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Show Connecticut Yankee Established America's First Hardvare Store Celebration of National Hardware Week Recalls Story of Amasa Goodyear and His Son, Who Later Won Fame as an Inventor but Who Was a Failure in the Business Today Carried on Successfully by Nearly 37,000 Retailers Throughout the United States. Western Newspaper Union. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON BACK in 1807 a Connecticut Connecti-cut Yankee named Amasa Goodyear made the first pearl buttons ever produced in this country and a little later branched out into in-to the manufacture of other kinds. His business grew so rapidly that by 1812 he was supplying the United States government with all the metal buttons used on the uniforms of its soldiers in our second war with England. Eng-land. From buttons Amasa "Joodyear's Yankee ingenuity - led him into other fields of invention and he patented a number of articles, the most important being a hayfork. Goodyear's next venture was in a new field that of retailing the articles which he manufactured and in 1827 he opened up in Church alley in the little village of Salem, near Waterbury, Conn., a -small store which is believed to be the first hardware store in the United States. Today in this country there are nearly 37,000 hardware stores who trace their "ancestry" back to that little shop in Church alley in Salem village and as they join in the annual an-nual celebration of National Hardware Week, which is being observed from May 9 to 14, it is interesting to trace the development through the last 111 years of this branch of American business. It would be pleasant to record that the pioneer hardware store owner of this country was outstandingly out-standingly successful in his venture. ven-ture. But, unfortunately, just the opposite is true. For Amasa Goodyear placed the store in charge of his son, Charles, and although history has written this son down as one of its great inventors in-ventors for he was the Charles Goodyear of India rubber fame apparently he was not a good business man. At least, it is recorded re-corded that the pioneer hardware stores failed because of Charles Goodyear's speculations in real estate and in January, 1831, it passed into the possession of Curtis Cur-tis and Hand who were prominent in developing retail hardware stores as outlets for various articles arti-cles of domestic manufacture. The story of Amasa Goodyear's pioneer venture is an interesting chapter in American economic history. In the colonial days all supplies were brought from Europe. Eu-rope. But as this country became be-came more settled and the English Eng-lish colonies became better es-. k -v. ' . t :ii - fit , ;rrrfTTT ?Sjf k "iirn np - -i , i ? f t'B ' r!V 1 1 ! I i This is the typical hardware store of yesteryear with its dark, oily floors, poor lighting, crowded and poorly arranged stock, much of it under glass where the customers are unable to inspect it closely. facture not only to secure revenue reve-nue by taxation but also for protection pro-tection for British manufacturers. manufactur-ers. Besides taxing sugar, tea and other necessities consumed by her colonies, England also tried to prohibit them from manufacturing man-ufacturing any commodity which was or could be made in the Mother Country. Depending upon her colonies for raw materials, she required that these materials and the finished fin-ished products be carried in British-built ships, manned by British subjects and that all ex- ports and imports of the colonies colo-nies be shipped through England where a tax was levied. Thus it will be seen how the development develop-ment of manufacture in the colonies col-onies was retarded and why the American Revolution was quite as much an economic as a political politi-cal rebellion. With the establishment of American independence, however, howev-er, restrictions upon American inventive genius and expansion were removed. Small home man- k., 1 l, I, I i: " i ft1 ifT, It v n 1 Here is a modern hardware store, rearranged and designed by hardware hard-ware association experts. It has plenty of light, a systematic arrangement of its merchandise, most of which is out where people can "heft it" before be-fore buying. tablished as governmental units, trades were set up to do specific work or make specific commodities. commodi-ties. The Village Blacksmith - The village blacksmith was the foundation of the American manufacture man-ufacture of hardware. He made the bars and hinges for doors and the early, crude implements for agriculture. With the finding of coal and other minerals in great abundance, manufacture of various items of hardware began on a small scale which became increasingly larger as the years passed. Before long the Mother Country Coun-try was beginning to look upon this development with an un-friendly un-friendly eye and she began im- posing restrictions upon manu facturers grew up to supply the local demand but for years by far the greatest part of the manufactured man-ufactured goods was still imported import-ed from Europe. Despite the fact that the restrictions upon colonial manufacture had been a factor in bringing about the Revolution, early American manufacturers had little encouragement from the majority of American people who still favored foreign-made goods. Nor was this discrimination discrimina-tion of short duration. In fact, it lasted almost until the Civil war. When the Berlin and Milan decrees de-crees of Napoleon and the retaliation re-taliation of the British "Orders of Council" placed a blockade around Europe and reduced neutral neu-tral shipping to almost nothing. they forced a new problem upon American manufacturers. Since no goods could be imported from Europe, domestic manufacturers were called upon to meet demands de-mands with which they could not cope with the machines and processes proc-esses then available. Industrial Revolution This marked the advent of the American "industrial revolution" in 1808, which eventually carried the new nation from a negative position to the world's greatest manufacturing nation and which changed the United States from a purely agricultural to a manufacturing manu-facturing country. As new machines ma-chines were invented, new processes proc-esses worked out and new production pro-duction methods brought into action, ac-tion, American manufacturing assumed a real magnitude and spread rapidly throughout New England, New York and Pennsylvania. Pennsyl-vania. . Coincidentally with the growth of manufacture came the necessity neces-sity for retail outlets for the manufactured man-ufactured products and this brought into existence hardware stores along with other kinds of retail establishments. Although Amasa Goodyear has the