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Home , Ethan Allen (armsmaker), Horace Smith (inventor), Oliver Winchester, Rollin White, Samuel Colt

CHARM 2011 Proceedings Early Brand Development in the U.S. Industry

Terrence H. Witkowski Department of Marketing, California State University, Long Beach, USA

194 Abstract Purpose – This paper traces the development of four major U.S. firearms brands – Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester – from their origins in the mid 19 th century until 1914. These are some of the longest lived and most iconic brand names in U.S. business history. Although American guns and the companies that made them have garnered a sizeable literature, their history from the marketing perspective of brand development has not been adequately researched and written. Design/methodology/approach – Primary data sources include product markings, newspaper and magazine advertisements, flyers and posters, and a variety of other promotional materials produced by manufacturers and distributors. These data were obtained from the secondary literature on U.S. firearms history, via Internet searches using Google Images, and from an analysis of Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs. Research limitation/implications – The primary data set is still being assembled and findings are tentative. Most evidence was examined in the form of images reproduced in books and on the Internet, not as original artifacts. This research adds to marketing management knowledge of brand longevity and iconography. The study also contributes to history, the literature on U.S. firearms, and marketing and public policy understanding of the U.S. gun culture. Keywords – Brand development, brand longevity, brand iconography, U.S. firearms industry, Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, Winchester Paper Type – Research Paper

Introduction Some of the oldest brands in the history of the United States have been those of its domestic firearms companies. The names of Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester have been marked on , , and since, respectively, 1836, 1848, 1857, and 1866. From the time of their introduction, these brands have been promoted through personal selling, print advertisements, and a variety of point-of-sales ephemera. Famous people, from presidents to outlaws, have endorsed them in writing and by association through use. Moreover, the larger popular culture has appropriated these guns for mythmaking and stories in books and magazines and as key visual props in motion pictures and television shows. The names of Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester meet Holt’s (2003) test of a brand icon: “Revered by their core customers, they have the power to maintain a firm hold in the marketplace for many years” (p. 43). This paper traces the development of these four brands from their origins in the mid 19 th century until the early 20 th century. Brand longevity and iconography are important issues in the field of marketing history because of their relevance to contemporary management (Holt 2004). Brands have value, even when the entities that own them no longer do, and can live indefinitely provided registration fees are paid. Maintaining brands over time is an outcome of brand management. Historical research provides insight into the factors that contribute to brand longevity, such as having an unrelenting focus on the core product and the ability to innovate when technologies are in flux (Golder, 2000). History also reveals how brand meanings have emerged and evolved. Historical method attempts to “ assess causation —why things have happened as well as what has happened” (Low and Fullerton, 1994, p. 174). Thus, the study of brand development in the U.S. firearms industry can contribute to the managerial understanding of brands. Knowing the historical processes through which some firearms brands have become iconic also contributes to consumer culture theory. Firearms encapsulate values and lifestyles, such as masculinity and hunting, in tangible form (Belk and Costa, 1998; Hirschman, 2003; Holt, 2003; Littlefield and Ozanne, 2011). As iconic brands, Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester represent important ideas and identity myths and, to paraphrase Holt (2004), are imbued with stories gun owners

find valuable. As a people, Americans – including many native populations – have been greatly attached to firearms from the time they were first brought over by European settlers in the 17 th century Early Brand (Bellesiles 2000; Hofstader 1970; Rose 2008). The study of this exceptional national relationship with Development in a product class and its major brands over several centuries gives a unique perspective on U.S. the U.S. consumer culture. It also provides some insights into the creation and evolution of the formidable U.S. Firearms firearms subculture, which over the past 40 years has become an influential political phenomenon in Industry American life (Anderson, 1984; Burbick, 2006; Hofstader, 1970). Given the importance of firearms in American life, it is somewhat surprising that their early advertising and marketing have received so little attention from business historians. For example, neither Strasser (1989) nor Laird (1998) mention the Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and 195 Winchester brands in their accounts of the rise of the American mass market and consumer marketing. The firearms literature also has neglected the topic of brands and branding. Aside from a few company and advertising histories (e.g. Henning, 2006; Williamson, 1952), writing on guns has largely served the interests of military and technology historians and especially antique firearms dealers and collectors (e.g. Brown, 1980; Neumann, 1967; Peterson, 1956; Rose 2006). This work provides good information on the technical development and manufacturing of different types of weapons in America, and how and by whom they were used, but rather limited discussions of the marketing, branding, and promotion of firearms, and what this has meant to gun owners and to the larger society. Books on guns frequently include pictures of promotional materials, but these images are used for illustrative purposes, not as direct evidence of brand development. The following section discusses source material and historiography. Then, the next two sections give brief accounts of the history of firearms manufacturing in the U.S. and the evolution of the industry’s marketing and promotion up to 1914. This cutoff date was chosen because it coincides with end of the first era in U.S. brand management according to Low and Fullerton (1994). The paper then examines separately the development of the Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester brands in this time period. The discussion compares these brands and draws implications for marketing management and brand longevity, for the history of brands, and for marketing and public policy understanding of the U.S. gun culture.

