"Were American Newcommen to do naught
else, our work is well done if we succeed in sharing with America
a strengthened inspiration to continue the struggle towards a
nobler Civilization - through wider knowledge and understanding
of the hopes, ambitions, and deeds of leaders in the past who
have upheld Civilization's material progress. As we look
backward, let us look forward."
Charles Penrose
Senior Vice President for North America, the Newcomen Society of
England
This statement, crystallizing a broad purpose of the Society, was
first read at the Newcomen Meeting at New York World's Fair on
August 5, 1939, when American Newcomen were guests of The British
Government
"Actorum Memores simul affectamus Agenda"
"THE KENDALL COMPANY"
50 Years of Yankee Enterprise!
(1903-1953)
An Address at Boston
AMERICAN NEWCOMEN, through the years, has honored numerous
industrial enterprises both in the United States of America and
in Canada, and has paid tribute to those whose pioneer leadership
has made possible the growth and development of what today are
corporate organizations of reputation and importance. Such a
Newcomen manuscript is this, being the very human, colorful, and
dramatic life-story of The Kendall Company.
"For a moment let me travel back in memory
to a day in 1903 when as a young man I had been called in to look
at a decrepit little plant in Walpole, not far from Boston - a
plant with 75 employees scattered through several old buildings
where a few antiquated machines were running. The business was
insolvent, saddled with debt, and apparently on its last legs.
"Today, fifty years later, The Kendall Company operates
thirteen plants in six States and others in Canada, Cuba, and
Mexico, has about 8,000 employees, and does a $100,000,000
business."
Henry P. Kendall
"The Kendall Company"
50 Years of Yankee Enterprise!
Henry P. Kendall
Member of the Newcomen Society
Chairman
The Kendall Company
Boston
The Newcomen Society in North America
New York San Francisco Montreal
1953
Copyright, 1953
Henry P. Kendall
*
Permission to abstract is granted provided proper credit is
allowed
*
The Newcomen Society, as a body, is not responsible for opinions
expressed in the following pages
***
This Newcomen Address, dealing with the history of The Kendall
Company, on occasion of its 50th Anniversary (1903-1953), was
delivered at the "1953 Massachusetts Dinner" of The
Newcomen Society of England, held in Louis XIV Ballroom of Hotel
Somerset, at Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., when Mr. Kendall was
the guest of honor, on March 26, 1953.
INTRODUCTION OF MR. KENDALL, AT BOSTON ON MARCH 26, 1953, BY DR. CLAUDE M. FUESS, HEADMASTER-EMERITUS OF PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS, MEMBER OF THE NEW ENGLAND COMMITTEE, IN THE NEWCOMEN SOCIETY OF ENGLAND.
My fellow members of Newcomen:
The story of The Kendall Company is one of typical American
enterprise, resourcefulness, and far-sightedness, displayed in
the character and career of its founder. Henry P. Kendall was
graduated from Amherst College in 1899, and the legend of his
athletic prowess was still vivid when I received my diploma six
years later. To that college, and to American Education, he has
always been devoted, and the roster of his good deeds is long and
creditable.
***
The tale of how he took over small and unprofitable mill and
built it into a company with sixteen plants from Toronto to
Mexico City and eight thousand employees is intensely dramatic.
When his advisers urged him to change the name to The Kendall
Company, they did well, for from the beginning he has been its
leading spirit. He has been a wise administrator, recognizing
that the interests of labor and management are intimately
related, and willing to offer rewards commensurate with
production. In this and other respects he has been consistently
ahead of the thinking of his industrial generation.
A Clergyman's son, who, after his father's death, was brought up
in a small country town, has been awarded by three colleges their
highest honorary degrees. He has been a generous employer, a
public-spirited citizen, and a loyal friend. His wide interests
as a collector and sportsman have given him relief from
administrative monotony and kept him young in body, mind, and
spirit. As he moves into his seventy-sixth year, we hail him as
one of the outstanding industrial leaders who have made, and will
keep, this Country great!
It is my happy privilege, at Boston tonight, to introduce a
distinguished American industrialist: HENRY P. KENDALL.
*****************
My fellow members of Newcomen:
For a moment let me travel back in memory to a day in 1903 when
as a young man I had been called in to look at a decrepit little
plant in Walpole, not far from Boston - a plant with 75 employees
scattered through several old buildings where a few antiquated
machines were running. The business was insolvent, saddled with
debt, and apparently on its last legs.
Today, fifty years later, The Kendall Company operates thirteen
plants in six States and others in Canada, Cuba, and Mexico, has
about 8,000 employees, and does a $100,000,000 business.
