THE HYGRADE LAMP COMPANY—Of the many industries which go to make up the present business supremacy of Salem, Massachusetts, one of the most rapidly growing concerns Is the Hygrade Lamp Company, manufacturers of incandescent lamps. The personnel of this company comprises a group of men who have built out of nothing the progressive industry which has become a significant factor in the prosperity of this city: Mr. E. J. Poor, president and sales manager; Mr. F. A. Poor, treasurer and general manager; Mr. W. E. Poor, assistant general manager, and Mr. J. H. Poor, director.
The beginnings of this industry were of the smallest and most unpromising. The capital amounted to three thousand five hundred dollars, obtained from the sale of a hay and grain business which Mr. Frank A. Poor had conducted for a few years theretofore, on the corner of Front and Central streets, in Salem. This money he invested, in 1901, in the original project, in Middleton, Massachusetts, under the name of the Merritt Manufacturing Company, with Matthew Merritt as one of the owners of the company. The business of this company was the refilling or renewing of carbon incandescent electric lamps, and the processes used had been originated and developed by Mr. Merritt, the pioneer of this idea in Essex county. With the existing facilities the work handled amounted to only about five hundred lamps a day, and those of inferior quality. At this point most men would have dropped the idea, counting himself fortunate to have lost no more. Not so the man who has since vindicated his faith in himself and in the future. Mr. Poor bought Mr. Merritt's interests, removed the plant to Danvers, in this county, and changed the name to the Bay State Lamp Company. The location he secured was an old shoe factory on Hobart street.
Alone now, as head of the enterprise, with a working force of about fifteen individuals, Frank A. Poor carried along all the duties which now require twenty officers and department heads—from president to shipper. Struggling for footing in an indifferent market, with inferior equipment and inefficient processes, the young man, who had only recently reached majority, hung on. After months he ventured to allow himself a salary of ten dollars per week.
The gains were desperately slow. By 1904 the output had grown to about a thousand lamps a day, and the force had increased to twenty people, the financial limitations of the concern enforcing an annual shut-down of some months during the dull season. At this point Edward J. Poor, Mr. Poor's brother, who had just been graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came in to help out. He relieved Mr. Poor of the rougher work, such as unpacking and sorting burned-out lamps, and packing the finished product, then as winter came on, acting as fireman, and starting the old, erratic gasoline engine which furnished the power, when it could be persuaded to perform this function.
The years of struggle, which hold a certain grim humor in retrospect, eventually carried the gallant little enterprise to a secure foundation. Mr. Poor's efforts improved the product, and expansion became feasible, although a severe illness had kept his brother out of active participation in the business for a long time. Up to1909 the business had been along repair or renewing lines exclusively, and Mr. Poor felt that the orignial production was a field which would give greater returns for effort, and in many ways be far better worth while.
Accordingly, in 1909, Mr. Poor began the manufacture of new carbon lamps. To avoid the possibility of mistaken inferences on the part of the public, a new name was chosen for the new venture, and the Hygrade Incandescent Lamp Company was formed, with its trademark duly protected. Expert help was added to the working force, and the factory enlarged, the floor space being nearly doubled. Mr. E. J. Poor's health, meanwhile, had permitted his return, and prosperity became an assured fact, even though still in a modest degree. Then Mr. Joseph H. Poor, who had retired, after thirty years in the leather business, dropped in upon his sons occasionally, finally joining them. Soon after, Mr. Walter E. Poor, another brother, having completed a course in Electrical Engineering, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came into the company.
This, in a way, marked an era in the progress of the company. Walter E. Poor too charge of the manufacture of the tungsten lamps, which were now becoming a revolutionary factor in the electric lighting world. His advocacy of limited production and superior quality was adopted as a permanent and inviolable policy, and the refilling of old lamps was discontinued. Walter E. Poor's activities along the line of development of the tungsten lamp placed the Hygrade name in its rightful place on the market. From one point in New York City, on Times Square, nearly thirty thousand Hygrade lamps were visible, in 1912, in electric signs. A little later the manufacture of carbon lamps was discontinued. The production had now reached 7,500 amps per day, all tungsten, vacuum and gas-filled types. With the unsettled conditions In Europe and the impossibility of obtaining the tungsten filament wire, experts were added to the force, and this wire became a part of the regular product of the plant, and proved to be of a quality superior to any foreign make.
All these steps spelled progress. The sales force had become an organization in itself, and one composed of the best men in that line of endeavor. The constantly increasing demand for the Hygrade product necessitated more commodious and modern quarters. In 1915 a site was chosen in Salem, and a factory built to plans especially adopted to the requirements of this concern, and on Friday night, of the 19th of February, 1916, the work of transfer was begun. This date was utilized on account of the holiday on the following Monday. On Tuesday morning, at the usual starting hour, the Mount Department, the first moved, was in full operation, and its production for the day was the largest then on record. Another department was in full operation at noon, and thereafter, each day during that week a department was moved, in most cases the operators leaving their machines at night in Danvers, and finding them ready for operation in Salem the next morning. The actual production loss for the month of February in that year, was not more than one day's work.
In 1916 the Hygrade lamps were tendered a most flattering endorsement in being chosen for the entire lighting equipment of the new six million dollar buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston. In 1917 it became necessary to secure more space, and a two-story brick storehouse was erected on land adjoining the plant. With even this addition the plant is rapidly becoming unequal to the demands of production, and more land has been purchased for future expansion.
During the War the Hygrade people gave their quota in men and money, to the great Cause of Humanity. Although the exigencies of the time caused more or less occasion for readjustment, every emergency has been met, and the production has not suffered materially in volume, nor has it suffered one whit in quality.
The company has grown to the production of twenty-five thousand lamps a day, with an ultimate capacity of about thirty-two thousand, and these number two hundred and fifty-two types. The process of manufacture is an interesting story in itself, which must, however, so far as this review is concerned, be relegated to the realm of the technical, for it is of men and their achievements, that the biographer makes record.
And the personal side of this story is its most interesting and significant side. Between the management and their force of nearly four hundred employees, the most cordial relations exist. Every advantage which modern science has devised, is given to the employees. Their health, safety, comfort and happiness are the constant care of the management. The buildings are constructed with the most modern system of ventilation and every possible provision for the comfort and safety of the workers. There is an Employees' Association having a membership of 94.4% of the employees, which pays a death benefit of $500.00, and a sick benefit of ten dollars weekly. This organization also provides many social and other diversions. A restaurant is maintained, which is patronized by fully eighty per cent, of the employees, there is a commodious hospital and rest room, in charge of a competent nurse, and the employees are encouraged to bring even the slightest injury or accident to the hospital for treatment.
Perhaps the greatest factor in cementing relations between the workers and the employers is the handsome little magazine, called the "Hygrade Triangle," which is published once each month, for distribution among the employees and a few interested friends. The employees themselves constitute the editorial and reportorial force, and are contributors, and through this organ the management keep in touch with the live issues of the day in the production departments. Through it also the management solicits suggestions which will in any way advance the efficiency of the force, or add to their comfort.
In short, while the Hygrade Incandescent Lamp Company is one of the younger of the more important industries of Salem, it is exemplifying, in its daily progress, all those principles of organized effort and industrial progress which count so far toward civic betterment, the safeguarding of the Commonwealth, and enduring National security.
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