Source Material and Historiography Like other historical research in marketing, documenting the early development of American firearms brands meant creating a database of primary sources (Golder, 2000). Holt’s (2004) ideas about cultural branding suggest specific types of data: “A brand emerges as various ‘authors’ tell stories that involve the brand. Four primary types of authors are involved: companies, the culture industries, intermediaries (such as critics and retail salespeople), and customers (particularly when they form communities)” (p. 3). During the period under investigation the stories of gun manufactu rers and retailers took the form of advertisements in newspapers and trade directories and various advertising ephemera, such as posters, trade cards, catalogs, and calendars. Ephemera were created by job or contract printers and were the most salient promotional material of the day (Laird, 1998). The 19 th century culture industry promoted firearms brands in nickel and dime novels and wild west shows, and then motion pictures in the early 20 th century. Prominent consumers mentioned specific brand names in books and articles. The research challenge is to find these disparate data sources. Preliminary evidence of brand building was gleaned from the secondary literature on Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester. Assembling visual images from published sources provided ideas about the possible kinds of data and where to seek it. Unfortunately, these authors have not always dated their illustrations or identified the specific archival sources for the benefit of later researchers. Additional visual data were gathered via Google searches based on a number of different keywords suggested by the secondary literature. Many images of historic advertisements, posters, and other brand ephemera are made available by nonprofit organizations, firearms co mpanies, collectors’ organizations, and online blogs. The online search process was largely opportunistic and was not random sampling from a particular universe of visual data. Images were selected based upon their relevance to brand development, as well as their visual impact, composition, and persuasive appeal. They represent a range of pictorial evidence, but not its frequency since what would constitute a universe of brand representation has not been determined. Note that images obtained from published or online sources may have been altered by cropping or re-coloring from the original version. Also analyzed were the massive catalogs of Montgomery Ward & Co. (1895) and Sears Roebuck & Co. (1897). Reaching a national market of both rural and urban consumers, these companies sold

CHARM 2011 numerous brands of handguns, rifles, and shotguns including Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester. The numbers of different models and model variations sold by these direct marketers Proceedings gives further indications of what these brands may have meant to ordinary American consumers at the close of the 19 th century. Finally, two impressive full-page Colt ads, published in the weekly newspaper The Turf, Field and Farm in 1874 and 1875, are from the author’s collection.

The American Firearms Industry to 1914 For about 200 years after the Jamestown settlement, most guns and gun parts used in America were imported from Europe. Colonial repaired weapons, forged parts, and assembled a fair 196 number of fowling pieces and elegant Kentucky rifles from imported locks, and locally made stocks and barrels (Grinslade, 2005). The Revolutionary War undoubtedly stimulated gun making in America, but the craft was still limited and paled in comparison to the sophisticated private gun making in England and government-owned manufactories in France. The creation of the federal armories at Springfield, Massachusetts (first production in 1795), and Harpers Ferry, Virginia (first production in 1802) was a milestone for the American firearms industry because these new manufacturing centers developed prototypes and set standards. Through subcontracting, the armories helped small, private American gunsmiths to increase scale and improve technology (Rose, 2006). Springfield in particular benefited from a deep reservoir of local New England artisan talent. Eli Whitney (1765-1825), who invented the cotton gin in 1793 and in so doing inadvertently empowered the slave system for another 70 years, also advanced the manufacturing concept of when his New Haven factory tooled up for a 1798 federal contract for 10,000 (Cooper et al., 1980). Simeon North of Middletown, , was the main government contractor for U.S. martial pistols in the early 1800s. He invented new milling machines and pioneered division of labor in his gun factory. America became the world leader in applying machinery and operational systemization to the manufacture of firearms. New England rivers supplied much of the power for the pulleys and wheels that turned its machine tools. By the , when ignition technology was rapidly replacing , American gun manufacturers were selling innovative and increasing well-made weapons. Buyers included state and federal governments, but also civilians who became the primary market for handguns of various types, as well as for sporting rifles and shotguns. Manufacturing was becoming more industrial in scale. (1814-1862), the inventor of a line of very popular , established production facilities in Hartford in 1847 and in London in 1853 to serve the English market (Houze, 2006; Wilson, 1985). He then built an even larger Hartford factory called the South Meadow Armory. It was furnished with a belt-driven machine tools and was arguably the most technologically advanced factory in the U.S., if not the world (Houze, 2006). Firearms technology evolved rapidly in the middle decades of the 1800s and by the end of the 1860s faster loading, revolvers and breech- loading, repeating rifles were quickly replacing percussion pistols and muzzle-loading, single-shot muskets. The Civil War was a boon for the American firearms industry. The U.S. government purchased over 700,000 rifled muskets from 32 different contractors, and bought several hundred thousand cavalry and revolvers from private companies, such as the Burnside Company, Manufacturing Company, Spencer Repeating Arms Company, and Whitney Arms (Cooper et al., 1980; Flayderman, 2007). Individual states also placed orders and, judging from sales figures, perhaps several hundred thousand civilians bought their own sidearms for the war or for personal protection at home. Manufacturing continued to be based in the New England states, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The states of the Confederacy never had much of a firearms industry and the few manufacturing facilities that they established out of necessity did not survive the war. In the decades after the Civil War the U.S. firearms industry served a large domestic market for sporting arms and guns for self-defense and was also quite competitive on world markets, selling hundreds of thousands of revolvers and rifles to foreign governments and private citizens overseas. Many then well-known companies were not able to survive. Burnside went out of business after the Civil War; the prolific Manhattan Firearms Company became American Standard Tool Company in 1868; ’s concern was renamed after the deat h of its namesake in 1871; Sharps ceased operations in 1881; and the Spencer and Whitney companies were purchased by Winchester in, respectively, 1869 and 1888 (Cooper et al., 1980; Flayderman, 2007; Williamson, 1952).

