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Market Development, Industrial Development: The Case of the American Corset Trade, 1860–1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Bernard Smith
Bernard Smith
Affiliation:
Bernard Smith is assistant professor of economics at Drew University
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Abstract

The clothing trade in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provides examples across the spectrum of industrial organization, and it thus offers an opportunity to compare activities and to account for the adoption of different systems. This article, based on extensive archival research in the records of corset-making companies, shows clearly the relationship between the corset industry's ability to standardize production and the adoption of operations on a larger scale than was possible in other sectors of the women's garment industry.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 65 , Issue 1: Small Business and Its Rivals , Spring 1991 , pp. 91 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1991

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References

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14 “Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper of Industrial Arts, July 12, 1884,” “Century Magazine, June 1882,” “Illustrated Catalogue, 1887,” and “Catalogue, 1892,” Warnaco Scrapbook; Lucien T. Warner, Always Starting Things, 24. See also “Sales Convention of the Warner Brother's Company Held at Bridgeport, Connecticut, December 19–20, 1912,” “D. H. Warner Address to the Sales Convention at 10:00 a.m.,” “Sales Problem Discussion, Friday, December 20, 1912, 10:15 a.m.,” “Address by Mr. D. H. Warner, December 20, 1912, 1.30 p.m.,” “W. W. Gould on Stock Keeping Methods etc., December 19, 1912,” “T. B. McAvoy, Shipping Department, Bridgeport, December 19, 1912,” “Address by Mr. D. H. Warner, December 20, 1912, 1:30 p.m.,” all in Warnaco Scrapbook of the 1912 Sales Convention. This second Warnaco scrapbook is a collection of speeches and lectures presented to the Warner Brothers Company salesmen by the company's top executives and department foremen during a convention held in Bridgeport in December 1912. It is also held by the Bridgeport Public Library.

15 “Warner Brothers Corset Journal Assets and Liabilities, 1880–1895,” Bridgeport Public Library; “Dever Warner Private Ledger, 1911–1915,” Warnaco Collection. The Warnaco Collection refers to a number of account books and ledgers that contain balance sheets, income statements, and other business information on the Warner Brothers firm held at the Bridgeport Public Library.

“Sales Convention of the Warner Brother's Company Held at Bridgeport,” “W. W. Gould on Stock Keeping Methods,” “T. B. McAvoy, Shipping Department.”

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19 It is not suggested here that corset establishments were, on average, nearly as large or as capital- and power-intensive as iron and steel, automobile, and other heavy manufacturing establishments in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But the data do suggest that corset establishments were qualitatively different from other clothing establishments. See Nelson, Daniel, Managers and Workers: Origins of the Factory System in the United States, 1880–1920 (Madison, Wisc., 1975Google Scholar), for data on and descriptions of the size and characteristics of some of the truly large industrial corporations.

20 Manuscript Census of Manufactures, Connecticut 1880, New Haven County and Fairfield County; “Connecticut: An Inventory of Historic, Engineering, and Historical Sites,” Dana Collection; Lucien T. Warner, Always Starting Things, 3–6; “I. Dever Warner (WBC), Sales 1879–1896, Expenses Personal and Co. 1880–1899,” “D. H. Warner, Private, The Corset Department 1899–1912,” “D. H. Warner, Private, The Warner Brothers Company, Bridgeport, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, 1908–1911,” “Dever Warner, Private, 1911–1915, Bridgeport Offices, Retail Shops,” Warnaco Collection; “Sales Convention of the Warner Brother Company,” Warnaco Sales Convention Scrapbook.

21 This figure is derived from Table 3 by dividing capital/est. by worker/est.

22 See U.S. Census Office, Eleventh Census, Report on the Manufacturing Industries of the United States at the Eleventh Census, 1890 (Washington, D.C., 1895), part 1: 162, 164, 166, 174, 200, 296Google Scholar; part II: 78, 374; Twelfth Census, Twelfth Census of the United States, Taken in the Year 1900: Manufactures (Washington, D.C., 1902), vol. 7, part I: 20Google Scholar; Department of Commerce and Labor, Manufacturers, 1905 (Washington, D.C., 1907), part I: 162, 166, 174, 186, 226, 390Google Scholar.

