This is the old index page from my Stove History website. In due course I'll move the individual pages it references here, too. Helps to explain why, after 2006, I didn't feel much need to keep writing "Research Notes" to and for myself -- by then I was getting into a position to write proper papers for academic seminars and conferences, and to turn them into publishable work.
The Albany & Troy Stove Industry, From Start to Finish: 1808-1936
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| Number of active firms per year -- data from this spreadsheet. |
This is another of the old research notes that I wrote, principally for my own benefit, during the summer vacation of 2006, which I spent in gathering together lots of quantifiable information so that I could provide some scaffolding of facts in numerical form for the story of the stove industry that I was planning to put together. My second research trip to the USA on stove-related business had been during the Easter vacation, so I knew that I could not look forward to another one until Spring or late Summer 2008, and decided to use my time at home to good effect, reading new stuff and making more sense of what I had already.
My attempts to import the text from the Google document in which it has been available via my old Stove History website have been defeated, so far, by Blogger's apparent inability to do so without completely screwing up the format. So, for the moment, this post is just a placeholder and a collection of pointers:
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| Stovemaking Cities and Towns, 1874, grouped in descending order of annual output: RED = leading centres with top 25 percent of production (Troy, Philadelphia, Albany); YELLOW = second quartile; GREEN third; BLUE fourth. For the original zoomable map of which this is a snapshot, click here. |
This is another trip down Memory Lane -- digging up one of my earliest "working papers" on the history of the stove industry and placing it here rather than only accessible as a document file via my old website. It doesn't make sense to keep stuff in different formats, and really the website has had its day. Many of the numbers underpinning this report are now out of date -- for example, I have long completed my patent database with post-1873 design patents -- but incorporating the greater accuracy that took me so long to achieve would probably make only a marginal difference to the look of the overall results, certainly when represented in chart form.
It's interesting, for me at least, to see what I knew just a couple of years into my serious research, and how much I got right about it at the time. Compiling a patent database of my own from Source Translation and Optimization™'s lists of patents, organized by principal classification (freely available online almost twenty years ago) and also Paratext's much more detailed version of the 1790-1873 patent record, which was only available to me for a precious few weeks on a free-trial basis, was my most important route into understanding the industry and its products. This would be obvious to anybody who looked at one or more of my four published articles about this subject, or many of the posts on this blog. As sources they're not without their problems, especially as all I have to work with are the published versions of patents, not the archival records behind them, but even within those limitations they are full of possibilities.
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| Nicholas Vedder & Ezra Ripley's "Magnolia" Parlor Stove, Design Patent 690, 1855. |
(Showing the impact of the completion of the Erie Canal on trade to and from the West)
A lot of the material I've collected (and that underpins most of the Maps post) is organized in spreadsheet form -- or, if it's a flat-file database, easily could and should be -- so I have moved it into Google Sheets format and parked it here in public. This also serves me as a useful index to my own materials, so it's not an entirely altruistic gesture.
Stoves in Churches and Meeting Houses, 1722-1835 -- the data underlying this is a non-random sample of recorded instances of the presence or installation of stoves in churches and meeting houses, reported (mostly) in 19th century local histories. See map.
Firewood Prices in Philadelphia, 1754-1800 -- from Billy G. Smith's The 'Lower Sort': Philadelphia's Laboring People, 1750-1800 (Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 101 -- a rare, detailed local study, but not demonstrating a very significant or sustained increase in the relative cost of fuel.
The First Quarter-Century of Stove (Cooking & Heating Appliance) Patents, 1790-1814 -- underlying data most easily accessible from Jim Shaw's “X-Patents with Added Fields,” Historical Patents and Trademark Databases, Patent and Trademark Deposit Library Association, http://www.ptdla.org/history [unfortunately this link doesn't seem to work any longer -- at least, Jim Shaw's stuff is still listed there, but it doesn't seem to be accessible].
I have extracted the 1790-1836 cooking and heating appliance X-patents from Jim Shaw's spreadsheet, and added a bit more information from my own database, so this file now covers the first half-century, through 1840.
1808-1936 Albany & Troy Stove Makers and Sellers -- with annual totals of active firms. From Grofft, Cast With Style (197#) and Waite and Waite, "Stovemakers of Troy."
1808-1936 Albany & Troy Stove Makers and Sellers -- underlying data on individual firms (needs editing).
Tench Coxe's Report on American Manufacturing Industry at the 1810 Census -- Iron Furnace industry data -- full report available at Google Books.
The Philadelphia Stove Trade, 1810-1845 -- compiled from Philadelphia city directories (online at the Internet Archive, via the Phila. GeoHistory Network), and tracking individuals and firms associated with the stove business at approximately 5-year intervals through the period of the specialized business's growth and (eventually, with the establishment of the first city stove foundries) transformation. There's a map of it in 1825. The later years (post-1830) remain to be completed.
Traffic Through the Port of Buffalo, 1820-1842 -- graphic illustration of the impact of the opening of the Erie Canal and of the subsequent increase in freight volumes across New York State and onto the Lakes.
Anthracite Production, 1820-1848 -- includes data on the amount shipped to the Hudson River at Rondout from the Lackawanna field.
1822-1831 Millsboro Blasts -- this is a bit trivial, but I did it to work out how long the "blast" (the period during which a furnace was actually producing iron) was at the Millsboro, Delaware furnace of Philadelphia merchant Samuel G. Wright. (The answer: a little over seven months, with frequent interruptions.) Data from his papers at the Hagley Museum & Library, especially the reports from his furnace manager Derrick Barnard, Series 1, Boxes 1-2.