Marketing and Promotion of American Firearms to 1914 In the colonial era, individual gunsmiths and other tradesmen who worked with firearms dealt with a Early Brand very limited and local market. Word of mouth usually sufficed for a marketing strategy, but gun Development in dealers would occasionally print notices in newspapers (Dow, 1967; Gottesman, 1970). One example, the U.S. from the Boston Newsletter , May 11, 1742, briefly stated: Firearms Industry “Newly imported, and sold by Samuel Miller, , at the Sign of the cross Guns near the Draw-Bridge, Boston: Neat Fire Arms of all sorts, Pistols, Swords, Hangers, Cutlasses, Flasks for Horsemen, Firelocks, &c.” (Dow, 1967, p. 264). 197 No evidence has been found how firearms and gun parts were priced and how they were distributed from port cities to the hinterland in the colonial period. It is likely that southern planters obtained some flintlock pistols and fowlers on credit via their factors in England, just as they purchased furniture, sets of china, and articles of clothing (Witkowski, 1989). The notion of a brand was probably li mited to the reputation of a maker’s signature on a . Names on gun locks were usually those of European sources or American hardware merchants (Flayderman 2007, p. 664). By the middle of the 19 th century manufacturing had increased in scale and makers began to form networks of dealers to distribute all the new guns to the civilian market. Ethan Allen (1806-1871) of Massachusetts, who invented and made numerous types of single shot pistols and pepperbox revolvers, enlisted hundreds of agents in local New England towns and in large cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, , Richmond, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee (Mouillesseaux, 1973). Dealer names were sometimes stamped on guns in lieu of Allen’s, an early form of retail branding. One dealer, J.G. Bolen of New York, advertised his Allen-made pepperboxes in both English and in Spanish (Mouillesseaux, 1973). Ethan Allen pepperboxes dominated the consumer gun market in the 1840s, and became associated with the 49ers and the California gold rush, but the company lost market share in the 1850s to Colt’s superior designs and was unable to secure government contracts during the Civil War. After Allen died in 1871, his partners (who were his sons-in-law) renamed the company Forehand and Wadsworth. They introduced new lines of inexpensive revolvers and stayed in business until the 1890s. They were among the first companies to use trade names – such as “Terror,” “Bull Dog,” and “Swamp Angel” – on different calibers and models. A competitor, Hopkins and Allen, marketed similar revolvers as the “Blue Jacket,” “Mountain Eagle,” and “Ranger,” while Iver Johnson named its guns “Eclipse,” “Favorite,” “Tycoon,” and “Encore.” Flayderman (2007) estimates that some 25 different gun manufacturers used over 300 such trade names in the late 19 th century. Some of the more cheaply made examples were called “Suicide Specials,” foreshadowing the 20 th century term, “Saturday Night Special.” As guns became products for mass consumption, homicide rates began to rise (Bellesiles, 2001). Advertising media began to change after the Civil War. Newspaper display advertising slowly became more common (Presbrey, 1929), and advances in chromolithography made possible very colorful, yet inexpensive promotional ephemera (Last, 2005). Firearms manufacturers, like other owner-managers of the time (Laird, 1998), controlled the distribution of these items. Sporting goods suppliers in towns and cities, such as Saginaw, Michigan, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, issued their own catalogs (see Plate 1) and, as discussed below, also placed ads in national magazines that promoted manufacturers’ brands. New outdoor magazines, such as Forest and Stream , founded in 1873 and dedicated to conservation, and Field and Stream, founded in1895 and often opposed to conservation measures ( Time , 1930), were closely tied to the gun industry and would prominently feature ads for guns, ammunition, and supplies (see Plate 2). In the last quarter of the 19 th century, Montgomery Ward & Co. and Sears Roebuck & Co. sold a great number of different shotguns, rifles, and handguns in their massive and nationally distributed catalogs. Guns were mentioned frequently in popular fiction and were portrayed on the covers of “dime” novels. Buff alo Bill’s touring Wild West shows featured guns blazing and sharpshooter Annie Oakley became his star performer. Firearms were shown in promotional handbills for the show and in still photos of Cody who earned his sobriquet as a young bison hunter in the late 1860s. Cody employed other trick shooters including “Calamity Jane” (Martha Jane Cannary -Burke), a rough looking frontierswoman and sometimes prostitute whom he reportedly fired for drunkenness. Firearms’ technology reached a high level of development in the early 1900s and revolvers, automatic pistols, rifles, and other small arms took on forms still recognizable today. New media ensured that the

CHARM 2011 tradition of celebrating firearms would continue. Guns were star props in the burgeoning motion picture industry – they were shown blasting away in “The Great Train Robbery” made in 1903 – and Proceedings were to be exploited again and again over the years by several film genres including westerns, law and order, and war.

