  other  tools. 

Experimental  T  A  THEN  the  models  were  completed,  we  had  no 

tests  at    Y  Y  facilities  in  Springfield  with  which  to  make 

University  of  ^^^  ^^^^^  ^^  ^^^^  ^^^^  y^^  Gutmann  wanted,  so  Mr. 

Illinois  — 

Spring  of  John  W.  Bunn,  then,  as  for  many  years.  Treasurer  of 

i8g8.  the  University  of  Illinois,  arranged  for  me  to  use  the 
facilities  of  the  old  electrical  engineering  laboratory 
there. 

I  went  to  Urbana  in  April,  remaining  several 
weeks  to  carry  out  the  necessary  tests  and  experi- 
ments, and  have  never  forgotten  the  courtesies  and 
helpful  advice  extended  to  me  then  by  Prof.  Car- 
man, Professor  of  Physics. 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  1 1 

On  my  return  home,  I  prepared  a  report  to  Mr. 
Bunn  and  Mr.  Gutmann,  and  the  results  indicated 
were  such  that  they  decided  to  go  ahead  with  the 
manufacture  of  meters,  but  before  doing  so,  Mr. 
Gutmann  wanted  to  submit  one  of  the  models  to 
friends  in  the  Western  Electric  Company,  which 
was  therefore  done  in  May,  '98.  We  waited  weeks 
for  their  report,  and  when  finally  received  in  July, 
were  a  bit  discouraged  by  their  caution  regarding 
the  danger  of  infringing  certain  patents. 

However,  after  Mr.  Gutmann  had  discussed  the 
matter  with  his  patent  attorney,  he  told  Mr.  Bunn 
he  felt  there  was  little  danger,  and  so  far  as  these 
patents  were  concerned,  this  proved  true,  as  they 
were  never  invoked  against  us. 


s 


O,  in  September,   i8g8,  Mr.  Bunn  decided  to  Mr.Bunri's 


decision  to 


prepare   for   manufacture   of  Mr.   Gutmann's 
meter,  and  arranged  with  the  Watch  Company  for  ^^""^^^"''^ 
use  of  a  few  machinists,  in  addition  to  Otis  White,  September, 
who  now  began  to  devote  all  his  time  to  the  meter  i8g8. 
work. 

During  the  next  three  months,  most  of  the  tools 
were  made,  some  machines  bought,  the  old  main 
spring  building  of  the  Watch  Factory  (the  small 
building  still  standing  at  the  west  end  of  our  No.  1 
Building)  was  rented  in  November,  and  I  spent  that 
month  and  December  fixing  it  up  to  manufacture 
and  test  meters,  while  Otis  looked  after  the  tools  and 
machinery. 


12  Forty  Tears  of  Sangamo 

Our  first  /^^NE  day  in  October,  while  Otis  and  I  were 

contact  with  \J  working  in  the  Watch  Factory  machine  shop, 

Electric 
Abbliance  ^  ™^^  came  in  asking  for  "the  fellow  who  is  working 

Company  —  on  an  electric  meter,"  and  when  he  found  us,  intro- 
October,  i8g8.  duced  himself  as  Levi  Millard,  salesman  for  the 
Electric  Appliance  Company,  of  Chicago,  and  said 
they  had  heard  a  meter  was  being  developed  in 
Springfield,  and  that  they  wanted  the  sales  agency 
for  it,  if  it  was  good.  Of  course  I  assured  him  it  was, 
then  took  him  up  to  Mr.  Bunn,  and  thus  began  a 
close  association  that  lasted  as  long  as  the  Electric 
Appliance  Company  continued  in  business,  nearly 
thirty  years. 

Early  in  December,  Mr.  Bunn  and  Mr.  Gutmann 
decided  to  organize  a  small  company  to  manufac- 
ture meters,  Mr.  Bunn  supplying  the  necessary 
money,  and  Mr.  Gutmann  putting  in  his  patents  and 
pending  applications.  At  the  same  time,  we  took  on 
our  first  employe,  Jim  Edwards,  still  with  us,  I  am 
glad  to  say,  as  our  Senior  Foreman. 

How  the  name  'THHERE  was  considerable  discussion   about  a 
SANGAMO     J_  name  for  the  little  company,   Mr.    Gutmann 


was  adopted. 


suggesting  some  rather  imposing  ones,  but  Mr.  Bunn 
finally  decided  on  "Sangamo,"  because  of  its  local 
interest,  and  the  fact  that  it  would  be  distinctive, 
should  the  infant  company  survive  and  grow.  We 
have  been  asked  many  times  about  the  origin  of  this 
name,  which,  in  incorrect  form,  as  "Sangamon," 
had  been  applied  to  our  county  and  river.  Legends 
differ,   but   the   most  reliable   one   indicates   that 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  13 

"Sangamo"  was  the  name  of  the  chief  of  the  IlHni 
tribe  of  Indians  in  our  part  of  IlHnois,  when  the 
first  whites  came  there,  about  181 5.  Years  later, 
during  the  World  War,  a  story  started  in  New 
Zealand  by  one  of  our  English  competitors,  that 
"Sangamo"  was  a  Japanese  name,  and  so  great  was 
the  prejudice  there  against  Japanese  goods  that  we 
had  to  make  a  sworn  statement  as  to  the  origin  of 
our  name. 

WELL,  with  the  important  question  of  a  name  Incorporation 
settled,  the  little  Sangamo  Electric  Company  %^2fr' 
was  organized  on  January  1 1 ,  1 899,  under  the  laws  Company  — 
of  Illinois,  with  a  capital  of  $10,000,  the  incorpo-  January,  i8gg. 
rators  being  Mr.  Jacob  Bunn,  his  brother  Mr.  Henry 
Bunn,  and  Mr.  Ludwig  Gutmann.  Mr.  Henry  Bunn 
was  elected  President,  Mr.  Gutmann  Vice  President, 
and  Mr.  Jacob  Bunn  Secretary  and  Treasurer. 

That  same  week  Mr.  W.  W.  Low,  President  of  the 
Electric  Appliance  Company,  came  down  with 
Mr.  Millard  to  meet  Mr.  Bunn,  and  to  sign  a  sales 
contract  between  his  company  and  Sangamo, 
and  thus  began  a  devoted  friendship  between  Mr. 
Bunn  and  Mr.  Low  which  lasted  until  Mr.  Bunn's 
death. 

By  the  end  of  January  we  had  the  little  meter 
factory, — known  then,  and  for  many  years,  in  the 
Watch  Factory,  as  the  "meter  department," — 
equipped  and  going,  and  had  employed  several 
more  people,  including  one  girl,  to  wind  coils,  and 
what  a  terrible  job  she  made  of  it ! 


14  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

First     ifi  FTER  many  difficulties,  we  completed  a  few 
shipment  of  J^^  meters  late  in  March,  and  triumphantly  shipped 

meters   ^ur  first  order, — from  Electric  Appliance  Company, 
March,  i8gg,  to  the  City  of  Logansport,  Indiana,  municipal  elec- 

and  the  ^^ic  light  plant. 

troubles  ^bout  two  wccks  later,  as  I  was  trying  to  test  a 
few  more  meters,  Mr.  Bunn  walked  in  with  a  yellow 
carbon  copy  of  a  letter  from  Electric  Appliance 
Company,  containing  "bad  news"  about  those 
Logansport  meters,  and  I've  disliked  yellow  paper 
ever  since.  Every  one  of  the  six  meters  had  devel- 
oped a  different  kind  of  trouble,  so  I  had  visions  of 
an  early  end  of  the  budding  little  Sangamo,  but  Mr. 
Bunn  said  we  had  to  find  out  what  was  wrong,  and 
I  went  to  Logansport,  my  first  of  many  "trouble- 
shooting" trips. 

The  meter  man  at  the  plant  greeted  me  with  the 
remark  that  "thems  the  rottenest  meters  I  ever 
seen,"  and  he  was  right,  for  on  going  with  him  to 
the  places  where  five  of  them  were  installed,  I  found 
two  that  wouldn't  run  on  light  load,  one  stopped 
entirely,  and  one  that  hummed  so  loud  we  could 
hear  it  out  in  the  street, — no  wonder  the  wife  of  the 
owner  told  us  that  "my  old  man  couldn't  sleep  last 
night  account  of  that  thing,  and  you'd  better  fix  it, 
for  he's  awful  sore." 

So  I  asked  them  to  return  all  the  meters,  and  after 
receiving  them,  Mr.  Gutmann  came  over  from 
Peoria,  and  we  spent  some  time  trying  to  correct  our 
troubles,  the  worst  of  which  was  that  the  meter  ran 
on  no  load  with  the  cover  off.  I  knew  this  before  we 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  1 5 

shipped  the  meters,  but,  in  my  ignorance  of  other 
meters,  supposed  it  was  to  be  expected,  but  now  had 
to  find  out  the  cause  of  this  serious  defect.  It  was 
simple  (it  didn't  seem  so  then) — we  had  a  coil  on 
only  one  leg  of  our  U  shaped  shunt  magnet,  causing 
a  great  unbalance  in  field  at  the  two  pole  tips  ad- 
jacent to  the  cylinder,  so  when  the  meter  was  cor- 
rectly adjusted  before  the  cover  was  put  on,  the 
tinned  steel  cover  shunted  some  of  the  flux  at  the 
strong  side,  and  the  meter  ran  backward  on  no  load. 
I  had  therefore  tested  all  the  meters  with  cover  on, 
and  now  found  that  the  slightest  change  in  position 
of  a  cover  caused  a  change  in  light  load  accuracy. 

SO  we  tried  covers  of  brass  and  zinc,  and  they  Correction 
'  were  all  right,  but  expensive,  then  we  suddenly  °jfi^^^ 
,.       1     ,  .,  T  11  11  troubles  and 

realized  that  a  coil  on  the  other  leg  would  correct  j-g^j^^pt^Q^  of 

the  trouble.  So,  after  a  month's  delay,  we  again  shipments. 
started  "production,"  and  by  the  end  of  '99  had 
made  the  huge  total  of  540  meters.  Once  during  the 
summer  the  Electric  Appliance  Co.  sent  us  one  order 
for  fifty  10  ampere,  50  volt,  133  cycle  meters,  which 
was  so  huge  we  required  nearly  a  month  to  fill  it. 
By  the  end  of  the  year,  we  needed  more  space,  so 
rented  a  small  room  in  the  next  building  south  for 
painting,  and  the  old  rag  shed  in  the  back  yard  for 
a  testing  room,  which  required  the  sending  back 
and  forth  of  all  meters,  a  boy  carrying  one  on  a 
hook,  in  each  hand.  That  was  the  first  job  of  Al 
Gillespie,  who  came  with  us  in  January,  1 900,  just 
after  we  moved  into  the  new  "laboratory." 


1 6  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

I  forgot  to  say  that  we  now  had  electricity  from  a 
small  125  cycle  generator  in  the  engine  room,  which 
I  had  installed  the  previous  winter,  and  at  the  same 
time  had  wired  the  timing  and  finishing  rooms  of 
the  Watch  Factory  for  electric  lights,  a  great  im- 
provement over  the  old  open  gas  lights.  During 
1900,  the  entire  plant  was  wired,  and  we  had  our 
first  60  cycle  service  from  the  down  town  plant.  A 
few  years  later,  the  old  belt  drive  for  power  was 
abandoned,  and  motors  installed  throughout  the 
Watch  and  Meter  factories. 

Sangamd's  TN  January,  1 900,  we  attended  our  first  conven- 

first  _!_  tion,  the  Northwestern  Electrical  Association,  at 

attendance  at  ^ii^^ukee,  where  we  had  a  small  exhibit  with  the 
an  electrical 
convention,  Electric  Appliance  Company,  and  where  I  first  met 

Milwaukee  —  Tom  Duncan,  then,  as  to  the  end  of  his  life,  one  of 

January,  igoo.  ^^iq  best  and  best-known  meter  engineers  in   the 

^^^  IJi^Tom  country.  I  have  never  forgotten  his  kind  attitude  to 

Duncan,  me,  a  young  and  very  green  newcomer  in  the  meter 

business.  Thus  began  an  intimate  friendship  which 

continued  until  Mr.  Duncan's  death  in  1929. 

At  this  time  there  were  besides  our  Gutmann 
meter,  five  induction  meters  on  the  United  States 
market:  The  Westinghouse  round  pattern  "A," 
which  had  succeeded  the  original  rectangular  bulky 
meter  of  1896;  the  first  General  Electric  induction 
meter,  as  G.  E.  had  opposed  induction  meters  until 
1898  with  the  Thomson  commutator  meter;  the  Ft. 
Wayne  (Duncan)  meter,  succeeding  their  Slattery 
amperehour  A.C.  meter  brought  out  about  1893; 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  1 7 

the  Schieffer,  improved  over  the  original  of  1895; 
and  the  Stanley,  famous  for  the  magnetic  flotation 
of  its  moving  system,  the  most  advanced  in  design 
of  all. 

The  little  Sangamo  company  thus  faced  severe 
competition,  plus  the  probability  of  patent  litiga- 
tion, which  was  actually  started  against  us  in  the 
spring  of  1901  by  Westinghouse,  under  the  famous 
Tesla  patents  covering  the  operation  of  an  induc- 
tion motor  on  single  phase  current. 

In  the  meantime,  Sangamo  made  considerable 
headway  in  1900  with  the  cylinder  type  Gutmann 
meter,  which,  that  spring,  was  shortened  in  dimen- 
sion from  the  wall,  and  otherwise  improved,  though 
still  not  compensated  for  inductive  load.  Production 
that  year  therefore  reached  the  large  total  of  about 
2000  meters,  so  the  little  company  managed  to 
remain  in  existence,  but  that  was  about  all. 

IT  was  at  this  time,  probably  the  early  spring  of  How  the  oval 
1901  that  the  oval  Sangamo  emblem  came  into  ^^-^^^^^ 
_..,,,  .  ,      ,  trade-mark 

existence.  We  had  been  trymg  to  work  the  name  ^^^^  ^^^^^ 

into  some  kind  of  trade-mark,  and  one  day  I  sketched 
an  oval  outline,  with  Sangamo  in  conventional 
straight  letters.  When  I  showed  it  to  Mr.  Bunn,  he 
said  it  needed  "some  style,"  and  suggested  I  show 
it  to  Granville  Kindred,  then  head  engraver  at  the 
Watch  Factory,  and  a  skilled  designer.  "Granny" 
looked  at  it  a  moment,  then  said,  "why  don't  you 
give  the  letters  a  wiggle,  to  make  them  look  like 
lightning  had  hit  them,  since  you're  an  electric  con- 


1 8  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

cern?"  Then,  with  a  few  strokes  of  his  skilful  pencil, 
he  made  a  beautiful  design,  which  we  have  used 
ever  since,  in  every  country  on  earth,  in  fact,  the 
oval  Sangamo  was  long  since  registered  as  a  trade- 
mark in  nearly  thirty  countries. 

By  the  early  part  of  1 90 1 ,  it  was  evident  that  we 
would  have  to  make  a  radical  change  to  further  in- 
crease our  sales,  which  was  emphasized  on  a  trip  I 
made  to  Memphis,  then  one  of  our  best  customers, 
in  April.  The  General  Manager  there,  Mr.  Proutt, 
was  a  very  able,  clear  thinking,  and  fair-minded 
engineer,  and  during  my  visit  gave  me  most  valu- 
able suggestions,  which,  on  return  home,  I  dis- 
cussed with  Mr.  Gutmann,  and  we  then  decided  to 
experiment  with  a  disk  armature,  instead  of  the 
cylinder,  the  general  principle  of  operation  being 
otherwise  the  same  as  in  our  first  meter. 

Development  'THHE  disk  type  Gutmann  meter  was   therefore 

of  the  disk    JL  developed  during  the  next  three  months,  com- 

ype    umann  p^j-^g^^JQj^  fgj.  inductive  load  being  added,  and  dur- 

Summer  of  ing  the  late  summer  tools  were  made,  so  that  the 

igoi.  first  meter  was  assembled  in  September,  and  I  took 

it  to  Memphis,  for  Mr.  Proutt's  approval,  which  he 

gave. 

During  my  absence  for  a  month,  from  the  middle 
of  October,  for  the  important  purpose  of  a  wedding 
trip,  made  possible  by  Mr.  Bunn's  consideration  and 
kindness,  a  few  meters  were  produced,  the  first  of 
which  was  sent  to  me  at  Montreal,  where  I  "dem- 
onstrated" it  to  our  original  Canadian  agent,  Mr. 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  19 

John  Forman,  who  had  started  seUing  Gutmann 
meters  the  previous  spring,  our  first  export  business. 
He  and  his  men  were  as  enthusiastic  about  the  new 
meter  as  I  was,  but  on  my  return  home  in  Novem- 
ber, I  found  plenty  of  trouble  with  the  few  meters 
that  had  been  finished,  principally  in  absence  of 
torque,  and  consequent  erratic  performance.  The 
situation  was  particularly  bad  because  the  Electric 
Appliance  Company  had  gotten  a  large  order — 
some  600  meters — from  the  City  of  Tacoma,  and 
the  customer  was  more  than  irate  because  of  de- 
layed shipment. 

So  Mr.  Gutmann  came  over,  and  after  a  week  of 
working  together,  we  added  some  iron  in  the  series 
coils,  and  thus  got  up  to  the  large  (!)  torque  of  15 
millimeter-grams,  which  wasn't  bad  for  those  days. 
We  soon  shipped  the  Tacoma  meters,  but  I've  never 
forgotten  the  prepaid  express  bill  we  had  to  pay  to 
get  them  there  promptly. 

The  new  meter,  backed  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
Electric  Appliance  Company,  and  especially  that  of 
L  A.  Bennett,  their  Cxeneral  Sales  Manager,  "took 
hold"  rapidly,  and  by  the  early  spring  of  1902  we 
were  making  over  forty  meters  a  day,  a  good  volume 
considering  the  small  meter  business  of  that  day, 
and  the  strong  competition  we  faced.  Our  position 
was  further  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  we  now 
had  the  first  meter  with  a  separately  accessible 
bottom  terminal  box,  a  cover  with  screws  sealed  at 
the  back,  and  that  we  were  the  first  to  off'er  glass 
covers  without  extra  charge. 


20  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

Our  patent  "TOURING  these  months  since  the  spring  of  1 90 1 , 
connection  \J  ^^  ^^^  retained  as  our  patent  counsel  Mr. 
Charles  A.  Charles  A.  Brown,  of  the  Chicago  firm  of  Barton 
Brown  and  and  Brown,  with  whom  Mr.   Gutmann  had  had 
Prof.  D.  C.  previous  satisfactory  experience.  Mr.  Brown,  as  a 
jac  son.  y^^y  young  man,  had  been  General  Manager  of  the 
Western  Electric  Company,   then,   aided  by  Mr. 
Enos  Barton,  the  President  of  that  company,  he  left 
to  study  patent  law,  and  soon  after  he  completed 
this  work,  became  the  partner  of  Mr.  George  Barton, 
brother  of  Mr.  Enos  Barton.  Mr.  Brown  was  (and  is 
today)  a  man  of  great  ability,  and  assumed  our  de- 
fence, in  the  several  suits  that  had  been  filed  against 
us,  with  vigor  and  enthusiasm.   He  chose  as  our 
principal  expert  Prof.  Dugald  C.  Jackson,  then  head 
of  the  department  of  Electrical  Engineering  at  the 
University  of  Wisconsin,  later  to  become  famous  as 
head  of  the  electrical  department  of  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology,   and  as  President  of  the 
A.  I.E.E. 

None  of  the  early  patent  suits  were  brought 
directly  against  us  as  a  manufacturer,  but  against 
agents  and  users  in  scattered  places,  one  of  the 
principal  purposes  in  patent  litigation  in  those  days 
being  to  thus  cause  added  expense  of  defence  to 
small,  struggling  competitors  like  ourselves. 

The  principal  suits,  therefore,  in  which  we  were 
concerned  in  1901  to  1903,  were  one  against 
the  H.  C.  Roberts  Supply  Company  of  Philadel- 
phia, our  Eastern  agent  at  that  time,  and  the  other 
against  the   Mutual   Life   Insurance   Company  of 


Forty  Years  of  Sangamo  2 1 

N.  Y.,  who  used  our  meters  in  their  building  in 
Elmira,  N.  Y. 

Mr.  Brown  soon  obtained  an  agreement  with  the 
Westinghouse  attorneys,  Kerr,  Page  and  Cooper  of 
New  York,  that  testimony  should  first  be  taken  in 
the  Roberts  case,  and  this  was  started  in  the  late  fall 
of  1 90 1,  continuing,  at  Chicago  and  New  York,  at 
various  times  throughout  1902,  during  which  I  re- 
ceived my  "baptism"  in  patent  matters,  expensive, 
but  valuable  in  later  years. 

In  addition  to  Prof.  Jackson  as  principal  expert, 
we  engaged  a  number  of  other  very  prominent  engi- 
neers, who  testified  for  us,  including  Prof.  William 
B.  Anthony,  of  New  York,  one  of  the  founders  and 
Past  President  of  A.  I.  E.  E.,  Prof.  Kennelly  of 
Harvard,  Mr.  William  H.  Barstow,  and  others. 

Our  defenses  were,  first,  that  Tesla  was  fully 
anticipated  in  his  invention  by  the  great  Prof. 
Ferraris,  of  Turin,  second,  that  our  mode  of  opera- 
tion, on  account  of  the  spiral  slots  in  our  disk,  and 
the  arrangement  of  the  fields,  was  not  the  same  as 
Tesla  had  disclosed,  and  thirdly,  even  if  one  and 
two  were  rejected, — that  Tesla  was  anticipated  by 
several  others  in  this  art. 

In  preparing  the  defense  of  our  case,  I  spent  much 
time  with  Prof.  Jackson  at  Madison  and  Springfield 
during  the  Spring  and  Summer  of  1902,  getting 
many  valuable  ideas  from  him.  We  made  many 
experiments  in  his  laboratory  at  Madison,  and 
also  at  Springfield,  in  the  attempt  to  sustain  our 
position. 


22  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

Sales  "TN  the  meantime,  we  were  seeking  an  outlet  for 

arrangement  J[  ^^^  meters  in  New  York  and  New  England,  and 
with  rVestern 

Electric  ^^  May,  1902 — through  Mr.  Low, — Mr.  Bunn  and 

Company.  I   met  Mr.   E.   W.   Rockafellow,  Apparatus  Sales 

Summer  of  Manager  of  the  Western  Electric  Company  at  New 

1902-  York,    who   recommended    to   his    superiors,    Mr. 

Thayer  and  Mr.  Wilkins,  that  they  sell  Gutmann 

meters. 

So  the  deal  was  made,  and  late  in  June  Mr.  Bunn 
and  I  went  to  New  York,  where  he  signed  the  agree- 
ment with  Western,  and  I  "talked  meters"  to  all 
their  Eastern  District  salesmen,  who  had  been  called 
together  for  that  purpose. 

The  eventful  day  was  concluded  by  a  celebration 
party  given  by  Mr.  Bunn  at  the  old  Cafe  Lafayette, 
which  I  have  never  forgotten. 

Within  a  few  weeks,  the  Western  salesmen  had 
sold  Gutmann  meters  in  a  great  number  of  towns, 
and  we  were  delighted,  but  our  happiness  was  short 
lived,  as  Westinghouse  sued  for  an  injunction  against 
Western  within  a  few  weeks. 

Unfortunately,  our  counsel,  Mr.  Brown,  had 
severed  his  connection  with  Mr.  George  Barton,  on 
account  of  some  personal  difference  with  Mr.  Enos 
Barton,  President  of  Western  Electric,  so,  when  we 
told  the  latter  that  Mr.  Brown  would  defend,  at  our 
expense,  the  injunction  proceedings  against  Western, 
Mr.  Barton  told  us  that  Mr.  Brown  could  not  appear 
in  any  case  for  them,  but  offered  to  defend  the  suit 
through  their  own  attorneys,  without  expense  to  us. 

Much  as  Mr.  Bunn  appreciated  this,  it  was  ob- 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  23 

vious  that  we  had  to  stick  by  Mr.  Brown,  and  we  so 
advised  Mr.  Barton. 

So  when  the  injunction  hearing  took  place  the 
end  of  August,  Western  Electric  entered  no  answer, 
we  were  not  represented,  and  the  preliminary  in- 
junction was  entered  against  Western,  thus  ending 
their  fine  effort  to  sell  our  meters  after  only  two 
months. 

DURING  the  taking  of  testimony  in  New  York  My  first 
in  April,  1902,  I  met  Nikola  Tesla  for  the  first  ^'^'^'"|  ^^^^^  _ 
time,  and  he  impressed  me  then  as  a  very  unusual,  April,  1002. 
excitable  and  brilliant  man.  Years  later,  in  191 8,  he 
telephoned  me  one  day  to  come  to  see  him  in  New 
York  at  once  on  an  urgent,  secret  matter  connected 
with  the  defense  of  our  country,  so  I  went,  and  left 
him,  after  a  six  hour  discussion,  with  the  feeling  that 
his  thoughts  and  ideas  were  not  of  this  earth, — cer- 
tainly the  idea  he  put  up  to  me,  for  Sangamo's  co- 
operation, sounded  like  a  Buck  Rogers'  dime  novel. 

DURING  1902  our  business  increased  very  sat-  Construction 
isfactorily,  notwithstanding  patent  litigation,  "Z-^^-  ' 
,     ,       1  1  r  r  11  Budding  — 

and  the  heavy  expense  thereoi  tor  our  small  com-  Summer  loo^ 

pany,  and  by  the  early  part  of  1 903,  we  were  faced 
with  a  pressing  need  for  more  space,  so  the  Watch 
Company  agreed  to  erect  a  building  for  us,  our 
present  Number  One,  which  was  started  in  the 
summer,  and  completed  that  Fall.  We  were  just  oc- 
cupying it,  when  the  crash  of  the  decision  in  the 
Roberts'  suit  came  down  on  us. 


24  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

Injunction  rTnfj£  hearing  in  this  case  took  place  before  Judge 

against     J_  Archbold,   of  Philadelphia   in  January    1903, 
Sangamo  in  .     .  i        r  -i     1  1         1      1 

Roberts'  ^^"  ^°^  some  reason  he  lailed  to  hand  down  a 

case  at  decision  until  late  in  September,  in  which  he  up- 

Philadelphia—  hej^  the  Tesla  patents  against  the  Roberts  Com- 

^^^^^^^^['  pany,  and  gave  the  injunction  asked  for  by  West- 

inghouse. 


1903- 


Sales  TN  the  meantime,  we  had  started  negotiations  in 

arrangement  Xthe  spring  of  1903  with  the  Brush  Electrical  En- 
with  Brush      .  .        ^  r  t        j         ^         11  4.         • 

£1  t  •   1  gmeermg  Company  01  London,  to  sell  our  meters  m 

Engineering  Great  Britain,  and  Mr.  Bunn  went  to  England  in 

Co.,  London  —  July  to  close  the  contract  with  them.  On  his  return 

Mr.  Bunn's  j^^^  -^^  September,  I  greeted  him  at  New  York  with 

England  —  *^^  ^^^  news  about  the  Roberts'  case,  and,  as  usual, 

Summer,  igoj.  he  said,  "Well,  we're  not  licked  yet." 

However,  it  soon  looked  as  though  we  might  be, 
for,  following  the  injunction  against  the  Roberts 
Company,  Mr.  Brown,  our  counsel,  told  us  to  dis- 
regard it,  as  we  were  not  the  actual  party  defendant, 
so  we  kept  on  making  meters  through  October. 


Injunction  HT^HEREUPON,    the    Westinghouse    Company 

against  X  asked  Judge  Archbold  to  adjudge  us  in  con- 

angamo  an  ^^^^^  q£  court  if  we  failed  to  respect  the  injunction, 

termination  oj  ^                                                 1                      1     1  •           • 

Gutmann  SO  on  November  11,  1903,  he  granted  this  action, 

meter  and  Mr.  Bunn,  who  was  in  Chicago,  telephoned  me 

production  —  ^q  g^^p  ^\\  operations  that  night,  a  great  shock  to  all 

November  ^    ,       -^i    o 

nth  loo-^i  connected  with  J^angamo. 

During  the  balance  of  November  and  all  of  De- 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  25 

cember  we  retained  only  a  few  employes, — in  the 
hope  of  a  successful  appeal  from  Judge  Archbold's 
decision  (which  we  never  obtained),  also  of  carrying 
on  in  Canada,  and  finally,  of  developing  quickly 
the  mercury  motor  direct  current  meter,  on  which 
Mr.  Gutmann  had  started  me  experimenting  as  far 
back  as  the  spring  of  1902, — but  on  which  we  had 
not  made  much  progress. 

IN  December,  Federal  Judge  Kohlsaat,  of  Chi-  Shipment  of 
cago,  granted  a  plea  made  by  Mr.  Brown,  per-  fi^^^^^^ 
mittmg  us  to  ship  all  our  stock  01  nnished  Gutmann  ^^^^^^  ^^ 
meters,  nearly  all  of  which  were  in  the  Electric  Canada  and 
Appliance    Company    warehouse    in    Chicago,    to  Mst  manu- 

Canada,  or  elsewhere  outside  the  United  States,  on  fff[^[^^§  ^^ 

WindsoT  — 
the  ground  that  the  Tesla  patents  covered  a  "system  January,  igod. 

of  operation,"  and  not  merely  the  motor — i.e.  the 
meter — connected  in  the  system,  so  that  infringe- 
ment did  not  exist  until  the  meter  was  in  operation. 
This  was  a  God-send  to  us,  especially  as  Mr.  Bunn 
then  went  to  Montreal,  and  through  our  agent,  Mr. 
Forman,  sold  the  entire  lot  of  meters  to  the  Mon- 
treal Light,  Heat  and  Power  Company.  Not  long 
thereafter,  when  in  Montreal,  I  met  a  young  man 
about  my  age  named  Donaldson  then  in  the  meter 
department  of  the  Montreal  Company.  Years  later, 
when  we  started  British  Sangamo,  I  had  the  pleasing 
surprise  of  meeting  him  again  as  Captain  Donald- 
son, Managing  Director  of  the  North  Metropolitan 
Electric  Supply  Company  of  London,  for  many 
years  since  then  our  largest  customer  in  England. 


26  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

Under  Judge  Kohlsaat's  decision,  we  were  also 
free  to  manufacture  parts  for  meters,  and  even 
assemble  them,  so  long  as  we  did  not  operate  them 
on  current,  so,  taking  advantage  of  this,  we  decided  to 
start  a  small  assembling  and  testing  plant  in  Canada, 
to  supply  our  trade  in  Canada  and  England,  also 
in  Mexico,  Japan  and  some  other  foreign  countries, 
in  which  we  had  a  fair  business  for  those  days. 

So,  at  the  end  of  December,  Mr.  Bunn  and  I 
went  to  Detroit,  to  find  a  location  in  Windsor, 
across  the  river.  En  route,  we  were  in  Chicago 
December  30th,  and  tried  to  get  seats  for  the  per- 
formance at  the  Iroquois  Theatre  that  afternoon. 
Fortunately  for  us,  there  were  none  to  be  had,  so 
we  took  the  afternoon  train  to  Detroit,  and  at 
Kalamazoo  learned  of  the  terrible  Iroquois  fire, 
with  the  loss  of  nearly  600  lives. 

After  several  days  search  at  Windsor,  we  found  a 
second  floor  store-room,  so  I  remained  several  weeks 
in  January  1904  fitting  this  up,  assisted  by  Frank 
Pride,  who  came  up  from  Springfield,  and  remained 
in  charge  of  our  little  place  at  Windsor, — later 
transferred  to  Walkerville, — until  we  found  the 
venture  so  unprofitable  that  we  discontinued  it 
after  two  years,  not  to  resume  manufacturing  in 
Canada  until  many  years  later. 