David Wood's Stove Prices, 1822-1839 -- an attempt to pull together, and make sense of, lots of fragmentary bits of price data scattered throughout the Wood and Wright Papers at the Hagley, Walker's book on Hopewell Village, the Powell Stackhouse records at Winterthur, and to translate current prices into constant prices using Arthur Cole's wholesale price index. Conclusion: general stability through the period of economic turbulence in the mid- to late- 1830s, then a sharp decline.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania Iron Furnace Output, 1828-1830 -- data from Committee of Manufactures of Iron (Philadelphia Convention) [1831], reprinted as Appendix E in Scrivenor, A Comprehensive History of the Iron Trade (1841), pp. 374-5. Price data is from David Wood's Stove Prices, and permits estimation of the value as well as the tonnage of furnace output. It is also possible (Sheet 2) to work out the approximate number of stoves produced each year.
New York Iron Furnace & Foundry Output, 1828-1830 -- data from the McLane Report (1833), Vol. 2, pp. 115-8 [Document 10, No. 48 -- "Abstract of the Iron Manufactories in the State of New York"]. Mostly used in order to determine (a) the rapid and extensive takeup of anthracite as the foundry fuel of choice, within five years of its first introduction to New York State, and (b) the location and distribution of iron foundry capacity.
Powell Stackhouse's Stove Orders and Sales, 1831-1842 -- Philadelphia's leading stove pattern maker, and a significant maker and seller in his own right.
Powell Stackhouse's Shop Inventories, 1831-1843 -- data from Stackhouse Family Papers and Ledger Book, Winterthur Library.
New York Stove Dealers' Bankruptcy Schedules, 1832-1843 -- data from Federal Record Center, New York. Charles Postley, Stanley & Co., and James Wilson bankruptcies are particularly interesting.
Anthracite Consumption by Massachusetts Industries, 1832 -- also from the McLane Report, Vol. 1, pp. 98-576. Massively detailed and even more useful than the New York data in that it deals with all industries; there's a map available.
Massachusetts Industries, 1836-1837 -- data from the Bigelow Report, the first U.S. state manufacturing census. I've used this for three related enquiries into the size and distribution of (a) the iron foundry and furnace industry, (b) the tinware 'industry' (nearly 200 workshops, some of them sole artisans, others quite large-scale manufacturers), and (c) the consumption of anthracite, to track change (if any) since the McLane Report. All three are relevant to the history of stove use and manufacture in Massachusetts -- to the potential for local manufacturing; to the distribution and marketing system for stoves; and to the availability of a new fuel, which served domestic as well as industrial markets, especially in the south and east of the state.
Steam-Powered US Iron Foundries, 1838 -- data from the Woodbury Report on the Steam Engines of the United States. This report is imperfect in its coverage (the omission of New York City, the Hudson Valley, and in fact all of the state except the extreme west and north from its survey of stationary engines, is probably the largest and worst gap in the national data), but even so it enables us to see how widespread the steam-powered cupola foundry, a crucial innovation permitting the relocation of stove-plate casting from rural, charcoal-fuelled iron furnaces to cities and towns, had already become.
Stanley & Co.'s New York Stove Factory and Store Inventory, 1842 -- from their bankruptcy schedule.
Massachusetts Industries, 1844-1845 -- data from the Palfrey Report, a follow-up to Bigelow, and rather more thorough. Used for the same purposes as Bigelow [anthracite, iron foundries, tinshops], and one other -- Palfrey also records details of the widespread, small-scale industry of "cordwood preparation," which still supplied many Massachusetts homes and some businesses with their fuel.
Molders' Union Locals, 1859-1870 -- this simply summarizes information about locals contained in Grossman's biography of William Sylvis.
Reports on Individual Molders' Location and Affiliation, 1859-1870 [very incomplete!] -- this would be the big one, if I had had the heart to complete it... As it is, it just contains information about small numbers of activists except for 1864 and the first quarter of 1866 (both complete). The major problem with compiling it was the number of variant forms of members' names, meaning that tracking individuals' moves from local to local was often difficult and relied on a combination of detective work (e.g. a person is reported to have arrived in Local B with a card from Local A, but Local A has no record of having granted a card to a man of that name; but there is one with a similar name who is recorded as having left with a card, and who has not shown up anywhere else).
Summary of Iron Molders' Journal Reports, 1864 -- probably the most useful of my old Iron Molders spreadsheets, compiled from all of the information about members reported in the monthly reports, and a brief version (mostly just particularly interesting bits) of the local officers' comments on local conditions and events.
1866-1922 Stove Foundry Lists -- data from (a) Albany Convention, 1866; (b) Giles Filley's Circular, 1871; (c) NASM membership list, 1873; (d) Dunlap's guide, 1874; (e) NASM membership list, 1884; (f) NASM stove makers' lists, 1892 and 1922. (See "Coping with Competition" for these.) Contemporary industry directories do not seem to survive, so this is probably the best way of tracking the industry's membership and location. The 1874 Dunlap guide is also the only comprehensive guide to firms' output (in stoves, tons, and sometimes value).
[to be continued...]
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| The U.S. Stove Industry in 1874 |
This is another of the things that used to be in my Stove History Stuff website. It's a chronologically-organized list of all of the many Google maps I've created to help me to see, make sense of, and communicate some of my research. I've often wished that I could do proper GIS work, but as I can't Google Maps allows me to produce a serviceable amateur version of something showing historical data in space as well as time.