198

Plate 1. Retail Firearms Catalogs, (Source: Cowan’s Auctio ns, American History On-Line ONLY Auction, January 21, 2010. 1873 and 1889 http://www.cowanauctions.com/upcoming_dates_lots.asp?page=5&SaleId=167 )

Plate 2. Magazine Covers, August, 1904 and June, 1910 (Sources: http://www-tc.pbs.org/nationalparks/media/photos/05000/S5574-lg.jpg and http:// www.barewalls.com/i/c/451625_FIELD--STREAM-June-1910.jpg )

Early Development of Major Firearms Brands

Colt Samuel Colt (1814-1862), who is shown in Plate 3, patented the first practical using the percussion (cap and ball) system of ignition in February, 1836. That year he formed a joint stock company known as the “Patent Arms Manufacturing Company” with production commencing in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1837. The first revolvers were marked “Colt’s Pt.” and the name “Colt” was engraved on the . Despite orders from the Republic of Texas from 1839-1841, total sales were limited in the poor economic climate following the Panic of 1837 and the company went bankrupt in 1842 (Edwards, 1953; Wilson, 1985). A few years later, however, good reports from the Texans

helped Colt secure a U.S. government contract and he started manufacturing an improved model in 1847 at the factory of Eli Whitney, Jr. in Whitneyville, Connecticut (Houze, 2006). In 1848, Colt built Early Brand his own factory in Hartford, Connecticut, and thereafter introduced successful lines of attractive, high Development in quality revolvers, as well as revolving rifles, carbines, and shotguns. He also invested in a factory in the U.S. London which made over 50,000 .31 caliber Pocket Model and .36 caliber Navy revolvers from 1853 Firearms until 1857. Colt apparently licensed his designs to some European companies, but widespread Industry counterfeiting took place for decades in Belgium, France, Turkey, Austria, Spain and probably Mexico (Flayderman, 2007). In the early 1850s, two U.S. companies, Massachusetts Arms Company and Springfield Arms Company, made revolvers with a somewhat different mechanism, but they still infringed upon Colt’s basic patents and became the target of vigorous litigation which Colt won. 199

Samuel Colt (1814-1862) Eliphalet Remington (1793-1861) (Source: Wikipedia Commons) (Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Plate 3. (1808-1893) and Daniel B. Wesson (1825-1906) (1810-1880) The Namesakes (Source: http://www.kipnotes.com/Weapons.htm ) (Source: Wikipedia Commons)

The Civil War brought substantial federal contracts for large caliber revolvers and rifled muskets. Civilians also p urchased thousands of revolvers. Colt’s early death in 1862 and a major fire at the Hartford factory in 1864 set the company back, but it recovered and sold respectable numbers of percussion revolvers until 1873 when they were discontinued. After ’s master patent for the bored through cartridge cylinder expired in the 1871, the Colt company quickly launched a series of new cartridge revolvers including the legendary .45 caliber, single action army, known colloquially as the “peacemaker,” “fro ntier six-shooter,” “equalizer,” “hog -leg,” and “thumb -buster” (Flayderman, 2007, p. 100). With the first swing out cylinder model in 1889, Colt took the revolver concept to

th CHARM 2011 essentially the highest level of its technological development. In the first decade of the 20 century, Colt introduced a line of automatic pistols based on the designs and patents of John M. Browning, who Proceedings worked for the company between 1897 and 1911. The Model 1911 .45 caliber automatic became the standard military sidearm in both world wars and the best selling Colt product ever with 2,695,000 having been produced between 1912 and 1957 (Flayderman, 2007). The earliest advertisement found to feature the Colt brand was not placed by Samuel Colt, but by John Ehlers in the 1845 edition of Doggett’s New York City Directory . Ehlers, who had owned 10% of the first Colt company and had been its treasurer, bought up the remaining inventory upon liquidation in 1842. The headline read “Colt’s Repeating Pistols, With the latest Improvements of 1844 & 1845” 200 and featured a large illustration of the revolver. The body copy provided indirect testimonials from high status individuals and reputable adopters:

“The above is a true representation of the COLT’S PATENT REPEATING PISTOL; which is acknowledged to be superior in every respect to any other Pistol manufactured in this country or Europe. The Emperor of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, the Prince de Joinville of France, the Imaum (sic) of Muscat, all have them and speak in the highest terms of them. The Texan Army and Navy are supplied with them, and the U.S. Navy has been supplied with them to some extent, and the officers have given a most favorable report of Colt’s repeating fire-arms.” (Houze, 2006, p. 66).