Development  "POURING  December,  1 903,  Henry  Hodde  (alias 
of  first  X_J  "Dutch")  started  working  with  me  to  develop 
motor  m  ler  —  ^^  mercury  meter,  our  only  hope  for  business  in 
igo4.  the  United  States. 


Forty  Years  of  Sangamo  2  7 

By  this  time  Mr.  Gutmann  had  ceased  to  have  a 
very  active  connection  with  us,  although  still  re- 
taining his  interest  and  position  in  the  company,  so 
the  development  of  the  mercury  meter  was  carried 
on  by  Otis  White,  Dutch  Hodde  and  myself,  and  as 
I  think  back  to  all  the  wild  schemes  we  tried  during 
the  first  six  months  of  1 904,  to  make  a  meter  reason- 
ably accurate  on  light  load,  and  on  change  in  volt- 
age, I  realize  how  little  we  all  knew  then  about 
mercury  meters. 

Fortunately,  Mr.  Bunn  was  patient  and  under- 
standing, as  always,  even  though  we  were  losing 
money  (that  we  did  not  have)  month  after  month, 
so,  encouraged  by  him,  we  tooled  up  the  original 
type  "C"  mercury  meter  in  the  summer,  and  pro- 
duced the  first  lot  in  August. 

THESE  meters  were  shipped  in  September,  on  First  type  C 
order  from  the  Electric  Appliance   Company,  ^^^^^U 

TTieteTS  Snibped 
to  Oneida,  Illinois,  a  small  town  near  Galesburg,  September  1004. 

and  it  was  another  case  like  Logansport,  only  worse,  to  Oneida, 
for  when  I  received  a  frantic  call  to  go  over  there  ^^^i^ois  and 

early  in  October,  I  found  the  mercury  had  leaked     '^,/^f 

^  '  •11   ^^^'^  them. 

out  of  the  armature  chamber  of  every  single  meter ! 

During  my  two  days'  stay  there,  the  situation  was 

made  more  enjoyable  by  having  to  sleep  on  a  cot 

in  a  livery  stable. 

The  trouble  proved  to  be  in  the  material  used  for 

the  mercury  chamber, — Electrose, — a  shellac  and 

mica  compound,  which  we  found  would  soften  at 

about  125  degrees  F.,  which  had  never  occurred  to 


28  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

us  at  all.  The  meters  at  Oneida  had  been  piled  up 
in  the  boiler  room  of  the  plant,  with  resultant  tem- 
perature well  above  the  softening  point  of  the 
Electrose. 

So  we  now  had  to  find  a  more  heat  resistant  ma- 
terial, and  while  Hodde  experimented  at  Spring- 
field, I  went  to  the  Electrose  Company,  at  Brooklyn, 
and  others,  in  the  endeavor  to  get  such  material. 
The  Electrose  Company  were  very  helpful,  and  by 
adding  asbestos  fibre  and  reducing  the  proportion 
of  shellac  in  the  mixture,  they  produced  for  us  in 
about  two  months,  a  brown  material,  which  proved 
sufficiently  heat  resistant.  Thus,  in  December,  1 904, 
we  finally  got  started  on  the  production  of  type 
"C"  meters  that  seemed  satisfactory,  and  during 
1905  we  shipped  several  thousand  of  these  meters. 

Development  T  TOWEVER,  the  type  "C"  was  neither  a  true 
of  mercury  X  X  watthour  meter  nor  an  amperehour  meter, 

mo  or  wa  -  ^^  Hodde  and  I  continued  experiments  to  the  end 
hour  meter  —  .    .  ^ 

1905.  °^  obtammg  a  watthour  meter,  no  mercury  watt- 
hour  meter  having  been  made,  up  to  that  time,  in 
England,  the  birthplace  of  mercury  meters,  or  else- 
where. 

We  obtained  the  desired  result  in  the  summer  of 
1905  by  the  simple  expedient  of  adding  damping 
magnets  and  a  damping  disk  carried  on  the  arma- 
ture shaft,  outside  the  mercury  chamber,  and  four 
meters  of  this  construction  were  built  as  models,  and 
sent  to  Denver  and  Peoria  for  test  in  July  1905.  The 
results  reported  were  so  satisfactory  that  we  decided 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  29 

to  supersede  the  type  "C"  with  the  new  "type  D," 
on  which  tooKng  was  started  at  once,  and  the  first 
meters  produced  in  November. 

In  passing,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  original 
model  type  "D"  sent  to  Peoria  was  in  successful  use 
there,  at  the  Block  &  Kuhl  store,  for  over  twenty 
years,  until  destroyed  in  a  fire. 

GOING  back  to  the  litigation  on  the  induction  Settlement  of 
meter,  Mr.  Brown  endeavored  during   1904  T^^l(^Ment 
to  have  the  injunction  against  us  set  aside,  but  lost  ly^'^c^^ahou 
on  appeal,  and  the  Westinghouse  Company  then  Company  — 
demanded  an  accounting  and  damages.  After  hear-  January,  igo^. 
ings  over  several  months,  a  decision  on  this  matter 
was  rendered  in  January   1905,  and,  Mr.  Brown 
having  then  ceased  to  be  our  counsel,  Mr.  Bunn 
engaged  Mr.  Carl  Meyer,  one  of  the  best  known 
lawyers  in  Chicago  (then  and  now)  to  go  with  us  to 
New  York,  and  negotiate  a  settlement  with  West- 
inghouse and  General  Electric,  who,  under  their 
patent  agreement  of  those  days  with  Westinghouse, 
were  a  party  to  the  matter. 

Our  opponents,  represented  by  Mr.  Charles 
Neave,  a  classmate  at  Yale  of  Mr.  Meyer's,  started 
off  with  impossible  demands,  a  royalty  of  five 
dollars  per  meter  on  the  30,000  we  had  made,  both 
cylinder  and  disk  type,  and  also  demanded  we  go 
out  of  business  failing  our  agreement  to  which 
demands  one  of  their  attorneys  said  they  would  go 
after  all  our  users,  and  make  them  remove  the 
meters.   Mr.   Meyer  told   them  emphatically  that 


30  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

their  demands  were  ridiculous,  that  "one  couldn't 
squeeze  blood  out  of  a  turnip,"  and  that  Sangamo 
would  not  go  out  of  business. 

We  wrangled  with  them  until  lunch  time,  and  I 
always  felt  that  the  appearance  of  Mr.  George 
Westinghouse  himself  during  these  hours,  and  some 
conciliatory  remarks  he  made,  had  a  helpful  effect 
for  us.  At  any  rate,  when  Jvlr.  Bunn,  Mr.  Meyer  and 
I  went  down  to  lunch  in  the  old  "Savarin"  cafe, 
Mr.  Meyer  said,  "We  will  pay  them  Si 5,000.00  or 
about  fifty  cents  per  meter,  if  you  say  so,  but  not  a 
cent  more."  Mr.  Bunn  said  we  had  no  such  sum, 
but  that  if  I  felt  we  could  build  a  meter  to  get 
around  the  situation,  he  would  find  the  money.  So, 
somewhat  rashly,  I  said  we  could,  and  we  went  up 
after  lunch,  Mr.  Meyer  made  the  off'er,  and,  after 
some  argument,  Jvlr.  Neave  told  our  opponents  to 
accept  it.  They  did  so,  then  again  urged  Mr.  Bunn 
to  get  out  of  the  meter  business,  ofi'ering  him  to 
cancel  the  indemnity,  to  buy  all  tools,  equipment, 
material,  etc.,  so  as  to  leave  the  company  a  nice 
profit,  and  to  provide  positions  for  Mr.  White  and 
myself. 

To  most  men  this  would  have  been  a  tempting 
"out"  on  a  bad  situation,  but  not  Mr.  Bunn,  for  he 
politely  declined,  and  we  took  the  next  train  to 
Chicago.  The  next  afternoon  ^Ir.  Bunn,  Mr.  Low, 
Mr.  Meyer  and  I  were  at  the  Chicago  Athletic  Club, 
when  he  received  a  telegram  from  the  attorneys  of 
Westinghouse  again  urging  him  to  consider  a  still 
more  liberal  ofi'er.  He  handed  it  to  me,  and  said, 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  3 1 

"Those  fellows  seem  mighty  anxious,  and  now  it's 
up  to  you,  for  you  have  a  good  offer  from  them, 
whereas  if  you  stick  with  Sangamo,  we  may  eventu- 
ally have  to  go  under,  and  I  don't  want  to  stand  in 
your  way.  Besides,  I  can  come  out  all  right,  and 
with  some  profit,  if  I  take  their  offer."  Of  course  I 
said  I  would  stay  with  him,  if  he  wanted  to  keep  on, 
so  Mr.  Meyer  and  Mr.  Low  both  urged  him  not  to 
give  in,  we  all  shook  hands,  had  a  wee  bit  to  cele- 
brate, and  Mr.  Bunn  wired  back  that  he  respectfully 
declined  the  offer. 

ON  return  to  Springfield,  the  first  question  was  Payment  of 
about  the  $  1 5,000.00  we  had  to  pay,  and,  as  ^"^^^"^^y  ^^ 
.  ,       ,  ^         K  /r      r^    ^  Westiuphouse 

the  company  had  no  money,  and  as  Mr.  Gutmann,  ^^^  rearrange- 

the  principal  stockholder  besides  Mr.  Bunn,  was  ment  of 
unable  to  pay  an  assessment  on  his  stock,  Mr.  Bunn  Sangamo 

offered  to  buy  his  interest  at  par,  which  Mr.  Gut-  f°ff^. 

,    .      -.  r       1  11  .     holdings. 

mann  accepted  m  March,  1905,  and  then  termi- 
nated his  connection  with  Sangamo.  Mr.  Bunn  then 
furnished  the  money  to  pay  Westinghouse,  and  we 
turned  our  thoughts  entirely  to  mercury  meters,  re- 
alizing that  we  could  not  again  make  induction 
meters  until  after  expiration  of  the  Telsa  patents. 
By  this  time,  the  Schieffer  Company  had  quit, 
and  the  Stanley  Company  had  been  enjoined 
after  suit  on  the  Tesla  patents,  leaving  Westing- 
house  and  General  Electric  (including  their 
Fort  Wayne  meter)  meters  alone  in  the  induc- 
tion meter  field  until  these  patents  expired  in 
December,  1910. 


32  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

Suit  on  "XJO  sooner  had  we  settled  with  Westinghouse 

mercury  motor  _L  1    than  we  were  sued,  in  April,  1 905,  by  General 

meers  y  YX^cVc'ic  on  our  D.C.  mercury  meter,  under  four  or 

General  ^  ' 

Electric—  five  of  their  patents,  the  principal  one  being  a  patent 

April,  igo^.  of  Halsey's,  who  had  made  a  few  mercury  ampere 
hour  meters  in  Chicago  from  i  goo  to  1 903,  and  had 
then  sold  his  patents  to  General  Electric.  The  only 
claim  of  serious  concern  to  us  was  one  covering  the 
complete  amalgamation  of  the  disk,  and  on  this, 
after  three  years  litigation,  conducted  for  us  by  Mr. 
C.  E.  Pickard,  of  Bond,  Adams,  Pickard  &  Jackson, 
— we  were  defeated,  but  won  on  all  other  counts, 
and  caused  one  of  the  G.  E.  patents  to  be  invali- 
dated, because  of  incorrect  practice  in  connection 
with  its  issue. 

We  then  resorted  to  partial  amalgamation  of  the 
disk,  but  after  a  short  time,  early  in  1909,  entered 
into  a  mutual  license  agreement  with  General 
Electric,  permitting  us  to  utilize  their  patents  as 
well  as  our  own,  and  thus  began  the  friendly  and 
co-operative  relations  we  have  had  with  them  ever 
since. 

The  mercury  XN  the  meantime,  going  back  to  1 905,  we  had  a 
chambers  that  J_  severe  jolt  that  fall,  just  as  the  type  "C"  was 
November,  being  superseded  by  the  type  "D,"  for  one  day 
/poj.  Bert  Brinkerhoff,  who  had  come  with  us  after  grad- 
uating at  Cornell  the  previous  June,  came  to  me 
with  a  type  "C"   meter  returned  on  account  of 
mercury  leaking,  and  called  my  attention  to  the 
contact    ears    showing    amalgamation    outside    the 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  33 

mercury  chamber.  We  broke  the  ears  out,  and  my 
heart  sank  when  I  saw  them  both  completely  amal- 
gamated, the  mercury  having  slowly  worked  its 
way  across  the  copper  from  inside,  for  this  meant 
that  every  type  "C"  meter  we  had  sent  out  in  the 
ten  months  of  their  production,  must  inevitably 
develop  the  same  trouble  sooner  or  later,  and  they  did. 

The  trouble  was  due  to  my  having  stupidly  over- 
looked the  fact  that  the  copper  ears  should  have 
been  enameled,  or  nickel  plated,  to  avoid  this  ob- 
vious danger,  and  it  was  cured  at  once  by  nickel 
plating,  so  that  very  few  type  "D"  meters  got  out 
with  the  leaky  ears. 

I  went  over  to  tell  Mr.  Bunn  that  we  faced  the 
prospect  of  replacing  or  taking  back  all  the  type 
"C"  meters  we  had  made,  expecting  some  strong 
remarks  on  the  blunder  I  had  made,  but,  character- 
istically, he  merely  said,  "Well,  now  what  do  you 
think  of  that !  Those  things  will  happen,  and  I  hope 
your  scheme  of  nickel-plating  will  do  the  trick." 
And  that's  all  he  ever  said  about  it,  even  after 
hundreds  of  meters  came  back. 

BY  this  time,  the  Electric  Appliance  Company  The  con- 
was  pressing  us  to  get  up  an  A.C.  meter  that  ^^"-^^  '■yP^ 

,,.p.  1  1.  r     alternating, 

would  not  mfrmge  any  patents,  and  early  m  i  gob,  ^^^^^^^  ^°^_ 

I  had  the  temerity  to  build  a  meter,  the  idea  of  cury  meter— 
which  had  occurred  two  years  before,  and  on  which  1906. 
we  obtained  patents,  the  scheme  being  to  put  a  con- 
denser in  series  with  the  shunt  coil  of  the  "Type  D" 
meter,  adjusted  to  make  a  resonant  circuit  at  the 


34  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

desired  frequency,   and   thus  giving   a   true  A.C. 
watthour  measurement  at  that  frequency. 

Unfortunately,  frequencies  were  not  well  regu- 
lated in  those  days,  variations  of  3  or  4  percent  being 
the  usual  thing,  except  on  a  few  large  60  cycle  sys- 
tems, which  frequency  was  then  just  coming  into 
more  general  use,  so  after  sending  out  a  few  hundred 
of  these  "condenser  type"  meters,  in  the  spring  of 
1906,  we  soon  had  many  complaints.  I  went  up  to 
Hammond,  Indiana,  where  they  then  had  133 
cycles,  to  investigate  our  worst  complaint,  and  then 
realized  that  what  we  were  making  was  rather  a 
frequency  meter  than  a  watthour  meter,  so  another 
hope  was  blasted,  and  nearly  all  these  condenser 
meters  came  back. 

Our  sulphur  T  TOWEVER,  we  did  one  interesting  and  satis- 
impregnated  X  -L  factory  job  in  developing  this  meter,  a  sulphur 
con  enser.  inipj-egnated  cylindrical  paper  condenser,  of  which 
we  later  sold  quite  a  large  quantity. 

The  trans-  T  A  7E  now  sought  some  other  way  of  operating  a 

former  type    y  y  mercury  meter  on  alternating  current,  and  after 

erna  ing  ^  gj^Qj.^  time,  hit  on  a  really  correct  idea,  namely, 

current  mer-  '  ^  ■>  j  ■> 

cury  meter—  what  we  later  called  our  "transformer  meter,"  in 
igoG.  which  the  mercury  chamber  was  connected  across  a 
very  low  potential  secondary  (about  1/30  volt)  of  a 
small  potential  transformer  in  the  meter,  and  series 
coils,  carrying  the  load  current,  were  placed  on  the 
electromagnet,  instead  of  the  shunt  coils  of  the  Type 
"D"  meter.  This  meter  had  some  really  remarkable 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  35 

characteristics,  being  inherently  correct  on  in- 
ductive load,  and,  when  built  for  25  cycles,  had 
practically  the  same  accuracy  on  any  frequency  up 
to  80  or  more  cycles. 

Years  later,  and  long  after  we  again  made  induc- 
tion meters,  we  built  some  of  these  A.G.  mercury 
meters  for  use  on  circuits  where  the  frequency  was 
varied  over  wide  limits  for  motor  speed  control,  a 
condition  for  which  no  induction  meter  could  be 
used. 

We  had  a  hard  time  convincing  the  patent  office 
that  the  mode  of  operation  of  this  meter  was  work- 
able, and  I  finally  spent  three  days  in  Washington 
with  Mr.  Pickard,  arguing  with  the  examiner.  How- 
ever, after  taking  the  examiner  to  the  Willard  Hotel 
and  operating  a  meter,  he  allowed  our  claims. 

We  brought  out  the  first  transformer  meters, 
which  we  called  the  type  "E,"  soon  after  the  demise 
of  the  condenser  meter,  in  June,  1 906,  and  thought 
we  were  at  last  out  of  the  woods,  especially  as  the 
meter  sold  well,  almost  from  the  start. 

IT  was  also  about  this  time  that  we  began  making  Beginning 
our  own  mercury  chambers,  having  worked  out  ^/  ^^^  ^^^ 
a   shellac-mica-asbestos   mixture    that   srave   us   a  ^^°,  "'^f^°"  ^-^ 

^  molded 

harder  and  more  heat  resistant  chamber  than  those  rnercury 

supplied  us  by  the  Electrose  Manufacturing  Com-  chambers— 

pany,  and  we  continued  to  use  this  material  until  1906.— Bake- 

we  went  over  to  Bakelite  early  in  191 2,  the  year    ^  ^'  ^^^^' 

after  Dr.  Baekeland  announced  this  material.  We 

were  thus  one  of  the  first  three  companies  to  use 


36  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

Bakelite,  and  I  believe  no  other  piece  has  been 
made  of  BakeUte,  unchanged  in  design,  as  long  as 
our  D-5  mercury  chamber. 

Agency  arrange-  OHORTLY  before  this,  in  the  early  spring  of 
ments—igoG  \^  1 906,  we  made  our  second  agency  arrangement 
and  igoy.  ^^^^j^^g  ^f  Electric  Appliance  Company  and  H.  C. 
Roberts  (excepting  the  short  ill-fated  connection 
with  Western  Electric),  with  the  Wesco  Supply 
Company,  of  St.  Louis,  who  became  very  active  for 
our  meters,  and  did  a  very  effective  business  for  us 
throughout  the  Southwest  during  the  next  six  years, 
standing  by  us  splendidly  through  the  troubles  and 
disappointments  of  that  period,  as,  in  fact,  all  our 
agents  except  one,  did. 

That  exception  was  Machado  and  Roller,  who 
began  selling  our  meters  in  the  New  York  territory 
in  1905,  and  were  very  helpful  until  1910,  when  Mr. 
Roller  decided  Sangamo's  future  looked  dark,  and 
assumed  the  agency  for  another  meter,  which,  in  a 
few  years,  disappeared  from  the  market. 

Early  in  1 906  we  were  very  fortunate  in  making  a 
sales  arrangement  for  the  Pittsburgh  territory  with 
Mr.  Ludwig  Hommel,  which  has  continued  ever 
since  with  mutual  satisfaction,  so  we  take  very 
great  pride  in  this  connection. 

A  little  later,  in  May,  1 906,  Mr.  Bunn  had  a  letter 
from  two  young  fellows  who  had  just  started  out  for 
themselves  in  Boston  "on  a  shoestring" — Bruce 
Wetmore  and  Hanson  Savage — and  how  they  made 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  37 

that  shoestring  grow!  So  Mr.  Bunn  and  I  went  to 
see  them,  finding  Bruce  in  their  tiny  office  on  OHver 
Street,  while  "Hans"  was  out  selHng. 

It  didn't  take  long  to  decide  we  wanted  each 
other,  so  that  evening,  when  "Hans"  got  back,  the 
contract  was  signed  with  suitable  celebration,  and 
for  nearly  twenty  years  Wetmore-Savage  did  a 
remarkable  business  for  us  in  the  New  England 
territory.  Later,  following  the  death  of  Hans 
Savage  in  1923,  Bruce  Wetmore,  to  our  great  regret, 
decided  to  sell  the  business.  We  have  never  had  finer 
relations  with  any  one  than  with  these  two  men. 
However,  we  were  fortunate  in  having  had  with 
them,  as  our  expert,  since  1 9 1 1 ,  StafT  King,  who 
came  with  us  January  first,  1925,  to  handle  the  New 
England  territory,  which  he  has  done  so  successfully 
ever  since. 

And  in  the  spring  of  1907  we  made  one  of  the 
most  important  sales  connections  in  our  history, 
when  I  went  to  Philadelphia  and  met  George 
Rumsey.  He  and  his  brother  had  established  the 
Rumsey  Electric  Company  there  some  ten  years 
before,  and  had  already  gained  a  fine  reputation  for 
energetic  and  honest  sales  work,  so  we  were  glad  to 
enlist  them  as  our  agents  for  the  Philadelphia  ter- 
ritory, and  on  south  to  the  Carolinas.  This  connec- 
tion, I  am  happy  to  say,  continues  most  satisfactorily 
to  this  day. 

Thus,  during  1906  and  1907,  we  formed  many  of 
our  most  valuable  and  lasting  agency  connections. 


38  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 


The  episode  T^ETURNING   now   to   our   factory   history,    I 

William 


with  Mr. 


have  to  tell  of  one  of  the  most  unexpected  and 


St  I  —I  06  interesting  experiences  we  ever  had,  which  occurred 
in  the  spring  of  1 906.  One  day  I  had  a  telegram  from 
Mr.  William  Stanley,  sent  from  the  train  at  Albany, 
asking  me  to  meet  him  the  next  day  at  a  hotel  in 
Chicago.  Of  course,  his  name,  one  of  the  greatest 
in  the  electrical  history  of  this  country,  was  well- 
known  to  me  both  from  his  early  connection  as  the 
first  electrical  engineer  of  the  Westinghouse  Com- 
pany, as  founder,  in  1890,  of  the  Stanley  Electric 
Company,  and  later,  as  inventor  of  the  Stanley 
meter,  but  I  had  never  met  him.  So  I  went,  and 
found  him  to  be  one  of  the  most  interesting  and 
delightful  men  I  had  ever  met,  full  of  ideas,  the 
principal  one  at  the  moment  being  the  plan  he  put 
before  me,  of  saving  what  was  left  of  his  company, 
which,  like  ourselves,  had  been  enjoined  under  the 
Tesla  patents,  by  combining  it  with  Sangamo.  With 
him  was  that  truly  remarkable  man,  Guiseppe  Fac- 
cioli,  who  had  invented  a  reciprocating  type  meter 
for  A.C.  and  D.C.,  and  who  had  also  worked  out 
an  induction  type  meter  of  Mr.  Stanley's  own  in- 
vention, which  he  felt  would  escape  the  Tesla 
patents,  and  thus,  with  our  mercury  meters,  give 
the  nucleus  of  a  meter  business  that  could  maintain 
itself. 

This  meter  of  Mr.  Stanley's  had  two  disks,  one 
responding  to  a  shaded  pole  driving  field  carrying  a 
flux  equal  to  (a  +  b),  "a"  being  current,  and  "b" 
voltage,  the  other  disk  operating  in  an  (a  — b)  field, 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  39 

so  that  the  resultant  effect,  at  the  spindle,  was  equal 
to  "4  a  b,"  in  other  words,  watthours. 

That  night,  until  a  very  late  hour,  I  sat  spell- 
bound listening  to  those  two  brilliant  men,  as  they 
planned  how  we  were  going  to  work  together,  but 
after  Mr.  Stanley  had  spent  a  week  in  Springfield, 
then  made  a  second  visit  a  few  weeks  later,  the  plan 
did  not  seem  practicable  to  Mr.  Bunn,  Mr.  Pickard 
(our  patent  attorney)  and  to  me,  and  we  so  advised 
Mr.  Stanley.  Soon  afterward  he  became  a  consultant 
of  the  General  Electric  Company,  so  continuing  to 
the  end  of  his  life,  while  Faccioli  went  with  them  at 
Pittsfield,  and,  notwithstanding  great  physical  suf- 
fering, became  one  of  the  greatest — probably  the 
greatest — transformer  engineer  in  the  world. 

SHORTLY  after  this  interesting  episode,  we  ran  More  mercury 

'  into  a  new  and  serious  trouble  with  our  mercury  "^^^^J'  ^^^^^^^^ 

meters,  as  all  of  our  product  was  then,  consisting  in  ~^^turf^. 

loss  of  buoyancy  of  the  moving  system,  and  conse-  igoy.—My  trip 

quent  stopping,  even  on  heavy  load.  This  came  io  Texas— 

about  through  my  havinsr  failed  to  realize  that  the  ^^^  "y^^^ow 
n         •  r     1  111  1       ^^g    Story. 

necessary  flotation  of  the  armature  could  be  ob- 
tained by  the  use  of  a  small  cylinder  of  wood,  or 
composition,  attached  to  the  armature  disk,  instead 
of  which  Otis  White  had  gone  to  much  trouble  to 
develop  a  hollow  copper  dome,  riveted  over  a 
raised  groove  in  the  disk.  This  worked  fine  for  a 
time,  but  eventually,  in  many  meters,  the  mercury 
amalgamated  its  way  through  this  joint,  the  float 
chamber  filled  with  mercury,  and  the  moving  sys- 


40  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

tern  became  a  "sinker,"  as  we  called  these  after  the 
trouble  developed. 

Again,  as  in  the  case  of  leaking  contact  ears  a  year 
before,  it  required  only  the  simple  change  to  a  wood 
float  (later  replaced  by  bakelite,  as  still  used)  to 
eliminate  the  trouble,  but,  again,  we  had  hundreds 
of  meters  out  in  which  armatures  eventually  had  to 
be  replaced. 

The  worst  of  this  trouble,  for  some  reason,  oc- 
curred in  the  type  "E"  alternating  current  meters, 
and  to  a  great  extent  in  Texas,  probably  due  to 
average  higher  temperatures  there  which  hastened 
the  leakage  into  the  floats.  By  the  spring  of  1907, 
the  situation  there  was  so  serious  that  both  Electric 
Appliance  Company  at  Dallas,  and  Wesco,  at  Ft. 
Worth,  insisted  I  come  down  to  try  to  pacify  some 
of  their  customers,  so  I  went,  and  never  have  I  for- 
gotten that  harrowing  trip!  First  I  went  down  to 
Del  Rio,  on  the  Rio  Grande  River,  to  repair  some 
sixty  meters  that  had  gone  bad,  and  what  with 
terrific  heat,  Mexican  food,  and  poor  facilities  for 
testing,  I  was  glad  to  leave  after  nearly  a  week's 
work. 

Then  I  went  to  Dallas,  and  Bill  Upham,  branch 
manager  there  for  Electric  Appliance  Company, 
told  me  he  had  several  customers  for  me  to  see,  but 
that  the  most  irate  was  a  big  fellow  named  Brown  at 
Ennis,  not  far  from  Dallas,  and  that  he  didn't  know 
what  Brown  might  do  if  I  went  there.  So,  of  course, 
we  went,  and  Bill  introduced  me,  not  as  a  Sangamo 
factory  man,  but  as  "a  young  fellow  who  is  with  us 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  41 

at  Chicago."  Bill  had  warned  me,  above  all,  not  to 
refuse  a  drink  if  Brown  offered  it,  which  he  promptly 
did,  and  after  one  or  two  more,  got  around  to  "those 
damned  Sangamo  meters"  and  what  he  said  was 
finally  topped  off'  by  the  remark,  "if  I  had  a  poor 
yaller  dog  named  Sangamo,  I'd  drown  the  damn' 
thing!"  Well,  then  I  had  to  summon  up  courage  to 
tell  him  I  was  responsible  for  those  meters,  and  that 
we  now  had  them  fixed  up  all  right.  For  a  minute 
I  thought  he  was  going  to  throw  me  out,  then  he 
grabbed  the  bottle  and  said,  "Boy,  have  another, 
you're  all  right!"  We  parted  sworn  friends,  and  Mr. 
Brown  stuck  with  us  thereafter. 

EARLY  in  1907,  we  got  our  first  business  outside  Permanent 
I  of  meters,   when  the  Wheeler  and  Schebler  ^(^g^^^^for 

C  A   A/ 

Carburetor  Company  of  Indianapolis  asked  us  to  x-,  , 
make  the  permanent  magnets  for  a  magneto  they  Co.—igoy. 
were  just  bringing  out,  and  during  the  next  two 
years  this  developed  into  a  good-sized  and  profitable 
business.  To  meet  this  demand,  we  required  more 
space  than  we  then  had  in  one  of  the  Watch  Com- 
pany sheds,  just  south  of  our  No.  i  building,  where 
we  started  making  our  own  magnets  in  1 906,  so  the 
Watch  Company  built  for  us,  in  1907,  our  present 
forge  shop,  where,  for  many  years,  we  used  oil  fur- 
naces for  hardening  as  well  as  forming. 

LATE  in  that  year,  we  began  to  think  of  making  ^"''  ^^Z*^^" 
1  .    ,  .  1  ments  with 

J  a  nigh  tension  magneto  ourselves,  to  compete  f^asnetos— 

with  Bosch  and  others  then  on  the  market,  and  dur-  igo8. 


42  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

ing  1908  Bert  Brinkerhoff,  Dutch  Hodde,  Otis 
White  and  I  made  a  number  of  experimental  models 
of  a  high  tension  magneto  without  the  customary 
"make-and-break,"  but  by  the  middle  of  1909  it 
seemed  best  not  to  continue  this  effort,  and  it  was 
dropped. 

Type  FJor  "POURING  the  early  part  of  1 908,  we   greatly 
A.C.  and  type  \^  improved   the   construction   of  our    mercury 

D-K  for  D.C.  ,    .  ,  1  ,  ,,-r-,,,    r 

mercury  "^^ter,  and  m  1909,  brought  out  the  type     r     for 
meters— igog.  A.C,  shortly  followed  by  the  D-5  for  D.C,  prac- 
tically the  same,  in  all  respects,  as  our  present  D.C 
meter,  and  we  then  thought  we  would  never  go 
back  to  an  induction  meter. 

The  birth     A  BOUT  this  time,  at  the  N.  E.  L.  A.  Convention 

of  the  £-\  jj-^  Chicago,  in  May,  1 908,  I  had  the  good  for- 

meter  —  ^^^^  ^^  meet  Mr.  Ernest  Lunn,  then  Superintendent 

Ernest  Lunn—  of  Storage  Batteries  of  the  Commonwealth  Edison 

igo8.  Company,   through  our  good  friend  of  so  many 

years,  Mr.  O.  J.  Bushnell,  Superintendent  of  the 

Meter  Department  of  that  company. 

He  had  been  trying  to  get,  or  develop,  an  ampere- 
hour  meter  for  use  with  their  great  standby  bat- 
teries, and,  when  Mr.  Bushnell  told  him  we  made 
mercury  motor  meters,  Lunn  said  he  would  like  to 
see  what  we  could  do  for  him.  So  we  quickly  pro- 
duced a  model  by  substituting  a  powerful  perma- 
nent magnet  for  the  shunt  field  of  our  watthour 
meter,  and  submitted  this  to  him  in  August. 