Stoves in Churches & Meeting Houses, 1722-1830 -- I'm not sure if this one is entirely worthwhile, because the data underlying it is such a non-random sample -- see this spreadsheet. As the title suggests, it records instances of the presence or installation of stoves in churches and meeting houses, reported (mostly) in 19th century local histories.
New Jersey Stove Furnaces, c. 1815-1840 -- the principal sources of supply to the East Coast stove trade before the rise of the stove foundry in the late 1830s.
The Philadelphia Stove Trade in 1825 -- showing the location of stove makers and allied businesses. For the data, see spreadsheet.
Vermont Stove Furnaces, c. 1830 -- a cluster of blast furnaces making stoves in northern New England.
New York State iron foundry output, 1830 [## add link] -- not a Google map, because the data (from the McLane Report) is aggregated by counties, and the base map is actually helpful in showing the importance of the Hudson River and Erie Canal corridors in an era of water transportation. For the data, see spreadsheet.
Places of residence of stove patentees in Maine in the 1830s -- a bit of a doodle, really, but I was interested to check out where they lived and worked, because the usual assumption would be that the extension of patenting activity gave some indication of the development of a market for (wood-fired) stoves in the state. Location seems to confirm this -- small commercial towns in the relatively populous south of the state, which is also where new steam-powered iron foundries were developing (see below).
Powell Stackhouse's Stove Plate Suppliers, 1831-1841 -- Stackhouse was Philadelphia's leading stove pattern maker as well as a significant maker and seller in his own right; his sources of supply were widely scattered across Pennsylvania's south-east corner.
Massachusetts & Rhode Island Anthracite Consumption (by manufacturing industry), 1832 -- interesting evidence for the widespread availability and use of the new fuel across the state, not much more than five years after its introduction. For the data, see spreadsheet.
The Massachusetts Tinware Industry, 1836-1837 -- a proxy for the distribution of stove retailers and installers. For the data, see spreadsheet.
The Massachusetts Iron Foundry Industry in 1836-1837 -- see comment for 1844-1845 version, below. For the data, see spreadsheet.
Steam-Powered Foundries, 1838 -- from the Woodbury Report. For the data, see spreadsheet.
Anthracite Consumption by Massachusetts Industries, 1844-1845 -- surprisingly similar to the pattern revealed in the McLane Report a dozen years earlier, though the (reported) amount of fuel consumed had increased markedly (from 10,558 to 74,030 tons). For the data for this and the following two maps, see spreadsheet.
Massachusetts Fuel Wood Production, 1844-1845 -- a work in progress (or at least it used to be... -- there has been no such progress for years, alas).
The Massachusetts Iron Foundry Industry in 1844-1845 -- significant for me because it shows the scale and distribution of foundry capacity across the state, i.e. its ability to turn from an importer and assembler of Pennsylvania and New Jersey stove castings into an increasingly significant producer. (See below, for Massachusetts stove foundries thirty years later.)
Distribution of Iron Molders' Union membership, 1864 -- a map derived from this spreadsheet, showing cities in descending order of average reported monthly membership. The IMU was still mostly a stove molders' union -- the four biggest stove manufacturing centers (Albany, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Troy) made up 40 percent of reported national membership. The map also shows where the companies represented at the 1866 Albany Convention of N. American foundry operators came from. Not coincidentally, there is quite a close fit between reported IMU strength and employers' interest in forming an anti-union alliance, though attendance also seems to have been affected by ease of travel to Albany.
The American Stove Industry in 1874 -- data from this spreadsheet and in particular the 1874 Dunlap guide.
The American Stove Industry in 1892 -- data from this spreadsheet. Note ...
[to be continued...]
Stove merchants in the towns and cities along the north-east seaboard began to advertise the products they had for sale in local newspapers and other publications in the late 1810s and early 1820s. Then in the 1830s and 1840s, as the industry grew and was reorganized by entrepreneurial firms that invented and designed, manufactured, and sold their own distinctive lines of stoves, makers began to produce a new kind of promotional literature -- illustrated pamphlets that explained their products' advantages over the competition and, sometimes, provided useful operating information for consumers new to stove use.
There does not appear to be any available online copy of what was probably the first of these pamphlets, Stanley & Co.'s Remarks and Directions for Using Stanley's Patented Cooking Stove (Baltimore, 1834 -- versions were also produced by the Stanley family's other sales outlets in New York and Philadelphia, and by their Cincinnati agent, Emor Whipple), or of Jordan L. Mott's Description and Design of Mott's Patented Articles, Secured by 27 Patents (New York, 1841), another of the oldest survivors. However, I have made up for this deficiency by posting page images of this publication on Flickr (text begins here, and click right).
But from then on, things get a lot better, and from the early 1850s through the 1940s there is a good, quite representative collection of the publications that developed from the early pamphlets: illustrated catalogues. These became the principal medium for informing retail merchants, and later consumers too, about the wide variety of cooking and heating appliances that the typical stove manufacturer offered. There were probably more than a hundred new catalogues produced every year during the industry's heyday from the 1860s until the First World War. Thousands survive in private collections, and hundreds in research libraries around the country -- Lawrence B. Romaine's classic A Guide to American Trade Catalogs 1744-1900 (New York, 1960), Chapter 54, pp. 355-66, includes several hundred entries, and major research collections (notably the National Museum of American History's, the American Antiquarian Society's, the Hagley Museum and Library's, and the Winterthur Museum's) have grown apace since then. For the center of the U.S. stove industry from the 1830s to the 1880s -- the New York Capital District -- the best holdings, understandably, are those in the Rensselaer County Historical Society, Albany Institute of Art, and New York State Library.
