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A Small Beginning (1830) |
Ichabod Washburn first partnered with William H. Howard in 1819 to build machinery for manufacturing woolen textiles and lead pipe only to buy out William’s share one year later. By 1822, due to rising demand for woolen machinery, Washburn partnered with Benjamin Godard to create the firm Washburn & Goddard.
Benjamin Goddard was born on May 5th 1791 in Royalston, MA. Growing up young Benjamin helped his father who was a farmer and tanner as well as nurturing his own mechanical talent. He left the family homestead in 1812 in an attempt to become successful independently of his family; first he worked on a farm, and afterwards in the Millbury Armory learning to be a machinist. In 1822 he partners with Ichabod Washburn to create the firm Washburn & Goddard.
In the year 1831, Ichabod Washburn started to create iron wire. At the time iron wire was not produced in large quantities. On his first eye witness account of a machine that was used to draw wire, he noticed that the machine could only draw out a foot of wire at a time, resetting back to its original position with each pass through. With this method, Washburn noted that a man could not draw more than fifty pounds of wire a day. He then decided to improve upon this process by altering the drawing block of the machine. In doing so the machine would pull out fifteen feet of wire each time, thereby increasing the amount produced exponentially. According to Ichabod Washburn, by improving the drawing block, it would increase production to allow for twenty five hundred pounds of iron wire to be produced each day. However this would not be Washburn’s most successful innovation
By 1834, Washburn moved the machines to the Grove Street facility, what would soon be called the North Works factory. It was created and funded by Stephen Salisbury, a businessman and entrepreneur in the Worcester area. Most of the machinery and production in the factory was engineered by Ichabod Washburn in some way. In his employ was about twenty five workmen to control all of the machines. Having now left the Northville factory, and created a solid foundation in the new area, Washburn and Goddard dissolved their partnership, leaving Goddard with the Northville factory, which would burn down in 1845. |
Expanding The Business (1850) |
After a slow and steady start to wire production in Worcester, an improved manufacturing technology, increasing product demand, and product diversification would fuel the expansion of wire production operations for the next several decades. Starting in 1847 a new use for wire was developed, the telegraph, and would require new production methods to suit its unique needs. To improve quality wire rod billets were purchased from Sweden and then rolled into a more suitable size in Fall River, Troy and Windsor Locks, Ct. To locate the initial rolling processing closer to the Grove St. plant, the land and water rights of the facility on Lake Quinsigamond were purchased gaining room to grow (Washburn 147). This was Philip Moen’s first partnership to be involved with, which was supervised by Henry and Charles Washburn. The partnership at this location dissolved on January 12, 1849, however soon afterwards Philip became a full partner with Ichabod Washburn at the North Works facility.
1850 marked the year that Ichabod Washburn invested into a new the technology of steel wire. It was brought to him by a piano maker, Mr. Chickering, who was interested in the creation of steel wire for his pianos (Cheever 49). Until this time steel wire had only been produced in Webster England for about eighty years prior. Not only was there need for the steel wire created by the music industry, but the textile industry needed it for crinoline, which was being incorporated into the fashion at the time. Crinoline first began production in 1859 and lasted until 1870 when the fashion became less popular. Ichabod Washburn declared that his manufacturing of steel crinoline was the greatest success in his career (Cheever 50). To put into perspective how much of a success manufacturing crinoline was, an order to be processed for the production of skirts called for the Washburn facilities to produce sixty thousand pounds of steel wire, which was over half of what was being produced in the country. Crinoline was produced from cheap cast steel that was continuously tempered and hardened to give it high toughness and elasticity. During the prime of crinoline, consumption reached 1,500 tons annually, the largest single consumption of cast steel in the country for any company at the time (Washburn 151). In Ichabod Washburn’s autobiography, he makes a note that three thousand tons of steel wire is required to produce the elegance of a lady’s dress.
The reason Washburn’s wire was successful was because he patented a method for tempering the steel wire that made its strength large and very durable. The patent called for the wire to be passed along a heated tube until it became red hot (Cheever 50). The heated wire then gets treated through a dip in a cold acid bath to get rid of any impurities. To attest to the strength of the wire, experiments conducted that the wire could withstand weights consisting of at least two thousand pounds without breaking. Ichabod Washburn also developed an improved annealing process early on in his dealings with wire production. His method involved placing the coils of iron to be annealed in double air tight iron pots and then applying the heat of annealing, while this added time to the annealing process, it also gave the iron coils a very even heat treatment and prevented the accelerated oxidation of iron that occurs at elevated temperatures this made his wire a superior product compared to the competition (Washburn 148).