Also listed were five sporting goods dealers who sold the guns: W.H. Horstmann & Co. of New York, Hyde & Goodriche and H.E. Baldwin & Co. of New Orleans, B. Daffin of Baltimore, and Mulford & Wendell of Albany, NY. When Colt started his new company in 1847 he began advertising on his own account. Plate 4 shows two broadsides from the 1850s advertising Colt revolvers and rifles. The one on the left shows three different cylinder engravings – the stagecoach holdup, the battle between the Texas and Mexican navies, and the Texas ranger and Indian fight scene – and warns customers to “BEWARE COUNTERFEITS & PATENT INFRINGEMENTS.” The headline of the flyer on the right, which reads “Pioneers of Civilization,” attempts to tie these firearms to the ideology of American expansionism and manifest destiny. This poster also lists 14 reasons for owning a Colt. Most are straightforward reason-why appeals except number 10, which anthropomorphizes the gun: “If you buy a Colt’s Rifle or Pistol, you feel certain that you have o ne true friend, with six hearts in his body who can always be relied on.”

Plate 4. Colt Advertisements, ca. 1850s (left) and ca. 1858 (right)

(Source: Williams at http://www.connhistory.org/wwsevis_reading.htm )

About this same time, Colt supported the celebrity artist George Catlin (1796-1872) on his trips to the American West and South America. Catlin prepared ten oil paintings for his patron that Colt later Early Brand hung in his billiards parlor and bedroom. All featured the artist himself using Colt revolving pistols Development in and rifles to hunt buffalo in the upper Missouri valley and shoot wild boar, panthers, and even the U.S. flamingos in South America. In 1855, a set of six medium-sized (18 x 25 inches) lithographs were Firearms produced from the paintings and distributed for marketing purposes. The number of sets is unknown. Industry The images reached a mass market in 1855-57 in the form of wood engravings that accompanied articles on Catlin’s exploits or on the famous Mr. Colt in popular newspapers, such as Frank Leslie ’s Illustrated Newspaper and The London Illustrated News (Kornhauser, 2006). Samuel Colt, who in 1832 at the age of 18 billed himself “Dr. S. Coult” and peddled nitrous oxide 201 at the Portland, Maine, City Hall (Haven and Belden, 1940), was an incessant promoter of his revolvers and an early international marketer. He displayed his arms in 1851 at London’s “ of the Works of Art & Industry of All Nations” and in 1855 at the Paris Exposition Universalle (Serven, 1979). Colt also did business with Hungary, Italy, Prussia, and Russia. If the client were an important person, Colt would present cased sets of revolvers. He became a well-known figure and “It would not be an exaggeration to say that by 1860 Samuel Colt was the personification of an American in many parts of the world” (Houze, 2006, p. 183). After Samuel Colt’s death in 1862, ownership of the firm remained in the hands of his widow, Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt, until the turn of the century. Her brother, Richard W.H. Jarvis, who was already the vice-president, became company president from 1865 to 1901. Under his leadership, Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Co. continued to embellish the Colt brand. In 1866, a 399 page memorial book, titled (meadow of arms, the name given to the Colt mansion in Hartford), was published to pay tribute to the inventor. In 1872, the company issued a well-illustrated, four page advertising folder and produced other circulars in 1878 and 1897 (Serven, 1979, pp. 196-199, 236, 238). Colt distributors also contributed to brand building. B. Kittredge & Co., sporting goods dealers from Cincinnati, ran a full page advertisement in Turf, Field and Farm , October 30, 1874, for “Colt’s New Model Army Metallic Cartridge Revolving Pistol” which was explicit ly dubbed the “Peacemaker” (see Plate 5). The Turf, Field and Farm , which dubbed itself the “s portsman's oracle and country gentlemen's newspaper ,” was an illustrated weekly published for over 40 years until absorbed by in 1903. This full-page ad featured a striking life-sized illustration of the Colt .45 and extensive body copy that reprinted favorable Ordnance Department notes from 1872 and 1873. These notes constituted an early example of comparative advertising since they evaluated the Colt more positively than a rival Smith & Wesson model. The .45 Colt Army became associated with a roster of celebrity Americans that included Buffalo Bill Cody, Theodore Roosevelt, John Wesley Harding, Judge Roy Bean, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Pat Garrett, and Billy the Kid (Wilson, 1978).

Plate 5. Colt Advertisements, October 30, 1874 (left) and January 29, 1875 (right) (Source: Collection of the author)

CHARM 2011 Kittredge advertised Colts again in the January 29, 1875, issue of The Turf, Field and Farm (Figure 5). This full-page ad featured five “New Line” p ocket revolvers in different calibers. Each gun was Proceedings illustrated life-sized and given the trade names “Little Colt,” “Pony Colt,” “Pet Colt,” “Ladies Colt,” and “Big Colt.” These names were created by the Kittredge company, not by Colt (Flayderman 2007). Some comparisons were made with Smith & Wesson models although Kittredge, which sold many different brands, was careful to state “We have referred to these arms above, not to disparage them, but only as a high standard of comparison. No work is or can be better done. They are too long and too well known to require extended comment.” Prominent in the upper right and left corners of both Kittredge ads was the “rampant colt” trademark. Early versions of this motif were stamped on loading 202 accessories in the and a large gilded version cast in the Colt foundry topped the blue dome at the Colt factory in Hartford (Wilson, 1985).