In the following list, there is an over-representation of Canadian firms after the mid-1880s, because Canadian research libraries have cooperated more with the Internet Archive in supplying material than any of the major US repositories. But this does not really matter, given that most of them were simply copying or licensing the products and even the brand names of major U.S. firms, so they provide almost equally good evidence of the industry's overall development.
Prehistory: Before the Stove Industry (and the Catalogue)
Todhunter, Inc., Grates, Franklins, and Fire Frames (New York, 1930). A fascinating collection of reproductions of products most of which had become obsolete by the 1830s (andirons, grates, and Franklin stoves), demonstrating that, a century later, they had become must-haves for the upmarket domestic retro interior. This is probably the nearest we could get to an 1820s catalogue, if such a thing had existed at the time. All that it lacks is cooking stoves, illustrating the fact that what Todhunter was selling were decorative but also occasionally functional items for the upper-middle-class urban and suburban living room, to consumers who probably relied on central heating for serious comfort. Similar items were available from The H.W. Covert Co. [Specialties for the Fireplace], The Covert System: Fireplace and Flue Construction (New York: The Company, 1923), and from other makers too (e.g. vintage Franklins came back into the product range of mainstream stove makers in the 1900s).
Leaving aside the two Benjamins, Franklin and Thomson (Count Rumford), the first American stove inventor who turned to pamphleteering on his appliances' behalf was Daniel Pettibone, the "father" of the warm-air heating furnace, at least in the United States, and first effective heater of Congress (see this blog post). Pettibone's two publications, Description of the Improvements of the Rarifying Air-Stove (Philadelphia: The Author, 1810), and Pettibone's Economy of Fuel (Philadelphia: A. Dickinson, for author, 1812), are only available to readers with a personal or institutional subscription to Newsbank, or access to a library with the microform edition of Early American Imprints. But most of their text and, a key feature missing in the pamphlets, their many supporting illustrations, are contained in his manuscript patents -- 947X (1808) and its monster offspring, 1731X (1812), provided for free by the US Patent & Trademarks Office.
"Postley's Patent Cooking Stove," The American Magazine 1:9 (Feb. 1816): 326-7, the first surviving 'advertorial' of which I can find an online copy.
James Gleason's Improved Patent Steam Kitchen and Steam Kitchen Stoves advertisement, Paxton's Philadelphia Annual Advertiser, bound with John A. Paxton, The Philadelphia Directory and Register, for 1819 (Philadelphia: Paxton, 1819), illustrating a stove type that never really took off, except for commercial and institutional users. Gleason remained in the business for at least the next quarter-century. Advertisements like this in city directories and similar publications are much better sources than newspapers for good illustrations of stoves throughout the pre-pamphlet or -catalogue era, because their page size, layout, and the presses they were printed on were all much more suitable for the inclusion of fairly large, good quality engravings. There was very little multi-column display advertising for stoves or anything else in newspapers before the 1840s, and even after that it was uncommon, and the printing blocks used were small and capable of showing little detail.
"James & Cornell's Stove Factories" ad. (1823) in Edmund M. Blunt, The American Coast Pilot (New York: Author, 1822), unpaginated back matter, another early surviving display advertisement, for William James's patent cooking stove, which enjoyed a much broader market than Gleason's.
James Wilson's and Charles Postley's advertisements (1826) in Joseph Blunt, The Merchant's and Shipmaster's Assistant (New-York: Edmund M. Blunt, 1822), unpaginated back matter, for two of the other major New York manufacturers and wholesale/retail dealers of the 1820s, illustrating products like those Todhunter was selling over a century later.
The Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Nott, president of Union College and one of the principal inventors and early manufacturers of the anthracite-burning stove, left no promotional pamphlet, but a detailed description of his stove's functions and operation survives in an illustrated letter he wrote to James C. Loudon, printed in Loudon's An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture (London, England: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1839), pp. 1030-32. Nott's concern to get publicity and an endorsement from Loudon was entirely rational -- his stoves were manufactured and sold in England too, and Loudon's guides to domestic architecture circulated widely in the U.S. and influenced middle-class taste.
The designer of a rival parlor-heating product, Prof. Denison Olmsted of Yale, also wrote his own piece of product promotion: "Observations on the Use of Anthracite Coal," American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1837 (Boston: Charles Bowen, 1837), pp. 61-9. Olmsted stoves also sold in England.
Pamphlets and Catalogues
Production of pamphlets, generally describing individual products or small, related groups of products, and then catalogues was probably a response to changes in the structure of the industry and its markets in and after the 1840s: the development of what were, for the time, relatively large, integrated firms controlling every stage of their product's manufacture, from design and manufacturing through wholesale (and some retail) distribution; a concomitant growth in the scale of production and the size of firms' product lines; increased competition between them, most of it non-price, i.e. based on patent-protected features and designs, all of which needed to be presented and explained to retail merchants and consumers; and, crucially, a change in the relationship and means of communication between manufacturers and their immediate customers. Up until the mid-1840s manufacturers expected local merchants -- wholesalers, jobbers, and individual retailers -- to make personal visits to their "warerooms" at their factories or in the downtown stove districts of major cities (Philadelphia, New York, and Boston all had identifiable stove trade clusters by the 1820s). Products could be displayed and demonstrated, and bargains struck. What happened in the 1840s, partly because of an increase in the geographical scale of the market (Albany and Troy producers, for example, were selling stoves in San Francisco from almost the start of the Gold Rush), was that direct, personal connections between manufacturers and retailers, except as mediated through the postal service, became increasingly impossible. What supplemented it or took its place was the hiring of traveling salesmen. Stove salesmen could not carry samples on their selling trips of hundreds or even thousands of miles across the American interior, even after the spread of the railroad network. What they could carry, though, was catalogues, whose primary intended readership was the retail businessmen on whom consumer sales depended. Stove makers also began to use catalogues and other print and non-print advertising and marketing materials to support their retail customers' local sales efforts. For all of this, see my “Inventing the U.S. Stove Industry, c. 1815-1875: Making and Selling the First Universal Consumer Durable,” Business History Review 82:4 (Winter 2008): 701-733 [Winner, Henrietta M. Larson Article Award, 2008], free version here.