He  was  so  pleased  with  it  that  he  asked  for  several 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  43 

more  to  try  out  on  electric  trucks  of  the  Edison 
Company,  as  well  as  for  use  with  several  of  their 
stand-by  batteries.  We  delivered  the  meters  in 
October,  and  thus  the  amperehour  meter  business 
was  born,  so  valuable  to  us  ever  since. 

Mr.  Lunn  then  suggested  to  us  that  the  ampere- 
hour  meter  should  have  a  valuable  application  with 
batteries  on  electric  lighted  railway  cars,  and  in 
December  we  submitted  meters  to  the  Pennsylvania, 
Wabash,  and  several  other  roads,  with  the  result 
that  they  were  immediately  applied  on  a  number 
of  cars  with  straight  storage  systems,  that  is,  without 
charging  equipment  on  the  car,  such  batteries  being 
charged  between  trips  at  terminal  points.  However, 
the  majority  of  railroad  cars  then,  and  practically 
all  a  few  years  later,  had  full  automatic  equipment, 
the  battery  being  charged,  above  a  certain  train 
speed,  from  a  generator  driven  from  the  car  axle, 
and  therefore  discharging  at  one  moment,  and 
charging  at  another.  This  necessitated  an  ampere- 
hour  meter  arranged  to  run  slower  on  charge  than 
on  discharge,  in  order  to  give  the  battery  the  neces- 
sary overcharge,  but  it  was  not  until  191 2  that  we 
solved  this  problem,  as  related  later. 

In  the  meantime,  for  meters  used  on  electric 
vehicles,  or  wherever  the  cycles  of  charge  and  dis- 
charge were  entirely  separated,  the  necessary  differ- 
ence in  speed  was  obtained  by  the  "differential 
shunt,"  developed  early  in  1909,  and  successfully 
used  for  several  years.  Again,  as  with  the  "trans- 
former type"  A.C.  mercury  meter,  we  had  a  struggle 


44  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

with  the  patent  office,  as  our  claims  on  the  "differen- 
tial shunt"  were,  at  first,  rejected  on  the  ground  that 
the  arrangement  of  divided  circuits  described  in  our 
application  constituted  an  ordinary  Wlieatstone 
bridge  arrangement,  and  furthermore,  would  not 
accomplish  the  result  we  claimed.  Again  I  went  to 
Washington,  this  time  with  Mr.  John  L.  Jackson, 
who,  I  am  happy  to  say,  still  handles  our  patent 
matters.  He  had  taken  over  our  patent  work  after 
the  death  of  his  partner,  Mr.  Pickard  in  1 909. 

Mr.  Jackson  and  I  found  the  examiner  reasonable, 
but  very  dubious,  but  as  before,  we  set  up  a  differ- 
ential shunt  meter  with  a  battery,  proved  it  would 
do  what  we  claimed,  and  soon  got  our  patent. 

Sales  problems  OO,  with  the  amperehour  meter  safely  launched, 

— ^p<>9~^<^—   O  I  turn  back  to  our  principal  product,  watthour 

^^'^[^  meters.  The  market  for  D.C.  meters,  never  larere  as 

connection 

with  us.  compared  with  A.C.  meters,  steadily  decreased.  By 
1909  we  had  to  rely  principally  on  our  Type  "F," 
A.C.  mercury  meter,  and  we  found  it  a  big  task  to 
sell  it  against  General  Electric  and  W'estinghouse 
induction  meters.  These  meters  were  the  only  ones 
on  the  U.  S.  market  from  1905  to  191 1,  as  all  other 
manufacturers  were  stopped  by  litigation  until  the 
Tesla  patents  expired  in  December,  1910. 

Feeling  the  need  for  the  best  sales  direction,  in 
this  situation,  we  turned  to  our  old  friend,  I.  A. 
Bennett,  formerly  Sales  Manager  of  E.  A.  Com- 
pany and  now  in  business  for  himself  in  Chicago, 
and  during  the  latter  part  of  1 909  and  through  the 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  45 

summer  of  1 9 1  o,  he  spent  half  his  time  in  Spring- 
field, putting  much  able  and  ingenious  effort  on  the 
task  of  selling  our  mercury  meters,  but  his  dual  re- 
sponsibilities were  too  great  a  strain,  and  he  dis- 
continued his  work  for  us  about  the  time  that  we 
realized,  in  the  summer  of  1910,  that  we  must  de- 
velop a  new  induction  meter,  and  get  ready  to  put 
it  on  the  market  after  the  expiration  of  the  Tesla 
patents.  So  we  started  on  this  development  at  the 
same  time  the  Watch  Company  was  erecting  for 
us  our  present  No.  3  building,  the  first  of  many 
designed  for  us  by  Mr.  George  Helmle,  which  was 
completed  in  the  late  fall  of  1910. 

ABOUT  this  time  I  met  Mr.  Herbert  W.  Young,  H.  W.  Young 
uLjL  who  had  been  a  very  successful  salesman  for  the  ^°^"  ^^^^  "-^ 
Westinghouse  Company  in  New  England,  especially  ^^j  ^^^  °-^ 
on  meters,  and  who  had  recently  started  his  own 
company,  Delta-Star  Electric  of  Chicago,  to  manu- 
facture high  tension  switch-gear.  I  proposed  to  him 
that  he  devote  part  of  his  time  to  our  sales,  as  Delta 
Star  was  then  far  from  the  great  company  it  became 
later,  so  Young  had  time  to  give  our  affairs,  and 
decided  to  accept  our  proposition. 

WE  then  hastened  experimental  work  on  what    /JT^f^^L- 
became  the  original  type  "H"  meter,  in  which  meter— Fall  of 
I  was  assisted  by  Hodde,  most  of  our  work  being  igw.—The 
done  at  night  in  the  old  testing  room  at  the  east  end  ^^^tf°^^  ^''^^^• 
of  the  second  floor  of  No.  i  building,  as  we  had  no   /°^  ^^J°"_ 
engineering  department,  and,  in  fact,  few  experi-  January,  igu. 


46  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

mental  facilities  up  to  this  time.  In  November,  1910, 
we  had  just  completed  and  tested  a  rather  crude 
model,  when  Herb  Young  had  the  bright  idea  of 
going  to  Hartford,  Conn.,  where  he  had  close  friends 
through  his  old  connection  in  New  England,  and 
trying  to  get  a  small  trial  order  for  the  new-born 
"H"  meter.  So  we  went,  our  sole  "evidence"  being 
a  couple  of  blueprints,  and  some  data  I  had  taken 
on  the  one  model — I  didn't  dare  to  show  our  "pros- 
pect" the  model  itself!  Never  shall  I  forget  that 
visit,  which,  as  it  turned  out,  meant  so  much  to 
Sangamo,  for,  after  meeting  Fred  Prince,  then 
Meter  Superintendent  of  the  Hartford  Electric 
Light  Company,  we  all  went  together  to  see  Mr. 
Matthew  Dunham,  President  of  the  Company,  and 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  figures  the  electrical 
industry  has  ever  had.  He  was  then  82  years  old, 
almost  totally  blind,  a  majestic  and  kindly  man 
with  a  long  white  beard,  a  true  patriarch  in  appear- 
ance and  character,  and,  notwithstanding  his  ad- 
vanced years,  one  of  the  most  progressive  and  far- 
seeing  men  in  the  electric  light  and  power  business. 
He  was  the  first  in  this  country  to  use  long  distance 
transmission  commercially,  the  first  to  use  stand-by 
storage  batteries,  the  first  to  off'er  free  lamp  re- 
newals, and  first  in  numerous  other  steps  important 
to  the  company  and  its  customers. 

As  soon  as  Fred  Prince  told  him  Herb  Young  was 
there,  he  was  friendly  and  interested,  having  devel- 
oped a  great  liking  for  Herb  when  the  latter  was 
selling  in  New  England.  Herb  introduced  me  with 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  47 

the  remark  that  I  had  gone  to  Yale,  of  which  Mr. 
Dunham  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  alumni 
(and  to  which  he  gave  the  Dunham  Laboratory  of 
Electrical  Engineering  about  this  time),  so  the  old 
gentleman  remarked  that  with  that  recommendation 
and  Herb's  and  Fred  Prince's  statement  to  him  that 
we  would  have  a  good  meter,  he  thought  they  ought 
to  try  some.  Herb  and  I  fairly  jumped  with  joy, 
expecting  a  trial  order  for  perhaps  twenty  four 
meters,  when  Mr.  Dunham  took  us  completely  off 
our  feet  by  saying,  "Now,  boys,  I'm  taking  you  at 
your  word,  and  believe  you  will  give  us  good  meters, 
and  I  like  to  encourage  good  competition,  so  I 
guess  Fred  had  better  give  you  an  order  for  a  thou- 
sand meters!"  How  we  got  out  of  his  office  without 
collapsing  I  don't  remember,  but  as  soon  as  Fred 
Prince,  Herb  and  I  could  get  over  to  Heublein's, 
I  wired  Mr.  Bunn,  and  then  we  did  a  little  cele- 
brating. 

As  I  had  promised  Mr.  Dunham  to  deliver  some 
meters  on  the  order  within  three  months,  and  as 
the  drawings  for  the  parts  of  the  type  "H"  hadn't 
even  been  started,  it  was  very  imperative  to  work 
fast,  so  we  hastened  home  the  last  week  in  De- 
cember, and  within  ten  days,  Otis  White  and  I, 
working  frantically,  had  drawings  completed  and 
tool  work  started.  The  necessary  tools  for  the  entirely 
new  meter  were  completed  by  the  latter  part  of 
January,  191 1,  faster  than  we  ever  did  any  job 
before  or  since,  and  we  shipped  the  first  meter  to 
Hartford  on  February  5,   191 1,  well  ahead  of  our 


48  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

promise  to  Mr.  Dunham.  Fortunately,  it  did  all  we 
had  claimed  for  it,  and  thus  began  our  association 
with  the  Hartford  Electric  Light  Company,  which 
has  continued  unbroken  ever  since,  a  record  of 
which  we  are  very  proud. 

Compensation  /^^N  account  of  the  Shallenberger  patents  of  the 

0/  induction  \^^  Westinghouse  Company,  covering  the  method 

Arrangement  °^  obtaining  quadrature  of  the  shunt  field  in  an 

with  induction   meter,    which   would   not   expire    until 

Westinghouse  October,  IQ12,  we  were  oblisred  to  build  these  early 

unaer  ^nauen-  .         j^  meters  without  compensation  for  inductive 
berger  patent —   ,    ^ 
Spring  of  igii.  ^oad  accuracy,  but  we  put  on  the  shunt  magnet, 

from  the  very  first,  a  winding  arranged  to  be  closed, 
so  that  these  meters  could  be  readily  compensated 
by  the  customer,  but  were  careful  to  put  on  each 
meter  a  tag  stating  that  compensation  should  not 
be  effected  until  after  October,  191 2,  in  order  to 
avoid  patent  infringement. 

The  Westinghouse  Company  soon  claimed  that 
this  was  a  subterfuge,  and  threatened  to  sue  us,  so 
in  May  191 1  I  went  to  New  York  to  see  Mr.  Charles 
A.  Terry,  Vice  President  in  charge  of  patent  matters, 
who  was  very  fair  and  reasonable,  and  soon  told  me 
they  were  willing  to  license  us  under  the  Shallen- 
berger patents,  at  a  royalty  that  I  considered  en- 
tirely lair,  and  so  reported  to  Mr.  Bunn.  After  a 
little  further  discussion,  Mr.  Terry  and  I  agreed  on 
a  lump  sum,  to  be  paid  at  once,  covering  the  royalty 
on  our  estimated  production  of  meters  to  October, 
1 91 2,  when  the  Shallenberger  patents  would  expire, 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  49 

and  including  polyphase  meters,  which  we  could 
not  have  made  unless  compensated.  So  the  money 
was  paid,  and  the  next  week  we  began  shipping 
compensated  singlephase  meters,  and  immediately 
started  on  the  design  of  our  first  polyphase  meter, 
under  the  direction  of  Jacob  W.  Bard,  who  had 
come  with  us  from  the  Peoria  Electric  Light  Com- 
pany in  April,  1 9 1 1 ,  to  develop  an  engineering 
department.  The  first  polyphase  meters  were  com- 
pleted and  shipments  started  in  the  early  fall  of 
191 1,  essentially  the  same  in  design  as  our  two  disk 
polyphase  of  today. 

WHILE  we  were  thus  so  occupied  with  the  Warren  Noble. 
type  "H"  development,  other  interesting  and  —Develop- 

important  matters  came  up  in  the  fall  of  iqio  to  tax  '".^"^  °-^  ,.  , 

1        ,  1  r  •         r     •!•  •  1       distant  dial 

our  development  and  manuiacturmg  lacilities,  the  amperehour 

first  being  concerned  with  Mr. Warren  Noble,  whom  meter— igii. 
Barela  Southwick,  then  one  of  our  principal  and 
most  energetic  salesmen,  had  met  in  Detroit  in 
September.  Noble,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and 
interesting  men  it  has  ever  been  my  fortune  to  meet, 
had  come  to  this  country  from  England  in  1906,  a 
very  young  man,  but  even  then  with  extensive  expe- 
rience in  motor  car  design,  and,  after  being  con- 
nected with  several  companies,  had  gone  with  Mr. 
Walter  Flanders  in  the  summer  of  1910  to 
develop  a  radically  new  type  of  electric  pleasure 
vehicle. 

He  heard  of  our  ampere-hour  meters,  and  de- 
cided he  must  use  them  in  his  new  cars,  so  after  a 


50  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

preliminary  talk  with  Southwick,  came  breezing 
down  to  Springfield,  and  soon  had  all  of  us,  from 
Mr.  Bunn  down,  completely  "sold"  on  his  ideas, 
and  especially,  on  the  very  special  and  expensive 
amperehour  meter  he  wanted  us  to  get  up  for  him. 
His  idea  was  to  have  the  meter  proper  concealed 
down  under  the  seat,  and  arranged  with  contacts 
to  operate  a  separate  dial  mechanism  located  on 
the  steering  arm  column  of  the  car.  It  sounded 
simple  enough,  but  before  we  got  what  Noble 
wanted,  what  a  headache  we  had ! 

For  three  or  four  months  that  fall  of  1910  Otis 
White,  Carl  Struck  and  I  worked  four  or  five  nights 
a  week,  trying  to  get  up  a  contact  mechanism  that 
would  meet  the  severe  requirements  put  on  it,  and 
a  corresponding  dependable  dial  mechanism.  We 
finally  developed  schemes,  largely  due  to  Carl 
Struck's  ingenuity  (as  shown  so  frequently  in  all 
the  years  since)  for  these  devices  that  worked,  al- 
though some  slight  changes  in  details  were  made 
later,  and  early  in  1 9 1 1 ,  delivered  the  first  distant 
dial  meters  to  Flanders.  For  a  year  this  business 
looked  very  promising,  but  the  Flanders  design  and 
sales  plans  were  too  advanced  and  ambitious,  so  it 
all  "folded  up."  However,  other  manufacturers  of 
electric  pleasure  vehicles,  such  as  Woods,  Ranch 
and  Lang,  and  Anderson,  became  interested  in  the 
distant  dial  meter.  A  particularly  interesting  type 
was  developed  for  Woods,  in  which  a  Weston 
ammeter  and  the  distant  dial  were  housed  in  an 
oblong  case. 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  51 

JUST  after  we  had  gotten  well  started    on  the  Our  first 
distant  dial  experiments,  one  day  in  November,  contact  with 
1 910,  a  tall,  lanky,  kindly  faced  man  walked  into  ^Z^^-    _ 
my  tiny  office,  over  in  the  No.  i  building,  and  said  November, 
"My  name  is  Kettering,  from  Dayton.  I  need  an  1910.— 
amperehour  meter  for  a  job  I'm  working  on,  and  ^^^^lopment 
our  mutual  friend,  Frank  Tait  (then,  as  now,  Presi-  amperehour 
dent  of  the  Dayton  Power  and  Light  Company)  meter  for 
told  me  to  come  over  and  see  you."  Thus  began  a  Cadillac  cars. 
most  interesting  and  delightful  association,  which  ~"#''"'  ^5^^- 
has  extended  unbroken   through   this   more   than 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  has  meant  to  me  more 
of  inspiration  and  high  ideals  in  engineering  and 
research  than  I  have  had  from  any  other  man.  No 
one  could  have  a  better  friend  than  I  have  had  in 
"Ket"  since  that  winter  day  so  many  years  ago. 

He  sat  down  and  told  me  of  his  association  with 
the  National  Cash  Register  Company,  and  of  having 
quit  them  a  few  months  before  to  go  with  Mr. 
Edward  A.  Deeds  in  organizing  the  Dayton  Engi- 
neering Laboratories  Company  to  make  ignition 
systems  for  motor  cars.  This  had  led  "Ket"  to  the 
conception  of  an  electric  starter  for  motor  cars,  and 
when  he  came  to  Springfield,  he  had  built  some 
models  in  Mr.  Deeds'  barn,  near  Dayton,  and  was 
now  trying  to  get  some  storage  battery  manufac- 
turer to  have  enough  faith  in  his  scheme  (and  in 
the  battery)  to  supply  him  the  necessary  batteries, 
and  was  also  seeking  sources  of  supply  for  ignition 
coils,  and  for  the  starter  motor  and  generator. 

Mr.  Kettering  felt  it  was  absolutely  essential  to 


52  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

the  success  of  his  system  to  keep  the  battery  fully 
charged,  and  also  protected  against  overcharge,  so 
naturally  turned  to  the  amperehour  meter.  At 
first,  his  scheme  sounded  almost  fanciful  to  me,  but 
he  soon  had  me  convinced,  and  in  December,  1910, 
busy  though  we  were  on  the  type  "H"  develop- 
ment, we  succeeded  in  making  two  models  of  an 
amperehour  meter,  very  different  in  design  from 
our  regular  meter,  to  meet  "Delco"  requirements, 
and  I  took  them  over  to  Dayton,  where,  by  this 
time,  "Delco"  had  a  small  floor  in  a  downtown 
building. 

These  meters,  with  some  slight  changes,  proved 
satisfactory,  and  we  thought  we  might  get  an  order 
for  a  few  more  samples  to  be  tried  out  with  starters 
on  cars,  when  one  day  in  February,  191 1,  "Ket" 
telephoned  me  to  come  to  Dayton  at  once,  and 
there  he  gave  his  several  suppliers  the  astounding 
news  that  Mr.  Henry  M.  Leland,  then  president  of 
Cadillac  Motor  Car  Company,  had  decided  to  put 
"Delco"  starters  on  all  Cadillacs,  beginning  with 
the  "191 2"  cars  to  be  brought  out  in  July,  which 
meant  we  must  start  delivery  of  Delco  meters  in 
Dayton  early  in  May.  So,  right  after  our  rush  to 
tool  up  and  produce  the  type  "H,"  we  had  to  start 
in  and  do  the  same  thing  on  the  Delco  meter.  So 
the  next  few  months  were  not  enjoyable,  but  we 
made  it,  and  sold  many  thousands  of  meters  to 
Delco  that  year,  still  more  in  191 2,  when  Hudson, 
as  well  as  Cadillac,  used  Delco  starters,  and  then 
this  business  ended  in  191 4,  as  electric  starters  had 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  53 

been  simplified  by  that  time  so  that  the  battery- 
could  be  protected  without  an  ampere-hour  meter, 
and  also,  with  competition  greatly  reducing  the 
price  of  a  starter,  the  meter  was  too  expensive  to  be 
used. 

HOWEVER,  the  connection  thus  started  with  MS  ampere- 
Mr.  Kettering  and  his  company  led  us  the  ^"^rifA^ ' 
next  year,  1914,  into  a  still  more  important  ampere-  plants— 191 4. 
hour  meter  business,  through  the  development  by 
them  of  the  famous  "Delco-Light"  farm  lighting 
plant.  For  this  Ket  considered  an  amperehour  me- 
ter absolutely  essential,  but  it  had  to  be  smaller, 
more  accurate,  and  less  expensive  than  the  "Delco" 
meter,  so,  after  several  months  effort,  we  produced 
the  "MS"  meter,  soon  thereafter  adopted  by  Delco- 
Light,  and  later,  by  practically  every  manufacturer 
of  farm  lighting  plants  in  the  United  States.  This 
business  reached  a  peak  after  the  war  of  nearly  five 
hundred  "MS"  meters  per  day,  then  suddenly,  in 
less  than  two  weeks,  stopped  short  when  the  "farm- 
ers' buying  strike"  came  on  in  September,  1920,  and 
never  came  back,  but  it  was  great  while  it  lasted. 

NOW,  going  back  to  the  fall  of  1 9 1  o,  when  so  many  Opening  of 
things  ofimportance  happened  to  us,  we  opened  fi^^''  ^^^^^^<^^ 
our  first  branch  office,  at  50  Church  St.  New  York,  j^^''  1.   ,  _ 
Mr.  M.  B.  Chase,  whom  we  met  and  secured  through  December, 
Herb  Young,  was  appointed  district  manager,  thus  1910. 
taking  over  the  territory  formerly  handled  by  Ma- 
chado  and  Roller,  who  had  "dropped  us"  a  few 


54  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

months  before.  We  stayed  in  this  space  a  few  years, 
then  moved  to  larger  quarters  higher  up  in  the  same 
building,  Mr.  Chase  continuing  with  us  until  suc- 
ceeded by  T.  B.  Rhodes  in  191 7. 

Advertising  TN  the  spring  of  191 1,  realizing  the  need  of  better 
arrangement  J_  looking  technical  bulletins  and  advertising  than 
L'U'b^'d  '  ^^  ^^^  been  able  to  prepare  ourselves,  we  made  an 
New  York—  arrangement  with  Ray  D.  Lillibridge  of  New  York, 
igii.  who  had  successfully  handled  the  Wagner  Electric 
Company's  advertising  for  several  years,  and  this 
continued,  to  our  mutual  satisfaction,  for  many  years, 
until  Mr.  Lillibridge  sold  his  business  to  his  asso- 
ciates, Otis  Kenyon  and  Henry  Eckhardt,  who  con- 
tinued to  handle  our  account  until  the  depression. 
The  long  connection  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lillibridge 
(who  was  most  active  and  successful  in  the  business) 
and  Mr.  Kenyon  is  one  of  the  pleasantest  experiences 
of  my  years  with  Sangamo. 

Sumner  Rogers  TT  was  also  in  the  spring  of  191 1  that  Sumner  B. 

comes  with  us  as  X.  Rogers  ("Blackie")  came  with  us,  after  several 

ro  uc  ion     ^^^^  ^^  Western  Electric  Company, — as  Production 

Manager —    ^  . 

April,  igii.  Manager,  and  so  continued  until  he  left  for  war 
service  in  May,  191 7 — more  about  him  later. 

Our  order  for  /^^NE  day  in  May,  191 1,  I  had  a  telephone  call 

the  great  \J  from  Omer  Brasher,  formerly  meter  superin- 

°A^T_^A/  ,^  tendent  at  Galveston,  one  of  the  most  energetic  and 

igii.  determined  sales  engineers  we  ever  had,  who  was 

then  travelling  in  western  New  York.  He  said,  "Boss, 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  55 

I'm  at  Niagara  Falls,  and  have  just  come  from  a  talk 
with  Mr.  John  Harper,  General  Superintendent  of 
Niagara  Falls  Power  Company,  and  he  gave  me  an 
order  for  a  60,000  ampere  D-5  meter,  so  I  guess  we 
will  have  to  make  it."  I  nearly  collapsed,  and  told 
Brasher  he  was  crazy,  and  ought  to  be  fired,  as  we 
had  never  attempted  a  shunt  for  more  than  10,000 
amperes,  and,  so  far  as  I  knew  then  (or  now)  no  one 
had  ever  tried  to  build  a  60,000  ampere  shunt.  How- 
ever, Brasher  said  we  just  had  to  back  him  up,  so  I 
said  I  would  go  that  night  to  Niagara  Falls,  and,  on 
arrival  there,  found  that  the  big  shunt,  and  two 
smaller  ones  (merely  25,000  amperes  each)  were  to 
be  used  in  measuring  energy  sold  to  the  Aluminum 
Company  of  America  for  producing  the  metal.  Mr. 
Harper  stipulated  a  lot  of  conditions  as  to  the  shunts 
and  meters,  which  made  the  job  look  even  worse, 
but  we  tackled  it,  and  came  out  all  right,  as  the  big 
shunt  has  been  in  successful  operation  now  for  a 
quarter  century,  and  we  have  built  many  more  big 
ones  for  the  Aluminum  Company,  including  several 
of  50,000  amperes  rating.  Brasher  never  could  see 
why  I  should  have  been  disturbed  about  that  order ! 

SOON  after  the  introduction  of  the  ampere-hour  My  first 
'  meter,  the  Edison  Storage  Battery  Company  rneeting  with 

manifested  a  keen  interest  in  it,  as  it  was  even  more    ,  ^'    ,  ^/?" 
•  1     1      T-i  T  •   1     1  •  •         through  his 

necessary  with  the  Edison  mckel-iron  battery,  owing  interest  in 

to  its  characteristics  on  charge  and  discharge,  than  amperehour 

with  lead  batteries,  where  voltage  gives  a  rough  idea  rneters—igii. 

of  the  battery  condition.  Mr.  Edison  himself  was 


56  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

very  much  pleased  with  the  amperehour  meter,  and 
promptly  had  one  put  on  Mrs.  Edison's  electric  car, 
and  also  wrote  a  number  of  his  friends  in  this  coun- 
try and  abroad,  strongly  recommending  Sangamo 
meters.  One  day  early  in  191 1  we  had  a  letter  over 
his  own  signature  saying  that  the  meter  on  his  car 
needed  some  repairs,  and  asking  where  to  send  it. 
At  that  time  we  had  no  service  department  at  New 
York,  so  I  wrote  him  to  send  it  to  Springfield.  He 
sent  it,  and  asked  us  to  hurry  it  back,  so,  as  I  hap- 
pened to  be  going  to  New  York,  I  took  the  meter 
with  me  to  East  Orange,  and  thus  met  Mr.  Edison 
for  the  first  time.  His  son  Charles  took  me  up  to  see 
his  father,  whom  we  found  in  his  laboratory,  with 
his  head  against  a  phonograph  case,  for,  owing  to 
his  deafness,  this  was  the  only  way  by  which  he 
could  hear,  or  rather,  sense  records.  When  his  son 
introduced  me  as  "the  fellow  who  makes  those  San- 
gamo meters,"  Mr.  Edison  looked  up  and  said, 
"Young  fellow,  Mrs.  Edison  can't  run  her  electric 
without  your  meter,  so  why  couldn't  you  fix  it  up 
nearer  than  out  there  near  Alaska !  You  must  have 
a  service  department  at  New  York."  So  we  started 
one  there. 

Then  followed  a  most  interesting  talk  about  his 
early  work  on  meters,  not  only  his  famous  chemical 
meters,  but  others  with  which  he  had  experimented. 
I  went  to  see  him  several  times  in  later  years,  and 
always  found  him  kindly  and  interested,  but  that 
first  meeting  with  him  stands  out  as  one  of  the  great 
experiences  of  my  life. 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  57 

BY  the  spring  of  191 2,  type  "H"  and   ampere-  Beginning  of 

hour  meter  business  had  increased  to  a  point  ""?"  '^^""'^^^ion 

i_  J    J  -NT  u    -ij-  with  Federal 

where  we  needed  more  space,  so  No.  4  buildmg  was  ^i^^^^^  Qq 

erected  that  summer,  and  occupied  in  October,  the  and  erection 

same  month  that  we  formed  a  sales  connection  with  of  No.  4 

the  Federal  Electric  Company,  of  Chicago,  which  ^"^^^^"5— 
,  .  ,  •  r  • ,  •  Fa//  0/  igi2. 

has  contmued  most  satisiactorily  ever  smce. 

This  connection  came  about  through  Mr.  John  F. 
Gilchrist,  Vice  President  of  the  Commonwealth  Edi- 
son Company,  one  of  the  finest  and  truest  friends 
that  Sangamo  and  Mr.  Bunn  and  I  personally  ever 
had,  following  a  very  satisfactory  report  to  him  on 
type  "H"  meters  from  Mr.  O.  J.  Bushnell,  to  whom 
I  have  referred  before  as  our  long  time  critic,  friend 
and    advisor. 

GOING  back  to  amperehour  meters  for  use  with  The  variable 
"floating"  batteries,  as  in  axle  generator  train  resistor  for 
lighting,  it  was  evident,  by  the  spring  of  191 2,  that  ^^P^^ ^^ 
our  field  would  be  greatly  limited  unless  we  could  Uodde  puts 
find  some  way  of  getting  the  necessary  difference  in  one  over  on  me. 
speed  on  charge  and  discharge,  in  a  two-binding 
post  meter,  in  other  words,  one  that  could  be  put  in 
the  battery  line,  and  which  would  automatically  go 
slower  on  every  change  from  discharge  to  charge. 
I  had  all  sorts  of  schemes,  none  practical,  until  one 
day  in  May  "Dutch"  Hodde  came  to  me  with  a  sug- 
gestion that  Jake  Bard  and  I  said  wouldn't  "work." 
Dutch  didn't  say  anything  more  then,  but  one  day 
about  a  month  later  he  came  in  and  said  "I've  got  a 
freak  meter  on  the  rack  out  here,  and  wish  you  would 


58  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

come  see  what's  the  matter."  So  when  I  arrived, 
here  he  had  an  amperehour  meter  all  fixed  up 
according  to  his  scheme,  and  as  he  threw  the  switch 
back  and  forth  from  charge  to  discharge,  and  the 
meter  changed  speed  each  time,  Dutch  grinned,  and 
said,  "Well,  now,  does  it  work?"  Thus  was  born  the 
"variable  resistor,"  which  met  every  requirement, 
and  which  has  been  so  successfully  used  in  every 
amperehour  meter  since  that  time.  This  experience 
taught  me  a  lesson  about  condemning  too  quickly 
any  engineering  suggestion,  until  thoroughly  inves- 
tigated and  tried  out. 

With  the  development  of  the  variable  resistor,  the 
application  of  the  amperehour  meter  with  axle- 
generator  train  lighting  equipment  became  possible, 
and  our  success  in  this  field  was  greatly  aided  by 
Edward  Wray,  who  was  then  editor  of  the  principal 
technical  magazine  in  this  field,  and  who  had  be- 
come interested  in  the  amperehour  meter  when  it 
was  first  announced,  following  extensive  experiments 
he  had  made  with  train  lighting  equipment  while  a 
student  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin  a  year  or  so 
before.  A  few  years  later  he  came  with  Sangamo  as 
Assistant  General  Manager,  continuing  with  us  until 
1 92 1 ,  when  he  returned  to  the  field  of  technical  pub- 
lication, after  devoted  and  successful  service  to  us. 