Remington Eliphalet Remington, Jr. (1793-1861) began forging gun barrels in upstate New York in 1816, but the company bearing his name did not manufacture entire guns until 1848 when it purchased gun making equipment and took over the government contract of another firm. Remington made a variety of military rifles and revolvers under government contracts before and during the Civil War. Remington entered the civilian market with a pocket revolver in 1857, cane guns in 1858, and sporting rifles and shotguns in 1866. A particularly interesting product was the cane gun. The ads and photo in Plate 6 indicate that the target market for this product were upscale, urban males. Between 1867 and 1888, Remington produced over one million “rolling block” action, single -shot, military rifles and carbines for both domestic and foreign customers. Remington sold civilian models of these rifles until 1934.

Plate 6. Remington Cane Gun Advertisements (top ca. 185 8- 1866; bottom ca. 1866 -1888) and Photo of Gentlemen, ca. 1860s -1880s (Source: http://www.remingtonsociety.com/questions/Canes.htm )

The company name, E. Remington & Son, dates to 1837 (Henning, 2006). The plural form, E. Remington & Sons, started being used in the early 1850s when Samuel and Eliphalet III joined their

father and older brother, Philo, in the firm. Philo managed the company after his father’s death and reorganized Remington from a partnership to a corporation in 1865. Samuel became the general agent Early Brand for E. Remington & Sons and spent many years in Europe selling to foreign governments. He was Development in socially polished and considered to be the company’s finest salesman (Henning, 2006). The comp any the U.S. suffered financial reverses in the 1880s and went into receivership. It was taken over by the sporting Firearms goods dealers, Hartley and Graham, in 1888 and renamed the Remington Arms Company. In 1912, Industry Remington Arms merged with Union Metallic Cartridge Company and operated as Remington-U.M.C. (Flayderman, 2007; Marcot, 2005; Remington, 2010). Remington promoted its brand to both military and civilian markets. The former was targeted through advertising in the Army and Navy Journal , a private publication that became a semi-official 203 organ of the U.S. military read by both Americans and foreigners (Henning, 2006). Ads primarily pushed the rolling block military, hunting, and target rifles. Civilian buyers were reached through Harper’s Weekly . Published from 1857 to 1916, Harper’s was a popular national magazine that had a circulation of about 200,000 by the time of the Civil War. Remington ran its first ad in Harper’s in 1859 and advertised regularly in the 1860s and 1870s until financial reverses led to a cut in advertising in the 1880s. These ads were primarily for its revolvers, sporting rifles, and vest pocket pistols (Henning, 2006). As was customary during this period, manufacturers’ sales agents and sporting goods dealers also placed advertisements for the brand. Although Remington used testimonials from military personnel, it did not cultivate the civilian market with endorsements from people like Buffalo Bill and George Custer who owned Remington rifles (Henning, 2006). The Remington brand in the was known for more than just firearms. After the Civil War, when government contracts dried up, the Remington Agricultural Works “. . . carried the firm, making all types of farm implements, iron bridges, and numerous other non-gun products including burglar alarms, safe doors and fire engines” (Marcot, 2005, p. 13). In 1870, Remington purchased the Empire Sewing Machine Co. of New York and renamed the concern the Remington Empire Sewing Machine Company (changed to the Remington Sewing Machine Agency, 1874-1902) and put the Remington brand on the machines themselves. As shown in Plate 7, Remington promoted them with colorful posters and trade cards produced through the process of chromolithography (Last, 2005). In 1873 Remington acquired the rights to the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and the following year began sales under the Remington No. 1 brand name. Facing a slew of new competitors who drove down prices, Remington sold its typewriter business and brand name rights in 1886 to the Standard Typewriter Manufacturing Company, Inc. In 1902, Standard renamed itself the Remington Typewriter Company, an indication that the Remington brand was still considered a valuable asset.

Plate 7. Remington Sewing Machine trade cards, ca.1870

Sources: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2068/2345637089_ae0f27fa1a.jpg (left), http://www.creighton.edu/fileadmin/user/aesops/site/objects/object_categories/cards/trade/non_stock/i ndividual/images/remingtonSewingMachineTradeCardIII.jpg (right)

Smith & Wesson In 1854, Horace Smith (1808-1893) and Daniel B. Wesson (1825-1906) formed a company to manufacture pistols and rifles, but sales were poor and they sold their interest a couple of years later. In 1856, they formed a new partnership to manufacture pocket and medium-sized

CHARM 2011 revolvers based on the new technology of self-contained cartridge ammunition for which they had received a patent in 1854. They also had acquired rights to the Rollin White patent for the bored Proceedings through cylinder which was the most practical technology for loading and extracting cartridges. These well-designed and popular guns made their names famous. “By mid -1880, Smith & Wesson was accepted throughout the United States and the world as a leader in the production of revolvers” (Jinks, 1977, p. 261). The January 24, 1880 issue of Scientific American featured an article on Smith & Wesson and, on the cover, a collage of illustrations of the Smith & Wesson factory and gun production in Springfield, MA (see Jinks, 1977, p. 93). Like Samuel Colt, Smith & Wesson filed lawsuits to fight off patent infringements from other gun makers including Ethan Allen (ironically, Horace Smith had 204 once been employed by Allen), Thomas Bacon, Lucius W. Pond, E. A. Prescott, and Springfield Arms Co. (Boorman, 2002; Flayderman 2007). Smith retired in 1873 and sold his interest to Daniel Wesson who, along with his three sons, ran the company until his death in 1906 (Jinks, 1977). With demand sluggish after the Civil War, Smith & Wesson went after global markets by participating in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 and presenting highly decorated models to potential decision makers. Grand Duke Alexei, the son of Russian Czar Alexander II, took an interest in a new line of Smith & Wesson large caliber revolvers, which led to substantial orders commencing in 1871. The Turkish, Japanese, and Australian governments also purchased these Smith & Wessons (Boorman, 2002). Plate 8 depicts an advertisement from 1901 that uses these foreign sales as an endorsement. Headlined “A Smith & Wesson Revolver is the Choice of the Japanese Navy,” the ad foreshadows the rising might of Japan and its victories in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

Plate 8.