1840s
Mott, Jordan L. Description and Design of Mott's Patented Articles, Secured by 27 Patents (New York, 1841), on Flickr, and Description of Stoves, Furnaces, Bath Tubs, Garden Vases, and Ventilators, Manufactured and Sold at Mott Iron Works, Morrisania; and at 264 Water Street, New-York (New York: Mott Iron Works, 1843?). Mott was one of the key innovators in the 1830s and early 1840s, and his firm was probably the largest in the New York market, the nation's biggest. The Internet Archive holds several other late 19th century Mott catalogues, not just for stoves but for plumbing and sanitary fittings, fountains, manhole covers, and ornamental ironwork.
Atwood, Cole & Crane, 1846. Atwood's Patent Empire Hot Air Cooking Stove, for Winter and Summer Use. For Wood or Coal (Troy, NY, 1846), on Flickr. Patented 1842, and on sale for four years. Contains a price list, construction and operating information, and testimonials from satisfied users. Also deals with Anson Atwood's 1845 patent Air-Tight Parlor Stove in Gothic style.
1850s:
Vose & Co., Book of Stoves (Albany, 1853). Reprinted by the Early American Industries Association in 1983 and widely available in libraries. Samuel Vose was one of the New York Capital District's principal stove designers.
Treadwell & Perry. The Lowell Gas Burner: Patented by Mr. D.G. Littlefield -- Manufactured by Treadwell & Perry (Albany, NY, 1853), on Flickr. The original base-burning stove, advertised on the title page as "THE ONLY APPARATUS EVER CONSTRUCTED, THAT WOULD COMPEL THE PERFECT COMBUSTION OF THE INFLAMMABLE GASSES OF ANTHRACITE COAL." Littlefield's relations with T&P soon broke down, as he narrated repeatedly and at length over the next several decades.
Rathbone & Kennedy, Circular (Albany, 1854). Rathbone was one of the oldest names and largest firms in the stove trade of the New York Capital District, which became the industry's principal manufacturing center by the 1840s. One of the oldest proper catalogues to have survived, demonstrating how pioneer stove founders had by the early 1850s developed the industry's full product line and marketing practices.
Newberry, Filley & Co., 1856 Green Island Foundry Catalogue (Troy, NY, 1856), on Flickr. Lucius Newberry and Marcus Lucius Filley were Yankee cousins -- one a merchant in the Midwest, the other an attorney in Upstate New York -- who went into partnership in 1854 to buy and run an established stove foundry, Morrison & Manning, in Troy. Theirs is the best-documented firm in the entire industry, with substantial archival holdings at the New York State Library in Albany and Rensselaer Polytechnic in Troy.
A.H. McArthur & Co., Stove Manufacturers. 1857 [Catalogue] (Albany, NY, 1857), on Flickr. Unremarkable and probably fairly typical.
1860s:
Leibrandt & McDowell, Philadelphia Stove Works and Hollow Ware Foundries [Catalogue] (Philadelphia, PA, 1861). Includes prices. I have written extensively about this firm on my stove history blog.
James Morrison, Jr. Read! Read! Home Comfort Summer and Winter Cooking Stove, Large Ventilated Oven. Patented 1860. Extension and Plain Top (Troy, NY, 1861), on Flickr. Thorough description and operating instructions, plus testimonials.
Potter & Co., Circular (Troy, NY, 1861). Includes prices.
Fuller, Warren & Co. P.P. Stewart's Large Oven, Summer and Winter Air-Tight Cooking Stove (Troy, NY, 1863). Perhaps the best and most influential, probably the most famous, and possibly the most profitable cooking stove. The pamphlet's text was by the inventor himself, and is entitled "The Peculiarities of the the Stewart Cook-Stove, Embracing the Latest Improvements, Briefly Stated, with Directions for Using." He was a fascinating character, and has a blog post all of his own. There are also a few pages from the 1867 edition of this catalogue, with a price list, and an 1873 update, after Stewart's death, including a portrait -- all on Flickr.
Murray & Winne, Union Steam and Water Heating Apparatus, for Warming and Ventilating Private Residences, Public Buildings and Institutions, School Houses, Churches, Stores and Railway Stations (Chicago: Rounds & James, 1866). An early example of the competition stoves and furnaces increasingly encountered in the market for large-scale space heating.
Jewett & Root, The Ventilator! An Improved Self-Feeding, Base Burning and Base Heating Parlor Coal Stove (Buffalo, NY & Chicago, IL: 1868). J&R were one of the earliest (late 1830s) and by the 1860s definitely the largest stove manufacturers on the Lakes.
Perry & Co., Oriental Stove Works. Catalogue of Stoves and Hot Air Furnaces (Albany, NY, 1868). A very full catalogue (including prices) by one of the country's largest manufacturers, and most combative defenders of what it claimed to be its intellectual property. Perry went on to be one of the co-founders, and the first president, of the National Association of Stove Manufacturers in the early 1870s.