Again  Ernest  IT^RNEST  LUNN,  to  whom  I  have  referred  as  the 

Lunn—   JLj   "father  of  the  amperehour  meter,"   left  the 

Commonwealth  Edison  Company  towards  the  end  of 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  59 

1 91 2,  to  take  charge  of  car  lighting  for  the  Pullman  Amperehour 

Company,    and,    followinsr    his    successful    experi-  ^^^f^^f^  ^^ 

r  ^  -1  1  1  Pullman 

ence  01  several  years  with  our  meters,  and  now  hav-  Company. 

ing  available  the  "variable  resistor"  meter,  he  recom- 
mended to  the  Pullman  officials  that  these  meters  be 
installed  on  their  electric  lighted  cars,  practically  all 
of  which  were  equipped  with  axle  generator  devices. 
They  had  experienced  much  trouble  with  proper 
charging  of  the  batteries  with  these  equipments, 
often  resulting  in  loss  through  too  frequent  battery 
renewals,  so  early  in  191 3,  Mr.  Lunn  began  install- 
ing meters  on  their  cars,  and  during  the  next  two  or 
three  years  equipped  nearly  all  Pullman  cars,  then 
numbering  some  6000,  with  Sangamo  meters.  He 
estimated  that  within  two  years  they  thus  saved  on 
batteries  more  than  the  cost  of  the  meters.  In  later 
years,  improvements  in  axle-generator  control  de- 
vices rendered  amperehour  meters  less  necessary, 
but  many  of  them,  after  more  than  twenty  years,  are 
still  in  regular  use  on  many  Pullman  cars,  and  on 
other  cars  of  the  principal  railroad  systems. 

THE  spring  of  1 9 1 3  was  marked  by  an  event  that  Repayment  of 
meant  much  to  Mr.  Bunn  and  me,  when  we  ^°^^^_  ^^^^^ 

rn.TT 2 p(l  lUi 

paid  Mr.  John  W.  Bunn  in  full  the  amounts  he  had  .^^^  ^  ^^ 
so   generously   and   willingly   advanced   Sangamo,  Uan  years. 
which  enabled  us  to  carry  on  through  the  losing 
years  from  1 904  to  1 9 1 1 ,  in  which  year  we  at  last 
began  to  get  on  our  feet  financially,  and  reached  a 
sound  condition  within  another  year. 


6o  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

The  H-2  rT-iHE  next  year  we  brought  out  the  H-2  meter, 

meter— 1914.     J^  based  on  the  e^eneral  design  of  the  original  "H," 

First  improve-   ,  ,      .  ^      ,     ,  7     1       •  • 

merit  on  the  ^^^  greatly  improved  through  the  mventive  genius 

original  of  Jake  Bard,  to  whose  ability  and  hard  work  San- 

type  H.  gamo  owes  so  much. 

Sales  arrange-  XN  the  same  year  we  made  one  of  the  most  impor- 
ments  abroad.  _|_  ^^^^  export  connections  of  our  history,  when 
Warburton,  Franki  &  Co.,  became  our  agents  for 
Australia,  an  arrangement  which  has  continued 
most  happily  to  this  day,  and  which  is  now  about  to 
be  further  strengthened  by  Mr.  Warburton' s  deci- 
sion to  undertake  the  partial  manufacture  of  type 
"HM"  meters  at  Sydney. 

The  next  year  we  formed  a  sales  arrangement  for 
Japan  with  the  Ashida  Engineering  Company  of 
Osaka,  and  soon  afterward  Mr.  Ken  Ashida  came 
over  for  his  first  visit  with  us.  This  connection  con- 
tinued with  mutual  friendship  and  esteem  until  Mr, 
Ashida's  death  in  1927,  and  his  company,  now 
headed  by  his  brother,  still  continues  as  our  agent 
in  Japan.  I  shall  tell  later  of  our  manufacture  of  me- 
ters at  the  Ashida  plant. 

Thus,  1 91 5  marked  important  progress  for  us 
in  the  export  field,  as  1906,  '07  and  '12  had  in  the 
domestic  field  and  our  business  with  Warburton, 
Franki  and  Ashida  throughout  the  years  since,  tes- 
tifies to  the  value  of  these  fine  representatives. 


I 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  6i 

N  the  spring  of  1915,  a  Capt.  Alfred  Girard,  for-  Our  venture  in 


the  domestic 


merly  in  the  Army  medical  corps,  came  to  Spring- 
field to  visit  relatives,  bringing  with  him  a  small  business— 
refrigerating  machine,  for  household  use,  which  he  igi^-igig, 
had  conceived  while  serving  in  the  Philippine  Islands   ^^^  Spring- 
some  years  before,  and  had  built  the  model  shortly  ■^^.     ^J^^S^^' 
before  his  visit  to  Springfield. 

Mr.  Ernest  J.  Bechtel,  Vice  President  and  Chief 
Engineer  of  Hodenpyl,  Hardy  and  Co.  (now  the 
Commonwealth  and  Southern  Corporation)  hap- 
pened to  be  in  Springfield  at  that  time,  so  he,  Arthur 
Mackie  and  I  went  to  see  the  machine,  and  were  so 
impressed  by  its  possibilities  and  "Cap"  Girard's 
enthusiasm  that  we  discussed  with  other  men  in 
Springfield  and  New  York  the  idea  of  forming  a 
small  company  to  develop  Girard's  machine,  and 
shortly  thereafter  incorporated  the  Springfield  Re- 
frigeration Company. 

This  company  made  a  contract  with  Sangamo  to 
do  the  necessary  experimental  work,  and  we  started 
off'  with  high  hopes.  During  the  next  two  years  we 
made  many  changes  and  improvements  in  Girard's 
original  machine,  most  of  this  under  his  direction, 
retaining,  however,  ammonia  as  the  refrigerating 
medium,  which  was  a  mistake,  as  this  was  never 
really  suitable  and  safe  for  a  household  machine. 

After  Captain  Girard  returned  to  the  service  in 
1 9 1 7,  and  as  we  were  very  busy  during  the  war,  our 
experiments  with  the  refrigerating  machine  became 
very  sporadic,  and  finally  in  191 9,  the  Springfield 
Refrigeration  Company  "folded  up,"  and  Girard 


62  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

took  back  his  patent  rights,  and  built  some  machines 
with  a  company  in  Chicago.  Unfortunately,  he  was 
several  years  too  early  in  this  field,  especially  as  the 
little  company  we  organized  did  not  have  a  fraction 
of  the  capital  necessary  to  carry  the  machine  to  com- 
mercial success. 

Sangamo  came  out  of  this  undertaking  with  a 
considerable  loss,  but  it  was  valuable  experience. 


Our  exhibit  at  /'^UR  first  exhibit  at  a  great  exposition  was  at  the 

the  Panama-    1      f 
Pacific  Exposi- 


the  Panama-  \    §  Panama- Pacific,  at  San  Francisco,  in   191 5, 
\ion^San  ^'here  we  had  a  very  handsome  booth,  adjacent  to 


Francisco—  our  good  friends,  the  Bristol  Company  of  Water- 
^9^5-  Highest  bury.  Although  neither  this,  nor  subsequent  exposi- 
awar  given  us.  ^-Qj^g  where  we  have  exhibited,  were  commercially 
valuable  to  us,  yet  we  had  the  satisfaction  of  receiv- 
ing at  San  Francisco  the  highest  award  given  for 
devices  of  the  general  type  that  we  exhibited.  It  was 
during  my  visit  to  our  exhibit  in  June,  191 5,  that  I 
met  J.  G.  Monahan,  who  some  years  before  had  been 
with  the  Ferranti  Company  in  Canada,  and  who 
had  gone  to  Los  Angeles  to  live,  shortly  before  we 
met.  It  didn't  take  us  long  to  make  an  arrangement 
for  "Jerry"  to  represent  us  at  Los  Angeles,  and  we 
have  always  felt  happy  over  it,  as  it  has  proved  most 
satisfactory  for  both  Jerry  and  us. 

Development     ABOUT  this  time  we  became  interested  in  the 

of  Economy  j^-^  development  of  a  special  type  of  direct  current 

street  railway  i  r  -i  1 

meters— Larry  ^'^tthour  meter  lor  use  on  street  railway  cars,  and 

Gould— igiy.  soon  thereafter,  arranged  with  L.  E.  Gould,  of  Chi- 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  63 

cago,  a  man  of  long  experience  in  the  street  railway 
field,  to  sell  these  meters  for  us.  The  next  year,  1 91 7, 
"Larry"  and  we  organized  a  separate  company,  the 
"Economy  Electric  Devices  Company,"  to  devote 
its  efforts  to  the  sale  of  "Economy"  meters,  and 
through  Larry's  ingenuity  in  adding  important  fea- 
tures to  these  meters,  and  his  ability  and  energy  as 
a  salesman,  we  soon  equipped  many  important  street 
railway  systems.  Eventually,  the  job  was  so  thor- 
oughly done  that  most  of  the  important  systems  in 
this  country,  and  many  in  foreign  cities,  Paris, 
Rio  de  Janeiro,  Amsterdam,  Yokohama,  etc.,  were 
equipped  with  these  meters,  and  we  found  few 
worlds  left  to  conquer  with  them.  So  a  few  years 
later  we  turned  the  "Economy  Electric  Devices  Com- 
pany" over  to  Mr.  Gould  and  some  of  his  associates, 
who  broadened  their  line  to  include  other  devices 
used  by  street  railways  and  it  so  continues  to  this 
time. 

AS  our  business  thus  increased,  we  again  faced  No.  5  Building 
xJL  the  need  for  more  space,  so  in  the  spring  of  ejected— igi  6. 
1 916  started  the  erection  of  No.  ^,  our  main  build-  -^^-^  ^"^^^''^S 
mg,  which  was  occupied  in  October  of  that  year. 
Then,  with  further  demand  imposed  by  the  war,  we 
had  the  Austin  Company  erect  one  of  their  standard 
buildings,  our  No.  6,  which  was  done  in  record 
time,  as  they  broke  ground  early  in  June,  191 7,  and 
we  started  operations  in  the  building  just  six  weeks 
later ! 


under  him 


64  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

Scott  Lynn  TT^ARLY  in  1 9 1  o,  a  young  fellow  came  to  us  soon 

came  with  us  Jjj  after  leaviner  the  Naval  Academy  at  Annap- 

igio— Begin-      ,.      ^  t  i  1  r    ^ 

nins  of  ^^^^j  ocott  Lynn,  who  soon  became  one  01  the  most 

Canadian  valuable  men  in  our  organization,  and,  after  some 
manufacturing  years  in  engineering  work  at  Springfield,  represented 
"^"7  us  for  a  short  time  at  Salt  Lake  City,  his  home,  and 
then  took  charge  of  our  office  at  Rochester,  N.  Y. 
The  year  after  he  came  with  us,  and  about  two 
years  after  Mr.  Alfred  Collyer  became  our  agent  for 
Canada,  we  organized  the  Sangamo  Electric  Com- 
pany of  Canada,  Ltd.,  at  that  time  purely  as  a  sell- 
ing medium  for  Canadian  business.  By  191 6,  our 
business  there  had  grown  to  a  point,  and  Canadian 
duty  restrictions  on  U.  S.  meters  were  such,  that  Mr. 
Collyer  strongly  urged  that  we  begin  manufacturing 
on  a  limited  scale  in  Canada,  so,  as  Scott  Lynn 
seemed  the  logical  man  to  take  charge  of  this  work, 
we  sent  him  to  Toronto  in  December,  1 9 1 6,  and  the 
next  month  started  operations  in  one  floor  of  a  loft 
building  on  Adelaide  Street,  West.  Under  Scott's 
able  direction,  our  Canadian  business  rapidly  in- 
creased, so,  within  a  year,  we  were  obliged  to  take 
another  floor,  and  considerably  extended  the  manu- 
facturing work  done  there,  although  still  supplying 
many  parts  from  Springfield.  By  the  end  of  191 8,  it 
was  evident  that  we  were  in  Canada  to  stay,  so,  on 
the  urgent  recommendation  of  Mr.  Collyer  and 
Scott  Lynn,  Mr.  Bunn  went  to  Toronto  and  pur- 
chased the  building  at  1 83  George  St.  This,  extended 
and  enlarged  several  times  in  later  years,  we  still 
occupy. 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  65 

DURING  this  period,  in  1 916,  we  met  Mr.  Wm.   The  Weston 
B.  Hale,  through  Mr.  Edward  Weston  and  Company  and 
Mr.  Caxton  Brown,  Mr.  Hale  having  been  the  Wes-  f'J''^^ 
ton  representative  in  Mexico  City  for  some  years,  Hale  to  South 
and,  as  Weston  and  we  were  anxious  to  extend  our  America— 
business  in  Latin  American  countries,  we  jointly  en-  ^^^^' 
gaged  Mr.  Hale,  and  during  that  year  and  191 7,  he  titTZbly 
made  a  long  trip  for  us  to  all  the  countries  of  South  and  Rodriguez, 
America,  developing  a  lot  of  new  and  satisfactory  Buenos  Aires. 
business,  especially  at  Rio  de  Janeiro,  Buenos  Aires 
and  Lima. 

Mr.  Hale  made  another  trip  for  us  about  two 
years  later,  and  then  decided  to  remain  at  Rio  as 
our  representative,  later  transferring  to  Buenos 
Aires,  where  he  continued  as  our  agent  for  several 
years. 

Following  this,  we  made  an  agency  arrangement 
for  Argentina  with  the  excellent  firm  of  Newbery  and 
Rodriguez,  which  was  discontinued  a  few  years  later, 
on  account  of  difficult  competitive  conditions  there, 
but,  I  am  happy  to  say,  was  renewed  last  year  (i  935) 
to  the  satisfaction  of  both  parties. 


T 


HE  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  World  Sangamo's 
War  brought  to  us,  like  all  companies  of  any  representation 
size,  many  problems,  first,  loss  of  many  employes  to  ^^  ^ 
the  service,  second,  obtaining  necessary  materials, 
and  third,  employes  to  take  the  places  of  those  who 
left.  As  to  materials,  we  had  relatively  little  trouble, 
for  we  were  soon  placed  on  the  list  of  preferred  in- 
dustries by  the  War  Industries  Board,  but  it  was  very 


66  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

difficult  to  obtain  men,  and  thus  became  necessary 
to  use  women  for  many  jobs  formerly  performed  by 
men,  and  it  was  amazing  how  well  they  did  such 
work. 

As  soon  as  war  was  declared  in  April,  191 7,  the 
first  to  go  was  our  Sales  Manager,  Barela  South- 
wick,  then  Captain  of  Company  "C,"  and  soon 
after  Sumner  Rogers,  our  Production  Manager,  who 
was  a  Captain  in  the  Reserve  Corps,  left,  soon  fol- 
lowed by  Goin  Lanphier,  our  Purchasing  Agent, 
Dana  Johnson,  Roy  Butherus,  Donald  Funk  (who 
had  just  come  with  us  from  Yale)  and  many  others, 
so  we  eventually  had  a  total  of  162  in  the  service,  of 
whom  four  lost  their  lives  in  action,  a  record  of 
which  Sangamo  is  very  proud.  Those  left  at  home 
also  had  responsibilities  in  connection  with  the  war, 
especially  our  President,  Mr.  Jacob  Bunn,  who 
served  as  Chairman  of  the  Second  District  Draft 
Board,  discharging  this  difficult  responsibility  with 
characteristic  tact  and  fairness. 

Death  of    TUST  at  the  end  of  the  war,  late  in  November, 


I  of    TUST  c 
I-  J    1918, 


Jacob  Bard—  J    1 9 1 8,  our  belovcd  and  brilliant  Chief  Engineer, 

,  fs'-F^ed  J^^°^  ^^'■*^'  ^^^  *^^^  ^°™  ^^^^  ^^^  deadly  "flu" 

Holtz  comes  ^^^^   prevailing,    and   on   December    1 3th   passed 

with  us  soon  away,  his  death  following  soon  after  that  of  George 

thereafter.  Torzillo,  our  valued  and  able  sales  manager  from 

the  fall  of  1917. 

Bard's  loss  was  a  real  calamity  for  us,  and  I  did 
not  see  how  he  could  ever  be  replaced,  but  Fate 
intervened,  in  the  rather  remarkable  way  she  some- 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  67 

times  does,  and  we  got  Fred  Holtz,  who  came  with 
us  early  in  January,  191 9.  Mr.  Bunn  and  I  had  met 
Fred  in  191 6,  through  our  good  friend,  Mr.  Henry 
Babson,  of  Chicago,  when  Fred  was  Associate  Pro- 
fessor of  Electrical  Engineering  at  the  University  of 
Nebraska,  to  which  he  had  recently  returned  after 
several  years'  valuable  experience  with  the  General 
Electric  Company  at  Schenectady,  and  especially 
with  Dr.  Steinmetz. 

We  were  then  anxious  to  have  him  come  with  us, 
as  assistant  to  Jake  Bard,  but  before  our  discussion 
reached  a  conclusion,  we  were  in  the  war,  and  Fred 
entered  the  service,  ending  in  November,  191 8,  as 
Captain  in  the  Signal  Corps.  So,  knowing  he  would 
soon  be  out  of  the  service,  he  wrote  me  the  very  week 
that  Jacob  Bard  died,  asking  whether  we  would 
have  an  opening  for  him,  so,  the  day  after  Jacob's 
death,  I  wired  him  to  come  to  Springfield,  which  he 
did,  and,  after  a  very  short  talk  with  Mr.  Bunn  and 
me,  decided  to  come  with  us.  We  secured  his  early 
release  from  the  service,  and  he  thus  came  with  us 
to  begin  the  organization  and  development  of  a  full- 
fledged  engineering  department,  which  has  been  re- 
sponsible, more  than  any  other  factor,  for  our  suc- 
cess in  the  years  since  191 9. 

RIGHT  after  this  we  received  a  letter  from  Mr. 
.  Charles  Hunter,  Managing  Director  of  the 
Edison-Swan  Electric  Company,  Ltd.,  of  London, 
saying  he  had  heard  of  our  meters  through  a  mutual 
friend,  and  as  their  arrangement  for  the  sale  of  a 


68  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

Our  connection  well-known  English  meter  had  recently  been  termi- 
with  Edison-  ^^^^a   ^j^^y  wanted  an  arrangement  with  us  for  the 

kStvciTi  hAp.ctTic, 

Co.  Ltd.  of  British  Isles  and  Australia.  Following  our  favorable 

London— igig.  reply,  "Ediswan"  sent  over  one  of  their  directors, 

My  trip  to  yi^.  Edward  Gimingham,  who  had  been  associated 

England  that  .^  u£^-g^^^„  ^^j^  Sir  Joseph  Swan  and  Mr.  Edi- 

summer.  .       .   *^        f       . 

son,  almost  from  its  inception  in  the  late  '70s,  to 

negotiate  a  contract  with  us,  and  he  stayed  in  Spring- 
field several  weeks  in  February,  191 9.  Mr.  Bunn 
then  decided  that  I  should  go  to  England  to  further 
investigate  this  very  important  matter,  before  con- 
cluding an  agreement  with  "Ediswan,"  so  in  April, 
shortly  after  Mr.  Gimingham's  return,  I  went  over, 
remaining  nearly  four  months  to  work  out  an  arrange- 
ment, and  to  visit  our  agents  in  Barcelona,  Paris, 
Milan,  Brussels  and  The  Hague.  After  much  cabling 
and  writing  to  Mr.  Bunn,  he  finally  approved  a  con- 
tract with  "Ediswan,"  for  an  initial  period  of  ten 
years,  under  which  we  gave  them  our  exclusive 
agency  for  the  British  Isles  and  India,  and  non- 
exclusive for  Australia,  the  latter  being  made  possible 
only  through  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  War  burton,  who 
kindly  waived  his  exclusive  agency  for  Australia 
(which  he  has  again  had  since  1 933)  to  enable  us  to 
make  a  deal  with  "Ediswan."  Under  this  contract, 
"Ediswan"  agreed  to  erect  a  building  for  us  at  the 
west  side  of  their  works  at  Ponders  End,  Middlesex, 
which  was  started  that  fall,  and  finished  early  in 
1 920,  and  to  undertake  an  active  sales  campaign  on 
Sangamo  meters  in  Great  Britain.  As  a  first  step  in 
this,  I  visited  most  of  their  depots  in  England  and 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  69 

Scotland  during  June,  1 9 1 9,  being  most  courteously 
received  by  their  depot  managers  and  salesmen,  and 
the  high  light  of  the  trip  was  when  I  went  with  Mr. 
Hall,  of  their  Glasgow  depot  (now,  I  am  glad  to  say, 
with  British  Sangamo)  and  obtained  a  fine  order 
from  the  Clyde  Valley  Electric  Company,  "Edi- 
swan's"  first  Sangamo  business.  I  am  happy  to  say 
that  Clyde  Valley  Company  has  continued  ever  since 
as  one  of  the  most  important  of  our  customers  in  the 
British  Isles. 

Also,  during  this  trip  to  Scotland,  while  going  from 
Glasgow  to  Edinburgh  with  Hall,  I  had  a  brainstorm 
which  resulted  in  our  K.V.A.  meter,  a  new  concep- 
tion, I  believe,  in  measuring  and  recording  the  ener- 
gy, wattless  energy,  and  varying  power  factor  of  a 
polyphase  circuit. 


D 


URING  my  visit  to  Paris  in  May,  I  met  M.  Arrangement 
Albert  Delamare,  for  many  years  before  repre-  ^^^  ^• 
senting  Landis  and  Gyr  in  Paris,  and  made  arrange-  ^^^  ^^^^  '^^^ 
ments  with  him  to  represent  us  in  France.  Following  office  in  Paris 
this,  Mme.  Delamare  and  he  visited  Springfield  the  —w^o. 
following  winter,  and  when  they  returned  to  France, 
he  started  energetically  and  successfully  to  develop 
business  for  us  there,  but  after  a  year  or  so,  the  in- 
creasing restrictions  of  the  French  government  on 
importation  of  foreign  meters  made  it  practically 
impossible  to  continue  selling  in  France,  so  in  July, 
1 92 1 ,  we  had  to  discontinue  our  arrangement  with 
M.  Delamare,  to  our  great  regret. 


70  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

Rogers'  trip  TN  February,  191 9,  Sumner  Rogers  returned  from 
to  the  Orient  J_  ^^  service,  and,  anticipating  an  arrangement 
B~^^\  ^o/"  ^^^^  "Ediswan,"  we  decided  to  send  him  to  England 
British  to  take  charge  of  our  venture  there,  but,  in  prepara- 
Sangamo—  tion,  decided  to  have  him  make  a  trip  to  Japan, 
'9^°'  AustraUa,  New  Zealand,  and  the  East  Indies,  to 
acquire  a  first  hand  knowledge  of  the  market  for 
meters  in  those  countries,  and  to  assist  Mr.  Ashida 
in  determining  further  expansion  of  our  activities  in 
Japan.  Rogers  had  a  very  interesting  and  successful 
trip  of  ten  months,  from  May,  1 9 1 9  to  March,  1 920, 
and  late  that  fall,  went  to  England.  In  the  mean- 
time, after  considering  the  organization  of  a  British 
company  jointly  with  "Ediswan,"  we  had  decided  to 
own  it  entirely,  so,  early  in  1920,  British  Sangamo 
Company,  Ltd.,  came  into  being,  and  soon  after- 
ward, in  February,  we  sent  Roy  Butherus  to  Ponders 
End  to  get  our  testing  equipment  installed  in  the  new 
building,  and  to  start  preliminary  manufacturing, 
mostly  with  parts  sent  from  Springfield.  Roy  had 
come  with  us,  as  a  very  young  lad,  in  1 91 2,  and  after 
several  years  in  the  factory  and  testing  room,  went 
into  the  service,  gaining  valuable  experience  in  the 
Signal  Corps.  After  his  return  from  France,  he  was 
again  in  the  testing  room,  and,  when  we  looked 
around  for  a  capable  young  fellow  to  send  to  Eng- 
land, to  take  charge  of  assembling  and  testing, 
"Dutch"  Hodde  selected  Roy,  and  we  have  had 
every  reason,  in  the  years  since,  to  congratulate  our- 
selves on  this  happy  choice. 

Later,  Roy  became  Secretary,  Chief  Engineer  and 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  7 1 

Superintendent  of  British  Sangamo,  but,  eventually, 
as  the  business  grew,  devoted  himself  entirely  to  the 
two  first  duties,  and  to  him,  our  great  success  in 
England  in  using  Bakelite,  and  the  development  of 
our  prepayment  mechanism,  are  due. 

Actual  production  at  the  British  plant  was  con- 
siderably delayed  for  various  reasons,  but  finally  got 
under  way  in  April,  1 92 1 . 

DURING  my  visit  to  Barcelona,  in  May,  191 9,  My  trip  to 
I  visited  the  Ebro  Power  Company,  a  subsidiary  Barcelona— 
of  the  Canadian  and  General  Finance  Corporation,   j-heLC 
and  found  them  interested  in  our  A.C.  meters,  but  amperehour 
also  anxious  to  obtain  a  D.C.  amperehour  meter  for  meter. 
house  service,  a  purpose  for  which  our  mercury  me- 
ter was  not  acceptable  to  them.  They  were  therefore 
using  a  European  make  of  commutator  type  am- 
perehour meter,  and,  after  examining  this,  I  rashly 
said  we  could  make  a  better  one,  at  a  competitive 
price,  so  Ebro  gave  us  an  initial  order  for  1000  of 
the  proposed  meter.  On  my  return  home,  I  put  the 
problem  up  to  Fred  Holtz,  and  we  soon  designed  a 
meter,  called  the  "LC,"  and  during  the  summer  of 
1920,  shipped  the  first  order,  and  more,  to  Barce- 
lona. But  this  job  was  just  grief  from  the  start, — for 
the  engineering  department,  for  the  factory,  and, 
worst  of  all,  for  our  customer,  so,  after  expensive 
efTort  to  get  these  meters  right,  and  finding  their  cost 
prohibitive  as  compared  with  the  price  we  could  get 
for  them,  we  gave  up  this  venture,  and  wrote  off  a 
large  loss  to  experience. 


72  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

Acquirement  of    JANUARY,   1920,  marked  a  great  step  in  San- 

ground  and     I    „^j^q  history,  when  we  bought  from  the  Watch 
buildings  from    •^     &  -^ '  .      .  & 

Illinois  Watch  Company  the  land  and  buildings  they  had  rented 

Co.— January,  to  US  up  to  then.  This  transaction  was  financed  by  a 
1920.  bond  issue  to  the  Watch  Company,  and  the  early 
retirement  of  this  obligation,  within  three  years,  was 
largely  due  to  the  excellent  financial  guidance  of 
Mr.  J.  H.  Holbrook.  He  had  returned  to  Spring- 
field, after  several  years  with  the  National  City 
Bank,  of  New  York,  in  July  1920,  to  become  Vice 
President  of  the  Springfield  Marine  Bank,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  a  Director,  and  Treasurer  of  San- 
gamo,  and  continued  in  those  capacities  most  suc- 
cessfully until  his  death  in  June,  1935. 

No.  7  Building  "T~XURING  1 9 1 9,  our  business  at  Springfield  in- 
erected—ig2o.   \^  creased   SO   rapidly   that   we   required    more 
space,  so  had  the  Austin  Company  erect  No.  7  build- 
ing, which  was  occupied  in  1 920  by  the  assembling, 
testing,  and  shipping  departments. 

Our  manufac'     AS  a  result  of  Rogers'  long  visit  to  Japan  in  1 9 1 9, 

turing  venture  £\  ^^d  at  the  urgent  request  of  Mr.  Ashida,  we 
with  Ashida  in     ,      .  ,     ,         .    .         .,,..,  ^  ^ 

-r  .         n       decided  to  lom  with  him  m  the  manuiacture  01  me- 

japan. — Dana  J 

Johnson  takes  ters  at  Osaka,  under  an  arrangement  for  sale  of 
charge  there—  parts  to  him,  plus  certain  royalties,  while  he  planned 
W^o.  ^Q  make  bases,  grids,  covers,  series  coils  and  some 
other  parts,  and  do  the  assembling  and  testing  oper- 
ations. It  was  evidently  necessary  to  send  a  compe- 
tent man  from  Springfield  to  take  charge  of  this 
work,  and  again  Hodde  selected  a  man  from  his 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  73 

department,  Dana  Johnson,  who  had  also  returned 
from  the  service  in  191 9.  So  Dana  went  to  Osaka  in 
the  Fall  of  1 920,  and  as  a  first  step,  learned  Japan- 
ese, so  that  he  was  soon  able  to  assist  Ashida  in  his 
sales  work  in  Japan  and  Manchuria,  as  well  as  man- 
aging the  manufacture  of  meters.  He  was  very  suc- 
cessful in  his  work,  as  evidenced  by  the  rapid  growth 
of  our  Japanese  business  for  several  years,  but,  fol- 
lowing the  great  earthquake  in  1923,  there  was  such 
an  enormous  demand  for  meters  in  Japan  that  sev- 
eral European  manufacturers  rushed  in  and  offered 
destructive  prices,  with  the  result  that  we  decided, 
early  in  1928,  to  withdraw  Johnson  from  Japan,  and 
he  returned  home  in  July,  to  take  charge  of  our 
Lincoln  meter  business,  as  related  further  on.  How- 
ever, we  continued  our  arrangement  with  the  Ashida 
Company,  which  still  manufactures  Sangamo  meters, 
some  parts  still  being  supplied  by  us  and  Canadian 
Sangamo,  but  most  of  the  meter  now  being  made  in 
Osaka. 


E 


'ARLY  in    1921    our   Engineering  Department  Development 
developed  the  type  "N"  amperehour  meter,  of  the  type  N 
doing  away  with  the  damping  disk  and  separate  ^'^^^^oor 
damping  magnets  of  the  long-established  D-5  am- 
perehour meter  and  giving  a  much  more  rugged 
construction  for  the  severe  service  to  which  battery 
meters  are  subjected.  The  "N"  construction  has 
been  successfully  used  ever  since,  both  at  Springfield 
and  at  British  Sangamo. 


74  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

Mr.  Bum  and  "Pj^ARLY  in  1 92 1,  Rogers  had  some  serious  prob- 
I  visit  our  JLj  lems,  both  as  to  manufacturing,  and  our  con- 
^^dthc'^^-  tract  with  "Ediswan,"  so,  in  February,  Mr.  Bunn 
tinent— Spring  and  I  went  over,  and  determined  on  considerable 
of  ig2i.  additions  to  our  then  very  meager  facihties  at  Pon- 
ders End,  and  also  adjusted  certain  features  of  our 
contract  with  Mr.  Ford,  Chairman  of  "Ediswan." 
We  also  visited  M.  Delamare  in  Paris,  and  our  agent 
in  Milan,  our  business  in  Italy  then  being  quite  im- 
portant, though  later  brought  to  an  end  by  the  low- 
price  competition  of  Italian  and  German  meter 
manufacturers. 