How did this come about within the span of fifty years? What were
the underlying factors, the driving forces, in the rise of this
New England industry from humble and unpromising beginnings?
The story in detail, Mr. Chairman, would fill a book. In this
Newcomen address I shall only try to give a brief first-hand
summary of what seem to me significant high spots. If in doing
this I make some unavoidable use of the personal pronoun, please
bear in mind what we all know, that while every team has to have
a leader, the joint efforts of all are what pile up the gains and
winning points. No one who has ever played football, as I did at
Amherst, could ever forget that. Such business success as I may
have had has been the joint result of my own efforts and the
support and cooperation of able and loyal associates, in the
business and outside of it, who have stood by me down the years
from that distant day in 1903.
The rundown old plant in Walpole was that of the Lewis Batting
Company, better known locally as the Shoddy Mill. It was making a
little absorbent cotton and also cotton batts, stair pads, and
carpet linings. An analysis of costs showed a loss on everything
except the crudely-made absorbent cotton. The manufacturing
processes were quaint. The cotton, for example, was dried on
chicken wire over boxed-in steam coils through which air was
blown.
We disposed of the old lines except the cotton, revamped the
plant by putting in some second-hand machinery, added gauze as a
new item, hired a salesman, and went into the absorbent cotton
and gauze business in competition with bigger and stronger
rivals. We changed our name to Lewis Manufacturing Company, and,
by the time the First World War broke out, we had established a
niche for ourselves.
Then came a period of tremendous pressure from the U.S.
Government and the Red Cross on the surgical dressing industry. I
went to Washington and helped to organize a committee of the
industry to deal with the problem and work out contracts with the
Government and Red Cross which met their needs. To provide our
share, we made extensive additions to buildings and machinery at
Walpole.
To enlarge our capacity further, in 1915 we bought the
Slatersville Finishing Company at Slatersville, Rhode Island. I
also had decided - and this was one of the most important of my
early decisions - that instead of buying our grey goods in the
open market, we should own our own cotton mills, buy raw cotton
in the bale, weave it ourselves, bleach and finish it in our
northern plants, and sell it to users through our own salesmen -
an integrated operation. In 1916, we took the first step in this
program by buying the first of our cotton mills, the Wateree Mill
at Camden, South Carolina, followed in 1918 by the purchase of
the Addison Mill at Edgefield, South Carolina.
At the close of the war the Government and Red Cross threw on the
market tremendous quantities of surplus surgical dressings, the
bottom dropped out of prices and earnings, and our business
entered one of its most critical periods. Only the strenuous
efforts of our organization and unwavering support from our banks
enabled us to weather the storm.
By 1924, growth had been resumed. That year we bought another
cotton mill and merged our five plants into a new corporation,
Kendall Mills, Inc. During the remainder of the 1920's we added
two more cotton mills in the south, followed by four more in the
1930's, two of which were later sold.
We also increased our output by modernizing equipment and by
doubling the size of our Oakland Mill in 1950. Today we operate
approximately 300,000 spindles and 6,800 looms.
Meanwhile we also were growing in other directions. Our most
important addition in new fields was Bauer & Black of
Chicago, acquired in 1928. In that year we changed our name to
The Kendall Company. Later acquisitions were the Bike Web
Manufacturing Company of South Bend, Indiana, in 1929, another
finishing plant at Griswoldville, Massachusetts, in 1932, and the
Burson Knitting Company of Rockford, Illinois, in 1948. In 1950,
we built a new Canadian plant near Toronto. Our plant in Mexico
City was built in 1947.
How did it come about that we needed these plants, and what did
we did with them after we got them? The answer to this question
leads us back to some ideas underlying the development of the
business.
Early realization of the importance of evolving new products and
improving existing products led us into the development of
research laboratories. Our search for new products and new uses
for old products has gone on unceasingly from that day to this,
in all parts of our business. Today, well-staffed and
adequately-equipped research laboratories are found in all our
divisions.
In addition to product research, we have continuously studied
manufacturing techniques and improvements in machinery, equipment
and plant layouts, purchasing methods, and sales programs.
What has all this done for us? One outstanding result is the fact
that a large proportion of our present business consists of
products that either did not exist in their present form or did
not exist at all 10, 15, or 20 years ago.
Here are just a few examples of what research has done for us,
out of a multitude that might be mentioned if there were Tim:
Twenty years ago gauze diapers were unheard of. Mothers used
whatever cloth they happened to have, or bought Birdseye, a heavy
and somewhat uncomfortable material. Our research men got the
idea that gauze would make better diapers than any other
material. They developed a special weave. They turned the product
over to our market research specialists. Tests showed acceptance
by mothers. Effective advertising and promotion campaigns were
devised. The result? We were ready for the expanding baby crop
with a superior, nationally-accepted product, the
"Curity" gauze diaper. Today we are struggling to keep
abreast of demand, operating thousands of spindles and hundred of
looms in our southern mills on a full three-shift schedule, the
year round, producing diaper cloth which we finish in our
northern finishing plants.
