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What Price Style? The Fabric-Advisory Function of the Drygoods Commission Merchant, 1850-1880

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Hansjörg Siegenthaler
Hansjörg Siegenthaler
Affiliation:
University of Zurich
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Abstract

Using data from nineteenth-century New England, Dr. Siegenthaler isolates a value for the most important function which drygoods marketing agencies performed for the mills they represented. His conclusions cast new light on the key role played by fashion considerations in decision making within the textile industry.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , Spring 1967 , pp. 36 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1967

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References

1 For the commission payments see, e.g., Report of Mr. William Sturgis' Committee to Twenty-eight Manufacturing Companies (Boston, 1852)Google Scholar, Appendix. For salaries: Ewing, John S. and Norton, Nancy P., Broadlooms and Businessmen: A History of the Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Company (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), 75, 107CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ayer, James C., Some of the Usages and Abuses in the Management of Our Manufacturing Corporations (Lowell, Mass., 1863), 13Google Scholar; Memorandum of Certain Commissions & Salaries Paid by Manuf' Co's, August 1, 1848, Amos A. Lawrence Papers (Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston).

2 Cole, Arthur H., The American Wool Manufacture (2 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1926), I, 297–98.Google Scholar The total yardage of cotton cloth produced in the U.S. according to the Census of 1870 was 1,064,000,000, table cloth not included, the yardage of cotton prints and delaines was 482,000,000. We include in the category of cotton fabrics requiring frequent adjustments in style and color 35,000,000 yds. of lawns and fine muslins and 39,000,000 yds. of ginghams and checks, so that our discussion applies to roughly one-half of cotton cloth sold to the trade. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Ninth Census of the United States, III, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1872), 596, 597, 621.Google Scholar

3 Invoices of prints sent by Cocheco Mfg. Co. to Mason & Lawrence, 1850, Mason & Lawrence Papers (Mason & Lawrence, 1843-1859; Mason, Lawrence & Co., 1859-1861; Lawrence & Co., 1861 and thereafter, in Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston).

4 Amory A. Lawrence to Amos A. Lawrence, undated [c. 1886], A. A. Lawrence Papers.

5 Ware, Caroline F., The Early New England Cotton Manufacture: A Study in Industrial Beginnings (Boston, 1931), 184Google Scholar; Jones, Fred M., “The Development of Marketing Channels in the United States to 1920,” in Clewett, Richard M. (ed.), Marketing Channels for Manufactured Products (Homewood, III., 1954), 26Google Scholar; Knowlton, Evelyn H., Pepperell's Progress: History of a Cotton Textile Company, 1844-1945 (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), 81, 82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berger, Joseph (ed.), Memoirs of a Corporation: The Story of Mary and Mack and Pacific Mills (Boston, 1950), 16.Google Scholar

6 Henry A. Page to Moses T. Stevens, Nov. 25, 1870, Stevens Papers (business records of the woolen mills of Nathaniel Stevens, North Andover, 1786-1865, and his successors, in the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum, North Andover, Mass.).

7 Bagnall, William R., “Sketches of Manufacturing Establishments in New York City and of Textile Establishments in the Eastern States,” edited by Clark, Victor S. (unpublished materials, 4 vols., 1908Google Scholar, in Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston), II, 1098-1101, 1170-71.

8 Ninth Census of the United States, III, Statistics of the Wealth and Industry of the United States, passim.

9 Collective bargaining took place between the commission house A. & A. Lawrence & Co. and its mills when the latter in 1852 took steps for common action by twenty-eight manufacturing companies to prevent A. & A. Lawrence from raising the rate of commissions. The result of this attempt at mobilizing some countervailing power against the leading commission house was a compromise between A. & A. Lawrence & Co. and the mills for which it sold, but another commission house, Francis Skinner & Co., felt free to change its terms at the same time without being bound by the Lawrence compromise. Knowlton, Pepperell's Progress, 77-79.

10 There were some early cases of direct selling. The partnership B. B. & R. Knight, Providence, formed in 1852, managed by two brothers, one a merchant, the other a manufacturer, handled both production at its mills and marketing of the product to the trade; there are other cases of this brotherly backward or forward integration. Bagnall, , “Sketches of Manufacturing Establishments,” II, 1402–1431.Google Scholar

11 The number of seventy-four drygoods commission houses in Boston by 1870 includes those firms which, according to Dockham's U. S. Cotton, Woolen, Silk, and Linen Manufacturers' Report and Directory, 1870-71 (Boston, 1870)Google Scholar, were actually selling for textile mills, i.e., not only those listed as commission merchants but also those appearing under the title of a manufacturing firm as its selling agent, provided that they are reported on by R. G. Dun & Co. for doing primarily a drygoods commission business. R. G. Dun & Co., credit reporting ledgers for Boston (Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston).

