No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Office of President in the American Textile Industry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Extract
In contrast to the practice followed in most corporate business enterprises, the position of president in a textile company is generally of secondary importance. The treasurer is usually the chief executive officer. It is he who makes the managerial decisions, and it is he who is responsible only to the board of directors. In the nineteenth century, all the mills established by the Boston capitalists adopted this nomenclature for their leading officers; curiously enough, the mills at Lowell continue this practice today. The treasurer of each company directs its operation from his office in Boston while the agent supervises production from his counting room at Lowell; very much in the background is the president. It is the purpose of the present study to investigate the origin of this usage and to discover what were some of the functions and characteristics of the presidents of these textile companies in the nineteenth century.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1952
References
1 There is some indication that this situation may be changing. Since the opening of the twentieth century, the chief officer of the Pacific Mills has been the president. When Russell H. Leonard reorganized the Pepperell Manufacturing Company, he took for himself the name of president-treasurer and William Amory, the former president, then became the chairman of the board of directors. Berger, Josef, Memoirs of a Corporation (Boston, 1950), vol. v, p. 8Google Scholar; Knowlton, Evelyn H., Pepperell's Progress (Cambridge, 1948), p. 234 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 To aid the partners, each concern had one or more “clerks” who came as apprentices to gain experience and served frequently without pay.
3 Similarly, the use of agent as the title of the manager of the mill was an adoption from mercantile usage.
4 Knowlton, Pepperell's Progress, pp. 382–383.
5 Ibid., pp. 35–48, 52–58.
6 From the time that Patrick Tracy Jackson became treasurer of the Boston Manufacturing Company, all the companies established on the system adopted by that company followed this nomenclature for their executive officers. This became known as the Waltham system. From a scattered sampling of the incorporated mills in southern New England and in New York, it appears that this policy was frequently used in these locations as well.
7 Roberts, Christopher, Middlesex Canal, 1793–1860 (Cambridge, 1938), p. 31.Google Scholar
8 Charters, Additional Acts and other Documents relating to the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Merrimack River (Cambridge, 1857), p. 26.
9 Laws of Massachusetts (1805–1809), vol. iv, chap. 65.
10 Boston Manufacturing Company, Stockholders' Records, vol. i, p. 1 ff.
11 Laws of Massachusetts, vol. iv, chap. 65.
12 General Laws of Massachusetts (1822–1831), vol. iii, p. 296.
13 Revised Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Boston, 1836), chap. 38, sec. iii.
14 Boston Manufacturing Company, Stockholders' Records, vol. i, p. 1 ff. With only slight variations, this was the phraseology used in the bylaws of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, the Taunton Manufacturing Company, the Atlantic Cotton Mills, and the Pepperell Manufacturing Company, all established between 1813 and 1850.
15 Lancaster Mills, Directors' Records, vol. i, p. 5. The underlining is that of the present author.
16 See footnote 14.
17 Revised Statutes, chap. 38, sec. 17.
18 Merrimack Manufacturing Company, Directors' Records, vol. i, p. 37.
19 Boston Manufacturing Company, Directors' Records, vol. i, p. 1 ff.
20 Ibid, vol. ii, p. 1 ff.
21 Shlakman, Vera, Economic History of a Factory Town; a Study of Chicopee, Massachusetts (Smith College Studies in History, XX, Northampton, Mass., 1935), pp. 126–129.Google Scholar
22 Hamilton Manufacturing Company, Letterbook 691, p. 494. The Lowell mills reduced the hours of work from twelve to eleven in 1853. Josephson, Hannah, The Golden Threads (New York, 1949), p. 285.Google Scholar
23 Bagnall, William R., “Samuel Batchelder,” Lowell Old Residents' Historical Association, Contributions (1884–1887), vol. iii, pp. 187–211.Google Scholar
24 F. E. Stevens to the author, November, 1949. Mr. Stevens was a former assistant treasurer of the Nashua Manufacturing Company. Some early salaries for the treasurers were as follows: P.T. Jackson received $3,000 from the Boston Manufacturing Company and $10,000 from the Locks and Canals and the Merrimack. Kirk Boott got $3,000 from the Locks and Canals, which was raised to $4,000 in 1832. J. K. Mills drew $4,250 from the Perkins Mills and the Dwight Manufacturing Company in 1853 before the two were merged.
25 Hurd, D[uane] Hamilton (ed.), History of Essex County, Massachusetts (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1888), passimGoogle Scholar; Hurd, , History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (3 vols.; Philadelphia, 1890), passimGoogle Scholar; Drake, Samuel A., History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (Boston, 1880), passimGoogle Scholar; Professional and Industrial History of Suffolk County, Massachusetts (Boston, 1894), passim.
26 The companies were the Boston Manufacturing Company, Merrimack Manufacturing Company, Pacific Mills, Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, and Pepperell Manufacturing Company.
27 The companies added were: in Massachusetts, the Appleton Company, Hamilton Manufacturing Company, Lawrence Manufacturing Company, Massachusetts Cotton Mills, Tremont and Suffolk Mills, Boott Manufacturing Company, Atlantic Mills, Bay State Mills, Everett Mills, Washington Mills, Cabot Manufacturing Company, Perkins Mills, Dwight Manufacturing Company, Lyman Mills, Hamilton Woolen Company, Bigelow Carpet Company; in New Hampshire, Langdon Mills, Manchester Mills, Stark Mills, Jackson Company, Nashua Manufacturing Company, Great Falls Manufacturing Company; in Maine, Hill Manufacturing Company.
28 Presidents before 1860
Presidents after 1860
29 Harrison Gray Otis to Nathan Appleton, Oct. 14, 1829, Nathan Appleton Papers in the Massachusetts Historical Society.
30 Handlin, Oscar and Handlin, Mary Flug, Commonwealth: Massachusetts, 1774–1861 (New York, 1947), p. 161.Google Scholar