Littlefield, D[ennis]. G. The Morning Glory: Origin of the Base-Burning Stove and Its Mode of Operation Clearly Defined by One Who Has Made Them a Study for Fifteen Years (Albany: Littlefield Stove Mfg Co., 1868). A reversion to the older pamphlet-style publication, by a man who claimed to have invented the most popular heating stove type of the 1860s and after, and was by 1868 in bitter competition with Perry, originally his associate in making and selling Littlefield's stoves, later his larger rival in the market and adversary in the courts.
Littlefield Manufacturing Co. The Morning Glory. Origin of the Base-Burning Stove and Its Mode of Operation Clearly Defined by One Who Has Made Them a Study for Many Years (Albany: D.G. Littlefield, 1869).
1870s:
Littlefield, D.G. Theory of the Base-Burning Stove and the Origin of The "Morning Glory" (Albany: Littlefield Stove Mfg Co., 1870).
James R. Nichols, The "Nichols" Gas and Dust Tight Wrought Iron Furnace, manufactured by Lebosquet Brothers, Haverhill, Mass. (Boston, 1871), on Flickr. Not a particularly significant invention, but a rarity among publications like this in that it's about warm-air furnaces, far more costly and with a much smaller market than stoves per se.
J.L. Mott Iron Works, Stoves, Ranges, Hollow Ware, Farmers' Boilers, Cauldrons, Steam Kettles, Laundry Iron Heaters, and Stable Furniture Catalogue(New York, 1871). Demonstrates how broad Mott's product line became as it grew.
Scranton Stove Works, The Merry Christmas Cooking Stove Recipe Book (Scranton, PA, 1871). Advertising material for the firm's "Merry Christmas" stove.
Doyle, William. "America" Improved 1873. Doyle's Double-Acting Flue, First-Class Cooking Stove ... (Albany, NY, 1873), on Flickr. An incomplete copy of an idiosyncratic, rather old-fashioned pamphlet by an inventor-entrepreneur. Interesting particularly for its reports on competitive baking trials among leading cook stove manufacturers, a popular way for them to promote their wares.
Orr, Painter & Co., 1873 Catalogue and Price List of the Reading Stove and Hollow-Ware Works (Reading, PA, 1873). This firm became one of the nation's largest; many of its records (and other catalogues) survive in the Hagley Museum & Library.
Sergeant & Mc Cauley [N. Carolina Foundry, Machine, & Agricultural Works], “Cooking Stoves” (Greensboro, NC: The Firm, 1873) -- a small local manufacturer’s one-page flier, interesting as an example of the spread of stove making and use to the upcountry South after the Civil War.
P.L. Thomas, Culpeper, VA, “Stoves! Stoves” (an 1874 advertising handbill from a local retailer).
Grossius, John. John Grossius, Inventor and Manufacturer of Patent School House Ventilating Stoves, and Warm Air Furnaces, Registers, &c. (Cincinnati: Author, 1876).
Orr, Painter & Co., Illustrated Centennial Catalogue and Price List of the Reading Stove and Hollow-Ware Works (Reading, PA, 1876). A beautiful piece of printing.
Bussey, McLeod & Co., Spring Catalogue of Ranges and Cooking Stoves (Troy, NY, 1877).
Bowes, Jamieson & Co. 1886-7 Descriptive Catalogue and Price List of Cook Stoves, Ranges, Art Garland Base Burners, Hollow-ware, etc. (Hamilton, ONT: The Company, 1886?). "Garland" was the trade name of one of the largest Detroit firms, the Michigan Stove Co., used since 1876 and first registered 1883. Many Canadian firms made U.S. designs under licence -- it was a way for American firms to market their goods north of the border (and beyond the Canadian tariff wall), and to minimize the design piracy that was otherwise rife, given the lack of protection for American patents under Canadian law.
Hess Co., Geo. H./Hess Stove Works. Warming and Ventilation for Public Buildings, Schools, Halls, Stores,Dwellings, Etc., Etc., With a Description of the Hess 'Pure Air' Furnaces,Heaters, Cooking Stoves, Ovens, Fire-Places; &c. (Chicago: The Company, 1887).
Smith & Anthony Stove Co., Furnace Catalogue (Boston, 1887) -- and Hub Stoves, Ranges and Furnaces Catalogue 1894. Note the adoption of a trademark and brand name, increasingly common in the late C19th industry -- S & A first used its own in 1878.
Bowes, Jamieson & Co. Art Garland Stoves & Ranges [1888-89 catalogue] (Hamilton, ONT: The Company, 1888?).
Moore Co., D. 1888-9 Wholesale Price List of Superior Stoves, Ranges, Hollow-ware, &c (Hamilton, ONT: D. Moore Co., 1888?). "Superior" was the trademark (used since 1863, registered 1876) of the Bridge & Beach Mfg. Co. of St. Louis, one of America's largest.
Moore Co., D. 1889-1890 Supplement to 1888-9 Wholesale Price List of Superior Stoves, Ranges, Hollow-ware, &c. (Hamilton, ONT: D. Moore Co., 1889?).
Chown & Cunningham Co. 1890-1 Illustrated Catalogue & Price List Containing Full Description of aComplete Line of 'Favorite' Stoves & Ranges (Kingston, ONT: Chown & Cunningham Co., 1890). "Favorite" was the US-registered (1875, but used since 1861) trademark of the Favorite Stove & Range Co., Piqua, Ohio.
Kisterbock & Son, J. [estabd. 1830]. Heating, Ventilating & Cooking Apparatus (Philadelphia: The Company, 1890).