Alexander Field argues that historians have not examined the positive correlation between levels of working capital and the size of industrial firms, ignoring an important component of the rise of the large firm in many industries. See Field, Alexander James, “On the Unimportance of Machinery,” Explorations in Economic History 22 (1985): 378–401CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Modern Business Enterprise as a Capital-Saving Innovation,” Journal of Economic History 47 (June 1987): 473–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 “Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper of Industrial Arts, July 12, 1884,” Warnaco Scrapbook; “Warner Brothers Office Payroll Book, January 2, 1909–December 28, 1918,” Warnaco Collection; U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Thirteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1898: Hand and Machine Labor (Washington, D.C., 1898), 40–41, 214–15, 954–55Google Scholar.

24 New Haven Chamber of Commerce, Commerce, Manufactures, and Resources, 98; Beckford and Richardson, Leading Businessmen of Fairfield County, 72; “McGraw and Son Catalogue, 1884,” “Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper of Industrial Arts, July 12, 1884,” Warnaco Scrapbook; “J. Hyde, Sewing Machines, December 19, 1912,” Warnaco Scrapbook of the 1912 Sales Convention; “Appraisal of the Property Owned by the Warner Brothers Co. Inc., Bridgeport Conn., September 1, 1921,” Warnaco Collection; U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Thirteenth Annual Report, 214–15, 954–55.

25 U.S. Census Office, Twelfth Census, 1900, part I: cxvii, 5Google Scholar; Department of Commerce and Labor, Manufactures 1905, part I: 7, 200; U.S. Census Office, Fourteenth Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, Manufactures (Washington, D.C., 1923), 8: 395–96, 612, 622Google Scholar.

26 U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Thirteenth Annual Report, 40–41, 214–15, 954–55.

27 Davis, Lance E., Gallman, Robert E., and Hutchins, Teresa D., “The Decline of U.S. Whaling: Was the Stock of Whales Running Out?” Business History Review 62 (Winter 1988): 569–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for its repercussion on the corset trade, see Waugh, Corsets and Crinolines, 167–69.

28 “Warner Brothers Circular to Jobbers, July 1, 1880,” “Advertisement of the Columbia Works, circa 1880,” “Advertisement of the Cohn Brothers, Agents for the Worcester Corset Company, circa 1880,” Warnaco Scrapbook; “Methods of Manufacture of Corsets,” Strouse-Adler Memo.

29 “Warner Brothers Note to Merchants, 1881,” “Century Magazine, Publisher's Department, June 1882,” “Illustrated Catalogue, Warner Brothers, 1887,” “A Popular Record of the Progress in the Arts and Sciences, November 7, 1885, W. J. Johnson Publisher,” Warnaco Scrapbook.

30 “Century Magazine, Publishers Department, June, 1882,” “Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper of Industrial Arts, July 12, 1884,” and “Illustrated Catalogue, Warner Brothers, 1887,” Warnaco Scrapbook.

31 Strouse-Adler, The Strouse-Adler Story; “Memo to Connecticut Industry Magazine, June 1961” and “Methods of Manufacture of Corsets,” Strouse-Adler Memo.

32 Pearce, Arthur, The Future Out of the Past: An Illustrated History of the Warner Brothers Company (Bridgeport, Conn., 1964), 21Google Scholar; “Metals used in connection with corsets, hose supporters, and accessories; Read by Mr. J. Hartnett, December 19, 1912,” and “Mr. F. E. Warner, Engineering, December 19, 1912,” Warnaco Scrapbook of the 1912 Sales Convention.

33 Pearce, The Future Out of the Past, 24.

34 Strouse-Adler, The Strouse-Adler Story; Pearce, The Future out of the Past, 77–78; “Mr. James Dunn, Paper Boxes, December 19, 1912,” Warner Scrapbooh of the 1912 Sales Convention.

35 Price and Lee Company, New Haven Directory, 1883–84; Atwater, History of the City of New Haven, 584; “Memo to Connecticut Industry Magazine, June 1961,” Strouse-Adler Memo; “Corset Supplies, Mr. H. D. Peake, December 19, 1912,” Warnaco Scrapbook of the 1912 Sales Convention.

