Collecting Vintage Woodworking Machinery Catalogs

Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Inc., The, Sep 2005 by Batory, Dana Martin

Some three hundred major companies have made woodworldng machinery since the 1830s. Unfortunately the loss of primary research material over the years has doomed many of these businesses to remain only as mysterious names cast in iron. Vintage woodworking machinery trade catalogs have proved invaluable in uncovering the history of some of these companies. Catalogs, historians now realize, offer a fresh approach to studying man's past-his culture, industry, business, and technology.

Woodworking machinery catalogs are valuable not only from a purely technical point of view, revealing a company's complete line of machinery, but usually the catalog's introductory pages also give the location of the main works and office, the company officers, agencies and sales rooms, the date of the company's founding, and information about quality control and guarantees. If a researcher is lucky, the catalog may also include photographs of the works-inside and out-and a capsule history of the firm. A study of the text and illustrations tells much about machine construction-the type of frames, materials, and bearings-patent dates, important features exclusive to the company, methods of construction, the story behind the machine's design, the largest and smallest machines made, as well as other bits of information.

In comparison, company ledgers actually yield very little information unless there is a long consecutive run. A single small catalog with illustrations of a company's machines is often worth more to a researcher than a mountain of day books, ledgers, and old invoices.

Woodworking machinery catalogs are not only "cross-collectible" items appealing to those who collect ephemera (sometimes referred to as "dirty paper" or "old paper"), local history items, or the machines themselves, but are valuable reference tools for historians and industrial archaeologists. More than any other document, catalogs are the very best record of a company's manufacturing and product history. It is also fascinating to see which machines fellow woodworkers were using so many years ago and how designs (especially safety devices!) have changed, from Babbitt bearings to ball and tapered roller bearings, flat belts to V-belts, and square cutter heads to round.

Woodworking machinery catalogs are interesting to collect in themselves and for the woodworker interested in a specific company or the restorer seeking data on a single machine, they are usually the only remaining source of information, both historical and practical.

Many fellow enthusiasts research the· old companies not only because they are history buffs, but also because the background material helps them decipher just how the machinery was intended to operate. Something as simple as a catalog description, for example, can tell a restorer at what speed the machine was supposed to operate. (This is often a critical piece of data since older Babbitted machine arbors ran at a slower rpm.) An associate used a catalog illustration to solve the puzzle of where the operator stood when operating a machine. It may seem silly, but absent an instruction sheet, how was he to know?

A string of international exhibitions between 1851 and 1878-London: 1851, 1862; Paris: 1855, 1867 and 1878; Vienna: 1873; and Philadelphia: 1876-gave a great boost to the improvement and general acceptance of woodworking machinery by showing manufacturers and the general public what machines were available and what their capabilities were. It was during this period that the practice of printing and distributing trade catalogs grew. The United States has probably produced more trade catalogs than any other country, but it was not the first country to use this marketing tool. Firms in the major iron producing cities of Birmingham and Sheffield, England, were mailing out elaborately illustrated brochures to the Americas, France, India, Italy, Russia, and Spain in the 178Os. These British catalogs, unlike American catalogs, usually omitted the manufacturers' names and addresses to prevent customers from bypassing the sales agent and ordering directly from the company. The wily American companies were eager to do business anywhere with anyone and made a point of listing their addresses, sales terms, and other pertinent information so customers could order directly. Of course it helped that within the United States, where some of the states were as large or larger than some countries, money and merchandise could travel freely over vast distances without a network of agents to see to confusing customs' duties, language barriers, currency exchanges, and even bribes. Direct sales created an overabundance of expensive and inexpensive catalogs.

While Americans were quick to discover the value of trade catalogs, the publications didn't really come into their own until the Industrial Revolution was well under way. Prior to mass production, there was little incentive to advertise handmade goods since local craftsmen struggled just to satisfy local demands, and if someone did have a surplus there was always a buyer to take it off your hands.