Production  of  nHHAT  spring  we  engaged  the  Rothacker  Film 
moving  pic-  JL  Company  of  Chicago,  to  produce  a  three-reel 
ure,  ory  oj  j^^^^g  picture  of  our  product  and  manufacturing 
Meter''— IQ2I.  operations,  entitled,  "The  Story  of  an  Electric 
Meter,"  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  industrial  pictures 
produced  in  co-operation  with  the  U.S.  Department 
of  Commerce,  and  the  Bureau  of  Mines.  The  film 
was  very  successful,  and  having  been  first  heartily 
approved  by  Mr.  Hoover,  then  Secretary  of  the  De- 
partment of  Commerce,  it  was  first  released  at  the 
N.  E.  L.  A.  Convention  at  Atlantic  City,  in  May,  1 92 1 , 
where  it  attracted  such  favorable  comment  that  it 
was  soon  in  great  demand  in  this  country  and  abroad, 
so  that  eventually  some  twenty  copies  were  in  circu- 
lation. During  the  eight  or  nine  years  that  it  con- 
tinued to  be  shown,  we  estimated  that  over  a  million 
persons  saw  our  "movie,"  so  it  was  a  good  advertis- 
ing investment  for  us. 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  75 

AS  far  back  as  1914,  we  had  been  interested  in  Our  first  effort 

-/~\  the  production  of  a  demand  attachment,  hav-  ^^^^  demand 
1  1  •  •  1       ,       attachments. 

mg  made  an  arrangement  at  that  time  with  the  Minerallac 

Minerallac  Electric  Company  of  Chicago  to  manu-  Electric  Co. 
facture  their  attachment,  which  was  one  of  the  first,  Chester  I.  Hall 
if  not  the  first,  on  the  U.  S.  market,  having  been  ~^9i4~W^5- 
manufactured  by  them  for  several  years.  Their  Chief 
Engineer,  Mr.  Chester  I.  Hall,  therefore  came  to 
Springfield,  where  he  spent  much  time  for  the  next 
year  or  so  with  Jake  Bard,  improving  the  attach- 
ment, and  supervising  our  manufacture  of  it.  Unfor- 
tunately, just  as  we  were  well  launched  on  this  en- 
terprise, the  Minerallac  Company  was  taken  over  by 
General  Electric,  and  the  production  of  these  de- 
mand attachments  was  transferred  to  Fort  Wayne, 
Mr.  Hall  also  going  with  G.  E.,  where  he  later  devel- 
oped many  important  devices  in  the  demand  meter- 
ing field,  especially  the  "Graphometer"  and  "Print- 
ometer."  Through  the  courtesy  and  fairness  of  Mr. 
Fred  Hunting,  then  head  of  the  G.  E.  Fort  Wayne 
works,  and  my  good  friend  of  many  years,  all  of  our 
material  in  process,  tools  and  other  items,  for  the 
production  of  Minerallac  attachments,  were  taken 
over  at  a  price  that  let  us  out  without  any  loss  on  the 
undertaking,  but  we  were  thus  left  without  any  de- 
mand device.  So,  during  the  next  two  years,  Jake 
Bard  gave  such  time  as  he  could  to  the  problem  of 
developing  demand  devices  of  our  own,  and  built 
several  very  interesting  models  of  graphic  demand 
meters.  However,  with  his  death,  no  further  work 
was  done  until  late  in   191 9,  at  which  time  Fred 


76  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

Holtz  and  Jim  Martin  began  the  development  of  an 
attachment,  and  especially  of  a  small  synchronous 
motor  for  the  timing  element,  which  resulted  in  the 
famous  Holtz  patent  application  on  our  type  "A" 
induction-reaction  motor  in  1921,  and  the  produc- 
tion of  the  first  type  "H"  demand  attachment,  em- 
bodying this  motor,  in  the  summer  of  1923.  The 
patent  on  this  motor  was  finally  granted  ten  years 
later,  after  a  long  interference  declared  by  the  patent 
office,  and  while  other  small  synchronous  motors, 
operating  on  different  principles,  such  as  our  types 
"F"  and  "G,"  have  been  developed  in  later  years, 
none,  to  us,  has  been  so  interesting  as  the  type  "A," 
still  used,  with  very  slight  mechanical  changes  from 
the  original,  in  our  demand  attachments  and  com- 
bination time-switch  meters. 

Development  TN  1 923,  recognizing  the  need  for  a  smaller  and 
of  the  S-2   X  less  expensive  A.C.  meter  than  the  type  "H,"  for 
^^^T"^J  export  trade,  we  designed  the  "S-2,"  which  was 
—1923.  thereupon  produced  at  our  Canadian  and  English 
factories,  being  superseded  a  few  years  later  by  the 
"S-3,"  similar  in  design,  but  improved  in  structure 
and  performance.  Manufacture  of  this  meter  was 
discontinued  at  British  Sangamo  early  in  1 928,  but 
still  continues  as  a  very  important  part  of  our  Cana- 
dian company's  business,  through  whose  engineer- 
ing department  also  came  the  development  of  the 
"S-3"   polyphase,   and  combination  of  the  "S-3" 
with  Lincoln  demand  elements,  in  the  years  between 
1925  and  1930. 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  77 

IN  January  1924  Mr.  Rogers  cabled  us  of  serious  Second  visit 
difficulties   at  British   Sangamo   in   connection  ^^  British 
with  a  large  order  from  Australia,  which  had  come  jamary  1024. 
just  at  a  time  when  the  very  existence  of  our  British 
company  was  threatened  through  a  combination  of 
circumstances,  so  Mr.  Bunn  told  me  to  go  to  Eng- 
land at  once,  and  I  arrived  at  Ponders  End  early  in 
February.  Within  a  short  time  we  had  worked  out  a 
program,  and  by  the  time  I  returned,  early  in  May, 
British  Sangamo  was  out  of  the  woods,  and  on  the 
successful  upward  course  it  has  maintained  since, 
principally  due  to  the  good  business  judgment  and 
firmness  shown  by  Rogers  in  this  crisis,  and  the  engi- 
neering ability  of  Roy  Butherus. 


IT  was  also  about  this  time  that  our  British  com-  Our  relations 
pany  began  to  enjoy  the  splendid  business  rela-  ^^^^  North 
tions  with  the  North  Metropolitan  Electric  Supply  ^/  ^  •   c  /,/,/ 
Company,  of  Middlesex  County,  that  have  contin-  Co.— George 
ued  ever  since,  and  thus  to  the  personal  relations  F-  Shatter. 
with  their  Chief  Meter  Engineer,  George  F.  Shotter, 
one  of  the  leading  authorities  on  meters  in  Great 
Britain,  whose  wise  and  unselfish  advice  and  sugges- 
tions have  contributed  so  much  to  the  success  of 
British  Sangamo. 

DURING  this  trip  I  visited  several  of  our  agents  My  friendship 
on  the  Continent,  but  the  outstanding  event  of  ^^^^  ^^-  ^^^^^ 
the  trip  was  my  first  meeting  with  the  famous  Italian    ^ST"^^' 
scientist  and  engineer.  Dr.  Guido  Semenza,  of  Milan, 
to  whom  I  had  a  letter  of  introduction  from  his  life 


78  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

long  friend,  Mr.  John  W.  Lieb,  Vice  President  and 
General  Manager  of  the  New  York  Edison  Com- 
pany. Dr.  Semenza  was  then,  and  until  his  untimely 
death  in  1931,  the  Chairman  of  the  International 
Electro-Technical  Commission,  head  of  the  C.  G.  S. 
Meter  and  Instrument  Company  of  Monza,  near 
Milan,  and  one  of  the  three  greatest  electrical  engi- 
neers in  Italy.  He  was  a  simple,  kindly  man,  and  I 
shall  never  forget  the  courtesies  of  himself  and  his 
family  to  us  on  this,  and  a  subsequent  trip  to  Italy 
in  1927.  In  the  meantime,  he  honored  us  with  a 
visit  to  Springfield  in  1926,  and  expressed  much 
pleasure  in  seeing  our  factory  and  laboratory. 

Our  venture  in     A  ND  now  I  come  to  the  most  important  venture 

the  electric  ±\  in  which  Sangamo  ever  engaged,  outside  of 

clock  business,  ^j^^  meter  business— electric  clocks.  In  the  winter  of 
beginning  ig2o.  _,      ,    ^^   ,  •      t^  •  •        • 

—Hamilton-  1 923-24  Fred  Holtz  was  m  Europe  mvestigatmg 

Sangamo  Co.—  new  developments  and  assisting  our  British  factory, 

igsg.—Sale  of  2ind,  hearing  a  lot  about  several  new  types  of  electric 

usine^  0  ^jQ^j^g  ^}-^gj^  beins[  off'ered  in  Endand  and  on  the 

General  lime  °  .  i-    1 

Instruments  Continent,  he  thought  of  using  our  little  type  "A" 

Corporation—  motor  to  wind  the  spring  of  a  clock,  not  a  new  con- 
^93^-  ception,  fundamentally,  but  his  idea  was  new  in  re- 
spect to  several  important  features.  On  his  return, 
he  discussed  his  scheme  with  Mr.  Bunn  and  me,  and 
it  sounded  so  good  that  Mr.  Bunn  asked  him  to  build 
some  models  for  which  the  Watch  Company  sup- 
plied movements.  During  the  latter  part  of  1 924  we 
built  some  forty  clocks,  which  gave  such  good  re- 
sults over  a  period  of  several  months  that  we  decided 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  79 

to  engage  in  the  manufacture  of  these  clocks,  and, 
after  tooUng  up  the  following  year,  produced  the 
first  clocks  in  the  spring  of  1926,  shortly  before  Mr. 
Bunn's  death.  Regular  production  of  a  handsome 
line  of  clocks,  with  several  styles  of  cases  made  by 
Erskine-Danforth,  was  started  that  summer,  and  in 
October  we  announced  these  clocks  to  the  trade. 

At  this  time,  synchronous  clocks  had  not  been 
generally  accepted,  as  they  were  later,  so  our  new 
line  was  favorably  received  by  jewellers  throughout 
the  country,  and  we  then  started  a  very  ambitious 
and  expensive  campaign  of  advertising  of  our  clocks, 
both  in  trade  and  popular  magazines.  Early  in  1928, 
the  Hamilton  Watch  Company  had  purchased  the 
Illinois  Watch  Company,  and  began  operating  the 
Springfield  plant.  Through  our  association  with 
them,  especially  in  the  purchase  of  1 1  -jewel  escape- 
ments for  our  clock  movements,  the  suggestion  was 
made  in  September,  1928,  by  Mr.  Charles  F.  Miller, 
President  of  Hamilton,  that  we  join  forces  in  the  elec- 
tric clock  business,  resulting  in  organization,  on 
June  I,  1929,  of  the  Hamilton-Sangamo  Corpora- 
tion, equally  owned  by  the  two  companies.  The  plan 
was  for  Sangamo  to  continue  manufacture  of  the 
clocks,  with  Hamilton  supplying  the  escapements 
and  the  sales  experience. 

Under  this  impetus,  the  new  company  started 
with  bright  prospects,  but  already  the  greatly  in- 
creased vogue  of  synchronous  clocks,  at  far  lower 
prices  than  those  at  which  we  could  sell  our  electri- 
cally wound  clocks,  was  giving  us  difficult  competi- 


8o  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

tion,  and  when  the  crash  in  all  business  started  in 
October,  '29,  the  problems  of  Hamilton-Sangamo 
became  still  more  difficult.  To  meet  the  synchronous 
clock  competition  we  therefore  developed  our  type 
"E"  non  self-starting  synchronous  motor  during  the 
spring  of  1930,  and  in  August  put  on  the  market  a 
new  line  of  clocks  embodying  these  motors,  which 
were  favorably  received.  However,  we  soon  realized 
that  we  needed  a  self-starting  synchronous  clock,  so 
later  that  year  produced  the  first  type  "F"  self- 
starting  motor,  principally  due  to  the  engineering 
ability  of  one  of  our  principal  research  engineers, 
Fritz  Kurz.  We  were  about  to  offer  a  line  of  self- 
starting  clocks  embodying  this  motor,  when,  in  De- 
cember, 1930,  the  General  Time  Instruments  Cor- 
poration of  New  York,  owning  the  Western  Clock 
Company  ("Big  Ben")  and  the  Seth  Thomas  Clock 
Company  expressed  an  interest  in  using  the  type 
"F"  motor  in  their  electric  clocks.  As  we  could  not 
sell  motors  to  any  other  concern  than  Hamilton- 
Sangamo,  the  upshot  of  the  matter  was  that  Mr. 
Ralph  Matthiessen,  President  of  G.  T.  I.  Corpora- 
tion, offered  to  buy  the  Hamilton-Sangamo  Corpo- 
ration, and  thus  obtain  the  exclusive  rights  to  the  use 
of  all  our  motors,  A.C.  and  D.C.,  for  clock  purposes, 
as  well  as  the  established  business  of  the  Hamilton- 
Sangamo  Corporation.  The  business  was  therefore 
sold  to  G.  T.  I.  Corporation  in  April,  1931,  and 
Hamilton  and  Sangamo  retired  from  the  clock  busi- 
ness, with  considerable  loss,  but  with  much  valuable 
experience. 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  8i 

SHORTLY  after  Mr.  Holtz  and  I  returned  from  Research 
*  Europe,  in  the  sprint  of  IQ24,  we  realized  the  ^^^°^^^°U 

•        J  r  ^   .     ^      .        ^    ^'  ,     r      •!•      built— 1924. 

inadequacy  01  our  engineering  and  research  facih- 
ties,  so,  with  some  hesitation,  presented  to  Mr.  Bunn 
our  plans  for  a  really  complete  and  well-equipped 
laboratory.  To  our  great  satisfaction  he  immediately 
said  he  agreed  with  us,  and  to  go  ahead,  so  our 
present  laboratory  was  built  that  summer,  and  occu- 
pied that  Fall;  it  has  paid  for  itself  many  times  over 
since  then. 

IN  the  spring  of  1 924  our  New  York  manager  at  that  Our  venture  in 
time,  T.  B.  Rhodes,  met  a  former  army  engineer  ^^^  ^^^^^  P^^^^ 
named  Pressley,  who  had  recently  invented  a  new  p  ^  f^'  • 
radio  "hook-up,"  involving  the  use  of  the  super-  cuit—ig24.— 
heterodyne  circuit.  At  that  time  radio  sets  were  Experiments 
being  largely  built  by  amateurs  from  sets  of  parts,  ^^^^  receiving 
tuning  coils,  transformers,  condensers,  chokes,  etc., 
so  Pressley  planned  to  offer  a  set  of  transformers  and 
fixed  condensers  to  enable  amateurs  to  employ  his 
circuit.  As  he  was  well  vouched  for,  and  as  his  cir- 
cuit was  very  good,  we  made  a  royalty  arrangement 
with  him,  and  in  September  1924,  put  the  "Pressley 
kit"  on  the  market.  It  met  with  instant  favor,  but 
our  success  was  short  lived,  for  in  December  the 
Radio  Corporation  of  America  notified  us  that  the 
Pressley  circuit  infringed  some  of  their  most  im- 
portant patents,  so,  on  advice  of  our  counsel,  we  dis- 
continued  manufacture   of  the   Pressley  parts   in 
January,  1925. 


82  Fo  rt\  1 7ars  of  San  gam  o 

However,  in  developing  tliese  parts  \ve  had  made 
a  ven.'  satisfactory  hxcd  condenser  molded  in  Bake- 
lite.  the  first.  I  believe  of  tliis  r^"pe.  so  we  immedi- 
ately followed  the  Pressley  kit  witli  our  t\'pe 
"A"  condenser,  which,  later,  was  supplemented 
bv  the  cheaper  "Illini"  rspe.  and  both  were 
successful. 

During  the  great  boom  in  production  of  radio  sets 
in  1 928-29,  our  sale  of  these  condensers  to  manufac- 
turers of  receiN^ng  sets  was  ven.*  large,  but  \\ith  the 
crash  this  business  dropped  off  sharply.  However, 
the  t\"pe  *"A''  condenser  still  continues  to  be  fa\'ored 
for  use  in  important  radio  deWces,  and  several  other 
rvpes  are  also  now  made  by  Sangamo. 

Soon  after  the  introducuon  of  these  condensers,  in 
iq25.  Nve  learned  of  a  very  fine  receiving  set  which 
had  been  developed  by  a  group  in  the  East,  includ- 
ing some  of  our  business  friends,  and  for  which 
license  rights  were  being  granted  to  a  small  group  of 
well-kno\N"n  manufacturers.  We  decided  to  take  a 
license,  and  then  imdertook  development  of  a  fine 
set,  which  we  proposed  to  sell  at  about  S600.  We 
built  nine  sets,  after  much  preliminary  experimental 
work,  at  a  cost  of  some  S25.000.00,  which  were  put 
in  ser\ice  early  in  1927,  and  gave  splendid  results, 
but  by  this  time,  with  the  clock  venture  requiring 
large  expenditure,  we  realized  that  we  could  not  go 
on  with  radio  sets  except  at  great  expense  and  at  the 
risk  of  jeopardizing  our  meter  business,  so  in  1928 
the  radio  set  project  was  dropped. 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  83 

'N  September,  1925,  I  had  to  go  to  California  on  Mr.  Jacob 


business  with  Jerry  Monahan  and  Lorrin  Nott, 
so  Mr.  Bunn,  Mr.  Henry  Merriam  and  Mr.  Arthur  ^Q^fj, 
Mackie  decided  to  go  along,  as  they  said,  to  "check 
up"  on  me.  We  had  a  very  interesting  and  enjoyable 
trip,  until  we  reached  the  Grand  Canyon,  on  our 
return,  where  Mr.  Bunn  became  ill,  but  we  thought 
it  was  only  a  cold.  However,  on  our  arrival  home 
the  middle  of  October,  he  was  still  sick,  and  then 
began  the  long  illness,  culminating  with  the  greatest 
blow  that  has  ever  fallen  on  Sangamo,  when  Jacob 
Bunn  passed  away  on  May  tenth,  1926. 

For  nearly  thirty  years  I  had  been  so  closely  asso- 
ciated with  him,  and  had  received  from  him  all  those 
years  such  unfailing  interest,  sympathy  and  under- 
standing of  our  problems,  that  his  going  meant  to 
Sangamo  and  to  me  a  great  void  which  could  never 
be  filled.  Since  his  death,  all  of  us  associated  with 
him  have  tried  to  carry  on  as  we  felt  he  would  have 
wished  us  to,  so  whatever  Sangamo  is  today  is  a 
monument  to  its  founder  and  guiding  spirit  for  so 
many  years,  Jacob  Bunn. 


Bunh's  death 
May  10, 


IN  1926,  we  had  our  second  exhibit  at  a  great  ex-  Our  exhibit  at 

position,  the  Sesqui-Centennial  at  Philadelphia,  Sesqui-Centeri- 

1  .  1      ^  ^  11^-  nial  Exposition. 

where,    agam   our   products,    meters   and   electric  p^^Ya^g//,^^^ 

clocks,  received  highest  awards,  but  this  exposition  —ig26. 
was  not  so  well  attended  as  had  been  anticipated, 
and  our  participation  in  it  was  not  of  great  sales 
value. 


84  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

Sangamo  OHORTLY  after  Mr.  Bunn's  death,  we  were  ap- 
becomes  a  pub-   ^  proached  by  Paul  H.  Davis  &  Company  of  Chi- 
^'^  rT^""^    cago,  and  Kissel,  Kinnicutt  and  Company  of  New 
Chicago  Stock  York,  with  regard  to  making  Sangamo  a  public  com- 
Exchange—  pany,  and  listing  our  stock  on  the  Chicago  Stock 
june,ig2y.  Exchange,  so  in  June,   1927,  several  of  the  larger 
owners  of  Sangamo  sold  a  considerable  part  of  their 
holdings,  and  the  company  was  recapitalized  with 
125,000  shares  of  common  stock,  with  par  value  of 
$16.00  per  share,  and  10,000  shares  of  7%  Preferred 
stock,  with  par  value  of  Si 00.00  per  share.  A  large 
block  of  both  stocks  was  then  offered  to  the  public, 
in  July,  1927,  and  was  quickly  taken  up.  Following 
this,  Mr.  H.  I.  Markham,  partner  in  Paul  Davis  & 
Company,  and  Mr.  Walter  Robbins,  then  a  partner 
in  Kissel,  Kinnicutt  and  Company  became  directors 
of  Sangamo,  our  Board  being  increased  to  nine  mem- 
bers, and  both  of  them  have  continued  to  render 
most  valuable  service  to  us  since  that  time. 

Purchase  of  TJY  the  end  of  1 926,  British  Sangamo  had  out- 

landjor  Jj  grown  the  building  at  the  "Ediswan"  works, 

^  ^^^^j^  '  at  Ponders  End,  so  in  the  summer  of  1927,  while  I 

near  Enfield—  ^^^  ^^  England,  Mr.  Rogers  and  I  found  a  well  lo- 

Summer  of  cated  piece  of  land  on  the  Cambridge  Arterial  Road, 

7527.  First  jyg^  outside  of  Enfield,  one  of  the  important  manu- 

d—    ^^8   f^cturing  suburbs,  twelve  miles  north  of  London. 
Termination       During  1 928  we  erected  the  first  building  of  the 
Ediswan  sales  present  British  Sangamo  plant,  which  was  occupied 
arrangement—  -^^  ^t^^  summer,  and,  as  the  new  plant  was  only  three 

70?!? 

miles  from  the  old  factory  at  Ponders  End,  we  were 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  85 

able  to  retain  nearly  all  of  our  employes  at  the  old 
plant.  By  this  time,  Mr.  Rogers  had  decided  to  con- 
fine his  meter  production  entirely  to  our  type  "H," 
so  manufacture  of  the  type  "S-2"  in  England  was 
discontinued  in  the  fall  of  1928. 

From  1926,  we  had  had  several  discussions  with 
"Ediswan"  in  regard  to  modifications  of  our  sales 
agreement  with  them,  and,  failing  to  reach  a  satis- 
factory understanding  when  the  original  contract 
with  them  expired  in  1929,  we  thereafter  continued 
with  them  on  a  temporary  arrangement,  until  we 
found,  early  in  1933,  that  British  Sangamo  could  not 
develop  as  it  should  without  control  of  sales  being  in 
its  own  hands.  So,  on  July  i,  1933,  "Ediswan" 
ceased  to  represent  British  Sangamo,  and  Mr.  Eric 
Dymond,  who  had  been  our  sales  engineer  for  sev- 
eral years,  became  Sales  Manager  of  the  company, 
and  rapidly  organized  an  efficient  sales  organization, 
as  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  the  business  of  our  Brit- 
ish Company  has  almost  doubled  in  the  three  years 
since  we  took  over  our  sales.  Since  1928  there  have 
only  been  two  years  when  British  Sangamo  did  not 
erect  additional  buildings,  the  largest  additions,  in 
space  and  equipment,  having  been  made  in  1935 
and  this  year,  so  the  plant  is  now  one  of  the  largest 
and  best  equipped  for  meter  and  time  switch  manu-  ^or7A"yJ}/ 
facturing  in  the  British  Isles.  Converse 


Purchase  tract 


Avenue. 
Erection  No.  i 
Warehouse — 


IN  February,  1928,  we  purchased  the  six  acre  tract 
across  Converse  Avenue  from  our  main  building,  pglj-j^Jfy^ 
and  that  spring  erected  our  No.  i  Warehouse,  as  our  1^28. 


86  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

space  for  raw  materials  and  finished  stock  had  be- 
come entirely  inadequate,  and  again  this  spring 
( 1 936)  we  built,  adjacent  to  this,  the  No.  2  warehouse. 

Improvements  /^OING  back  in  history  of  the  type  "H"  meter, 

in  construction  yj  ^^j.  principal  product  for  the  past  quarter  cen- 

—From  IOTA  to  tu^Y?  ^^  ^^  ^  matter  01  great  pride  to  bangamo  that 

igjj.  this  meter  has  been  essentially  the  same  in  principle 

and  construction  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  the 

original  design  having  been  so  well  adapted  to  detail 

improvements  and  modifications,  as  the  metering 

art  progressed,  that  we  have  found  it  unnecessary  to 

bring  out  an  entirely  new  type  of  A.C.  meter  in  all 

these  years. 

In  1 91 4  the  original  "H"  was  slightly  modified  in 
the  electromagnetic  structure,  and  then  brought  out 
as  the  "H-2,"  then,  some  fourteen  years  later,  com- 
pensation for  temperature  and  overload  were  incor- 
porated, and  the  designation  (in  the  United  States 
and  Canada)  changed  to  HC,  this  having  been  an- 
nounced in  January,  1928. 

Finally,  when  the  four  U.  S.  meter  manufacturers, 
in  1933,  agreed  on  standardization  of  external  fea- 
tures of  all  meters,  further  detail  changes  were  made, 
resulting  in  the  present  HFA  and  HFS  meters,  but 
they  can  be  recognized  at  a  glance  as  "grown-up" 
Beginning  brothers  of  the  old  "H"  meter  of  191 1. 

electric  time 

switch  business  yp  ^^^  electric  clock  venture  was,  otherwise,  a  los- 
Arrangement  -^  ^^§  venture,  it  brought  one  good  result,  our  deci- 
with  Venner.  sion  to  go  into  the  time  switch  business.  We  began 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  87 

to  consider  this  in  the  Fall  of  1928,  and  shortly 
thereafter,  Mr.  Charles  DeLong,  formerly  expert  de- 
signer and  model-maker  for  the  Watch  Company, 
showed  us  the  model  of  an  astronomical  dial  for 
time  switches,  some  features  of  which  were  later  in- 
corporated in  our  present  successful  design.  With 
this  added  interest,  we  hastened  the  development  of 
a  switch  embodying  our  electrically  wound  clocks, 
both  A.C.  and  D.C.,  with  11 -jewel  escapement 
made  by  the  Watch  Company,  which,  with  almost 
no  changes,  still  continues  as  the  finest  switch  in  our 
line,  and  unsurpassed  by  any  other  switch  made  in 
this  country  or  abroad.  We  announced  these  switches 
in  April,  1930,  and  in  a  year  from  that  date,  our 
time  switch  sales  reached  the  modest  volume  of  about 
Si  7,000.00. 

Soon  thereafter  we  realized  the  need  of  a  less  ex- 
pensive line  of  switches  for  alternating  current,  and, 
as  a  first  step  in  this  direction,  we  made  an  arrange- 
ment, in  January,  1 930,  with  Venner  of  England, 
the  leading  manufacturer  of  time  switches  in  that 
country,  under  which  we  obtained  exclusive  rights 
to  their  patents,  designs,  and  sales  experience  for  the 
United  States  and  Canada.  However,  as  our  work 
on  the  new  line  of  synchronous  motor  and  electri- 
cally wound  switches  progressed,  we  found  it  neces- 
sary to  depart,  in  many  principal  respects,  from  the 
Venner  designs,  and  the  VS  and  VW,  as  brought 
out  in  the  Fall  of  1932,  therefore  embodied  many 
new  features,  developed  in  our  Engineering  depart- 
ment, the  most  important  being  the  use  of  a  quick 


88  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

break,  short  gap  system,  with  silver  button  contacts, 
which  has  since  proved  so  successful.  Shortly  before 
that  time  we  started  the  manufacture  of  our  astronom- 
ical dial,  first  applied  on  our  original  mercury  tube 
switches,  and  then  on  the  VS  and  VW.  The  other 
great  factor  in  the  success  of  these  switches  has  been 
the  Type  "F"  synchronous  motor,  already  referred  to. 

Organization  of  TN  December,  1927  our  "Fifteen  Year  Club,"  com- 


Sangamo  J_  posed  of  employes  with  the  three  Sangamo  com- 
Fifteen  Tear  •      r      ncj.  •      j  j 

CI  b—  027  P^^i^s  tor  liiteen  years  or  more,  was  organized,  and 
since  then  has  had  many  enjoyable  meetings,  with  a 
dinner  each  December,  when  new  members  are  taken 
in  and  given  the  much  prized  membership  button, 
and  a  picnic  for  members  and  their  families  each 
summer.  Sangamo  takes  pride  in  now  having  over 
330  members  of  the  Club  at  Springfield  and  27  more 
at  the  Canadian  and  English  plants. 

Industrial  TN  1 928,  with  our  largely  increased  business  at 
survey  and  J_  Springfield,  we  felt  the  need  of  outside  advice  on 

recommenda-  ,,  r  j^-  i_ji"  r         x'l  j 

,  D    /      problems  01  production,  handling  01  material,  and 

Kent,  Willard  costs,  SO,  in  September,  engaged  the  well-known 
&  Co.—igsg.  firm  of  industrial  engineers,  Bigelow,  Kent,  Willard 
and  Company  of  Boston  to  make  a  preliminary  sur- 
vey of  our  plant  and  methods.  This  was  completed 
and  submitted  to  us  in  November,  and  indicated 
that  many  improvements,  with  consequent  large 
savings,  besides  elimination  of  production  jams  in 
the  shop,  could  be  effected  at  a  reasonable  cost.  So 
we  engaged  this  firm  to  undertake  the  necessary 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  89 

work,  to  which  Mr.  Kent  gave  frequent  and  able 
supervision  from  the  beginning  of  the  job,  in  Febru- 
ary 1929,  until  its  completion  a  year  later,  but  the 
resident  engineer  for  B.  K.  W.  &  Company,  Mr. 
Tarr,  deserves  the  great  credit  for  what  was  accom- 
polished .  During  his  year  with  us  he  planned  and  in- 
stalled the  conveyor  production  lines  in  the  Assem- 
bling and  Testing  Department,  the  conveyor  line 
from  No.  1 1  Department,  changed  location  of  many 
machines  to  eliminate  lost  motion,  established  a  new 
and  effective  system  of  production  control,  and  in- 
troduced important  changes  in  our  cost  system. 

As  a  result  of  this  work,  we  saved  the  entire  cost, 
including  new  equipment  and  machinery  installed 
by  Mr.  Tarr,  and  all  fees  paid  to  B.  K.  W.  &  Com- 
pany, in  less  than  two  years,  not  to  speak  of  large 
economies  in  space  utilization. 


T 


HE  story  of  Lincoln  thermal  demand  meters.  The  Lincoln 

and  our  relation  to  them,  is  an  interesting  chap-  ^^''^^^  de- 

^       •      a  u  •  ^  mand  meter 

ter  in  bangamo  history.  , 

°  .        ^  and  our 

In  1 91 5,  our  friends  Col.  E.  A.  Deeds,  and  Mr.  association 
Kettering,  told  me  that  their  friend,  Mr.  Paul  M.  with  it, 
Lincoln,  whom  Col.  Deeds  had  known  during  the  ^^i^^^^^S 
early  days  of  the  Niagara  Falls  Power  Company, 
when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  charge  of  Westinghouse 
work  there,  had  told  them  of  an  idea  he  had  for  a  de- 
mand meter  entirely  different  in  principle  from  any 
other  then  used. 

Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  meter  engineers  of 
Westinghouse,  of  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  chief  power 


go  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

engineer,  did  not  seem  interested  in  his  invention,  he 
decided  to  have  it  developed  elsewhere,  so,  at  the 
suggestion  of  Col.  Deeds,  I  met  Mr.  Lincoln  in  Day- 
ton, and  soon  agreed  to  interest  ourselves  in  his  de- 
vice. We  finished  the  first  model  in  September  of 
that  year,  at  which  time  Mr.  Lincoln  left  the  West- 
inghouse  Company  in  order  to  devote  his  time  to 
the  commercial  development  of  his  meter,  and  the 
next  month  presented  his  first  A.  L  E.  E.  paper  on 
thermal  demand  meters  at  an  Institute  meeting  in 
New  York,  and  exhibited  the  model  we  had  made. 

Following  this,  we  were  making  plans  to  go  ahead 
promptly  under  a  verbal  understanding  we  had  with 
Mr.  Lincoln,  when  I  received  a  message  from  Mr.  E. 
M.  Herr,  President  of  Westinghouse,  asking  me  to 
meet  him  in  Chicago,  to  discuss  the  Lincoln  matter. 
He  then  explained  to  me  that  he  was  very  anxious  to 
have  Mr.  Lincoln  return  to  Westinghouse,  and  had 
promised  him  that  if  he  did  they  would  build  his 
meters.  However,  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  a  very  high 
sense  of  honor,  though  not  obligated  to  Sangamo  by 
contract,  refused  to  break  his  understanding  with  us, 
unless  with  our  full  consent  and  approval.  Of  course 
I  told  Mr.  Herr  that  we  did  not  want  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  what  was  best  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  would 
consider  our  understanding  with  him  cancelled,  so, 
immediately  thereafter  Mr.  Lincoln  returned  to 
Westinghouse,  and  in  due  course,  they  put  his  de- 
mand meters  on  the  market,  but  made  little  effort 
to  push  them,  at  least,  so  Mr.  Lincoln  felt. 