distinction distinc-tion of being the first to operate a hardware store, he was soon followed by others. One of these was Christopher Hubber (later Casey and Hubber), who started in New York. He was followed by George H. Gray & Co. in 1829 and Hesner & Green in Boston. The articles offered for sale, even by the largest dealers, were limited in number and variety. Among the small articles were Goodyear's molasses gates, Fenn's cockstop and leather faucets, fau-cets, cast bits and screws (not very salable), nails, shoe and side strap hammers, wooden awl handles, han-dles, mill, circular and hand saws, Britannia wares, carpenters' carpen-ters' planes, manure and hay forks, shovels and scythes. All these had not come into use in 1828 or 1830, but American hardware sold by dealers in 1834 included wire screws, coffee mills, andirons, . cow bells, scythes, pewter faucets, clothes lines, window cords, hemp and manila rope, brushes, paints, guns, axes, tacks and brads, locks and latches, hammers and hatchets, hatch-ets, glass door knobs, auger bits, lead pencils and buttons. A Great Variety At the beginning of the Nineteenth Nine-teenth century, "hardware" chiefly meant mechanics' tools and builders' hardware, whereas today it includes so vast a variety va-riety of goods as to make it difficult diffi-cult to enumerate them. Comprising, Com-prising, as it does, all small articles arti-cles made of metal that are patented pat-ented and used in construction of houses or for household purposes, as well as tools of mechanics' trades and professional men, it simplifies labor, it economizes the time of the housewife, it covers cov-ers all that could be classed as house-furnishing goods for kitchen kitch-en and dining room service, the product of the tin shop and of stamped ware manufacturers, as well as tin plate, sheet iron, fence wire, etc. It has within its range also sporting goods, such as guns, rifles, ri-fles, ammunition, baseball; in fact, goods for all outdoor sports. The recent wave of manufacture of electrical household appliances finds its most efficient distribution distribu-tion through hardware channels, and manufacturers of paints, varnishes var-nishes and agricultural implements, imple-ments, with sundry affiliated lines, look to the hardware fraternity fra-ternity as the best means of reaching the consumer. It is not uncommon for a large hardware house to have in its catalogue nearly 50,000 kinds and sizes of articles. An interesting glimpse of the old-fashioned hardware store is given by D. Fletcher Barber of Boston, former president of the National Retail Hardware association asso-ciation in these reminiscences: "As I look back over 50 years in the hardware business, I can see many changes, but it is difficult diffi-cult to summarize what has taken tak-en place during this period. A half or even a quarter of a century cen-tury ago stocks were very simple sim-ple in amount of merchandise and limited as to selection. Store equipment was poor and inadequate inade-quate and while fitted to the limited lim-ited needs of those days, would be totally unsuited for today's requirements. Display of hardware hard-ware was not given much consideration, con-sideration, and was so little thought of that shutters were put in nearly all stores at night and over Sunday. Windows were generally gen-erally made up of small panes of glass and in most cases not a plate glass. Windows were not dressed more often than once a month. "The hardware stores in the cities of New England did not sell stoves and kitchenware, although al-though the country and suburban town stores did. Stoves were given a prominent place, often reaching to the front door. "The city stores imported many of their tools, and the saws that were sold were those manufactured manu-factured by Spear & Jackson or Groves & Sons. We sold a great many files, also planes, bit braces, carving tools and other fine tools. Cutlery of the better kind was nearly all English made and we can remember the old Jonathan Crooks knives which most boys thought the best made. Razors were nearly all English made, as the German products were sold only as very low priced goods. Table knives were for the most part sold with the fork handle to match the knife handle, han-dle, and there was a great variety va-riety of handles and bolsters, which was the finish of the covering cov-ering over the ends of the handles. han-dles. The better kinds had real ivory handles and some were sol-' id silver plated knives, very expensive ex-pensive as compared with the present day prices. Plated ware began with a base of brass or inferior metal, which was changed later to nickel or combination of metal which more nearly resembled resem-bled silver service. "The shelving showed what would today be considered a very poor appearance, since not many boxes were used. Goods were put up in packages of brown paper, with green labels, and, when opened, had to be tied up, generally gener-ally in a very loose and slipshod manner. I know one of the first things I had to learn was to tie samples on the front of a package pack-age so that they would stay in shape and not fall out. "The manifest object, of course, was to show what was in the package, and a good deal of time was spent in tying up these packages and putting them back on the shelf in an orderly manner, man-ner, which was known to the boys of the store, at least, as "clearing "clear-ing up." Generally the goods were left on the counter or around and there had to be a real session of "clearing up" at certain times. . "Files were one of the hard things to keep in shape, as the samples had to be tied 'fore and aft' and shown on the shelves broadside to. Most of the present pres-ent day clerks would find it a rather difficult job to tie on a four-inch japanned side pulley on a package of a half dozen or dozen and have it stay in shape. To some extent, after a number of years, wooden boxes were used and, in general, these were covered by pasting green paper over the front and the samples screwed to the front of the box. This was a big improvement over the old method, and some thought the height of perfection had been reached when most of the front stores showed good clean paper fronts. "The effort to display cutlery in show cases has been, and is to some extent even now, dependent depend-ent largely upon the experience of the dealer and his disposition toward fine display. They used to be tied upon packages or boxes. Sometimes boxes were made which would hold a full package, having a recessed top for the sample, and sometimes they were fastened to the top by means of clips or strings. Other Oth-er times a sail needle was used with hard twine. In fact, this method with copper wire was used mainly for sampling on shelf boxes." |