Pratt Manufacturing Co., The. Woman and Her Slave (New York: The Company, 1890) – promoting the oil-fuelled cooking stove.
Sheppard & Co., Isaac A. Perfect Cooking (Philadelphia: The Company, 1890) – standing up for solid fuel instead.
The Harvest Stove Co., The New Golden Harvest Wood Stove (S. Pittsburg, TN: The Company, 1890) -- as with other items from Duke's Hartmann collection, this is especially useful for illustrating the extension of the "stove region" to include the post-Civil War South, in which the development of significant manufacturing capacity followed the development of a local market.
S.M. Howes & Co., 1890-91 Catalogue and Price List of Stoves, Ranges, Furnaces and Basket Grates (Boston, 1890).
Chown & Cunningham Co. 1892 Illustrated Catalogue & Price List of 'Favorite' Stoves & Ranges (Kingston, ONT: Chown & Cunningham Co., 1892).
Gurney & Co., E. & C. Catalogue (Hamilton, ONT: The Company, 1892).
Cox Stove Company, Abram. Catalogue (Philadelphia, 1892) – a fine catalogue from one of the largest U.S. firms at the time.
Stamford Foundry Co., Cooking and Heating Stoves, Ranges, Hot-Air Furnaces, Laundry Stoves, Confectioners' Stoves, Caboose Ranges, Etc., Etc. (Stamford, CT, 1892).
Clare Bros. & Co. Descriptive Catalogue of Fine Stoves, Ranges and Hollow-ware, of Warm Air Furnaces, Registers and Combination Heaters, 1893-4 (Preston, ONT: Clare Bros., 1893)
Cleveland Foundry Co. Puritan Oil Heating Stoves for the Fall and Winter 1894-1895 (Cleveland: The Company, 1894).
Smart Mfg. Co., James. Combined Catalogue and Wholesale Price List of "Perfection" Stoves, Ranges andFurnaces, "Favorite" Stoves and Ranges (Brockville, ONT: James Smart Mfg. Co., 1894?) -- see Chown & Cunningham [1890], above.
Smith & Anthony Co., Catalogue. Smith & Anthony Co. 1894-5. Hub Stoves, Ranges and Furnaces (Boston, 1894).
Schneider & Trenkamp Co., The. "Reliable" Cooking (Cleveland, Chicago, & San Francisco: The Company, ####). -- S & T was a division of the American Stove Co., one of the industry's rare corporate mergers. The 1910 ed. is also available via the Hathi Trust -- 'Reliable' Cooking. "Reliable" was a good, reassuring trade name for a brand of oil stoves, given their tendency to explode.
Detroit Stove Works. Catalogue and Price List No. 67 of Jewel Stoves and Ranges (Detroit: The Company, 1900). Detroit was the largest stove manufacturing city by the 1900s, and the DSW was its biggest firm. Some of its records, too, survive -- in the Burton Historical Collections at the Detroit Public Library. Unfortunately, but probably for copyright reasons, this catalogue is missing its illustrations.
Prizer-Painter Stove & Heater Co., Heater Catalogue No. 4. Henderson Thermo Water and Steam Heaters (Reading, PA, c. 1900). Prizer-Painter was an offshoot of the Reading Stove Works, and occupied its new (Millmont) plant. Cf. RSW's own c. 1904 heater catalogue, below.
Sill Stove Works. Sill Stove Works Makers of Sterling Stoves and Ranges (Rochester, NY: The Company, 1903). Note Sill’s specialty, the “combination range” – a coal or wood and gas appliance in one.
Sears, Roebuck & Co. Stoves for 1904 (Chicago: The Company, 1904). An interesting example of innovation in marketing -- Sears cut out the middleman (the retailer) and sold its own-brand goods, manufactured in what it said was its own huge foundry, direct to consumers nationwide. The 1897 Catalogue, widely available as a reprint, demonstrates that, before Sears embarked on this venture, it bought its solid-fuel stoves from the Reading Stove Works and sold them under the maker's trademark and in direct competition with its supplier, pp. 133-41. In fact, whatever the "evidence" of the factory picture on the back cover of the 1904 catalogue, the roofs and walls plastered with the Sears name, there was no Sears factory in Newark, Ohio, as such -- it had simply replaced the Reading firm with other suppliers, the Wehrle Stove Co., founded in 1883, in which it may have acquired a controlling interest.
Phillips & Clark Stove Co., Catalogue of Andes Stoves & Ranges (Geneva, NY, 1904).
Reading Stove Works, Hot Water & Steam Catalogue No. 3: Monarch, Imperial, and Vestal, Sunshine Heaters (Reading, PA, 1904). Note how decorated their boiler-fronts still were -- a surviving Victorian aesthetic.
Schneider & Trenkamp Co., The. Reliable Gas Stoves & Ranges (Cleveland, Chicago, & San Francisco: The Company, 1905).
Abendroth Brothers, Catalogue [Number 38] of Stoves and Ranges for either Wood or Coal Suitable for All Parts of the World (Port Chester, NY, c. 1900-1905). The IA thinks this is c. 1880 because it includes 1876 and 1877 cook stoves, but the style of some of the goods (particularly the ranges) suggests a much later date.
Clark & Co., Henry N. Parlor, Cylinder, Laundry Stoves (Boston: The Company, 1908).
Clark & Co., Henry N. Range Catalogue (Boston, 1908).
Moore Co., D. Illustrated Catalogue and Price List No. 61, 1909-10 (Hamilton, ONT: D. Moore Co., 1909?).