36 “Memo to Connecticut Industry Magazine, June 1961,” Strouse-Adler Memo; “Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper of Industrial Arts, July 12, 1884,” Warnaco Scrapbook; Price and Lee Company, Bridgeport City Directory, 1875; “J. Hyde, Sewing Machines, December 19, 1912,” Warnaco Scrapbook of the 1912 Saks Convention.

37 For a discussion of the emergence of modern systems of marketing and distribution in the United States, see Porter, Glenn and Livesay, Harold, Merchants and Manufacturers: Studies in the Changing Structure of Nineteenth-Century Marketing (Baltimore, Md., 1971)Google Scholar; and Strasser, Susan, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York, 1989)Google Scholar.

Ewing, Underwear: A History, 140; “Warner Brothers Instruction to Agents, circa 1878,” and “A Catalogue of Corsets for Spring and Summer 1884, McGraw and Co.,” Warnaco Scrapbook.

38 On company-owned distribution networks, see “Announcement of the Opening of die Warner Brothers Chicago Warehouse, 1880,” and “Announcement of Purchase of NYC building, circa 1889,” Warnaco Scrapbook; Lucien T. Warner, Always Starting Things, 11; “1887 Newspaper Article on Strouse-Adler” and “Industrial Advantages of New Haven Connecticut, I. Newman and Sons 1880s,” Dana Collection; “I. Rosenberg and Co., 1887,” Leading Businessmen of New Haven County, 81–82.

For company advertising and promotion campaigns, see “A Catalogue of Corsets for Spring and Summer 1884, by P. H. McGraw and Sons” and “Warner Brothers Invoice, 1882,” Warnaco Scrapbook. The Worcester Corset Company spent over $2 million in magazine, newspaper, and other advertising media through 1910; Women's Wear, 19 Nov. 1910.

39 “Newspaper Article on Lewis Schiele and Co., circa 1880s or 1890s,” “Newspaper Article on Strouse-Adler and Company, 1887,” “The Industrial Advantages of New Haven, New Haven Chamber of Commerce, 1889,” Dana Collection; “Memo to Connecticut Industry Magazine, June 1961,” Strouse-Adler Memo; “Thomson, Langdon, and Company, Circular to Wholesalers, ca. early 1880s,” “Trade Agreement, Thomson, Langdon, and Company, July 1, 1876,” “Warner Brothers Catalogue, 1881,” “Warner Brothers Terms of Bonus to Jobbers, January 1, 1883,” “Trade Price Agreement Between Warner Brothers and Its Retailers, March 8, 1887,” “Memo from Warner Brothers to its Retailers, March 8, 1887,” and “Note to Retail Merchants of Baltimore, March 16, 1887,” Warnaco Scrapbook “I. S. Copeland, December 19, 1912,” “Salesmen, New York and Chicago,” and “Mr. R. Lamquet, Export Business December 19, 1912,” Warnaco Scrapbook of the 1912 Sales Convention; “Warner Brothers Company, Journal of Assets and Liabilities, 1880–1895,” “D. H. Warner, private, The Warner Brothers Company, Bridgeport, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, 1908–1911,” “Warner Brothers Journal, Advertising Expenses, 1897 October–1898 June,” “Dever Warner Private, 1911–1915, Bridgeport Offices and Retail Shops,” and “Appraisal of Property Owned by the Warner Brothers Co., Inc., September 1, 1921,” Warnaco Collection.

40 Pearce, The Future Out of the Past, 19; “Dever Warner Private, 1911–1915, Bridgeport Offices and Retail Shops,” Warnaco Collection.

41 Smith, “A Study of Uneven Industrial Development,” 206–26.

42 “Newspaper Article on I. Newman and Sons, August 15, 1903,” Dana Collection; Atwater, History of the City of New Haven, 583; U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Thirteenth Annual Report, 40–41, 214–15, 954–55; “Mr. W. P. Allen, December 19, 1912,” Warnaco Scrapbook of the 1912 Sales Convention.

43 Twelfth Census, vol. 7, part I: 504–5; Manufactures 1905, part 1: 497; Thirteenth Census, vol. 8: 144–45, 150; Fourteenth Census, vol. 10: 344–45, 348–49.