Another example: Several years ago our Bauer & Black Research
Department decided that basic improvements could be made in the
small finger bandages produced by us and others. Extensive
research, not only on the product but on the machinery for
manufacturing it and the sales techniques for selling it, led to
the introduction of our "Curad" plastic bandage, in
1951. Millions are now being made, sold, and used every week.
Our Research Department at Walpole worked for years on the
development of a non-woven fabric which would have new qualities
and new uses. Today a separate plant at Walpole is manufacturing
various forms of "Webril" for new markets and new
applications.
One of our early sales objectives was to develop specialized
uses, products, and markets for surgical gauze and cheesecloth.
One early result was the marketing of attractively packaged 5 and
10-yard bolts of cheesecloth adapted to counter display and
effective advertising.
Later we cooperated with the American College of Surgeons and
some of the leading hospitals in developing a line of ready-made
gauze dressings adapted to many surgical uses. Hospital gauze was
customarily sold in 100-yard bolts. The nurses cut the bolts into
dressings. Bolt gauze now has largely been replaced by ready-made
dressings pioneered by us and made on automatic machinery first
developed by us.
The work of our research departments in developing new products
and new uses for old products has been supplemented by continuous
market research.
From the beginning we determined to build up our sales
organizations with high-grade men, carefully selected, who are
given systematic training in the home office and in the plants
before they are put into the field under competent home office
direction. For over 30 years we have brought our field men
together in annual sales conferences and regional meetings, at
which sales problems, policies, and future programs are
thoroughly discussed. Our branch managers and home office
executives have come up through the ranks, and have developed the
kind of initiative, imagination, and drive that creative selling
requires.
The sales-mindedness of our organization, its belief in our
products, and its enthusiasm in selling them have been large
factors in putting us where we are.
Certain forces or principles underlie the development of any
structure, be it a business or a personality. What were the more
important forces and principles which have shaped our
development?
In all we have done, we have tried to apply imagination, courage,
and unwillingness to accept anything as necessarily final or
perfect. To an important degree this has been due to the profound
influence of Frederick W. Taylor, the father of Scientific
Management, upon my early business life.
I read Taylor's book and was deeply impressed by it. After
correspondence I went to Philadelphia to see him and he had me
visit a small plant where his principles were being applied.
Taylor's fundamental thesis, as you will recall, was that there
is one best way to do things and that this way can be found by
analyzing in detail what is actually being done and then
reshuffling the elements of the job to evolve a new technique
which will eliminate waste of time, energy, and materials.
Taylor never believed that the status quo is necessarily
right or best. On the contrary, he put a question mark against
what is. What is MAY be right, but it may not. The mere fact that
something is being done in a certain way, that it may have been
done that way for a long time, or that a lot of people think it
is the best way to do it and don't want things to change, is no
proof at all that this present way is best. Let's find out,
Taylor said, and if there is a better way, let's adopt it.
You can forget everything Taylor wrote about the details of his
technique, and if you remember that one basic tenet you have an
invaluable industrial asset. I always have remembered it and have
tried always to impress this viewpoint upon my associates. I
believe it has been a significant factor in our progress.
The evolution of organization and management in our company has
been marked by a series of stages.
In the beginning I had to be a sort of executive-of-all-work, but
as soon as we had the money to do it, we began to build up a
supporting organization of promising young men.
In a research survey made to determine what makes executives
tick, the conclusion was that "the most important attribute
of any executive is his willingness to delegate his authority
along with his responsibility." I decided early that I
couldn't build a large business by trying to do everything myself
or know everything myself. I delegated responsibility to our
young executives and gave them authority to act. By 1918, the
foundation for a strong supporting organization had been laid,
and I had begun to free myself increasingly from operating
details.
Thenceforth I devoted much of my time and energy to forward
thinking and planning, basic financing, the acquisition and
development of plants, the selection of key personnel, and to
cooperating with my associates in the development and
business-building programs and policies.
Our present form of organization dates from 1929, shortly after
we acquired Bauer & Black. The number of plants and the size
and diversity of the business had so increased that it then
became clear that we needed a greater degree of decentralization
of management, involving large delegation of local
responsibilities coupled with centralized correlation and
control.
We now have three operating divisions. Each has a complete
line and staff organization, headed by a Divisional
Vice-President, covering all segments of a self-contained
business except financing, which is handled centrally.