1865 marked the first year of the continuous hardening and tempering process, which allowed for faster and less expensive production of wire. In 1860 Ichabod introduced continuous annealing, cleaning and galvanizing processes, greatly increasing the capacity of production for telegraph wire. By 1863 the demand for cotton coatings for crinoline grew so large that Washburn & Moen constructed their own cotton-mill which fulfilled their needs until 1873 when crinoline production slowed. The fall of 1869 marked a landmark development in wire production when the first continuous mill in America was erected at the Grove St. facilities (Washburn 151). With a now fully continuous
As early as 1867, Washburn & Moen Company was involved in recycling scrap iron into their low grade wire product. Billets measured 1.125” square and 8 to 12 ft in length, low grade were manufactured at the Quinsigamond facilities. To produce the low grade iron billets scrap iron was sheared into pieces 8” square and stacked 18” tall. The stack was then heated in a furnace until it was of sufficient temperature to weld the pieces of scrap together. Upon removal the stack of heated iron plates was passed through a series of rollers until the profile measured 1.125” square, at which point the ends were trimmed away. A second round of heating was applied; the iron was then rolled to meet No. 4 wire dimensions and coiled into bundles, weighing 20 to 30 lbs each. This method created frequent billets that contain a certain “looseness of structure” (Warren 20) that would fracture during rolling and added to the scrap pile to be used to create another billet (Warren 21). The technology of the day did not allow for the removal of impurities, even today such purification is only possible by recasting metals. Starting In September 1865 the corporation named Quinsigamond Iron & Wire Works was formed with Philip L. Moen as president, William E Rice as Treasurer and General Manager, and Charles F. Washburn as Secretary. On February 24, 1868 Quinsigamond Iron & Wire Works and Washburn & Moen Wire Works consolidated under a single name, Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company using a capital of $1,000,000 which was later raised to $1,500,000 (Washburn 152). |
A New Market (1874) |
Prior to 1873 wire fencing consisted of single strands of smooth No. 9 wire without any form of spurs and as a result failed often and performed poorly at containing cattle. J.F. Glidden of De Kalb, Illinois first produced barbed wire for use on his own farm in 1873. Making barbed wire by hand was a slow process; three boys and two men could produce 150 lbs in two days. With the addition of horsepower in June 1874 the production of three boys and two men was increases to 150 pounds a day. By 1889 improvements in manufacturing machinery allowed a single man to produce 2,000pounds, or five and a half miles of barbed wire in just ten hours (Washburn 154-155). At the request of Charles F. Washburn, a representative of Washburn & Moen Mfg. Co. was dispatched to De Kalb, Illinois to procure control of barbed wire patents. The most prominent patent pertaining to barbed wire was granted to Glidden on November 24, 1874. The patent mentions “the first time a barb made of wire wrapped about a fence wire, and locked in place by a fellow wire twisted with the first” (Washburn 156) which is still produced today. The biggest obstacle preventing barbed wire from taking farms by storm was public opinion and public education. Upon first glance the public had no idea what barbed wire was used for and doubted that it could stop a charging bull. After a few successful and very public demonstrations, special thanks to a particularly ornery bull named “Old Jim” (Washburn 156), the public was quickly swayed and barbed wire soon became one of Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company’s most popular products. However, with the success of barbed wire spreading, competition also developed and started a long series of wire patent lawsuits concerning barbed wire production and licensing. In December 1880 a US Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled in favor of the Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company and Isaac L. Ellwood, giving them free reign for barbed wire production and licensing to other manufacturers (Washburn 157). |
A Final Merger (1899) |
Copper wire production at the Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company Starting in 1884, and primarily replaced iron wire for telegraph lines and illumination in buildings. The rate at which copper wire production expanded was unprecedented. In 1884 it is estimated that there was just one to two hundred miles of hand crafted copper wire currently in use, and that in just five years time, usage would reach fifty thousand miles, the equivalent of 4,200 tons of metal (Washburn 159).
The 1890’s marked the beginning of specialization of production for Worcester wire factories, among some of the specialties were galvanized steel wire cable, wire nails, springs, all sorts of insulated electrical wire, copper bonds for electric railways, and baling wire. (Washburn 161)
On March 11, 1899 the American Steel & Wire Co. purchased Washburn & Moen Mfg. Co. and was later combined with the United States Steel Corporation. With the goal of decreasing travel expenses the common production lines first created in Worcester, were gradually transferred to geographical locations closer to the customer bases as a result the Worcester factories became the specialized plants. In 1906 Barbed wire production ceased in Worcester and moved to the Pennsylvania Works of the Company. “In no other city in the world are so many different kinds of wire and wire products manufactured as are produced in Worcester by the American Steel & Wire Company” (Washburn 165) The City of Worcester celebrated the 125th year anniversary of wire manufacture within the city in 1956. The festivities allowed two days of celebration, one for the workers and their families and another for the citizens of Worcester to tour the factories. Wire production would continue for another 26 years before shutting ceasing completely, but as the years went by divisions were slowly relocated or shut down. “The failure of the American steel industry to modernize and compete in the new global economy meant a significant loss of manufacturing jobs for Worcester” (Worcester Historical Museum) |