The  United  States  having  then  entered  the  war. 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  9 1 

little  was  done  with  Lincoln  meters  for  a  few  years, 
but,  in  1 920,  Mr.  Lincoln  having  finally  severed  his 
connection  with  Westinghouse,  and  being  unable  at 
that  time,  under  his  contract  with  them  on  his  ther- 
mal meter,  to  build  them  himself  in  the  U.  S.,  went 
to  Canada,  and  organized  the  Lincoln  Meter  Co. 
Ltd.,  at  Toronto. 

He  was  fortunate  in  associating  with  him  in  this 
enterprise  Mr.  Stanley  L.  B.  Lines,  formerly  with  the 
well-known  English  meter  firm,  Chamberlain  & 
Hookham.  While  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  go  to  Toronto 
to  live,  he  spent  much  time  in  Canada,  and  through 
the  energetic  and  successful  work  of  him  and  Mr. 
Lines,  the  Lincoln  thermal  meter,  within  a  few 
years,  became  the  standard  demand  device  in  Can- 
ada, and  so  continues  to  this  time. 

After  a  few  years,  about  1 924,  the  Lincoln  Com- 
pany found  a  need  for  a  combined  energy  and  de- 
mand meter,  and,  as  a  result  of  Sangamo's  early 
association  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  naturally  turned  to 
our  Canadian  Company  to  obtain  the  necessary 
watthour  meter  elements.  The  new  instruments 
were  thus  announced  and  sold  as  Lincoln-Sangamo 
meters,  and  being  eventually  developed  in  many 
combinations,  both  singlephase  and  polyphase, 
found  ready  and  wide  acceptance  in  Canada  and 
many  foreign  countries. 

As  a  result  of  the  close  and  friendly  connection  be- 
tween the  two  companies,  and,  following  several 
large  orders  for  Lincoln  demand  meters  from  the 
Detroit   Edison    Company,    Mr.    Lincoln   desired 


92  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

again  to  undertake  manufacture  of  his  meters  in  this 
country,  first,  to  sell  them  to  Detroit  without  duty, 
and,  secondly,  to  develop  other  business  in  the  U.S., 
where  up  to  this  time,  the  block-interval  type  of 
demand  meters  had  been  used  almost  exclusively. 

Organization  of  OO,  in  July,  1 928,  the  Lincoln  Meter  Co.,  Inc., 

Lincoln  Meter  \^  vv^as  organized  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  President, 

ompany,  nc.  j^Qj^jjj^g  ^  controlling  interest,  and  Sangamo  a  mi- 

States,  July  nority,  and  a  contract  was  made  with  Sangamo  to 

1928.  manufacture  Lincoln  meters  for  sale  in  the  United 

States.  Rights  for  Canada  and  all  foreign  countries 

were  retained  by  the  parent  Lincoln  Company  of 

Toronto. 

Under  the  able  sales  direction  of  Dana  Johnson, 
who  had  recently  returned  from  managing  our  Jap- 
anese venture,  the  business  of  the  U.  S.  Lincoln 
Company  rapidly  grew,  with  consequent  value  to  it 
and  to  Sangamo. 

Sangamo  '  I  ^HEN  in  1930,  it  seemed  desirable,  for  many 

Cornpany    j^  reasons,  to  consolidate  the  Lincoln  and  San- 

eramo  activities  in  Canada,  so,  in  September  of  that 

acquires  o  ,  5       5  r- 

Lincoln  Meter  year,  the  Lincoln  Company,  Ltd.,  became  a  division 
Co.  Ltd.  To-  of  Sangamo  Company,  Ltd.,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr. 
ronto—igjo.  Ljj^gs  becoming  directors,  and  Mr.  Lines  also  Vice 
President  in  charge  of  Lincoln  meter  sales,  to  which 
duty  he  gave  fully  of  his  ability  and  enthusiasm. 
His  work  was,  unhappily,  terminated  by  his  sudden 
death  the  following  spring,  in  April,  1 93 1 ,  a  severe 
blow  to  our  Canadian  Company.  The  Lincoln  plant. 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  93 

on  Stafford  Street,  Toronto,  was  taken  over  with  the 
business  of  the  Lincoln  Company,  and  continued  to 
be  used  for  production  of  Lincoln  meters  to  some 
extent,  until  this  year,  but  is  now  exclusively  de- 
voted to  production  of  Wagner  motors  for  Canada, 
as  referred  to  later. 

In  the  fall  of  1934,  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  been  for 
a  number  of  years,  as  now,  Director  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Electrical  Engineering  at  Cornell  Univer- 
sity, expressed  a  desire  to  dispose  of  his  interest  in  the 
U.  S.  Lincoln  Company,  and  in  December,  San- 
gamo  acquired  this  on  a  mutually  satisfactory  basis, 
since  which  time  the  Lincoln  Meter  Company,  Inc., 
although  still  retaining  its  identity,  has  been  oper- 
ated as  a  division  of  Sangamo. 

IN  June,  1 93 1 ,  when  our  business  at  Springfield  The  big  3-disk 
was  beginning  to  suffer  from  the  depression,  we  ^^^^  °^^^ 
received  an  unexpected,  and  very  helpful  order  from  -y^^    ^    °^ 
the  New  York  Edison  Company  for  10,000  three-  Summer  of 
element  HC  polyphase  meters  with  demand  attach-  1931. 
ments,  and  some  8,000  clock  movements  for  General 
Electric,  to  be  used  in  D.C.  demand  meters  for  the 
Edison  Company.  These  large  orders  kept  us  work- 
ing at  top  speed  until  October,  and  contributed 
greatly  to  putting  us  in  sound  condition  to  meet  the 
heavy  losses  of  the  next  three  years. 

Changes  in 

DURING  1 93 1,  Mr.  Rogers  told  us  that  with  the  ''^^"^^//^''" 
greatly  increased  business  of  British  Sangamo,  Saneamo— 
he  felt  it  necessary  to  make  some  major  changes  in  igj2. 


94  Forty  Years  ofSangamo 

his  executive  setup,  so,  in  October  Mr.  Funk,  our 
Vice  President  (and  now  General  Manager),  went 
to  England  to  confer  with  Mr,  Rogers  and  Mr. 
Butherus  on  this  matter.  As  a  result  of  their  discus- 
sion, it  was  agreed  that  Mr.  Butherus  needed  all  his 
time  for  his  heavy  duties  as  Chief  Engineer,  and 
should  therefore  relinquish  direction  of  manufactur- 
ing operations.  This  meant  the  selection  of  another 
man  as  Works  Manager,  so,  at  the  suggestion  of 
Scott  Lynn,  and  as  approved  by  Mr.  Rogers  and 
Mr.  Funk,  we  sent  R.  C.  Lanphier,  Jr.  to  England 
in  January,  1932,  to  undertake  this  responsibility,  in 
which  position  he  has  since  continued. 

Proposed  TT^OR  many  years,  as  far  back  as  191 5,  it  had  been 
merger—   J_  suggested  to  US  that  a  merger  of  Sangamo  with 
dS  '       —  c^^t^^^  other  companies,  and  especially  the  Weston 
ig2g.  and  Bristol  instrument  companies,  might  be  advan- 
tageous, but  the  matter  never  reached  active  con- 
sideration until  the  latter  part  of  1929,  when  our 
friends  Kissel,  Kinnicutt  and  Company  of  New  York 
approached    these    three   companies,    and,    subse- 
quently, two  others  in  allied  lines,  in  reference  to  a 
merger.  While  we  were  not  especially  eager  for  it, 
we  agreed  to  submit  data,  as  did  Weston  and  Bristol, 
and  in  May,  1 930,  it  seemed  that  a  combination  of 
these  companies  might  be  made,  but  the  sudden 
death  of  Dr.  Wm.  H.  Bristol,  in  June,  put  an  end  to 
the  negotiations. 


beginning  igog. 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  95 

OUR  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Alfred  Collyer  be-  Our  relations 
gan  in   1 909,  through  Mr.  Walter  Robbins,  ^^^^  ^^■ 
then  Vice  President  of  the  Wagner  Electric  Manu-  h/J-l„i„l  j^^^\ 
facturing  Company  of  St,  Louis,  whose  products 
Mr.  Collyer  had  been  selling  in  Canada  for  some 
time.  From  then  on,  Mr.  Collyer' s  principal  lines 
were  Wagner  Motors  and  Transformers,  and  San- 
gamo  meters,  as  I  have  mentioned. 

Soon  after  the  war,  competition  of  Canadian  made 
transformers  decreased  Mr.  Collyer's  business  in 
Wagner  transformers,  all  of  which  were  imported 
from  St.  Louis,  and  later,  as  small  A.C.  motors  were 
produced  in  Canada  and  offered  at  lower  prices,  his 
motor  business,  too,  was  adversely  affected,  so,  dur- 
ing the  latter  part  of  193 1  Mr.  Collyer  decided,  with 
Mr.  Lynn  and  me,  that  the  best  interests  of  himself, 
his  sales  organization,  the  Wagner  motor  business, 
and  Sangamo  would  be  served  by  absorbing  his  or- 
ganization into  Sangamo  Company  Limited,  Mr. 
Collyer  continuing  as  Director  and  Vice  President 
of  Canadian  Sangamo,  and  operating  the  Montreal 
offices.  This  change  was  made  on  January  i,  1932, 
and  at  the  same  time,  our  Canadian  Company  en- 
tered into  an  arrangement  with  the  Wagner  Com- 
pany of  St.  Louis,  under  which  it  acquired  exclusive 
rights  for  Canada  to  the  Wagner  motor  business, 
with  right  to  operate  this  business  under  the  Wagner 
Company's  name. 

Soon  thereafter,  part  of  the  old  Lincoln  plant  on 
Stafford  Street,  Toronto,  was  equipped  for  produc- 
tion of  the  smaller  sizes  of  Wagner  singlephase  mo- 


96  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

tors,  and  part  of  the  motor  work  was  done  at  the 
main  plant  on  George  Street,  but,  with  increasing 
motor  business,  an  addition  was  built  at  Stafford 
Street  this  spring,  and  all  motor  manufacturing  is 
now  done  there. 

We  go  into  XN  February,  1932,  Mr.  E.J.  Schulenburg  came  to 
sign  flasher  J_  g^^  ^g  with  reference  to  interesting  ourselves  in 

bliSXTlCSS 

jgr.2  the  manufacture  of  sign  flashers,  in  which  business 
he  had  been  engaged  for  several  years.  As  this 
seemed  to  fit  in  quite  well  with  our  time  switch  busi- 
ness, we  made  an  arrangement  with  Mr.  Schulen- 
burg, under  which  we  started  the  manufacture  of 
flashers  in  a  very  modest  way,  but  through  his  energy 
and  knowledge  of  this  business,  it  soon  increased  to 
a  point  where  a  separate  department  was  required 
for  the  production  of  flashers. 

In  the  few  years  since,  our  Flasher  Department 
has  supplied  a  number  of  intricate  flashers  for  some 
of  the  best  known  and  largest  signs  in  the  United 
States  and  Canada,  especially  in  New  York,  Chi- 
cago, Toronto,  Montreal  and  Cleveland.  This  busi- 
ness, started  only  a  few  years  ago,  has  thus  now  be- 
come an  important  feature  of  Sangamo. 

Herbert  Nehls  TN  May,  1 932,  Mr.  Herbert  Nehls,  who  had  been 

comes  with  "-^  X  a  number  of  years,  Sales  Manager  for  North  and 

Mana  er—  South  America  for  the  well  known  meter  manufac- 

May,  1932.  turing  firm  of  Landis  &  Gyr  of  Switzerland,  came 

with  us  as  Export  Sales  Director.  Soon  thereafter  he 

made  a  long  trip  to  Cuba,  South  America  and  Mex- 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  97 

ico,  followed  by  further  trips  to  Cuba,  Central 
America  and  Mexico,  and  then  again  in  1 935  made 
a  long  trip  to  Europe  and  South  America.  Mr. 
Nehls'  efforts  so  far  have  been  principally  beneficial 
to  our  Canadian  Company,  whose  S-3  meter  has 
been  very  popular  in  the  export  field,  especially  in 
Latin  American  countries,  but  his  activities  now  ex- 
tend in  other  directions,  and  he  has  proved  most 
helpful  to  the  three  Sangamo  companies. 

NINETEEN-THIRTY-TWO  is  a  year  that  we  Effects  of  the 
look  back  on  as  a  nightmare,  for,  with  the  depression.— 
-  r    1        1  •  11  Larse  loss  in 

growmg  force  of  the  depression,  our  sales  that  year 

dropped  below  one  million  dollars,  and,  as  a  result, 
our  net  loss  for  the  year  was  $268,790.00,  a  very 
severe  blow  to  a  company  of  our  size.  Furthermore, 
we  were  distressed  through  the  necessity  of  laying 
off  so  many  of  our  good  employes,  including  many 
who  had  been  with  us  for  years,  and  at  one  time  we 
had  less  than  500  people  at  Springfield,  most  of 
whom,  outside  of  the  offices,  were  working  half  time 
or  less. 

With  1 933  some  improvement  began  and  in  1 934 
we  again  got  slightly  on  the  good  side  of  the  ledger. 

WHEN  the  Century  of  Progress  at  Chicago  was  Our  exhibit. 
planned,  we  were  somewhat  dubious  about  ^^"^"'^  9f 
exhibiting,  after  our  experience  at  Philadelphia  in  Qf^f^'_ 
1926,  but  eventually  we  took  a  well  located  space  jgjj, 
in  the  Electricity  Building  and  had  the  most  attrac- 
tive exhibit  of  the  three  expositions  where  we  have 


98  Forty  Tears  ofSangamo 

shown.  One  principal  feature  of  this  exhibit  was  a 
very  large  type  HC  meter,  all  details  being  faith- 
ful reproductions  of  the  standard  meter,  and 
this  large  meter,  arranged  to  operate  on  various 
loads,  attracted  much  attention  there,  and  similar 
meters,  of  which  we  made  several,  have  been  used 
for  demonstration  purposes  by  several  of  our  large 
customers.  We  also  had  three  large  dioramas  show- 
ing Faraday,  Ferraris  and  Edison,  which  at  the  close 
of  the  exposition  in  1933  were  presented  to  the 
Julius  Rosenwald  museum  at  Jackson  Park,  Chi- 
cago. We  derived  much  satisfaction  from  having  ex- 
hibited at  this  exposition  at  Chicago,  but  as  it  was  of 
little  commercial  value  to  us,  we  did  not  exhibit  the 
second  year. 

The  standard-     AS  a  result  of  requests  from  the  Meter  Commit- 
ized  "A"  and  £\^  ^g^s  of  the  Edison  Association  of  Illuminatinsr 

"iS"'  meter  • 

Companies,  and  of  the  Edison  Electric  Institute,  the 

program —  r-  5  ?    ^ 

^933'  ^^^^  ^'  '^"  ^^t^^  manufacturers.  General  Electric, 
Westinghouse,  Duncan  and  Sangamo,  agreed  early 
in  1933  jointly  to  undertake  a  program  of  standard- 
ization as  to  external  features  of  meters,  including 
arrangements  of  mounting,  sealing,  etc.,  and  as  a 
result  the  so-called  "A  B  C"  program  was  started 
early  in  1 933.  At  the  same  time  the  socket  or  plug-in 
type  meter,  originally  offered  by  the  Westinghouse 
Company  some  years  before,  was  made  a  part  of  the 
general  program,  in  other  words,  two  fundamental 
types  of  external  construction  were  offered,  the  "A" 
or  service  type  meter  with  improved  terminal  facil- 


Forty  Years  ofSangamo  99 

ities,  and  the  "S"  or  socket  type  meter.  This  joint 
program  has  since  been  followed  in  the  United 
States  with  splendid  co-operation  between  the  man- 
ufacturers, and  with  excellent  advice  and  assistance 
from  the  two  Meter  Committees.  Through  this 
standardized  program  the  efficiency  of  metering  in 
the  United  States  has  been  greatly  increased  during 
the  past  two  years. 

IN  July,  1933,  the  electrical  industry  adopted  a  NRACode 
code  under  the  NRA  which  was  in  effect  for  all  f°^  ^^ 
electrical  manufacturers  until  the  NRA  was  declared  ■  ,  , 

industry — 

invalid  in  June,  1935.  We  did  not  find  the  code  July,  1933. 
onerous  except  for  some  inconvenience  in  reducing 
our  normal  hours  of  work  to  40  per  week,  although 
in  principle  we  had  previously  believed,  and  now  be- 
lieve more  than  ever,  that  40  hours  should  not  be 
exceeded  for  normal  operations  of  a  manufacturing 
business  such  as  ours.  With  the  withdrawal  of  the 
code  regulations  in  June,  1935,  we  therefore  con- 
tinued with  these  hours  for  normal  operation  and 
there  has  been  no  bad  effect  up  to  this  time,  in  the 
way  of  unfair  competition  or  other  practices  which 
were  forbidden  under  the  NRA  Code. 

IN  the  fall  of  1933  our  British  Company  made  a  British 
very  important  step  in  prepayment  meters  through  Sangamo 

the  introduction  of  their  three-coin  meter,  the  first  ^1°  ""^^ . 

three-coin 
of  this  type  oiiered  m  England,  and  shortly  there-  prepayment 

after  introduced  a  fixed  charge  collector  as  a  feature  meters— Fall 

of  prepayment  meters,  which  has  also  proved  highly  ^/  ^933-— 


100  Forty  Years  of  Sangamo 

British-  successful.  In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note 
bangamo  ^t^^^  until  very  recently  our  British  Company  was 
lie  company—  the  only  meter  manufacturer  in  England  ofifering  a 
October,  ig^j.  full  line  of  meters,  both  standard  singlephase  and 
prepayment,  with  Bakelite  bases  and  covers,  and  our 
success  in  this  respect  is  principally  due  to  the  in- 
genuity and  ability  of  Mr.  Butherus  in  handling 
Bakelite  for  such  purposes. 

During  the  early  part  of  1935  while  I  was  in  Eng- 
land, we  gave  consideration  to  the  matter  of  chang- 
ing British  Sangamo  into  a  public  company  and  put- 
ting some  of  its  stock  on  the  market.  After  careful 
consideration  of  this  problem,  we  decided  in  August 
to  increase  the  capitalization  to  300,000  shares  of 
common  stock,  wdth  a  par  value  of  10  shillings  each, 
and  to  list  the  stock  on  the  London  Stock  Exchange, 
which  was  done  in  October.  At  the  same  time  a 
large  block  of  the  stock  was  offered  to  the  public 
at  21  shillings  per  share,  which  was  quickly  taken 
up  by  stockholders  in  England  and  Scotland. 
With  this  change,  however,  control  of  British 
Sangamo  remains  with  the  parent  company  at 
Springfield. 

Service  War-  TOURING  the  latter  part  of  1 935  we  heard  of  a 

rant  plan  for  _L/  plan  of  extra  compensation  to  employes  which 

adopted—  ^^^  been  adopted  several  years  before  by  the  Pack- 

December,  age  Machinery  Company  of  Springfield,  Mass.,  and 

1935-  on  investigation  of  their  plan,  our  directors  voted  in 

December  1 935  to  adopt  a  similar  plan,  of  what  we 

term  "service  warrants"  for  all  of  our  employes  at 


Forty  Years  of  Sangamo  i  o  i 

the  Springfield  plant.  Under  this  plan,  after  a  year's 
service,  an  employe  receives  a  warrant  entitling  him 
to  receive  in  cash  the  same  amount  as  paid  to  stock- 
holders on  two  shares  of  common  stock.  With  each 
year  of  service  an  additional  warrant  is  issued,  so 
that  an  employe  with  ten  years  service,  for  example, 
now  receives  under  this  plan  an  amount  in  cash 
equal  to  the  cash  dividend  paid  on  20  shares  of  our 
common  stock.  This  plan  was  announced  the  first  of 
this  year  and  was  very  well  received  by  our  em- 
ployes. 

ON  January  i  st  of  this  year,  our  company  suf-  Death  of 
fered  the  most  severe  blow  since  the  death  of  Scott  Lynn, 

Mr.  Bunn,  when  Scott  Lynn,  President  of  our  Cana-   J^^^  ^"  ^-^ 
'  ^  ^       '  ,  oangamo 

dian  Company,  died  suddenly  that  evening.  The  Company, 
Canadian  Company  was  so  entirely  his  creation  and  Limited- 
its  present  position  reflects  so  much  his  untiring  and  J^^^^^y  ^•> 
splendid  eff"orts  to  build  it  up,  that  it  will  ever  re- 
main as  a  great  monument  to  Scott.  Fortunately, 
and  looking  forward  as  he  did  in  every  matter, 
Scott  had  developed  a  fine  organization,  so  that  Mr. 
George  W.  Lawrence,  Vice  President,  assumed  the 
duties  of  President  of  the  Canadian  Company  in 
March  of  this  year,  Mr.  W.  S.  Ewens  became  Vice 
President  in  charge  of  sales,  and  Mr.  D.  C.  Patton, 
who  for  many  years  has  been  Secretary  and  Treas- 
urer of  the  Canadian  Company,  continued  in  that 
capacity.  At  the  same  time,  the  Board  of  Directors 
of  the  Company  was  strengthened  by  the  addition 
of  Mr.  George  B.  Foster,  of  Montreal. 


102  Forty  Years  of  Sangamo 

Death  of  TV  /|"R-  OTIS  WHITE,  our  Senior  Vice  President 
Otis  White—  Wx.  for  many  years,  and  to  whom  much  of  the 
^Jj  ^93  ■  success  of  Sangamo  is  due,  passed  away  in  May,  1 936, 
after  a  long  and  distressing  illness.  On  account  of 
this  he  had  not  been  actively  engaged  in  his  duties 
with  us  for  several  years,  but  nevertheless  his  going 
brought  a  great  sense  of  loss  to  those  of  us  who  had 
been  associated  with  him  and  especially  to  the 
writer,  after  nearly  40  years  of  the  closest  and  most 
satisfactory  relations  with  Otis.  The  present  high 
quality  of  Sangamo  products  and  the  excellence  of 
many  of  our  designs  are  fundamentally  due  to  Otis 
White,  and  as  the  years  go  by,  Sangamo  will  never 
forget  what  he  did  for  it  from  the  earliest  days  of  the 
company. 

Adoption  oj  TN  June  of  this  year  we  made  a  further  step  in  ap- 
vacation  J_  preciation  of  the  services  of  our  non-salaried  em- 
paypanjor  pj^y^g  ]^y  adopting  a  plan  of  vacation  payments, 
employes—  niade  effective  this  summer.  Under  this  plan  any 
July,  igjS.  non-salaried  employe  with  us  over  three  years  and 
less  than  five,  receives  three  days'  vacation  with  pay, 
those  with  us  over  five  and  up  to  ten,  one  week's 
vacation,   and  those  with  us  over  ten  years,   two 
weeks'  vacation  with  pay.  In  announcing  this  plan, 
which  met  with  highest  appreciation  from  our  em- 
ployes, we  stated  that  should  it  be  necessary  at  any 
time  on  account  of  business  depression  to  withdraw 
the  plan,  such  action  would  apply  to  salaried  as  well 
as  non-salaried  employes. 


Forty  Tears  ofSangamo  103 

FOR  some  time  the  directors  of  Sangamo  have  Retirement 
been  anxious  to  retire  our  preferred  stock,  of  <^f  °^^  P^^f^^^d. 
which  some  7,000  shares  were  still  outstanding  at  the  ^  ^  ' 

beginning  of  1936.  Therefore  this  spring  we  decided 
to  offer  2}4  shares  of  common  stock  in  exchange  for 
each  share  of  preferred  outstanding,  which  offer  was 
accepted  by  a  large  majority  of  our  preferred  stock- 
holders and  the  stock  of  those  who  did  not  accept 
the  exchange,  was  purchased  on  July  i  st  of  this  year 
at  the  call  price  of  $1 10.00  per  share.  As  a  result  of 
this  action  the  capital  stock  of  this  company  now 
consists  of  only  139,000  shares  of  common  stock,  all 
preferred  stock  having  been  retired  and  cancelled, 
and  the  company  has  no  funded  debt. 

Thus,  with  the  company  in  strong  financial  posi- 
tion, with  business  at  the  highest  point  in  our  history, 
with  splendid  relations  between  our  employes  and 
the  company,  with  a  commanding  position  in  the 
fields  in  which  we  sell,  we  can  look  forward  with 
strong  faith  and  hope  to  the  next  forty  years  of  San- 
gamo, which  I  hope  and  believe  will  be  as  eventful, 
interesting  and  successful  as  the  first  forty. 


PART  TWO 
SANGAMO  IN  PEACE  AND  WAR 

BY 
BENJAMIN  P.  THOMAS 


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II 

SANGAMO 

IN  PEACE  AND  WAR 

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FOR  Robert  C.  Lanphier,  the  writing  of  Forty 
Tears  of  Sangamo,  which  is  reprinted  as  the 
first  part  of  this  book,  was  a  labor  of  love, 
undertaken  as  a  personal  memorandum  of  his  ex- 
perience with  Sangamo  and  as  a  means  of  recogniz- 
ing what  others  had  done  in  helping  to  build  the 
company.  Four  hundred  copies  were  printed  and 
distributed,  and  almost  every  copy  bore  his  personal 
inscription  on  its  fly-leaf.  For  several  years,  more- 
over, Mr.  Lanphier  had  been  ill,  and  perhaps  he 
wished  to  be  certain  that  the  history  of  Sangamo, 
as  he  had  known  it,  would  be  available  to  those 
who  would  come  after  him. 

DESPITE   recurring   ill-health,    Mr.    Lanphier  Plant  additions 
remained   active   in  company  afl'airs  almost  ^n  Springfield — 
until  his  death.  During  his  last  years  Sangamo  con-    ^^ 
tinued  to  expand  its  plant  facilities.  A  second  ware- 
house and  a  substantial  addition  to  the  tool  and  die 
shop  were  erected  in  Springfield  and  many  modern 
machines  were  installed.  In  line  with  his  belief  that 
the  growth  and  prosperity  of  the  company  must  de- 

107 


io8        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

pend  largely  upon  research  and  experimental  de- 
velopment, the  space  allocated  to  the  engineering 
department  was  doubled  by  the  addition  of  a  sec- 
ond story  to  the  building  in  which  it  is  housed. 

Acquisition  of  T"N  October,  1 936,  Sangamo  acquired  from  the 
Weston  Electric  J^  Weston  Electrical  Instrument  Corporation  of 
Limtted.  ^^^  Jersey  a  controlling  interest  in  its  English  sub- 
sidiary, Weston  Electrical  Instrument  Company 
Limited.  A  manufacturer  of  ammeters,  voltmeters 
and  other  indicating  instruments,  Weston  had  de- 
veloped a  line  of  products  ideally  suited  to  supple- 
ment the  meter  production  of  British-Sangamo,  and 
to  make  possible  a  considerable  diversification  of 
Sangamo's  English  output.  With  consummation  of 
the  purchase,  manufacture  of  Weston  products  in 
England  was  transferred  to  Sangamo's  Enfield 
plant,  where  new  buildings  were  at  once  put  under 
construction.  Within  a  year  Mr.  Lanphier  was 
enabled  to  announce  with  pride:  "It  can  be  truth- 
fully said  that  British-Sangamo  stands  first  in  its 
field,  in  plant,  in  equipment,  and  in  quality  and 
diversity  of  product." 

British-Sangamo  T  A  7ESTON  had  earned  such  an  enviable  reputa- 
changed  to    y  y  ^-^j^  -^^  ^1^^  electrical  instrument  business  that 
Weston  Tfmited  it  was  thought  desirable  to  retain  the  Weston  name. 
—1938.  Consequently,  the  corporate  title  of  British-Sangamo 
was  changed  to  Sangamo  Weston  Limited.  The  fol- 
lowing year  Sangamo  acquired  full  ownership  and 
at  the  same  time  negotiated  a  reciprocal  engineering 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         109 

agreement  with  the  Weston  Electrical  Instrument 
Corporation  of  America. 

SANGAMO' S  Canadian  business  continued    to  Sangamo 
'  expand,  and  in  1937,  sales  of  Sangamo  Com-  Limited 
pany  Limited  passed  the  one  million  mark.  Such  P^^^P^^' 
rapid    development    brought    need    of   additional 
working  capital,  so  the  Canadian  affiliate  sold  the 
parent  company  10,000  shares  of  its  common  stock 
at  a  price  of  ten  dollars  a  share. 

SOON  after  this,   Sangamo   Electric    Company  Sangamo  splits 
'  split  its  own  stock  two  shares  for  one,  so  that  it  ^^^  stock- 
now  had  300,000  shares  of  no-par-value  common         ' 
stock  authorized  with  278,000  shares  outstanding. 
As  a  further  indication  of  the  company's  growth, 
employment  reached  a  new  high  of  1,475. 

ORGANIZED  in  1 869,  the  Illinois  Watch  Com-  Purchase  of  the 
pany   had    progressed   from   beginnings   not  ^atck  Company 

much  more  auspicious  than  those  of  Sansramo  to  a    "^   ^"^•^— 

.  June,  IQ37. 

position   as   a   leader   in  fine   watch   manufacture 

whose   timepieces  were   esteemed   throughout   the 

world.  Sangamo,  from  the  time  of  its  inception,  had 

enjoyed  the  most  cordial  relations  with  the  Watch 

Company.   It  was  Jacob  Bunn,   president  of  the 

Watch  Company,  who  sponsored  and  encouraged 

Mr.  Lanphier's  original  experiments  with  the  Gut- 

mann  meter,  and  who,  upon  the  organization  of 

Sangamo,  became  its  president,  while  at  the  same 

time  continuing  as  head  of  the  older  company.  The 


1 10        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

Watch  Factory  had  attracted  skilled  craftsmen  to 
Springfield,  and  it  was  from  the  Watch  Company 
personnel  that  Sangamo,  with  the  generous  coopera- 
tion of  the  Watch  Company  officials,  was  able  to 
recruit  the  key  men  of  its  original  working  force. 
For  the  first  three  years  of  its  corporate  existence, 
Sangamo  operated  in  the  Watch  Factory,  where  it 
was  known  as  "the  meter  department."  The  Watch 
Company  built  Sangamo's  first  building  for  it;  and 
throughout  the  junior  company's  developmental 
years  it  could  always  turn  to  the  officials  of  the  older 
company  for  guidance  and  help. 

In  March,  1928,  the  Illinois  Watch  Company 
was  purchased  by  the  Hamilton  Watch  Company, 
which  operated  it  as  a  division  in  Springfield.  Dur- 
ing the  depression  of  the  'thirties,  Hamilton  discon- 
tinued its  Springfield  operations,  and  in  1937  offered 
to  sell  its  Springfield  property  to  Sangamo.  The 
proposition  was  attractive  from  a  long-range  point 
of  view  and  a  deal  was  consummated;  and  since 
Sangamo  had  no  immediate  need  of  the  buildings 
it  rented  space  in  them  to  small  manufacturing  con- 
cerns as  a  means  of  encouraging  industrial  develop- 
ment in  Springfield. 

The  tachograph  TOURING  this  year,  Mr.  Lanphier  learned  of  a 
—1937-  X^  new  device  which  had  been  developed  in 
Germany.  Known  as  a  tachograph,  it  was  an  instru- 
ment designed  to  reveal  the  complete  performance 
record  of  a  truck — the  distance  traveled,  its  speed 
at  all  times,  the  number  and  duration  of  its  stops — 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         1 1 1 

by  means  of  a  graph  drawn  upon  a  circular  chart. 
In  an  effort  to  diversify  the  company's  products, 
Mr.  Lanphier  obtained  the  manufacturing  rights, 
imported  six  or  seven  of  the  instruments  for  experi- 
mental purposes,  and  installed  them  in  trucks.  Re- 
sults were  promising,  some  refinements  were  worked 
out,  and  Sangamo  decided  to  tool  up  for  the  pro- 
duction of  about  500  tachographs.  Further  improve- 
ments have  since  been  made  and  the  instrument  is 
now  one  of  the  company's  standard  products. 