Weir Stove Co. Modern Glenwood A and B Single Pipe Warm Air Furnaces for Burning Coal or Wood ["Make Heating Easy"] (Taunton: The Company, 1910).
American Stove Co., The ‘New Process’ Wick Oil Cookstove Cookbook, c. 1910.
The Michigan Stove Co.’s Cupid at Home in the Kitchen, c. 1910.
Detroit Stove Works. Jewel Stoves, Ranges and Furnaces: Catalogue No. 91 (Detroit: The Company, 1911).
Clark & Co., Henry N. Stove Catalogue (Boston, 1911).
Wright, Samuel Seward. The Kitchen Fire and How to Run It: A Manual for the Housewife showing how to saveCoal, Gas, Labor and Health (##: Author, 1912) – a promotional leaflet from the Scranton Stove Works.
Cleveland Foundry Co., New Perfection Cook-Book (Cleveland: The Company, 1912) -- another oil-stove users' guide, attractively color-printed.
Noyes & Nutter Mfg Co., Catalogue (Bangor, ME, 1912). Furnaces, ranges, stoves, hollow ware, etc. Downloadable PDF.
Avondale Stove & Foundry Co., Supplement to Catalogue No. 16 (Birmingham, AL: The Company, 1913).
McClary Mfg. Co. Catalogue Eighty-Six: Cooking & Heating Appliances (London, ONT: The Company, 1914).
Burrow, Stewart & Milne Co. Jewel Gas Stoves and Gas Appliances for Cooking and Heating (Hamilton, ONT: The Company, 1916?). See Detroit Stove Works entry; the "Jewel" trademark had been in use since 1875.
Buck Stove Co., Ltd., The William. "Happy Thoughts" Cooking Ranges for People Who Are Particular (Brantford, ONT: The Company, 191?). An unusual catalogue in that it is addressed to the consumer, not the dealer; a rare practice in the C19th, but increasingly common in the early C20th.
Excelsior Stove & Manufacturing Co. National Furnaces, Catalog No. 7 (Quincy, IL: The Company, 191?).
McClary Mfg. Co. The Household Helper and Catalogue of Florence Automatic Oil Stoves: Recipes and Practical Suggestions for the Home (London, ONT: The Company, 1920).
Monitor Stove Co. The Pipeless Caloric Furnace: The Original Patented Pipeless Furnace ["Furnace Heat for Every Home"] (Cincinnati: The Company, 1920).
Kalamazoo Stove Co. 21stAnniversary Bargain Book (Kalamazoo: The Company, 1922). Kalamazoo was, like Sears, a pioneer in mass production and direct marketing to consumers, cutting out the usual retail dealers.
Reading Stove Works [Orr, Painter & Co.]. Catalog No. 37 1923 Sunshine Stoves and Ranges (Reading: The Company, 1923). Note the fact that, by the 1920s, stoves were available in colors other than black.
White-Warner Co., Quaker Stove Catalogue (Taunton, MA, 1926).
Allen Manufacturing Co. Allen's Parlor Furnace: Catalog No. 3 (Nashville, TN: The Company, 192?).
Eclipse Stove Co. Eclipse Stoves, Catalog No. 26: Illustrating Cast & Steel Ranges, Cast Cook,Heating Stoves for Coal & Wood & School Heating Apparatus (The Company: Mansfield, OH, 192?).
Magee Furnace Co. Magee Ranges (Boston: The Company, 192?).
Alcazar Range & Heater Co. Alcazar Ranges & Heaters (Milwaukee: The Company, 1931).
Excelsior Stove & Manufacturing Co. Supplement No. 1 to Catalog No. 41 (Quincy, IL: The Company, 1931).
Peninsular Stove Co. Peninsular Stoves & Ranges. Catalog No. 625 (Detroit & Chicago: The Company, 1931).
Kalamazoo Stove Co. A Kalamazoo Direct to You (Kalamazoo: The Company, 1934). The title was company's catchy slogan, summarizing its distinctive business model.
Quincy Stove Mfg. Co. Monogram Ranges, Heaters: Catalog No. 39A Sept. 1, 1939 (Quincy, IL: The Company, 1939).
Eagle Foundry Co. [Catalog] (Belleville, IL: The Company, 193?).
Kalamazoo Stove Co. Kalamazoo Factory Prices (Kalamazoo: The Company, 193?). Another way of emphasizing the company's low-price offer.
Excelsior Stove & Manufacturing Co. National Ranges, Cooking Stoves and Heaters: Catalog No. 49 (Quincy, IL: The Company, 1940). Interesting evidence for the persistence of the industry and the (modest) evolution of its products, more in appearance than anything else.
Perfection Stove Co. Perfection and Ivanhoe Oil-Burning Heaters 1949 (Cleveland, OH: The Company, 1949). Oil stoves had been competitors of solid-fuel appliances since the 1870s, and by the 1940s were trying hard to look as much like gas or electric appliances as they could.
Perfection Stove Co. Perfection Oil-Burning Ranges, Cook Stoves, Water Heaters 1949 (Cleveland, OH: The Company, 1949).
Excelsior Stove & Manufacturing Co. National Stoves, Ranges and Heaters: Catalog No. 52R (Quincy, IL: The Company, 1950).
Coleman Co., Inc., The. Make the Living Zone the Comfort Zone with Coleman Automatic Oil Heaters: CatalogNo. 12A (Wichita, KS: The Coleman Co., 195?).
Undated Advertising Ephemera
“I Say Snowflake” – a very politically-incorrect advertisement for the leading brand of stove polish.
tba
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