12 Robert M. Mason to Amos A. Lawrence, March 9, 1843, A. A. Lawrence Papers; Henry A. Page to Moses T. Stevens, April 12, 1877, Stevens Papers.

13 Of 74 drygoods commission merchants doing business in Boston by 1870, 2 had started out as jobbers, 3 as importers, 4 had combined jobbing and importing before turning to a domestic commission business, 10 did a mixed business in 1870. R. G. Dun & Co., credit reporting ledgers for Boston.

14 Jones, Fred M., Middlemen in the Domestic Trade of the United States, 1800-1860 (Urbana, III., 1937), 15.Google Scholar

15 The result is a lower limit for the actual figure. The amount of capital invested in the mills for which each commission house sold has been calculated on the basis of capital figures given for incorporated companies in Dockham's U. S. Textile Directory, 1870-71. We are assuming that the capital reported by the ninth Census for the cotton and woolen industries of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts approximates the capital actually invested in all mills selling through Boston houses, in other words, that the capital represented by those mills in those three states not selling through Boston commission houses is about equal to the capital of mills from other states selling through Boston houses.

16 Copeland, Melvin T., The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1912), 215.Google Scholar

17 R. G. Dun & Co., credit reporting ledgers for Boston. For a polemic analysis of the creditability of the agency's figures see Meagher, Thomas F., The Commercial Agency “System” of the United States and Canada Exposed (New York, 1876).Google Scholar

18 Property of Amos A. Lawrence, 1857, A. A. Lawrence Papers; R. G. Dun & Co., credit reporting ledgers for Boston, vol. 4, p. 334 (vol. 73 of Massachusetts series), February 26, 1879 (short citation used hereafter: Dun & Co., Boston: 4.334(73), 2-26-79; Dun & Co., Boston: 2.886(70), 11-20-78.

19 Dun & Co., Boston: 1.103(67), 4-19-56 (Mudge, Sawyer & Co.); 2.495(69), 11-30-57 (Nevins&Co.).

20 Hilliger, William H., James Talcott: Merchant and his Time (New York, 1937)Google Scholar, Ewing and Norton, Broadlooms, 28, 54, 76, 78, 80, 94. Copeland, Cotton Manufacturing, 210, 212, 215.

21 Calculated on the basis of entries in the ledgers and waste books of Mason & Lawrence and Lawrence & Co. respectively, Mason & Lawrence Papers.

22 R. H. Snow to Mason & Lawrence, July 19, 24, 25, 26, August 7, 8, September 10, 13, October 5, 9, 30, 1850, W. E. Pratt to Mason & Lawrence, January 11, February 17, April 4, July 3, October 17, 1850, Mason & Lawrence Papers.

23 Snow to Mason & Lawrence, September 13, 1850, Pratt to Mason & Lawrence, January 5, 15, 22, 31, February 19, March 16, 18, April 11, October 1, November 4, 1850, Mason & Lawrence Papers.

24 Snow to Mason & Lawrence, October 5, 1850, Pratt to Mason & Lawrence, January 18, 23, February 6, 7, 8, 11, March 20, April 8, July 7, 26, September 2, December 26, 1850, ibid.

25 Pratt to Mason & Lawrence, February 18, 25, March 7, 26, April 1, 1850, ibid.

26 Ibid., January 12, 21, February 26, 1850.

27 Ibid., waste books, series on monthly wholesale value of total sales and of sales effected in New York; series of commissions paid to the commission house for all sales effected outside of Boston at a given rate of commission of ½ per cent. From this series I have calculated the wholesale value of sales effected outside of Boston, the difference between total sales and sales made outside Boston, and finally the ratio between Boston sales and New York sales.

28 As shown by the experiences of James Talcott. Hilliger, Talcott, passim.

29 Joseph B. Wheelock to Amos A. Lawrence, April 7, 1845, A. A. Lawrence Papers; Tooker, Elva, Nathan Trotter: Philadelphia Merchant, 1787-1853 (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), 63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 The Cocheco Co. paid 33.8 per cent of the general expenses of the commission house Mason & Lawrence from December 1, 1848 to November 30, 1851, Mason & Lawrence Papers, ledgers B and C.

31 J. F. Dorsey to Amos A. Lawrence, Jan. 28, 1880, A. A. Lawrence Papers.

32 Faulkner, Kimball & Co. (until July 1, 1871, then Faulkner, Page & Co.) to N. Stevens & Co., 1867-1880, passim, Stevens Papers.