Our seven cotton mills are included in the Kendall Mills Grey
Cloth Division. Each mill is in charge of a mill manager. The
central executive office of the division is at Charlotte, North
Carolina. Cotton buying for all mills is controlled centrally,
through a buying office in the South. Most of the division's
product goes to our northern finishing plants, but its sheetings
and some of its other products are distributed through its New
York Sales Office.
Our Kendall Mills Finishing Division includes our three northern
finishing plants. Its head office is at Walpole, Massachusetts. A
specialized sales organization, with branches in various cities,
sells the division's products.
The division makes and sells a variety of textiles, going to many
fields of trade, including industrial applications. It also
manufactures surgical gauze, ready-made dressings and other
products distributed through our Bauer & Black Division.
Our Bauer & Black Division includes our plants at Chicago and
at Rockford, Illinois, and at South Bend, Indiana. It is
responsible also for our operations in Canada, Mexico, and Cuba,
as well as for our export business. The division has a large
sales organization. Products include gauze, absorbent cotton,
ready-made dressings, adhesives, and other products for
hospitals, elastic goods in various forms, plastic tapes for
industrial and other uses, "Curads," "Blue
Jay" foot products, and a wide range of other items.
How did all of this come about from a financial standpoint? How
do you start with no money, and come up finally with something
like The Kendall Company?
When I was given the job of trying to salvage the Lewis Batting
Company, its account was at The First National Bank of Boston, of
which Daniel G. Wing then was President. The Lewis Batting
Company had borrowed there, and Mr. Wing knew something about my
work at the Plimpton Press in Norwood, which also had an account
at his bank.
After I had been working on the Lewis problem for a time, I went
to Mr. Wing, told him I was in charge, and handed him a balance
sheet that I had prepared. I said: "Here is the first true
balance sheet you have ever had from this company." He
looked at it and said: "Why, this company is completely
insolvent." I said: "I know it is, but I think I can
pull it out." "Well," he said, "what do you
want?" "I'd like a line of credit of $30,000 and no
questions asked," was my reply. He looked at me hard for a
few minutes and then said: "All right, you can have
it."
That was the beginning of mutually valuable relationships with
The First National Bank and other banks and banking houses that
have extended down through the years, and have had much to do
with the progress and success of our company. One rule we have
always followed - tell your bankers the whole story at all times.
In return they have given us unwavering support, and have come
forward with voluntary help in tight places.
Indispensable as this banking support has been, we could not have
done what we have without consistently devoting a good part of
our earnings to plant expansion and improvement, research and
other constructive uses.
Early in my business life the meaning of obsolescence was borne
in upon me. I saw that the only permanent thing in the industrial
world is change. It became clear to me that machines could
sometimes run long after their profitable economic life had
ended. As the world goes forward, obsolescence applies not only
to what you can see, like buildings and machinery, but also to
intangibles like ways of doing things, methods and procedures,
and points of view.
So we have tried unceasingly to make buildings and machinery more
efficient, and to find ways to better our methods, save labor,
reduce costs, and improve products. This requires imagination,
open-mindedness, courage, confidence in the future, and
willingness to spend money to make money.
In the seven postwar Years 1946-1952 inclusive, we put back into
our plants out of earnings approximately $20,000,000 in capital
outgoes, exclusive of maintenance costs, research and advertising
and development programs. We did this with no new public
financing and with no borrowing except short-term bank loans to
finance seasonal cotton buying.
It always has seemed to me that quality of personnel and the
spirit of the organization are even more important than bricks
and mortar, money or products. The essence of The Kendall Company
and of all it has done is in its people.
A defined philosophy of people runs through our history. As
we see it, an office or factory is not just a place to work for a
living. It is, rather, an important part of the whole life of
every worker.
So we have tried to provide not only good surrounding and good
equipment for our workers, but we have shared with them our
belief in the importance and worth of every job and its
significance in the chain of production.
This philosophy has led us into pioneering developments that now
have become standard practice in the more progressive companies
and industries.
From the beginning, we discarded the traditional system of having
employees "hired and fired" indiscriminately by plant
superintendents. We began organizing employees' departments,
headed by trained personnel. We had nurses and first-aid rooms in
our plants when these were a rarity. We always have believed in
clean, safe, orderly plants. We have spent important sums to keep
our mill villages well painted and in good repair. We have
encouraged and supported churches, schools, and community
activities. More recently we have sold our village houses to our
employees in some of our communities, fostering the personal
pride which comes with home ownership.
