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REPRESENTATIVE COMMUNITY C.

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REPRESENTATIVE COMMUNITY C.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

Description of the community-Industrial history of the community-Industrial significance of the community-Households studied-Members of households for whom detailed information was secured-Employees for whom information was secured [Text Tables 153 to 158 and General Tables 131 and 132].

DESCRIPTION OF THE COMMUNITY.

Community C is situated in the central part of the State of Connecticut and has indirect railroad connection with New York City and Boston. Off the main line of traffic between New York and Boston, inland, and without a supply of water power, the two problems of transportation and power are those which have been most important to its industrial welfare. The community was an agricultural settlement in its very early days and one of the numerous rural communities that marked the inland advance of the New England settlers. It received its present name in the year 1754, and its history reaches back more than a century and a half.

It was already a thriving New England manufacturing community before its population began to be swelled by the influx of persons of foreign birth. Many of its earlier characteristics are still retained, lessening some of the features apt to distinguish a community whose greatest growth has come with the immigrant.

While the early settlers of that part of Connecticut in which this community lies were farmers, the land is not as well adapted to cultivation as it is in other parts of the State. The soil is alluvial with some sand and clay and not a few bowlders.

Not far distant are tobacco farms, and in the nearer vicinity are market gardens and truck farms. But the agricultural interests of the community are of comparatively little importance; its prosperity has come through manufacturing, and farming is not so popular as it was a century and a half ago. The community itself affords a ready market for agricultural products, especially fruits and vegetables. Its extensive hardware manufactures make it a better market for raw iron, sheet metal, and wire. Its own manufactures are marketed principally in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago, where sales branches of some of its principle hardware establishments are located.

The city is now connected with the main line of railroad between New York and Boston by two branch roads and its products are easily transported to the New York and Boston markets. There is an extensive system of freight sidings and laterals connecting the freight station with the main tracks of the railroad; while a number of factories have sidings and laterals for their exclusive use, thus making possible ready shipments from the factories themselves.

Of passenger trains there are between ninety and one hundred arriving and leaving daily. In addition to these transportation facilities, the electric railway lines connect the community with neighboring cities. Inducements to immigration are found in the comparatively stable demand for unskilled factory labor at fair wages, the presence of a large foreign population, among which the Irish, German, Swedish, Polish, Italian, Lithuanian, and Hebrew races are well represented, excellent school and church facilities, and fair housing accommodations at reasonable rents. Practically no obstacles to immigration exist. Transportation facilities from the ports of New York and Boston are good, the fare from both of these places is low, and employment can usually be found for a limited number of able-bodied and fairly intelligent workmen.

INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF THE COMMUNITY.

As early as 1860 Community C was recognized as a thriving industrial city. In that year an article appeared in a local newspaper relative to the manufactures of the community. "This village," the article stated, "has acquired some reputation for its manufactures. Its fabrics are familiar in all the markets of our own country, and exported to some extent to foreign markets." Thus, half a century ago, the community was known for its industrial activity. As expressed in another publication, "A locality aside from any thoroughfare of public travel, whose beginning had no advantage of capital or water power, or any material advantages for the prosecution of business," it had made an entrance into the manufacturing world.

Manufacturing tendencies began to appear in this community as early as the end of the preceding century. It is interesting to note that its earliest manufacturers turned toward hardware, for to-day Community C is known as the "Hardware city" and stands ahead of all the cities in the United States in hardware manufacture. Previous to 1800 one of its citizens had made a few brass buckles, andirons, etc., and sold them to his neighbors. He sent his son, and induced two of his neighbors to send theirs, to Stockbridge, Mass., to learn the trade of brass founder, clock maker, and silver-spoon maker. The result was that two of these young men commenced the manufacture of sleigh bells in the city in the spring of 1800. Of this enterprise, Community C,a Patents and Patentees says, on page 7: "Which business was continued by them and their successors without competition until 1840, and was the leading business of the place until 1830."

The two small shops in which were manufactured sleigh bells, andirons, clocks, spoons, and harness and shoe buckles were, according to the same authority, the first shops for any manufacture designed for a market abroad, and that establishment was the first manufactory in the village and commenced in 1800. The market abroad was found in Boston, Albany, New York, and Philadelphia, to which places the manufactured goods were transported in saddle bags. As early as 1812 three individuals, one a jeweler from another State, began what was called the "plating business." They made wires by plating copper bars with silver and then drawing them into wires,

a Community C is substituted for the real name of the city.

which, like the bars, had a coating of silver and a core or body of copper. From this wire they made rings for men's overcoats, hooks and eyes for women's wear, and curb chains for bridles. This business passed into other hands and was greatly increased in variety and

amount.

It is of interest to note that the manufacture of saddlery hardware is now carried on by a manufacturing company which is partly owned by a descendant of the same family as the early proprietors of the "plating business."

In the year 1835 a partnership was formed by five of the community's citizens for the manufacture of plate locks. This was the beginning of one of the largest of the city's hardware establishments, although it did not assume its present name until 1850, when the hardware business of several small manufacturers of the city was bought, together with a hardware factory in a different State, and combined in one corporation.

In 1842 a partnership was formed by two individuals for the manufacture of furniture casters, cupboard catches, and other small articles. Out of this little establishment grew a hardware and cutlery manufacturing establishment, which was referred to by a local historian as "a firm known to-day (1903), in addition to other lines of hardware, as the largest makers of table cutlery in the world."

In 1842 the manufacture of bolts, hinges, drawer and chest handles, etc., was begun in the community as an individual business. In 1850 a joint-stock company was formed to carry on this industry. To-day this company is one of the largest hardware-manufacturing establishments in the city.

An establishment which has been one of the most important factors in the industrial development of the community had its genesis in 1849, when a farmer lad, who had learned the trade of lock making in the city, formed a partnership with his brother and a skilled brass founder. They began work in a small shop which cost, with the land it was on, about $600. The first venture of the new firm was the manufacture of ox balls, for tipping the horns of cattle. In a few years the business was in the hands of the two brothers alone, and in 1854 the firm was incorporated with a capital of $50,000. In 1879 the manufacture of cabinet locks was begun by the same company. Three years later the cabinet-lock business was sold to a new corporation, organized to develop this branch of the business. In 1875 one of the largest hardware establishments in the city began the manufacture of screws. Two years later the company engaged in the manufacture of ox balls added a screw department to its plant. In 1891 the first company bought a screw factory in another State, and in 1903 all the companies engaged in this industry were merged into one corporation.

That special line of hardware known as carpenters' tools is represented by a large factory, which has branch establishments in other places, one of these branch factories being situated in the Dominion of Canada. The history of this establishment can be traced back to 1850, when a company was formed for the manufacture of boxwood and ivory rules. In 1853 another company was incorporated for the purpose of manufacturing try-squares and levels. In 1855 the box wood company bought the rule business of a firm in another city and removed the works to Community C. Three years later the boxwood

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