Smith & Wesson,

1901 (left); Source: http://www.corbisimages.com/images/67/86C5564C-A4D7-4E39-822F- ca. 1885 (right) A466E64C5CE2/BE080822.jpg (left); http://archive.liveauctioneers.com/archive3/hassinger- courtney/12975/0389_1_lg.jpg (right)

Smith & Wesson firearms became associated with famous, and infamous, personalities in the American West. After touring the U.S. east coast, which included a visit to the company factory in Springfield, Massachusetts in December, 1871, Grand Duke Alexei went west on a hunting trip accompanied by General Philip Sheridan, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, and William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. At one point, Alexei killed two buffalo at 30 yards with his Smith & Wesson revol ver. Smith & Wessons were carried by Cody, Ned Buntline, Wyatt Earp, Belle Starr, and, on the wrong side of the law, Jesse and Frank James and Cole Younger (Boorman, 2002).

Smith & Wesson played upon the myth of the West in its advertising for many years. The broadside in Plate 8 is a later reprint of a ca. 1885 lithograph by Dan Smith, which shows a young Early Brand cowboy escaping hostile on horseback while returning fire to the hostile Indians with his Smith & Development in Wesson. Another poster depicted a man wielding his revolver in a life and death struggle with a the U.S. grizzly bear. Firearms Industry Winchester Oliver Winchester (1810-1880) was a clothing manufacturer in New York City and New Haven, CT, who took an interest in the arms business. He invested in Smith and Wesson’s first vent ure, which was renamed the Volcanic Arms Company in 1855 after the founders sold out, and, in 1857, Winchester 205 took over all the assets and reorganized the concern as the New Haven Arms Company, still using the Volcanic trade name. In 1866 it was renamed the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and manufactured a long line of distinctive lever-action rifles that became icons of the “taming” of the West. These guns, along with repeating shotguns and other arms, were marketed as Winchesters. Oliver Winchester was not a firearms inventor, but a good businessman who employed talented workers and made good use of their ideas. After its namesake’s death in 1880, the company continued with a mix of family ownership and management (Williamson, 1952). Winchester promoted its brand through its sales organization, which consisted of salesmen, who called on jobbers (wholesalers), and missionaries, who called on dealers and retailers (Williamson, 1952). The latter group distributed advertising matter and a variety of sales promotion ephemera including calendars, posters, and counter displays to its distributer s. One Winchester specialty was the cartridge board, a picture-framed display of different caliber ammunition that its rifles could accommodate (Plate 9). The missionaries also worked club shoots, tournaments, and county fairs where they set up tents and booths to display products, distribute information, and sell ammunition. Many of the missionaries, who were dubbed “missionary salesmen” after 1900, were crack s hots themselves.

Plate 9. 1895 and 1913 Winchester Calendars and 1897 Winchester Cart ridge Board Source: Winchester Arms Collector Association website http://www.winchestercollector.org

Winchester further spread its fame by employing expert marksmen and women. In 1901, for example, Winchester hired Adolph Topperwein of San Antonio as an exhibition shooter. Two years later, Topperwein married Elizabeth Servaty, who had been working in the ammunition-loading room in the Winchester plant. She turned out to be an even better shot than her husband and set a trap shooting record at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. The couple set a variety of shooting records and performed fancy position shots, such as riding a bicycle while throwing up glass balls and shooting them with a rifle bullet. They continued to work for the company until 1940 (Williamson, 1952). Although never employed by Winchester, another excellent marksman, Buffalo Bill Cody, spread the brand’s fame through the popular shooting exhibitions at his fam ous Wild West Shows, a fact the company liked to publicize. Cody frequently visited the Winchester plant in New Haven to procure rifles and ammunition. Starting around 1880, a number of western stories featured Buffalo Bill.

CHARM 2011 Winchesters figured prominently in these inexpensive (many cost just a nickel) and fictionalized versions of frontier life. The cover of one such tale, “Buffalo Bill’s Mascot, or, The Mystery of Death Proceedings Valley” (no date) shows the hero firing a Winchester at savage Indians, and another cover, “Buffalo Bill’s Desperate Mission, or, The Round -Up in Hidden Valley” (September 15, 1906), has Cody using his Winchester to free a girl captured by Indians (Williamson, 1952). Perhaps the most famous and enthusiastic Winchester user of this time was Theodore Roosevelt. In Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885), a book he wrote that recapitulated his two year stint as a rancher in North Dakota, Roosevelt praised his Model 76 “. . . by all odds the best weapon I ever had, and I now use it almost exclusively, having killed every kind of game with it, from a grizzly bear to a big 206 horn” (cited in Williamson, 1952, p. 189). Roosevelt took a Winchester Model 95 U.S. Army to Cuba during the Spanish-American War where his fame soared as a Colonel of the Rough Riders. After his presidency, Roosevelt took a number of Winchesters on his eleven month African hunting expedition in 1909-1910. He wrote accounts of this trip for Scribner’s Magazine , which were later incorporated into another book, African Game Trails (Williamson, 1952).

Discussion Branded consumer goods in the U.S. became increasingly common in the latter half of the 19 th century. Factors favoring branding included improvements in manufacturing, transportation, and packaging; changes in trademark law that made the protection of names easier; and the development of new retail institutions (department stores, catalogs) for distribution and national media for advertising. Consumers, marketing intermediaries, and even company management sometimes resisted national brands, but these forces were largely overcome by about 1910-1914 (Laird, 1998; Low and Fullerton, 1994; Norris, 1990; Strasser, 1989). The brand development of Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester add new insights to this standard historical account. These firearms companies had all become relatively sophisticated manufacturers around the time of the Civil War and all four were distributing their products on a national, even an international scale, by the 1870s. No evidence of resistance to these brands has been found. In fact, the promotional activities of dealers, as shown in the B. Kittredge ads for Colt revolvers in 1874 and 1875, contributed to manufacturer brand building activities, albeit not necessarily in a carefully coordinated way. According to Henning (2006), the firearms advertising of E. Remington & Sons was plentiful, but unfocused and ill-directed in the period he studied, 1854-1888. Remington is an interesting case because its brand name was used on typewriters and sewing machines, important lines of durable goods that eventually became the property of separate companies who also owned and exercised rights to the Remington name. For American consumers in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries, the brand meant more than just firearms. The relative position of the four brands in the U.S. market at the end of the 19 th century can be inferred by an examination of their different types, number of items, and price ranges in the catalogs of Montgomery Ward & Co. (1895) and Sears Roebuck & Co. (1897). Consumers could buy as many as 62 different types of Winchesters, 37 different Colts, 18 Smith & Wessons, and 17 different Remingtons (see Table I). Montgomery Ward offered a slightly larger selection than Sears Roebuck, 124 different items v. 118. Prices appear very competitive across the two catalogs and in some cases are exactly the same. In several instances the catalogs mentioned that their prices were below manufacturer list prices. Competition was stiff and both catalogs sold a number of cheaper shotguns, rifles, and revolvers. The Montgomery Ward catalog “Gun Department” spanned 20 pages, with 12 additional pages devoted to ammunition and accessories. Sears had 18 pages of firearms for sale and 11 more pages of ammunition and accessories. Sears made a special sales appeal to gun clubs. Target shooting was a popular pastime in the late 19 th century (Rose, 2006). Neither catalog mentioned any restrictions of gun sales to minors.

Company & Type Montgomery Ward Price Range Sears Roebuck Price Range – no. of items – no. of items Early Brand Colt Development in Shotguns 2 $60.00-95.00 3 $51.30-84.95 the U.S. Rifles 7 $9.72-11.86 7 $9.72-11.86 Firearms Revolvers 28 $8.00-$15.80 7 $10.00-13.75 Industry

Remington Shotguns 6 $6.95-70.00 Rifles 9 $5.00-19.50 10 $8.72-16.75 207 Target pistol 1 $9.50 1 $5.15

Smith & Wesson Table 1. Revolvers 18 $8.95-$15.50 12 $9.95-13.00 Montgomery Ward & Co. (1895) and Winchester Sears Roebuck & Repeating 1 $16.88 2 $16.88 Co. (1897): Lever action rifles 58 $9.72-23.00 60 $10.13-23.00 Firearms by Company, Type, Total # of items 124 108 Number of Items, and Price Range Notes: The number of items was calculated from the different article numbers assigned in the catalogs. Additional features, such as special grips, were also available but are not counted separately. One dollar in either 1895 or 1897 is worth $25.45 in 2009 (Friedman, 2010).

Conclusion Firearms brands have played an important role in American business history and have been well- represented in its popular culture and visual arts. Gun marketing was negligible until the second half of the 19 th century when more modern forms advertising, promotion, and distribution were introduced. The development of the major firearms brands of Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester deserves the attention of the field of marketing history. Aside from the intrinsic satisfactions researching and writing brand histories provides, their study can make potential contributions to marketing management today by identifying those factors crucial to brand success. This study of brand development in the firearms industry contributes to studies of consumer culture and branding and to the arms literature by going beyond antiquarian and technological interests into the fields of business and marketing history. This paper reports findings from an early stage of this research project. The process of locating and examining primary sources has just begun. To gauge brand development in a more systematic way, issues of Harper’s Weekly from its founding in 1857 until the last issue in 1916 will be searched for ads for the four firearms brands of interest. This weekly newspaper was an important illustrated record of American life in the second half of the 19 th century and appealed to a middle-class audience (Norris, 1990). Other good sources for firearms advertising are the weekly Army and Navy Journal and the monthly American Agriculturalist , analyzed by Henning (2006), and the weekly The Turf, Field, and Farm.

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