EVER  mindful  of  the  welfare  of  its  workers,  in 
I  1 936  Sangamo  instituted  a  plan  of  paying  Employee  Re- 
Christmas  bonuses  when  business  conditions  per-  l^^tions—igsG- 
mitted,  a  practice  which  it  is  pleased  to  have  been  p"^  '  p, 
able  to  continue  ever  since.  Early  to  acknowledge 
the  validity  of  the  principle  of  collective  bargaining, 
in  June,  1937,  it  recognized  the  Selco  Employees 
Association  as  the  bargaining  agency  of  its  workers 
with  respect  to  wages  and  working  conditions.  In 
the  summer  of  1 938,  the  company  discontinued  the 
Service  Warrant  Plan,  introduced  in  1 935,  in  favor 
of  a  contributory  Pension  Plan  set  up  through  an 
arrangement  with  the  Travelers  Insurance  Com- 
pany. Based  upon  sound  principles  of  annuity  in- 
surance, it  provided  for  50-50  contributions  by  the 
company  and  employees  and  for  automatic  retire- 
ment at  age  65. 


1 1 2         Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

Death  of  Robert  '  I  ^HIS,  then,  was  Sangamo's  position  at  Mr. 
C.  Lanphier.  J_  Lanphier's  death,  which  came  on  January  29, 
1939.  His  passing  marked  the  end  of  an  era  for  San- 
gamo, for  he  was  the  last  of  that  illustrious  trio  of 
Bunn,  Lanphier  and  White,  who  had  so  ably  guided 
the  company  during  its  difficult  years.  The  brain 
and  heart  of  the  company  since  he  succeeded  Jacob 
Bunn  as  president  upon  the  latter's  death  in  1926, 
Mr.  Lanphier  had  followed  in  the  traditions  of  Mr. 
Bunn's  organizational  and  managerial  genius  to 
demonstrate  in  abundant  measure  the  qualities  es- 
sential to  successful  business  management.  Patient 
and  considerate  toward  his  fellow  officers  and  em- 
ployees, he  had  inspired  devotion  and  respect.  A 
pioneer  in  the  field  of  meter  development,  his  bril- 
liance as  an  inventor  and  technician  was  recognized 
throughout  the  engineering  world.  The  city  of 
Springfield  mourned  his  loss  no  less  than  Sangamo, 
for  he  was  active  in  many  movements  for  civic 
betterment. 

Directors  and  '  I  ^HE  directors  elected  after  Mr.  Lanphier's  death 
Officers— 1939.  X  were  Mrs.  Jacob  Bunn,  Willard  Bunn,  Donald 
S.  Funk,  J.  Henry  Hodde,  Frederick  C.  Holtz,  Mrs. 
Robert  C.  Lanphier,  Herbert  L  Markham,  Robert 
E.  Miller  and  Walter  Robbins.  Donald  S.  Funk, 
who  had  served  as  vice-president  and  general  man- 
ager, was  elected  to  succeed  Mr.  Lanphier  as  presi- 
dent. Re-elected  to  the  offices  they  had  previously 
held  were  Mr.  Holtz,  Charles  G.  Lanphier  and 
Russell    C.    Bennett,    vice-presidents;    George    W. 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         1 1 3 

Good,  treasurer,  and  Mr.  Hodde,  secretary.  Robert 
C.  Lanphier,  Jr.,  who  had  served  for  eight  years  as 
works  manager  and  a  director  of  Sangamo  Weston, 
returned  to  America  to  be  a  vice-president.  Later, 
in  June,  1941,  Charles  R.  Horrell  was  elected  a 
vice-president  in  charge  of  sales.  The  following  year, 
Mr.  Good,  treasurer  for  many  years,  retired  because 
of  ill  health  and  was  succeeded  by  Charles  H. 
Lanphier. 

THE  Lincoln  Meter  Company,  since  its  organi-  Absorption  of  the 
zation  in  1928,  had  been  operated  as  a  separate  ^^^^^^^  M^iJ^r 
corporation,    although   its   product   was   manufac-  jJ^^'^ 
tured  at  the  Sangamo  plant  with  Sangamo  equip- 
ment. Inasmuch  as  the  Lincoln  stock  was  largely 
owned  by  Sangamo,  it  was  thought  desirable,  from 
the  standpoint  of  efficiency  and  economy,  to  merge 
the  two  concerns.  Negotiations  with  the  minority 
stockholders  of  the  Lincoln  company  were  begun  at 
once  and  within  a  year  the  company  was  taken  over 
by  Sangamo  and  liquidated. 

FOR  thirty  years,  Sangamo's  type  H  meter  had  The  new  type  J 
proved  its  all-round  excellence,  not  only  by  per-  meter— ig4o. 
formance,  but  also  by  demonstrating  its  adaptabil- 
ity to  all  the  demands  imposed  by  technological  ad- 
vancement in  a  highly  competitive  field.  Modified 
first  to  compensate  for  overload,  then  for  variation 
in  temperature,  and  finally  to  conform  to  standard- 
ization of  electrical  connections,  it  was  truly  a  qual- 
ity product.  Due  to  the  many  changes  it  had  under- 


114        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

gone,  however,  Mr.  Lanphier  and  Mr.  Holtz  had 
recognized  for  some  time  the  need  for  a  new  meter 
and  had  begun  experimental  developments  as  early 
as  1935.  Consequently,  a  new  alternating  current, 
singlephase,  watthour  meter  was  now  ready  for  pro- 
duction. Incorporating  all  the  refinements  of  the  old 
type  H  meter,  whose  manufacture  was  now  discon- 
tinued, the  new  meter,  designated  as  type  J,  was  put 
into  production  in  April  of  1940. 

The  change-over  to  the  new  meter  necessitated 
many  new  departures  in  manufacturing  methods 
with  resultant  training  of  operators  in  new  processes 
and  a  short  period  of  manufacturing  difficulties  such 
as  are  inevitably  involved  in  major  product  changes. 
There  were  no  serious  complications,  however,  and 
the  new  meter  soon  established  a  service  record  that 
met  every  expectation. 

Sangamo  T  A  7HILE  the  foregoing  developments  were  taking 
Weston  feels  the  y  y  place  in  Sangamo,  sullen  thunderheads  of  war 
ejjec  s  oj  war.  ^^.^^^  thickening  over  Europe  as  Adolph  Hitler  re- 
occupied  the  Ruhr  and  brought  Austria  and  Czech- 
oslovakia under  German  subjection.  In  the  summer 
of  1939,  Hitler  massed  77  German  military  divisions 
and  4,000  war  planes  for  a  blitzkrieg  against  Poland; 
and  Great  Britain,  resolved  at  last  that  further  Ger- 
man aggression  could  not  be  tolerated,  was  rearm- 
ing frantically.  As  early  as  1937,  British-Sangamo 
had  received  government  orders  requiring  increased 
production  of  Weston  indicating  instruments  for 
aircraft  and  other  military  apparatus,  and  in  Jan- 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         1 1 5 

uary,  1 938,  the  British  company  received  a  contract 
from  the  British  government  to  make  an  improved 
indicator  designed  to  guide  a  pilot  in  making  a  bhnd 
landing  in  fog. 

This  led  to  the  development  of  other  special-pur- 
pose instruments,  and  when  Hitler  struck  at  Poland, 
and  England  declared  war  on  September  3,  1939, 
Sangamo  Weston  already  had  a  considerable  vol- 
ume of  military  business  and  was  prepared  to  take 
on  more.  At  the  September  meeting  of  the  board  of 
directors  of  the  parent  company  President  Funk 
read  a  telegram  from  Sumner  B.  Rogers,  managing 
director  in  England,  saying  that  "they  had  so 
many  things  to  do  that  they  did  not  know  which 
proposition  to  tackle  first."  The  acquisition  of 
Weston  Electrical  Instrument  Limited  proved  to 
have  been  fortunate,  as  the  company  now  discon- 
tinued the  production  of  watthour  meters  and  de- 
voted itself  entirely  to  the  manufacture  of  electrical 
instruments  and  accessory  equipment,  particularly 
for  the  Royal  Air  Force. 

The  situation  of  the  British  plant  in  the  heavily 
industrialized  Enfield  district,  in  North  London,  put 
it  under  hazard  of  enemy  bombing  raids  and  ren- 
dered precautionary  measures  obligatory.  Air  raid 
shelters  were  provided  for  all  employees  and  the 
plant  was  heavily  camoufiaged.  Sangamo 

Company 

CANADIAN  manufacturers  also  went  on  a  war  f ^^^^^^  ^^- 
p       .  1    o  /^  T  •      •      1  barks  on  war 

lootmg,  and  bangamo  Company  Limited,  at  i^ork—iQ'^Q- 

Toronto,    began   production   for  military  require-  ig^o. 


Springfield 
1939 


116         Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

ments.  It  continued  to  manufacture  a  limited 
quantity  of  meters,  especially  for  export,  but  more 
important  was  the  production  of  Wagner  motors  for 
military  and  machine  tool  purposes,  pneumatic  fit- 
tings and  gauges  for  aircraft  controls,  and  radio- 
sondes, a  device  for  recording  temperature,  humid- 
ity and  barometric  pressure,  which  was  installed  in 
balloons  sent  aloft  for  weather  predictions. 

Further  ex-  TV  yTEANWHILE,  the  only  impact  of  war  upon  the 
^^"^''/j^^  -LVX  parent  company  in  the  United  States  was  a 
substantially  increased  meter  business  as  public 
utility  companies  laid  in  reserve  stocks  of  meters  and 
other  essential  devices  and  materials  in  anticipation 
of  possible  later  shortages.  The  directors  were  con- 
cerned with  the  problems  the  European  war  was 
posing,  but  none  of  the  difficulties  had  become  criti- 
cal as  yet.  A  new,  single-story  building,  200  by  145 
feet,  with  a  saw-tooth  roof,  was  constructed  at  the 
Springfield  plant  to  permit  the  more  economical 
processing  of  raw  materials  which  were  formerly 
passed  back  and  forth  between  fabricating  depart- 
ments on  different  levels.  The  new  building  also 
released  space  to  provide  more  suitable  accommoda- 
tions for  the  administrative  offices. 

War  threatens  TN  the  spring  of  1 940,  the  dangers  inherent  in  the 
the  United  J[_  European  situation  were  brought  home  to  Amer- 

a  es—  pnng  -^^^^g  ^^  Hitler  ended  the  quiescent  period,  known 
as  the  "phony"  war,  by  overrunning  Norway 
and  Denmark,  and  pushing  with  lightning  speed 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         117 

through  Holland  and  Belgium  to  turn  the  Maginot 
Line.  By  the  end  of  June,  France  was  prostrate,  and 
the  British  Expeditionary  Force  had  barely  escaped 
annihilation  at  Dunkirk.  With  Hitler  firmly  estab- 
lished on  Europe's  Atlantic  coast  and  apparently 
preparing  for  the  final  stroke  at  England,  the 
United  States  was  taking  belated  and  urgent  meas- 
ures for  national  defense.  Manufacturers  were 
alerted  and  urged  to  find  a  place  for  themselves  in 
the  defense  program. 

UNTIL  this  time,  Sangamo,  like  most  other  man-  Sangamo  seeks 
ufacturers  of  peacetime  products,  while  willing  ^  P^^^^  ^"  ^^^ 
to  cooperate  with  the  government,  had  not  been  y^^^  P^°S'^^^ 
eager  for  war  business.  Now,  however,  the  manage- 
ment realized  the  necessity  of  helping  in  the  fullest 
measure  possible.  Officials  of  the  company  made 
contacts  with  such  agencies  as  the  Chicago  Signal 
Corps  Procurement  Depot,  the  Chicago  office  of 
Army  Ordnance,  Wright  Field,  the  Frankford  Ar- 
senal at  Philadelphia,  the  Springfield  Arsenal  and 
the  Washington  Navy  Yard.  Manufacturers  in  the 
East  and  Middle  West  who  already  had  contracts 
for  war  materials  were  corresponded  with  or  visited 
with  a  view  to  possible  subcontracting  arrangements 
which  might  be  adaptable  to  Sangamo's  equip- 
ment and  personnel.  Several  possibilities  were  con- 
sidered, but  for  one  reason  or  another  none  of 
them  materialized.  By  the  year-end,  Sangamo  had 
yet  to  find  a  place  for  itself  in  the  ever  extending 
pattern  of  defense  production.  Even  without  mili- 


1 1 8         Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

tary   business,    however,    sales   of    the    company's 
products  reached  a  record  figure  of  $5,000,000. 

A  new  plant  TT^OR  several  years  the  directors  of  the  parent  com- 
projected  in  JL  p^ny  and  those  of  the  Canadian  subsidiary  had 
recognized  the  inadequacies  of  the  plant  facilities  in 
Canada  and  from  time  to  time  had  considered  the 
feasibility  of  purchasing  a  new  site  and  erecting  a 
modern  plant.  Heretofore,  the  financial  position  of 
the  Canadian  company  and  the  difficulty  of  dispos- 
ing of  the  existing  plants  had  rendered  such  a  move 
impossible.  Now,  under  the  pressure  of  war,  how- 
ever, manufacturing  space  in  Canada  was  at  a  pre- 
mium and  manufacturing  plants  were  readily  sal- 
able. Accordingly,  the  Canadian  directors  author- 
ized the  purchase  of  a  new  site  at  Leaside,  a  suburb 
of  northeast  Toronto,  and  the  erection  of  new  build- 
ings, to  be  followed  by  the  sale  of  the  old  properties. 


Weston  is 
bombed — De- 
cember, ig40 


Sangamo  VT  this  time  the  British  plant  suffered  its  first 
Jr\  damage  from  bombs.  Bomber  attacks  were 
destined  to  continue  almost  to  the  end  of  the  war, 
but  fortunately  no  serious  damage  was  sustained. 
There  was  never  a  direct  hit  on  the  factory,  although 
one  bomb  struck  within  eight  feet  of  the  building, 
blowing  out  the  windows,  and  several  others  ex- 
ploded close  by.  The  only  casualty  occurred  one  day 
when  a  German  bomber  made  a  power  dive  on  the 
plant  with  two  British  Spitfires,  their  machine  guns 
at  full  chatter,  riding  hard  on  his  tail.  A  machine 
gun  bullet  clipped  the  leg  of  an  air  raid  warden  em- 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         1 19 

ployed  by  Sangamo,  thus  giving  him  the  distinction 
of  being  the  first  homeguard  casualty  in  all  England. 

ON  March  3,  1941,  Sangamo  received  its  first  Sangamo' s  first 
military  business  when  it  signed  a  contract  to  ^'^''  contracts— 
convert  a  number  of  fire  control  solenoids  for  the  ^^^^' 
Navy.  This  was  an  extremely  simple  undertaking, 
involving  merely  the  winding  of  new  coils  and  re- 
placement of  the  old  ones  in  the  solenoids.  Later  in 
the  same  month,  Sangamo  received  a  small  order 
from  the  Frankford  Arsenal  at  Philadelphia  for  the 
manufacture  of  Si 6,000  worth  of  parts  for  mechan- 
ical time  fuzes,  a  contract  that  was  to  give  the  com- 
pany no  end  of  trouble.  Not  only  were  the  manu- 
facturing procedures  entirely  novel  to  the  company, 
but  it  now  had  its  first  experience  with  the  rigorous 
specifications  of  the  military  services  and  with  their 
traditional  and  often  inflexible  ways  of  doing  things. 
Thus  Sangamo  embarked  on  war  work — a  modest 
beginning,  to  be  sure.  But  these  diminutive  initiatory 
contracts  were  to  be  followed  soon  by  larger  orders 
requiring  more  involved  techniques. 

AS  the  government  accelerated  the  defense  pro-  The  BC-608 
JTx.  gram,  engineers  from  the  Wright  Field  Signal  contactor— ig4i 
Corps  Depot,  knowing  of  Sangamo's  long  experience 
in  the  manufacture  of  fine  clocks  and  time  switches, 
called  at  the  Springfield  plant  to  inquire  whether 
Sangamo  could  manufacture  a  precision  clock  me- 
chanism for  regulating  the  sending  of  signals  from  a 
plane.  These  signals  were  to  be  picked  up  by  ground 


1 20        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

stations  whose  triangulated  arrangement  enabled 
the  station  operators  to  determine  the  plane's  posi- 
tion. The  mechanism  was  originally  developed  by  the 
Royal  Air  Force,  but  the  U.  S.  Signal  Corps  en- 
visioned certain  improvements  and  asked  Sangamo 
to  make  six  models  on  trial.  These  were  entirely 
satisfactory,  and  resulted  in  the  Signal  Corps'  soon 
placing  a  substantial  order  with  Sangamo  and  au- 
thorizing purchase  of  the  necessary  tools.  New  and 
larger  orders  for  contactors  were  received  from  time 
to  time  and  the  company  continued  to  manufacture 
these  instruments  until  April,  1943. 

Indicating  TJY  now,  the  British  company  was  engulfed  in 
instruments  for  Jj  ^^^  work,  and  at  the  request  of  the  British  Air 
Force  Ministry,  Mr.  Rogers  flew  to  the  United  States  to 
discuss  with  officials  of  Sangamo  and  Weston  Elec- 
trical Instrument  Corporation  the  possibility  of  those 
companies  manufacturing  five  selected  basic  indica- 
ting instruments  for  the  Royal  Air  Force.  The 
purpose  of  Rogers'  trip  was  to  insure  an  uninterrupt- 
ed supply  of  these  essential  devices  in  case  Sangamo 
Weston  should  be  bombed  out  of  production  in 
England,  for  the  Luftwaff'e  was  blasting  London 
unmercifully.  To  assure  continued  production,  such 
tooling  must  be  done  as  would  make  possible  the 
exact  duplication  of  the  English-made  instruments, 
including  English  type  threads  and  other  special  re- 
quirements. A  limited  quantity  of  these  instruments 
was  produced,  but  the  balance  of  the  order  was 
cancelled  when  the  danger  had  passed. 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         121 

ONE  of  the  major  accomplishments  of  the  Cana-  Sangamo 
dian  company  during  the  war  was  the  manu-  Limited  and  the 
facture  of  range  recorders  for  the  British  Admiralty.  ^^^^  ^' 
This  instrument  was  a  dual  purpose  device,  whose 
primary  function  was  to  record  graphically  electrical 
impulses  received  from  echo  ranging  underwater 
sound  equipment  (ASDIC  to  the  British  and  SO- 
NAR to  the  U.S.).  The  recording  was  performed  in 
such  a  manner  that  a  time  range  plot  of  echoes  was 
provided,  the  second  function  of  the  device  being 
to  time,  from  this  record,  the  release  of  the  depth- 
bomb  barrage  in  an  antisubmarine  attack.  The 
Admiralty  had  approached  Sangamo  Limited  early 
in  1 940  on  the  subject  of  making  this  instrument  ^nd 
shortly  thereafter  the  enormous  task  of  converting 
the  drawings  from  British  standards  was  launched. 
It  was  by  far  the  most  complex  manufacturing  task 
ever  attempted  by  Sangamo  Limited  and  the  re- 
design and  tooling  was  completed  with  remarkable 
dispatch.  Instruments  were  in  production  by  the 
spring  of  1941. 

IN  midsummer  of  that  year,  the  United  States  Entry  into  the 
Navy  beffan  negotiations  with  Sangamo  Limited  fi^^^  qfUnder- 
for  the  purchase  01  a  number  01  range  recorders,  apparatus— 
Since  the  Canadian  company  was  already  working  July,  1^41. 
at  the  absolute  limit  of  its  capacity,  it  was  suggested 
by  George  Lawrence,  president  of  Sangamo  Limi- 
ted, that  the  parent  company  approach  the  Navy 
with  the  idea  of  manufacturing  the  U.  S.  require- 
ments in  Springfield.  After  three  days  of  discourag- 


122         Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

ing  search  in  the  labyrinths  of  Washington,  Sangamo 
officials  located  that  section  of  the  Bureau  of  Ships 
concerned  with  recorders,  only  to  be  informed,  how- 
ever, that  the  Navy  intended  to  have  one  of  its  regu- 
lar suppliers  of  underwater  sound  equipment  de- 
sign and  build  a  recorder  superior  to  the  British  de- 
vice. But  just  as  the  door  seemed  about  to  close  on 
Sangamo,  the  watthour  meter  provided  the  neces- 
sary wedge  to  keep  it  open.  A  civilian  technician  in 
the  underwater  sound  section  had  many  years  earlier 
been  an  engineer  employed  by  a  competitive  watt- 
hour  meter  manufacturer.  He  told  the  officer  in 
charge  that  anyone  who  could  make  watthour  me- 
ters as  well  as  Sangamo  could  certainly  make  range 
recorders.  It  was  then  decided  that  Sangamo  should 
produce  at  once  a  model  satisfying  the  U.S.  require- 
ments. A  model,  which  was  fundamentally  the 
British  instrument,  was  quickly  put  together  and 
tested  at  sea  in  late  August.  In  September,  a  con- 
tract for  a  modest  number  of  instruments  was 
granted.  After  Pearl  Harbor,  additional  contracts 
were  awarded  and  eventually  Sangamo  made  many 
thousands  of  these  instruments.  Thus  Sangamo 
Limited's  war  effort  and  the  excellent  reputation 
earned  by  Sangamo's  watthour  meter  led  to  Sanga- 
mo's  entry  into  the  underwater  sound  equipment 
field,  an  activity  in  which  it  has  been  continuously 
engaged  to  the  present  day. 


A 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         1 2  3 

S  a  result  of  the  contact  established  with  the  Development  of 


Navy  in  the  manufacture  of  range  recorders,  ^^^  Attack 
Sangamo  was  asked  to  consider  the  manufacture  Q^-iQigy  jq.j 
of  a  device  that  would  train  the  crew  of  a  destroyer 
in  antisubmarine  operations.  The  Navy  proposed 
that  Sangamo  consider  making  a  "Chinese  copy" 
of  an  equipment  developed  by  the  Royal  Navy,  an 
extremely  complex  apparatus  involving  a  multitude 
of  precision  mechanical  features  which  represented 
a  hopeless  manufacturing  task  so  far  as  Sangamo 
was  concerned.  Again  the  watthour  meter  came  to 
the  rescue;  for,  after  thorough  study,  Sangamo  pro- 
posed to  the  Navy  that  the  basic  design  of  the  equip- 
ment be  based  upon  the  watthour  meter,  inasmuch 
as  that  instrument,  which  had  already  proved  its 
merits  in  so  many  instances,  would  provide  for  the 
necessary  motion  integration  in  a  far  more  efficient 
manner  than  would  the  various  friction  drives  in  the 
British  design.  In  the  device  as  it  was  eventually 
developed  a  "souped  up"  J  meter  element  worked 
fully  as  effectively  as  the  company  engineers  had 
believed  it  would;  and  in  the  further  evolution  of  the 
attack  teacher  more  watthour  meter  elements  were 
introduced  until,  in  the  final  model  of  the  equip- 
ment, a  total  of  twenty  watthour  meter  elements 
were  contributing  to  its  successful  operation. 

BECAUSE  of  the  defense  business  upon  which  it  The  plant  pro- 
was  embarked,  Sangamo  was  required  to  spend  '^^^^^"  system. 
some  $50,000  for  protective  facilities  such  as  wire 
fence,  lights  and  guard  houses  around  the  plant. 


124        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

Uniformed  guards  were  employed,  a  system  of 
badge  identification  of  employees  was  instituted, 
and  evidence  of  American  citizenship,  or  govern- 
ment clearance  in  the  case  of  the  foreign-born,  was 
required  of  all  employees.  This  strict  plant  security 
program  was  maintained  throughout  the  war,  and 
owing  to  the  company's  continued  participation  in 
defense  work  has  remained  in  effect  ever  since. 

A  prosperous  T)Y  December,  1941,  the  management  of  Sanga- 

year—  jj  ^^^  could  look  forward  to  the  conclusion  of  an 

December,  1941. 

extremely  prosperous  year.  The  company  was  not 

only  manufacturing  commercial  products  at  the 
fastest  rate  in  its  history,  but  in  spite  of  disappoint- 
ments and  vicissitudes  was  establishing  itself  in  the 
defense  program.  Eighteen  thousand  square  feet  of 
manufacturing  space  had  been  added  by  the  con- 
struction of  an  addition  to  the  building  completed  in 
1939.  Sales  promised  to  reach  a  new  high  of 
$6,000,000  by  the  end  of  the  year. 

War.— A     AND    then  came   suddenly  and    stunningly  the 
Amer-Zfin  ^^^^'  ^^e  Japs  had  attacked  Pearl  Harbor! 

dustry.  In  the  days  that  followed  came  stark  realization  of 
what  lay  ahead.  With  the  U.  S.  Pacific  Fleet  largely 
sunk  or  disabled,  with  vast  quantities  of  shipping 
needed  to  fight  a  war  on  many  fronts  around  the 
globe,  with  huge  stores  of  military  equipment  of 
every  sort  urgently  demanded  to  meet  the  omnivo- 
rous needs  of  the  Army,  the  Navy  and  the  Air  Force, 
which  would  now  expand  as  never  before  in  history. 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         125 

there  would  be  unprecedented  demands  upon 
American  industry  and  upon  the  American  worker. 
Sangamo,  as  well  as  almost  every  other  American 
manufacturer,  must  gear  for  total  war.  For  this  con- 
flict would  not  be  w^on  by  men  alone.  This  was  a  war 
in  which  industrial  production  and  "know-how" 
would  play  a  part  equaling  or  perhaps  surpassing 
that  of  manpower,  a  struggle  in  which  the  brains 
and  manufacturing  capacity  of  American  industry 
would  be  a  means  to  victory. 

By  providing  the  Allied  military  forces  with  more 
and  superior  equipment,  American  industry  could 
save  innumerable  lives  and  hasten  the  day  of  victory. 
But  to  do  this  was  no  simple  undertaking.  The  Axis 
powers  were  off  to  a  formidable  head-start  and  were 
producing  at  full  thrust.  Their  war  plans  had  been 
carefully  matured  over  a  long  period  of  years  and 
their  whole  economy  was  harnessed  for  war.  Despite 
the  acceleration  of  the  last  two  years,  the  United 
States  was  far  behind.  It  must  catch  up  and  go  ahead, 
and  it  must  do  so  quickly  if  at  all. 

PRODUCTION  of  non-essentials  was  curtailed  Industry  gears 
at  once.  Strict  governmental  controls  were  im-  f^^  ^°^°^  war— 
posed  in  order  that  each  manufacturing  unit  might 
be  fitted  into  the  overall  production  scheme,  that 
raw  materials  might  be  allocated  where  they  were 
most  seriously  needed,  and  that  skills  and  manu- 
facturing knowledge  might  be  pooled.  Some  of  in- 
dustry's top  men  took  positions  with  government  to 
help  administer  the  program.  While  the  controls 


1942. 


126         Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

were  often  irksome,  they  were  never  applied  to  the 
point  of  stifling  scientific  or  technological  initiative. 
Working  under  a  cloak  of  censorship,  the  armed 
services  called  upon  industry  to  meet  production 
goals  that  would  have  been  thought  fantastic  in 
time  of  peace.  Lacking  confidence  in  industry  at 
first,  the  procurement  officers  of  the  armed  services 
eventually  abandoned  unnecessary  "spit  and  pol- 
ish," and  brought  their  procurement  policies  into 
closer  conformity  with  practical  manufacturing  pro- 
cedures as  manufacturers  and  workers  demonstrated 
what  they  could  do.  Soon  industry  and  the  military 
services  were  working  as  a  team.  Technological  ad- 
vancement was  phenomenal,  especially  in  the  field 
of  electronics,  where  Sangamo  was  destined  to  make 
its  own  most  significant  contributions  to  the  national 
war  effort. 


First  order  for    TUST  the  day  before  Pearl  Harbor  Sangamo  re- 

submanne  attack     I    reived  its  first  order  for  antisubmarine  attack 

teachers — De-  ,  i        i     -i  i-  i  •      •    i 

cember  6  1041    teachers   to   be   built   accordmg  to   the   prmciples 

worked  out  by  the  company's  own  engineers  in  the 
weeks  since  the  Navy  first  broached  the  project. 
This  apparatus  enabled  a  submarine  detecting  crew 
to  be  trained  on  shore,  so  that  by  the  time  the  men 
were  assigned  to  a  ship  they  knew  how  to  handle  the 
detecting  apparatus  and  to  maneuver  into  position 
to  attack  a  submarine.  Without  the  teacher,  they 
would  have  been  obliged  to  learn  on  shipboard, 
through  long  hours  of  practice  and  with  all  the  ex- 
pense and  tie-up  of  desperately  needed  vessels  in- 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         127 

volved  in  taking  a  surface  ship  as  well  as  one  or  more 
submarines  to  sea  for  practice  maneuvers. 

Sangamo  delivered  its  first  attack  teachers  to  the 
Navy  in  May,  1942.  Their  test  performance  was 
wholly  satisfactory  and  the  Navy  put  them  into  use 
at  once.  They  were  the  first  product  involving  com- 
plicated electronics  ever  to  be  manufactured  by 
Sangamo.  The  company  was  justly  proud  of  them, 
and  especially  of  its  contribution  to  their  design. 
Many  more  of  these  teachers  were  manufactured 
throughout  the  war,  and  as  a  result  of  their  success 
the  Navy  turned  again  and  again  to  Sangamo  for 
help  in  developing  and  manufacturing  other  elec- 
tronic devices. 


s 


IX  days  after  Pearl  Harbor,  Sangamo  was  re-  Subcontractor 
quested  to  make  a  self-synchronous  motor  or  J°^  manufacture 
synchro  as  manufactured  by  the  Kollsman  Instru-  instruments— 
ment  Division  of  the  Square  D  Company.  Subse-  ig^-ig^y. 
quent  discussions  with  Kollsman  revealed  the  prac- 
ticability of  Sangamo's  producing  a  type  of  ex- 
tremely sensitive  aircraft  tachometer,  an  instrument 
for  measuring  the  revolutions  per  minute  of  an  air- 
craft engine  which  enabled  a  pilot  to  regulate  and 
synchronize  engine  speeds.   Kollsman,   as  well  as 
every  other  supplier  of  aircraft  indicating  instru- 
ments,  was  overwhelmed  with  orders  as  the  ex- 
panded aircraft  industry  bent  every  effort  to  meet 
President   Roosevelt's   call   for   the   production   of 
85,000  warplanes  a  year.  Consequently,  as  a  result 
of  its  connection  with  Kollsman,   Sangamo  now 


128        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

undertook  the  manufacture  of  other  Kollsman  prod- 
ucts until  eventually  the  plant  was  turning  out  a 
multiplicity  of  special  aircraft  electrical  units,  among 
them  motors  to  drive  radio  compass  tuning  loops, 
transmitter  and  receiver  radio  compass  indicators, 
and  a  complete  electrical  instrumentation  for  Link 
trainers.  This  work  ran  into  large  volume  through- 
out the  war,  and  Sangamo  continued  to  manufacture 
products  for  Kollsman  until  the  end  of  January,  1 947. 