This concern for our employees in not based on paternalism. We
always have believed that it is just sound management and good
citizenship. As a result we feel that an unusual spirit of
friendliness and cooperation prevails in our company and makes it
a good place to work.
The selection and training of key people always has seemed to me
one of the most vital of executive responsibilities. The outcome
of our efforts in that field is our experienced, competent,
hard-hitting organization. To insure its continued strength in
the future, we watch for outstanding talent in our own ranks and
steadily add as trainees picked young men from the colleges,
business schools, and technical schools. We push them along as
fast as they are ready for added responsibilities and suitable
avenues of promotion and development can be opened up for them.
I always have believed in young men and what they can do. Our
motto here is still what it always has been - get the right kind
of young men around you, train them, given them responsibility,
check results, and you won't have to worry too much about what
will happen after you are gone.
Those of us who have grown up in New England and live in New
England have a heritage of great worth. It may be true that New
England lacks some natural resources and currently suffers some
geographical disadvantages. It has, however, one great offsetting
advantage- the quality, intelligence, and skills of its people.
They have made New England businesses great in the past; they
will make them great in the future.
I believe success is likely to attend soundly-managed businesses,
wherever located, founded on honest work, worth and useful
products, fair prices, and fair dealing with suppliers,
customers, employees, and the community - businesses whose
executives show initiative, teamwork, courage, open-mindedness,
and resourcefulness in adapting their operation to the needs and
conditions of the present, while foreseeing and planning for the
possibilities of the future.
The World of 1953 is obviously very different from the World of
1903. How different, you all know. The 50-year span has seen
panics, depressions, booms, inflation, deflation, wars and the
aftermath of wars, and advances in science, in production, and in
all sorts of techniques unimaginable in 1903.
Of necessity the future is a closed book, to be opened only page
by page. I shall not fear these pages as one by one they come
into view. The Country is growing apace. Needs are expanding with
its growth. There will always be a place, an important place, for
those who can meet these needs.
I hope I shall be pardoned if I close on a note of what seems to
me justifiable pride in the growth and accomplishments of The
Kendall Company during its first half century - pride in the
contributions of its men and women to the development of the
philosophy, policies, methods, and practices of a traditionally
conservative industry. All of us in the company are happy, too,
in the fact that so many of our products have become a part of
the fabric of American life.
It happened in New England! It can happen again. It will happen
again - and again - and again, as time unrolls its scroll.
THE END
"Actorum Memores simul affectamus Agenda!"
**********************
This Newcomen address, dealing with the history of The Kendall
Company and on occasion of its 50th Anniversary (1903-1953), was
delivered at the "1953 Massachusetts Dinner" of The
Newcomen Society of England, held at Boston, Massachusetts,
U.S.A., on March 26, 1953. Mr. Kendall, the guest of honor, was
introduced by Dr. Claude M. Fuess, Headmaster-emeritus, Phillips
Academy, Andover; Member of the New England Committee, in
American Newcomen. The dinner was presided over by Dr. Karl T.
Compton, Chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge; Chairman of the New England Committee, in The Newcomen
Society of England.
*********************
American Newcomen, interested always in industrial and economic
history, takes satisfaction in this well told, intensely human,
and intriguingly colorful Newcomen manuscript. It is a narrative
marking an important milestone - a half century - in the life of
a leading New England industrial organization; one whose
operations throughout the period have contributed to New
England's economic progress. Truly is it entitled: "50 Years
of Yankee Enterprise!"
*********************
THE NEWCOMEN SOCIETY OF ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA
Broadly, this British Society has as its purposes: to increase
an appreciation of American-British traditions and ideals in the
Arts and Sciences, especially in that bond of sympathy for the
cultural and spiritual forces which are common to the two
countries; and, secondly, to serve as another link in the
intimately friendly relations existing between Great Britain and
the United States of America.
The Newcomen Society centers its work in the history of Material
Civilization, the history of: Industry, Invention, Engineering,
Transportation, the Utilities, Communication, Mining,
Agriculture, Finance, Banking, Economics, Education, and the Law
- these and correlated historical fields. In short, the
background of those factors which have contributed or are
contributing to the progress of Mankind.
The best of British traditions, British scholarship, and British
ideals stand back of this honorary society, whose headquarters
are at London. Its name perpetuates the life and work of Thomas
Newcomen (1663-1729), the British pioneer, whose valuable
contributions in improvements to the newly invented Steam Engine
brought him lasting fame in the field of the Mechanic Arts. The
Newcomen Engines, whose period of use was from 1712 to 1775,
paved a way for the Industrial Revolution. Newcomen's inventive
genius preceded by more than 50 years the brilliant work in Steam
by the world-famous James Watt.