33 Knowlton, Pepperell's Progress, 83.

34 R. G. Dun & Co., credit reporting ledgers for Boston. Continuity in the history of a commission house has been assumed if the style of its name remained unchanged, if the senior partner did not change, if in case of retirement of the senior partner the former junior partners continued to do business together.

35 Miscellaneous letters, 1853-1887 and biographical notes on Amos A. Lawrence, A. A. Lawrence Papers.

36 For a sketch of the development of credit rating agencies see: Dun & Bradstreet Inc., The Centennial of the Birth of Impartial Credit Reporting: An American Idea (New York, 1941).Google Scholar

37 Other things being equal. Credit risks may have increased with the territorial growth of the market; is it not reasonable to expect that this increase was offset by the development of the communication system?

38 Knowlton, Pepperell's Progress, 90 f.

39 Faulkner, Kimball & Co. to N. Stevens & Co., Stevens Papers. For shortening of credit periods in general, see Greef, Albert O., The Commercial Paper House in the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1938), 70.Google Scholar

40 Copeland, Cotton Manufacturing, 197.

41 Cash books B and C, passim, waste book B, May 31, 1870 (interest of 6 per cent on unspecified loan), ledger C (interest account)., Mason & Lawrence Papers. No individual rates for interest paid to creditors appear on the books.

42 Martin, Joseph G., Martin's Boston Stock Market: Eighty-Eight Years (Boston, 1886), “Monthly Reports on Money Market,” 44 ff.Google Scholar

43 R. G. Dun & Co., credit reporting ledgers for Boston.

44 “Rates paid by Lawrence Manufacturing Company according to entries in Notes and Bills payable, 1874-1908.” This single bill book is among the Mason & Lawrence Papers, vol. 112.

45 Dun & Co., Boston: 3.477(72), 1-3-76. (Mackintosh, Green & Horton); 1.500 z/29(68), 9-7-83 (Dexter, Abbot & Co.); 2.599 a/100(69), 9-26-79 (Faulkner, Page & Co.); 1.265(68) 11-1-77 (Parker, Wilder & Co.); 15.495(84) 11-1-77 (Wendell, Hutchinson & Co.); 4.352(73), 11-20-69, 5-1-71, 6-26-73 (White, Brown & Co.).

46 Dun & Co., Boston: 16.3(85), 7-2-77 (J. S. & E. Wright & Co.).

47 Amory A. Lawrence to Amos A. Lawrence, 1877, July 3, 1877, A. A. Lawrence Papers.

48 Hilliger, Talcott, 92; Ewing and Norton, Broadlooms, 83, 94, 141.

49 Increasing importance of traveling agents may have affected selling costs. But it was the jobbers who mainly employed the commercial travelers in our period. Cole, American Wool Manufacture, 292; Ewing and Norton, Broadlooms, 84, 94, 136, 152.

50 Dun & Co., Boston: 12.427(71), 7-11-31, 3-26-85 (Woodbury & Foss); 15.176 (84), 11-20-76 (Bartlett & Co.); 2.848(70), 11-10-75, 2.941(70), 2-16-83 (Lowry); 9.428(78), 3-18-86 (Davis).

51 Berger, Pacific Mills, 15.

52 Foster, E. Everton (ed.). Lamb's Textile Industries of the United States (2 vols., Boston, 1916), I, 445Google Scholar; “Memo of an agreement between Messrs. Lawrence & Co. & the Arlington Woolen Mills, Sept. 1, 1874,” statement on financial affairs of Arlington Mills, March 16, 1875, A. A. Lawrence Papers.

53 G. Brewer to Amos A. Lawrence, June 26, 1871, M. H. Dorman to Amos A. Lawrence, January 21, 1873, A. A. Lawrence Papers.

54 Statement of the condition of the Arlington Mills, November 30, 1875, ibid.

55 Amory A. Lawrence to Amos A. Lawrence, April, 1879, ibid.

56 Lawrence & Co. to Whitman, April 30, 1881, ibid.

57 Memorandum of Mr. Whitman about business, May 9, 1881, ibid.

58 Dun & Co., Chicago: 18.255(44), 11-29-78.

59 Amory A. Lawrence to Amos A. Lawrence, December 1, 1881, A. A. Lawrence Papers.

60 Dun & Co., New York City: 3.1283(221), 1-5-82; Chicago: 18.255(44), 11-29-78.

61 Lawrence & Co., to Alfred Ray, July 20, 1881, A. A. Lawrence Papers; waste book, Mason & Lawrence Papers.

62 Navin, Thomas R. Jr., , “Innovation and Management Policies: The Textile Machinery Industry: Influence of the Market on Management,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, XXV (March, 1951), 15–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar