The Merchants’ Manufacturer: The Barrett Family’s Dyeing Businesses in Massachusetts and New York, 1790-1850
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Citation Thorsen, Linda Jean. 2015. The Merchants’ Manufacturer: The Barrett Family’s Dyeing Businesses in Massachusetts and New York, 1790-1850. Master's thesis, Harvard University, Extension School.
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The Merchants’ Manufacturer:
The Barrett Family’s Dyeing Businesses in Massachusetts and New York, 1790-1850
Linda Jean Thorsen
A Thesis in the Field of History
for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies
Harvard University
May 2015
Copyright © 2015 Linda Thorsen
Abstract
This work explores the nature and evolution of the independent dyeing service industry in the early United States through a case study of the Barrett companies in
Malden, Massachusetts and in Staten Island, New York from the 1790s to 1850. I analyze published and unpublished sources to answer basic questions about this little-studied industry and these businesses in particular: How did they operate? What factors influenced their opportunities, challenges, and successes? What was the relationship of the dyeing service industry to merchants and to textile factories in New England? And how did the fortunes of the businesses and the family change over time?
Beginning in the 1790s, new trade opportunities for American merchants drove increases in imports of cloth from Europe and the East Indies, which in turn expanded opportunities for urban dyers to help merchants and households refurbish or repurpose valuable cloth, clothing, and household goods. Merchants engaged dyeing services— which involved coloring with natural dyes, and also bleaching, cleaning, and cloth finishing—to add value to goods that were faded, shopworn, dirty, or had been damaged in shipping. Men and women in elite or middling households, as well as businesses such as hotels, also used these services to transform their used clothes and furnishings into new and fashionable ones, avoiding the cost of new cloth. To meet the needs of elite customers, dyers worked with a wide range of fabrics and needed to produce colors and finishes matching or at least approaching the quality of imported cloth. In the first decades of the nineteenth century especially, these dyers were held to a high standard and needed a wider array of skills than did New England’s industrializing cloth
manufacturers, who could limit their scope. Knowledge transfer by traveling European dyers along with the dissemination of print materials helped American dyers enter the trade and keep up with European dyeing and finishing processes, while improvements in transportation and communication helped expand their customer reach.
Having little to do with American textile manufacturers, independent dyers’ interests were closely aligned with those of their merchant customers. In addition to facilitating dyers’ expansion and publicity, merchants took advantage of dyeing and later printing to reduce their risk, improve profitability of their import/export ventures, and influence tariff policy in their favor. But it was the steady custom in household dyeing that in fact drove day-to-day profits for dyers and ultimately subsidized the reduction of merchant risk. Profits and prices were highest from 1800 to 1820, declining gradually in the following decades due to increasing competition and to diverse other factors including the decline in prices of cloth and clothing. The skilled dyeing workforce was paid well and resisted deskilling. As the capital needed to start a dyeing business declined, some employees quit and became competitors, contributing to saturation of the market in the 1840s.
Beyond exposing one aspect of early nineteenth-century material culture and illuminating challenges facing a little-known industry’s business owners and workers, this study complicates our understanding of how merchant capital influenced industrialization. First, some merchants navigated the transforming political economy not only by investing in manufacturing, but also by choosing industries that fostered profit in their import/export activities. Second, import substitution industrialization took multiple forms during this period, some of which benefited merchants more than canonical producers such as the New England textile manufacturers.
“I send this dress to Hancock, the dyer way down town It looks quite rough and frumpy, let him extract the brown, And color it a little green, or Mazarenish blue; I shall expect to see it home as bright and fresh as new. But do not send the package, as you have done, by Express, The charge is quite a sum, and they never will take less….”
— Fragment of a letter in verse cataloging numerous errands given to the beleaguered writer by her friends. From “Our Dead Letter Office,” Godey’s Lady’s Book, August 1846 (Philadelphia: Louis Godey, 1846), Web, Accessible Archives.
About the Author
Born in 1955 in Camden, New Jersey, Linda Thorsen holds a B.A. in English
Literature from Swarthmore College and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of
Education. Beginning her career in 1978 as a writer of tutorials and user guides for
Massachusetts software companies, she later managed writers, developed marketing materials, and worked as a product manager, product marketing manager, and marketing consultant. In the 2000s, she left full-time corporate employment to pursue freelance writing, scholarship, and teaching. She and her husband have lived in Malden,
Massachusetts since 1989.
vi
To Mark
vii
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the many archivists who helped me find materials and shared their knowledge, especially Peter Nelson, Christina Barber, and their colleagues at the
Amherst College Archives; Cara Dellatte at the Staten Island Museum; the staff of The
Staten Island Historical Society / Historic Richmondtown library and archive; the Staff of the Baker Library Historical Collections at Harvard University; Dora St. Martin and
Steve Nedell at the Malden Public Library; and the officers and board of the Malden
Historical Society. I thank Jim Cunningham of Save Our Heritage and Colonel James
Barrett Farm for the delightful opportunity to meet descendants of William Barrett.
The ALM program at the Harvard University Extension School has, for a modest consideration, provided a space within which I could learn a great deal about United
States history without ignoring the rest of the globe. It also facilitated my studies as a
Special Student in the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Many thanks are due to Peter O’Malley, Sarah Powell, and Chuck Houston in the ALM office and to
Patrick O’Brien in the Special Student office for their support and for helping me navigate Harvard’s administrative requirements.
To Noelani Arista I am grateful for conversations about history and for dragging me to the 2008 conference that first brought me in contact with the History of Capitalism community at Harvard.
I have learned a great deal from all my instructors, teaching assistants, fellow students, and the students I taught. Though the ALM program does not have a “cohort,” I
viii have found fellow students and teaching assistants with whom to discuss my work and the challenges it posed. Special thanks are due to Lesley Ogorodnik, Mary DeLong,
David Nicholson, Ann Giannangeli, Ashley Pollock, Gail Gardner, Bob Goggin, and the many other students I met in the monthly meetings for thesis writers.
I have learned much from numerous doctoral students in History, American
Civilization / American Studies, and African-American Studies who, as fellow students, teaching assistants, and workshop organizers, inspired and encouraged me, including
Caitlin Rosenthal, Gloria Whiting, Bryant Etheridge, Eli Cook, Rudi Batzell, Sean
Nichols, Kathryn Boodry, and many others.
The Workshop on the Political Economy of Modern Capitalism, led by faculty members Sven Beckert and Christine Desan, introduced me to a vocabulary, a literature, and a set of questions that are fascinating in their complexity and critically important not only to our understanding of the past, but also to the future of the United States and humanity. I am particularly grateful to them for helping me come up the learning curve, tolerating my sometimes naïve questions, supporting my first research in this domain, and exposing me to a vibrant community of scholars around the world. Their encouragement and welcome has meant more to me than words can express.
Each of the thirteen courses I took for credit—and others I audited—expanded my knowledge and skill, teaching me a little more about history, scholarship, and life. I am especially grateful to Nadine Weidman, whose Advanced Analytical Reasoning in the
Social Sciences provided grounding in historical methods and sparked my fascination with the early nineteenth century. She later helped me gain valuable experience as a teaching assistant. I am grateful for her ongoing support and friendship.
ix Each day I am thankful for Sally Hadden’s 2007 Harvard Summer School course in the History of the Old South, which gave me crucial perspective on nineteenth century
U.S. economy and society. That course and Rachel St. John’s History of the American
West provided two important vantage points from which to examine American history.
Along with the Workshop in the Political Economy of Modern Capitalism, Sven
Beckert’s History of American Capitalism provided a helpful survey and an inspirational instructional example. Vincent Brown’s proseminar in Colonial and Revolutionary
America was a supportive introduction to the range of historical discourse, while Annette
Gordon-Reed’s Jeffersonian America expanded my grasp of Early American politics. In
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s History of the American Family, I began clumsily to put the
Barretts’ story on paper.
An underrated resource for newer scholars in any field is the opportunity to attend conferences that expose them to an inspiring community of scholars. I have especially enjoyed meetings at Harvard and also those sponsored by the Business History
Conference (BHC), the Society for the History of the Early American Republic
(SHEAR), the McNeil Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS), and the Library
Company of Philadelphia’s Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES).
Like all Harvard Extension School ALM Social Science graduate students, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Donald Ostrowski, who, while he is a historian of medieval and early modern Russia and an instructor in World History, adroitly handles an extraordinarily wide-ranging set of topics and disciplines in his capacity as research advisor. His monthly meetings of the ALM Social Science Proposal and Thesis Writers’
Discussion Group provided a valuable forum in which students could exchange research
x and writing challenges and joys. Most of all, I appreciate Don’s warm encouragement of every student and his boundless passion for the discipline of history and the Liberal Arts.
I have been privileged to work with Sven Beckert, who inspires all of us to act on our realization that no matter which kind of history we pursue, it cannot be fully understood outside the economic lives of historical actors and the political and social contexts that defined their opportunities and constraints. Encouraging exposure of the tensions between surrounding structures and the agency of individuals and groups, he internalizes the practice of history as a privilege that brings with it profound responsibilities. As my Thesis Director, he encouraged me, tolerated my procrastination, suggested valuable reading, and offered helpful comments.
Though I came to the study of history relatively recently, my interest in the past has been life long. I remember fondly the course on Tudor and Stuart England with
Robert DuPlessis at Swarthmore College, where I first realized that the lives of ordinary people were legitimately the stuff of history. While the various seeds planted at
Swarthmore would not bear fruit for many years, they are no less valuable for that.
During my time as an ALM candidate, my transition from full-time employment to freelance work allowed me to dedicate more time to scholarship. My clients have therefore materially supported this work. I especially thank Jennifer Brett and Bob
Greene at DotContent for engaging my services since 2007 and being flexible when my schedule and theirs did not mesh.
I am profoundly grateful for the understanding and support of dear friends and family outside the academy, old and new, who, while sometimes thinking I was crazy, nevertheless continued to applaud my successes. Especially helpful have been Rebecca
xi and Richard Chase and the lovely people who dine at their home on Friday nights, share wide-ranging conversation, provide companionship and advice, and encourage each other to face the next week with confidence and a full stomach. For over twenty-five years, my husband and I have shared a house and much more with Meryl Cohen and Philip Werner, who are also stalwart companions in this adventure called life. More than dear friends,
Rebecca and Meryl are my sisters in all but blood. My own sister Karen Thorsen Lamond and her husband, daughters, and their families, along with my husband’s extended family, also continue to embrace and inspire me. I hope I have returned the favor, broadening the younger generations’ sense of life’s diverse possibilities.
I am eternally grateful to my late parents, John Erland Thorsen and Esther Marie
Carlson Thorsen, for fostering my passion for learning and curiosity about the past. As immigrants to the U.S. from Sweden (in 1937 and 1920 respectively) who had limited educational opportunities, they especially valued the full inner life and material opportunities learning could provide. With few resources, they ensured I had the best possible education. In 1994 I re-connected with my Swedish family who have enriched our lives and taught me much about Europe and our shared past.
Finally, my gratitude to my husband, Mark Bernstein, knows no bounds. He has been my most avid fan and most fervent supporter. He has inspired high standards of scholarship, tolerated my blackest moods and an uncertain income, pushed me to think and to succeed, cooked wonderful meals, and been my constant partner in embracing life’s wonders, ups, and downs for over four decades. His presence in my life is one of its greatest gifts. This work is dedicated to him.
xii Table of Contents
Dedication ...... vii
Acknowledgements ...... viii
List of Figures...... xvi
Preface ...... 1
Note on Terminology...... 6
I. Introduction: Finding an Invisible Industry ...... 7
American Dyeing in the Historical Literature...... 13
Sources and Organization ...... 19
II. Background: Cloth, Dyeing, and Trade in the Late Eighteenth Century...... 22
Cloth and Competition in the Late Eighteenth Century...... 23
The Growth of Europe’s Capabilities in Dyeing and Printing...... 27
The Complex Work of Dyeing ...... 34
The French Wars Stimulate America’s East Indies Trade...... 38
William Barrett’s Origins ...... 43
Opportunities Converge...... 49
III. “In the Best Manner:” Scaling a Dyeing Service Business, 1800-1820 ...... 51
Spreading the Word and Satisfying Customers...... 53
Finding Workers and Capital through Family and Mechanic Networks...... 62
Reaching Customers beyond Boston...... 68
Taking Advantage of an Evolving Transportation Infrastructure ...... 74
Managing Internal Processes...... 79
Defending the Market ...... 84
xiii Ancillary Businesses ...... 87
Knowledge, Collaboration, and the Patent Wars...... 89
The Wages of Embargo and War...... 94
“Upon an Extensive Scale”...... 95
IV. The Merchants’ Manufacturer: The Barretts’ Staten Island Venture,
1820-1834...... 97
Branching Out: New Venture, New Partners...... 100
Staten Island, Vice President Tompkins, and Domestic Manufactures...... 104
“Upon a Scale Hitherto Unknown in This Country”: Cloning a Business
in 1820...... 107
Advantages in Transportation ...... 111
Advocating a New Political Economy: The Institution for the Promotion
of Industry ...... 114
“They Played Us a Trick”: Publicizing the Firm, Including the Great Company
Launch Caper of 1820 ...... 116
Proving the Concept...... 124
Defending the Market: Competition and Patents...... 126
Adding Cloth Printing—and Importing Printers ...... 127
The Dyers, the Merchants, and the Tariff ...... 131
William Barrett’s Choice: Scaling Back ...... 137
Continuity and Change: Cloth, Dyeing, and Printing Circa 1830 in the U.S.
and Britain ...... 144
U.S. Manufacturers’ Dyeing and Finishing: A Work in Progress...... 145
xiv Still Reaching to Equal the East: British Dyeing and Printing
Circa 1830 ...... 148
Circulation of Knowledge and Skill in the United States ...... 150
Conclusion...... 155
V. The Next Generation Confronts a Maturing Market, 1834-1850...... 158
Backdrop to the 1830s: Tuberculosis Invades the Barrett Family...... 160
Strength in Retail Dyeing: Structure and Finances ...... 164
Retail Dyeing’s Importance for the Staten Island Firm...... 171
The Problem of Rent: The Business vs. the Heirs...... 172
“Better, Quicker, and Cheaper”: The Struggle for Market Share ...... 178
The Barretts’ Multi-Brand Strategy...... 183
A Sample of Dyeing in 1839...... 185
A Potential Opportunity That Fizzled ...... 187
Skills and Workers’ Struggle for Independence...... 188
Malden’s Dyers: “Among the Good Livers of Our People” ...... 194
VI. Conclusion: Adding Color and Weight to an Invisible Industry ...... 197
Bibliography ...... 209
xv
List of Figures
Figure 1 William Barrett and his wife Mary Keisar Hall Barrett...... 63
Figure 2 An 1810 Boston advertisement for Barrett & Shattuck...... 68
Figure 3 Letters and newspapers transmitted by the U.S. postal system, 1790-1840 . .72
Figure 4 The Charlestown Bridge ...... 77
Figure 5 View of Malden Bridge from Bunker Hill, circa 1790 ...... 78
Figure 6 An 1806 Barrett & Shattuck receipt for dyeing three pieces of cloth ...... 81
Figure 7 An 1809 Barrett & Shattuck receipt for dyeing a silk gown and coat...... 82
Figure 8 Two notices to customers regarding objects left for dyeing ...... 84
Figure 9 An 1817 engraving showing the newly rebuilt Barrett factory ...... 87
Figure 10 The N.Y. Dyeing and Printing Establishment, Staten Island, in 1845...... 144
Figure 11 Barretts & Company finances, 1834-1839...... 168
Figure 12 Barrett & Brothers finances, 1840-1844 ...... 169
Figure 13 Barrett & Brothers finances, 1845-1849 ...... 170
xvi 1
Preface
A few mornings each week, I walk or drive the scant half a mile from my home on Chestnut Street to the Malden YMCA. As I turn onto Mountain Avenue, I pass the nineteenth-century courthouse (First District Middlesex), a classically inspired brick and stone edifice exuding authority and permanence.1 Perhaps it is no accident that the courthouse was erected only a short distance from one of the settlement’s earliest centers of commerce and community—the 1640 Malden gristmill owned by Thomas Coytemore.
Mountain Avenue slopes up to the Crocken Bridge, crossing over the railroad tracks that today carry the MBTA Orange Line and the Commuter Rail that connects
Boston with Reading. These tracks were first laid in the mid-1840s as part of the Boston
& Maine Railroad’s effort to compete with the Boston & Lowell. Sloping down again, the road proceeds across Washington and Linden Streets to the U.S. Post Office that sits opposite Coytemore Lea Park; abutting the park is a public swimming pool that on the hottest days of summer teems with local children.
As I turn right onto Dartmouth Street, the land slopes abruptly downward.
Mountain Avenue was once called Mill Street and ran along a milldam, with the water of
Spot Pond Brook flowing south through the center of Malden. Remnants of that dam probably still lie beneath the asphalt street, and perhaps today’s swimming pool unconsciously echoes more rustic swimming that once took place behind the dam.2 The
1 That permanence may be illusory. At this writing, plans are underway to repurpose the courthouse building, owned by the City of Malden, and to move judicial functions to a building formerly occupied by a bank.
2 I have not found references to swimming, but in the winter, ice skaters could reportedly skate from Melrose Highlands all the way down to the dam. Levi S. Gould, “Reminiscences of
2 slope of Dartmouth Street reminds us that waterpower once played a key role in Malden’s prosperity. The Malden River, formed by the juncture of Spot Pond Brook and Ell Pond, was once tidal in its lower parts. In the late nineteenth century, land in the center of
Malden was reclaimed, the ponds filled in, and the river channeled through underground culverts. Today, only a few new signs remind us that the river passes underneath, coming to daylight below Medford Street near the old burying ground (Bell Rock Cemetery) before flowing into the Mystic River.
As I proceed down Dartmouth Street, I continue alongside the recently constructed YMCA before entering the building. Built into the Mountain Avenue façade of the old 1905 Massachusetts Armory and sprawling down the hill, the new Y boasts four stories of athletic facilities including two swimming pools. The Y, the Post Office, and the City of Malden share the parking lot across the street. Across Ramsdell Street is a nondescript modern red brick office building with parking on its lower level.
On the site of these humble structures in 1804, William Barrett began to operate his bleaching, dyeing, and cleaning business and to establish a household in Malden with his new bride, Mary Keisar Hall Barrett. This ambitious business is almost entirely forgotten in Malden. When residents look back on Malden’s industrial history, they often train the spotlight on the Boston Rubber Shoe Company, started in the 1850s, and on its well-known manager, Elisha Slade Converse. Elisha and Mary Converse were Malden’s first family in the later nineteenth century—successful in business and generous in philanthropy. Given that Converse was a banker, manufacturer, and the City of Malden’s first mayor in 1881, it is not surprising that his rising star obscured the memory of those
North Malden (Melrose),” Register of the Malden Historical Society No. 4 (Lynn, Massachusetts: Malden Historical Society, 1916), 80-81.
3 who came before. Later, in 1908, Mr. Converse’s distant cousin, Marquis Mills Converse, started the Converse Rubber Shoe Company. That latter firm eventually produced the famous Converse All Stars, a brand that survives today under the ownership of Nike. If
Malden’s business history were to have a symbol, it would be a Converse sneaker.
But what of Malden’s industrial history before 1850? Was it simply a matter of sawmills, gristmills, smithies, and tanneries?
Historians Alan Dawley and Mary H. Blewitt, among others, have described the evolution of the early shoemaking industry in Lynn. In Malden, similar home-based shoe- making workshops were plentiful as well, and shoemaking was from early days a major occupation in the town. But Malden also had dyers. Malden’s largest single employer before 1850 was the Barrett family’s dyeing business, which opened in 1804, spawned various offshoots and rivals, and operated continuously until the 1880s when it moved out of Malden.3 Though the Barrett family businesses have received only the briefest of mentions in local histories, they were once well known throughout Greater Boston and important to the town of Malden and its growth as an industrial city. Even so, the history given in the Malden Master Plan of 2010 noted only that:
Malden flourished as a business community. In addition to some small-scale farming, fishing and lumbering operations, Odiorne‘s Nail Mill, Barrett’s Dye House, and Coytmore’s Mill achieved a place of significance in Malden‘s early history as much as the Boston Rubber Shoe Company and the Converse Rubber Company did years later.4
3 I have not traced the business after its move, but it continued to operate in Charlestown or Somerville. On Henry Barrett’s death, it passed to his son Richard Stearns Barrett.
4 Metropolitan Area Planning Council, City of Malden Master Plan. Boston, 2010. Web. https://imageserv3.team- logic.com/mediaLibrary/181/Malden_Master_Plan_FINAL_072010_1.pdf. Accessed December 3, 2013, 36.
4
The 1980 Malden Reconnaissance Survey Town Report is only slightly more specific:
William Barrett…erected a dye house in 1804 for silk dyeing, immediately south of the Odiorne brothers’ nail rolling and slitting mill, also begun in 1804, on the site of the 1640 grist mill….5
In modern memory, these brief notes must stand for more than 200 years of local business history.
Other than the general slope of the land, some suggestive street patterns, and a long heritage of industrialization in Malden, no visible evidence of the Barrett dye house remains. The central land in populated Massachusetts cities and towns like Malden has experienced continuous use and redevelopment since English colonists first settled there; the result is a confusing palimpsest. The last buildings of the original Barrett dye house, which had since passed into other hands, were torn down in the 1920s.6 Today any archaeological evidence of this early industry in Malden center lies under asphalt, disrupted by decades of renovation and redevelopment.7
5 Massachusetts Historical Commission. MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Malden, 1980, 4-5. This source mentioned that William Barrett was a successful China-trade merchant, though I have found no evidence to indicate that was the case; the author presumably confused him with someone in the other family of Malden and Melrose Barretts, which did include ship captains.
6 The Malden Historical Society collections include photographs of the buildings shortly before they were demolished.
7 The foundation of Barrett’s second mill, the one he termed the “Red Mill,” which was located upstream along Spot Pond Brook in Stoneham, still remains. That foundation survived largely due to the fact that for most of the twentieth century its site has been part of a Massachusetts state park, the Middlesex Fells Reservation, managed now by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).
5
To learn more about the Barrett family, their dyeing businesses, and the growth and development of an industry that has remained invisible for so long, we must go to the archives for answers.
After beginning my graduate work at the Harvard University Extension School, I became fascinated with the early nineteenth-century United States. I gradually realized that perhaps I could contribute to my community of Malden and to the broader historical record while exploring an interest in the history of capitalism.
This project began with some simple exploratory questions. What was William
Barrett’s dyeing business? What was its role in early nineteenth-century American culture, business, and industrialization? Was it connected with the early New England textile factories? And how did it become successful? What were the challenges a new generation of entrepreneurs faced in attempting to found a family fortune on a business and a few acres—rather than agriculture and farmland? As I began seeking answers to these and other questions, I found almost no published work on this industry.
Over the past five years I have found some interesting answers and many more questions. I have discovered the challenges historians face when their project is not inherently source-based. I have learned a great deal not only about the early United States and the world, but also about the reasons people undertake historical study and the meanings our society attributes to history, historical narratives, and the teaching and learning of history. I have experienced some wonderful moments in the archives and some fruitless searches. I have done some things right and many things wrong, and learned as much if not more from the latter. In short, this project has done what a master’s thesis is supposed to do.
6
Note on Terminology
I have used the standard spellings “dye” and “dyeing” throughout, though the spelling of the words varied a great deal in contemporary sources. Dye was often written as “die” and dyeing was often written as “dying.” Spellings of the terms for different types of cloth were likewise variable and I have made no attempt to standardize them.
7
Chapter I
Introduction: Finding an Invisible Industry
On the morning of Saturday September 23, 1820, a group of prominent gentlemen arrived by steam ferry on the north side of Staten Island and toured a newly opened factory that some said would “lessen our dependence on foreign fabrics.”8 In attendance were prominent local and national officials including U.S. Secretary of War John C.
Calhoun, along with a group of New York merchants and bankers. By all evidence, the men were impressed by what they saw—and by the hospitality of the factory’s owners, who treated more than 100 people to a sumptuous afternoon turtle dinner, complete with wine and the obligatory toasts.9 Four years later, a group of New York merchants joined the factory owners in petitioning the federal government for a tariff adjustment.
Why was this factory so important to local officials? And why were merchants, whose interests generally were not aligned with those of manufacturers, so supportive of this particular firm? The new business, feted and favored by local and national elites, was not a textile manufacturer—it was a dyeing service business whose success was built on the demand for refurbishing cloth, garments, and home furnishings. The independent dyeing industry, once an integral part of the daily lives of elite and middling households, central to the concerns of a group of entrepreneurs and workers, important to at least two
8 “New York, September 26,” Albany Gazette, Albany, New York, September 29, 1820, 2, Readex: America's Historical Newspapers. Also noted in Charles L. Sachs, Made on Staten Island (Staten Island, NY: Staten Island Historical Society, 1988), 36.
9 For one example of coverage, see “Establishment for dying Cloths, Silk, &c &c on Staten Island,” Patron of Industry, New York, September 27, 1820, 2-3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
8 local economies, and, at least briefly, hailed as a major development in the young United
States’ nascent industrial sector, has faded from historical memory.
This work explores the growth and operation of the independent dyeing industry in Massachusetts and New York from roughly the 1790s to 1850 through a case study of the Barrett companies in Malden and Staten Island. Tracing the development of the
Barrett family’s Malden and Staten Island firms, I examine how the business opportunity emerged, how the firms were able to expand in a pre-railroad era, how their fortunes were intertwined with those of the merchant elite, and how they navigated changing business conditions in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Americans’ preference for costly imported cloth from Europe and the East Indies during the first decades of the nineteenth century created opportunities for dyers working in urban centers to build thriving service businesses by helping merchants and households refurbish or repurpose cloth, clothing, and household furnishings. For merchants, the dyeing services, which also involved bleaching, cleaning, and cloth finishing, reduced risk by adding value to their goods that were faded, shopworn, no longer fashionable, or had been damaged in shipping. In addition, men and women in elite or middling households, as well as businesses such as hotels, used these services to transform their used clothes and furnishings into new and seemingly fashionable ones as an alternative to creating new items from expensive imported cloth. To meet elite customer needs, dyers had to work with diverse fabrics—including linen, cotton, wool, and silk—and produce colors and finishes matching or at least approaching the quality emerging from European factories. As a result, in the early decades of the nineteenth century at least, they were held to a high standard of workmanship and needed a wider range of skills than did their neighbors in New England’s industrializing cloth manufacturers, who could choose to
9 focus on a more limited range of materials and colors. Having little to do with those manufacturers, independent dyers’ interests were more closely aligned with those of their merchant customers. The existence of a thriving and growing independent dyeing industry shows that the ambitious expansion of dyeing and printing in the United States was, especially between 1800 and 1820, driven more by the needs of import/export merchants, retailers, and household and business consumers than by the growth of domestic manufacturers of yarn and cloth. Import substitution industrialization took multiple forms—driven not only by manufacturers but also by merchants who paid for dyeing, re-dyeing, bleaching, or printing of cloth that had been manufactured elsewhere.
The life cycle of William Barrett’s dyeing business in Malden, Massachusetts from roughly 1800 to 1850 exemplifies changes over time in the independent dyeing industry. Starting in Charlestown and soon moving to Malden, the business earned high profits and paid skilled employees attractive wages. It differed from earlier dyers’ operations chiefly through its ambitious scale and scope. The business grew by reaching customers in an expanding area, using dry goods retailers as agents. Facilitating this growth were dyers’ ability to obtain capital through networks of family members, mechanics, and merchants; the ability to reach customers through newspapers as well as by word of mouth; reduction of transportation barriers due to improvements in roads, bridges, and canals; and the ability to protect mechanical processes through the U.S
Patent Office. Interruptions in imports between 1806 and 1815 increased Americans’ need to refurbish goods in hand, thereby making the Barretts’ services more valuable.
In 1820, William Barrett and his brother George opened a second factory on
Staten Island with a merchant partner, soon adding cloth printing as well. Though they were aided by—and also contributed to—a national political climate increasingly
10 supportive of domestic manufactures, the partners joined their natural allies—New York merchants—to help them influence tariff policy in favor of import/export profits.
Overextended in the late 1820s and facing a volatile economy, William Barrett sold his interest in the Staten Island dyeing and printing firm to prop up the vulnerable Malden business. In the 1830s and 1840s, dyers’ barriers to entry were reduced, patents had expired, and entrepreneurs needed substantially less capital to build and furnish dye houses. At the same time, consumers’ costs of cloth and clothing were declining due to a range of factors including the industrialization of domestic cloth manufacturing. Many new dyers entered the market, competing with the sons of William Barrett who ran the firm after 1834. Some knowledgeable Barrett employees, seeking independence and profit, were among those who started their own dyeing businesses. Replicating the
Barretts’ model, these dyers competed on price, quality, and speed of returning the goods.
The ensuing price wars resulted in failures and consolidation, but the Barrett firm survived and adopted a multi-brand strategy in an attempt to keep and extend its customer base. Wholesale (merchant) business was always less profitable and not quite as plentiful or consistent as the retail (largely household) business, in part because merchants wielded power as large customers and lenders of capital to command low prices for dyeing. In effect, then, merchants’ risk reduction was subsidized by household dyeing. Though the firm persisted into the late nineteenth century, its profits declined from the golden age of
1800-1820, and William and Mary Barrett’s dream—that the business would provide a secure independence for all their surviving children—was never fully realized. The end date of 1850 allows the study to include the significant changes of the 1840s without adding the complexities of the U.S. Civil War or the advent of synthetic dyes.
11
This is a work of history. My goal is not to praise the accomplishments of an exceptional entrepreneur, nor to offer prescriptions for today’s business practitioners, nor to test economic theories, but rather to add to our understanding of the society and culture of the early United States. The story of William Barrett, members of his family, and the businesses they ran in Malden, Massachusetts, and Staten Island, New York, offers insights into the material culture of cloth, political economy, and the nature of business and entrepreneurship during the early nineteenth century. Materially, by understanding where and how dyeing took place, we can better understand how households in the period managed clothing and furnishings as they fashioned social status. Politically, we can learn how merchants reduced the risks of commerce and how some navigated the
“encouragement of domestic manufactures” in ways that enhanced their profits. Finally, we can understand resources and strategies available to entrepreneurs who sought to grow a business beyond its local area in the first decades of the nineteenth century, and the challenges middling entrepreneurs, their families, and their employees faced in sustaining a factory-centered business in the midst of a rapidly changing economy.
William Barrett and his family were, by Greater Boston standards, neither especially poor nor especially wealthy, though they became part of Malden’s elite.
William Barrett was an ambitious man of a prominent but middling Anglo-American family, a good marriage, and some training in the cloth crafts, who worked with others and used many resources at his disposal in an attempt to build a life, a living, and independence (a “competence”) for himself and his family. His success was impressive— but not unlimited. By exploring what he did, which factors facilitated or constrained his efforts, and what choices he made along the way, we can better understand the forces that
12 shaped the lives of business owners and their families in the urban North during this period.
To succeed in a business that relied on technical processes, and that at least claimed for itself the ability to equal the best work in the world, the Barretts had to continue to expand their knowledge of best practices. Though some discussion of specific dyeing practices necessarily enters the story, is not my intent to provide an exhaustive history of the science, technology, or even economics of dyeing in the early nineteenth- century United States. That would perhaps require another study of equal length.
As other historians have emphasized in recent years, if we are to understand people’s lives and actions in any time and place, we must understand their economic lives—their means of obtaining subsistence and luxuries; their standard of living; the kinds of work they performed and how much choice they had about their work; whether, how, and why they accumulated wealth; the relationships between social status and wealth, income, or occupation; and what adults provided—in money, resources, or training—to the next generation. Moreover, to understand these economic lives, we must understand political and social structures that shaped their possibilities and constraints.
Businesses—like households, voluntary associations, churches, or other institutions—are human social structures created by people to serve particular human social ends. In that regard, the story of a family business concerns more than just the actions of the firm. It cannot be understood separate from the actions of the family and its members—or the trajectory of the surrounding political economy and social environment.
13
American Dyeing in the Historical Literature
With few exceptions, historians have neglected the independent dyeing service industry, focusing instead on more obvious and dramatic exemplars of manufacturing and industrialization. If the word “dyeing” enters the narrative of the pre-1850 United States at all, it typically conjures one of two images: 1) a home-based or small workshop-based process in which women of the household or professional clothiers dyed fiber and yarn prior to creating cloth from homespun wool, or 2) one step in the rapidly integrating textile manufacturing industry most commonly associated with Francis Cabot Lowell and the Waltham and Lowell factories. The considerable literature on the industrialization of
New England and New York in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century has emphasized how the growth of factory production transformed social relations. Topics include the manufacture of textiles (Dalzell and others) and shoes (Dawley, Blewett,
Faler); changes in the social structures of crafts whose basic material realities did not change significantly, such as house building (Lubow); or changes in labor relations in particular locations (e.g., New York in Sean Wilentz’s Chants Democratic).10 As a service industry, dyeing falls between the cracks, occupying a position that could be identified at times with any of historians’ (and historical actors’) traditional categories of craft, commerce, manufacturing or with no category. In addition, this was an arena in
10 Robert F. Dalzell, Jr., Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987); Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976); Mary H. Blewett, Men, Women, and Work: Class, Gender, and Protest in the New England Shoe Industry, 1780-1910 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988); Paul G. Faler, Mechanics and Manufacturers in the Early Industrial Revolution: Lynn, Massachusetts, 1780-1860 (Albany: SUNY Press, 1981); Lisa B. Lubow, “From Carpenter to Capitalist: The Business of Building in Post-Revolutionary Boston,” in Entrepreneurs in the Boston Business Community, 1700-1850, edited by Conrad Edick Wright and Katheryn P. Viens, (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1997), 181-209; Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850, 20th Anniversary Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
14 which Americans did not lead the way; first Asia and later Europe were far more accomplished in their dyeing and printing, and Europeans scaled up large factory operations much earlier than Americans did.
Understandably, studies of business in the northern United States during the early nineteenth century have been dominated by commerce conducted by merchants whose business was trading in goods, often across long distances, and by manufacturing, before and after industrialization. Manufacturers of greatest interest to historians have been those that mass-produced products such as yarn, cloth, shoes, or tools from raw materials—and whose growth eventually dramatically reshaped labor practices and capital flows in the United States.
Overall, historians of technology and industrialization have privileged large-scale manufacturing and the “firsts” of cloth production. The Barretts, while innovators in their way, did not perhaps develop inventions with broad significance. Historians of labor have tended to focus on industries with large numbers of employees and a large body of documented trade association activity. Historians of dyes and dyeing, whether or not they focus on textile manufacturers, have often have seen the story of the American dyeing industry as beginning in the mid-nineteenth century with the advent of synthetic dyes; whether focused on business or technology, they have situated dyes and dyeing in the second industrial revolution, largely ignoring events before 1850.11 One history of textile printing in the United States, Florence H. Petit’s America’s Printed and Painted Fabrics,
1600-1900, traced cloth printing and attempted to survey some of the early print works,
11 For one example, see John Peter Murmann, Knowledge and Competitive Advantage: The Coevolution of Firms, Technology, and National Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
15 but the Barrett business on Staten Island escaped her attention.12 The artifacts themselves are not much help. Without a brand, signature, or specific provenance, it is almost impossible to determine exactly where a particular handkerchief, for example, was dyed or printed. Though art historians have surveyed early American textiles, they shed little light on the productions or operations of American dyers and printers in this period. Their work is made harder by the fact that many of these items were dyed or printed to look as though they came from somewhere else!
Studies of clothing such as Michael Zakim’s Ready Made Democracy do not mention consumers’ practice of sending their clothes to be dyed, bleached, or cleaned— essentially refinished to make them “like new.”13 Susan Strasser’s Waste and Want: A
Social History of Trash, focuses on trash and reuse and has quite a lot to say about clothing, but barely mentions dyeing, and makes no mention at all of who did it or what processes were involved.14 Yet the dyeing service industry, much better known to its contemporaries than to twenty-first century historians, formed an integral part of the transforming cloth and garment industry, an integral part of the history of the changing political economy in the first decades of the nineteenth century, and an integral part of the story of how specific places like Malden, Massachusetts and “Factoryville” in New
Brighton, Staten Island (New York’s Richmond County), first became industrial centers.
Europe’s dyers have received somewhat more attention from historians, who have explored the questions of how dyeing practices changed in Europe during the seventeenth
12 Florence H. Petit, America’s Printed & Painted Fabrics 1600-1900 (New York: Hastings House, 1970).
13 Michael Zakim, Ready-Made Democracy: A History of Men’s Dress in the American Republic, 1760-1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
14 Susan Strasser, Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash (New York: Henry Holt, 1999).
16 and eighteenth centuries. Historian of technology Augustí Nieto-Galan, through his own research and through collecting others’ work into an edited volume, has illuminated
Europe’s international dynamics dyeing and sites of dyeing with natural dyes.15 In addition, economic historian Georgio Riello has explored the transfer of knowledge in the art of calico printing from Asia, and India in particular, to Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.16
America’s independent dyers were also invisible to census takers, at least initially.
As service providers, independent dyers were not considered to be engaged in manufacturing for the purposes of the United States manufacturing censuses of 1810 and
1820, though they appeared in the McLane report of 1833 and in some later state manufacturing censuses. The U.S. population census did not collect information about occupations until 1850, making it difficult to identify or count individual dyers.
Finally, commercial dyeing has gone largely unnoticed by public historians, who enthusiastically demonstrate the home dyeing practiced by women in early nineteenth- century American households.17
As a result, existing literature on early sites of dyeing in the United States is sparse, and no work directly addresses the cultural, business, and political history of independent dyeing businesses or the industry as a whole. Only two historical works
15 Augustí Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles: A History of Natural Dyestuffs in Industrial Europe (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001); Robert Fox and Augustí Nieto-Galan, eds., Natural Dyestuffs and Industrial Culture in Europe (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1999).
16 Giorgio Riello, “Asian Knowledge and the Development of Calico Printing in Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Journal of Global History 5 (March 2010): 1-28.
17 One site interpreter who demonstrated dyeing at Old Sturbridge Village told me in 2013 that she understood some people in the early nineteenth century took their items to be dyed at cloth factories. She might have been thinking of multi-use facilities such as the Oxford Dye House discussed in Chapter IV. She did not know independent commercial dyers existed.
17 provide information on the business and industry directly.
Charles Sachs’ 1988 Made on Staten Island is a catalog developed to accompany a local historical exhibit on early Staten Island industry.18 Providing the most detailed published information about the Barretts’ Staten Island firm to date, Sachs’s work was local in scope. It emphasized the importance of the business’s arrival in Staten Island in
1819 and largely ignored its early history in New England.
Albert Heusser’s A History of Silk Dyeing in the United States is a voluminous, encyclopedic, and uneven work developed under the auspices of the American Silk
Dyers’ Association in 1927.19 It aimed to tell an origin story of triumphal scientific progress toward the modern American silk-dyeing industry—one that favored
Connecticut leadership—and buried a brief outline of the history of the Barrett companies in a section on New York. For Heusser, too, manufacturing was the main thing, along with innovation. The Barretts’ retail and merchant services were not relevant to his goals of tracing the history of silk dyeing in the manufacturing process. He did not at first believe the Barretts fit into his study, though he learned that they had also served the “silk trade” by dyeing and finishing gray goods. Heusser visited Staten Island late in the course of his research and was charmed by the Barrett firm’s venerability, but condescending in regard to its lack of modernity.20 Waxing romantic, Heusser described his visit this way:
The numerous buildings comprising the establishment are those of a bygone age. Solidly-built structures of brick, laid up with lime mortar, and contrasting rather strangely with
18 Charles Sachs, Made on Staten Island (Staten Island, NY: Staten Island Historical Society, 1988).
19 Albert E. Heusser, History of Silk Dyeing in the United States (Paterson, NJ: Silk Dyers Association, 1927).
20 Heusser, History of Silk Dyeing, 404.
18
the modern “daylight” constructions of concrete and steel, impart a most delightful atmosphere of stability and worth. The main dyehouse…preserves in its extremities the thick walls and double chimneys necessary to ample hearth-fires; and the receiving and shipping room is filled with shelves stacked ceiling-high with the honest records of a century— dust covered, maybe, but of the kind which are an asset in the truest sense.21
Publications aimed at consumers also said little about dyeing services, though in the 1830s and 40s, Godey’s Lady’s Book frequently offered recipes for home dyeing, bleaching, or cleaning, occasionally alluding obliquely to practices of professional dyers, either in the manufacturing process or otherwise.22 One note on scouring woolens in
1832, for example, explained what care to take when cleaning a garment that had been dyed with a “false dye” (one that was not fast).23 The verse fragment in my frontispiece is one of the few direct references to dyeing services. One possible reason for the dearth of discussion of dyeing services is that elite and middling women and men, as well as business owners, may have feared loss of status if it were generally known that they dyed their garments or furnishings to appear newer than they were. A journalist writing about the Staten Island business’s history reported that in elite New York households, the practice of sending out one’s clothing to be professionally dyed on Staten Island was a carefully guarded family secret passed on to young people by their grandmothers.24
21 Heusser, History of Silk Dyeing, 404. The records he describes seem not to have been preserved, unfortunately.
22 For one example, see “Recipes for Discharging Colours,” Godey’s Lady’s Book, July 1833 (Philadelphia: Louis A. Godey, 1833), Web, Accessible Archives, Malvern, Pennsylvania.
23 “Remarks on Scouring Woollens,” Godey’s Lady’s Book, October 1832, (Philadelphia: Louis A. Godey, 1832), Web, Accessible Archives, Malvern, Pennsylvania.
24 “Barrett-Nephews Is One of the Island’s Oldest Industries; Company’s Romantic History Dates Back More Than 100 Years,” Staten Island Advance, June 26, 1929. Staten Island Museum History Archives and Library, Collection: William T. Davis Papers, Folder 58.
19
Sources and Organization
Given the relative lack of attention to this industry, it is fortunate that some business records have survived. The most fruitful source of unpublished material for this work has been the Porter Phelps Huntington Family Papers in the Archives and Special
Collections housed at the Amherst College Library, Amherst Massachusetts. (Because its name is rather lengthy, I’ve used the abbreviation PPHFP in the notes throughout.) This archive contains selected personal and business records and correspondence that were passed down through the family of William Barrett’s second son Henry Barrett and
Henry’s third wife Lucy Theodora Gellineau Stearns Barrett. Business records that have survived are sketchy. No payroll information is available before 1850, for example, and no daybooks or account books from the office have survived. Correspondence is selective and if the dyers kept personal journals, they are not in the archives. Some objects possessed by the family, including household furnishings and the portraits of William and
Mary Barrett, are housed in the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Museum in Hadley,
Massachusetts.
While a number of individual dyers’ and clothiers’ account books for many different businesses are scattered throughout United States archives, and contain some interesting information about colors and pricing, they are often insufficient for drawing conclusions about business operations. A few isolated trade bills, brochures, and advertisements for the Barrett businesses exist, but are generally undated and most were printed later in the nineteenth century.
Papers in the archives of the Staten Island Museum and those of the Staten Island
Historical Society (a.k.a. Historic Richmondtown) were helpful for context but not as
20 extensive as I had hoped. The permanent exhibit “Made on Staten Island” at the Historic
Richmondtown Museum contains some interesting artifacts relating to the early dyeing and printing factories on Staten Island.
Because dyers relied heavily on newspaper advertising to reach their customers, another very important source has been the database America’s Historical Newspapers available online through Readex.
The Historical Collections of the Baker Library, Harvard University, yielded a few gems such as a “Malden Dye House” daybook from one of that company’s agents. In addition, perusing the papers of the Boston Manufacturing Company and the various
Slater companies before 1830 provided helpful information about how cloth manufacturers engaged with retailers.
In the Winterthur Library, Wilmington, Delaware, I found, among other helpful sources, the books of early dyers John Rauch, Cornelius Molony, and H. McKernan, and learned that Rauch and Molony had visited the Barrett dye house.
Census records, government reports, town meeting records, probate records, business directories, local histories, and a variety of other sources were valuable for researching minor characters and connecting the pieces of the story.
Unfortunately, due to constraints of time and distance, I was not able to explore the extensive Sidney Edelstein Collection on dyes and dyeing housed at the National
Library of Israel, Hebrew University.
In the following chapters, the story of the emergence and development of the independent dyeing industry is related in chronological order, with Chapters III, IV, and
V tracing the development of the Barrett businesses from their beginnings in the 1790s through the 1840s. But to understand how this industry emerged when it did and to
21 situate the expansion of William Barrett’s dyeing business in its proper historical context, we must begin the story in the late eighteenth century, a time when cloth was arguably the most important trade commodity in global circulation. Chapter II, therefore, broadens our scope far beyond New England to consider who produced the cloth worn by
Americans, how its production and trade were changing, and why these changes created both opportunities and challenges for Boston merchants.
22
Chapter II
Background: Cloth, Dyeing, and Trade in the Late Eighteenth Century
Boston in the late eighteenth century was a rapidly changing city with a growing population. Merchants who traded with Britain, Europe, and Asia dominated the Boston’s elite, and textiles dominated their bustling trade, especially the fine woolens, linens, silks, and cottons that American households transformed into garments and home furnishings such as bed linens, drapes, carpets, and upholstery. As the century drew to a close,
American trade with Europe and especially the East Indies was expanding rapidly, bringing into the United States a greater volume and wider variety of cloth from Europe,
India, and China—that is, when wars did not interrupt imports entirely. Though Boston’s merchant elite was becoming wealthier than ever before, cloth was still quite valuable, making it worthwhile for even the wealthiest to refurbish damaged or unsuitable cloth, clothing, and home furnishings.
Given the importance of selling cloth in European and American markets,
European textile-producing countries and their increasingly factory-like workshops vied with one another to weave, dye, and print desirable cloth and replicate the technological achievements of Indian dyers and printers—considered to be the world’s most advanced.
Dyers from Europe who sought economic opportunity in the United States brought quite advanced knowledge and skill in dyeing and in European factory models. In America, they found a much more basic cloth manufacturing sector but very sophisticated buyers who regularly consumed imported cloth—and wanted cloth, garments, accessories, and home furnishings that could be made to look “like new.” At the same time, greater
23 population density in the areas surrounding Boston meant that more young men were forced either out of agriculture or out of the region. At the close of the eighteenth century, these global and local shifts combined to expand opportunities for dyers in Boston—long before Francis Cabot Lowell built his factories.
Cloth and Competition in the Late Eighteenth Century
To understand why opportunities emerged for American dyers, we must understand more specifically how cloth was produced, what cloth producers were trying to achieve, and how America’s cloth trade was changing. As many others have observed, in the context of eighteenth-century manufacturing and trade, cloth was high technology—one of the most dynamic trade commodities of the era. Producers competed with one another to create the most highly desirable yarns, colors, and designs and to earn reputations for quality. In addition, merchants competed with one another to bring the most desirable yarn, thread, and cloth—sometimes over very long distances—to people who would pay for it. These various competitions were not the concerns only of individual workshops, factories, or merchants. Countries whose workshops produced attractive cloth could increase their revenue, reputation, and power through trade. A country whose ships could transport valuable cloth to consumers—or monopolize that transport—could also profit handsomely. Consumers desired cloth in a range of qualities; they also wanted it at the lowest possible cost. So being able to deliver goods faster or at lower cost than others might also result in greater market share and higher profits.
Fine cloth was valued for many different characteristics—its weight, the fineness of yarn and weave, and also its color, decoration, and finish. To create desirable fancy cloths, skilled European cloth workers had long incorporated designs through the
24 weaving process, creating damasks and brocades, for example, using quite complex weaving that incorporated different types and colors of yarns.25 In addition, they had embroidered decorations using a variety of colored threads. More pedestrian patterns such as checked designs were also woven from colored yarn. But from the beginning of trade with India, Europeans envied the results Indian workshops achieved in obtaining not only high-quality weaving but also bright, permanent colors on yarn and cloth and in using dyes and mordants to print designs on cloth. Britain and France, alarmed by the potential economic damage to their own woolen and silk manufacturers, had even completely banned, for a time, the importing and wearing of Indian printed cloths, generally known as calicos (named for Calcutta) or indiennes: Britain in 1700 and then again from 1721 to 1774 and France from 1686 to 1759.26 Depending on the specific policy enacted, the bans could serve to encourage or discourage domestic production of calicos. Britain’s first Calico Act in 1700 “prohibited the retail and consumption of
India’s dyed, stained, and printed cotton calicos and silks in England,” but exempted the sale and consumption of Indian white goods printed by England’s calico printers.27
France’s ban, in contrast, prohibited wearing or manufacturing printed goods as well as importing them.28 Both English and French merchants relied heavily on selling Indian
25 Riello, “Asian Knowledge,” 4-5.
26 Geert Verbong, “The Dutch Calico Printing Industry Between 1800 and 1875,” in Natural Dyestuffs and Industrial Culture in Europe, edited by Robert Fox and Augustí Nieto- Galan (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1999), 195.
27 Jonathan Eacott, “Making an Imperial Compromise: The Calico Acts, the Atlantic Colonies, and the Structure of the British Empire,” William and Mary Quarterly 69, no. 4 (October 2012): 732-745.
28 James K. J. Thomson, “The Catalan Calico-Printing Industry Compared Internationally,” Anuari de la Societat Catalana d'Economia [online], 1989: 73, Web, http://www.raco.cat/index.php/AnuariEconomia/article/view/219983.
25 cloth in Africa, as they could not bring it into their own country.29 Once bans were lifted, in either case, cloth workers had greater incentives to improve their quality of manufacture and compete with India’s dyed and printed goods.
North America was an increasingly important market for European and Asian cloth in the late eighteenth century. Americans produced some woolen and linen cloth at home, to be sure, and clothiers finished woolen cloth spun and often woven in American homes, but the finer woolens, linens, silks, and cottons were usually imported. Many of these, and especially the woolens and linens, were manufactured in Britain, France,
Holland, and other European countries. During the latter half of the eighteenth century, cotton became much more widely used throughout the Atlantic world, replacing some woolens and linens.30 Silk cloth, yarn, and thread were imported from Britain and France.
While silk had been much more widely used in Europe than in North America before the
Revolution, its use in America had broadened during the eighteenth century to include wider segments of society, especially in coastal cities.31 This change likely followed from changes in Britain, which had a lively silk weaving industry throughout the eighteenth century, accelerated by the introduction of new silk throwing machinery in 1719. Imports
29 Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), 51.
30 In a study of merchant probates, historian Robert DuPlessis found that “among free colonists…the personal and domestic uses of linens and particularly cottons had expanded dramatically by the 1760s-70s…. By the early 1770s, cottons had been transformed from novelties to widely and regularly employed everyday products. Skirts, vests, jackets, breeches, gowns, shirts, and blouses were all tailored from cottons and calicoes (as well as from linens).” Robert DuPlessis, “Cloth and the Emergence of the Atlantic Economy,” in The Atlantic Economy during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Organization, Operation, Practice, and Personnel, edited by Peter A. Coclanis (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005), 72- 94.
31 DuPlessis, Cloth and the Atlantic Economy, 81.
26 of raw and spun silk to Britain for weaving there had more than doubled between 1740 and 1800.32
Cloth imported into North America came not only from Europe but also from
India, China, and other parts of Asia. Indian cotton goods were especially desirable. They were available in a range of weights and weaves, plain or brightly colored, and often printed.33 Indian cottons had been coming into North America—either legally or illegally—since the late seventeenth century, if not earlier.34 One important factor that shaped imports of Indian cotton into the American colonies during the eighteenth century was British policy relating to imports of Calico into Britain. Historian Jonathan Eacott traced the various debates over the Calico Acts, noting that as early as the 1690s,
Americans were viewed as at least potentially important consumers of British India goods. The result was that they were exempted from the Calico Acts of 1700 and 1721; this meant that British people could not wear imported Indian calicos but Americans could—as long as they had come through London via the East India Company. In addition to cottons, plain or brightly colored silk cloth came from both India and China.
Once Americans began trading in China in the 1780s and 90s, Chinese silks were part of the cargo that returned to the U.S. with tea shipments—along with heavy porcelains
(which served as ballast) and nankeens.35 The durable cotton twill goods known as
32 Maxine Berg, The Age of Manufactures: Industry, Innovation, and Work in Britain, 1700-1820 (Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1985), 34.
33 James R. Fichter, So Great a Proffit: How the East Indies Trade Transformed American Capitalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 95.
34 Jonathan Eacott notes that during the late seventeenth century, a variety of legal and illegal shipments came to British colonies in North America and the Caribbean with Indian cottons and silks. Eacott, “Making an Imperial Compromise,” 735.
35 John Jacob Astor, for example, in his arrangement with the North West Company, brought silks and teas back after bringing furs to China. Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 217.
27 nankeens originally came from Nanking, for which they were named, but the term came to refer to similar goods produced in either China or India.
The Growth of Europe’s Capabilities in Dyeing and Printing
For millennia, people in multiple regions of the world have used natural dyestuffs obtained from plants, animals, and minerals to dye textile fibers, yarn, and cloth in a range of colors and to create colorfully decorated cloth through weaving, painting, or printing. But after the Renaissance, Europeans’ discovery of lands heretofore unknown to them resulted in a significant increase in the variety of dyestuffs and resulting colors used in Europe.36 Travel and trade also increased Europeans’ knowledge of textiles created in other parts of the world—including India, China, and Indonesia. Practitioners recognized an important difference between petit teint, processes that generated colors easily using pedestrian dyestuffs, but whose results were often “fugitive” (not “fast” or permanent), and grand teint, processes that used the most advanced dyestuffs, created brilliant and fast colors, and required highly specialized professional knowledge—in other words, the more highly valued state-of-the-art dyeing.
After 1750 in Europe, “the growing number of natural dyes, along with the accelerating process of industrialization, provoked a rapid transition from the age of the small-scale craftsman to production on a much larger scale.”37 In other words, with respect to both dyeing and printing, traditional guild structures evolved into factory systems with large numbers of workers and finer divisions of labor.38 These changes
36 “Introduction,” in Natural Dyestuffs and Industrial Culture in Europe, edited by Robert Fox and Augustí Nieto-Galan (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1999), ix.
37 Fox and Nieto-Galan, “Introduction,” x.
38 According to Ernst Homburg: “Between about 1730 and 1770, European calico printing changed dramatically. Small-scale print works with a few dozen workers that specialized
28 occurred in Europe in parallel with intensive investigations and debates regarding the process of applying dyes to fiber—including the intrinsic nature of the process and the ways practical production processes could be improved. These trends were well underway long before the invention of machines for spinning and weaving and before the mid-nineteenth century advent of synthetic dyes.
Historians of science and technology have noted a complex interplay between advancing European scientific knowledge, on the one hand, and the region’s dyeing practice on the other. The commercial importance of dyeing and printing drove experimentation and development of knowledge that might improve the understanding of the relationship between dyes, mordants, and cloth, and thereby improve practice. Those with a theoretical bent—scientists and practitioners in multiple countries—experimented and debated the precise nature of the change that took place when dye was applied to fiber. Was it a mechanical coupling, dependent on the microscopic shape of the fibers? A chemical reaction? Or some combination?39 These questions were difficult to answer definitively using the chemical and physical knowledge of the time. But because success in dyeing and printing did not necessarily depend on resolving the debate, practitioners were not impeded. According to Bensaude-Vincent and Nieto-Galan, many “avoided theoretical discussions as unnecessarily time-consuming and confined themselves to the
in the printing of either red chintz, blue resist prints, or black oil color prints, gave way to large, integrated calico printing companies, where hundreds of labourers produced large numbers of multi-colored prints.” Ernst Homburg, “From Colour Maker to Chemist: Episodes from the Rise of the Colourist, 1670-1800,” in Natural Dyestuffs and Industrial Culture in Europe, edited by Robert Fox and Augustí Nieto-Galan (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1999), 232.
39 Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Augustí Nieto-Galan, “Theories of Dyeing: A View on a Long-standing Controversy through the Works of Jean-François Persoz,” in Natural Dyestuffs and Industrial Culture in Europe, edited by Robert Fox and Augustí Nieto-Galan (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1999), 3-19.
29 descriptions of procedures, fed by daily experiences in the workshops.”40 They went on to write:
Such questions as “why is madder fixed on the cotton fibre to provide a solid Turkey red colour?” were often replaced by a detailed description of “how” the atmospheric air, light, or chemical agent would affect in practice the solidity of the new colours, and “how” a new mordant or the acidity or concentration of solution would change the intensity of the red on different textile surfaces.41
Knowledge about dyeing, then, was, on one end of the spectrum, more akin to knowledge about cooking, and on the other end more akin to natural philosophy, inquiring into the nature of matter—but was often somewhere in between. While this lively interest in dyeing would lead to more emphatically scientific developments over time, practical knowledge was more valuable than principles for accomplishing advances in dyeing at the end of the eighteenth century.
Those perceiving themselves to have inferior or out-of-date results undertook a variety of strategies in their efforts to improve quality and gain competitive advantage in trade. Governments worked to attract skilled mechanics from other countries, protect domestic industry through import/export policies, encourage learning and travel by technicians, and support local production, scientific investigations, and guild activities.42
Skilled dyers traveled to obtain knowledge and also published books that contributed to the spread of knowledge about dyeing practices.43
40 Bensaude-Vincent and Nieto-Galan, “Theories of Dyeing,” 19.
41 Bensaude-Vincent and Nieto-Galan, “Theories of Dyeing,” 19.
42 Luisa Dolza, “How Did They Know? The Art of Dyeing in Late Eighteenth-century Piedmont,” in Natural Dyestuffs and Industrial Culture in Europe, edited by Robert Fox and Augustí Nieto-Galan (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1999), 129.
43 Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles, 130-135.
30
Achievements in Britain, France, Holland, and Switzerland were envied in the rest of Europe, which sought to imitate them. Holland thrived as Europe’s calico printing center, with 100 calico printing companies by 1740; its position later declined due to a range of factors including skill diffusion, stiff competition from Hamburg, Alsace, and
Switzerland, and the lifting of calico import bans in Britain and France.44
In France during the seventeenth century, Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste
Colbert had gradually replaced guilds with a set of mercantilist policies designed to support manufacturing in general and cloth production in particular.45 In the eighteenth century, the Spanish government emulated these policies in an attempt to promote its own cloth production. A royal trade organization, the “Junta General de Comercio y Moneda,” was established to oversee industrial policy; this entity, in the words of Nieto-Galan,
aimed to coordinate guild organizations, proto-industries, and numerous agricultural and traditional craft activities for the improvement of the economy in general. Mercantilist policy offered substantial advantages for cloth production, including cheap, readily available raw materials; special fiscal treatment; and formal royal protection.46
Substantial exchange of knowledge took place among dyers and printers throughout Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century, a finding that Nieto-
Galan found striking. Spain offers a good example. Dyers from France and Ireland, among other countries, came to work in Spain throughout the eighteenth century, while dyers from Spain’s royal factories traveled to Britain, France, and Holland, as well as the
44 Verbong, “The Dutch Calico Printing Industry,” 195.
45 Augustí Nieto-Galan, “Dyeing, Calico Printing, and Technical Exchanges in Spain: the Royal Manufactures and the Catalan Textile Industry, 1750-1820,” in Natural Dyestuffs and Industrial Culture in Europe, edited by Robert Fox and Augustí Nieto-Galan (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1999), 102-103.
46 Nieto-Galan, “Dyeing, Calico Printing, and Technical Exchanges in Spain,” 103.
31
German and Italian states, to learn from dyers in those countries.47 The Italian state of
Piedmont, a significant producer of silk and wool, also intensified its inducements to foreign craftsmen in the late eighteenth century in an effort to improve its manufacturing.
Historians Augustí Nieto-Galan and Luisa Dolza described systematic attempts by
Catalan and Piedmontese dyers and printers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to improve the quality of their work relative to their neighbors in Britain,
Switzerland, and France.48 Switzerland, along with the German states, had apparently become an important center for dyers and printers due to religious intolerance in
France.49
Nieto-Galan has concluded from the intensity of these various exchanges that a
“republic of dyers” was emerging across Europe in the late eighteenth century—a cosmopolitan exchange existing in tension with mercantilist policies and regional rivalries.50 He extended this notion in his monograph to a “republic of chemist-dyers” to highlight the interplay between science and practice and the broad networks that developed, which “helped to create a context in which local and regional practices could be validated by experts at [the] national and international level.”51 If a dyer wanted to learn about another’s process, there was no substitute for “long detailed observations in the workshops and factories.”52 Nieto-Galan cataloged a wide range of exchanges among
47 Nieto-Galan, “Dyeing, Calico Printing, and Technical Exchanges in Spain,” 115.
48 Nieto-Galan, “Dyeing, Calico Printing, and Technical Exchanges in Spain,” 112-113; Dolza, “How Do They Know,” 131-132, 150-151.
49 Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles, 129.
50 Fox and Nieto-Galan, “Introduction,” xviii. Nieto-Galan further described the circulation of dyeing skills in Europe in Colouring Textiles.
51 Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles, 124.
52 Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles, 125.
32 dyers, chemists, growers of dyestuffs, and others involved in textile dyeing in some way, on a spectrum from illiterate practitioners to highly trained scientists. Geographically, as
Nieto-Galan described it, the network had a number of important nodes:
For experts in the art of dyeing and printing, there were a number of obligatory ports of call inside this European network. A standard journey, for instance, included visits to Manchester, Bradford, Glasgow, London, Rouen, Paris, Jouy, Colmar, Lyons, Mulhouse, Hamburg, Berlin, Krefeld, Eberfeld, Leipzig, Augsburg, Basel, Neuchatel, Geneva, Montpelier, and Barcelona.53
These networks were not entirely open; one needed credibility and an introduction, and workshops’ desire for secrecy warred with the desire to share in the giving and receiving of new information. But these informal networks aided the dissemination of information about dyeing and printing in the late eighteenth century.
Those on the forefront were energetically imitating the desirable colors and printed or painted designs of cloths produced in India, with which Europeans had been acquainted since the late sixteenth century. Indian dyeing and printing techniques were considered far superior to traditional European methods.54 Economic historian Georgio
Riello has traced how knowledge and skill for producing cloth dyed with fast colors and printed with designs gradually came into Europe from India, Persia, and Turkey, and how
European dyers and printers worked to replicate and adapt practices from those regions and make them their own.55 This transfer seems to have occurred gradually and through multiple routes. Europeans attempted to imitate Indian printed cloth as early as the sixteenth century, but until the late seventeenth century they had extremely limited
53 Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles, 124.
54 Verbong, “The Dutch Calico Printing Industry,” 195.
55 Riello, “Asian Knowledge,” 1-28.
33 understanding of the processes employed by Indians. From the late seventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth, several Frenchmen wrote down processes they observed in India with the goal of fostering their replication in France. During the same period, entrepreneurial Armenians—skilled craft workers and merchants—brought knowledge of middle-eastern dyeing and printing to European cities and were “key to the establishment of a number of European centers of calico printing.”56 Until the 1740s, results were unimpressive, but during the remainder of the eighteenth century, Asian and middle- eastern knowledge blended with European experimentation in mordants, blue and red dyes, and printing methods, to evolve practices that were distinctly European. These included, in later stages, the development of specialized machines that made advanced processes highly productive but also capital intensive.
In Europe, the innovation of wax printing and later copperplate printing and roller printing improved the productivity of creating designs on white backgrounds. While
Indian printed cloth often had dark backgrounds, the English preferred white backgrounds.57 Riello explained that the Europeans had adapted and altered processes from India, combining them with their own aesthetic tastes. According to Riello: “By the late eighteenth century, Europeans were able to produce cotton textiles that could rival high-quality Indian goods.”58 While some of these goods were being exported to
America, they now had to compete with goods from India itself, both in Britain and in
North America.
56 Riello, “Asian Knowledge,” 15.
57 Riello, “Asian Knowledge,” 3.
58 Riello, “Asian Knowledge,” 3.
34
Not only were Indian designs imitated in Europe, but the East India Company also influenced Indian dyers and printers to produce designs that would be more popular in
Europe and America. Imitations could take strange forms and operate in multiple directions. Javanese batik craft workers, for example, imitated batiks that were manufactured in Holland and imported into Java, as they had become desirable there, even though those Dutch batiks had themselves been created to imitate earlier Javanese batiks.59
As the nineteenth century dawned, Europe’s dyeing and printing workshops were approaching, but still struggling to equal, the sophistication of their counterparts in India.
With few high-end textiles produced in the United States, Americans continued to import their best-quality goods from both Europe and Asia, and were an important market for cloth producers in Europe and India alike. For Americans, imported goods—whether coming from London, Lyon, India, or China—were highly desirable. But the dearth of local production of high-end goods did not mean no dyeing skills or knowledge came to the New World. Over time, some dyers from Britain and Europe set out to build a life in the United States, bringing with them their skills—and accumulated industrial experience.
The Complex Work of Dyeing
Dyeing was highly skilled work involving complex processes and specialized equipment. Dyers needed first to obtain the material to make the colors. Natural dyestuffs—the only ones in use during this period—came in a variety of raw and
59 Verbong, “The Dutch Calico Printing Industry,” 193.
35 processed forms including woods, roots, leaves, powders, cakes, and insects.60 Dyewoods such as logwood or fustic needed to be rasped to maximize surface area so colorant could be extracted efficiently. Other dyestuffs needed to be ground to powder. In the dye house, dyers created dye baths or “liquors” by combining dyestuffs with water and other chemicals or materials using specific recipes, in processes that required specific concentrations and were time and temperature dependent. The process of dyeing fiber, yarn, thread, or cloth in a dye bath was also tricky, requiring careful handling so that the color was applied evenly and with the right timing to achieve the proper shade. If large quantities had to be dyed, consistency was important—and challenging to achieve. For example, dyeing practice had to allow for the fact that over time, as dye baths were used to dye large quantities of yarn or cloth, the colorant would gradually become exhausted and the resulting shade less bright.
Once coloring had taken place, additional steps were required to remove excess dye and fix the color so that it would not fade, wash out, or transfer to other objects. Most dyed cloth needed to be finished to achieve the desired surface qualities and it needed to be dried in an appropriate environment.
While most skilled practical dyers were not formally trained in science or chemistry, they understood these processes much as highly skilled chefs and cooks understood cooking. They knew the right tools to use, which aspects of a recipe could or should be changed to achieve a better result or to mesh with local conditions, which variables would alter the result and how, how to recognize problems, and what to do
60 This work does not explore the trade in or use of specific dyestuffs; natural dyestuffs and necessary chemicals for creating dye liquors were readily available to the dyers either domestically or through Atlantic trade via Boston merchants. In an appendix to his first chapter, Augustí Nieto-Galan has described the natural dyestuffs in common use in this period. Nieto- Galan, Colouring Textiles, 23-31.
36 about them. Good tools, solid recipes, and access to the right dyestuffs were not the only requirements for success. Dyers also needed water with the right qualities—and plenty of it—for water-powered machines, for creating dye baths, and for completing the washing and rinsing steps of the various processes. They needed fuel to increase the temperature of the dye bath or create the right environment for drying.61 At different times and in different locations, wood and peat fires were gradually replaced by coal furnaces and steam boilers, and equipment and processes emerged that were designed for use with steam.62 Given that many different factors could alter the final result—including ambient temperatures, the qualities and concentration of the dyestuffs, the characteristics of the water, and the material being dyed—dyers needed to know how to carry out and learn from practical experiments. Because so much accumulated knowledge went into the process of dyeing, people who were skilled at the high-end grand teint processes of dyeing cloth and professionally finishing it were generally in high demand, paid well for their labor, and sought out as teachers.63
While skills had trickled across the Atlantic from the time of the first New World settlements, the late eighteenth century brought more people to North America. Cloth
61 In describing Chinese practices, one writer noted in 1832 that Chinese dyers “never attempt to dye any fine silks with rich colours until Pak Fung [a dry autumn wind] commences…. The Chinese say that if newly dyed silks be packed before they are perfectly dry or in damp weather, they will not only lose the brightness of the colour, but will also become spotted.” Ships had apparently been delayed weeks to wait for the right conditions, and impatient captains or supercargos who insisted on sailing sooner risked damaging their cloth. “Mechanic Arts in China,” Godey’s Lady’s Book, March 1832 (Philadelphia: Louis A. Godey, 1832), Web, Accessible Archives, Malvern, Pennsylvania.
62 See for example, the descriptions and illustrations of the old and new wax pans (illustrations number 76 and 77) in H. McKernan, A Treatise on Printing and Dyeing Silks; Shawls, Garments, Bandanas, and Piece Goods; in the Different Colours (London: H. Fisher & Son and P. Jackson, 1829), 92ff.
63 Nieto-Galan, “Dyeing, Calico Printing, and Technical Exchanges in Spain,” 104.
37 workers of various kinds came from England and other European countries to ply their trades in a region where they would be able to work under fewer restrictions and acquire land. Market upheavals at home also prompted migration, as was the case with the
Spitalfields (in London) silk workers, for whom market shifts caused widespread distress in the mid-1770s. According to historian Maxine Berg, “provincial and foreign competition had reduced the Spitalfields weavers by the early nineteenth century to sweated labor.”64 Many Spitalfields weavers and other workers came to Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia.65 Of the 2368 artisans who emigrated from England to America between December 1773 and March 1776, for example, 773 were in the textile trades, some of them highly skilled. Of the total number of emigrants, 84% were men, about three quarters of whom were under age 30.66
William Aldred was a 34-year-old dyer, said to be a political radical, who
“escaped” Britain’s restrictive emigration laws and moved from Manchester to
Wilmington, Delaware in 1794, his family eventually joining him. Family historian Eva
Anderson Williamson suggested that Aldred and his contemporaries might have been influenced by a 1782 pamphlet penned by Benjamin Franklin that circulated widely in
England during the last two decades of the eighteenth century. In Information to Those who would Remove to America, Franklin encouraged skilled artisans with families to
“enjoy securely the profits of their industries” and assured them of future opportunities for their children.67 Once established in their new homes, clothiers and dyers like Aldred
64 Berg, Age of Manufactures, 224.
65 Bernard Bailyn, Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution (New York: Random House, 1986), 282-284.
66 Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, 131-132, 150.
67 Eva Anderson Williamson, William Aldred of Brandywine Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware, and Some of His Descendants: With History and Biographies (Philadelphia:
38 advertised their services locally to attract business. In 1799, Aldred noted his “experience and practical knowledge” and promised “Silk gowns, bonnets, etc. dyed and finished the same as in Philadelphia,” a city where professional dyers from London had worked since the 1740s or earlier.68
The French Wars Stimulate America’s East Indies Trade
It is probably no accident that the expansion of independent dyers’ opportunities in the late eighteenth-century United States coincided with the expansion of opportunities for American merchants to profit from the East Indies trade.
At the close of the eighteenth century, merchants were importing a wide variety of cloth from Britain, India, European countries, and China into the United States. Historian
James Fichter has traced how the French Wars—an umbrella term for the various conflicts between Britain and France (and their respective allies) that began in 1793 and continued off and on until 1815—opened significant opportunities for American merchants and ship owners. Abetted by British merchants, Americans seized opportunities to profit from trading in ports in India and farther east, known collectively as the “East Indies,” and also in European ports closed to the warring nations.69 The resulting vigorous trade “transformed both the British Empire and the United States.”70
Departmental Supply Co., 1970, 1-6. Some of Aldred’s account books survive in the collections of the Chester County Historical Society, West Chester, Pennsylvania.
68 Williamson referenced advertisements printed in the Delaware and Eastern Shore Advertiser.
69 Information in this section is summarized from James R. Fichter, So Great a Proffit: How the East Indies Trade Transformed Anglo-American Capitalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).
70 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 2.
39
Before separating from Britain, residents of the American colonies had purchased
British, Indian and other goods through the British East India Company, which had been chartered by the British Crown as its exclusive trade representative in the East Indies.71
Once the former colonists were no longer constrained by British law, they could purchase goods directly from Indian ports as long as the British did not prohibit them from trading there. Because Britain was reluctant to antagonize America, a neutral in the wars with
France, it kept Indian ports open to American ships.72 This direct trade reduced the prices merchants needed to pay for India goods—by half or more.73 While the trade started slowly, due to a depressed economy immediately after the close of the American
Revolution, it was thriving by the 1790s.
To trade in the East Indies, American merchants brought silver to India and brought silver and other goods such as furs, sandalwood, and eventually opium to China.
The first requirement for trade was a ship. Each venture, therefore, was led either by a merchant ship owner or by a merchant who contracted a ship and served as principal of the venture, renting space to others. Merchants typically spread their risk by spreading their silver among different ships and also by joining forces with other merchants to fill a particular ship’s capacity and share in the costs and the proceeds of trade. In this way the merchants could increase individual opportunities for profit while reducing individual risk.74 In addition, including multiple merchants’ silver on one ship allowed less affluent merchants—those who could not afford to own or contract their own ship—to participate
71 They also obtained goods illegally from smugglers or pirates. See, for example, Eaton, “Making an Imperial Compromise,” 740.
72 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 177.
73 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 42.
74 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 119-122.
40 in trade, as long as they had enough silver to send and could cover the fee for the principal merchant’s overhead.75 In the main commercial cities—Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore, East Indies merchants ranged from the city’s most affluent ship owners to “shopkeepers with ambition.” The formalization of structured trade alliances between “affluent” merchants and those with a mere “competence” was a direct result of East Indies trade and contributed to new forms of capitalism in the United States and the Atlantic world.
Acting through a hired supercargo who served as agent-in-place, merchants purchased cotton cloth in India, spices and coffee in the islands of present-day Indonesia, and mainly tea, but also silks, nankeens, and porcelain, in China. In addition to bringing goods home for consumption in the United States, they also re-sold goods in European ports and in the West Indies. As neutral traders, they were welcomed into the ports of
France and her colonies and allies, where British ships were not, and could trade India goods for goods available in those ports. In addition, Americans could compete favorably with East India Company ships because they had a larger number of smaller ships, could load them quickly, and therefore could reach port with goods more quickly.76 As import tariffs were enacted in the United States in an effort to secure revenue and protect
American manufacturing, policymakers protected re-export trade by limiting tariffs on goods that were brought in only temporarily and intended for re-export.
At any point along the journey, ships with extra room in the hold could also rent that space to others with cargo to send along the route. These included merchants from other countries, including Britain, who needed ways to ship goods from India to
75 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 120-122.
76 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 191-197.
41
European ports. Given the large number of American ships available during this period relative to the damaged navies of warring parties, this “carrying trade” was an important source of revenue and profit for American ship owners.77 Americans, by charging much less than British East India Company ships for carrying freight, were able to take over much of this trade during the French wars. Fichter has argued that the volume and character of the energetic American trade was a chief cause of the British East India
Company losing its monopoly in 1813.78
American merchants, then, profited in the 1790s and later through importing goods from Asia, and either selling them domestically or re-exporting them to Europe.
They also profited from the carrying trade. Traditional Atlantic trade with Britain and
Europe did not disappear, of course, but more goods, and a wider variety of goods, were coming directly from Asia. Many of these were textiles—a diverse array of Indian cottons, especially the better sort, along with Chinese silks and nankeens. If, as was reported, they were half as costly as goods that had been available through the British
East India Company, then purchase prices in America would have been lower and
Americans would have been able to consume more of them. While Fichter does not say much about silks, it is reasonable to assume that they likewise would have been cheaper and more plentiful during this period. It is certain, at least, that Americans were seeing more East Indies goods. People of even very modest circumstances were wearing
“everything from plain homespun to rich Indian muslins.”79
77 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 82.
78 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 232.
79 Fichter does not have data on what portion of the goods American ships brought back were re-exported, though some of the imported Indian cottons went to the Caribbean. Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 105.
42
In addition to having to cope with the various reverses of Britain’s wars with
France, American merchant trade was also interrupted by the U.S. Non-Importation Act of 1806, the U.S. Embargo of 1807, the ongoing threat of imminent war, and finally the
U.S. war with Britain that lasted from 1812 to the end of 1814. These events had a significant impact on the volume of imports, though extra-legal trade (smuggling) was also a fact of life throughout the period. So just as American consumers were beginning to enjoy a better economy and a wider range of plentiful and now less costly East Indies goods, they were often faced with abrupt shortages as well, and encouraged, at least temporarily, to rely on domestically produced cloth—or use what they already had.
American East Indies trade would revive but become much more competitive after 1815, when the French Wars ended and the British East India Company no longer had a monopoly that kept other British traders out.80 In this context, Andrew Dalzell’s point about Boston merchants’ motivations for investing in manufacture—that they not only wanted safe investments but also wanted freedom from the difficult and anxious work of merchant shipping—makes sense.81 Conditions had been volatile for a long time, but earning a profit would have required much more careful attention to detail in the post- war period due to the increased competition.
The rapid change in America’s East Indies trade in the 1790s and the wider availability of East Indies goods would have been readily apparent to elite and middling families in Greater Boston—families like the Barretts of Concord.
80 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 284-286.
81 Dalzell, Enterprising Elite, 66-67.
43
William Barrett’s Origins
The Barrett family rooted itself in Concord, Massachusetts with the arrival of
Humphrey Barrett from England in 1640.82 Known for their business acumen, the
Barretts were one of Concord’s leading families. They owned farmland and mills and also wielded political power, sending representatives to the Massachusetts General Court.
As Concord became increasingly crowded in the later eighteenth century, residents experienced the social effects of land shortage. Some settled in less-populated areas while others remained in Concord. William Barrett’s grandfather, Colonel James Barrett, was luckier than most. He owned considerable land in Concord and was able to settle his sons on farms nearby.83 During his lifetime he gave land to his second son Nathan Barrett,
William Barrett’s father, who proceeded to raise his family in Concord.
The names of Colonel James Barrett and Captain Nathan Barrett will be familiar to historians of the American Revolution; both were present at the Old North Bridge for the Battle of Concord on April 19, 1775. Colonel James Barrett commanded the Concord
Militia that day, and his home was the focus of the search conducted by British regulars
82 Those exploring early Malden or Melrose history should note that the Barrett family that settled in Malden before 1800 was descended from a different seventeenth century English immigrant with the same surname. Historians of Melrose Levi Gould and Franklin Shumway stated that “All the Malden and Melrose Barretts descended from James Barrett, who was born in England in 1615, came to New England in 1635, and settled in Charlestown” but this did not apply to William’s family. Levi S. Gould and Franklin P. Shumway, Ancient Melrose and Some Information About its Old Homesteads Families and Furnishings (Boston: Malden Historical Society, 1915). The line for William Barrett is through the Concord Barretts: Humphrey> Humphrey> Benjamin> James> Nathan>William. For a table of Humphrey Barrett’s descendants, see “Descendants of Humphrey Barrett,” published online by the James Barrett Farm. http://www.jamesbarrettfarm.org/Documents/Family/Humphrey%20Barrett%20Descendants%20 (1592).pdf. Web.
83 Robert A. Gross, The Minutemen and Their World (New York: Hill and Wang, 1976), 80-81.
44 seeking caches of guns and gunpowder. Captain Nathan Barrett was wounded as he pursued the regulars back to Charlestown; he later recovered. Nathan’s wife, Meriam
Hunt Barrett, supposedly confronted and chased after a militiaman that day who, feeling sick and abandoning his company to return home, refused to leave his gun behind. It is no wonder she eventually gave up the chase. At the time, Meriam was seven months pregnant. Two months later, during the Battle of Bunker Hill, she gave birth to William
Barrett, the couple’s ninth child and seventh son. Colonel James Barrett died in 1779 and his son Captain Nathan Barrett in 1791. On his father’s death, the fifteen-year-old
William inherited only some books, clothing, and $30.84
Around this time, William, having received some education at local common schools, was apprenticed to a Billerica clothier named Minot (or Minott) who was probably a family connection.85 As has already been noted, the processing of cloth and clothing in the late eighteenth century was an important component of the local economy and an attractive business generally. For a young man who was not going to inherit or be given farmland, apprenticeship to a clothier would have been equivalent to a plum internship today—one that would enable him to learn an advancing and lucrative trade.
A clothier in late eighteenth-century New England was a textile generalist who specialized in the finishing aspects of textile production, especially those tasks that required specialized skills or machinery and were therefore difficult to perform at home.86 Clothiers, like millers and blacksmiths, were fixtures in the community. They
84 Nathan Barrett, Recorded Will, 1791. Probate Records, Middlesex County Massachusetts, Record Books Volume 75, 112-116 (on Microfilm at Massachusetts State Archives).
85 I have been unable to specifically identify the clothier, but the Minots were another old Concord family with which Barretts frequently intermarried.
86 Kathleen A. Staples and Madelyn Shaw, Clothing through American History: The British Colonial Era (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC:CLIO, 2013.), 174.
45 provided services to households that produced homespun wool and might also manufacture cloth on their own account, but in contrast to their counterparts in Britain, who often assembled very large manufacturing operations, most of New England’s clothiers were not large-scale cloth manufacturers in the eighteenth century.87
Homespun wool could be dyed at any stage—as wool fiber, as spun yarn, or as woven cloth. It also required scouring, shearing, and fulling—the use of specialized mechanical apparatus to matt the fiber and create a smooth, felted surface. A clothier’s tasks depended on skill and local demand, and could range from dyeing and finishing homespun fabrics to cleaning and dyeing used garments and household items. Though the homespun fabric was typically wool, some clothiers could also work with any cloth the customer happened to have, including linen, cotton, or silk. Many of the Americans who practiced dyeing in the eighteenth century were in fact clothiers who dyed wool or perhaps other materials as part of their work. Immigrating dyers, though, often had been trained in British or European work environments characterized by a high degree of factory-oriented specialization, and were less likely to be cloth generalists.
Sometime during the mid-1790s, William bought out his apprenticeship and engaged his former master as an employee. From then on, he was a business owner. That turnabout has at times been related as evidence of William Barrett’s exceptional ambition, mechanical ability, or business skill, but it was probably quite common—and even planned—for an apprentice to eventually take over the business of his master, especially if no sons were in line to do so. In this case, Minot may have been tired, ill, or in financial straits, or perhaps William had simply been able to save or borrow enough
87 Staples and Shaw, Clothing, 174.
46 money, or both. However he obtained the means, William Barrett was clearly not content to be the subordinate when he could lead—and keep more of the profits.
Relating, in 1881, the history of the Barrett dye business, King’s Handbook of
Boston, probably relying on a Barrett company publication, stated that:
In early life [William Barrett] was apprenticed to a clothier at Billerica, and became familiar with the best known methods of putting the home-spun webs of all-wool into respectable apparel. The art of fulling, shearing, dyeing, and dressing these webs was the business selected by young Barrett for his future livelihood….88
A key word here is “respectable,” as William’s clientele and his master’s would have been the region’s elite and middling families, and the clothiers they patronized sought to create cloth that rivaled imported goods. Accomplishing that goal required expert treatment and the best finishing methods. But this clientele did not wear only wool and linen. Increasingly making use of imported cotton and silk, they apparently brought them to clothiers, as they had their woolens, when they needed to be cleaned or dyed.
As a result, William Barrett, who may once have thought he would spend his life as a clothier, experienced customer demand not only for dyeing wool, but also for dyeing
(or re-dyeing) and finishing silk—a more difficult process requiring special skills and materials. To meet the demand for silk dyeing, either William or his master began to contract with a Charlestown silk dyer named Hugh Thompson to perform the work.
Thompson, a recent immigrant from England, had learned his trade in the large silk factories of London’s Spitalfields district and had also been a dyer on his own in
Liverpool.89 He likely knew his skills were uncommon and charged for his services
88 Moses King, King’s Handbook of Boston (Boston: Moses King, 1881), 317-319.
89 Raw or spun silk for these factories was typically imported from European producers such as those in silk producing regions like Piedmont or Lyon.
47 accordingly.90 Attracted by the opportunity in dyeing, William Barrett soon sold the clothier stand, using that money to go into partnership with Thompson; he and Thompson began operating a dyeing business in Charlestown in 1801 under the name “William
Barrett & Co.”91
William’s ambition was notable but not unique in a family known for its business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit. William’s oldest brother Nathan, who served as guardian for his minor siblings including William on their father’s death in 1791, was remembered as a capable businessman, though little is known about his life.92
But William’s father’s cousin, Charles Barrett, was probably the most dramatic example of family entrepreneurship. Unlike the Barretts who stayed in Concord, which historians have described as “in decline” in the late eighteenth century, Charles sought bigger opportunities elsewhere in New England.93 He spent time in the town of Mason,
New Hampshire, building a sawmill and gristmill there with a brother, and then settled in the town of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, where he is said to have run New
90 “Hugh Thompson, Silk, Linen, Woollen and Cotton Dyer in Charlestown…,” Massachusetts Mercury, Boston, Massachusetts, September 11, 1795, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers. Given evidence from newspapers, a number of individuals probably brought dyeing skills to the United States from London and other dyeing centers of Europe in the 1790s. One man who had been “bred in Europe to the cloathing and fulling trade” advertised in New York his ability to “dye all kinds of colours, including scarlet, pink, blue, crimson, red, and green.” Another, Alexander Morel, presented himself as a “SILK DYER from the Manufactories of Lyons in France.” “To the Public,” Daily Advertiser, New York, June 27, 1794, 3; “Alexander Morel,” General Advertiser, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 11, 1791, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
91 “Charlestown Dye-House, Wm. Barrett and Co.,” Columbian Centinel, Boston, Massachusetts, February 21, 1801, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
92 Charles Edward Potter, ed., Genealogies of Some Old Families of Concord, Massachusetts and Their Descendants in Part to the Present Generation, vol 1, Facsimile Reprint of edition published in Boston, 1887 (Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2007), 118.
93 Gross, Minutemen, 83.
48
Hampshire’s first cotton mill. He was an important associate and early mentor of the young Appleton brothers, Nathan and especially Samuel, also from New Ipswich; they became two of the famed “Boston Associates” who invested in Massachusetts textile manufacturing.94
Charles Barrett’s most ambitious venture may have been his 1780s land development, the founding of “Barrettstown,” later renamed Hope, in the district of
Maine. Working with proprietors of a substantial tract of land, he divided it into 120 lots of 160 acres, obtained title to 80 of them, and then gave away 100 acres at a time, on the condition that each settler build a cabin and clear three acres.95 Barrett promised the proprietors he would build a meetinghouse and schoolhouse and find at least forty settlers. Each settler would then have the option to purchase the remaining 60 acres of his lot. Knowing that, unlike their father and uncles, they would not be given or inherit land in Concord, four of William Barrett’s older brothers answered the call and moved to
Maine, at least for a time. Simon and Reuben Barrett remained and raised their families there. 96 William Barrett’s oldest brother Nathan, along with another brother, Timothy, returned to Concord when their father died in 1791.97 Then their brother Ephraim and a sister, Susannah, moved to Maine with their families, Ephraim starting a tannery business there.98 Charles Barrett worked in the settlement off and on from 1785-95, but never
94 Charles Henry Chandler and Sarah Fiske Lee, The History of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, 1735-1914 (Fitchburg, MA: Sentinel, 1914), 194-196, 212-213.
95 Some sources indicate the lots were sold for $100. The price could have varied over time or depending on the specific agreements. Anna Simpson Hardy, History of Hope, Maine (Camden: Penobscot Press, 1990), 4-6.
96 John L. Locke, Sketches of the History of the Town of Camden, Maine…. (Hallowell: Masters, Smith, 1859), 53-54.
97 Hardy, History of Hope, Maine, 14.
98 Hardy, History of Hope, Maine, 14.
49 actually settled there. He built a sawmill that brought building supplies to Boston and also started a program to create canals and locks.99 He was a prime mover in the region’s development, though New Ipswich remained his home.
Opportunities Converge
While William’s elder brothers cleared land and built a life in Maine, William sought his fortune in more urban surroundings. Why did William Barrett sense a potentially lucrative opportunity in dyeing? Changes in the East Indies trade provide a clue. Many new and different fabrics were finding their way into the homes and businesses of Greater Boston elites—many of whom were merchants. According to
Fichter, “if there was a commercial revolution in the 1790s and early 1800s, as some historians suspect, the East India boom was certainly a part of it.”100 Strikingly, in 1806, the U.S. brought more goods out of India than did the East India Company.101 With so much American money invested in cloth from India, being able to salvage damaged cloth would be valuable to merchants. Hugh Thompson brought knowledge and the specialized skills needed to perform factory-quality work, while Barrett had some money to invest in machinery and materials. Boston merchants, in their haste to bring profitable cargos back to the U.S. and other ports, might have been among those who could not wait for dry weather, and allowed damp China silks to become spotted with mildew in their holds, or perhaps they sometimes encountered storms on their way home with cargos of Indian muslin and chintz.102 Thompson had already advertised to Boston’s merchants in 1795
99 Hardy, History of Hope, Maine, 17.
100 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 82.
101 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 82.
102 See note 61.
50 that “merchants having any pieces of silks, sattins, woolen cloths, camblets, cambleteens, calicoes, &c. that have got spotted, or colors faded, may have them Dyed the same or altered to other colors.”103
Two men joining forces to run a dyeing business was not particularly notable.
Dyers in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York had also served local merchants and households. But William Barrett, at least, had more ambitious goals. During the 1800s and 1810s, he would take advantage of his merchant and mechanic networks, New
England’s improving transportation and communication infrastructure, and U.S. patent protections in an attempt to dramatically expand his business’s geographical scope and competitive advantage.
103 “Hugh Thompson,” Massachusetts Mercury, Boston, Massachusetts, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
51
Chapter III
“In the Best Manner”: Scaling a Dyeing Service Business, 1800-1820
Writing from Woodlawn, her Virginia home adjacent to Mt. Vernon, on
December 10, 1825, Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis, granddaughter of Martha Washington, asked her friend Elizabeth Bordley, “Have you a good dyer of black cloth in your City? I have a beautiful shawl which requires dying, & I should like to have it done in the best manner. What do they charge to dye and dress kerseymere?”104 This simple request illustrates much about dying practice—and business—in the early nineteenth century.
Even very elite households did not necessarily meet all their dyeing requirements at home. Competent housekeepers were familiar with pedestrian cleaning, coloring, and bleaching, of yarn, cloth, and garments. But Lewis wanted her shawl dyed “in the best manner.” Costs for “the best” could be high, and Lewis wanted to know what the dyer would charge. The simple ability to dye kerseymere black was not the only requirement—the color needed to be even, the item properly dressed and readied for use after dyeing, and the color had to be “fast” or permanent, not fading with time, washing, or exposure to light. Because elite families used the quality of their clothing and fabric to maintain or advance their social status, an absolute standard mattered less than a relative one. A few decades earlier, “the best” might have been more difficult to find, and those not lucky enough to live near a good dyer might have sent their clothing to London or
104 Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley, December 10, 1825, from Patricia Brady, George Washington’s Beautiful Nelly: The Letters of Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 1794-1851 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991), 287, Web, accessed March 9, 2012, North American Women’s Letters and Diaries.
52 simply bought new, giving older items to servants or poor neighbors.105 But by the early nineteenth century, a specialized type of factory-centered dyeing service had become firmly established in the United States—one that catered to a large number of elite and middling households and merchants. By 1825, when Lewis wrote to her friend, at least two businesses had grown to provide this service to the elites of Boston, New York, and beyond.
The dyeing service business that began with the partnership between William
Barrett and Hugh Thompson in Charlestown thrived in the 1800s and 1810s—well before
American textile manufacturing was accelerated by Lowell’s factories. This chapter describes how the business worked and how Barrett and his various partners grew the business during the first two decades of the nineteenth century as they provided dyeing, bleaching, and cleaning services to households and merchants. To serve these customers effectively, the business had to communicate with them regularly and to overcome a range of logistical challenges. To that extent, the partners’ challenges were similar to those faced by a broad range of dyers and other mechanics.
But for William Barrett to grow the business large enough to create a sufficient legacy for his growing family, he and his partners needed to reach a larger number of customers. Several conditions in the new nation facilitated their ability to expand the business’s geographical scope and customer reach in a pre-railroad era. The business took advantage of a rapidly improving transportation infrastructure, an expanding postal and newspaper network, and a far-reaching network of import and retail merchants. As a result, William Barrett was able to claim by 1820 that he was opening his second factory
105 Staples and Shaw, Clothing, 173.
53 in Staten Island in an effort to get closer to customers.106 Finally, William Barrett needed to defend his market from competitors and keep his business profitable, which proved the most challenging and clearly occupied a significant portion of his attention from the beginning. Among other strategies, Barrett leveraged mechanic networks to create new processes and machines and obtain capital, patented some of his processes and machines, and aggressively defended his rights to intellectual property. In taking advantage of expanding roads and bridges, expansion of the postal system, and intellectual property protection, Barrett was relying on an emerging structure of government policies that were designed to improve business conditions in the early American republic.
Spreading the Word and Satisfying Customers
From the time he became partners with Hugh Thompson around 1800, William
Barrett took frequent advantage of newspapers to advertise services to the public. He was by no means the first dyer in America to do so. Dyers had likely been practicing their trade in the American colonies since the first permanent settlements. Benjamin Franklin’s father had been a dyer.107 While many dyers catered to the quotidian process of transforming homespun wool into serviceable cloth, some applied quite sophisticated skills acquired in England or Europe to clean, dye, and dress fancier and more valuable cloths such as silk.108 The dyer mentioned in Chapter II, William Aldred from
106 “Merchants and others, residing south of New-York as far as Savannah, (Geo.) who have been under the necessity heretofore of sending goods to Boston, are informed that agents will be appointed in their respective cities, to receive and forward to this place all their orders.” “New Dye-House on Staten Island,” National Advocate, New York, October 14, 1820, 1, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
107 Staples and Shaw, Clothing, 175-176.
108 Staples and Shaw, Clothing, 175-176.
54
Manchester, England, stated in the 1790s in Wilmington, Delaware that he could dye as good as could be obtained in Philadelphia. Philadelphia dyer Michael Brown, who described himself as a “silk dyer from London,” placed ads in local papers as early as
1742 offering, among other services, “Mildew or stains taken out of new pieces of silks, stuffs, or worsteds that are damaged at sea. All done with the greatest expedition, and to as much perfection as in London.”109 Brown’s wife apparently worked with him in the business, as she continued to carry it on after his death in 1751.110 Thomas Green, another dyer from England who may have been her partner for a time or worked for her husband, advertised his own expertise from England, promoting both dyeing and printing services at the same location.111 The services William Barrett provided, then, were not new. But the scope of his ambition would take him beyond people who could walk city streets to his workshop.
In February of 1801, the firm of “William Barrett & Co.”—the partnership formed by William Barrett and Hugh Thompson—was announced to readers of Boston papers.112 In Thompson’s own advertisements in the late 1790s, he had described himself as having been “foreman to one of the first dye houses in London,” and having
109 “Michael Brown, Silk Dyer from London,” Pennsylvania Gazette, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 1, 1742, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
110 “Sarah Brown,” Pennsylvania Journal, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 6, 1751, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
111 Green said that he “cleans and callenders silk gowns as well as can be done in London” and also “prints Bed-Carpets, Bed-Hangings, Window-Curtains, Stay-Linings, etc.” “Thomas Green, Printer and Silk Dyer” Pennsylvania Journal, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1751, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
112 “Charlestown Dye-House, William Barrett & Co.,” Columbian Centinel, Boston, Massachusetts, February 21, 1801, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
55 successfully run his own dyeing business in Liverpool.113 Comparisons with London or
European quality and appeals to experience in other countries were constant themes in these early ads. A rival English dyer, W. Reed of the Boston Dye House, perhaps in response to Thompson’s ad, placed the line “W. Reed – from London” at the top of his advertisement, while informing those patient enough to read further that “the aforesaid
W. R. carried on for himself, the dyeing business in the utmost extent, in the city of
Exeter, a place more particularly famous for that branch of business than any other part of
England.”114 More than one London dyer, it seems, had set out on his own, first in
England and then in America, in search of opportunity.
In 1801, when Barrett and Thompson began marketing a dyeing business together, they took one step further the appeal to Thompson’s London experience and claimed that “the principal dyer has been employed as foreman in a number of the principal dye houses in London and never failed to give general satisfaction.”115 In a similar ad the following month, they further claimed, “he has likewise obtained knowledge from all parts of Europe and the most part of Asia.”116 This did not necessarily mean that Thompson had traveled widely. But he was at least claiming to be part of the “republic of dyers” that exchanged state-of-the-art knowledge throughout
Europe. In addition, the inclusion of these claims indicates that customers made their
113 “Hugh Thompson, Silk, Linen Woolen, and Cotton Dyer, in Charlestown,” Massachusetts Mercury, Boston, Massachusetts, September 11, 1795, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
114 “Boston Dye-House,” Massachusetts Mercury, Boston, Massachusetts, March 31, 1797, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
115 “Charlestown Dye-House, William Barrett & Co.,” Columbian Centinel, Boston, Massachusetts, February 21, 1801, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
116 “Charlestown Dye-House,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, March 23, 1801, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
56 decisions on the basis of their belief in the quality of the result. Claims to quality continued to be included in the new company’s ads, sometimes using phrases such as “as completely as can be done in Europe,” but often referencing London specifically. In spite of customers’ familiarity with cloth from India and China, London, it seems, was the main standard of fashion and quality of cloth workmanship for Boston society—not surprising given the close connections between merchants in Boston and London.
William Barrett & Co. first carried out dyeing at “The Charlestown Dye-House,” located in Charlestown, and, starting in 1804, at a newly constructed dye house in
Malden, a few miles to the north and across the Mystic River. Dyeing during this period could be a seasonal business. Reed said he was engaging in dyeing “as the spring is now opening.” In one of William Barrett’s ads highlighting the Malden dye house, he noted that “by the peculiar construction of his Dye-House, he is able to prosecute the business at all seasons, even in the coldest weather.”117
But a dye house, remote or not, was not an ideal location for interacting with
Boston’s elite. Instead, the firm received and returned items from their customers— individuals or merchants—at a hospitable office in Boston that was probably more like a dry goods store than a dye house—a comfortable and convenient place for both men and women to visit. The Independent Chronicle reported in 1804 that the office, formerly located “at the foot of the mall,” had moved to “Hanover Street, head of Union Street, three doors from the Blue Ball.”118 Merchants with large quantities of “wholesale” goods could bring them there or have them picked up and delivered; the Boston office was quite
117 “Dyeing,” Columbian Centinel, Boston, Massachusetts, January 18, 1806, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
118 “Removal, Friends to Economy and Manufactures, Take Notice,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, August 13, 1804, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
57 convenient to the Boston waterfront and the wharves where goods arrived. Such an office might have been helpful for establishing trust between the business and its customers—a requirement for continuing to build the business. An 1802 newspaper notice told of a
Norfolk silk dyer, one William Wright, who had run off with his customers’ property,
“such as ready made clothes, to a considerable amount.”119
Early advertisements were designed first and foremost to inform readers of the existence of the company, the value and range of its services, and where to bring goods.
But they were also calculated to impress elite readers with the proprietors’ comprehensive knowledge, skill, and sophistication in regard to colors, materials, and fashion. In signing documents, William Barrett always called himself “William Barrett, silk dyer,” emphasizing with pride the most difficult of the processes his business undertook. But the firm’s advertisements offered to dye goods of silk, cotton, linen, or wool. In addition to promising quality equal to London, ads mentioned the ability to work with a wide array of cloth and garment types, listing many by name.
For example, in 1801, William Barrett & Co. said they could dye “all kinds of silks, such as satins, damasks, lustrings, Modes, and Persians; blond Lace and Netting, silk Velvets, Ribbons, Ferreting, Sewing Silk, silk Gloves and Mitts; silk and camel’s- hair shawls, Muslins, Cottons, and Callicoes, by the piece or bale; muslin Gowns, Coats,
Vests, Pantaloons, and Small Cloaths, dyed whole; --Broad-Cloths, Kerseymeres,
Lambskins, Ratteens, Forrest-Cloths, Elastics, Plains, Swansdowns, Baizes, and Flannels,
Hosiery of all kinds, Nankins and Nankinetts, Corduroys and Velvets, by the piece or
119 “There is a caution….,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, June 17, 1802, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
58 bale.”120 Whether readers were elite housewives looking to dye clothing or home furnishings, or local import merchants or shopkeepers with damaged goods, they would be reassured that they were working with a dyer who could meet their needs for the precise work needed and who spoke their language of cloth.
Barrett’s ads hardly ever referred to “fulling,” and he likely felt it would harm his business image to be thought of as one of the many mundane clothiers’ fulling mills that dotted the landscape serving households with homespun wool. By underplaying those services he was setting his business apart.
While very early dyeing ads had referred to the dyer’s ability to provide specific colors, most ads from Barrett’s firm did not reference colors specifically, with the exception of their first ad in 1801, which highlighted the ability to produce “a fast blue dyed upon Cotton Linen and Tow Yarn, warranted never to fade.”121 Most ads simply referred to “warranted colours” and implied that all colors were fair game.
While the ability to create desired colors and guarantee their permanence was important, equally important was the ability to finish cloth properly—a process that required specialized machinery. Ads frequently stated that the firm could both “dye of warranted colors” and “finish in superior style,” indicating that these two factors, along with the ability to handle the right types of cloth, were most important to customers.122
William Barrett & Co. assured readers that “they had erected all the apparatus for dyeing
120 “Charlestown Dye House,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, March 23- 26, 1801, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
121 “Charlestown Dye-House, William Barrett & Co.,” Columbian Centinel, Boston, Massachusetts, February 21, 1801, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
122 For one example, see “Barrett & Shattuck, Silk, Cotton, Woolen, and Linen Dyers, and Finishers,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, May 31, 1810, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
59 and finishing crepes and gauzes. Whole pieces of silk, receiving injury by importation, they carefully extract the spots and preserve the color, or re-dye them if desired.123 They have also erected a Glazing Machine, where bed and window furniture is neatly cleansed and glazed, and the color preserved or dyed if requested.”124 In August of 1804, a notice informing readers of the relocation of their office also stated that “a new Machine has, at great expense, been procured, which effects so completely the finishing of new Satins and stiff Lustrings, that no demand will be made for dying, if not satisfactory.”125 This was, in effect, a guarantee of finish quality. In 1806, the firm advertised either the same or another new machine, “now in operation, their Hot Callender, for the purpose of finishing completely, and in the same manner as done in England, all kinds of stuff’d goods, such as Duroys, Calimancoes, Russells, Shaloons, Florantimes, &c. also for the finishing of Cambricks, Calicoes and Sattins, in a superior and different manner from what they have ever been done [sic] in this country.” 126
Most of the firm’s ads appealed both to households and merchants by including language that spoke to both. Others were designed to attract merchants’ attention even more directly. Language such as “by the piece or bale” specifically invited merchants with large quantities to dye their goods. And an 1808 ad in Providence indicated that goods would be “put up with Neatness in the English or French method of folding,” that
123 As mentioned in the previous chapter, silks in particular could easily become spotted if they were damp when packed.
124 “Charlestown Dye-House, William Barrett & Co.,” Columbian Centinel, Boston, Massachusetts, February 28, 1801, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
125 “Removal, Friends to Economy and Manufactures, Take Notice,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, August 13, 1804, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
126 “Barrett & Shattuck,” Repertory, Boston, Massachusetts, July 11, 1806, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
60 is, to replicate the way they came from English manufacturers.127 A March 1806 ad, titled “To Importing Merchants,” explained that Barrett & Shattuck could “receive silk, cotton, linen, muslin, and all other dry goods, which may have been wet in importation; extract the spots, glaze or calendar them as required, and put them up in their exact original state, or any other state required, at the shortest notice and at small expense.”128
The goal of sending these items to the dyers, then, was not always to change their color, though that was possible and sometimes highly desirable, but sometimes just to remove damage and increase the value of goods for sale by making them appear “like new.” As we have seen from Michael Brown’s advertisements in the 1740s, this was not a new idea, or a new customer need, but the need was intensifying in Boston as Boston merchants’ trade—both in the East Indies and in Europe—intensified as a result of the
French Wars.
Ads asserted superiority over competition from the very first, demonstrating the presence of other dyers to whom customers could choose to bring their items. William
Barrett & Co.’s 1801 advertisement claimed that the business was superior to the
“numerous pretenders” in the market.129 Barrett terminated his partnership with dyer
Hugh Thompson in 1804, but Thompson continued to practice his craft, entering into business with James Grime at a dye house in Roxbury.130 In the announcement of their
127 “Barrett & Shattuck,” Providence Gazette, Providence, Rhode Island, July 23, 1808, 1, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
128 “To importing Merchants,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, March 31, 1806, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
129 “Charlestown Dye-House, William Barrett & Co.,” Columbian Centinel, Boston, Massachusetts, February 21, 1801, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
130 According to later accounts, Barrett had found that Thompson was “a man of unsteady habits.” Charles Edward Potter, Ed., Genealogies of Some Old Families of Concord, Massachusetts and Their Descendants in Part to the Present Generation, Vol. 1 Facsimile Reprint of edition published in Boston, 1887 (Westminster, Maryland: Heritage Books, 2007),
61 partnership, Thompson and Grime referred to their “twenty years experience in the business,” implicitly positioning William Barrett as an upstart. Thompson apparently sometimes traded on the reputation established by his prior firm, William Barrett & Co., giving rise to the following notice from Barrett in 1805: “the public are cautioned not to leave their goods with James S. Grime, when intended to be done by William Barrett; as a connection which said Grime has reported never did nor does exist.”131
The breaking up of the Barrett-Thompson partnership represents an interesting evolution in craft businesses. As an apprentice, Barrett surely dyed and scoured wool. But after 1800, we do not know the extent to which Barrett himself had his hands in the dye.
During the years from 1800 to 1804, he probably learned much from observing the practices of Hugh Thompson. In naming his partnership with Thompson “William Barrett
& Co.,” William Barrett had been able to associate his own name with a high-quality service, regardless of who actually did what type of work. When he parted ways with the more skilled dyer, though, what would happen? Thompson and his new partner seem to have thought, quite logically, that the customers should follow the skilled dyer, no matter whose name was on the door. But William Barrett had other ideas. Having established what today we would call a “brand,” he planned to keep the reputation and the name— and therefore the customers—for his own business. In addition to coming up a learning curve himself, William Barrett may have also engaged others who either were already skilled dyers or learned directly from Thompson, enabling him to be confident that he
118. For termination of the partnership, see “Take Notice,” New England Palladium, Boston, Massachusetts, October 23, 1804, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers. For Thompson’s association with Grime, see “Hugh Thompson, Silk, Cotton, and Woollen Dyer, from London,” Columbian Centinel, Boston, Massachusetts, April 12, 1806, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
131 “To the Friends of Economy and Manufactures,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, April 11, 1805, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
62 could carry on the technical operations of the business even without Thompson. He did so without a partner until 1806, when he formed a new partnership with Meshach
Shattuck of Boston.132 The partners stated that they had “at great expense procured every machine necessary to finish Goods as done in London,” an appeal to advanced technology rather than extensive personal training and skill.133
Finding Workers and Capital through Family and Mechanic Networks
To find workers, capital, and other resources for the business, William Barrett and his partners frequently drew on family networks and networks of local mechanics.
To begin with, William Barrett’s choice of Malden as a site for his new dye house may have had a great deal to do with his wife’s family. William Barrett married Mary
Keisar Hall early in 1804, and purchased land in the center of Malden close to the town’s gristmill. Mary’s mother, Martha Sprague Hall, was from a Malden family of Spragues who owned land in Malden, and her family most likely facilitated the Barretts learning about the land and water rights and purchasing them. Some help with the purchase may even have been part of Mary’s dowry. What’s more, William’s brother George was married to Susannah Richardson, who had connections with the Tufts family in Medford, and it was a Tufts who had operated the Malden gristmill.
132 “Copartnership Formed,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, February 10, 1806, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
133 “Barrett and Shattuck,” Providence Phoenix, Providence, Rhode Island, September 13, 1806, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
63
Figure 1. William Barrett and his wife Mary Keisar Hall Barrett.134
William Barrett also preferred family when he needed to expand his workforce.
First, his wife Mary herself was an important contributor to the business. In marrying a mechanic she was also, in a sense, marrying his business, and she likely knew what that entailed, as she had come from a family of Medford rum distillers. The Barretts provided housing for at least some of the people who worked in the dye house, and one of Mary’s duties was to supervise their housing arrangements.135
William Barrett’s partners each brought distinct value to the business and may
134 These images probably both originated from the portraits of William and Mary Barrett, likely executed sometime after 1830 and inherited by their son Henry Barrett. The portraits are currently in the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Museum in Hadley, Massachusetts. I’ve taken the image of William Barrett from Potter, Genealogies of Some Old Families of Concord, Massachuetts, 118 (facing). The image of Mary Keisar Hall Barrett is from a photo negative, Box 138, Folder 8, PPHFP.
135 John Greenleaf Adams, Memoir of Mrs. Mary H. Adams by Her Husband (Boston: New England Universalist Publishing House, 1865), 14.
64 have brought capital as well. Thompson certainly brought superior skill and the ability to train others, while Shattuck may have brought money, organizational ability, and an extra pair of hands, if he was not, himself, a dyer.
No source definitively identifies employees during this earliest period, or estimates the business’s size or number of workers. We can be reasonably sure that the business did not experience simple linear growth. Jacob Richardson later asserted that the volume of business (and presumably the number of workers) was much higher in the
1800s and 1810s than it was in later decades, in part due to the relative lack of competition.136
William Barrett’s brother George might already have been working with him in
Charlestown and later Malden to learn the trade of dyeing and how the business was conducted.137 The era of household labor had not ended; working for someone usually meant becoming a member of that person’s household, so we may obtain glimpses of other employees through census records. The 1810 census recorded Meshach Shattuck living on Hanover Street near the firm’s office in Boston, with a household totaling 12 people, not all of whom were members of Shattuck’s nuclear family. Perhaps he supervised the office on a routine basis or kept the books; his household might have included other clerks or workers in the office. According to Jacob Richardson, who joined the firm as a clerk there in 1822, the Boston office had long employed male clerks and also female workers who tacked and numbered the incoming pieces of cloth.138 These
136 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections of Old Times,” 1856, Box 110, Folder 6, PPHFP.
137 George is definitely in Malden by 1810; he is counted in the U.S. Census as head of his own household of six people. His household might also have included workers in the dye house.
138 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
65 could be some of the four females and two males over 16 in Meshach Shattuck’s household who were not Shattuck or his wife.
William Barrett’s Malden household in 1810 was larger, containing 27 people.
The three under 10 were the couple’s children, so aside from William and Mary Barrett, the household included 13 males (one under 15) and 9 females (one under 15) who were either household help, members of the extended family, or workers in the dye house. The firm also trained up likely young people, at least in the early period. In July 1806 the partners advertised for “two smart apprentices.”139
Manufacturing censuses did not capture the business at this early stage—it did not meet the definition of manufacturing for the purpose of the census. The returns of 1810 no longer exist, and the return for Malden in 1820 showed information only for the nail factory of Thomas Odiorne, which employed 16 hands. Timothy Thompson, Jr., the 1820 census marshal, was clearly frustrated that he had worked hard to collect information about other businesses, but the government did not want them. “This being the only factory required to be returned within the towns assigned to me, as is understood by the
Circular of August 15,” he said, “I have not made the returns of any other, but as I did not rightly understand the said circular I have taken the account of the following manufactories, which I can return if required: tanneries, curriers, morocco manufacturers, distilleries, chaises & carriages, shoe manufactories, soap & candle do., cordage do. & other small manufactories.” He did not consider the dyers to belong in even that broader category.140
139 “Barrett & Shattuck,” Repertory, Boston, Massachusetts, July 11, 1806, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
140 National Archives, Records of the 1820 Census of Manufactures on Microfilm, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Roll 2.
66
While evidence is not sufficient to trace exactly how Barrett obtained and used capital, some surviving documents suggest that an informal banking mechanism existed among a group of mechanics and other trusted members of their local network in similar circumstances.141 When one person needed money to invest or to settle debts, he signed a note and provided the deed to some land as collateral, in exchange for cash. These were not “mortgages” in today’s sense, as the term of the note might only be as short as six months or a year, with the borrower either settling the note or extending its term after the initial term had ended. In this way, deeds and money changed hands fairly often, with mechanics who needed money drawing on the equity in their land, and mechanics who had money to lend providing it to others in exchange for deeds as security. Barrett had several transactions with Robert Emes, a morocco leather dresser. In January 1805,
Barrett and Emes signed a note using land “near Tufts Mills,” presumably the dye house land or an extension of it, for $500 they received from Jonathan Sprague. Later that year,
Barrett purchased the land from Emes for $600. In June 1809, Barrett paid Emes $500 secured by land in Lynn. In April 1810, William Barrett executed a note secured by his land to the Odiorne brothers for $4,000, with Barrett to repay within two years at six- month intervals. The Odiornes sold half of the note to Artemas Ward, and it was discharged by 1815. For this process to work, some of the participants needed to have money at any given time, so it helped that they were not all in the same business and subject to the same seasonal fluctuations. This kind of arrangement worked well as long as people were able to meet their obligations, and it may have been socially easier and more financially favorable to work with peers than to obtain loans from merchants or one
141 See folders labeled “Deeds,” in particular Box 109, Folder 1, PPHFP. These contain ordinary land purchase but also a number of notes in which William Barrett had an interest as either debtor or creditor, including those described in this paragraph.
67 of the region’s early banks.
In Malden, William Barrett’s dye house was near neighbors with the factory of
Thomas Odiorne, another ambitious manufacturer who, with his two brothers, had moved to Malden around the same time as Barrett and started a cut nail factory using waterpower from the same river. Not simply a local mechanic, Odiorne had graduated from Dartmouth in 1791, gone into cotton manufacturing in New Hampshire, run a dry goods importing business in Boston, spent two years in England as its agent, and run a forge, rolling mill, and later additional nail factories in Delaware County,
Pennsylvania.142 With a need to share the river, the Odiornes and Barrett collaborated on a variety of matters over the years, partnering to build a shared Malden canal in 1817, and working to comply with Massachusetts and Malden requirements to allow alewives to pass up Spot Pond Brook to spawn.143
142 Anthony F. C. Wallace, Rockdale: the Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Revised Edition, 2005, Originally published in New York by Knopf, 1978), 208-209.
143 For the agreement executed by Barrett and the Odiornes to build the canal, see Box 109 Folder 2, PPHFP. For “fish committees,” see Malden Town Meeting records for the years after 1804, Malden Public Library, Historical Collections.
68
Figure 2. An 1810 Boston advertisement for Barrett & Shattuck. 144
Reaching Customers beyond Boston Barrett’s business achieved a geographical reach far beyond that of earlier dyers by taking advantage of a rapidly improving transportation and communications infrastructure and by leveraging a network of merchants. During its early years, the business took in goods at three locations: the firm’s office on Hanover Street Boston, a store in Charlestown, and the dye house, also called a “factory,” in Malden. But over
144 “Barrett & Shattuck,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, May 7, 1810, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
69 time, William Barrett grew his volume of business by engaging agents in other cities.145
These were dry goods retail merchants or occasionally clothiers; in either case, they already had relationships with the men and women who patronized their businesses.
Though Barrett could have found his agents in a variety of ways, it is likely that the import merchants who purchased his services or supplied his dyestuffs knew the retailers to whom they sold their merchandise. To let customers know that his services would be available through these agents, Barrett and his agents advertised the connection in local newspapers. Through those advertisements, we can trace the establishment of agents in
Salem (1806), Providence (1806), Portsmouth (1808), Hartford (1810), and Newport
(1811) – all cities in which one would find elite households and merchants.146 By August
1817, the network of agents had expanded to include Ipswich, and Marblehead in
Massachusetts, as well as Bedford and Merrimac in New Hampshire.147 Sometimes the partners appear to have had difficulty finding the right agent. Their agent in Providence
145 Though at least one earlier dyer had utilized agents in a small way, geographical reach seems to have been limited by the cost or difficulty of transportation. Charles Raitt, “fuller and dyer,” advertised in a Washington, Pennsylvania paper in 1798 that he could dye “cloth, silk, linen, cotton, yarn or wool” a wide range of colors. His agents were nearby merchants in Washington, Cannonsburgh, Pittsburgh, and Peters Creek. “Charles Raitt, Fuller and Dyer,” Herald of Liberty, Washington, Pennsylvania, September 24, 1798, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
146 Salem: “Barrett & Shattuck,” Salem Register, Salem, Massachusetts, February 17, 1806, 3; Providence: “Barrett & Shattuck,” Providence Phoenix, Providence, Rhode Island, July 19, 1806, 3; Portsmouth: “Barrett & Shattuck,” New-Hampshire Gazette, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, August 2, 1808, 3; Hartford: “Public Notice. Barrett & Shattuck,” Connecticut Mirror, Hartford, Connecticut, August 6, 1810, 4; Newport: “Barrett & Shattuck,” Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island, April 6, 1811, 3; all from Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
147 “Notice,” Concord Gazette, Concord, New Hampshire, August 19, 1817, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
70 was variously listed between 1806 and 1809 as Joseph Sweet, Moses Guild, Messrs. A.
Arnold & Co., and John Carpenter.148
Enlisting these agents enabled Barrett to reach household and small business customers, while dry goods importers were reached through other means. In 1808,
Barrett’s partner Meshach Shattuck went to New York in an effort to publicize the company’s services and encourage New York merchants to send their goods to Boston.149
From that point up to 1812, at least, the company had an agent in New York.150 When
Barrett rebuilt after the 1816 fire, one of his ads included the following request: “The numerous and respectable mercantile houses in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New-York, &c., who have hitherto patronized his establishment, are solicited to continue their favours.”151
While Barrett could have exaggerated the case, by the time his second business in Staten
Island opened in 1820, one of its stated goals was to get closer to customers in New York and further south.152
Barrett could rely on the young republic’s rapidly expanding newspaper and
148 “Removal. John R. Carpenter,” American, Providence, Rhode Island, June 27, 1809, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
149 “Take Notice. To the Merchants and Traders in New-York and to whom it may concern,” Mercantile Advertiser, New York, August 17, 1808, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
150 The firm’s ads were seldom published in New York papers. One exception is William Barrett’s notice regarding severing ties with a former colleague. This notice, combined with an ad for dyeing services, was reprinted in several New York papers, for example “Notice,” Evening Post, December 22, 1812, 1, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers. As this ad shows, David Dunham, a New York Merchant mentioned in the 1808 ad, was still an agent for the firm late in 1812. The 1809 receipt in Figure 7 also lists David Dunham as the firm’s New York agent.
151 “William Barrett, Silk, Cotton, Woolen, and Linen dyer….,” Boston Daily Advertiser, Boston, Massachusetts, August 31, 1816, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
152 “New Dye-House on Staten Island,” National Advocate, New York, October 14, 1820, 1, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
71 postal system to reach his customers and advertise his services. When Michael Brown, a silk dyer from London, advertised his dyeing services in Philadelphia in 1742, only readers of Philadelphia newspapers, or those who walked past his shop, would have known about them. Though the newspapers might have traveled to other population centers, the process was an uncertain one. Brown’s location, a short walk from
Philadelphia’s port, would have been a critical asset; no established postal system could help him reach customers in remote locations.
William Barrett, in contrast, could draw on a very different infrastructure when he began marketing his dyeing services in 1801. Historian of the postal system Richard John has described how the Post Office Act of 1792 admitted all newspapers into the mail for a very modest fee, and thereby “transformed the role of the newspaper press in American public life.”153 Even before the Act, printers had informally exchanged newspapers as a way of ensuring that their subscribers learned what was happening in the wider world. By admitting newspapers into the mails for a low cost, the Act of 1792 put a legal framework around this exchange, ensuring timely and reliable delivery of newspapers.154 The Act also encouraged growth of the press generally and made it easier for printers in the country to receive and use information for their own papers.155 Printers, whether they were located in the city or the country, could receive newspapers from afar, incorporate the information they found most interesting to their readers, and discard anything not useful to them. Letters, however, were still quite expensive. John described this imbalance as an effectively redistributive policy in which merchants, who conducted
153 Richard John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 37.
154 John, Spreading the News, 37.
155 John, Spreading the News, 38-40.
72 business through their correspondence, subsidized citizens’ ability to acquire information—and publishers’ ability to provide it cheaply.156 But as John also pointed out, merchants were important beneficiaries of a regular and reliable postal system as well, as they frequently transmitted “information, bills of exchange, and money”—rather surprising quantities of money.157
American newspapers expanded rapidly in number and volume during the first decades of the 19th century, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Letters and newspapers transmitted by the U.S. postal system, 1790-1840.158
Year Letters Letters per Newspapers Newspapers per (millions) capita (millions) capita
1790 0.3 0.1 0.5 0.2
1800 2.0 0.5 1.9 0.4
1810 3.9 0.7 n.a. n.a.
1820 8.9 1.1 6.0 0.7
1830 13.8 1.3 16.0 1.5
1840 40.9 2.9 39.0 2.7
The expanding volume and reliable exchange of newspapers meant that, at least in theory, people throughout the country could know about Barrett’s services if they subscribed to a Boston paper or if the editors of their local papers saw fit to reprint the
156 John, Spreading the News, 53.
157 John, Spreading the News, 51.
158 John, Spreading the News, 51.
73 advertisements. William Barrett was certainly aware of the possibilities posed by newspaper exchanges. When he published a notice that he had moved his office in 1804, he wished the news to spread far and wide, and included the following address at the bottom of his ad: “The several Printers in the United States (if they please) are requested to insert the above in their Papers.”159 But while the notice was printed in several Boston papers, it does not seem to have gone further. Twelve years later, however, when fire struck Barrett’s business, the news of the fire and of Barrett’s rebuilt business was quickly reported in papers in Boston, but also in Salem, Amherst, and Worcester,
Massachusetts, Providence, Rhode Island, and Concord and Hanover, New Hampshire.
Some of this was not simply a desire to spread the news, as Barrett was leaving nothing to chance. He wanted customers throughout New England and New York to know he was back in business. In one advertisement that appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser,
Barrett incorporated the following notice: “The Editors of the New-York Evening Post,
New Hampshire Gazette, at Concord; Portsmouth Oracle, and Farmer’s Cabinet, at
Amherst, (N.H), are requested to insert the above in their respective papers, for 3 months, and send their bills for payment to William Barrett, no. 2 Hanover St.”160 Based on a quick survey of newspapers available online, at least some of these editors cooperated.
While Barrett’s ads appeared routinely in newspapers in Massachusetts and in some other New England cities such as Providence, they rarely appeared outside New
England before 1820. We can conclude from this that editors were generally not reprinting the ads they received through exchange, and therefore William Barrett’s ability
159 “Removal. Friends to Economy and Manufactures, Take Notice,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, August 13, 1804, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
160 “Malden Dye House Rebuilt,” Boston Daily Advertiser, Boston, Massachusetts, May 13, 1816, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
74 to reach households in other cities depended for the most part on subscriptions, letters, or word of mouth.
But while remote households could not easily be reached through the newspapers, potential merchant customers were another story. They read newspapers, were hungry for information about markets in other cities, and corresponded with one another frequently.
By 1816, Barrett had reportedly won business from merchants in other cities on the eastern seaboard. If Barrett’s business was known beyond New England, then word must have spread through the merchant network itself, or through direct subscriptions to
Boston papers. If some merchants found Barrett’s services to be valuable and of high quality, then they could easily have communicated this to others in their network who might be able to benefit. Finally, it should be noted that merchants also made up a significant portion of the elite strata of eastern port cities such as Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Whether or not William Barrett was directly reaching households through their local newspapers, he was reaching some elite households through the merchants’ information network.
But informing potential customers about his business was only part of the challenge. William Barrett also needed to fulfill his promise to dye goods and return them.
Taking Advantage of an Evolving Transportation Infrastructure
To execute the promised services and satisfy his customers, Barrett needed to overcome a number of logistical challenges. His business was made possible in part by a rapidly improving New England transportation infrastructure that eased the process of moving goods between the various cities and towns. Boston’s population was increasing
75 rapidly during this period—from 18,320 in 1790 to 33,787 in 1810 and 43,298 in 1820.161
With population increases in other parts of the country as well, greater attention was being paid throughout the United States to improving roads, bridges, and canals. This process happened somewhat earlier in Boston than in other parts of the country, but the
State of New York, for example, between 1800 and 1807 incorporated 88 road companies that invested over $8 million in 20 large bridges and over 3,000 miles of turnpike. Roads, built variously of earth, “corduroy,” plank, and stone, made it easier, safer, and faster to carry people and goods—though not necessarily cheap. Turnpikes and bridges were typically profit-making affairs that had been fostered and regulated by the state; an acceptable rate of profit was at the time thought to be around 6% of revenues.162 The
French Wars in general and the War of 1812 in particular brought greater attention to the challenge of internal transportation. With supplies from Europe interrupted, England was importing significant quantities of foodstuffs from the United States. Once the war began,
Atlantic shipping was vulnerable and more transport within the United States had to take place over land at enormous cost, both for ordinary commerce and for supplying the
Army and Navy.163 Some believed that the costs incurred would have paid to build the required infrastructure!
Barrett needed to move goods from and to his customers, and between the dye house in Malden and his main office in Boston—a process that was much easier in 1800 than it had been before 1787, when no bridges existed to carry passengers north across
161 Walter Muir Whitehill, Boston, a Topographical History, Second enlarged edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 73-74.
162 Archer B. Hulbert, The Paths of Inland Commerce (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920), 58-60.
163 Caroline MacGill, History of Transportation in the United States before 1860 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1917), 91, 132.
76 the Charles and the Mystic Rivers. Ferry service, of course, existed, but it operated irregularly and could be shut down by poor weather, requiring long detours. But in 1786,
Lemuel Cox, a Medford shipwright, built a bridge over the Charles River connecting
Charlestown with Boston. It was at the time “the longest bridge in the world and was regarded as a great feat of engineering.”164 Shortly thereafter, Cox built the Malden
Bridge, said to be “of similar construction,” which crossed the Mystic from Charlestown.
The effect of these bridges was to bring Malden much closer to Boston.
According to topographical historian Walter Muir Whitehill, these bridges, “radically changed the pattern of life in Boston, for regions that had been remote cul-de-sacs suddenly developed into busy thoroughfares to the surrounding world.”165
164 MacGill, History of Transportation, 39. Cox’s engineering accomplishments included a 900-foot bridge at Londonderry in Ireland, built in the 1770s using Maine lumbermen and carpenters and American oak and pine.
165 Whitehill, Boston, a Topographical History, 50.
77
Figure 4. The Charlestown Bridge.166
The Rev. Jedidiah Morse, of the First Parish in Charlestown, who had probably watched the construction of both bridges, stated that the Charlestown Bridge, a toll bridge, was roughly 1500 feet long and 43 feet wide and took 13 months to complete.
The project of 84 private proprietors incorporated by the Massachusetts General Court, the bridge cost £15,000.167 It was set with lamps and included a 6-foot protected passage for pedestrians as well as provision for wagon and horse traffic. Dedicated on the eleventh anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, William Barrett’s eleventh birthday, the bridge was a drawbridge, allowing it to be opened so ships could pass between the
Charles River and Boston Harbor.168 We can assume that the Malden Bridge was similar in scope and equipment.
166 Whitehill, Boston, a Topographical History, 49.
167 Whitehill, Boston, a Topographical History, 49.
168 Jedediah Morse, The American geography: or, a view of the present situation of the United States… (London: John Stockdale, 1792), 181.
78
Figure 5. View of Malden Bridge from Bunker Hill, circa 1790.169
Using these bridges, William Barrett traveled between the dye house and the Boston office at least twice per week in a horse-drawn carryall, bringing goods to the dye house to be dyed and from the dye house to be returned to customers in Boston.170 Like many of his contemporaries, William Barrett paid close attention to transportation issues.171
Bridge fees may have annoyed him; in the 1830s, shortly before his death, Barrett joined a group of subscribers planning to create a free bridge over the Mystic River—a less expensive alternative to the first Malden Bridge. He specifically stipulated in his will that
169 S. Hill, “View of the bridge over Mystic River & the contry [sic] adjacent from Bunker's Hill,” Massachusetts Magazine, or, Monthly Museum of Knowledge and Rational Entertainment 2, no. 9 (September 1790). Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1790. Web. Wikimedia Commons. Image in the public domain in the United States.
170 This was his habit in the 1820s, and he likely took a similar approach during the earlier decade. Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
171 An 1825 enumeration of William Barrett’s property for tax purposes included two canal boats, which would have been used either on parts of the Malden River or on the Middlesex Canal. Historical Collections, Malden Public Library, Tax Rolls on Microfilm.
79 money should be set aside for this subscription because it would increase the value of his estate.172
Effective use of agents required that goods move regularly between the agent and the Barrett business, by wagon or water. Barrett and his agents could have taken advantage of third-party teams traveling regularly between their cities and Boston, or merchants’ teams delivering goods to the dry goods stores. If volume warranted, Barrett could have provided or hired his own transportation. Before the agents were established, people outside Boston who wished to have items dyed could also have sent individual packages to Boston or Malden containing their items and instructions. Advertisements urging readers to leave their goods with the agents clearly indicated that customers were not required to pay for their goods to be transported to and from Boston.173 We do not know what Barrett’s transportation costs actually were, or what specific financial arrangements, if any, were made with the agents. But his prices on dyeing were clearly high enough that they could absorb any costs involved in administering the transaction or transporting the goods.
Managing Internal Processes
In addition to moving goods back and forth, Barrett and his workers needed to be able to follow the customer’s instructions and perform the appropriate tasks. This required not only knowing what the customer wanted and being able to provide it, but
172 William Barrett, Recorded Will, 1834, Probate Records, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Record Books, Volume 173, pages 399-403 (On Microfilm at Massachusetts State Archives).
173 For example, a Providence notice in 1808 stated that, goods “will be sent to and from Boston, free of expense of transportation to the owners, and will be received, and delivered every week,” “Barrett & Shattuck,” Columbian Phenix, Providence, Rhode Island, July 16, 1808, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
80 also making notes and tracking each item as it was processed, so that the right items would be returned to the right people with the right work having been performed on them. Once their business had expanded beyond Boston to include the agents, the company’s clerks would not be interacting directly with customers, and instructions had to be especially clear to avoid confusion or disappointment. One 1808 notice informed readers in Portsmouth and vicinity that they could leave goods at the store of Nathan B.
Folsom; it also included the following note: “Persons sending Cloths or Garments of any kind are desired to have them accompanied with a pattern of the colour they wish them made, (as in many colours there are a variety of shades) also to enclose them in paper describing on the outside the contents, colour to be made, and owner’s name.”174
Figure 6 below shows an 1806 Barrett & Shattuck receipt for Mr. Charles Miller who wished to dye three pieces of cloth for a total of $4.91 and left his goods at Mr.
Goodwin’s store in Charlestown to be dyed by Barrett & Shattuck. The receipt specified the current colors of the pieces and the colors they should be dyed. The number 259 likely refers to an order number in the office daybook. The information about the order is affixed to the advertising notice with sealing wax.
For the 1809 order in Figure 7, William Shaw wished to dye a silk gown and coat, which are described. The receipt for $18.00 is written on the back of the advertisement, which served both as a ticket for the order and a signed receipt for payment. In that case, the dyeing instructions are not specified on the receipt itself, perhaps because the order was received directly at the office and not through an agent.
174 “Barrett & Shattuck,” New-Hampshire Gazette, December 20, 1808, 4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
81
Figure 6: An 1806 Barrett & Shattuck receipt for dyeing three pieces of cloth. 175
175 Advertisement with receipt for dyeing attached (Collection of the American Antiquarian Society). Barrett & Shattuck, Barrett & Shattuck, Silk, Cotton, Woolen and Linen DYERS (Charlestown, MA: n.p., 1806), Ephemera Bill 0044, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society.
82
Figure 7. An 1809 receipt for dyeing a silk gown and coat (front and back).176
176 Advertisement with receipt for dyeing on reverse (Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society). Barrett & Shattuck, Barrett & Shattuck, Silk, Cotton Woollen, and Linen Dyers…. Trade Card (Boston, n.p., circa 1809), Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts. Courtesy, Massachusetts Historical Society.
83
Customers who brought garments to be cleaned, bleached, and/or dyed knew that they would likely need to be “ripped” or taken apart at the seams, either before or after sending, so keeping the pieces together was another challenge for the business. One strategy in common use was to “write” on pieces of cloth by marking or numbering them using sewing thread. When Jacob Richardson, a trusted member of the firm, looked back in 1856 on the earlier days of his work in the office, he remembered a group of women who had been employed, first in the office and later at the dye house, to do the work of tacking and numbering.177
In its basic business model, Barrett’s dyeing service was the direct ancestor of today’s dry-cleaning establishments, whose managers would be familiar with many of the challenges Barrett faced. Customers seem often to have left their items without picking them up, or taken away items that did not belong to them, as illustrated by the notices in
Figure 8.
177 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
84
Figure 8. Two notices to customers regarding objects left for dyeing.178
Defending the Market
William Barrett’s most serious competition came from an unlikely source—his wife’s brothers, who set up a rival dye house in 1816. Early in 1812, John Hall, Mary
Hall Barrett’s brother, had joined the Barrett business, working in the downtown Boston office. Hiring John Hall may have been necessary to replace Meshach Shattuck, Barrett’s business partner from 1806 to 1811, who had committed suicide the previous
December.179 John Hall was apparently quite capable, and later became superintendent at the dye works in Malden, learning various aspects of the business.180 Perhaps Hall hoped to be taken on as a partner himself. But over time, either John Hall and William Barrett
178 “Barrett & Shattuck,” Columbian Centinel, Boston, Massachusetts, February 23, 1811, 4; “Notice,” New England Palladium, Boston, Massachusetts, February 7, 1809, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
179 Shattuck jumped from the Charlestown Bridge on December 17, 1811 in “a fit of melancholy,” leaving a wife and children and resulting in the winding up of the partnership. Given the time of year, Shattuck’s body was not discovered and interred until April. Zachariah Gardner Whitman, The History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company : Rev. and Enl. from Its Formation in 1637 and Charter in 1638, to the Present Time; Comprising the Biographies of the Distinguished Civil, Literary, Religious, and Military Men of the Colony, Province, and Commonwealth (Boston: J. H. Eastburn, 1842), 373. “On Saturday last….,” Repertory, Boston, Massachusetts, April 14, 1812, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
180 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
85 fell out, or Hall simply wanted independence. At the start of 1816, the Boston Daily
Advertiser published an announcement that a new firm for silk, cotton, and woolen dyeing had been formed under the name of “J. & A. Hall,” a partnership of John and
Aaron Hall.181 They promised services very similar to Barrett’s, to be performed at their new dye house in Lynn. With operations closer to Salem, they hoped their location would help them woo the Salem customers, presumably both merchants and individuals, away from William Barrett. All available evidence indicates that in terms of their technical capabilities, at least, the two businesses were virtually identical, though in his 1856 letter to Henry Barrett, Jacob Richardson opined that William Barrett had always been the better businessman.182
This incident illustrates the difficult choices available to men who wished to be their own masters. Hall, having learned the business of dyeing and presumably saved some money, could continue working for Barrett, or he could establish independence by setting up his own business. In an earlier generation, he might have received a gift of land to start his own farm, or been able to buy land, and it would not have been a problem that his brother-in-law was also a farmer. Had he been a craftsman, he might have become a master after serving an apprenticeship, and then perhaps either taken over his former master’s stand or moved to a different village. But for a specialized service business like
Barrett’s that depended on volume and served an entire region, a business that offered similar capabilities and services in a neighboring town posed a significant challenge—
181 “Copartnership,” Boston Daily Advertiser, Boston, Massachusetts, January 4, 1816, 1, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
182 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
86 and over time affected William Barrett’s ability to command high prices.183
On the afternoon of February 8, 1816, only a few weeks after the Halls announced their new business, William Barrett’s Malden dye house, a wooden structure, burned to the ground; no one was hurt. The news was reported throughout New England. Sources assumed accident, and I have found no hint of arson in the historical record, but it is easy to wonder. News accounts reported that Barrett sustained $30,000 in damages and could collect only $5,000 from insurance.184 Stories have William Barrett back in operation with a makeshift dye house by the next day, and rapidly rebuilding a new permanent dye house in brick.185 In any case, Barrett had rebuilt by May, an impressive achievement, and announced his new dye house in newspapers under the headline “Malden Dye House
Rebuilt.”186 He also had a picture made of the new dye house, shown in Figure 9, which was used in company literature.
183 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
184 “Boston February 10,” Richmond Enquirer, Richmond, Virginia, February 20, 1816, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
185 John Greenleaf Adams, Memoir of Mrs. Mary H. Adams, 13.
186 See for example “Malden Dye House Re-Built,” Boston Daily Advertiser, Boston, Massachusetts, May 13, 1816, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
87
Figure 9. An 1817 engraving showing the newly rebuilt Barrett factories.187
Ancillary Businesses
While cleaning, dyeing, bleaching, and finishing were the core of Barrett’s business, he also conducted side businesses in processing and selling dyestuffs, and in dyeing and selling “military hair” made from colored silk for military dress caps.188
These created revenue streams that were perhaps more regular than the highly volatile wholesale dyeing business.
Barrett almost certainly purchased his dyestuffs from local merchants and must have realized fairly quickly that if he could process his own dyestuffs he could save
187 Malden Historical Society, Images of America: Malden (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2000), 74. King’s Handbook of Boston contains a revised and updated version of this picture. Moses King, King’s Handbook of Boston (Boston: Moses King, 1881), 319.
188 “Barrett & Shattuck,” Repertory, July 11, 1806, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
88 money on supplies—and also create another revenue opportunity. He took advantage of a separate mill site further north along Spot Pond Brook near Spot Pond, the so-called “red mill,” whose name may have derived from the dyestuffs processed there.189 Raw dyestuffs were imported in a variety of forms. Dye woods such as logwood or camwood needed to be rasped to maximize surface area before being soaked to make a dye liquor.
Other raw dyestuffs needed to be pulverized or ground into powder before use. The same was true of some common medicinal substances, and Barrett also seems to have processed and sold some common medicines as well as dyeing substances. Often the same merchants sold dye stuffs and medicines, both of which were referred to as “drugs” during this period.
The processes of rasping dyewoods and pulverizing other dyestuffs also required specialized machinery. In 1809, Barrett purchased the rights to an 1808 patent awarded to
Jesse Reed, a mechanic who worked on a variety of machines, for a water-powered rasping machine designed for rasping of dye woods.190 The availability of dyestuffs for sale was often mentioned in Barrett’s general dyeing service advertisements, though on at least one occasion, Barrett & Shattuck published an advertisement similar to those used by merchants, letting readers know that they had for sale in their shop: “English and India
Allum; best fine ground and bolted Camwood, of superior quality; fine ground and bolted
Logwood; rasped do. [ditto], rasped Fustic; do., Redwood; best green Copperas; Oil
189 Richard John, Spreading the News, 5.
190 In assigning his patent to Barrett, Reed reserved rights to use his invention for 14 years, and also explicitly transferred rights to seek renewal or to seek patent protection outside the United States. “Assignment, Jesse Reed to Barrett & Shattuck,” Box 109, Folder 1, PPHFP.
89
Vitriol, ground Turmerick, Stick Logwood; do. Fustic; do. Redwood.”191 But though
Barrett took advantage of the opportunity to sell some dyestuffs in his Boston office, he appears not to have gone heavily into selling other dry goods. This is not surprising, as doing so would have brought him into competition with his agents and key customers.
On rebuilding from the fire in 1817, William Barrett announced, surprisingly, that he had added “machines for spinning and weaving” of common and merino wool to his new factory.192 It is difficult to determine how important they were to Barrett’s overall business. Perhaps he was taking a flyer on a new business line, inspired by the Boston
Manufacturing Company, or perhaps he simply bought out the equipment of a failed mill.
But aside from this early notice, Barrett never again advertised manufacture of woolen cloth, and perhaps it was never a very important or successful part of the venture. More important was Barrett’s ability to protect rights to his inventions.
Knowledge, Collaboration, and the Patent Wars
For William Barrett, inventions and patents were important accomplishments and business assets. He took advantage of U.S. patent infrastructure to protect inventions that were his alone or resulted from a collaborative effort. Mechanic Jesse Reed had built a dyewood rasping machine for him in 1807, for which Reed obtained a patent in 1808. In
1809, Reed assigned the patent to Barrett for one dollar.193 Reed undertook work for hire for Barrett in 1815, but neither Reed nor Barrett received a patent for that work, though
191 “Barrett & Shattuck,” Independent Chronicle, Boston, Massachusetts, April 30, 1810, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
192 “Notice,” Concord Gazette, Concord, New Hampshire, August 19, 1817, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
193 Jesse Reed, “Assignment, Jesse Reed to Barrett & Shattuck,” 1809, Box 109, Folder 1, PPHFP.
90 both contemplated it.194 Beyond requesting and receiving patents for his inventions, acquiring the patents of Jesse Reed, and licensing patents from others, Barrett both initiated and defended patent claims aggressively against people he knew in an effort to maximize his rights, protect his market, and perhaps create or defend a stream of passive revenue.
Though an 1836 fire destroyed many of the early U.S. patent records, a printed index remains for the period in question.195 A surprising number of patents in the category of “chemical processes” in the early 19th century concern dyeing, and Barrett’s are among the earliest. On March 22, 1809, Abner Stearns of West Cambridge,
Massachusetts, was awarded a patent for “dying silk.” Three months later, on June 27,
1809, William Barrett was also awarded a patent for “dying silk.” These presumably related to a machine used in dyeing silk cloth or yarn. On January 30, 1818 and again on
September 8, 1818, William Barrett and Abner Stearns received joint patents for “dying silk” and “dying silk and finishing.” On the last day of December 1817, Aaron & John
Hall, Barrett’s brothers-in-law and rivals in the dyeing business, received a patent for
“removing spots in silk.” Barrett’s interest in patents apparently never waned; on
November 19, 1833, he received a patent for an anthracite (coal) furnace.
194 Barrett hired Reed that year to create a new and improved rasping machine. Reed also agreed to assist Barrett in obtaining a patent for it. Reed wrote out a patent application that may never have been sent or may never have been approved, as no patent appears in the government published Index for that later work. Jesse Reed, “Copy of specification of model of rasping machine or an improvement,” 1815, Box 109, Folder 4, PPHFP. Reed held numerous patents, most of which were for machines for making nails.
195 Information in this paragraph is from Edmund Burke, ed., List of Patents for the Inventions and Designs, Issued by the United States from 1790-1847, with the Patent Laws and Notes of Decisions of the Courts of the United States for the Same Period (Washington, DC: J. & G. S. Gideon, 1847), 107, 116.
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Abner Stearns was, by all accounts, a gifted mechanic who inherited his family’s mill in Billerica but also lived and worked for a time in West Cambridge (today the town of Arlington).196 Barrett could have met Stearns at any point—perhaps even as a young apprentice in Billerica. They seem to have been working on inventions together related to machines for silk dyeing. In 1809, both obtained patents. Stearns fought Barrett over a patent for an invention they had created together, perhaps the 1809 patent (Stearns v.
Barrett, 1816), but lost his case. Two years later, the two inventors obtained joint patents, perhaps as a way to avoid further legal hassles. One of these patents arose later in another suit (Barrett et. al. v. Hall et. al., 1818) in which Barrett and others (which most likely included Stearns) claimed that the Halls had infringed their patent. The patent was for a combination of machines, and Hall was using one of the machines, not the combination, so in this case the court found that there was no barrier to Hall using the machine outside that combination.197 Barrett and Stearns would come into conflict later over Barrett’s rights to use machinery on Staten Island.
Without becoming completely embroiled here in the intricacies of patent law, we can observe that in fact, Barrett claimed inventions aggressively and also aggressively contested others’ rights to use inventions he considered to be his own. Barrett certainly looked to government, and to patent law in particular, to encourage and protect his inventions—and by implication, his business and the legacy he would leave to his family.
In the case of John and Aaron Hall, Barrett was clearly defending his market; he was
196 Abraham English Brown, Genealogy of Bedford Old Families (Bedford, MA: By the Author, 1892), 34.
197 Burke, List of Patents, xli, lii, lxiii-lxiv, lxxi, lxviii. Also Stearns v. Barrett (Case No. 13,337, Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts, 22 F. Cas. 1175; 1816 U.S. App. LEXIS 131: October, 1816, Term); Barrett et al. v. Hall et al. (Case No. 1,047 Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts 2 F. Cas. 914; 1818 U.S. App. LEXIS 180 October, 1818, Term) Lexis-Nexis Academic.
92 competing directly with the Halls and knew that if he could either prevent them from using his invention or force them to pay license fees, it would mitigate the competitive situation in which he found himself. But William Barrett might have had another motivation as well. By late 1818, when Barrett et. al. v. Hall et. al. was decided, William
Barrett was already contemplating the new business on Staten Island. Barrett, his brother
George, and their prospective partners, William Tileston and Samuel Whittemore, may have felt that accumulating more exclusive rights to the machinery would enhance the value of the Staten Island business. In fact, publicity for the new factory in 1820 called attention to Barrett’s patents.198 Once the Staten Island business had opened, the firm continued to aggressively protect itself through the patent laws, in one case by breaking another’s patent, as evidenced by McGaw v. Bryan, 1821, and in another by defending rights questioned by co-inventor Abner Stearns, in Stearns v. Barrett, 1823.199 These cases, all taken together, seem to be some of the foundational cases for U.S. Patent Law.
Machines aside, one challenge William Barrett’s business faced was keeping up with new dyeing knowledge. The market position he had carved out—serving elite households and merchants—demanded state-of-the-art quality. As discussed in Chapter
II, dyeing was both a science and an art, depending not only on a supply of good dyestuffs, but also on workers’ skill and experience. Many things could go wrong during the process to spoil the end result. Barrett seems not to have had too much trouble finding
198 “Establishment for dying Cloths, Silk, &c., &c, on Staten Island,” Patron of Industry, New York, September 27, 1820.
199 McGaw v. Bryan et al. (Case No 8,793, District Court, S.D. New York, 1821 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4; 16 F. Cas. 96), Lexis-Nexis Academic. Isaac McGaw was a trusted employee of the Barrett firm who went to Staten Island in 1820. William Bryan apparently held a patent for printing of India silks, and McGaw, acting as an agent for Barretts, Tileston, & Co., sought successfully to repeal the patent on the grounds that it was obtained “surreptitiously, or upon false suggestion.” See also, Stearns v. Barrett (Supreme Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk 18 Mass. 443; 1823 Mass. LEXIS 28; 1 Pick. 443 March, 1823, Decided), Lexis-Nexis Academic.
93 people to carry out the work, but after his partnership with Hugh Thompson ended, he needed ways to ensure that his processes would indeed be as he claimed—as good as could be done in London or Europe. Sometime during the war years from 1812 through
1815 William Barrett took advantage of a special opportunity to expand the knowledge of his staff.
The Barretts’ association with John Rauch, a professional dyer from Europe, demonstrates one way that the firm kept its knowledge up to date, and sheds light on how dyeing knowledge could travel during this period. Rauch, originally from Switzerland, had spent time at dye houses in Germany and France before coming to the United States sometime in 1812. He was clearly a good example of someone who participated in what
Augustí Nieto-Galan has called the European “republic of dyers.” Traveling around
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island between 1812 and
1815, Rauch “instructed more than 30 persons,” including dyers and textile manufacturers, sharing his expert knowledge in exchange for a fee.200 To reach beyond the people with whom he consulted directly, Rauch made innovative use of print. He worked with a publisher to create a book that included all his dyeing recipes—but there was a catch. Important terms of the recipes were in code. While anyone could purchase the book for $5 to $10, only people who paid Rauch directly for the printed key to the code (for which he charged $500) could realize the true value of his knowledge. The book, then, served essentially as an in-depth advertisement, communicating the value of
200 Rauch’s book was advertised in newspapers, with no mention of the code. Rauch gave all the rights to his printer/publisher, and seems to have made his money from a) fees for expert consulting work with dyers, and b) selling the key to the code. John Rauch, John Rauch’s Receipts on Dyeing, In a Series of Letters to a Friend… (New York: Printed for Joseph I. Badger, Proprietors in New Haven, 1815). In its rare book and manuscript collections, the Winterthur Library, Wilmington, Delaware, has a copy of a handwritten manuscript of this book (Doc. 308) as well as the published version and a printed copy of the code key.
94 his knowledge and experience—and by implication how much there was to know— without giving away important details that would allow someone to replicate the work.
One important assumption was that the information—even in its decoded form—would be valuable only to experienced dyers. That is, it was not intended to allow a novice to replicate the quality of an expert. So Rauch’s primary audience was professional dyers.
As an added enticement to encourage them to buy the key from him, Rauch’s book included testimonials from some of the people with whom he had worked. One of these was George M. Barrett, William Barrett’s younger brother, who was intimately involved in managing dye house operations in Malden before he moved to Staten Island. Rauch, who planned to return to Switzerland, expressed pride in his ability. “Please to follow my directions given in the following receipts exactly,” he advised, “and then you will be willing to give me the only reward requested, viz: that this book contains the best practical receipts on dyeing that you ever saw in print.”201
The Wages of Embargo and War
The wars in Europe continued to rage off and on until 1815. As American merchants continued to import cloth, and American households continued to use it,
William Barrett continued to bleach, dye, clean, and refurbish. In November of 1806, the
U.S. Non-Importation Act went into effect, severely limiting imports of goods from abroad, the first of a series of interruptions in commerce that included the Embargo of
1807 and the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809—government efforts to keep Britain from molesting American commerce. Unfortunately no business records remain to tell us exactly how the various interruptions in imports affected the dyers, or whether they took
201 John Rauch, John Rauch’s Receipts on Dyeing, 1815, 7.
95 advantage of the proximity of the Charlestown Navy Yard to engage government contracts. But it is reasonable to assume that the reduced commerce caused serious disruptions in the business of wholesale dyeing for merchants, while causing households and retailers to rely more heavily on refurbishing existing goods if possible. More broadly, where American leaders and thinkers had once been negative or at least highly ambivalent about manufacturing goods domestically, the War changed their attitude and increased their desire to develop greater economic independence from Britain—a shift that was to have a positive impact on William Barrett’s business.
“Upon an Extensive Scale”
In December of 1820, an article entitled “Communication” in the Boston
Commercial Gazette waxed lyrical about the accomplishments of William Barrett and the technical splendor of his Malden factory. The author concluded: “Mr. Barrett has the merit of having first successfully introduced into this country the art of dying upon an extensive scale. His ingenuity, perseverance and success, in spite of his immense losses, deserve to be known and rewarded. The public have an interest in the exertions and improvements of our skillful and enterprising mechanics.”202 Whether this article was written by a disinterested third party, as it was presented, or by William Barrett himself, the claim seems to be valid.
Barrett was a transitional figure who was part skilled craftsman and part entrepreneurial businessman—a man who sought to create a legacy for his family based on a large-scale business. Though he always styled himself “William Barrett, silk dyer,”
202 “Communication,” Boston Commercial Gazette, Boston, Massachusetts, December 21, 1820, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
96 and seems to have been proud of his identity as a mechanic, his own contribution to the business was less his technical skill than his understanding and vision of the overall business. Between 1800 and 1820, William Barrett, aided by various business partners, his wife, and other members of his family, created something new. He was neither, in the
Boston area, the first dyer, nor the first silk dyer, nor the first to serve elites, nor, if we broaden our geography, was he the first to use a network of merchants as agents. He was not a “textile manufacturer,” to any great extent. But it seems he was the first in Greater
Boston to create a large-scale dyeing service business on a centralized factory model.
This accomplishment depended on much more than personal ingenuity. Barrett relied on knowledge and skills from England, Europe, and indirectly from Asia. He relied on a rapidly improving communications and transportation infrastructure, and on a government increasingly anxious to reward innovation and invention and encourage the new nation’s self-sufficiency, especially during and after the War of 1812. From the beginning, William Barrett was immersed in a diverse and especially vibrant network of mechanics and inventors. But his fortunes were not bound up with those of contemporaries who built factories in Pawtucket, Waltham, and Lowell. Rather, he relied on households’ demand for “the best” and the continued success and patronage of the bustling import and retail merchants whose commerce had intensified in the 1790s and
1800s. Those merchants formed an important part of his customer base, facilitated development of his network of agents, and provided capital that would enable him to build an even larger and more ambitious factory on Staten Island.
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Chapter IV
The Merchants’ Manufacturer: The Barretts’ Staten Island Venture, 1820-1834
In the summer of 1817, William Barrett almost certainly experienced a singular disappointment. Newly elected President James Monroe had begun a tour of the United
States by traveling north from Washington.203 During his travels, the energetic President focused on viewing coastline fortifications, assessing the state of domestic manufacturing, forging connections, especially across party lines, to heal the wounds of war, and simply seeing the character and people of the country for himself. President
Monroe seems to have been intrigued by new technologies and domestic manufacturing.
He made a point of using steamboat transportation whenever he could and visited a number of factories.
Monroe arrived in Massachusetts on July 1, fresh from a visit to the Pawtucket textile mills, where he was shown the first Arkwright frame used in the United States.204
After a night in Dedham, he entered Boston on July 2, staying in rooms at the Exchange
Coffee House in the center of the city.205 He toured fortifications and naval facilities,
203 All information concerning President Monroe’s tour is taken from the definitive account provided by the editors of the Monroe papers in their first volume. Daniel Preston, ed., The Papers of James Monroe: A Documentary History of the Presidential Tours of James Monroe, 1817, 1818, and 1819 Volume 1 (Westford, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 58-80.
204 George S. White, Memoir of Samuel Slater…. (Philadelphia, By the Author, 1836; Reprints of Economic Classics, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967), 202. White was quoting Niles’ Register.
205 The dramatic story of this building and the ambitious man who built it is told in historian Jane Kamensky’s The Exchange Artist: A Tale of High-Flying Speculation and America’s First Banking Collapse (New York: Penguin, 2008). It was the largest building in Boston at the time and a center of merchant activity. In November of 1818, the Exchange Coffee House burned to the ground.
98 reviewed troops and local militias, attended the annual reading of the Declaration of
Independence (a Boston July 4 tradition that continues to this day), was entertained by many of the region’s leading citizens and voluntary organizations, and, among other excursions, visited the new cotton factory in Waltham.
William Barrett, proud of his newly rebuilt and expanded state-of-the-art brick dye house, surely hoped for a presidential visit to Malden, but apparently no such visit occurred. Monroe twice visited the estate of Massachusetts Governor Brooks in nearby
Medford and traveled briefly on the Middlesex Canal, but these were daytime excursions and the busy Monroe returned to Boston and Charlestown for evening entertainments and rest. William Barrett may have met President Monroe at any of a number of events held in his honor. But, at least in the records that have come down to us, there is no evidence
Monroe met Barrett, visited the dye house in Malden, or visited Malden at all.206 William
Barrett would eventually arrange a visit from national dignitaries, but that would have to wait another three years.
This chapter traces the fortunes of a new venture undertaken by William Barrett shortly after Monroe’s visit—one fostered by two forces most often presented as directly conflicting—the powerful Boston and New York merchant communities and a new manufacturing-friendly political economy in the United States.
During the late 1810s, William Barrett and a new group of partners, led by Boston merchant William Tileston, devised a plan for expanding on Barrett’s Malden success.
They purchased land on Staten Island and built a new dyeing establishment there—the first factory on the Island. The new company, the partnership known as Barretts, Tileston
206 It’s difficult to prove a negative. The seeds of Barrett’s expansion may have been sewn during this tour and Barrett might have corresponded with members of the administration. Unfortunately, most of Tompkins’ archived papers were destroyed in a fire.
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& Co., took full advantage of newspaper publicity, making a splash with the company launch on September 20, 1820. Like the Malden firm, this business relied on merchants and households as customers. The enthusiasm of the merchant network was evident in
January of 1824, when company representatives joined with a group of prominent New
York merchants to successfully petition Congress for provisions in the new Tariff Act. In
February of 1824, the company, now providing cloth-printing services, received a charter of incorporation from the State of New York as the New York Dyeing and Printing
Establishment.207
In New York as well as in Boston, the Barrett business and its merchant associates and clientele helped one another. While William Barrett took advantage of his partners’ capital in an attempt to expand his customer reach and accumulate greater, more secure wealth for his family, merchants also took advantage of Barrett’s business to increase their profits and reduce their risk as import/export merchants in addition to profiting as partners in a “manufacturing enterprise.” Tariff rhetoric during the period from 1817 to 1824 typically centered on support for domestic manufactures to replace imports for use by the home market. But one political component of the tariff debate was the desire to win the cooperation of merchants and the carrying trade. Though the United
States’ nascent textile manufacturers favored protective tariffs on imported cloth, the services offered by Barretts, Tileston & Co. instead created opportunities for political and economic synergy between “manufacturing” and the merchants who imported textiles for sale and for export. New York merchants’ alignment with Barretts, Tileston & Co., in other words, enabled them to have it both ways—publicize their friendliness to “domestic
207 New York (State), Laws of the State of New York, Passed at the Forty-fifth, Forty- sixth, and Forty-seventh Sessions of the Legislature, Commencing January, 1822, and Ending November, 1824, Volume 6 (Albany: William Gould & Co., 1825), 48-49.
100 manufactures” and at the same time drive specific changes in the tariff of 1824 that allowed them to capture more value from the goods they imported and later exported.
Ultimately, the development of the Barretts’ Staten Island enterprise, the addition of printing, and the resulting over-extension of William Barrett’s finances combined to increase his dependence on the merchant community, a tendency mitigated only by the firm’s ability to attract retail business.
Branching Out: New Venture, New Partners
While William Barrett had succeeded in rebuilding and expanding his Malden business after the disastrous fire of 1816, the effort had been an expensive one, costing him as much as $50,000.208 Barrett also continued to face competition from John Hall’s dye house in Lynn and perhaps others as well. We do not know why Barrett chose to expand the business at this particular juncture, or whether it was his idea or that of his partners, but he almost certainly lacked the capital to make such an ambitious move on his own. William Barrett pooled resources with three new partners: his younger brother and Malden colleague George Minot Barrett, Boston merchant William Tileston, and
Tileston’s brother-in-law Samuel Whittemore, to build and promote a new dyeing business on Staten Island.209 The new business, called Barretts, Tileston & Co., was
208 According to newspaper accounts, Barrett sustained $30,000 in damage and could collect only $5,000 from insurance, making up the difference with his own or borrowed funds. A later news item indicated that the total expense of rebuilding the Malden establishment was $50,000. “Boston February 10,” Richmond Enquirer, Richmond, Virginia, February 20, 1816, 3; “Communication,” Boston Commercial Gazette, Boston, Massachusetts, December 21, 1820, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
209 Whittemore appears in the contemporary announcements as a partner, but his name does not appear on the extant partnership agreement. Whittemore may have been a financial backer for Tileston and part of the group’s promotion efforts.
101 formally a separate venture from the Malden business, though of course William Barrett was a partner in both.
George Minot Barrett had moved to Malden sometime between his brother’s 1804 opening of the Malden dye house and 1810, when the Malden census listed him as a head of household. As mentioned in the previous chapter, George Barrett had received training from the visiting Swiss dyer John Rauch between 1812 and 1815 and had significant hands-on responsibility for dyeing processes in Malden. Whatever arrangement George had with William in Malden, the Staten Island firm must have offered an interesting opportunity and greater independence; he moved with his family to Staten Island in 1820.
According to the partnership agreement inked on September 15, 1820, William Tileston owned half of the business, while William Barrett and George Barrett owned one quarter each.210 William and George each invested approximately $3,536.41 each and Tileston twice that amount. The parties further agreed that George would receive a salary of
$1,200 per year for five years for “superintending, directing, and assisting in all the work necessary to be done and performed at the Dye House.” Equivalent to a daily wage of $4, assuming a six-day week, this was a handsome salary for 1820. It was increased to
$1,500 one year later. George M. Barrett and his family lived on Staten Island for the rest of their lives. He contributed to the cultural life of the region, presiding over the Franklin
Library Society in 1833-34.211
210 George M. Barrett, William Tileston, and William Barrett, “This Indenture…”, September 15, 1820, Box 109, Folder 5, PPHFP. The agreement was witnessed by trusted clerk Isaac McGaw and William Barrett’s brother-in-law Farnham Hall. The copartners of Barretts, Tileston, & Co. agreed that they were “co-partners in no other art, trade, or business whatsoever.” This may indicate that Tileston, at least for a time, gave up his merchant interests in Boston, or perhaps the merchant investments did not count as a “business” for the purposes of this agreement.
211 Charles Leng and William T. Davis, Staten Island and Its People: A History, 1609- 1929 (New York: Lewis Historical Pub., 1930-1933), 235.
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Like the “Boston Associates” who capitalized the mills in Waltham and later
Lowell, Massachusetts, William Tileston was a Boston merchant who sought opportunities to diversify his investments, spread his risk, and increase his profits.212
Though any number of factors could have brought Barrett and Tileston together, the most likely was indigo. Multiple sources refer to Tileston as an indigo merchant; according to historian Samuel Eliot Morison, Tileston was nicknamed “Count Indigo,” reflecting his prominence in the trade.213 The era’s newspapers published Tileston’s advertisements for indigo and other dyestuffs available at his store in Boston, which was first located on Ann
Street and, beginning around 1806, located in “the old feather store,” a venerable seventeenth-century building containing multiple retail-oriented tenants.214 Tileston sold indigo from diverse locations including Spain, Bengal, New Orleans, and “Carolina.”215
212 For the story of the Boston Associates, see Robert F. Dalzell, Jr., Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. Tileston, in addition to investing with William Barrett in the Staten Island business, also invested in a gunpowder mill with Oliver Whipple and others in East Chelmsford. In 1828, after the expiration of the original Staten Island partnership, he was one of the partners in the Marine Elevating Dock Company with William Barrett and others. He also became a partner in the newly incorporated Lynn Printing Company (formerly John Hall’s printing business) in 1826. One advantage of the corporate form, apparently, was that it did not constrain shareholders from investing in multiple businesses, as some partnerships did. For Oliver Whipple, see Lowell Parks and Conservation Trust, “Whipple Powder Mill” http://lowelllandtrust.org/greenwayclassroom/history/WhipplePowderMill.pdf (accessed September 22, 2014). For Tileston’s other investments, see Private and Special Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, from May 1822 to March 1830, Revised…. Volume 6 (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1837), 394 (Act incorporating the Lynn Printing Company) and 717 (Act incorporating the Marine Elevating Dock Company).
213 Samuel Eliot Morison, The Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783-1860 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921; Reprint, Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1979), 88n.
214 A Boston directory of 1805 listed William Tileston’s Indigo Store on Ann Street and his residence at 65 Prince Street. A newspaper advertisement of describes the store as located at No. 5 Ann Street. Lemuel Tileston, probably a relative, is listed as having an Indigo Store at No. 6. Ann Street. Boston Directory, Containing the Names of Inhabitants, their occupations,… (Boston: Edward Cotton, 1805), 123.
215 “Dye Stuffs,” New England Palladium, Boston, Massachusetts, August 17, 1810, 4.
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Barrett may have either purchased his dyestuffs from Tileston (in raw or processed form), sold Tileston his own dyestuffs (processed at his “red mill”), or processed dyestuffs for
Tileston as a service.
In partnering with Barrett, Tileston could achieve greater merchant success—and a share of the profitable dyeing business. As a merchant who imported and sold indigo, he certainly had a vested interest in more dyeing taking place in the United States. But as someone familiar with other aspects of the East Indies trade, Tileston also knew that foreign fabrics that had been dyed or printed abroad—in Europe, India, or East Asia— cost substantially more to purchase and import than plain ones. If merchants could arrange to import plain cloth, and then dye or print it in the United States, they would be able to increase their profits from sales of printed cloth inside and outside the United
States. In a footnote, Morison wrote that Tileston “did an extensive business printing
India bandannas at his dyehouse in the old feather store, Dock Square, and at Staten
Island. The duty saved by importing plain goods made this profitable.”216 Morison does not provide a date or a source and seems to have known only part of the story. Did
Tileston truly operate his own dyeing and printing house in Boston? This is possible but unlikely, as it would have to have been a fairly small-scale operation if it was located at the Old Feather Store. Or did Tileston instead make use of services provided by William
Barrett or John Hall? I have found no newspaper evidence that William Barrett printed cloth in Malden, though he could have begun conducting experiments in printing, even in conjunction with Tileston, before John Hall left his employ.217 However the partnership
216 Morison, Maritime History, 88n. Morison seems to have garbled the story a bit. Both the cost savings and the duty savings would have been relevant, or there would have been no incentive to print domestically. There was no drawback on the duty if the items were re-exported before the 1824 Tariff Act took effect.
217 Morison could be referring here to the Lynn Printing Company, in which Tileston partnered with John Hall in 1826 (see earlier note re: act of incorporation).
104 came about, in the later years of the decade, Tileston and Barrett pooled their resources to conceive and build an ambitious factory on Staten Island that would engage in large-scale dyeing—and soon printing as well.
Samuel Whittemore, the husband of William Tileston’s sister Jane Hill Tileston, may also have urged Barrett to move to New York. Whittemore was part of Barretts’ extended network of mechanics—a partner, with his two brothers, in a business that manufactured fiber-carding equipment.218 Their factory started near the Whittemore’s hometown of West Cambridge (today the town of Arlington), but had moved to New
York in 1812. Thus, Samuel Whittemore was identified in newspaper articles of 1820 as being from New York, though he actually had deep roots in the Greater Boston area. The idea of one of their own people being involved might have made New Yorkers more receptive to the company overall.
Staten Island, Vice President Tompkins, and Domestic Manufactures
Why Staten Island? No remaining records provide specific information on what led the partners to choose this location. What is suggestive, though, is the connection between the new national administration, the national debate on encouraging domestic manufactures, and the interests of the Vice President, Daniel D. Tompkins, who had purchased substantial land on Staten Island at the end of the war and would benefit materially from further development of the Island. The site William Barrett and his
218 The Whittemore family was also connected by marriage with Abner Stearns, Barrett’s sometime West Cambridge collaborator on dyeing processes. The Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Rhode Island (Providence: National Biographical Publishing Company, 1881), 493.
105 partners purchased for their factory was actually only two miles from the home of the
Vice President.
As a result of the recent war, the country’s attitude toward domestic manufacturing had shifted. Though a full exploration of that shift is beyond the scope of this work, the years of non-importation, embargo, and war had significantly interrupted
Americans’ ability to import manufactured goods from Britain, whether for domestic or military use. While some people, most notably Thomas Jefferson, had once expressed grave doubts as to whether the United States should ever engage in large-scale manufacturing, the country’s wartime experience convinced many Americans including
Jefferson of the young nation’s need to build up a domestic manufacturing capability that would decrease its dependence on foreign goods.219 By 1817, the question was not whether the U.S. should engage in manufacturing but rather with how much and what kind of tangible “encouragement” from government.
Various voluntary associations sprang up in the post-war period for the purpose of advocating policy that would encourage domestic industry. One of these, ambitiously named and with fairly widespread influence, at least for a time, was the American Society for Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures, started by New York Governor Daniel D.
Tompkins in 1816. Tompkins was elected Vice President of the United States in the fall of 1816, lending greater weight to the organization. In addition to Tompkins, who served as president, the Society’s officers also included two prominent men as vice presidents.
219 “For in so complicated a science as political economy, no one axiom can be laid down as wise and expedient for all times and circumstances. Inattention to this is what has called for this explanation to answer the cavils of the uncandid, who use my former opinion only as a stalking-horse to keep us in eternal vassalage to a foreign and unfriendly nation.” Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Austin, as quoted in Mathew Carey, Addresses of the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of National Industry (Philadelphia: M. Carey and Son, 1819), 161. Emphasis in Carey’s original.
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One was Stephen Van Rensselaer, head of one of New York’s oldest patroon families and a wealthy and powerful landlord who presided over more than 1,200 square miles farmed by tenants. Tompkins and Van Rensselaer were old political rivals, Tompkins having maneuvered against and then defeated Van Rensselaer for Governor in April
1813. Van Rensselaer had long supported the Erie Canal, serving on a commission that investigated the potential of the new waterway that had been spearheaded by DeWitt
Clinton. The Society’s other vice president was Colonel William Few, an elder statesman and veteran of the Revolutionary War who had represented Georgia at the Constitutional
Convention, served as one of that state’s first senators, and had gone on, after moving to
New York, to hold local and state offices there along with positions as a bank director and president. Too old to serve in the War of 1812, Colonel Few retired from business at the War’s end, but apparently remained interested in national affairs. The fact that
Tompkins, Van Rensselaer, and Few came together in this organization suggests a calculated effort to secure the widest possible appeal.
Early in 1817, the Society published a pamphlet, “Address of the American
Society for Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures to the People of the United
States,” printing 5,000 copies and sending one to President Monroe.220 The Society also submitted two petitions (memorials) to Congress, recommending specific measures regarding the tariff.
The focus of the Address was the danger, in this period after the close of the war with Britain, of allowing Britain to wage another war of a different kind against the
United States—which the authors believed was simply passively receiving the blows of
220 “Address of the American Society for Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures to the People of the United States” (New York: Van Winkle, Wiley, 1817).
107 its enemy. Portraying manufacturing as intrinsic to man’s nature, it marshaled many arguments to refute others’ points against encouraging manufacturing in the United
States. The Address invited “fellow citizens throughout the union to unite with us in this great national concern, to establish societies with as much promptitude as possible, and to correspond with us, and with each other.” People of all types were included in the call— manufacturers and artists, agriculturalists, merchants, learned scientific men, soldiers, and lastly women, who were urged to “let your ornaments be of your country’s fabric.” 221
President James Monroe stopped in New York on his way north in 1817, spending the nights of June 9 and 10 on Staten Island at the home of Vice President Tompkins. A few days later, Monroe joined Tompkins at a New York meeting of the American Society for Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures, listened to its proceedings, and was honored by being made a member of the Society.222
Whether or not Monroe and his staff communicated directly with the Barretts in
1817, the brothers and Tileston somehow became aware of an opportunity to locate their business on Staten Island.
“Upon a Scale Hitherto Unknown in This Country”:
Cloning a Business in 1820
William Barrett and his partners set out to replicate, in expanded form, Barrett’s successful Malden operation. They bought some 16 acres of land on Staten Island near
221 “Address of the American Society for Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures to the People of the United States.”
222 “Address of the American Society for Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures to the People of the United States.” Former U.S. Presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were also made honorary members of the society at the same meeting, though they were not present. See Preston, Monroe Papers, vol 1.
108 the shoreline and built an impressive factory complex. According to a report of the New
York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, the land was located near the present- day intersection of Broadway and Richmond Terrace. It incorporated a millpond and a number of small springs that provided the fresh water needed for dyeing.223 Labor for construction of the factory would probably have come from the local area, and might even have included hired slave labor if it were available and if the proprietors did not object on principle.224 In 1820, Staten Island did not offer a great deal of business infrastructure, so the company had to provide its own, including an eighteenth-century inn, lodging for employees, and a company store for their use, which, according to local historian Charles L. Sachs, was “the only commercial enterprise of its kind in the immediate vicinity.” 225
Not able to count on local labor for the dyeing skill or business knowledge they needed, the Barretts moved a significant number of the Malden business’s employees— including dyers and finishers from the dye works in Malden and clerks from the Boston office—to Staten Island and the firm’s New York office.226 These New Englanders formed the core of the workforce at the new factory, and at least some lived in housing built by the company. They ranged from Isaac McGaw, clerk and bookkeeper from the
223 New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, “John DeGroot House Designation Report,” June 28, 2005, 2. Web.
224 Census figures show that in 1810, 8.17% of Staten Island’s population was still enslaved and in 1820 the percentage had risen to 8.67%, though slavery itself was gradually being phased out in New York between 1799 and 1827. Most of Staten Island’s enslaved workers performed agricultural duties, and probably household and maritime duties as well, but no manufacturing of any significance yet existed on the Island. Some workers might have been available for day labor as well, especially outside the busiest agricultural seasons.
225 Sachs, Made on Staten Island, 42.
226 Henry G. Steinmeyer, Staten Island, 1524-1898 (Staten Island: Staten Island Historical Society, 1987), 58.
109 firm’s Boston office, who likely managed the New York office, to John T. Barker, a 20- year-old silk dyer.227
Family networks continued to be very important to the business during this period. Several of William Barrett’s family members were among the contingent that moved to Staten Island. Foremost were George Minot Barrett, William Barrett’s brother and partner, and Farnham Hall, who had married William Barrett’s sister Mary and lived in Malden for a time.228 The group also included Nathan Barrett, the son of William’s elder brother Reuben. Reuben Barrett was among those who had moved from Concord, took advantage of their father’s cousin Charles Barrett’s land promotion, and settled in
Barrettstown, Maine (later renamed Hope).229 Young Nathan, having grown up in Maine, was initially apprenticed to a tanner there, perhaps his uncle Ephraim, but on finishing his apprenticeship, an “affection in one of his arms” made it unsuitable for him to continue in that trade.230 Sometime in 1816, Nathan moved to Malden, Massachusetts and began working at his Uncle William’s dye house.231 Learning the dyeing and finishing processes in Malden under the watchful eyes of his uncles, Nathan accompanied George to Staten Island and supervised the cloth finishing operations there.232 Nathan, 25 in
227 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856. James E. Dibble, “Report: John T. Barker House,” June 19, 1979, Landmarks Preservation Commission (City of New York), Designation List 126.
228 Farnham Hall and his wife were also at one time part of the Barrett contingent in Maine, as Hall is listed as Secretary of the Amity Lodge (Masons) in 1804. Reuel Robinson, “History of Amity Lodge no. 6: free and accepted masons, Camden, Maine” (1897), Maine History Documents, Paper 29. Web. http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistory/29.
229 Clute, Annals of Staten Island, 311. See also Hardy, History of Hope, Maine, for more about the founding of Barrettstown.
230 Clute, Annals of Staten Island, 311.
231 Clute, Annals of Staten Island, 310-311.
232 Clute, Annals of Staten Island, 311.
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1820, was apparently quite a capable worker and manager and was groomed for advancement. In 1832 he became “general superintendent of the works,” taking over from his uncle George. Over time he became a prominent man of Staten Island, serving as colonel of his local regiment of guards (in most surviving documents he is called
Colonel Barrett), as town supervisor for Castleton, and as a postmaster, and developing real estate for the factory’s worker housing. He was said to be “the Democratic leader of the county” but also not always tied to the party in his views; he attended Aaron Burr’s funeral in 1836 and supported Andrew Jackson in 1828.233
In addition to bringing many workers from New England, the firm also hired and trained workers and apprentices locally. One famous example was George Washington
Matsell, apprenticed at 15 in 1826 to design print blocks for the firm long before he became New York City’s first Police Chief and author of the Rogues’ Lexicon.234 In 1834
Matsell married Ellen Miriam Barrett, daughter of George Minot Barrett and his wife
Susannah. Like Col. Nathan Barrett, Matsell was said to be a fervent Democrat who embraced radical ideas and frequented the Fountain Hotel on Staten Island where controversial people came from around the country to speak.235
Captain Richard Christopher, born in 1814, “entered the Dyeing and Printing
Establishment at Factoryville in 1830 to learn the trade of silk printer. He remained there
233 Morris, Morris’s Memorial of Staten Island, volume 2, 158, 186. See also Clute, Annals of Staten Island, 311-312. For worker housing, see New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, “John DeGroot House Designation Report” (June 28, 2005), 2.
234 Charles Edward Potter, ed., Genealogies of Some Old Families of Concord, Massachusetts and Their Descendants in Part to the Present Generation, vol. 1, Facsimile Reprint of edition published in Boston, 1887 (Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2007), 126. There is some debate regarding whether Matsell was born in 1807 or 1811.
235 Morris, Morris’s Memorial History of Staten Island, 188. Among his many other occupations, Matsell had run a bookstore in New York that was known as a source of radical literature. “Obituary, Death of George W. Matsell,” New York Times, July 7, 1877.
111 until 1848.”236 Sometime in the 1830s, “Peter Pero…entered the Old Staten Island
Dyeing Establishment.”237 John DeGroot (1823-1906), descended from an old New
Amsterdam family, worked for the business from the late 1840s to the late 1890s.238
By 1824, Barretts, Tileston & Co. was employing “from one hundred to one hundred and fifty workmen” in “dyeing and printing a variety of fabrics.”239
Advantages in Transportation
Though Staten Island did not offer advantages in terms of skilled labor, sources mention several other benefits of the location, including room to expand over time (which
Barrett could not do easily in the center of Malden), the ease of transportation by water
(the factory was situated in such a way that boats could load and unload immediately at the factory buildings), the availability of good fresh water on the property for the bleaching and dyeing processes, and proximity to a large urban market.240 New York was fast becoming the commercial center of the country, and the Erie Canal project, well underway by the time the factory opened, promised greater access to inland markets.
Through his own and William Tileston’s network of merchants—and through
236 Morris, Morris’s Memorial History of Staten Island, 203.
237 Morris, Morris’s Memorial History of Staten Island, 227.
238 New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, “John DeGroot House Designation Report,” June 28, 2005, 2.
239 United States, 18th Congress, 1st Session, “Memorial of Sundry Citizens of the City of New York, Proprietors of a Dyeing and Printing Establishment on Staten Island, January 19, 1824, read and referred to the Committee of Ways and Means” (Washington: Gales & Seaton, Printers, 1824), Staten Island Museum History Archives and Library, Collection: Business and Industry on Staten Island, Box 1, Folder 7.
240 Morris, Morris’s Memorial History of Staten Island, 468.
112 manufacturers like the Whittemores who were acquainted with the New York Market—
William Barrett could make important connections with powerful New York merchants.
For William Barrett, as we have seen, transportation had always been an important enabler of his services, as he had not only to receive goods but also to return them. One significant advance that helped make the new site feasible was the introduction of regular steam ferry service between Staten Island and New York beginning in 1817. While private and public boats powered by humans and horses had long plied the waters between Staten Island, New York, and New Jersey, steam boats made such transportation generally safer and more reliable and predictable. What’s more,
Staten Island’s Richmond Turnpike, established in 1816 by the busy Daniel D.
Tompkins, was promoted as the fastest route from New York to Philadelphia.241
Tompkins bought out Livingston and Fulton’s steamboat monopoly and had an interest in steamboat services between Staten Island and New York until 1824.242 Though Staten
Island was largely agricultural, and no bridges yet connected it with the mainland,
William Barrett and his partners could be assured that adequate road and water transportation were available. Ease of shipping by water was especially important.
In their own publicity, the new company said that the primary reason for siting the factory near New York was proximity to customers. An article printed in the Patron of
Industry on November 25, 1820, informed “Merchants and others, residing south of New-
York, as far as Savannah (Geo.), who have been under the necessity heretofore of sending their goods to Boston” that “agents will be appointed in their respective cities, to
241 According to Clute, this eight-mile turnpike, in combination with Tompkins’ steamboat Nautilus, was the preferred route of travel between New York and Philadelphia. John Jacob Clute, Annals of Staten Island, from its Discovery to the Present Time (New York: Press of Chas Vogt, 1877, 318.
242 Leng and Davis, Staten Island, A History, 221.
113 receive and forward to this place all their orders.” Whatever exaggeration these ads might have contained, they gave the impression of a business already serving customers up and down the East Coast and perhaps in inland cities as well. Getting closer to some existing customers may have been one goal, but probably a more significant goal was acquiring new merchant and household customers, whether in and around New York or elsewhere, for whom the ease of shipping would be attractive.
Historian Pierre Gervais, in his detailed study of businesses in the vicinity of
Trenton, New Jersey, during the early nineteenth century, emphasized the critical importance of the control exerted in this region by the merchant class over transportation routes, and how quickly transportation costs could eat up profits for businesses that relied on transporting goods to market at prevailing rates.243 Under these conditions, merchants with the power to set or influence road and bridge tolls wielded substantial control over who could access which regional markets. Whether Barrett, Tileston, & Co. owned its own boats or made arrangements with those who did, they had to factor transportation costs into their calculations. Given Gervais’s conclusions, the firm’s close ties to the region’s merchants, and to powerful transportation investors like Tompkins, could only have helped substantially in this regard. In the case of the Malden business, at least, shipping costs were not added to the costs of dyeing and cleaning, even for customers at a distance, so these prices would have had to be predictable and carefully managed in order for the firm to set its prices confidently.244 Large-scale shipments of merchant goods could easily arrive and depart by water.
243 See chapters 5 and 6 in Pierre Gervais, Les Origines de la Révolution Industrielle aux Etats Unis (Paris: Editions de L’Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2004).
244 For example, one article said that goods brought to the Hartford agent would “be dyed and finished in a superior style, and returned to Hartford, free of any expense, except dying, &c.” “Public Notice, Barrett & Shattuck,” Connecticut Mirror, Hartford, Connecticut, August 6, 1810, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
114
Advocating a New Political Economy:
The Institution for the Promotion of Industry
In June of 1820, delegates from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania convened in New York to organize the National
Institution for the Promotion of Industry. Interestingly, William Tileston was one of the delegates from Massachusetts and was named one of a group of managers of the institution, as was Stephen Van Rensselaer of Albany. William Few was elected the organization’s president and Matthew Carey of Philadelphia one of its two vice presidents. Again, this group was attempting to create critical mass by uniting factions.
The prominence of Few suggests a certain continuity with the earlier Society. The presence of delegates from afar represented a concerted effort to win the cooperation of people from multiple regions, though the southern states were not included. The organization’s stated object was to further the common interests of agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce, and the tone of its organizing documents offered both conciliation and a veiled threat that if those groups already in existence—whose purpose was to advance the interests of manufacturing, agriculture, or commerce—did not cooperate with the new Institution and with one another, their interests might not be adequately represented or advanced by this new society that aimed to be an umbrella for all of those interests.
We shall deeply lament, should there be a want of common action, of mutual endeavors; [we] shall deprecate and struggle against any injury to one interest for the real or imagined benefit of another; and, if our endeavors at union are unavailing; if those citizens immediately connected with agriculture shall be led to cherish the opinion that a precarious foreign, is preferable to a certain and permanent domestic, market, and shall refuse their aid towards
115
effecting a change; if those concerned in commerce shall countenance and uphold doctrines inconsistent with the policy which we deem indispensable to the welfare of the country, doctrines which go to sacrifice an immense internal to a very limited foreign commerce; which make carrying and transportation more important than production and composition; it is our purpose, with firmness, moderation, and impartiality, to pursue the object we have announced, the promotion of American industry, unaffected by causeless alarms, by opposition, and by indifference.245
Though the delegates were all from northern states, the intended (or at least stated) object was to be national in scope, encompassing the agricultural interests of the South. The southern states, of course, generally objected to tariffs on imported goods, as they were heavy users of the goods that came to America on ships that had taken southern cotton across the Atlantic. With little or no manufacturing to protect, southern states would not benefit from protective tariffs, and they were also concerned about potential retaliation from Britain.
Though the rhetoric of the Institution placed agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce on a level playing field, manufacturing was implied to be first among equals and in greatest need of protection: “we feel ourselves under a strong public obligation to encourage and labour for the protection of all, but especially for that which constitutes the connecting tie, the common bond which unites them; affording a market to agriculture, and materials for commerce, and depending on the productions of the one, and the distributions of the other.” In other words, manufacturing consumed the products of agriculture and provided goods for merchants to transport and export—it was an essential part of the whole.
245 “Proceedings,” Patron of Industry, New York, June 28, 1820, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers. Italics in original.
116
Matthew Carey may have met Tileston as part of these meetings or corresponded with him earlier. In any case, William Barrett, William Tileston, Tileston’s Boston merchant partner Jonas Brown, and Tileston’s partner in the gunpowder mill Oliver
Whipple all knew Carey’s work as they were all subscribers to Carey’s Essays on
Political Economy in 1822.246 Later, in 1833, Carey published a pamphlet intending to shame many of the “great manufacturers” for essentially being free riders and not providing sufficient financial support for his invaluable and influential writing and publishing efforts, though these individuals had benefited substantially from the results.
Carey included William Tileston and his Boston partner Jonas Brown in the list, citing numerous statements they, and especially Brown, had made in regard to the value of
Carey’s contribution.247
“They Played Us a Trick”:
Publicizing the Firm—Including the Great Company Launch Caper of 1820
We have seen how, during the 1800s and 1810s, William Barrett made extensive use of the press to increase awareness of and interest in his business. But his most impressive public relations campaign was that surrounding the opening of the new factory on Staten Island. Barrett and his partners clearly wanted to take New York by storm; they orchestrated a company launch of which twenty-first century high-tech marketers would be proud.
246 Mathew Carey, Essays on political economy: or, The most certain means of promoting the wealth, power, resources, and happiness of nations, applied particularly to the United States (Philadelphia: H.C. Carey and I. Lea, 1822).
247 Mathew Carey, “This pamphlet is dedicated to...representatives of the great manufacturing capitalists of the United States” (1833, The Making of the Modern World, Web, September 24, 2014).
117
For the two years leading up to the factory’s opening, Tileston, Whittemore, and the Barretts had certainly discussed their plans with New York merchants, but until the factory was ready, no one could prove its worth. To launch the new company, Barrett again turned to the newspapers, leveraging local merchants and the Vice President’s network to reach New York editors and correspondents.
In the first phase of the launch, Barretts, Tileston, & Co. invited at least one local editor to tour the factory before its official opening, with the goal of maximizing publicity for the opening itself. Either orally or in writing, the proprietors provided the editor with details on the new operation. An article printed September 19 in the
Commercial Advertiser stated that the Dye-House, said to be “similar in all respects to the one owned by William Barrett of Boston, which is universally acknowledged to be superior in extent and usefulness to any of the kind in the United States,” was “now in such a state of forwardness that it will go into operation in a few days.”248 Evoking 1820- style technological sublime, the article went on to describe the extent of the buildings:
The dye-house is 75 feet by 36, with 14 feet posts. Twelve coppers are set, which will contain upwards of 2,500 gallons besides seven coppers for fancy dying; large reservoirs, boilers &c. &c. together with every other convenience for dying goods of all descriptions, from whole pieces down to single garments.
The building for finishing goods is 100 feet by 32 with 20 feet posts, divided into commodious rooms, and everything appears exceedingly well calculated to dispatch business in an excellent manner, with great ease and facility.
After describing the many types of cloth and articles that would be dyed and cleansed, the article concluded with an assessment of the importance of the business.
248 “Extensive and Useful Establishment,” Commercial Advertiser, New York, September 19, 1820, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
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For ourselves, we are persuaded that this establishment will be of great advantage and benefit not only to this city, but to the country at large. Business will be conducted upon such an extensive scale, that merchants from Albany or Buffalo, to Savannah, can have their orders executed. To the ladies of this city, it must be of great importance; for they will have only to send to Staten Island, or rather to No 101 William street, to have any orders in this line executed, from the cleansing of a carpet to the imparting of the most rich and beautiful colours to their crapes, silks velvets, &c. &c. To show the beauty and variety of the colors which can be given at this place, we have obtained at this office, for inspection, a pattern card, presenting a specimen of the most rich and beautiful colors and hues, equal to any of European, and in our judgment far superior to any of Chinese or Indian origin. 249
This article has the ring of pre-written boilerplate supplied by the proprietors, but at least one editor was willing to use the copy. Other papers happily reprinted the information from the Commercial Advertiser in the days to come. No mention is made, at this stage, of cloth printing services; the factory is described as “a dye-house” and the services are dying and cleansing.
From the first, both merchants and households were sought as customers.
Individuals—men and women—were invited to bring their items to be dyed. Just as the
Malden business had its storefront in Boston, convenient to the urban elite, so the Staten
Island business had an essential urban presence—the office at 101 William Street in New
York—to which ladies and gentlemen were invited to bring their goods. On October 4, the New York Gazette and General Advertiser, in a piece submitted by Barretts, Tileston,
& Co., described the store on William Street as “fitted up for the purpose of receiving and
249 The author of this article apparently assumed that Europe was, at this stage, setting the quality standard for dyeing and finishing, having surpassed, China and India. Others, such as the English dyer H. McKernan, were not so sure. See H. McKernan, A Treatise on Printing and Dyeing Silks: shawls, garments, bandanas, and piece goods in the different colours, illustrated with plates and diagrams (London: H. Fisher, Son, and P. Jackson, 1829), iv-v.
119 delivering goods; as well as for the accommodation of the ladies, and persons who may desire to examine specimens of their dying; select patterns for colors, or obtain information relating to any particular branch in their line of business.” In the complex and bustling urban environment that was 1820 New York, the authors clearly felt it was important to specify that women would feel comfortable and safe in the William street office. Books or cards containing “patterns” (or samples) of cloth were an important means by which businesses could communicate the characteristics of cloths, including color, texture, thickness, and finish. From newspaper articles, we know that patterns from
Barretts, Tileston, & Co. were kept at the William Street office, were lent to editors, and were also available for viewing at other locations such as the Tontine Coffee House on
Wall Street.250
With the advance publicity in place, the most impressive public relations coup in the company’s launch came on September 23, 1820, when Barretts, Tileston & Co. gathered somewhere between 100 and 120 gentlemen for a tour of the factory and a luxurious dinner to celebrate the opening of the new business. Many departed from New
York at noon on the steamboat Olive Branch. They toured the factory at some length, probably witnessed demonstrations of the dyeing and finishing processes, and then sat down, at around 4:00, to “a sumptuous dinner, served up in one of the buildings in a style of elegance which would have done credit to any of the splendid public houses in this city.” The entertainment, said a notice in the paper, included “every delicacy of our market and was moistened with the choicest of wines and other liquors.”251 No
250 “The Elegant Pattern Card….,” Patron of Industry, November 18, 1820, 2.
251 “Establishment for dying Cloths, Silk, &c on Staten Island,” Patron of Industry, New York, September 27, 1820, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
120 temperance enthusiasts, these. William Tileston and William Barrett sat at the head and foot of the table respectively. I have not been able to find a complete guest list, but newspaper accounts named the most illustrious guests assembled for this tour and dinner.
The group included some of the city’s most influential merchants, bankers, businessmen, and politicians, as well as an impressive array of visiting national officials and military officers. In attendance were U.S. Secretary of War John C. Calhoun and his aide Major Isaac Roberdeau, who were on two-month tour of the northeastern United
States;252 U.S. Attorney General William Wirt, who had arrived in New York from travels of his own and joined Calhoun’s party; U.S. Army Generals John and Robert
Swartwout who had resumed merchant careers after the war; General Joseph B. Swift, who had been President Monroe’s chief of staff on his 1817 tour; General Jacob Morton,
Clerk of the New York City Common Council; Aaron Ogden, former Governor of New
Jersey, accompanied by his friend Elias Dayton, Esquire; New York Mayor Cadwallader
D. Colden; the ubiquitous promoter of domestic manufactures Colonel William Few;
Judge Winchester of Louisiana; and Commander Isaac Chauncey of the U.S. Navy, the ranking Naval officer in New York.
Many of these men were heavily invested in local businesses of varying kinds.
The Swartwout brothers were merchants who had served in the War of 1812. Earlier in
1820, they, along with their brother Samuel, had received a charter from the State of New
Jersey for the New Jersey Salt Marsh Company, which planned to drain and improve some 4000 acres of marshland in Bergen County, turning them into productive grazing land. Isaac Chauncey, Joseph G. Swift, and Cadwallader D. Colden were also
252 Peter Hagner, a Treasury official along with Calhoun on his tour, is not mentioned as a member of that day’s group, though he might have attended.
121 shareholders in that company. In addition, the Swartwouts were involved in operating both steam and horse ferry services between Hoboken and New York.253
Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins, who lived a scant two miles away, was conspicuous by his absence. Tompkins had been invited to the event but had pleaded indisposition. Some doubted that he had actually been ill, as will become clear.
Newspapers referred to the group as a whole as “prominent men of New York.”
The men in this sample, only about 10% of the attendees, were some of the most important financial, political, and military men of the region, and notably (if we include
Tompkins), those in control of transportation between New York, Staten Island, and New
Jersey. The unnamed members of the group would have included some of the city’s successful merchants and bankers and perhaps lesser local officials—all people who could influence the success of the firm and whose families would be its household patrons. The presence of merchants, bankers, and those involved in local transportation seems logical, but what of the extensive military presence? Why did the Secretary of War and the Attorney General visit the factory?
The evening papers of September 23 mentioned that “Mr Calhoun, secretary of war, arrived in the steam boat Connecticut this morning from the Eastward, and has accompanied a party of gentlemen this forenoon to Staten Island, for the purpose of viewing a dye-house established there upon a most extensive scale, by a company of gentlemen from Boston.”254 This news traveled beyond New York, appearing a few days
253 Arthur James Weise, The Swartwout Chronicles (New York: Trow Directory Printing and Bookbinding, 1899), 392-397. Their brother Samuel Swartwout later became U.S. Customs Collector for the Port of New York and was accused of embezzling funds.
254 “Mr. Calhoun….,” New York Evening Post, New York, September 23, 1820, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
122 later in the Providence Patriot.255 Over the next few days, longer accounts emerged describing the visit to the factory by over 100 men. These always mentioned the
Secretary of War and the Attorney General. Some accounts included one curious item:
By some unforeseen accident, the Olive Branch did not return according to the arrangement, to take the party home. After waiting until evening, the Vice President, with his wonted generosity, graciously offered his boat for the accommodation of the party, in returning to the city. By this means they were enabled to return in tolerable season; and we are warranted in saying, that all were highly gratified with the excursion.256
One would think, from these reports, that Secretary Calhoun and his party had arranged to visit the factory because of their interest in the progress of domestic manufactures, or perhaps even as a prelude to signing official contracts for its services.257 But a singular letter from Attorney General William Wirt to his wife gives quite a different impression of just how far Barretts, Tileston & Co. were willing to go for favorable publicity.
Wirt explained that he and Calhoun’s party had embarked that morning on what was to be the Secretary of War’s official tour of the fortifications of New York Harbor.258
But the day did not go according to plan.
255 “Mr. Calhoun….,” Providence Patriot, Providence, Rhode Island, September 30, 1820, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
256 “Establishment for dying Cloths, Silk, &c. &c. on Staten Island, ”Patron of Industry, September 27, 1820, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
257 As one of Calhoun’s biographers reported, anyone reading the newspaper accounts would have thought that Calhoun, Wirt, and party had taken an entire day out of their busy schedules to visit the new factory. Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun, Nationalist, 1782-1828 (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1944), 218.
258 William Wirt to his wife, September 23, 1820, in John P. Kennedy, Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt, volume 2 (Philadelphia: Blanchard & Lea, 1852), 102-103.
123
They played us a trick yesterday. Instead of carrying us to the forts, they took us to a silk factory [sic] on Staten Island, where we were detained the whole day; and this by a ruse de guerre without the sanction or knowledge of the Secretary, against his will, and very much against all propriety….
About five, we went to see the Vice President …who, in answer to an invitation to the aforesaid silk-dyers, had been reported sick in bed. He met us, however, at the gate, looking as well and smiling as ever. We stayed fifteen minutes, were introduced to his family, and then returned to New York in the Steamboat Nautilus about dark. On our return, Mrs. Wilde told us she was quite surprised at reading in the newspapers where we had been. So that the printers, it seems, knew more of the Secretary’s movements than he did himself. 259
Secretary Calhoun’s party had been victims of an elaborate conspiracy—a publicity stunt intended to advance the reputation of Barretts, Tileston, & Co. through association with well-known national figures. The day’s proceedings imparted one significant lesson: power in this region was in the hands of those who controlled the boats—and the newspapers! Editors had either been supplied with information beforehand or had correspondents who attended the earlier events of the day and returned to New York on the Olive Branch.260 Barretts, Tileston, & Co. had a literally captive audience for their company launch. No formal public protest from Calhoun or Wirt has survived.
More elaborate summaries of the day’s events continued to appear on the 25th and
26th in several New York papers, with a full account of the many toasts, including two that were often repeated: “The ladies and gentlemen of New York and its vicinity—may
259 William Wirt to his wife, September 24, 1820 in John P. Kennedy, Memoirs, 102-103. Also mentioned by Wiltse in his biography of Calhoun. Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun, Nationalist, 1782-1828 (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1944). What Calhoun himself thought of these events, I have not been able to discover.
260 The latter seems more likely, as they would not have been able to report on all the toasts given at the dinner if someone had not actually witnessed them.
124 they all resolve to die on Staten Island” and also “The Proprietors of this manufacturing establishment—as they live well, may they die well!261
Proving the Concept
In addition to showing their factory to the region’s influential men—and advertising their association with national figures—the firm endeavored to demonstrate the quality of its results. As mentioned earlier, Barretts, Tileston, & Co. used pattern cards to display evidence of the quality of their dyeing and finishing. In an effort to attract the attention of merchants specifically, the firm placed an “elegant pattern card of silks, crapes, and velvets” in a gilt frame and hung it on a wall of the Tontine Coffee
House—a merchant center of commerce, trading, and political activity at the corner of
Wall Street and Water Street in Manhattan.262 Though trading of securities at the Tontine had ended in 1817, giving way to new institutions that were predecessors of the New
York Stock Exchange, merchants continued to frequent the place, making contact with colleagues for social and business reasons.
In The Patron of Industry there appeared, on November 18, 1820, a notice that the pattern card in the Tontine Coffee House had been stolen, “no doubt by some base person who was bent on injuring this establishment, since the card was valuable only as a sample
261 Spelling of die/dye varied in the articles. These are as reprinted in “At a large dinner party….,” Daily National Intelligencer, Washington, DC, September 28, 1820, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
262 Also known as the Merchants’ Coffee House, the Tontine Coffee House was said to be a “daily resort for shipping merchants.” One source implied that from the Coffee House it was possible to learn which ships were in the lower harbor. “Poles were erected on the hillside of Staten Island, one giving the notice of ships in the offing, another for brigs and another for schooners, by turning strips of wood across so that by the number of strips might be known the number of vessels below of each sort.” William Torrey, “Reminiscences of Old New York,” Magazine of the Daughters of the Revolution 1, no. 2 (April 1893): 5-6.
125 of its superb style of colouring and finishing goods.” The writer expressed hope that “the circumstance will arrest the public attention to the great importance of these works to this city and to the country. They have been established at great expense, and are decidedly superior in the extent of the their accommodations and in the expedition, skill, and perfection of workmanship, to any other institution of the kind in the country.” In conclusion, the writer noted that another pattern card would soon be placed in the Coffee
House in a more permanent fashion that would prevent its “removal by the enemies of improvement in the business.”
That same month, the business had yet another opportunity to prove its worth to merchants. The sloop Jane, laden with a cargo of dry goods, sank in the Hudson near
New York, and lay under the water nearly a week, damaging the cargo. A news article noted that:
After being taken up, [the goods] were immediately conveyed to [Barretts, Tileston, & Co on Staten Island] where they are undergoing the process of cleansing, and putting up in their usual form, so that in many, the most scrupulous could not discern that they were in the least damaged. Those which required re-dying, have undergone the process, and have the appearance of new goods entirely; and we can state, that an average loss of not more than 7½ per cent. will be sustained on the whole cargo, according to the estimation of an English gentleman, long connected with foreign manufacturing.263
Emphasizing the recovery from a total loss, the article went on, in case merchants had not taken the point already, to explain:
It may be well for merchants generally throughout the union to keep this establishment in view; and in the event of disasters from shipwreck or other causes, to transmit
263 “Damaged Goods—Dye Works on Staten Island,” Patron of Industry, New York, November 15, 1820, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
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their goods immediately, for the purpose of cleansing, re- dying, and reviving their appearance and value; and we think that the mercantile interest, as well as consumers, will be consulted, if editors would notice the above statement.
The latter, of course, was another plea for editors to reprint, and publicize far and wide the capabilities of the factory. This notice, printed in the Patron of Industry on November
15, 1820, had been reprinted from the National Advocate, so some editors, at least, did take note.
Defending the Market: Competition and Patents
As the Malden business had done, Barretts, Tileston & Co. used patent law to protect and advance its interests. William Bryan, a New York dyer located at the
Merchants’ Dye House on Spruce Street, warned customers that Barretts, Tileston & Co. was violating his patent. Addressing himself to dry goods merchants in a notice of April
24, 1822, Bryan stated:
Whereas a Mr. McGaw (styling himself an agent for Messrs Barrett, Tileston & Co., Dyers, Staten Island) has commenced an action at law against the subscriber, the sole proprietor of a patent for “Staining and Printing upon India Silks,” for the purpose of breaking said Patent.—The public are hereby respectfully cautioned against purchasing goods printed by other persons in violation of said patent until the decision of the Court be known, the vendors as well as illegal printers being amenable to the law for so doing.264
The action (McGaw v. Bryan), brought in June of 1821, was successful in repealing
Bryan’s patent, removing a potential obstacle for Barretts, Tileston & Co. Barrett also
264 “To Dry Goods Merchants,” reprinted in Columbian Centinel, Boston, Massachusetts, May 8, 1822, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
127 defended in a Massachusetts patent dispute (Stearns v. Barrett, 1823) his rights to use fifteen of the machines that he and Stearns had co-invented.265
Bryan’s business is one indication that other dyers and printers were not sitting idle. Competition was a fact of life, and Barretts, Tileston, & Co. acted on the assumption that their rights to their dyeing and finishing processes and machines must be safeguarded as one important aspect of their competitive advantage.
Adding Cloth Printing—and Importing Printers
Sometime between 1820 and 1822, Barretts, Tileston, & Co. added cloth printing to its dyeing and cleansing services. According to local historian John Jacob Clute: “By this branch of manufacture, the popular silk handkerchiefs were introduced and sold in every state in the Union.”266 Once again, the firm used samples to promote the character and quality of its work to editors, and thereby to the public. It also took advantage of regional fairs that offered premiums (prizes) for achieving quality in agricultural or craft pursuits.
Local historian Ira K. Morris wrote that “about 1825, strangers began coming to the Island in considerable numbers.”267 These were printers from Ireland and England who came to work in the printing department of Barretts, Tileston & Co. John Crabtree, a
265 Stearns v. Barrett (Case No. 13,337, Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts, 22 F. Cas. 1175; 1816 U.S. App. LEXIS 131: October, 1816, Term). Web. Lexis-Nexis Academic.
266 Clute, Annals of Staten Island, 322. The market for handkerchiefs must have been significant—and profitable. Handkerchiefs, sometimes called kerchiefs or bandanas, come up again and again in connection with both the Barrett businesses and as a significant item in the Asian imports discussed by Fichter. English dyer H. McKernan explained that in England, at least, silk handkerchiefs were typically dyed or printed in long pieces before being cut into individual handkerchiefs.
267 Ira K. Morris, Morris’s Memorial History of Staten Island, vol. 2 (West New Brighton, Staten Island, NY: By the Author, 1900), 242.
128 skilled printer from England, came to Staten Island sometime between the start of the printing operation and 1830 to supervise silk printing operations, and encouraged skilled workers to immigrate from “Sussex and neighboring counties of England.”268 In the early
1840s he left the Barrett works with a partner to form a company known as Crabtree and
Wilkinson, focused entirely on silk printing, which “specialized in the manufacture of colorfully printed silk handkerchiefs.”269 Toward the end of the 1820s, the silk printing operation closed down for a time due to the financial panic, and many of the Irish immigrants had to make their homes in the factory.270 Morris believed that the prejudice they experienced on Staten Island was largely a result of their anti-aristocratic political leanings, which tended to align them with the Island’s Democrats.
We cannot learn much from census data about the silk printers, as before 1850 occupation information was not captured in the federal or state census. But the 1850 census from Staten Island included 46 silk printers, with about one-third born in Ireland, one-third born in England, and the rest born in the United States. Some were in advanced middle age and had probably been part of that first wave of immigrants in the mid-1820s.
In the spring of 1822, business perhaps needed a boost, as this notice appeared in the Evening Post on April 26:
The successful exertions of Barrett, Tileston, & Co. in equalling if not excelling India in colouring, is worthy the esteem and gratitude of every American. Their silks and
268 Leng and Davis, Staten Island, a History, 251. Sachs, in Made on Staten Island, indicated that Crabtree arrived “around 1830” but it may have been as early as the mid-1820s.
269 Sachs, Made on Staten Island, 38. It is unclear whether any business relationship existed between Crabtree & Wilkinson and the New York Dyeing and Printing Establishment and if so what kind.
270 Ira K. Morris, Morris’s Memorial History of Staten Island, 242. Morris thought this was Crabtree and Wilkinson, but if so, it must have been later, and if it happened in 1829, then it must have been the printing operation of the New York Dyeing and Printing Establishment.
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crapes are made richer and more brilliant than any we ever saw imported. The handkerchief lately exposed, for neatness of figures and delicate and tasteful mixture of shades, much surpasses any within our recollection. The National Advocate contained a similar notice a month later:
We have some silk handkerchiefs before us, which equal any foreign impression of neatness and delicacy of figure, taste in colours, and permanency of the dye which will not wash out.
The quality of the silks, crapes, &c. which are dyed various colours at this Establishment, settles the question at once, as to our capacity for perfecting this branch of the arts, and when it is considered how much higher we pay for coloured than for plain silks, we cannot but consider this establishment as a great saving to the importer and consumer. Our importations here-after should be confined to plain goods, which are susceptible of receiving any colour that taste or fashion calls for, at this Dye House.
These handkerchiefs in question were described in greater detail by a notice in the
Columbian Sentinel that reported the results at an annual regional fair. The fair’s committee noted that Barretts, Tileston, & Co. had “presented for inspection some very handsome Woollen Table Cloths and Silk Handkerchiefs as specimens of their work in the art of Printing and Dying. These deserve mention as highly creditable to the taste and skill of the manufacturers. The Handkerchiefs exhibited were originally striped and cross- barred silks. They were shop goods damaged—the original colours were extracted—they were re-dyed and printed as exhibited.” 271
This latter notice highlights the practice, apparently central for the Barrett businesses, of not only repairing damaged goods and adding value to plain goods, but also completely repurposing goods that had at one time been market-ready in order to add
271 “Messrs. Barrett, Tileston, & Co….,” Columbian Sentinel, Boston, Massachusetts, October 23, 1822, 1, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
130 value through color or printing. While the goods from the Sloop Jane may simply have been re-dyed and refinished in colors similar to their original appearance, the handkerchiefs here are described as having been initially striped or cross-barred, meaning that the fibers were dyed and then woven to create a desirable pattern, whether in India,
England, or Europe. Barretts, Tileston, & Co., then, took these striped and cross-barred handkerchiefs, bleached out the color, and then dyed and printed the resulting “plain” handkerchief to create a printed one with a more elaborate design. This could be done with any goods, damaged or not, if the process would add market value by creating a more fashionable and desirable result. But it would have been especially compelling for damaged goods that had little value in their present state—as these handkerchiefs were stated to be.
Comparisons to work in India, Asia, and Europe abounded in these news articles, as writers and editors attempted to convince readers that the workmanship of Barretts,
Tileston, & Co. was at least equal to what could be obtained outside the United States.
Given the boost to America’s East Indies trade from the 1790s on, elite households and merchants in the 1820s were very familiar with goods obtained directly from India and
East Asia. The article above goes so far as to state that it was no longer at all necessary to import dyed or printed goods—an indication that the company hoped for significant business from merchants who wanted to add value to the plain goods they imported.
But the merchants faced other challenges. While their business had boomed during the French Wars, the post-war period brought a significant change to the trade they had enjoyed. In 1813, the British East India Company had its Indian trade monopoly revoked, bringing many more British merchants into the East Indies trade who did not
131 have to deal through the EIC.272 With the end of the wars, British merchants could once again trade in the ports of France and her allies. As a result of these shifts, American merchants faced much greater competition in buying, transporting, and selling their wares. Moreover, to continue trading in India and China, they needed silver. According to Fichter, the source for that silver was trade with Latin America. These pressures may help to explain why merchants were so anxious for tariff changes in 1824 that would help to boost their trade with South America and the West Indies.
The Dyers, the Merchants, and the Tariff
On January 19, 1824, Representative Storrs of New York presented to the U.S.
Congress in Washington a petition from William Barrett, William Tileston, Samuel
Marsh, and Isaac McGaw, requesting a change to the tariff for imported and exported
India cottons and silks.273 Under existing tariff law, when these goods were imported for sale in the United States, a federal duty was imposed. When the goods were instead imported and then re-exported, remaining only temporarily in the United States, their owners could receive a drawback (a.k.a. debenture) on the duty, minus a small amount to the government; that is, items that did not remain in the United States were subject to only a very nominal import tax. William Barrett and his associates requested simply that the same policy be expanded to apply to cloth that was imported and then dyed or printed in the United States before being re-exported.
272 Fichter, So Great a Proffit, 284-285.
273 United States, 18th Congress, 1st Session, “Memorial of Sundry Citizens of the City of New York, Proprietors of a Dyeing and Printing Establishment on Staten Island, January 19, 1824, read and referred to the Committee of Ways and Means” (Washington: Gales & Seaton, Printers, 1824). Staten Island Museum History Archives and Library, Collection: Business and Industry on Staten Island, Box 1, Folder 7. See also Congress Journal of January 19, page 154.
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This change in policy, said the petition’s merchant subscribers, would enable them to satisfy the demand in the “West Indies, South America, and other markets” for colorful and printed cloth by utilizing the services of the “extensive dyeing and printing establishment.” Rather than purchasing dyed and printed fabric abroad, they could import plain fabric and then add value to it in New York, re-exporting it to those other markets.
The petitioners, William Barrett, William Tileston, Samuel Marsh, and Isaac
McGaw, were all associated with the Staten Island firm. McGaw, as noted earlier, had worked as a clerk in the Malden firm’s Boston office and moved to New York to work for the new business, while Marsh was a local merchant who became president of the
New York Dyeing and Printing establishment on its incorporation in 1825 and remained its president for 49 years.274
Seventeen merchant firms subscribed their names to the memorial including John
Jacob Astor & Sons and Arthur Tappan. Given the substantial overlap between William
Torrey’s list of New York’s “leading merchants and other prominent citizens before
1820” and the list of subscribers to this memorial, it seems the rest, like Astor, were some of New York’s most successful merchants.275
The statement they signed indicated that they, as dealers in “India goods,” believed that “mercantile and manufacturing interests would be equally promoted” with the new arrangement and that the volume of imports of plain cloth to be dyed or printed and then re-exported would increase significantly, more than making up for the reduction in revenue due to the drawback. In addition to being able to import less expensive plain
274 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856. Also Morris, Morris’s Memorial History of Staten Island, 468.
275 William Torrey, “Reminiscences of Old New York,” Magazine of the Daughters of the Revolution 1, no. 2 (April 1893): 5-6.
133 goods, the merchants also said they would have more options to salvage their investment in the event that the goods they imported with intent to export were damaged in shipping, as had been the case with the cargo from the Jane.
The idea of drawbacks on plain textiles that were imported, printed or dyed in the
United States, and then exported was not a new one. One writer in a Philadelphia newspaper, perhaps himself a dyer, had proposed such a drawback in 1797.276 This writer discussed printed calicoes in detail, stating that the printing and coloring represented two-thirds of their value, and that, while some felt that manufacturing in the
United States would not be practical due to labor costs, “in this case [that argument] is not of force; as from good information, I am assured, the difference is, on a general scale, very unimportant between this country and Britain.” In other words, the workers involved in dyeing and printing were paid roughly the same wage on both sides of the Atlantic. A like provision for drawback had also once been part of Alexander Hamilton’s suggestions for promoting and protecting manufactures in the United States.277
Such a provision finally saw the light of day in 1824, and then largely due to the efforts of Barrett, Tileston & Co. and their merchant associates. After the company’s petition was read in Congress, it was forwarded to the Ways and Means Committee and eventually became part of the Tariff of 1824, which contained the following language:
“And be it further enacted, that the drawback allowed by law on plain silk cloths shall be allowed, although the said cloths, before the exportation thereof, shall have been colored,
276 Letter from “A Friend to the Useful Arts” (Broadside), Philadelphia, January 31, 1797, Web, Early American Imprints, First Series, No. 32684.
277 Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton’s Report on the Subject of Manufactures, Made in His Capacity as Secretary of the Treasury, 1791, 6th ed. (Philadelphia: William Brown, 1827), 73.
134 printed, stained, dyed, stamped, or painted.”278 Interestingly, though the petition had clearly mentioned both silks and cottons, and Hamilton had suggested drawbacks on cottons and linens, the provision enacted in the Tariff of 1824 applied to silks only, one of the more important fabrics for the Barretts. Cotton cloth manufacturing (including dyeing and printing) was more prevalent in the U.S. than was silk manufacturing; domestic manufacturers of cotton likely objected to easing the import and re-export of cotton cloth.
The Act also included extensive language for instructing merchants and customs inspectors as to the stringent packaging, inspection, and sampling requirements merchants needed to meet in order to obtain the drawback and demonstrate that the goods being exported were truly the same ones that had been imported. Clearly some framers of the Act were concerned about preventing fraud. Merchants were threatened with having to forfeit their goods if they misrepresented them when applying for drawback.279 A further communication by the Committee of Ways and Means in 1825 suggested practical changes to the way drawback rules were enforced, easing the logistical challenges of complying with the rules. Coming out of practical experience, the existence of this report indicates that drawbacks (whether on dyed and printed goods or simply on ordinary goods to be exported) were being sought and granted on a regular basis. 280
278 United States 27th Congress, 2nd Session, 1841-42, House of Representatives Doc. No. 244. Duties on Imports. Tables Showing the Rates of Duties Imposed by the Tariff Acts of 1816, 1824, 1828, and 1832…to which are appended the Tariff Laws from 1789 to 1833…. (Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1842), 142-148.
279 United States 27th Congress, 2nd Session, 1841-42, House of Representatives Doc. No. 244. Duties on Imports, 152-3.
28018th Congress, 2d Session, “Report of the committee of ways and means, upon the subject of modifying the act of Congress, in relation to export entries for the benefit of drawback, accompanied with a bill vesting in the Secretary of the Treasury discretionary powers in relation thereto,” Document 10, January 3, 1825.
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The Tariff of 1824 as a whole was controversial, with many voices clamoring for a hearing. The New York Chamber of Commerce, a merchants’ group, sent a memorial to
Congress in May of 1824 criticizing the proposed increases in the national Tariff for many reasons, including the fact that it would not actually increase the revenue, that it taxed less expensive goods at a much higher rate than luxury goods (an effect of establishing a minimum valuation for the purposes of ad valorum duties), that it was designed to “raise up one interest and prostrate every other,” that the design of the bill was in effect to create a monopoly, that it might prompt retaliatory duties from Britain, and that ultimately such high duties would encourage evasion (smuggling).281 The tariff on lower-cost goods had been structured to allow luxury goods into the country while keeping out goods—generally lower-end cloths—of a type that was being produced domestically. Those who objected to the tariffs also noted a change in the meaning of the term “national industry”:
It was formerly believed that national industry consisted in the growing of cotton, rice, flour, tobacco, ashes, flax, sugar—raising of beef and pork, the building of ships, navigating them, and in the numerous trades inseparably connected with commerce; now national industry is ingeniously construed to mean labour in manufacturing establishments.282
Those in favor of higher tariffs to protect American manufacturing interests were likewise vocal. Foremost among these advocates was Matthew Carey, the Philadelphia printer and publisher. Carey had attempted to expose and then reconcile wartime factions
281 New York Chamber of Commerce, Memorial of the New York Chamber of Commerce to the Hon. The Senate and The House of Representatives of the United States in Congress Assembled, with Statements Prepared By Order of the Chamber to Show the Present Rate of Duties and the Rate of Duties Proposed by the Tariff Bill Now Before Congress, with Remarks…. (New York: Daniel Fanshaw, Printer, 1824).
282 New York Chamber of Commerce, Memorial, 1824.
136 in an essay called The Olive Branch in 1814, which went through ten editions by 1819 and sold 10,000 copies; it was said to be the most popular political work since Paine’s
Common Sense.283 In 1818-1819, Carey turned his peacemaking attention toward the interests of commerce and manufacturing, publishing numerous essays as addresses
“from the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of National Industry to the people of the United States.” In 1820, his New Olive Branch was subtitled “An attempt to establish the identity of interests between agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, and to prove that a large portion of the manufacturing industry of this nation has been sacrificed to commerce, and that commerce has suffered by these policies (a lack of protection) nearly as much as manufactures.”284 Carey consistently argued for unity among the various factions and parties, for the harmony of interests, and for creating unifying societies that would combat these divisions of interest.285
The Tariff of 1824 passed by a narrow margin in both the House and the Senate.
Massachusetts’s senators both voted against the act while the senators from New York split their vote, with Senator Martin Van Buren voting in favor. The Massachusetts
House delegation voted against the measure, with one exception. New York’s House delegation was much more enthusiastic, with 26 representatives, including Stephen Van
Rensselaer, voting in favor and 8 against.
283 Edward C. Carter II, “Mathew Carey and ‘The Olive Branch’” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 89, no. 4 (October 1965): 399-415.
284 Carey, Mathew, The New Olive Branch, An attempt to establish the identity of interests between agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, and to prove that a large portion of the manufacturing industry of this nation has been sacrificed to commerce, and that commerce has suffered by these policies nearly as much as manufactures (Philadelphia: M. Carey, 1820).
285 Carter, “Mathew Carey and ‘The Olive Branch,’” 399-415.
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In addition to showing how some merchants navigated the shifting attitude toward domestic manufacturing and why they might be enthusiastic about a new factory, the extent of cooperation between merchants and dyers also demonstrates that import substitution industrialization in the textile realm took multiple forms—at least one of which was driven by and benefited merchants rather than cloth manufacturers.
William Barrett’s Choice: Scaling Back
Around the time of the tariff petition, Barretts, Tileston, & Co. applied for and received a charter of incorporation from the State of New York as the New York Dyeing and Printing Establishment. Samuel Marsh, another New York merchant and investor, became the company’s president and remained in that role until his death 49 years later.286 The charter was extended in 1843 with a capital of $200,000.287 Becoming a corporation meant a reduction in control for William Barrett—and more control for the
New York Merchants, people like Samuel Marsh.
At the end of 1827, the firm’s stockholders were William Tileston, William
Barrett, George M. Barrett, Samuel Marsh, and Nathan Barrett. William Tileston and
William Barrett each held 2/7 of the stock and the others 1/7 each. 288 Judging from the finances at that time, the printing operation was struggling or still developing, and earned only a very small gain of $340 on revenues of $26,810.24. Wholesale dyeing posted
286 New York (State), Laws of the State of New York, Passed at the Forty-fifth, Forty- sixth, and Forty-seventh Sessions of the Legislature, Commencing January, 1822, and Ending November, 1824, volume 6 (Albany: William Gould, 1825), 48-49.
287 New York (State), Laws of the State of New York, Passed at the Sixty-Sixth Session of the Legislature, volume 1 (Albany: William Gould, 1843), 112, Chap. 127.
288 The figures for 1827, 1828, and 1829 in this paragraph are from “December 31, 1827 To Certificates of Stock…,” Box 109, Folder 6, PPHFP. These were likely copies of the firm’s records that had been prepared in New York and sent to William Barrett in Malden.
138 revenues of $35,838.30 while “dying petty work” (retail dyeing) brought in $8,081.56.
Overall profits on dyeing were $17,383.72 in 1827 and profits for the business overall were estimated to be $14,000 in 1828. Dividends paid out in 1828 to the partners were
$7,000 total, so William Barrett received $2,000. In March of 1829, William Barrett’s interest in the firm was calculated to be worth $25,677.01 after adjusting for his outstanding notes.
William Barrett intended the Staten Island business to augment his Malden success, not replace it. After the launch of the Staten Island firm, Barrett took the opportunity to remind Bostonians that a state-of-the-art dyeing establishment existed in their back yard, and that “in regard to the extent and management of his works, and to the dispatch and skill in cleansing, dying, and finishing goods, it is decidedly the first establishment in this country.”289 He went on to describe the Malden Dye House as “of brick, three stories high, one hundred and eighty feet in length, with brick partitions and iron doors between each apartment, which afford great security against danger by fire.
The machinery is very extensive, on an improved plan, and mostly invented, and patented by Mr. Barrett himself…. Goods of almost every description are dyed and finished in a style which proves that this establishment may rival those of Europe.”
To fill the vacuum left by the departure of employees to Staten Island, he hired new clerks and dyers in Massachusetts. One clerk was Jacob Richardson, who “took [his] first degree behind the counter” at the Boston office in 1822.290 In addition, Henry
Jaques had been brought in to “overhaul and adjust the books” after Isaac McGaw went
289 “Communication,” Boston Commercial Gazette, Boston, Massachusetts, December 21, 1820, 2, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
290 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
139 to New York; Richardson said Jaques “kept the books, had general oversight of the finances, and was the confidential advisor of our Mr. Barrett.” Jaques later left the Barrett firm to go into banking in Boston, serving in three different banks, including a stint as president of Tremont Bank.291 One Charlestown historian described Jaques as “an intelligent and industrious man” who was never shy about stating his opinion. He “had great respect for moral worth and ability, and but little patience with pretension” and insisted on honesty and hard work from those around him. Jacques was “looked up to as an authority on financial matters in Charlestown.”292
By Richardson’s arrival, the firm’s prices and profits had fallen somewhat, and they would continue to fall in the decades that followed. From the vantage point of 1856, when Richardson wrote his “recollections of old times,” he thought the company’s golden age had actually ended before his arrival. During that earlier period, before and during the War of 1812, costs had indeed been higher, but the demand combined with a relative absence of serious competition had enabled the business to take in large volumes of work, command high prices, and realize high profits.293
291 Henry Jaques is listed as President of the Tremont Bank in Stimson’s Boston Directory for 1831 and other directories for 1832. Sawyer says Jaques started as cashier at the Bunker Hill Bank, where he stayed three years, and left there to became President of the Tremont Bank for three years, and went from there to the Suffolk Bank. He is listed at the Suffolk Bank in the Boston Almanac for 1837. Stimpson’s Boston Directory: containing the names of the inhabitants, their occupations, places of business, and dwelling houses, and the city register, with lists of the streets, lanes and wharves, the city officers, public offices and banks, and other useful information (1831) (Boston: Stimpson & Clapp, 1831), 20. Timothy T. Sawyer, Old Charlestown: Historical, Biographical, Reminiscent (Boston: James H. West 1902), 89. “Banks in Boston,” Boston Almanac for the Year 1837 (Boston: S. N. Dickinson, 1837).
292 Sawyer, Old Charlestown, 89.
293 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
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We have seen how the success of William Barrett’s Malden business, along with good credit and connections, had enabled him to rebuild his Malden dye house after the
1816 fire and then build a new factory on Staten Island. But Barrett’s resources were not infinite. Between effects of the panic of 1819 and his various building projects and investments, Barrett’s finances—and the credit of his Malden firm—became badly stretched, and the situation worsened in the late 1820s. 1829 brought yet another monetary crisis that rocked New England. Among other strategies for raising money,
Barrett borrowed that year from the Staten Island business, writing notes at various maturities totaling $3,500.294
Richardson’s description of the financial challenges faced by the Malden firm’s agent, Major Thomas L. Chase, demonstrate how the business was forced to operate in the late 1820s and early 1830s. During that time, Chase “collected and delivered the wholesale, purchased dye stuffs, collected bills, and in general attended to the daily calls for money and payment of notes. He was a man of many words…and boasted much of his ability, particularly to his exploits in borrowing money to keep the establishment alive.”295 In addition, the prices the firm was able to charge for services—and therefore the firm’s profits—were driven down not only by competition from other dyers but also by the need for short-term cash caused by lack of a financial cushion. Richardson described the situation this way:
Much of Chase’s time was taken up in raising the means for the time being, a few weeks, or a month ahead was as far as he cared to look….
294 “Received from William Barrett….,” Box 109 Folder 6, PPHFP.
295 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856. Italics mine.
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The pressure for money was gradually increasing, and…came to such a pitch that I well knew the establishment must go down without some change. I have known Chase engage to dye a case or two of sarsnetts for E. T. Andrews at something like a quarter under price for the loan of 3-4 thousand dollars for some short, indefinite time. This was a bonus, for he paid interest besides. This recklessness, at the time I speak of, became necessity to keep the concern from sinking, its credit being at ebb tide, was carried through most of the monetary operations. It had been going thus for many years, and although the nominal profits were large, the actual condition of affairs was growing worse, the credit of the house being doubted, the ability to avail of means was more precarious.296
Richardson told this story to explain why the company was in a precarious position by the early 1830s, but it also illuminates the challenges of having wholesale dyeing customers who were also creditors. Merchants, knowing they had something Barrett needed, ready capital to lend, had unusual power as customers. They could wield their ability as lenders to negotiate a hefty discount of 25% and perhaps more on the company’s services. The Barrett company’s compromised credit—its reputation with respect to being able to meet its payments—meant that it faced greater difficulty and higher costs when it needed to borrow money, and so willing lenders were increasingly hard to find. This reputation itself was also largely in the hands of local merchants. In essence, merchants used their social power and capital to reduce their costs at the company’s expense.
Between 1829 and 1832, Richardson began to fear for the company’s survival.
The financial panic of 1829 must have exacerbated the company’s difficulties. With
William Barrett in denial about how bad the situation actually was, Richardson
296 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,”1856. Richardson’s use of punctuation was somewhat eccentric.
142 desperately needed to talk with someone about his concerns. He chose his former mentor and colleague.
It was under these circumstances…that I went on a Sunday, a day that I shall never forget, to see Henry Jaques at Charlestown. He had been absent for some years…. I laid the whole matter open to him. Fortunately for Barretts D. House he had just retired from the Tremont Bank.297 We advised upon the best course to be pursued. He went to Malden to see Mr. B. The result was that he returned to the office, took charge of the books and finances, went to New York, [and] sold the stock held in the Staten Island establishment accounting for some $15-20,000. With the proceeds and some other operations, the establishment was placed in a comparatively easy condition.298
This decision marks a turning point for William Barrett. While he could have allowed the
Malden business to fold, banking on the potential of the more ambitious Staten Island firm, the Malden business was an important financial and social investment to William
Barrett and his family, who had put down deep roots in the town. While the Staten Island firm was owned by several people, and no longer bore the Barrett name, the Malden business was William Barrett’s alone. In addition to these considerations, William Barrett may have already been ill. Knowing he would not have many more years might have made him even more anxious to leave a thriving business as a livelihood for his sons, support for his daughters, and legacy to his town.
Henry Jaques must have had a heart-to-heart talk with William Barrett, making him understand that to put the Malden business back on a sound financial footing, he would have to make the difficult choice to give up his interest in the Staten Island firm,
297 If by “retired” Richardson meant that Jaques had left the presidency of the Tremont Bank, then the events he is describing would most likely have taken place in 1832 or 1833.
298 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
143 which he probably was quite reluctant to do. Barrett’s interest in the New York business was worth, according to Richardson, between $15,000 and $20,000, a quite substantial sum in the 1830s. According to the original partnership agreement, Barrett’s initial investment was $3,536.41, though other sums may have changed hands during the intervening years.299 He certainly seems to have made a profit from selling his share. But profit or not, doing so enabled him to obtain the cushion he needed to sustain the Malden business. The “other operations” to which Richardson referred included reducing the
Boston clerical staff. Barrett also made an initial attempt to jettison the dyestuffs and dyewoods processing business by advertising for sale the Red Mill in Stoneham.300 But the actual sale of the Red Mill did not take place until the following decade.
From that moment forward, the Staten Island firm ceased to be the immediate concern of the Malden Barretts.
299 “Indenture,” September 15, 1820, Box 109, Folder 5, PPHFP.
300 “Dye Wood and Medicine Mill for Sale, ”Boston Daily Advertiser, Boston, Massachusetts, May 17, 1834. “The subscriber offers for sale, his Mill and water privilege, having a head and fall of 22 feet, together with a Dwelling House, suitable for two families, a good well of water under cover—a Barn and other out buildings, and eight acres of good land, situated in Stoneham, seven miles from Boston. In this mill are two runs of Stones; two mortars for pulverizing; a rasping machine and chipping machine, with all the necessary appendages for the manufacture of Dyewoods and Medicines extensively. This mill being within one hour’s ride of Boston, offers a rare opportunity to any person wishing to establish himself in a profitable business. Terms liberal. For further particulars, inquire of the subscriber, at his Dye house, Malden. WILLIAM BARRETT.”
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Figure 10. The N.Y. Dyeing and Printing Establishment, Staten Island, in 1845.301
Continuity and Change:
Cloth, Dyeing, and Printing Circa 1830 in the U.S. and Britain
Neither of these firms, it should be said, seemed to have even a remote connection to the industrialized cloth manufacturing establishments that were proliferating in the
United States. Cloth manufacturers generally controlled their own dyeing operations, though at least one manufacturer used excess capacity to profit from custom dyeing as well. In 1813 Samuel Slater built a dye house in Oxford, Massachusetts, where he and a partner, Bela Tiffany, had purchased mill properties in 1811 and started another partnership, Slater & Tiffany.302 According to local histories, Slater began operating a mechanized spinning mill there in 1813, and at the same time built a dye house:
301 Charles Sachs, Made on Staten Island, 37. This earliest known image of the factory is cited in Sachs as “New York & Staten Island Dye House, ink wash and pencil on paper “drawn by G. Hayward for Doty engraver,” 1845, MCNY. Just as in Malden, the firm seems to have wanted to document its size and scale in order to impress potential customers and perhaps investors as well.
302 George Fisher Daniels, History of the Town of Oxford Massachusetts, with Genealogies and Notes on Persons and Estates (Oxford: By the Author, 1892), 191.
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Dye works being required as part of the manufacture, a house was built in 1813 and with John Tyson (who had been employed at Pawtucket) as the head, a company was formed called the Oxford Dye House Company, which transacted a thriving business until Mr. Tyson’s decease, 1821, doing a large amount of custom dyeing as well as that of the Oxford and Pawtucket mills.303
This dye house was dyeing yarn and thread—not finished cloth—for the mills in Oxford and Pawtucket.304
The Boston Manufacturing Company in Waltham had a bleachery, but their early records do not mention a dye house.305 Cloth in the firm’s 1822 account books is referred to as “brown” or “bleached,” with brown presumably being unbleached.306
U.S. Manufacturers’ Dyeing and Finishing: A Work in Progress
In the 1820s and 30s, information about colors, fashions, and market demand traveled urgently among interested parties through their correspondence—most notably between merchants who sold yard goods to customers and the manufacturers or others who provided them. In addition to asking for shipments of particular types of fabric, merchants asked specifically for the colors that were in demand and they noted problems with prior shipments. Color greatly affected the prices cloths could command. “The olives you sent me before,” explained Thomas Cushing to Samuel Slater in September of
303 Daniels, History of Oxford Massachusetts, 191.
304 Tyson profited from the arrangement, leaving an estate of $20,000. Holmes Ammidown, Historical Collections Containing the Reformation in France and Histories of Seven Towns, second edition (New York: By the Author, 1877), 467.
305 Based on examination of the Boston Manufacturing Company papers at the Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
306 For example, see Boston Manufacturing Company papers, volume 35, page 47, Baker Library Archives, Harvard University.
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1827, “were too light a shade, and are consequently hard to move.”307 Sayles and
Hitchcock, Boston merchants, apparently agreed. “Should you make more olives,” they wrote Slater a short time later, “the shade should lean on the green instead of brown and pretty dark.”308 Sayles and Hitchcock wrote Slater that they had “closed the sale of all your purple broads (broadcloths) from 2½ to 3 dollars. They pass for blue and cannot be sold for anything else.”309 Slater probably expected his purples to command a higher price. Merchants also noted problems with cloth finishing. William W. Stone wrote:
“Your mix’d cloths really do you credit, but your blues are badly finished and as a large purchaser observed, 5 years behind the times.”310 In December 1827, Sayles and
Hitchcock received a disappointing shipment of claret broadcloths. “We [were] sorry to find on opening the last bale [of] claret broads that they [were] all, except for the last piece, much too close-dressed, particularly at the head end. It must have been a great oversight in the finishing and is a great objection and damage to the cloth.” They went on to say that “Blue Blk Steel mixed olive & drab are in best demand at present and will be safe colors to make.”311 A week later, they stated the case more specifically: “We are of
307 Thomas Cushing to Samuel Slater, Boston, September 12, 1827. Box A-24, Folder 5, Slater Family Business Records, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
308 Sayles and Hitchcock to Messrs. Slater & Howard, Boston, October 4, 1827. Box A- 24, Folder 5, Slater Family Business Records, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
309 Sayles & Hitchcock to Messrs. Slater & Howard, Boston October 4, 1827. Box A-24, Folder 5, Slater Family Business Records, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
310 William W. Stone to Samuel Slater & Sons, New York, March 27, 1830, Box V192, Folder 10, Slater Family Business Records, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
311 Sayles & Hitchcock to Slater & Howard, Boston, December 21, 1827. Box A-24, Folder 6, Slater Family Business Records, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
147 the opinion decidedly that it is advisable to commence making steel mixed cloth but not to the extent to prevent your making at the same time a general assortment of the staple colors and mixture such as Blue Black Olive Green and Olive Brown a few Oxford mixed drab and a very few clarets. The demand for Clarets seems to be falling off and increasing for steel mixed. Blue broads and cassimeres are now in best demand and we believe at the prices they now command they will pay the best profit.” 312
As this last statement indicates, timing could matter, as cloth was a quite seasonal business and fashions changed, sometimes rapidly. Wales and Leaming, a Philadelphia merchant concern, wrote in January of 1829 that “the spring trade [had] commenced” with the arrival of some merchants from the west, they lacked inventory in their store, and wanted goods to be sent as soon as possible.313 “The goods should be here now,” they explained, “as the demand for woolens decreases with the advance of the spring trade.” Partridge & Colgate, a firm of New York dyestuff merchants, provided fresh information along with their wares. They sent Samuel Slater a pattern (sample) along with a recipe for a new color “just imported.”314 Called “invisible green,” the color, they said, was “sought after by the fashionables.” Explaining where the cloth was manufactured, what it cost in England, and what it cost to buy in New York after importing, the agent for Partridge and Colgate said, “We have given the earliest notice of
312 Sayles & Hitchcock to Slater & Howard, Boston, December 28, 1827. Box A-24, Folder 6. Slater Family Business Records, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
313 Wales & Leaming to Messrs. Slater & Howard, Philadelphia, January 17, 1829. Box A-24, Folder 6, Slater Family Business Records, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
314 Partridge & Colgate to Samuel Slater & Sons, New York, December 6, 1830. Box V192, Folder 19, “S. Slater & Sons – letters received at Oxford, 1830,” Slater Family Business Records, S. Slater and Sons, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
148 its introduction, that you may make them if it suits your views.” In 1829, Hacker &
Brown wrote to Slater’s associate Edward Howard that “cassimeres we are convinced will not pay and drabs are now quite out of fashion.”315 In requesting fabrics that would be in demand for coats, they recommended “a handsome citron olive and bottle green.”
These examples show that the dyeing and finishing processes of U.S. cloth manufacturers were still a work in progress. Manufacturers struggled to judge demand, time the delivery of their cloths to market, and produce at the level of quality and consistency that merchants and their customers preferred. Color and shade, weight of fabric, fineness of weave, quality and consistency of finish, and even labeling were variables that could significantly affect the value of cloth and the price it would bring.
Still Reaching to Equal the East: British Dyeing and Printing Circa 1830
The writings of H. McKernan provide insight into the state of the art in dyeing and printing silk in England at the close of the 1820s—and the government’s approach to the trade at the time. McKernan, an experienced silk dyer working in England, published a book with instructions for dyeing and printing silk, intended for countrymen with middling or expert knowledge.316 He saw changes in government policy as inaugurating a new era in domestic silk printing and dyeing in Britain:
The British Government having given every encouragement for the improvement of the Silk Business, particularly in the department of Silk Printing, by repealing the Act which levied a duty of sixpence per square yard on
315 Hacker & Brown to Edward Howard, Philadelphia, March 2, 1829. Slater Family Business Records; Box A-24, Folder 6.
316 H. McKernan, A Treatise on Printing and Dyeing Silks: shawls, garments, bandanas, and piece goods in the different colours, illustrated with plates and diagrams (London: H. Fisher, Son, and P. Jackson, 1829).
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all Silk Printed, and twenty pounds per year for a license for printing the same; it is the duty of every well-wisher to his country, to co-operate in these truly patriotic measures. A treatise, therefore, on Silk Printing and Dyeing, including the most recent discoveries and improvements, in these interesting branches of art, may very naturally accompany this important era in the trade.317
Even as late as 1829, McKernan wrote enthusiastically about the need for British dyers and printers to study and replicate work being done in other countries, and particularly suggested that gentlemen who had the means, leisure, and scientific bent should take up the challenge. He singled out work from Persia and India as being of especially enviable quality:
Rapid and numerous as our acquirement of knowledge in the art of Printing and Dyeing of Silk, may of late years have been, it must not be dissembled that we have many things yet to learn. The Author has seen printed muslins from Persia, the colours of which, particularly Blues, are very different from our own, and vastly superior to them; but of their method of acquiring them we are totally ignorant. He has also seen printed Calicoes from the interior of our own Indian possessions, the colours of which are as distinct from those of Persia, as they are from our own. A knowledge of the ingredients, and the process by which these colours are obtained, would be an important acquisition to the Silk and Calico printers of this country; tending, at once, to enrich its merchants, extend its commerce, and increase its fame.318
These measures by the British government may have been, at least in part, a response to an increase in dyeing and printing in the United States.
British goods, of course, were not all of high quality. American merchants, consumers, tailors, and others complained about poorly made and poorly dyed goods
317 McKernan, Treatise on Printing and Dyeing Silks, iii.
318 McKernan, Treatise on Printing and Dyeing Silks, iv-v.
150 being dumped on U.S. markets. Historian of clothing Michael Zakim explained, for example, that “in the fall of 1826, the market was flooded with English blue cloths,
‘beautiful to the eye,’ which turned reddish brown after a few days’ exposure to the air.”319
Circulation of Knowledge and Skill in the United States
Dyers and printers from the other side of the Atlantic continued to find work in the United States. With a need to scale rapidly, the Staten Island firm had hired printers from England and Ireland. Manufacturers like Samuel Slater hired English and Irish cloth finishers as well. On April 22, 1823, one George Hall, an Irish fuller and finisher, was hired at Slater’s Dudley woolen factory to superintend the finishing and to “take cloth from the loom and finish both broad cloth’s and kerseymere’s fit for the market in the best possible manner” for $1.75 per day.320
James Green, an expert cloth finisher from England, was not so lucky. He came to the United States hoping that his son-in-law would join him and they would go into business together. When his son-in-law improved his position in England and gave up the idea of moving, Green found himself in New England needing work. In 1829 he wrote to
Samuel Slater’s associate Edward Howard, another Englishman, asking whether Howard would engage his services.321 In the letter, Green said he could “give instruction to equal
319 Michael Zakim, Ready-Made Democracy: A History of Men’s Dress in the American Republic, 1760-1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 46.
320 Agreement between George Hall and Samuel Slater and Edward Howard (Slater & Howard), April 22, 1823, Box A-22, Folder 6, Slater Family Business Records, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
321 James Green to Edward Howard, Boston, July 14, 1829. Slater Family Business Records Box A-24, Folder 7.
151 the best finishing in England… and I think make an improvement in many instances. I came here with the best of friendly feelings toward the commercial interests of this country….” Green waxed hyperbolic about the prejudice he’d encountered against the
English, and went on to say that, “you’re fully aware that I could name 100 finishers in the neighborhoods of Bradford, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Halifax, and Leeds who have maintained their families like gentlemen and given them independent fortunes.” Green’s timing in relation to the economy may just have been unfortunate, but in addition to prejudice, he may also have found that his skills were not quite as rare as they had been thirty years earlier.
The Barretts’ Malden firm, though, grew more slowly, and seems not to have hired large numbers of immigrants. As they had done earlier, they used visiting dyers to keep up with dyeing practices in Europe. Information continued to circulate through skilled artisans who traveled, instructed practical dyers, and published books. To understand some of the changes that took place over time, we can compare the writings of John Rauch, the traveling Swiss dyer discussed in Chapter 2, circa 1815, with another traveling dyer, Cornelius Molony, who in 1833 published The Practical Dyer, with references to patterns of the several colours numbered in rotation and attached to the work, to which are annexed miscellaneous receipts (recipes) for cotton, silk, and woolen goods without pattern.322 Like Rausch, Molony made money both by being a consulting dyer and by selling his knowledge. His books, though, were disseminated more widely than Rausch’s books. He published editions of his work on silk, cotton, and wool dyeing
322 Cornelius Molony, The Practical Dyer, with References to Patterns of the Several Colours Numbered in Rotation and Attached to the Work, to Which are Annexed Miscellaneous Receipts (recipes) for Cotton, Silk, and Woolen Goods Without Pattern (Boston: Munroe & Francis, 1833). Copies are signed and numbered. Number 5 resides in the Winterthur Rare Book Library.
152 in 1833 and 1837, selling them by subscription for $10 per copy.323 In 1833, 25 of his 63 subscribers were from Lowell, suggesting that he concentrated his activity in and around
Massachusetts. Molony’s 1837 edition noted that he had worked in the Lowell Carpet
Factory for two years.324 Molony also published The Modern Wool Dyer in 1834.325
Just as Rauch had done, Molony visited the Barretts in Malden and shared his practical knowledge and skill with them. His 1833 and 1837 editions included several testimonials from the people for whom he had worked; the first of these was William
Barrett, who stated:
This may certify that Cornelius Molony has been in my employment four months for the purpose of communicating information in the Art of Dying, and has given good satisfaction. I think him worthy of the patronage of those who desire an acquaintance with those processes of the Art which have not obtained a general circulation among native artisans in the United States. His knowledge in woad dying I presume is thorough, he having conducted a woad vat for me about two months.326
Among Molony’s subscribers in 1833 was a Thomas Sargent of Malden, who may have been Barrett’s superintendent.327
323 Cornelius Molony, Molony's masterpiece on wool, silk and cotton dyeing: containing his best receipts, without the least reserve, according to his practice in Great Britain and America (Lowell: By the Author, 1837).
324 Molony, Practical Dyer, 1837, v.
325 Molony, Molony’s Masterpiece, 1837, Introduction.
326 Molony, Practical Dyer, 1833, “Recommendations” and Molony, Molony’s Masterpiece, 1837, v. Even though Barrett had died in 1834, Molony continued to use his testimonial.
327 In 1854, Sargent was among the highest-paid individuals on the Barrett payroll, earning $50 per month. “Payroll, August 1854,” Box 111, Folder 33, PPHFP.
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Like Rauch, Molony well understood that not all the colors he described would be
“fast” or permanent. He described some colors as “fugitive” but easier and suitable for less critical applications, such as coarse cloths or linings.328
Rauch, writing in the mid-1810s, had felt the need to describe in detail the tools he used, and also explain where to find them or how to make them.329 He often described approximate temperatures by the terms “hand warm” or “blood warm.” But by 1833,
Molony could count on the availability of standardized tools, such as Fahrenheit’s
Thermometer or Twaddle’s Hydrometer, needing only to mention them by name. By
1837, he did not need to specifically mention Fahrenheit’s thermometer, referring only to a certain number of “Degrees Fahrenheit” and assuming that his reader understood how to measure temperature.
As has been true in other times and places, innovative labor saving devices did not always improve quality. Molony compared automated (using a winch and reel) and manual (by hand) methods of processing cloth through the dye bath, noting that automated methods were better for less-skilled individuals, but manual methods, if performed by skilled dyers who “were well acquainted with handling pieces briskly,” were the “surest way to obtain even colors.”330 Otherwise, the best approach was to “sew two pieces together and turn them on a winch or reel.”
328 Dye patterns on cotton, silk, and wool that survive in the back of Molony’s 1833 edition in the Winterthur Library show a mix of colors that match their descriptions and others that have faded or shifted considerably. For example, silk pattern number 15, described as “Royal Purple” (page 70), still has a rich purple color, and silk pattern number 11, “Prussian Blue” (page 68) is still quite blue.
329 See, for example, Rauch’s description of the “silver scale” that was valuable in regulating blue dye. John Rauch, John Rauch’s Receipts for Dyeing Cotton and Woolen, 1816, a hand-written version of his 1815 book, copy belonging to William Sherman, Plympton, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library. Web. https://archive.org/details/MAB.31962000742084Images. Accessed December 27, 2014.
330 Molony, Practical Dyer, 1833, 13.
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Rauch had assumed that most of his readers would be dyeing raw fiber, yarn, or thread—either for households or manufacturers. By 1833, though, Molony assumed his readers might well be dyeing woven cloth; he provided recipes for dyeing various types of cloth as well as yarn and thread.
Both Rauch and Molony intended their works for dyers with some practical experience. They were augmenting the knowledge of skilled dyers—not building skill in novices. Given the number of variables that could affect dyeing, they expected skilled dyers to use the recipes as a guideline, experimenting until the desired color was achieved. Molony was quite explicit about this, setting dyers’ expectations as follows:
I wish it to be understood that when I mention any proportion of drugs for dyeing these patterns, that the practitioner cannot expect to match the shades, as the strength of dyeing drugs differs frequently as much as 40% and the differences of the cotton would alter the shades with the same quantity of dyeing drugs.331
Molony admitted that the practical art of dyeing was constantly evolving and that his knowledge was not the last word. From his descriptions it is clear that dyers in the
U.S.—as in Europe—experimented daily in efforts to find faster, easier, cheaper, and more reliable processes for producing desired colors and rendering them more permanent.
The following discussion of the state of the art in producing royal blue offers a good illustration:
When I left England in 1829, I knew of but two dyers who were masters of this colour, viz. Messrs. Melon & Almon of Wakefield. I have found out this method by my own trials in this country; and by it, the shade may be dyed as light or as deep as wanted; This is the only colour on woolen goods in England which I was not in the habit of dyeing, and I think it probable that some other dyers may
331 Molony, Practical Dyer, 1833, 14.
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be acquainted with a quicker, and perhaps cheaper method of producing it; but if my directions be followed, the workman will not be disappointed in producing a lively blue. I have seen several professors of the colour, some English, some French, some Dutch, who have left Europe within two years, who have failed of producing as good a colour, while their methods were more tedious and expensive than mine: yet I am of the opinion that it can be and is done in an easier and better method than I am in possession of at present. 332
Molony’s last statements make it clear that a number of European dyers were circulating through the United States during the same period. Molony himself was most knowledgeable about his native England. The “republic of dyers” now incorporated a larger number of people on both sides of the Atlantic.
Conclusion
According to historian Daniel Dupre, “the rapid expansion of credit and overheated trade following the war sparked a speculative boom between 1816 and 1818,” driven by an “almost universal ambition to get forward,” until the financial panic arrived in the winter and spring of 1819.333 Begun as part of this speculative boom, William
Barrett’s new business launched into a country whose mood had changed by 1820. Still,
Barrett expanded the scope of his business, establishing a new firm and adding cloth printing while becoming more deeply intertwined with New York import/export merchants. Ability to take advantage of the patent laws and to influence the tariff helped
Barrett’s successful model replicate and tap into New York markets.
332 Molony, Molony’s Masterpiece, 1837, 76.
333 Daniel S. Dupre, “The Panic of 1819 and the Political Economy of Sectionalism,” in The Economy of Early America: Historical Perspectives and New Directions, edited by Cathy Matson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 271-275.
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The dyeing and printing processes the Barretts engaged in were promoted as
“manufacturing” but were actually services that could be used to repurpose and add value to goods that had been manufactured elsewhere. American merchants’ desire to capture greater value as they imported and exported cloth contributed to their support of organizations for encouraging domestic manufacture, drove specific language in the
Tariff of 1824, and also drove the migration of skilled printers, especially silk printers, from England and Ireland to Staten Island. William Barrett and his brother were never completely in control of the Staten Island business, though they contributed know-how and half of the capital. At least in the rhetoric, the quality of the firm’s work was said to equal to that of Europe and to be superior to that of India or China, thereby reducing the need to import goods from those countries. The reality was somewhat more complex.
English dyers and printers were still attempting to equal the quality of work produced in those countries. Without more evidence, we cannot know the exact relationship between the quality produced by the Barretts and that produced in England, Europe, and India.
Back in Malden, profits were reportedly smaller in the 1820s than they had been in the 1800s and 1810s, in part due to continuing competition from John Hall and others.334 William Barrett found himself overextended, his creditors less generous, and his reputation—and firm—in jeopardy. Without a sufficient financial cushion to weather the volatile economy, and with another financial panic hitting in 1829, Barrett was forced to scale back—selling his interest in the Staten Island firm to ensure that his Malden business would remain secure. In the end, Barrett had saved his home business, but had created a new and powerful competitor, albeit one that supported his brother and nephew.
The firm was a fine idea for merchants, and for William Barrett it at least represented a
334 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
157 decade-long investment he could liquidate at a crucial time. But he was not among those who profited from the Staten Island firm’s growth and success after 1830.
Dyers and printers—especially those who could supervise operations—were paid well, though their skills were not as exceptional in the U.S. as they once had been. In
1832, William Barrett’s Malden business employed 30 men over the age of 16 at an average wage of $1.50 per day and 5 women or girls at 37 cents per day. The men, at least, were the best paid manufacturing workers in the town. By comparison, the famed shoemakers in neighboring Lynn were earning between 60 and 80 cents per day, while
Lynn’s dyeing and printing workers were paid $1.50 per day like those in Malden. 335
George Barrett had wanted and won a measure of independence, as, eventually, had John Crabtree, the English cloth printer. The proliferation of skilled dyers who desired to be their own masters, whether they had been trained in Europe or at firms like
Barrett’s in America, combined with changing market conditions to dramatically alter the business context in which William Barrett’s sons were forced to operate after their father’s death in 1834.
335 U.S. Congressional Serial Set, Document 222, “Documents Relative to the Manufactures in the United States, Collected and Transmitted to the House of Representatives, in compliance with a resolution of Jan. 19, 1832, by the Secretary of the Treasury in Two Volumes,” volume 1 (Washington, DC: Duff Green for the Secretary of the Treasury, 1833), 344.
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Chapter V
The Next Generation Confronts a Maturing Market, 1834-1850
On November 15, 1834, William Barrett died of tuberculosis. At his death, his estate was valued at around $60,000, making it the second largest fortune in Malden, worthy to be profiled in the later 1851 collection Rich Men of Massachusetts.336 William must have known the end was near, because he and his family had prepared, drafting a will and creating a new business structure. Two weeks earlier, William’s adult sons had signed a partnership agreement with his long-time friend and financial advisor, Henry
Jaques.337 The new partnership, known as Barretts & Co., carried on the Malden business after William’s death in an arrangement that provided income not only to the partners who were actively involved, but also to the rest of William’s offspring. After providing for his wife’s financial security, William left his property in ten undivided interests to his ten surviving children, firmly binding together family and business; William’s heirs owned the physical assets of the business, while the business rented the land, buildings, and machinery from the heirs.
The family suffered more losses in the five years that followed. William’s eldest daughter, Caroline Barrett Winslow, died in 1836; his eldest son, William Barrett, Jr., followed in 1838; and their mother, Mary Keisar Hall Barrett, died in 1839, all from
336 Abner Forbes and J. W. Greene, Rich Men of Massachusetts: Containing a Statement of the Reputed Wealth of About Two Thousand Persons with Brief Sketches of Nearly Fifteen Hundred Characters (Boston: W. V. Spencer, 1851), 107-108. This work was somewhat idiosyncratic and seems to have been written with the intent of shaming the stingy and promoting benevolence. In absolute terms, Barrett’s was a modest fortune; for comparison, in the early 1830s, textile manufacturer Samuel Slater was worth about $1,000,000.
337 “Copartnership Agreement,” November 1, 1834, Box 110, Folder 4, PPHFP.
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“consumption.”338 When his older brother William Barrett Jr. died, Henry Barrett took over the management of the business, assisted by his younger brothers. That business was substantial, though not as large as the Staten Island firm had been in 1824. In 1832, when the Barrett business in Malden was officially recognized in a national manufacturing inventory for the first time as “William Barrett’s silk, cotton, and woolen dying establishment & manufactory of dye stuffs and medicines,” it employed 30 men over the age of 16 at an average wage of $1.50 per day and 5 women or girls at 37 cents per day.339
This chapter traces the troubled fortunes of the Malden business and William
Barrett’s family during the rest of the 1830s and the 1840s, a period in which the market for dyeing was becoming much more competitive, the U.S. economy continued to be volatile, and profits were elusive. Throughout this period, the firm continued to carry on retail and wholesale dyeing, the retail dyeing contributing the lion’s share of revenue and profits. In addition to the major blow of losing beloved family members to tuberculosis, the new leaders of the business faced two major challenges. First, the market for dyeing became much more competitive as costs of entry declined and new dyers set up, competing on price. Second, the elder Barretts’ dream of the dye house providing long- term income for all their children—expressed through the arrangement in which the heirs received substantial rents from the business—created tensions between partners and heirs as profits decreased, forcing the business to at least contemplate moving out of Malden.
338 The family believed that all had contracted tuberculosis. Henry Barrett, the second son, and Mary Hall Barrett, the second daughter, also supposedly suffered from the disease. Henry, it was reported, managed to conquer the disease by traveling to milder climates during the height of the summer and winter. Biographical note on Henry Barrett, collection finding aid, PPHFP.
339 U.S. Congressional Serial Set Document 222, Documents Relative to the Manufactures in the United States, 344.
160
For some skilled dyers in the firm who were not partners, these years represented an opportunity for greater independence. Once William Barrett had left the scene, they used their capital and skill to strike out on their own, building rival dye houses and attempting to woo market share from established players like the Barretts. For a time, at least, they could be their own masters. But while lower prices made dyeing accessible to a larger number of customers, the market could not support so many different dyeing businesses. Failures and consolidation followed, in which the Barrett firm was able to acquire competitors and was sustained by multiple advantages: a long-time customer base, a multi-brand strategy that took advantage of former competitors’ market share, and also by the sheer will of the partners and property owners—and key employees such as
Jacob Richardson—to keep the old family firm afloat.
Backdrop to the 1830s: Tuberculosis Invades the Barrett Family
Even beyond the fact of William Barrett’s death, tuberculosis significantly altered the lives of the Barretts during the 1830s and later. Illness was a constant companion for many members of the family and shadowed all other activities.
Known as “consumption” in the nineteenth century, tuberculosis was responsible for one in five deaths in the United States between 1800 and 1870 and was especially endemic to New England.340 In the early nineteenth century, physicians believed that the disease was not contagious and was caused by a combination of an inherited disposition and environmental “irritations.”341 It was a chronic disease that could abate or progress at
340 Sheila M. Rothman, Living in the Shadow of Death: Tuberculosis and the Social Experience of Illness in American History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 4.
341 Rothman, Living in the Shadow of Death, 4.
161 unpredictable rates. In the early phase, it resembled other respiratory ailments such as the common cold, making it difficult to diagnose, and it could be present and producing mild or serious symptoms for many years before debilitating or killing the patient.
According to the Barrett archive’s finding aid, “in the 1830s, William contracted tuberculosis from his work in the dye house” and “the family's work in the dye house caused the development of tuberculosis of the lungs.”342 The causal implications of these assertions are family memory more than history. It is certainly possible that William contracted tuberculosis from another dye worker, or that environmental conditions in the dye house—including moisture, heat, smoke, and toxins—contributed to the spread of infection and also compromised William’s lungs and those of his colleagues, or that proximity to the dye processes created environmental hazards for the entire family.343
One common ingredient in dye processes was urine—another potential vector for the spread of infection. But the disease could also have spread in other ways. For example,
William’s wife Mary was known to provide charity to the town’s poor and sick residents, and she could have contracted the disease first, though she died later. Evidence is ultimately insufficient to identify the trajectory of the infection. But several members of the family suffered from tuberculosis, some for many years, and the disease probably spread within the family as family members, especially the women, cared for those who were ill.
342 Biographical Notes for William Barrett and Henry Barrett, Collection Finding Aid, PPHFP, Web. http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/amherst/ma30_bioghist.html. Accessed December 28, 2014.
343 At least one other dyer had similar problems. John Tyson, Samuel Slater’s partner who ran his dye house in Oxford, Massachusetts, also died of consumption in his thirties. Local historian Holmes Ammidown related that, “by hard labor and exposures in the dampness connected with his labors, he injured his health, and after one or more voyages to Bermuda for relief, he died of consumption on the 2d of August, 1821.” Ammidown, Historical Collections, 467.
162
According to historian Sheila Rothman, the recommended treatment for a person with tuberculosis—and that person’s own response to illness—were highly gendered.344
While according to the mores of the time, both men and women with tuberculosis had a social duty to work at improving their health, women were expected to do so while staying close to home, fulfilling domestic responsibilities, and caring for and being cared for by family. Men, in contrast, were frequently advised to travel for their health and to engage in more energetic and less sedentary occupations. William Barrett traveled within eastern Massachusetts and certainly visited Staten Island, but there is no evidence that he traveled farther. William’s son Henry seems to have been more aggressive in his efforts to fight the disease. In spite of responsibilities as head of the business, Henry followed a travel regimen that got him away from the most difficult times of year in New England; he spent summers in the White Mountains and winters in Alabama (near Mobile).345
Henry’s family credited these sojourns with helping to arrest the disease. Henry lived a long and apparently healthy life, dying at age 85. But his family was not as lucky. He lost his first two wives in 1838 and 1844—the second, Hannah, to “an affection of the lungs,” six months after the death of their two-year-old son.346
As the oldest surviving daughter after Caroline’s death, Mary Hall Barrett Adams was an important caregiver for her ill parents and siblings; her biographers described her
344 Rothman, Living in the Shadow of Death, 23.
345 I have not been able to determine when these trips began. Biographical note for Henry Barrett, Collection finding aid, PPHFP (Amherst College: Five College Archive and Manuscript Collections) Web, http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/amherst/ma30_bioghist.html, accessed December 28, 2014.
346 Vital Records of Malden, Massachusetts from 1649 to the end of the year 1849. Web. http://ma-vitalrecords.org/MA/Middlesex/Malden/. Accessed December 28, 2014.
163 as saintly.347 Married shortly after her mother’s death to Malden’s Universalist minister
John Greenleaf Adams, Mary was an accomplished scholar and inclined to write. Her husband’s memoir quoted a letter she wrote to a friend when she was about to marry and leave her childhood home. “In this old home,” she reflected, “my parents lived and died, brother and sister too…when my dear mother lay upon her dying pillow, she gave into my charge those younger sisters, to advise and counsel as far as was in my power.” Mary described a religious family that read the Bible together on Sunday evenings—with mother reading and teaching from scripture and father looking proudly on and prompting them when they faltered in reciting their lessons.348 She described family members as spiritually serene on their deathbeds, comforted by their own religious conviction and the presence and watchful care of family. This was convention, of course—designed to communicate the family’s tender care and the departed one’s exalted spiritual state; deaths from tuberculosis were usually, in real physical terms, anything but serene, but the family would reassure others that they’d done all that was possible for their loved one.
Mary herself was seldom in robust health; her friends thought that so much responsibility at a young age had weakened her constitution, in addition to whatever inherited tendencies she may have had.349 But today it seems likely that she had contracted tuberculosis during those years and was never entirely free of it, despite her husband’s efforts to move the family to more hospitable climates. She died at 44, a few months before the start of the Civil War.
347 E. R. Hanson, Our Women Workers: Biographical Sketches of Women Eminent in the Universalist Church…. (Chicago: Star and Covenant Office, 1882), 115-120.
348 John Greenleaf Adams, Memoir of Mrs. Mary H. Adams, 131.
349 Hanson, Our Women Workers, 116.
164
Henry Barrett may never have expected to run the dye house, but when tuberculosis killed his elder brother, he was left in charge. Henry and his seven younger siblings inherited an enviable social position, a small amount of income-producing real estate, and a business with an uncertain future that their parents had hoped would support them for the rest of their lives.
Strength in Retail Dyeing: Structure and Finances
The partnership agreement signed shortly before William’s death was designed to ensure a smooth succession and ensure that William Barrett’s wishes would be carried out. It stipulated that four partners, William Barrett, Jr., Henry Barrett, Simon Hall
Barrett and financial manager Henry Jaques, would share the profits equally. The partners agreed that “Whereas the said William Barrett is desirous that the profits of said business should be shared by all his children as equally as the nature of the case will admit, we have engaged to pay as rent for the dyeing establishment $3,000 per year for 5 years.”350
William and Henry were to receive salaries of $800 per year and Simon $600 per year. The two younger sons, Aaron and Augustus, were employed at $300 per year. For keeping charge of the books and accounts, Henry Jaques received his share of the profits but no salary.351 For comparison, it should be noted that the $3,000 annual rent provided
$300/year to the ten heirs, and that the average wage for a worker in the dye house was
$1.50 per day in 1832.352 If we estimate the latter at 6 days per week and 50 weeks per
350 “Copartnership Agreement,” November 1, 1834, Box 111, Folder 4, PPHFP. Italics mine.
351 On the same document, a later endorsement of January 16, 1839, made over William Barrett, Jr.’s share to Henry and Simon equally, which allowed the partnership to be wound up without making claims on William’s estate.
352 U.S. Congressional Serial Set Document 222, Documents Relative to the Manufactures in the United States, 344.
165 year, we arrive at a (probably high) figure of $450 per year. So Aaron and Augustus, if they worked full time, received a salary roughly commensurate with that of other junior employees. The most highly paid employees were paid approximately seven times as much as the lowest-paid employees (the women and girls), with most others in the middle.
William Barrett, in his will, suggested that his executors sell the Red Mill if needed, but that they should, if at all possible, avoid selling the dye house.353 For him, the dye house was critical to the business’s future, but the Red Mill, where dyestuffs were processed, was not. By 1845, income statements no longer contained items for selling dyestuffs and barberry root, so these branches had been discontinued; the Red Mill was sold in 1846.354
Barretts & Co. prospered for its first three years. In the fourth year, the firm clearly felt the effects of the financial panic of 1837; it experienced a 25% reduction in retail dyeing and incurred a small loss. During the year following, results were only
353 William Barrett, Recorded Will, 1834, Probate Records, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Record Books, volume 173, page 399-403 (On Microfilm at Massachusetts State Archives).
354 In 1846, the Red Mill was purchased from William Barrett’s heirs by Elisha Converse and Benjamin Poland, who kept up the business of processing drugs and dyestuffs, at least for a time. Nathaniel Hayward later purchased the property and gave the Red Mill site, initially known as Red Mill Village, a new name: Haywardville. Ellen Levin and Thomas Mahlstedt, Middlesex Fells Reservation Historic Land-Use Study (Boston: Metropolitan District Commission, 1990), 12-13. Further exploration of land records might explain whether ownership of the land was in fact transferred to Benjamin Dodge in 1843 or, if so, whether it had come back to the Barretts after Dodge’s departure from Malden. Nathaniel Hayward and Charles Goodyear collaborated in the investigation of rubber and the discovery of what came to be known as the vulcanization process. The fact that Goodyear started a rubber cloth factory near the Barrett factory on Staten Island suggests that the Barretts were part of his business network. For Elisha Converse’s carrying on of the dyestuff processing, see Deloraine P. Corey, Malden Past and Present: Issued on the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of Malden (Malden: Malden Mirror, 1899), 12. Like William Barrett, Converse had been apprenticed to a clothier earlier in life and was familiar with dyeing.
166 marginally better. On the death of William Barrett Jr., in 1838, the business was reconfigured once again. Barretts & Company ceased to exist and a new partnership,
Barretts & Brother, was formed. In November of that year, the four surviving Barrett brothers became full partners with equal shares, Augustus and Aaron advancing to salaries of $600 per year.355 When the old partnership was wound up, Jaques prepared a summary of the preceding five-year period, shown in Figure 11.356
Simon and Augustus eventually sold their interests. After Aaron’s death in 1878,
Henry ran the business on his own.357
In 1837, a summary of statistics for “branches of industry” prepared by John
Bigelow, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, listed a variety of manufacturing operations in Malden, but excluded the dyers, presumably because they still did not “count” as manufacturing, except for a “dye-wood manufactory” that employed two people.358 That same year in Lowell, 485 people were reported to be engaged in printing and dyeing 12,220,000 yards of cotton goods, about one fourth of the cotton goods manufactured there in that year.
355 This partnership changed form over the years as some of the Barrett brothers left the business. In 1852, for example, the partnership of Barrett & Brothers was formed by Henry, Aaron, and Augustus. “Copartnership Agreement” (third document), Box 111, Folder 7, PPHFP. After Aaron’s death in 1878, Henry was the only remaining partner, and he ran the business with the help of his son Richard Stearns Barrett and other younger relations including Aaron’s son George Washington Barrett. Box 111, Folder 9, PPHFP.
356 Jaques had created a similar four-year report in November of 1838. Box 111, Folder 22, PPHFP.
357 The business never incorporated, but beyond the Barrett brothers, Jacob Richardson became a partner sometime in 1857 and died in 1864. For the firm’s name change to “Barretts & Richardson, see Box 111, Folder 24, PPHFP. For documents winding up Richardson’s estate, see Box 111, Folder 8, PPHFP.
358 John P. Bigelow, Statistical Tables Exhibiting the Condition and Products of Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for the year ending April 1, 1837 (Boston: Dutton & Wentworth for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1838), 31-32.
167
But a similar compilation in 1846 provided more detail, listing for Malden: 3 dye houses; Capital: $49,000; Volume of Business: $93,000; Male employees: 74, Female employees: 34.359 If the reported figures were accurate, the Barretts would have accounted for a little more than 40% of that revenue and presumably a similar proportion of the employees.
Aside from illuminating the business’s bottom line, the business records prove the continuing importance of the retail dyeing business. For most years, the retail dyeing revenue was significantly higher than the wholesale revenue, sometimes amounting to nearly three times as much. The retail dyeing declined considerably in 1838 and 1839, resulting in less of a difference between the revenues of the two branches, though it was still higher than the wholesale numbers. Interestingly, wholesale dyeing did not decline in those difficult years. Merchants continued to use the Barretts’ services in spite of poor economic conditions. Perhaps merchants were even more likely to repurpose existing stock in difficult times, perhaps their trade was less dependent on the local economy, or perhaps the Barretts simply made a greater effort to seek out wholesale business when retail business declined.
359 John G. Palfrey, Statistics of the Condition and Products of Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for the year ending April 1, 1845 (Boston: Dutton & Wentworth for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1838), 63.
168
Figure 11. Barretts & Company finances, 1834-1839.360
1st Year 2nd Year 3rd Year 4th Year 5th Year (1834-35) (1835-36) (1836-37) (1837-38) (1838-39) Income Wholesale Dyeing 12255.73 9881.13 6230.62 9025.12 10432.50 Retail Dyeing 19447.70 20183.55 20458.77 15628.08 12679.54 Malden361 812.36 835.29 736.90 575.58 435.61 Manufacturing of 338.15 803.30 331.36 74.99 475.25 Dyewoods Barbary Root 295.80 623.15 124.64 235.98 213.66 Doubtful debts ------110.59 collected
Total Income 33149.74 32326.42 27882.29 25479.75 24347.15
Expenses Abatements 98.28 474.50 410.44 298.28 425.86 Contingencies 4241.60 5148.33 5554.26 4923.80 4854.90 Fuel 1218.38 1176.21 1716.54 1793.11 1077.46 Labor 13015.44 14485.18 12373.66 13975.05 11750.14 Interest 77.17 536.92 327.39 505.21 661.21 Bad Debts 32.21 34.60 401.19 118.34 Machinery 2117.67 1404.64 1102.90 1466.48 825.06 Dye Stuffs 3209.97 3479.35 2187.71 2590.77 4521.05
Total Expenses 23978.51 26737.34 23707.50 25953.89 24234.02
Profits 9171.23 5589.08 4174.79 Loss: Gain: 474.14 113.13
360 All figures in this table are from Box 111, Folder 22, PPHFP. The cost item labeled “Contingencies” was not itemized, but Richardson noted later that it included rent, some other items relating to inventory, and presumably other intermittent expenses as well.
361 The separate income line for “Malden” is an accounting artifact; some people brought their dyeing (presumably retail dyeing) to the Barrett Dye House in Malden directly, either because they lived in Malden or because Malden was more convenient for them than either the Boston store or one of the firm’s agents in other towns. This business was therefore tracked in a ledger book in Malden separate from those of the Boston store.
169
Figure 12. Barrett & Brothers finances, 1840 to 1844.362
1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 Income Barbary Root 196.29 126.58 40.88 157.24 -- Manufacture of 243.15 367.77 111.49 -- -- Dyewoods Malden Dying 359.76 470.12 490.30 1354.16 2284.77 Wholesale 10502.29 15097.22 13,105.42 7,605.33 8117.19 Dying Retail Dyeing 9827.31 9667.61 12,409.19 10,927.88 12,348.67 M. D. ------3,397.92 3,312.37 Wholesale M. D. Cash ------11,604.04 12,160.70 (Retail) Misc. ------49.33 Adjustments TOTAL 21,128.80 25,729.30 26,157.28 35,046.52 38,273.03 Expenses Abatements, 665.13 1200.30 628.78 750.20 1172.18 commissions, etc. Contingencies 3654.11 4166.17 4,497.00 3,991.35 5420.81 D. Stuffs 4510.13 6169.52 4,134.61 3,552.44 3904.04 Fuel 1508.82 1241.92 1,663.21* 1,640.32 1196.22 Interest 761.52 1210.34 610.67 356.50 96.70 Labor 11432.91 12357.60 11,495.88 16,521.51 18503.68 Machinery 241.14 58.11 469.57 21.59 (included in contingencies) Manuf. ------19.27 -- Dyewoods Misc. ------482.62 Adjustments TOTAL 22773.76 26403.96 23,429.66 26,853.18 31576.25
362 From annual trial balances in Box 111, Folder 23, PPHFP. The partnership’s accounting year, which was set initially by the start of Barretts & Co. on November 1, 1834, was changed to the calendar year at the end of 1842, resulting in the 1842 books “being open for 14 months.”
170
Figure 13. Barrett & Brothers finances, 1845-1849.363
1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 Income Malden Dying 1,237.60 1,489.49 1,893.39 911.89 995.75 Wholesale 7,496.21 8,841.67 9,230.03 9,020.96 16,687.56 Dying Retail Dyeing 12,260.73 12,252.76 14,147.25 14,242.78 16,010.81 M. D. 2,574.84 3,155.72 5,504.61 3,066.46 1,824.51 Wholesale M. D. Cash 12,202.16 12,248.67 12,201.73 12,505.05 12,736.47 (Retail) Store profits 93.51 Merchandise 62.90 139.40 Misc. 35.00 88.29 Adjustments TOTAL 35,962.95 38,076.60 42,997.01 39,886.54 42,255.10
Expenses Abatements 535.19 791.94 806.17 1319.86 862.05 Contingencies 5,670.16 5,589.54 5,418.70 7,087.79 6,717.67 Dye Stuffs 3,867.79 4,706.60 5,833.09 5,833.19 5,782.98 Fuel 1,249.82 1,742.11 2,053.22 1,665.91 1,948.96 Labor 18,269.16 19,826.54 20,432.07 20,528.92 21,569.54 Interest 73.90 250.82 169.23 100.26 108.26 Miscellaneous 104.19 162.19 28.19 Adjustments TOTAL 29,770.21 33,069.76 34,740.67 36,535.93 36,989.46
Jacob Richardson kept a running total of the earnings over the years after the new partnership was formed in 1838, from which he deducted bad debts and also deducted the periodic (but not necessarily regular) dividends to the partners. In 1848, for example, he noted that $15,000 had been disbursed as dividends to the partners. Dividends did not necessarily represent sheer profit flowing to those individuals in a given year, as the partners also often lent money to the business or borrowed money from the business. For example, in closing the books for 1858, Jacob Richardson, by then a partner in the firm,
363 From annual trial balances in Box 111, Folder 23, PPHFP.
171 noted on his trial balance that he had “thought best to declare a dividend of $12,000 to liquidate the balance against partners.”364
Retail Dyeing’s Importance for the Staten Island Firm
Retail dyeing turned out to be very important for the Staten Island business as well. In 1845, the year the railroad came to Malden, Henry Barrett sought to increase his firm’s geographical reach and looked to New York. He wrote to W. H. Tileston in New
York, an agent for the New York Dyeing and Printing Establishment, inquiring about prospects for Barretts & Brother starting an agency in that city. In taking this action,
Henry Barrett was both consulting a knowledgeable party and also extending a measure of professional courtesy to which he was in no way obligated. No formal connection between the two businesses existed any longer, but Henry had at least one cousin in the firm and seems to have wanted to maintain cordial relations—or at least head off a possible conflict. We do not have Henry’s original letter, but the reply he received provides evidence for how the New York business was faring in 1845.365
Mr. Tileston did not mince words. He thought that Barrett & Brothers opening an agency in New York was a terrible idea, and took pains to explain that this was not simply the self-interested statement of a potential competitor. Henry in his own letter may have opined that the retail business was so important to the New York firm as the wholesale business was, but Tileston made it clear that this perception was false, that the
364 “Barretts & Richardson,” December 31, 1858, Box 111, Folder 24, PPHFP.
365 W. H. Tileston, agent for the New York Dyeing and Printing Establishment, to Messrs. Barrett & Brothers, March 25, 1845. Box 111, Folder 3, PPHFP.
172 retail business was the lifeblood of the firm, and that the business was struggling to retain and grow its market share.
The retail dying is very important to us. Indeed so small is the wholesale job dying now reduced in amount that unless we carried them both on together, it would be a profitless business….366 Given therefore the importance of sustaining the actual branch and if possible to increase it, I have been constantly been endeavoring to do so by every means…by reducing prices and expediting the return of articles, advertising, etc. and to effect these the company have expended more money than they have yet received…. The competition we have to attend to is very great and growing more so. We depend on persons from a distance from here for a large portion of our work…. For the five consecutive years which I have been here, the amount of business has varied but a trifle from year to year, and the whole amount of gain over the five previous years is but eleven hundred dollars.367
The Problem of Rent: The Business vs. the Heirs
The financial structure set up by the elder Barretts made sense to them at the time.
Profits were sound, and they felt that the business could well afford a payment of $3,000 per year that would provide security and an income for their daughters, all but one of whom were unmarried at the time. Mary Barrett in particular focused on security for her daughters and other female relatives in her own will. For the parents, the purpose of the business was to support the family—the whole family. But in the 1840s, given declining
366 In discussing the decline in wholesale, Tileston excluded the “cotton goods, which is an entirely independent department.” That presumably was the business in dyeing and printing imported white goods, some of which were then exported to the West Indies. (See Chapter 3.)
367 This was the period from 1839-44, which was a difficult time for the Malden Barretts as well.
173 profits and declining costs of building, some questioned whether such payments were entirely economically rational.
Jacob Richardson took over the books from Henry Jaques around the time
William Barrett Jr. died and the new partnership of Barretts & Brother was formed.368
Surviving are most of the annual reports (trial balances) Richardson penned for Henry
Barrett for the years 1840-1850, along with some letters containing Richardson’s business advice to Henry. Jacob Richardson was, it seems, a highly trusted advisor to
Henry Barrett. Like his mentor Henry Jaques, Richardson did not shy away from stating his opinion where the success or failure of the business was at stake.
In 1842, Richardson was clearly again concerned about the survival of the business, which had posted a loss in both 1840 and 1841. Richardson produced a half- year summary for 1842, comparing it with the prior year, and showing that while things were somewhat better, the company had brought in only $368.00 more work than in the same period for 1841. He did not have great hopes that the second half of the year would be better.
But the prospect for business looks gloomy for the remaining six months, and the reductions of prices on the retail must of necessity reduce the profits in that branch.
The next six months you cannot expect to make anything, with the reduction of prices and the uncertainty of wholesale, paying the rent you do. If you had that for $1,000 per annum, which would be high for the part you occupy, and quite as much as your business will warrant you to pay, you might expect to save something at the end of the year. But double that sum is entirely out of reason,
368 The partnerships over the years were variously known as “Barrett & Brother,” “Barretts & Brother,” or “Barrett & Brothers.”
174
and taking one year with another, a sum that you cannot sustain.369
Revenue and profits were much harder to achieve than they had been in earlier years.
Richardson laid out the problem in a formal letter to Henry Barrett on March 19, 1842 as follows:
In the first three years, the company’s receipts for the retail work at the Boston office amounted to 60,090.02 and in the last three years 32,174.46. A decrease you will perceive of 27,915.56, nearly one half of the whole original amount. But the evil does not fully appear in the loss of receipts, because the expense of production does not diminish in the same ratio as the profits. A loss of 20 or 30 percent may be the whole profit. A discount of 50 cents on dying a silk dress, on which before was realized only 50 cents above the expense, abstracts all the profit. The profits accruing and realized by the company for the first three years amounted to $19,244.70. The profits of the last three years!! Excuse me, you may recollect. 370
Richardson was providing a practical example to explain the principles of profit, discount, and loss for a boss who was perhaps not so gifted in financial matters. In looking for ways to improve the company’s profitability, Richardson knew the high prices of earlier decades were not likely to return, much as it distressed him. He sought, then, to reduce costs, mainly attacking the rent being paid by the company to the heirs, which he believed was too high, was based on outdated and false assumptions, and was siphoning off the profits alarmingly. He suggested that a lower rent of $1,000 would benefit both heirs and company.371
369 Jacob Richardson to Henry Barrett, Financial summary for the first half of 1842, Box 111, Folder 23, PPHFP.
370 Jacob Richardson to Messrs. Barrett & Brothers, Boston, March 19, 1842. Box 111, Folder 23, PPHFP.
371 See Jacob Richardson to Henry Barrett, Boston, May 13, 1842. Financial summary for the first half of 1842, Box 111, Folder 23, PPHFP, as well as Richardson’s letters of March 19, 1842 and September 29, 1842, Box 111, Folder 23, PPHFP.
175
Behind Richardson’s rationale was an understanding of the source of business value that was different from that held by at least some of the heirs, as demonstrated by the following comment in his letter of March 19, 1842:
It was in consideration of the great run of custom, and high prices charged for the work, that the price to be paid for rent was fixed at $3,000 per annum—and not in the value of the works at Malden. It matters not to Barrett & Brothers or their customers whether their work is done in Malden or some other place. The idea that the worth of the business consists in the works at Malden is entirely erroneous. Whatever is valuable at bringing custom consists in the name of Barrett & the excellence of the work, and not in the bricks and mortar piled up at Malden.372
The heirs, according to Richardson, had sought to justify the high rent on the basis of the value of the property to the business, and their view of that value was wrong, in part because the market value of buildings and machinery had declined. Richardson further noted that the company had paid a large sum in the intervening years in order to repair machinery. Given that the machinery was technically owned by the heirs and rented to the business, he said, the heirs should logically be paying the maintenance costs. He took the brash step of sending the heirs a large bill for the repairs, which he admitted was a stunt. Richardson did not expect the bill to be paid, and he had prepared it mainly to underscore the point and to influence the heirs to sign a lease for a more reasonable rent.373 Apparently someone had suggested lowering the rent to $2,000, but Richardson believed that to be still too high. “What, then, is the encouragement to pursue the business,” said Richardson, “if it must be done at an expense of $2,000 per annum rent? I
372 Jacob Richardson to Messrs. Barrett & Brothers, Boston, March 19, 1842. Box 111, Folder 23, PPHFP.
373 Jacob Richardson to Henry Barrett, Boston, September 29, 1842. Box 111, Folder 3, PPHFP.
176 must most respectfully and in all sincerity advise [the partners] to quit it at once, while they can save something of the fruits of the establishment earned in former times.”
Of course, the two groups—the heirs and the company’s partners—overlapped significantly. In 1842, the partners included the four Barrett brothers, while the heirs included those same four brothers, aged 28 to 35, and also their four younger sisters, aged
19 to 26. Richardson thought the heirs were being unfair to the company; if they wanted the company to survive and to remain in Malden—which would ultimately be in their best interest—they needed to take a different stance toward the rent.374 The threat of moving out of Malden was not an idle one. Richardson had researched the cost of building a new dye house or repurposing an existing facility, and described these costs to
Henry.375 They were dramatically lower in 1842 than they had been in 1817 when
William Barrett rebuilt. Richardson continued to explore ways to persuade the heirs, including simply explaining the facts of the revenue and costs:
If the owners still persist, ask them to compare the receipts of the last with the first three years. Show them your list of notes payable of more than ten thousand dollars. Can you think that the recipients of twenty six thousand six hundred dollars so freely paid them in times of prosperity will now take advantage of the known attachment of the members of your company to the home establishment? If you were to seek another place, it would prove detrimental to both parties, for the individual or the company cannot be found under the sun that will pay one thousand dollars rent for it if we are to judge from other rents in the neighboring towns….376
374 Jacob Richardson to Messrs. Barrett & Brothers, Boston, March 19, 1842. Box 111, Folder 23, PPHFP.
375 Jacob Richardson to Messrs. Barrett & Brothers, Boston, March 19, 1842. Box 111, Folder 23, PPHFP.
376 The figure of $26,600 represents Richardson’s calculation of the rent paid already plus the machinery repair that the company had performed using its own funds.
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Richardson wanted the business to continue operating, but he also wanted it to operate on a rational, profitable basis. To him, that meant paying a rent that represented the actual market value of using the land, buildings, and machinery—not simply paying the heirs what had earlier been agreed upon. Richardson said that the earlier figure of
$3,000 per year had been based on business conditions; in 1834 the company could afford it, and those conditions had changed. Gone was any consideration of an a priori moral necessity for the profits to support the heirs. While 14 years later Richardson would affirm his pride in the fact that the business had never failed, he also recognized in
1842 that without some change in the cost structure, it would make sense simply to fold the company and not lose any more money. Given that the firm stayed in Malden until the 1880s, the heirs probably did, at that point, accommodate the company in signing a lease at a more reasonable rent. Even so, the rent seems to have remained a source of strain, fluctuating between $1,000 and $3,000 until all the Malden property was sold and the profits split among the remaining heirs in the 1880s. Some of the heirs clearly continued to think that the $3,000 originally agreed upon was the only morally just rate, reflecting the intent of the parents. Henry wrote to the heirs as late as 1880 that he was still only able to pay $2,000 rent, and that some repairs needed to be made which he would pay for if they could be deducted from the company’s rent that year.377
One could interpret these events in multiple ways, and no one can say Richardson was wrong, from his purely financial vantage point. But the ownership structure the elder
Barretts had set up reflected something more than the market value of buildings and land.
For William Barrett, the dye house represented his entire family’s security as well as a
377 Henry Barrett to Heirs of William Barrett, January 1, 1880. Box 111, Folder 10, PPHFP.
178 monument within the community. Raised in an era of family farmsteads and household labor, he had used collective ownership of the dye house to create a kind of permanence of the family as economic unit in a rapidly changing world. William Barrett’s intent was similar to that of the Boston Associates described by Robert Dalzell: “Having watched their fathers try, and fail, to provide economic security for their children, the Associates would remain very much committed to the same goal.” 378
But the buildings and furnishings were not as valuable—and not as expensive to recreate—as they once had been, a change that would generate further challenges for the
Barrett brothers.
“Better, Quicker, and Cheaper”: The Struggle for Market Share
Competition for dyeing business increased dramatically, at least in Greater
Boston, during the 1830s, as few barriers to entry existed and more modern machinery apparently reduced the cost of at least the cloth finishing processes. A frustrated Jacob
Richardson vented to Henry Barrett in 1842 that since 1834, “the [dyeing] business has been cut up and divided and subdivided in a strange manner. Malden Dye Houses are springing up in all directions, and employing more hands than can fairly meet with encouragement. The result has been a great reduction of prices and a diversion of works from this to other establishments, particularly from the retail department, which has been mainly depended upon for profits.”379 The retail customers, apparently, were fickle.
378 Dalzell, Enterprising Elite, 121.
379 Jacob Richardson to Messrs. Barrett & Brothers, Boston, March 19, 1842. Box 111, Folder 23, PPHFP.
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Dye houses did indeed spring up in multiple towns, with four separate dye works operating in Malden alone, at least for a time. As William Barrett neared his end, some of his associates who wanted to be their own masters clearly felt ready to spread their wings, feeling less personal loyalty to his sons. In 1834, a dye house in Malden that was less than a year old and belonged to Charles and William Baldwin burned to the ground.380
Another, the dyeing business of Benjamin W. Dodge, offers an interesting example of how one dyer’s fortunes could change rapidly over a short period of time.
Dodge, originally from Concord, was probably a former employee of William
Barrett. He opened “The Malden Dye House” in 1835, building his dye house within a stone’s throw of the original Barrett dye house and using the same water, dam, and business model.381 Dodge named his business in order to benefit from the Barretts’ reputation and thereby capture some of their customers. In 1839, Dodge’s Malden Dye
House was aggressively competing with the Barretts through the Boston papers, as in the following notice:
Be not deceived. The Ladies and the Public are respectfully requested, before deciding upon an advertisement recently put before the public by Barrett & Brother, in which they state that work can be done by them better, quicker, and cheaper than at any other Dye House, and that the public will run no risk with regard to any confidence they may be
380 “Dye House in Malden Destroyed,” Norfolk Advertiser, Dedham, Massachusetts, August 23,1834, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
381 This building project was interesting for uncovering evidence of much earlier industry. According to historian of Malden Deloraine P. Corey, “When the dye works of Benjamin W. Dodge were being built about 1835, charred timbers were found in the ground and an old lady was living in the neighborhood who remembered to have heard that the old mill stood there and was burned. Afterwards traces of the waterway leading down from the dam were found on the side of the hill near Barrett’s Lane now Dartmouth Street.” This waterway was thought to be the wooden sluice leading from the dam to the original 1640s gristmill whose site was somewhat further south. Corey, History of Malden, 86.
180
pleased to confer on them. With regard to confidence, I am willing to leave it with the public. But that work can be done better, cheaper, or quicker by them, I deny and challenge them, with all their new and increased facilities, to dye and finish with me any one article of ladies’ or gentlemen’s garments, and specimens of which I solicit the public to examine, and with regard to dispatch it ever has been and shall ever be my aim to accommodate the public by returning their goods sooner than Barrett and Brother ever have done or possibly can do.
Carpets, Rugs, Curtains, Table Covers, &c. cleansed and returned in four days, and warranted, or no charge will be made.
All goods will be sent for and returned to any part of the city by leaving the address at the Malden Dye House, corner of Court and Hanover sts.382
By this time, the Barretts were forced to refer to their own business as the Old Malden
Dye House to distinguish it from Dodge’s business, and also to advertise the fact that new machinery and processes were enabling them to lower their prices. The Barretts’ motivation in obtaining new machinery may have been both quality and cost. As a high- end business, the Barretts had to continue to deliver the highest quality results, but they also had to contend with a price war.
The Newburyport Herald of June 24, 1842, for example, included advertisements from several different dye houses, including that of a Mrs. Merrill, who advertised that her services offered “goods colored as well as at Malden, or any other Dye House.”
Malden dyers clearly had established the standard to beat. An advertisement by Franklin
Patch, of the Saugus Dye House, stated that “all goods will be done in the best manner,
382 “Malden Dye House, Boston Courier, Boston, Massachusetts, June 10, 1839, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers. We do not know whether the Barretts took up the challenge for a dyeing competition.
181 and as cheap as at any establishment.” The Portsmouth Dye House said they would return goods within one week, and advertised agents in Newburyport, Exeter, Newmarket,
Dover, Kennebunk, and Saco. In the same paper, the Barrett’s Dye House assured the public “that the proprietors are determined to keep pace with the other dyers in prices, however low they may be reduced, and also to maintain that superiority in style and beauty of work which has been so generally accorded to this establishment for nearly forty years. Goods returned in 8 or 9 days, and satisfaction warranted in all cases.”
Dodge’s Malden Dye House rounded out the list, attempting to differentiate itself on the process or “style,” stating that goods would be processed and returned “in a style that cannot be equaled for brilliancy of color or original finish as no artificial stiffening is used at this establishment.” But all these establishments placed at the top of their notices the price for dyeing ladies’ dresses: one dollar, for each of the latter four, while Mrs.
Merrill claimed to do as good a job for 75 cents. Advertisements also mentioned the quality of work and the speed with which items would be returned to their owners, but price was clearly now a critical factor for consumers.
With so many players in the regional market for dyeing, a series of business failures and consolidations occurred during the 1840s. The Daily Atlas in Boston of April
12, 1844, described for sale the entire property of none other than “Benjamin W. Dodge, an insolvent debtor, situate in Malden….”383 According to notices published in area newspapers, Dodge, then a storekeeper, married with children, had eloped to Albany in
1843 with a 23-year-old woman who worked in his dye house. Though Dodge “was
383 The property was described as “comprising about seven acres of land, upon which are the following buildings: to wit: Cottage, two stories; two story wooden building, sixty by twenty four feet; Dye House, one hundred and twenty by thirty feet; two story wooden building, forty by thirty feet; Barn; Blacksmith’s Shop; one story Dwelling House. On the same premises, a Grist Mill and Mill Privilege, with sufficient water power for two mills. Also for sale, ten acres of Land, half a mile distant from Malden village.”
182 thought to be well off,” as he had until lately been a proprietor of the famous dye house, he had recently “been borrowing cash from every available person, and probably took with him from $12,000 to $18,000,” which “left his wife and children in poverty” because the amount exceeded the value of the property left behind.384
Three months later, a notice in the Salem Register stated that “The Establishment formerly known as the Saugus Dye House, has been transferred to the Malden Dye
House,” where a diverse range of goods “will be dyed and finished in the best manner.”385 The notice went on to list agents in Salem, Marblehead, Beverly, Danvers,
Newburyport, and Lynn. The mystery of how Dodge’s Malden Dye House could have experienced the insolvency of its departed owner in April and aggressive expansion in
July is solved if we look at the financial statements for the Barrett firm. Jacob Richardson referred to an “arrangement with Dodge” being contemplated by the Barretts, and it is clear from later correspondence that the Malden Dye House continued operation under that name even after Dodge left—but it did so under the ownership of Barrett &
Brothers.386 In fact, Dodge had transferred ownership of the dye house, the business, and the lease on his Boston office to Barrett & Brothers in February of 1843, some months before he left town, in exchange for the Red Mill property, and bonded himself for
$10,000 to not carry on the business of dyeing and finishing within 100 miles of Boston, for himself or anyone but Barrett & Brothers.387 This was essentially a non-compete
384 “Elopement in Malden,” Commercial Advertiser, New York, September 7, 1843, 2; “A man by the name of Dodge,” Newburyport Herald, Newburyport, Massachusetts, September 7, 1843, 2; all from Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
385 “Malden Dye-House,” Salem Register, Salem, Massachusetts, July 22, 1844, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
386 Jacob Richardson to Henry Barrett, September 29, 1842. Box 111, Folder 3, PPHFP.
387 “Indenture,” February 17, 1843, Box 109, Folder 13, PPHFP.
183 agreement. Dodge may already have been contemplating his departure and desiring cash.
He seems eventually to have returned to Boston and his former occupation, though, as an
1851 ad for the Boston Dye House listed one B. W. Dodge as its superintendent.388 Given
Dodge’s background, and the fact that another set of Dodges ran a dye house in
Newburyport known as “Dodge’s Dye House,” it is not surprising that the Boston Dye
House’s proprietor, one E. H. Snelling, took pains to say he had “no connection with any other establishment.”
Dodge’s business was the most dramatic example, but other Malden dyers also went out on their own, creating their own dye houses that competed with the Barretts. To run a successful business, they needed more than personal skill—they needed water rights, machinery, and buildings. They also needed the confidence of customers. In addition to a calculated effort to trade on the Barretts’ reputation, these entrepreneurial dyers were also trading on their own reputation as “Malden dyers”—one they had been proud to help build.
The Barretts’ Multi-Brand Strategy
After 1843, the Malden Dye House, formerly run by Dodge, and the Barrett Dye
House, the business of Barretts & Brother, were no longer, in reality, separate businesses, though they continued to advertise under separate brands. The Barretts clearly felt there was value in maintaining multiple brands—an approach that gave the illusion of multiple businesses. Each business had its own reputation, agents, customers, and Boston office.
388 “Boston Dye House,” Boston Evening Transcript, Boston, Massachusetts, April 1, 1851, 4, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
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Dodge’s Malden Dye House must have been able to earn the trust of a significant number of customers.
This practice was the subject of a hyperbolic competitive advertisement by yet another Malden competitor, the Malden Fancy Dye-House, run by former Barrett employee Gilbert Haven.389 In an advertisement with “A Grand Wedding, Lovers of
Truth! Read and Understand!” as its headline, the proprietors explained that the “New
Alliance” was deceiving the public.390 If customers were dissatisfied with the work of one branch, they should not go to the other branch of the same firm, but should instead patronize the Malden Fancy Dye-House. While some of the Malden Fancy Dye-House ads did not list proprietors, those of 1842 listed “Haven & Simonds, silk dyers.”391
Simonds disappeared from the ads later that year. He seems to have been poached (or poached back?) by the Barretts, as he was most likely the Franklin Simonds who signed a one-year employment agreement for $500 with Barrett & Brothers on November 9,
1842.392 William Simonds, presumably a relation, followed suit in April of 1843; he was to earn 16 cents per hour, and may have held a less-skilled position. In 1846, ads for the
Malden Fancy Dye-House listed only Gilbert Haven as proprietor.
389 This Gilbert Haven was the father of the famous Methodist bishop. He had also been executor of William Barrett’s estate.
390 “A Grand Wedding,” Boston Daily Bee, Boston, Massachusetts, March 31, 1843, 1, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
391 For example, see “Ladies’ Dresses Dyed for One Dollar Only,” Boston Recorder, July 29, 1842, 119, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
392 Work agreements of Franklin Simonds and William Simonds, Box 109, Folder 13, PPHFP. An alternative interpretation is that these brothers had been working for George W. Simonds at the other firm, and the Barretts wanted to make sure they would not go back to him. By 1854, all were working for the Barretts.
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The Barretts believed that keeping these brands separate would help to maintain a higher volume of business. Some time later, in a letter to his brother Henry, Aaron Barrett explained part of the reasoning behind the practice, which continued into the 1850s and
1860s:
The great public do not know & do not care a fig who does their work if it is done well. It is all prejudice in favor of one dye house or another and the great public today do not know that Barretts Dye House and the Malden Dye House are the same. And it is & has been by keeping the public in ignorance of this fact, ever since we bought Ben Dodge out, that has sustained the Malden Dye House office. If it should be known today that the two concerns are one, the Malden Dye House office would have to close up in 3 months for want of work enough to pay expenses and all its business would go elsewhere—and not a quarter of it come to us. It has been by my advertising the 2 concerns separate that has kept our work where it is.393
A Sample of Dyeing in 1839
One surviving daybook from the Malden Dye House provides a representative sample of the dyeing work being done and the prices at this time.394
This particular book was kept by an agent of the Malden Dye House in Hingham, probably a dry goods merchant. Generally, households would pay greatest attention to their clothing in the fall, and the seasonal nature of dyeing is clear in these records. During the four months from March through July of 1839, the agent
393 Aaron Barrett to Henry Barrett, undated. Box 111, Folder 2, PPHFP. Henry had expressed concern about a proposal to add a laundry business to the Malden Dye House, thinking such a low-end business would reflect poorly on him and the Barrett business. Aaron was telling him not to worry, as it would bring in more customers and few people, if any, would make the connection between the two businesses.
394 Malden Dye House, Hingham and Boston, account book, Business Manuscript Collection, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard University.
186 received only 30 orders, and received nearly twice that amount in the last three months of the year.
In 1839, a Miss Lydia Ripley brought a silk dress and a pair of hose to be dyed
“cold blue black” for $2.00. Colors during this period are described more specifically; in earlier decades, “black” or “good black” might have sufficed. In 1844, Abigail
Woodward asked for “one shawl to be colored blue black, very distinctive upon the blue.” Customers asked for cold pink, cold brown, fawn, blue black, bright pink, pink cherry, apple green, cold green, cold chocolate, buff, bottle green, light brown, cold red, salmon, dark green, and dark slate. In addition, many customers included a pattern
(sample) so that there would be no question about the color they wanted. The “cold” colors, in addition to being more desirable, must have been harder to achieve; there seems to be little request for “warm” colors, which were probably more usual. Early in 1839,
Mrs. Reed asked for a ribbon to be dyed “cold red,” but was unlucky. The item was lost, and the agent compensated her $1.47. These various colors are similar to those listed by
Cornelius Molony in his 1829 book discussed in the previous chapter; perhaps it was cloth manufacturers who were training the public in a more varied range of colors during this period.
Over time, dyers more often advertised the fact that they did not require garments or other items to be “ripped” or taken apart—which would have added convenience for customers and removed the chance of damage. On June 11, 1839, Barrett & Brother advertised “Mousselin de Laine and Chally Dresses dyed whole.”395 An agent for the
Malden Dye House advertised in 1842 “Gentlemen’s garments dyed and cleansed
395 “Prices Reduced,” Boston Traveler, Boston, Massachusetts, June 11, 1839, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
187 without being ripped, to look like new,” and “Parasols and sun shades dyed without being removed from the frame, to look like new.”396
While the Barrett firms did not advertise printing, they added decoration to cloth in other ways. An 1838 advertisement promised “plain silks, satins, and velvets figured or embossed in beautiful style.”397
A Potential Opportunity That Fizzled
Like others, the Barretts were probably quite excited about the possibilities for domestic silk production hyped during the 1830s and ‘40s “silk rush” that occurred in northern states and especially in Massachusetts, though they seem not to have entered the growing frenzy themselves. While some domestic silk production had occurred since colonial times, the potential for a national industry of silk production (substituting for silk imports) took hold for a time, doubtless inspired by the success of cotton in the South.
Historian of silk dyeing Albert Heusser provided a richly detailed description of how a passion for the potential of mulberry tree growing and silk culture caught Americans’ imagination after the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush published a manual on the growth and manufacture of silk in 1828.398 This manual also included a 40-page
396 “Only One Dollar,” Gloucester Telegraph, Gloucester, Massachusetts, June 8, 1842, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
397 It is not entirely clear what is meant by “figured” here, and it is possible that the Barretts later did some small-scale printing in Malden or that “figured” indicated something similar to embossing. “Barrett’s Old Malden Dye House,” Nantucket Inquirer, Nantucket, Massachusetts, December 26, 1838, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
398 Albert H. Heusser, The History of The Silk Dyeing Industry in the United States (Patterson, NJ: Silk Dyer’s Association of America, 1927), 114-132.
188 appendix on silk dyeing, largely based on French and German sources.399 According to
Heusser, “silk raising became almost a universal fad, particularly around Philadelphia and New England,” but the diversion of capital into growing mulberry trees nearly caused the collapse of the U.S. silk manufacturing industry.400 Peaking around 1829, the fad ended in the mid-1840s. The program to scale the production of silk failed due to several factors, including high labor costs and insufficient skill in reeling the silk.401 The Barretts may have been enthusiastic supporters. Haverhill Gazette’s editor reported that a representative of the Old Malden Dye House had brought him “a pair of silk hose, the material of which was wrought by cocoons by Mrs. Cleveland of Topsfield, & the knitting performed by a lady in her 72nd year. The fabric is indeed beautiful and furnishes a commendable example of native industry.”402
Skills and Workers’ Struggle for Independence
In 1850, Malden had 3520 inhabitants, plus an additional 1260 in Melrose, which had been part of Malden in 1840. Population had nearly doubled in the ten years after
1840—aided by the railroad, natural growth, and Irish immigration. For the 35 residents of Malden listed as dyers in the 1850 census, though, only two were born outside the
United States (Ireland), another indication that the firm did not employ immigrant labor to any considerable extent.
399 Heusser, History of Silk Dyeing, 121.
400 Heusser, History of Silk Dyeing, 128.
401 Heusser, History of Silk Dyeing, 132.
402 “Splendid Hose,” Haverhill Gazette, Haverhill, Massachusetts, June 19, 1841, 3, Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
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I have been unable to identify any organized labor actions by dyers during this period, but to understand the labor story told by the Barrett dye house, one must look beyond the traditional forms of organized action. Skilled workers had their own ways of seeking better positions. With the small amount of information available, we know that some workers entered the firm, left to pursue other interests or businesses on their own, and returned later. The young clerk Jacob Richardson himself left to seek independence by running a dry goods business with a partner. The business failed, and William Barrett asked Richardson to return. His brother Albert worked at the dye house in his youth, had a long career as a civil engineer, and then returned to take over the accounting when
Jacob was killed by a horse cart in front of the firm’s Boston office in 1864.403 Albert was said to be employed at a “liberal salary.”
The Barrett business exposes the tension between wage labor as training—a temporary state that enabled a young person to save money and acquire assets—a dowry, a competence, or advanced skills—and wage labor as a permanent situation for the head of a household. Several of Barretts’ employees who gained substantial experience and skill in the dyeing itself, and were able to put some capital together, eventually sought to set up similar businesses for themselves. Some clearly identified as “Malden dyers” but not necessarily as “Barrett dyers.” By the late 1830s, the costs of setting up a dye house had declined significantly as building costs and transportation costs declined. The dyers who started their own firms were resisting permanent subordination to a business owner and seeking a greater share of the profits for themselves. From their perspective,
403 John Adams Vinton, The Richardson Memorial, Comprising a Full History and Genealogy of the Posterity of the Three Brothers, Ezekiel, Samuel, and Thomas Richardson, who Came from England, and United with Others in the Foundation of Woburn, Massachusetts, in the Year 1641, of John Richardson, of Medfield, 1679, of Amos Richardson, of Boston, 1640, of Edward and William Richardson, of Newbury, 1643, with Notices of Richardsons in England and Elsewhere…. (Portland, ME: Subscribers, 1876), 660-663.
190 becoming their own masters with their own dye houses must have seemed like a logical progression based on their maturing skill and business knowledge, just as in earlier generations an apprentice might take over from a master or a farmer’s sons or hired hands might eventually be able to work their own land. They were “Malden dyers” and Malden dyeing, to them, was an ecosystem in which there was room for more people to obtain more of the profits. In a sense, they were seeking a flatter organization structure and a fairer division of the profits. Their ability to use their skills as their own masters meant more to them than the boundary of the firm.
To begin with, the most dramatic example was William Barrett himself, who felt he had learned enough from Hugh Thompson to jettison the more skilled dyer and set up shop for himself. But to do this in 1804 he had needed significant capital—and he had probably needed to take some trained workers with him. Another dramatic example was
William’s brother-in-law John Hall, who had learned a great deal from William Barrett’s business before setting up his own “opposition” Lynn Dye House in 1816. A third example was Benjamin Dodge, who in 1835 contrived to confuse the market with his
Malden Dye House next door to the original.
Yet another example was George Barrett, who superintended the Malden works after the departure of John Hall, trained his nephew Nathan Barrett, and had an opportunity to grow his profits—as long as he was willing to move to Staten Island. His situation represents an interesting transition—as a partner in the firm, he shared ownership with others, but was largely his own master. As the firm became a corporation, he was still a substantial stockholder, but authority was more diluted. Even so, George had substantial autonomy.
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Later, Nathan Barrett on Staten Island lost a struggle for control but triumphed in the end. Superintendent of the dyeing operations by 1850, he saw an opportunity for the firm to make a good investment, and purchased some Staten Island land for $10,000. His fellow board members were horrified at this risky move, and Barrett was forced to leave the company. He promptly started a successful rival firm, his nephews taking it over after his death. Later they purchased the struggling original business, merged the two, and moved headquarters back to the old factory. Some years later, that firm took over the
Barretts’ business in Boston, which had since left Malden and moved its operations to
Charlestown. This surviving business was finally wiped out by the Great Depression of the early 1930s. Looking at the boundaries of a single firm, it would be hard to see the big picture, but Nathan Barrett was another dramatic example of a skilled mechanic with money who had choices, exercised them, and commanded the loyalty of the people who worked for him.
When William Barrett died in 1834, he certainly left a group of highly skilled and experienced dyers in his business. They might have felt real loyalty to a man who had given them opportunity and, by all accounts, had an energetic and inspiring personality.
Their association with him had its own social value. But when the business passed to
Barrett’s sons, some of these skilled dyers were ready to make a move. Their loyalty did not necessarily extend to the next generation, whether because they had nothing to learn from the sons or because they simply no longer felt obligated. Whether their money came from family or saved wages, they could invest in setting up their own firm, perhaps joining with a partner. Haven, a clerk, and Simonds, a dyer, for example, combined business and technical ability. As Jacob Richardson had pointed out to Henry Barrett in
1842, creating a new dye house was not so costly as it once had been—and the Malden
192 land, buildings, and equipment not so valuable that they could not be replicated easily.
Work practices had also shifted over time. As Jacob Richardson looked back in 1856, he took credit for reforms that resulted in greater attention to how employees spent their time and the creation of more efficient business processes in office and dye house. For workers, this probably meant less autonomy in their day-to-day work.404
The result of more dyers entering the market was too much capacity competing for a finite amount of work. Decline in prices was hard for dyers but good news for customers; dyeing became accessible to a larger number of middling households. Beyond the problem of supply and demand, though, dyers needed a reserve of capital and credit to weather the economic fluctuations of the 1830s and ‘40s. Because the Barrett firm was able to withstand a few bad years, it ultimately survived, took over struggling rivals, reaped the returns on investments made by others such as Benjamin Dodge.
Ultimately the labor story told by the Barrett firm illuminates what may have been a common scenario in this period, not only among dyers but also in other industries, when experienced employees developed a high level of specialized skill and were well compensated for their work. But running a business, while it had rewards, also had its risks and headaches. Some dyers, like the Simonds brothers, returned to a more certain future. Knowing good people could be lost at any time, the Barretts used employment contracts to limit their risk. When Franklin Simonds and his brother came to work for the
Barretts in 1842, for example, they were asked to sign a contract for the term of one year in exchange for a guaranteed income.
A payroll for the Malden business in the month of August 1854 provides a snapshot of the workforce at that time. Aside from the partners, 42 individuals worked for
404 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
193 the company—16 women and 26 men.405 Several surnames repeated, indicating that family members often worked together.406 Skill levels and wages varied. The highest paid men, George W. Simonds, James George, and Thomas Sargent, received $50 each— presumably based on an annual salary contract. These may have been the firm’s supervisors. The other two Simonds brothers received almost as much through hourly wages of 20 cents, with a typical full-time work month being 244 hours (nearly 60 hours per week). Some, including some of the women, worked more hours and one man was paid for 305 hours that month! Men’s wages averaged from 10 cents to 15 cents per hour, with some very skilled men earning 20 cents, while the women’s ranged from 4 cents to 8 cents per hour, with most around 6 cents. Assuming a ten-hour day, these wages were quite similar to those of 1832.
In Staten Island, too, dyeing ran in families. A 1929 article, looking back on the
Barrett, Nephews & Co. business, and admittedly somewhat romantic in its outlook, stated that:
In earlier days entire families were employed in the old establishment. Natives pointed with pride to the “Company” and to have employment with Barrett, Nephews was considered a definite distinction. There was pride of workmanship, friendly rivalry between groups and the art of dyeing and cleaning became cause for family boast. Skill and technique were passed from one generation to another. The present head dyer at the plant learned most of his craftsmanship from his father, head dyer before him. Many others were similarly inducted into the intricacies of the profession.407
405 “Payroll August 1854,” Box 111, Folder 38, PPHFP.
406 This is consistent with the 1850 census, which recorded 34 dyers in Malden encompassing only 17 surnames.
407 “Barrett-Nephews Is One of Island’s Oldest Industries: Company’s Romantic History Dates Back More than 100 Years,” Staten Island Advance, June 26, 1929, Collection: William T.
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At the time this article was written, the firm had 250 employees, six of whom had been employed there for 50 years or more. The fact that dyers were able to teach their family members suggests some autonomy in the workplace, though little information remains about how work was actually organized.
Malden’s Dyers: “Among the Good Livers of Our People”
In 1849, Malden celebrated the bicentennial of its founding as a town. When
William H. Richardson, a vice president of the Bicentennial Committee, spoke in praise of the young men of Malden, he concluded with a toast to the “Mechanics of Malden” that emphasized their virtue and prosperity. Employing humorous trade-related puns, he recognized a number of different occupations, giving pride of last place to “the dyers, second to none among the good livers of our people.”408
Richardson was acknowledging the prosperity and accomplishment of a group of people who had been important to the city—not only the leaders of the dye houses, but also the individuals who were employed day-in and day-out to clean, bleach, dye, and finish cloth. The town’s mechanics also included carpenters, masons, painters, cabinet- makers, blacksmiths, tin platers, pewterers, silversmiths, last makers, carriage makers, and, of course, shoemakers.
Conspicuous by their absence, though, were spinners and weavers in this town less than 20 miles from Lowell. While some short-lived attempts at cloth production had occurred in Malden, it never really caught on during the first half of the nineteenth
Davis Papers, Folder 58, Staten Island Museum History Archives and Library, Staten Island, New York.
408 Bicentennial Book of Malden, 101. William H. Richardson was not a dyer, but had married one of the Barrett daughters.
195 century.409 During the 1830s and 1840s, of course, cloth manufacturing was growing by leaps and bounds in the United States. In 1840, Lowell had become the second largest city in Massachusetts, with nine textile factories producing nearly a million yards of cloth per week. The town had included only a dozen houses in 1821.410 In addition, the production of ready-made clothing, which had its start after the war of 1812, had grown to a $48 million business by 1850.411 These dramatic shifts, resulting in reduced costs for cloth and clothing, contributed to a much-changed market for dyeing services.
Maldonians were certainly mindful of their prosperous manufacturing neighbors to the north, and some, at least, felt kinship with the mechanics there. When William
Barrett, Jr. died in 1838, he left his technical journals to Dr. John Orne Green, a family friend from Malden who had become a prominent medical doctor in Lowell, working closely with the cloth factories. The young William Barrett asked Dr. Green to give the books to one of Lowell’s “mechanic societies.”412
Merchants continued to bring their goods to the Barretts, but wholesale business was, by its nature, inconsistent. Profits were driven instead by the increasing numbers of individuals who brought their cloth, garments, and home furnishings to be refurbished.
409 In the early twentieth century, Malden was to have a thriving cloth manufacturing industry, headed by Malden Mills, the company that eventually moved to Lawrence. That firm was famous for inventing Polartec fabric and for the generosity of its owner Aaron Feuerstein toward employees after a fire destroyed its buildings in 1995.
410 Dalzell, Enterprising Elite, 47.
411 Michael Zakim, Ready-Made Democracy: A History of Men’s Dress in the American Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 42.
412 William Barrett, Jr. Recorded Will, 1839, Probate Records, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Record Books, Volume 181, pages 95-98, 123 (On Microfilm at Massachusetts State Archives).
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But though the market was larger, it was split among many dyers, and they struggled for a higher volume of business to make up for reduced profits.
For Barrett family members, changes in the 1830s and 1840s reduced the value of the business assets overall, and made their incomes hard to predict. The Barretts inherited a solidly advantageous social position in Malden. The daughters married successful men who were not dyers—a minister and a dentist among them. Each had a 1/8 share of the annual rent, which fluctuated between $1,000 and $3,000 per year. Henry and Aaron
Barrett remained active in the business, while Simon Hall Barrett and Augustus Barrett sold their interests. But, however changed in market dynamics or internal operation, the business continued in Malden, and continued paying its workers, thanks to the difficult choice made by William Barrett, the commitment of his sons, and the help of its careful financial manager. Jacob Richardson, consummate loyal employee, financial manager, and master of detail, noted the fact with pride in 1856. “My anxieties and sympathies were as much enlisted in the cause as if it had been my own,” he told Henry and Aaron.
“And I take a proud satisfaction in being able to say, Barrett’s dye house never failed.”
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Chapter VI
Conclusion: Adding Color and Weight to an Invisible Industry
On April 3, 1939, readers of the Staten Island Advance learned of the collapse of a 122-year-old building, the gatehouse of the abandoned Barrett, Nephews, & Company plant.413 It was the end of an era. The article explained that “the walls were three bricks thick and mortared with lime and sand—a mortar that hasn’t been used since the introduction of cement more than 50 years ago.” The plant’s oldest building, built in
1817, had been empty since the firm had gone into receivership in 1932. In that year, the paper had described the size of orders the business had once handled, reporting that
“employees recalled seeing 5,000 blankets come from the Leviathan (a steamship) at one time. They also recalled seeing four five-ton trucks loaded with carpets from the
Leviathan enter the cleaning and dyeing works. One of the Oriental rugs from the
Leviathan, they said, required eight men to handle.” 414 A few years earlier, another article had profiled the firm’s “romantic history,” noting that “the words ‘Staten Island’ when used in connection with dry cleaning and dyeing have a special significance and imply perfected processes, exceptional workmanship, and reliability.”415 The article went on to profile the firm’s loyal employees and retail customers:
413 “Barrett Nephews Gatehouse, Long a Landmark, Collapses,” Staten Island Advance, Staten Island, New York, April 3, 1939, Collection: Business and Industry, Box 1, Folder 6. Staten Island Museum History Archives and Library, Staten Island, New York.
414 “Barrett Nephews Plant May Be Dismantled,” Staten Island Advance, March 17, 1932, Collection: William T. Davis Papers, Folder 58, Staten Island Museum History Archives and Library, Staten Island, New York.
415 “Barrett-Nephews Is One of Island’s Oldest Industries: Company’s Romantic History Dates Back More Than 100 Years,” Staten Island Advance, June 26, 1929, Collection: William T.
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Men and women well past their teens bring their patronage “because my grandmother told me about it.” Numerous families have been on the books as customers since the first orders for dyeing were taken, and the present list of clients reads in parts like a page from the social register, containing, as it does, the names of most of the old- established and prominent families.
The firm was, of course, a very different company than it had been in 1820, but there were surprising continuities. New York’s elite families still dyed on Staten Island, and the company’s ability to handle spectacularly large orders and objects remained important.
In Massachusetts, the Barrett firm moved out of Malden in the early 1880s as the town became a city. Among other challenges, the Barretts had been forced to contend with constant threats that the water rights they depended on would be taken for the region’s supply of drinking water. Spot Pond today is an important local reservoir, but how that came to be is a story for another time. The old dye house buildings were torn down in the 1920s. Aside from an old foundation in the Virginia Wood area of the
Middlesex Fells Reservation, no structures related to the Barrett businesses remain today—in Malden or on Staten Island.416
In 2011, though, a historical survey noted the importance of the Barretts, Palmer, and Heal Dyeing and Cleaning Establishment factory in Englewood, New Jersey.417
Established in 1876, this company had been run by relations of Nathan Barrett and his
Davis Papers, Folder 58, Staten Island Museum History Archives and Library, Staten Island, New York.
416 Architectural historian Ryan Hayward (no relation to Haywarville) is currently studying the site, which he has labeled “Industrial Eden.” Personal conversations and public tour, Ryan Hayward, 2014.
417 United States Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration and NJ Transit, Northern Branch Corridor Draft Environmental Impact Statement (December, 2011), 23- 19. Web. www.northernbranchcorridor.com.
199 nephews. Part of the extended family of Barrett companies, it may have been the last of its kind. The surveyors noted that “the factory is significant for its associations with the fabric dyeing, cleansing, and finishing industry, and as an example of an early industrial site; and as one of the only sites in Englewood where industry continued at what was formerly a water-powered mill site.” What made this building worthy of historical protection was the fact that it dated to 1876 and was an excellent example of a late nineteenth-century factory—but of course the story went back much farther.
The goal of this project has been to add to our understanding of economic and social life of the early United States by examining a little-known industry in its historical context. A careful study of the Barrett businesses in Malden, Massachusetts and Staten
Island, New York has illuminated the emergence and operation of the independent dyeing service industry. Tracing changes in the business and its environment over time—and identifying some interesting inflection points—this work has demonstrated the deep connections between American dyers and the merchants who imported cloth into the
United States in the early nineteenth century.
As we have seen, a regular service for dyeing, and cleaning yarn, cloth, garments, and home furnishings did indeed emerge and thrive, had its golden age of profitability in the period between 1800 and 1820, and was largely independent of cloth manufacturing.
These businesses were in the vanguard of dyeing and printing practice in the early United
States. While the Barrett business in Malden was not gargantuan in scale, neither was it only a small local workshop. Rather, it represented an entrepreneurial effort to grow a modest-size craft operation into a large-scale business that served customers over a broad geographical area through a network of agents.
200
Independent dyers served two equally important customer segments: merchants and households. This study has shown that for the Barretts, at least, merchants had an important role in facilitating business expansion while household custom contributed a greater share of the profits.
It is probably not possible to identify an exact beginning for dyeing services in the
American colonies. English and European immigrants offered dyeing and printing services to households and merchants in Philadelphia as early as the 1740s—and the practice could have begun much earlier. A growing number of immigrant dyers came to
American cities in the second half of the eighteenth century. They brought more than their individual skill or the ability to foster that skill in others; they also brought the knowledge needed to organize shops and labor to execute business on a larger scale. So it was most likely these immigrant dyers who first contemplated creating something bigger than a local workshop. To do that, though, they needed capital and more hands, which could be achieved only by training others in the mysteries of grand teint.
William Barrett’s experience demonstrates that, given the opportunity for such a transfer of knowledge, Americans could quickly build dyeing businesses of their own.
For this to happen, though, some Americans had to want a mechanic’s life. As William
Barrett’s business became established, he could have purchased land and moved his family to the frontier—in Maine or to the West—had he yearned for that kind of life. But
William Barrett identified as a mechanic and always styled himself a “silk dyer”— practitioner of the most exacting of the dyeing trades. He was embedded in an extraordinarily vibrant community of the region’s mechanics that seemed to promise unlimited possibilities. It included Jesse Reed, Abner Stearns, Thomas Odiorne and his brothers, the Whittemores, and more. Enterprising mechanics like these, working in the
201 early nineteenth century, thought big—operating businesses in multiple states. Some took full advantage of U.S. protections for intellectual property; they regarded government- issued patents as valuable long-term assets, as sources of competitive advantage, and as potential future revenue, and vigorously defended their rights. In this realm and in his pursuit of free roads and bridges, William Barrett sought the support of the state to foster business success.
While initial business expansion was facilitated by Boston merchants and the
Malden business had reached as far as New York for custom, opening a second business on Staten Island brought the service closer to New York’s merchant and financial elites— and briefly onto a national stage. Making a splash, though, did not necessarily translate into revenue. The 1820s were volatile economic times for both the Malden and Staten
Island firms. The recession that began in 1829 was probably the last straw for William
Barrett, who decided it was time to focus on the teetering Malden firm and liquidate his interest in the Staten Island business now operated by his brother and nephew. But in spite of these challenges, William Barrett’s ambition and financial success were remarkable to those around him, raising the concerns of at least one minister, a family friend who, in his 1826 funeral sermon for William Barrett’s father-in-law, Moses Hall, gently admonished his audience not to “lay up treasure” and urged them rather to “Look, then, with confidence, to him, who clothes the grass and the lily in more gorgeous dyes than are worn by princes….”418 The point would not have been lost on the several dyers in the room.
418 Hosea Ballou, Speech of the Dead. Sermon, Occasioned by the Death of Deacon Moses Hall, Delivered in the Universalist Meeting House in Charlestown, on the Morning of the First Sabbath in August, 1826 (Boston: Bowen & Cushing, Printers, 1826), 8.
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In Malden, William Barrett was his own master and one of the first citizens of the town, where his business represented his family’s future, social position, and source of civic pride. The Barretts were active—and activist—in Malden’s First Parish, helping in
1828 to instigate the political victory of the liberal-leaning (Universalist) segment of the parish over its more orthodox members, who, thwarted in the choice of a minister, left to found the First Congregational Church. Like others in his time, including the much wealthier Boston Associates, William Barrett hoped to provide his children with financial security. Losing his own father at a young age and having little to fall back on, he and his wife worked hard to provide advantages to their sons and daughters. Like Robert
Dalzell’s Boston Associates, the Barretts tried hard to provide economic security for their children.419 Of their daughter Mary, her husband, Universalist minister John Greenleaf
Adams later wrote, “Her father was wealthy and her companions were of the first class of society socially.”420 She had effectively pursued a religious vocation, marrying a minister and writing for religious publications. At least two Barrett grandchildren attended Philips
Exeter Academy; one graduated from Harvard Law School and became a prominent
Boston attorney.
Even before the importation disruptions that started in 1806, Barrett had appealed in his ads to the “friends of economy and manufactures,” encouraging them to view his services as a means of economizing and supporting domestic production. In other early ads, he appealed to the “fanciful and gay.” Whether you preferred colorful luxury or careful economy, then, dyeing was for you! Barrett was able to walk another line as well, aligning with merchant customers but also identifying as a domestic manufacturer to be
419 Dalzell, Enterprising Elite, 121.
420 Adams, Memoir of Mrs. Mary H. Adams, 108.
203 encouraged. We have seen that like other manufacturers, he was passionate about internal improvements that would aid his business and increase the value of his assets.
Was an independent dyeing service indeed a “manufacturing” business? It depends on your perspective. In one view, the service could be an optional stage in a contingent, reconfigurable manufacturing process that involved opportunistically re- manufacturing the color and finish of previously market-ready piece goods. Or it could be a step in the production chain, dyeing and printing “gray goods” such as long pieces of handkerchief cloth that required further processing—cutting and hemming, for example—before being sold to end users.
In terms of the national debate and shifting political economy, the firm could be
“manufacturing” if and when it chose to be. It was indeed “the merchants’ manufacturer”—enabling a group of prominent merchants to present themselves as fostering domestic manufactures when they were actually more concerned with selling goods elsewhere. Dyeing and printing services provided one small means by which northern merchants and manufacturers found compromise on the tariff in 1824. Barrett seemingly made money from the Staten Island venture, but in 1830 his pockets were not quite deep enough to weather the economic storms and maintain control over both his
“home” business and the Staten Island firm. Merchant capital had helped make the Staten
Island business possible—and could now sustain it without William Barrett.
William Barrett, silk dyer and dyeing industrialist, worked hard by all accounts; though his role was different from those of other employees, he was not a “non-laboring capitalist,” but neither was he an ordinary mechanic. After building the business, though, he wanted income to continue to flow to non-laboring members of his family. That shift is perhaps more interesting than it at first appears to be—different only in degree from
204 the actions of the Boston Associates, and representing a thought-provoking aspect of the social transformation from household-as-economic-unit to an economy based on individual wage labor and business firms.
As historian Naomi Lamoreaux has pointed out, the partnership form of organization allowed parties to pool their labor and resources without one becoming subordinate to the other.421 William Barrett made extensive use of partnerships to extend his reach. In the early days of Barrett & Shattuck, one partner could supervise the dye house while another managed the Boston office.
Beyond the partners, who were the dyers? Most probably came to work for
William Barrett without advanced dyeing skills. Some might have worked alongside
Barrett and Hugh Thompson in Charlestown or in other small dyeing workshops. But others might have been like William—apprentice or journeymen clothiers or leather dressers with rudimentary skills in wool dyeing, or just energetic young people eager to learn a well-paying trade.
With the increasingly high-tech and rapidly changing nature of cloth manufacturing in England and Europe, American high-end dyers needed continually to acquire modern machinery and keep skills up to date. By doing so—and by advertising heavily and expanding the firm’s geographic reach—Barrett was probably able to drive some smaller-scale dyers out of the business and effect some disintermediation, attracting custom that had once gone to clothiers like his Billerica master. Answers to remaining
421 Naomi R. Lamoreaux, “The Partnership Form of Organization: Its Popularity in Early- Nineteenth-Century Boston,” in Entrepreneurs in the Boston Business Community, 1700-1850, edited by Conrad Edick Wright and Katheryn P. Viens (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1997), 293.
205 questions about the changing structure of dyeing can probably be found by investigating transformation in the work of clothiers between 1790 and 1850.
For the most part, the Malden firm employed men and women who had been born in the United States, and the Staten Island firm’s first employees came from the Malden business. In contrast, printing skills were imported. When the Staten Island firm needed to establish its dominant market position by scaling its printing operation rapidly, it hired skilled printers from England and Ireland starting in the mid-1820s.
The Barrett firm in Boston, at least, employed both women and men from the beginning, with women paid substantially less than men in accordance with the custom of the time. Women worked in the office, and later in the dye house, marking the goods, taking them apart if needed, and organizing them for processing. They may also have been dyers. Richardson tells us that the women worked in the Boston office early on.
When the industry’s structure was relatively new, the presence of women in the office would have reassured both female and male customers that they and their belongings would be well treated.
While clothiers had been generalists with small workshops, needing to perform a broad range of tasks, including shearing, scouring, dyeing, and finishing, the expanded professional dyeing services required a somewhat finer division of labor as the business grew. The work involved dyeing, finishing, cleaning, bleaching, office clerical work, customer service, financing, marking the goods for processing, packaging them for return to their owners, transporting goods to and from the dye house, rasping and pulverizing dye stuffs, maintaining machinery, and managing workers’ housing. Even so, the various elements of the business were fairly transparent to anyone directly involved. Available evidence suggests that he nature of the work made it highly resistant to deskilling.
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Though wage labor became the norm, dyeing remained in many ways a craft. Skilled workers brought family members into the business to learn, and skills were passed within families as valuable assets that promised a handsome wage and a solid position.
To scale a dyeing service business, owners needed to train subordinates and keep them working within the firm. This study has shown that the problem of retaining skilled employees existed from the start and did not go away. Some mature, highly skilled workers, having obtained all the training they needed, wanted more than an hourly wage.
Enterprising dyers who had inherited or saved enough money could go out on their own, as John Hall, who had been William Barrett’s superintendent, demonstrated in 1816.
We have seen that dyeing services gradually transformed between 1815 and 1840 from a highly profitable luxury to a low-margin commodity service. According to Jacob
Richardson, the cost of dyeing a silk dress declined from $9 or $10 to $1, in part due to dresses having less yardage, as in the early days customers were charged by the “number of pieces and flounces.422 For restless employees, starting a dye house became much easier as costs declined in the 1830s and 1840s—and some of the Barrett employees, now working for William’s sons, set out on their own. We can perhaps interpret the various workers’ comings and goings as elaborate negotiations over pay or working conditions.
With profits squeezed, skilled dyers may have realized that the partners, and especially the members of the family who were not active in the business, were reaping more rewards from the firm’s work than its employees were. Dynamics must have been similar in other businesses where skills were well compensated but profits declining.
We could, of course, ask more questions about the Barretts, their workers, and their dyeing businesses. Did the Barretts seek or obtain government contracts in the early
422 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
207 years—a strategy that occupied substantial attention from fellow industrialist Paul
Revere?423 Given the seasonal nature of the work, how did the business handle periods of lighter demand? Did dyers simply work fewer hours, or leave for a time, working on farms or making shoes? Or was the cost of labor fixed? How was work actually organized within the dye house and how did employees’ work lives change?
Perhaps the story of the Barrett business simply provides another example of a thriving industry in the early nineteenth century—one that has been virtually absent from the historical literature. The Barretts and their fellow dyers of Malden can now take their place beside other Boston-area mechanics and mechanic-entrepreneurs studied by historians, such as Lisa Lubow’s carpenters, Gary Kornblith’s piano-makers, the various
Lynn shoemakers, and the entrepreneurial Paul Revere and family of Robert Martello’s
Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn.
While the dramatic nature of the second industrial revolution in the late nineteenth century has tended to obscure changes that took place earlier, the dyers have given us one last lesson to remember—that the first part of the century was no less dynamic for the people who experienced its economic and social upheavals. For Jacob Richardson, looking back in 1856, major transformations in his industry and in American business more generally had occurred in the decades since 1820:
The business of the concern was larger at that time, but attended with more expense than now, but the prices more than offset the expense. Large profits were realized in them [sic] days, and the open hand and liberal outlays of Mr. Barrett kept them moving. His was an expanded mind, he looked upon things in the mass. Little did he know from careful estimate what the result would be at the end of the year, although in the grand whole his calculations rank amongst the highest order, the detail he knew nothing
423 Martello, Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn, 187.
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about. And his genius was calculated for those days. Now it is different. No man can expect success in the present order of things without the most careful scrutiny into all parts of his business….424
424 Jacob Richardson, “Some Recollections,” 1856.
209
Bibliography
Abbreviations
PPHFP Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers Amherst College Archives, Amherst, Massachusetts.
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