¹ Lowell, Mass., formed the oustanding example of the Waltham system and has been the center of scholarly attention. See Josephson, Hannah, The Golden Threads (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1949)Google Scholar; Ware, Norman, The Industrial Worker (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924)Google Scholar; and Robinson, Harriet, Loom and Spindle (New York: Crowell, 1898)Google Scholar.

² Taylor, George R., The Transportation Revolution (New York: Rinehart, 1958), pp. 274–77Google Scholar; Lebergott, Stanley, Manpower in Economic Growth (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), pp. 127–30Google Scholar; and Ware, ch. vii. See also: Massachusetts House Document, Numbers 50 (1845) and 153 (1850), reproduced in Commons, John R., et al. , A Documentary History of American Industrial Society (New York: Russell and Russell, 1958), Vol. VIIIGoogle Scholar.

³ The task is considerable because it involves adding together a representative sample of case studies on labor policies and conditions in individual firms. True representation may be impossible to the extent that the available files of company records tend to be those of large, long-lasting firms. A good starting point for such case studies—and the one employed herein—is provided by published company histories. Such histories considerably ease the burden of research by permitting full concentration on labor problems. It is impossible merely to add up the information on labor provided in company histories and thus to escape the task of making case studies, because questions of labor policy and conditions tend to have received relatively little attention in such histories.

⁴ Robert G. Layer, “Data Sheets on Select New England Textile Firms,” on file at Baker Library, Harvard Business School. Although the Waltham Watch Company operated under a variety of names through its history, its most popular name will be used throughout.

⁵ Moore, Charles, Timing A Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1945), p. 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of industrial location, see Clark, Victor S., History of Manufactures in the United States, 1607–1860 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1916)Google Scholar, chs. xviii and xix.

⁶ Most company records are held at Baker Library, Harvard Business School. Some are held by the Newall Company (successor to Waltham Watch) and some are in the private possession of Mr. Dudley Dumaine of Weston, Mass. The author also conducted interviews with a number of the oldest surviving employees of the company.

⁷ Payroll checked against Vital Records of Waltham, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (Boston: New England Historic Geneological Society, 1904)Google Scholar.

⁸ See below. Until the 1880's all company land sales contained restrictive covenants to the effect that land could not be resold to foreign-born persons.

⁹ Biographical sketches appear in Abbot, Henry G., History of the American Waltham Watch Company (Chicago: American Jeweler Print, 1905)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Hohman, Elmo P., The American Whaleman (London: Longmans, Green, 1928)Google Scholar, ch. xiv, indicates that by 1860 resources were moving away from the whaling industry.

¹¹ Josephson, p. 92.

¹² Waltham Sentinel, Aug. 7, 1866, p. 2.

¹³ Marsh, E. A., “The American Waltham Watch Company” in Hurd, Duane H. (ed.), History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts (Philadelphia, 1890) Vol. III.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Waltham Sentinel, Sept. 21, 1866, p. 2; July 2, 1869, p. 2; Waltham Free Press, Feb. 7, 1865, p. 2; Nov. 21, 1865, p. 2; Sept. 28, 1866, p. 2; Jan. 11, 1867, p. 1. See also Swinton, John, A Model Factory in a Model City (New York, 1888)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ The problem of forestalling movement from one firm to another in the industrial sector falls within the province of microeconomic theory. Development economics is cast in macroeconomic terms, however, and for this reason concerns itself only with the movement of labor out of agriculture into industry. This division within economic theory helps to explain the neglect of retention policies in the literature. I am indebted to my colleague Joseph Berliner for this point.

¹⁶ For an excellent treatment of the inside contract system, see the article by Buttrick, John, Journal of Economic History, Vol. XII, No. 3, (Sept. 1952)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Data on contracts are available only for the period 1882–87. It is definitely known that contracts were in use from the first days of the company.

¹⁸ This assumes that ethnic discrimination alone accounted for the reluctance of Waltham Watch to hire Irish females. Under this assumption, the difference in female wages between the two companies is a measure of the cost of ethnic discrimination. Becker, Gary, The Economics of Discrimination (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957)Google Scholar. The differences in male rates are not attributable to discrimination (both groups of males were Yankees) but to differences in skill.

¹⁹ Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1884 (Boston, 1884).

²⁰ Treasurer's Report, for fiscal year 1861.

²¹ Persons, Charles E., “The Early History of Factory Legislation in Massachusetts” in Kingsbury, Susan M. (ed.), Labor Laws and Their Enforcement (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1911), pp. 123–25Google Scholar.

²² Lebergott, pp. 341–44.