Total  pro-  T  A  7ITHIN  three  weeks  after  Pearl  Harbor  Sanga- 
ductionJoT  war.  y  y  j-^q  made  its  first  cut  in  watthour  meter  pro- 
duction and  by  September  23,  1942,  it  had  ceased 
producing  commercial  items  altogether.  The  change- 
over to  total  war  production  was  effected  so  effi- 
ciently that  no  employee  lost  a  single  day's  work,  and 
as  Sangamo  swung  into  line  behind  the  national  war 
effort  employment  rose  from  1,550  in  January  to 
2,075  ^^  October.  The  purchase  of  the  old  Watch 
Factory  buildings  now  proved  itself  to  have  been  a 
most  fortunate  move;  for  with  the  increase  in  pro- 
duction and  employment  Sangamo  was  in  pressing 
need  of  manufacturing  space.  Tenants  in  the  old 
buildings  were  requested  to  find  other  accommoda- 
tions, the  whole  plant  was  reconditioned,  and  the 
facilities  for  the  assembly  of  war  products  were 
located  in  the  Watch  Factory  buildings. 

Exp^^ionof  QiNCE  the  beginning  of  the  war,  Sangamo  had 

operations—   ^  experienced  a  steadily  increasing  demand  for 

ig4i-ig43.  capacitors,  inasmuch  as  this  device  is  a  component 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         129 

used  in  a  wide  variety  of  electrical  circuits.  In  its 
simplest  form,  it  consists  of  two  conductors  separated 
by  an  insulating  medium  such  as  mica  or  paper, 
ranging  from  this  through  types  requiring  exacting 
manufacturing  procedures.  Sangamo  had  been 
manufacturing  mica  capacitors  for  almost  eight- 
een years,  although  heretofore  they  had  been  a 
relatively  unimportant  item  in  the  company's  total 
output.  As  early  as  1941,  however,  in  response  to 
requests  from  large  users  of  this  device,  Sangamo 
began  tooling  for  increased  production.  Since  then, 
with  the  urgent  need  for  all  types  of  electronic 
equipment,  the  capacitor  business  had  tremendously 
accelerated,  until  now,  foreseeing  an  even  greater 
demand  from  the  armed  services,  Sangamo  proposed 
to  the  War  Production  Board  that  facilities  be  im- 
mediately expanded.  Nothing  came  of  this  proposal 
in  Washington;  but  the  Chicago  Signal  Corps  Pro- 
curement Office,  aware  of  the  urgency,  approved 
the  necessary  priorities  for  Sangamo  to  install  equip- 
ment for  a  fourfold  increase  in  production,  and  in 
March,  1 942,  the  company  undertook  the  expansion 
with  its  own  capital. 

Within  five  months  the  enormous  demand  for 
mica  capacitors  induced  the  Signal  Corps  and  the 
War  Production  Board  to  sponsor  a  Defense  Plant 
Corporation  facilities  contract  with  Sangamo,  pro- 
viding a  further  expansion  of  capacitor  production. 
Within  a  little  more  than  a  year,  not  only  was  the 
production  of  mica  capacitors  fifty  times  what  it 
had  been  two  years  before,  with  dollar  volume  great- 


130         Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

er  than  the  entire  sales  of  the  company  prior  to  1 941 , 
but,  at  the  request  of  the  War  Production  Board, 
in  1943  the  company  began  the  manufacture  of 
paper  capacitors,  a  Hne  which  was  continued  in 
production  through  the  balance  of  the  war  and 
further  developed  in  the  postwar  period. 

Subcontractor  '  I  ^HE  demand  for  electrical  indicating  instru- 
for  Weston—  X  ments  such  as  ammeters  and  voltmeters  was 
mmer,  942.  ^^.jj  increasing,  and  there  was  also  some  concern 
that  east  coast  manufacturing  installations  might  be 
bombed.  Accordingly,  the  Weston  Electrical  Instru- 
ment Corporation  was  requested  to  expand  its  facil- 
ities somewhere  west  of  the  Allegheny  Mountains. 
By  reason  of  the  close  relations  subsisting  between 
Sangamo  and  Weston  for  many  years,  Weston  pro- 
posed that  Sangamo  act  as  a  subcontractor  for  the 
manufacture  of  some  of  its  products  so  that  Weston 
might  concentrate  upon  the  manufacture  of  certain 
devices  that  it  alone  was  qualified  to  make.  Conse- 
quently, in  the  summer  of  1 942,  a  facilities  contract, 
sponsored  by  the  Navy,  was  negotiated  in  the 
amount  of  $330,000  to  provide  Sangamo  with  spe- 
cial purpose  tools  and  equipment.  The  arrangement 
contemplated  the  production  of  some  35,000  instru- 
ments per  month,  and  from  the  beginning  of  produc- 
tion in  June,  1943,  until  the  termination  of  the 
arrangement  in  December,  1944,  Sangamo  turned 
out  almost  400,000  of  these  instruments. 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         1 3 1 

EVEN  with  government    sponsorship    and    aid,  Purchase  oj 
I  tools  and  dies  were  difficuk  to  obtain,  so,  in  ^^^^^'^  ^""^ 

order  to  have  a  controlled  supply  of  these  essentials,  1"    , 

Y^  ^  _     '    Company — 

Sangamo  purchased  the  Allied  Tool  and  Machine  August,  ig42. 
Company,  a  Chicago  corporation  employing  skilled 
tool  and  die  makers.  Within  a  year  the  big  job  of 
tooling  was  accomplished,  and  with  an  assured  sup- 
ply of  further  requirements  from  its  own  plant  and 
other  sources,  Sangamo  resold  the  Allied  company 
to  its  former  owners. 

BY  this  time,  the  draft  and  the  insatiable  man-  Loyalty  and 
'  power  demands  of  industry  were  creating  or  ^^^^^  °J 
threatening  labor  shortages  in  many  areas.  In  Sep-  j^q4«-5 
tember,  1942,  Sangamo's  directors  rescinded  their 
ruling  with  respect  to  compulsory  retirement  of  em- 
ployees at  age  65,  inasmuch  as  many  of  the  workers 
who  would  have  been  affected  possessed  irreplace- 
able skills,  and  all  could  be  used  to  advantage  in  the 
stepped-up  production  program.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
while  Sangamo  faced  serious  employment  problems, 
it  experienced  less  trouble  than  did  many  other 
companies  because  it  had  always  employed  a  high 
percentage  of  women  on  light  machine  work  and 
assembly.  Many  manufacturers  were  plagued  by  ab- 
senteeism, but  this  was  never  very  critical  at  Sanga- 
mo. There  was  some  increase,  to  be  sure,  but  it  was 
due  mainly  to  the  fact  that  people  were  working 
long  hours  and  must  take  time  off  for  their  normal 
personal  affairs.  When  the  banks  and  stores  began 
keeping  open  on  certain  nights  each  week,  the  situ- 


132        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

ation  was  eased  at  Sangamo  as  it  was  all  over  the 
country.  The  company  posted  monthly  reports  of 
absenteeism,  male  and  female,  by  departments,  with 
three  percent  marked  as  the  danger  line.  Employees 
responded  loyally,  without  the  rewards  some  com- 
panies found  it  necessary  to  offer,  and  absences 
seldom  reached  the  danger  point. 

Need  for  more  '  I  ^HE  volume  of  war  business  became  so  great 
working  capital  J_  ^-j^^^  ^jj  increase  in  working  capital  became  im- 
—  ugus ,  g4  .  pgj.^^jyg^  2ind  the  directors  authorized  borrowings 
not  to  exceed  $2,000,000  under  Regulation  "V"  of 
the  Federal  Reserve  System.  Later  the  authorization 
was  increased  to  $4,000,000,  a  sum  that  would  have 
seemed  staggering  a  few  years  before;  but  no  more 
than  $2,000,000  was  ever  drawn. 

Manufacture  oj  "OY  the  beginning  of  1 943,  Sangamo  was  working 
many  novel  pro-  Xj  three  shifts  around  the  clock,  and  was  manu- 
ucts—ig43.  f^c^uj-ing  and  developing  products  with  which  it  was 
entirely  unfamiliar  just  a  few  months  before — port- 
able anemometers  to  indicate  wind  speed  and  direc- 
tion for  the  Signal  Corps,  extremely  sensitive  relays 
for  use  in  mines  and  depth  charges  and  a  special 
timing  mechanism  for  Navy  Ordnance,  a  variety  of 
electrical  indicating  instruments  of  one  sort  or 
another.  It  was  an  undertaking  calling  for  the  best  in 
engineering  and  manufacturing  technique,  for  all 
the  instruments  must  be  precise,  and  some  of  them 
must  be  shock  proof  and  impervious  to  quick  changes 
in  temperature,  air  pressure  and  humidity. 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         133 

SO  critical  was  the  need  for  war  materials  of  all  Renegotiation  of 
'  sorts  and  so  novel  were  some  manufacturing  contracts— 

procedures,  that  neither  the  erovernment  nor  the  [^^•^'  ,  -^^^l  *^ 
^  .  ^         ,  tremendous  pro- 

prospective  manufacturer  could  estimate  costs  with  duction. 
any  degree  of  accuracy.  Consequently,  the  govern- 
ment was  protected  by  a  stipulation  of  the  National 
Defense  Appropriation  Act  that  provided  for  exami- 
nation of  the  manufacturer's  records,  with  renego- 
tiation of  contracts  and  recapture  of  profits  in  cases 
where  they  proved  to  be  excessive.  Like  other  com- 
panies, Sangamo  was  subject  to  these  provisions. 
Even  after  renegotiation,  however,  sales  for  1943 
reached  a  new  high  of  over  $11,000,000.  Employ- 
ment was  at  a  wartime  peak  of  3,080.  Three  hundred 
and  fifty  Sangamo  employees  were  now  in  the  armed 
services,  45  of  whom  were  women. 

AT  the  annual  meeting  of  the  stockholders  in  1943,  Increase  in 

ir\,  Sangamo  increased  the  number  of  its  directors  ""^*^''  °J 

from  nine  to  eleven.  Mrs.   Jacob  Bunn  and  Mrs.    ..  ■,  ,^,„ 

^  April,  ig43' 

Robert  C.  Lanphier,  who  had  served  faithfully  since 
replacing  their  husbands  as  directors,  resigned.  Wal- 
ter Robbins  and  Robert  E.  Miller  also  retired  from 
the  board  after  many  years  of  useful  service.  The 
following  were  elected  as  the  new  board:  Herbert  B. 
Bartholf,  George  W.  Bunn,  Jr.,  Jacob  Bunn,  Jr., 
Willard  Bunn,  Donald  S.  Funk,  J.  Henry  Hodde, 
Frederick  C.  Holtz,  Charles  H.  Lanphier,  Robert  C. 
Lanphier,  Jr.,  Herbert  L  Markham  and  Carl  A. 
Sorling. 


meters  resumed 
—1944. 


1 34        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

Manufacture  0/  Xhe  gigantic  expansion  of  manufacturing  facili- 
ties, the  construction  of  military  camps  and  immense 
defense  housing  projects,  added  to  all  the  other  un- 
usual demands  imposed  by  war,  brought  tremen- 
dous increases  in  consumption  of  electric  power.  This 
power  must  be  measured  and  conserved;  and  near 
the  end  of  1 943  the  War  Production  Board  author- 
ized production  of  150,000  singlephase,  watthour 
meters  during  the  next  six  months.  Sangamo's  allot- 
ment, as  one  of  four  manufacturers,  was  40,000.  As  a 
result  of  this  authorization  the  company  resumed  the 
manufacture  of  meters,  although  it  did  so  without 
interference  with  its  war  work. 


Sangamo  designs     AS  American  scientists  and  technicians  sought  to 

new  submarine  £^  develop  ever  more   effective   instruments   of 
detecting  apbara-  1-    ^      kt     •         it.  iti  •        ^ 

tus—iQ44-  ^^^-t  o^^  o*  the  National  Research  Laboratories  de- 

1945-  vised  a  new  system  of  submarine  detection;  and  the 
Navy  chose  Sangamo  to  perfect  the  practical  appli- 
cation of  the  idea.  This  was  the  first  submarine  de- 
tecting apparatus  designed  and  manufactured  en- 
tirely by  Sangamo.  In  the  spring  of  1945  the  first 
unit  was  installed  in  a  destroyer  for  deep-sea  tests  off 
the  Atlantic  coast.  Other  destroyers  were  standing 
by,  and  in  the  course  of  the  tests  one  of  them  picked 
up  a  radio  message  reporting  that  a  freighter  had 
just  been  torpedoed  by  a  submarine  not  very  far  off. 
The  whole  flotilla  steamed  away  in  pursuit,  and  as 
the  ships  approached  the  designated  spot  the  de- 
stroyer carrying  Sangamo's  new  equipment  picked 
up  the  U-boat.  The  raider  was  sunk.  And  inasmuch 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         135 

as  the  incident  occurred  on  the  Saturday  night  be- 
fore V-E  Day,  the  marauder  may  well  have  been  the 
last  U-boat  to  be  destroyed. 

An  amusing  incident  occurred  in  connection  with 
another  test  of  submarine  detecting  equipment  in 
which  Charles  H.  Lanphier  participated  as  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  company.  A  destroyer  and  a  sub- 
marine were  to  work  together  in  the  tests,  and  as  the 
commanders  of  the  respective  vessels  discussed  pro- 
cedures before  leaving  base,  the  sub  commander 
asked  the  destroyer  captain  how  deep  he  should  sub- 
merge. The  captain  suggested  150  feet.  But  the 
Army-Navy  football  game  was  being  played  that 
afternoon  and  the  submarine's  radio  antenna,  at- 
tached to  the  periscope,  submerged  at  55  feet.  The 
skipper  was  reluctant  to  go  below  that  level,  since  to 
do  so  would  cut  off  the  football  broadcast,  so  the  tests 
were  run  off  at  55  feet  until,  late  in  the  afternoon 
when  Army  had  piled  up  a  commanding  lead,  the 
disconsolate  submarine  commander  signalled  that 
he  would  go  down  to  200  feet,  or  even  to  the  bottom, 
if  the  captain  gave  the  word. 


K 


S  Sangamo  developed  more  intricate  apparatus  Training 


for  the  armed  services,  especially  for  the  Navy,  ^^^^^(^p 

.     .  •  •!•  technicians. 

company  engmeers  were  sent  to  various  military 

training  centers  to  supervise  tests  or  to  instruct  the 

service  personnel  in  the  use  of  the  new  equipment. 

The  Navy  also  established  a  training  school  at  the 

plant,  where  the  men  who  were  to  service  and  repair 

the  various  instruments  not  only  attended  classes  but 


136        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

also  studied  every  manufacturing  process  as  the  ap- 
paratus passed  along  the  assembly  lines.  From  twelve 
to  eighteen  of  these  trainees,  under  the  com- 
mand of  a  petty  officer,  were  in  the  plant  most  of  the 
time,  and  as  the  equipment  was  completed  and 
shipped,  these  technicians — radio  men,  mechanics, 
electricians — were  sent  to  Iceland,  North  Africa, 
England,  Australia,  the  Pacific  islands,  as  the  case 
might  be,  right  along  with  the  equipment  they  were 
to  maintain.  The  company  not  only  provided  plant 
men  to  conduct  these  training  courses,  but  in  some 
cases  even  found  lodgings  for  the  trainees.  The  Navy 
required  the  men  to  drill  for  at  least  an  hour  a  day, 
so  the  petty  officer  would  take  them  across  the  street 
from  the  plant  and  put  them  through  exercises  and 
maneuvers,  matters  on  which  he  confessed  he  must 
do  some  brushing  up  himself. 

Burdens  im-     A  RMY  and  Navy  inspectors  in  varying  numbers 
posed  by  £-^  were  in  the  plant  throughout  the  war  to  check 

government  t  ^^  r   ^  ^  r 

contracts  ^^  ^^^  quality  01  the  product  at  every  stage  01  manu- 
facture. Bookkeeping  methods  must  be  brought  into 
accord  with  government  accounting  practice;  and 
since  the  company  was  held  strictly  responsible  for 
every  item  of  allocated  material,  it  had  to  work  out 
systems  to  keep  track  of  them  at  every  stage.  Alto- 
gether, there  was  a  prodigious  increase  in  paper 
work. 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         137 

NOTWITHSTANDING    the    tremendous    in-  Comparison  of 
crease  in  volume  of  business  resultinsr  from  the  ^^"-^^^  ^"  ^^^" 

'-'  and  war. 

war,  Sangamo's  profits  actually  declined  due  to  rene- 
gotiation and  excess  profits  taxes.  During  the  war 
years — 1942  through  1945 — sales  after  renegotiation 
averaged  $1 1,053,085  per  year  as  against  $4,837,861 
in  the  four  preceding  years  of  peace.  Yet  profits  for 
the  war  years  averaged  only  $558,887  as  against  an 
average  of  $595,748  in  the  four  preceding  years. 
Thus  the  percentage  of  dollar  volume  retained  by 
the  company  as  profit  not  only  declined  from  an 
average  of  12.31  percent  to  5.06  percent,  but  profits 
also  showed  an  actual  dollar  decrease  averaging 
$36,861  per  year. 

AT  the  beginning  of  1 944,  Sangamo  was  obliged  to  The  Retirement 
l\.  modify  its  Pension  Plan,  with  its  50-50  contri-  -^"^"^^  Plan— 
butions  from  employer  and  employee,  in  order  to  ' 

conform  with  certain  Treasury  Department  rulings. 
Under  the  plan  as  revised,  Sangamo  assumed  the 
payment  of  all  costs  instead  of  requiring  a  contribu- 
tion from  employees  as  heretofore.  To  provide  a 
more  adequate  retirement  income,  the  company  in- 
stituted the  Retirement  Income  Plan,  which  pro- 
vided for  a  supplemental  retirement  wage.  Thus,  at 
retirement,  an  employee  of  fifteen  years  service  now 
receives  an  annual  income  equivalent  to  35  percent 
of  his  last  annual  wage,  his  income  increasing  to  40 
percent  for  thirty  or  more  years  of  service. 


138        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

A  labor  election  OINCE  1 937,  eligible  employees  had  bargained 
—December,  j^  with  the  Sangamo  management  through  the 
1944-  3eico  Employees  Association,  an  independent  union. 
In  December,  1 944,  as  a  result  of  an  election  con- 
ducted by  the  National  Labor  Relations  Board,  em- 
ployees selected  the  Selco  Employees  Association  to 
represent  the  production  and  maintenance  workers, 
the  International  Association  of  Machinists  to  repre- 
sent the  tool  and  die  makers,  and  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor  to  represent  the  steam  plant  em- 
ployees. These  unions  have  continued  to  represent 
their  respective  units,  and  relations  between  man- 
agement and  employees  have  remained  harmonious. 

Discontinuance  /'^N  December  31,1 944,  Sangamo  closed  out  its 

of  the  Weston  \^_J  subcontracting  agreement  with  the   Weston 

su  con  rac  ing  YX^Qtr'icdil  Instrument  Corporation  under  which  the 

agreement.  ^ 

Production  in  Springfield  company  had  manufactured  a  variety  of 

W45-  instruments  of  Weston  design.  That  company,  to- 
gether with  other  regular  instrument  manufacturers, 
could  now  handle  the  whole  volume  of  government 
business  and  Sangamo,  having  helped  meet  the 
emergency,  was  left  free  to  produce  and  develop 
other  military  apparatus.  During  the  following  year 
the  War  Production  Board  substantially  increased 
the  number  of  standard  watthour  meters  to  be  man- 
ufactured to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  public 
utility  companies,  and  by  the  end  of  the  year  Sanga- 
mo was  making  about  half  as  many  meters  as  would 
have  constituted  its  normal  pre-war  output.  These 
meters  were  not  classed  as  civilian  goods,  but  were 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         139 

channelled  through  the  Office  of  War  Utilities. 
Added  to  Sangamo's  other  war  work,  they  taxed  the 
company's  productive  facilities  and  manpower  to 
the  limit.  Again  sales  established  a  new  record, 
$13,500,000  after  renegotiation. 

IN  the  summer  of  1945,  Sangamo  was  tooling  for  Cessation  of 
the  manufacture  of  additional  war  products.  On  ^°^^^^^^^'^- 
August  14,  however,  came  V-J  Day,  and  hostilities 
ceased.  At  that  time  Sangamo  was  manufacturing 
military  apparatus  at  its  maximum  rate. 

AS  early  as  December  5,  1942,  Sangamo  had  Citations  for 
xV  been  awarded  the  Army-Navy  "E"  in  recogni-  excellence.— 
tion  of  its  contribution  to  the  war  effort.  The  follow-  ^"^P^'^f  ^^^- 

ice  record — 
ing  June  it  w^as  aw^arded  its  first  star,  which  was  10^2-1045. 

followed  by  three  similar  awards  at  six  months'  in- 
tervals. Thus  Sangamo  was  one  of  a  few  companies 
to  receive  five  citations  for  excellence;  and  in  addi- 
tion it  was  cited  for  excellence  in  plant  security,  and 
by  the  Navy's  Bureau  of  Ships  and  Bureau  of  Ord- 
nance for  extraordinary  engineering  and  manufac- 
turing contributions.  Sangamo  Weston  received  the 
British  Empire  Medal  for  its  war  service,  the  award 
being  made  by  King  George  VI  in  person.  At  the 
conclusion  of  hostilities  the  armed  services  had 
claimed  490  of  Sangamo's  employees,  60  of  them 
women.  Twelve  gold  stars  were  conspicuous  on  the 
company's  service  flag,  and  the  names  of  those  who 
died  were  inscribed  on  a  memorial  erected  on  the 
company  grounds  in  1 948. 


140         Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

Problems  of  IVT^^'  with  the  war  ended,  came  immediate  can- 
reconversion  X.  \  cellation  of  miUtary  orders  and  the  problems 
^945-  q£  reconversion  to  a  peacetime  basis  of  operations. 
The  company  was  fortunate  in  having  been  permit- 
ted to  resume  production  of  meters  during  the  last 
two  years,  for  this  business  could  now  be  continued 
and  expanded  while  other  production  facilities  were 
changing  over  for  manufacture  of  normal  lines. 
There  was  a  heavy  backlog  of  meter  business  and 
demand  for  capacitors  far  exceeded  what  it  had  been 
before  the  war.  Time  switches  and  tachographs  were 
also  in  demand  and  some  Navy  contracts  were  con- 
tinued. Major  problems  confronting  the  company 
were  the  procurement  of  raw  materials,  many  of 
which  were  in  short  supply  by  reason  of  nation-wide 
strikes,  and  price  ceilings,  which  were  too  often 
maintained  rigidly  despite  increased  costs  due  to 
wage  and  raw  material  price  increases. 

Adjustment  to  "OECAUSE  of  these  and  other  reconversion  diffi- 
peacetime  pro-  J3  culties  the  Company  was  obliged,  soon  after 
uc  ion—ig4  .  y_j  j)^y^  ^q  j^y  ^ff  about  500  of  its  2,664  employees. 
Many  of  these,  however,  were  women  who  had  been 
working  only  as  a  war  measure;  and  before  long 
employment  was  again  on  the  increase.  Some  price 
relief  was  granted  on  capacitors  almost  immediately, 
and  further  adjustments  came  throughout  the  year. 
Even  so,  Sangamo,  like  industry  in  general,  was  in 
almost  constant  negotiation  with  the  Office  of  Price 
Administration  as  government  tried  to  combat  in- 
flation and  industry  sought  relief  from  controls  un- 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         141 

der   which   it   was   difficult    if  not   impossible    to 
operate. 

AS  the  employment  situation  eased,  Sangamo  re-  Changes  in  execu- 
Jr\  instituted  compulsory  retirement  at  age  65.  t^^e personnel— 
Under  this  rule,  J.  H.  Hodde  resigned  as  secretary  "^^ 
after  more  than  forty  years  of  loyal  service.  Mr. 
Hodde  continued  as  a  director  of  the  company  for 
two  more  years  when  he  was  succeeded  on  the  board 
by  Russell  C.  Bennett.  Two  other  executive  vacan- 
cies were  occasioned  in  1 946  by  the  death  of  Charles 
R.  Horrell,  vice-president  and  sales  manager,  who 
had  been  with  the  company  for  27  years,  and  the  re- 
tirement of  Charles  Coin  Lanphier,  another  vice- 
president  with  a  long  and  active  record.  These  losses 
necessitated  reorganization  of  the  company's  exe- 
cutive personnel,  and  Charles  H.  Lanphier  was 
elected  a  vice-president,  while  Cecil  L.  Clark  be- 
came secretary- treasurer. 

AS  the  company  entered  upon  its  first  full  year  of  Plant  additions 
Jr\.  peacetime  operations  the  chief  problem  was  ^^  Springfield— 
production  rather  than  sales,  and  it  soon  became 
apparent  that  additional  manufacturing  space  would 
be  needed  to  meet  the  pent-up  demand  for  commer- 
cial products  that  had  been  in  short  supply  for  four 
years.  Demand  for  singlephase  watthour  meters,  for 
example,  mounted  steadily,  with  sales  eventually 
reaching  two  and  one-half  times  the  highest  pre-war 
figure.  Polyphase  meters,  demand  meters  and  ther- 
mal meters  could  be  sold  as  fast  as  they  could  be 


142        Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War 

made,  and  demand  for  capacitors  had  been  tremen- 
dously increased  by  wartime  developments. 

To  meet  the  need  for  additional  space,  it  was  de- 
cided to  connect  the  Sangamo  buildings  with  the 
Watch  Factory  structures  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
link  the  whole  layout  together  as  an  efficient  manu- 
facturing unit.  To  do  this,  two  new  buildings  were 
constructed,  one  designed  to  house  the  painting  and 
plating  department,  and  the  other  for  the  shipping 
department.  Altogether,  30,000  square  feet  of  manu- 
facturing space  were  added  with  concomitant  pro- 
motion of  efficiency.  A  new  Quonset  warehouse  pro- 
vided an  additional  10,000  square  feet  of  storage 
space. 

An  increase  in  '  I  ^HE  cost  of  the  new  buildings  together  with  re- 

outstanding     _£_  habilitation  of  the  boiler  room  and  necessary 
common  stock —  .      ^     _^,      t.t  ^  ^    t^      .         1     -i  i- 

g   repairs  to  the  Watch  r  actory  buildmgs  was  m  excess 

of  $250,000,  and  was  financed  in  large  part  by  the 

sale  of  8,000  shares  of  unissued  common  stock,  thus 

making  286,000  shares  of  common  stock  outstanding. 

The  capacitor  TJ^  VEN  with  this  increased  capacity  the  company 
division  moves  to  _|_J  was  pressed  for  space,  and  there  were  also  fore- 
Decemb^l'il^.  bodings  of  an  impending  labor  shortage  in  Spring- 
field. After  a  temporary  dip,  employment  had  now 
risen  to  2,400.  All  returned  veterans — some  300  to 
date — had  been  placed,  and  the  company  was  ex- 
periencing increasing  difficulty  in  filling  its  employ- 
ment needs.  Accordingly,  the  company  officials  made 
investigations  of  buildings  immediately  available  in 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         143 

other  cities  and  finally  decided  to  lease  space  at  the 
former  Illinois  Ordnance  Plant  from  the  War  Assets 
Administration.  Located  in  southern  Illinois  about 
equi-distant  from  Marion,  Herrin  and  Carbondale, 
the  proposed  new  plant  was  in  an  area  well  adapted 
to  manufacturing  enterprises  and  affording  an  ample 
labor  supply.  A  five-year  lease  was  signed,  buildings 
were  reconditioned  and  equipped,  and  by  late  De- 
cember, 1 946,  the  company's  entire  capacitor  opera- 
tions had  been  moved  to  the  new  location. 

IN  January,  1947,  the  company  decided  to  expand  Expansion  at 
its  activities  in  the  capacitor  field  still  further  by  ^(^^^on—ig47. 
producing  electrolytic  capacitors.  Engineers  were 
employed  to  design  the  equipment  and  product  and 
50,000  additional  square  feet  were  rented  from  the 
government,  bringing  the  total  capacity  of  the  Mar- 
ion plant  to  1 1 0,000  square  feet. 

THE  year  1 947  was  the  best  in  Sangamo' s  history  Sales  turn  up- 
up  to  that  time,  with  sales,  which  had  dropped  ward.— New 
to  a  postwar  low  of  $9,904,000,  now  climbing  back  \  ^^     i  ^_^^ 
to  a  new  record  of  $16,573,000.  In  Canada,  Sanga-  jg^y^ 
mo  Limited,  which  was  now  operating  in  a  modern, 
one-story  factory  in  the  northeast  part  of  Toronto 
that  had  been  completed  during  the  war,  was  pro- 
gressing so  well  that  a  new  unit  was  purchased  in  the 
town  of  Newmarket,  thirty  miles  north  of  Toronto, 
for  the  manufacture  of  mica  and  paper  capacitors, 
radiosondes  and  certain  other  products  which  sup- 
plemented the  output  of  the  main  factory. 


144         Safigamo  in  Peace  and  War 

PoshcaT  position  O.\NGAAI0  WESTON,  which,  besides  experi- 
of  Sangamo  \^  encing  labor  and  raw  material  problems,  was 
confronted  with  the  threat  of  nationalization  of  the 
British  utility'  industry,  had  overcome  the  difficulties 
of  reconversion  and  would  soon  be  turning  out 
meters,  time  switches  and  other  insu'uments  in  ex- 
cess of  its  pre-\var  rate.  The  British  government,  in 
accordance  with  its  program  of  encouraging  exports 
in  order  to  supply  itself  with  foreign  exchange,  was 
allocating  materials  to  the  company  for  volume  pro- 
duction of  meters  for  export  to  South  .\frica  and 
South  America. 

Introduction  of  O.\XG-\M0  made  substantial  outlays  for  machin- 
type  H  motor  ^  ^^.^   equipment   and   plant  rearrangement  in 
switch,  IQ4--  o^^^^  ^°  modernize  thoroughly  its  Springfield  plant. 
ig^.  New  commercial  products  were  at  a  minimum  in 
this  period  due  to  the  complete  preoccupation  of  the 
engineering  staff  through  the  war  years  with  mil- 
itary designs.  The  t\'pe  H  low  sp)eed  hysteresis  motor 
was  introduced,  and  incorporated  into  the  complete 
time  switch  line,  singlephase  and  polyphase  demand 
attachments,  and  the  combination  time  switch  watt- 
hour  meter.  Additionally,  the  ne\v  low-price  small- 
size  t\'pe  S  time  switch  was  introduced  to  the  market 
and  a  new  txpe  of  instrument  transformer  with  im- 
proved impulse  insuladon  was  announced. 

Sales  soar  'o  T  A  7HILE  introducing  these  new  items  in  the  com- 

all-tirm  high—     y  y  j^-^gj-cial  field,  the  company  also  received  new 

conft-acts  from  the  Na\y  for  both  development  and 


Sangamo  in  Peace  and  War         145 

manufacture  of  equipment  which  had  been  under 
experimental  development  by  the  company  during 
the  war.  In  1948,  sales  from  the  Springfield  plant 
soared  to  a  new  all-time  record  of  521,139,000,  and 
the  number  of  employees  increased  to  2,732  of  whom 
440  were  members  of  the  Fifteen  Year  Club.  Capac- 
itor sales,  which  had  amounted  to  Si 23,968  in  the 
last  year  before  the  war,  were  now  $1,255,000. 

Thus  Sangamo  enters  upon  its  fiftieth  year  of 
corporate  existence,  housed  in  modern  quarters 
equipped  with  up-to-date  machinery.  Its  finances 
are  sound.  Its  workers  are  well  paid  and  well  pro- 
vided for  under  a  liberal  retirement  plan.  Proud  of 
its  history,  grateful  for  the  loyalty  and  efficiency  of 
its  technological  staff  and  working  personnel,  ready 
to  assume  its  full  measure  of  responsibility  in  peace 
or  war,  Sangamo  faces  the  challenge  of  the  future. 


PRINTED  BY 

R.R.  DONNELLEY  &  SONS  COMPANY 

CHICAGO 

AND  CRAWFORDSVILLE,  INDIANA