²³ All females started at the same rate and remained at that rate for four months. For the next two months they worked at a higher rate and for the following two months at a still higher rate. After eight months the top wage for most females was reached. Of the 79 day-rate females on the payroll in Sept. 1864, 50 were at the standard top rate.

²⁴ Ozanne, Robert, “Union Wage Impact,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. XV, No. 3 (Apr. 1962)Google Scholar, makes a similar finding in his study of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company.

²⁵ Robbins reported, for tax purposes, an income of $377,000 for 1865, believed to be the highest in the state. Waltham Free Press, June 22, 1866, p. 2. The trends in company output, investment, and employment during the Civil War run directly contrary to those which Cochran finds in the economy as a whole. Cochran, Thomas, “Did the Civil War Retard Industrialization” in Andreano, Ralph (ed.), The Economic Impact of the American Civil War (Cambridge: Schenkman, 1962)Google Scholar.

²⁶ Waltham Free Press, June 15, 1864, p. 3; and June 22, 1864, p. 3.

²⁷ Fite, Emerson, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North During the Civil War (New York: Macmillan, 1910)Google Scholar, ch. vii, indicates widespread industrial unrest in 1864.

²⁸ Waltham Sentinel, Aug. 17, 1866, p. 1; and July 2, 1869, p. 2. In 1883 Robbins was moved to comment in his annual report that the factory “is even now a true Palace of Industry of which you may well be proud.”

²⁹ Some of those counted as part-time may have been new full-time additions hired late in the month, or employees leaving early in the month. Most part-time workers were women.

³⁰ Annual Treasurer's Reports. Waltham Sentinel, Aug. 16, 1867, p. 2; Aug. 16, 1868, p. 2.

³¹ In the early 1870's an incentive system was introduced among the female workers. A bonus was paid to that work group of females whose output was judged to have been greatest during the month.

³² Waltham Sentinel, Oct. 26, 1866, p. 3.

³³ The story may be apocryphal, but legend has it that Henry Ford was first impressed with the possibilities of mass production techniques on an early visit to Waltham Watch.

³⁴ Treasurer's Report, 1864.

³⁵ Treasurer's Reports.

³⁶ With the establishment of a second bank in Waltham, during the Civil War, the company was under less pressure to extend loans. But its desire to avoid further investment in housing forced it to continue offering loans to those of its employees who lacked bank collateral.

³⁷ Treasurer's Report, 1887.

³⁸ Coolidge, John, “Low-Gost Housing: the New England Tradition,” New England Quarterly Vol. XIV (Mar. 1941)Google Scholar; Lebergott, pp. 341 f. Pierce, Bessie, in her History of Chicago (New York: Knopf, 1957), III, 52 f.Google Scholar, points out that the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company felt obliged to build worker housing in Chicago. In our own times we have witnessed “company” housing erected at such places as Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. In these cases the crucial factor was timing: without housing accommodations it would have been impossible to carry out the objectives of the atomic enterprises.

³⁹ This would be the very first instance of employee stock ownership in the U. S., according to the accounts presented in Gilman's, Nicholas P.Profit Sharing (Boston, 1889)Google Scholar and his A Dividend to Labor (Boston, 1899).

⁴⁰ If the earlier ratio of full-time to part-time employees applies, it would indicate a full-time work force of approximately 420.

⁴¹ In 1867 the stock was traded in Boston at $190–197. Waltham Free Press, Feb. 8, 1867, p. 2.

⁴² Even after the employee mutual benefit association had been organized, the company paid funeral expenses in at least one instance. Minutes of the Board of Directors, meeting of July 9, 1866.

⁴³ Gilman, Dividend, ch. viii.

⁴⁴ Slichter, Sumner, The Turnover of Factory Labor (New York: Appleton, 1919), pp. 16 f.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Brissenden, Paul F. and Frankel, Emil, Labor Turnover in Industry (New York: Macmillan, 1922)Google Scholar, appendix, pp. 172–89.

⁴⁶ Moore (cited in n. 5), p. 69. Six of those who left received this top offer. At the time (1864), Robbins' salary was $6,000 per year, while that of the president of Waltham Watch was $3,000.

⁴⁷ Waltham Sentinel, 1859–71, reported many such cases.

⁴⁸ E. A. Marsh, “History of Early Watchmaking in America” (manuscript, 1889).

⁴⁹ Swinton (cited in n. 14).

⁵⁰ Waltham Free Press, Jan. 18, 1867, p. 2.

⁵¹ Gilman, pp. 206–11.

⁵² Reminiscences of Elliot A. Harrington, mss. 1929, Waltham Public Library.

⁵³ Swinton; Marsh.

⁵⁴ Josephson (cited in n. 1), pp. 47 and 222.