The Seating of the Nation
ONE man’s idea has created an industry devoted to seating the public, and now if you say, “The Nation be seated,” more than fifty millions, country-wide, would take their places and sit in every degree of satisfaction, by night or day, in cloistered cathedral or boisterous ballpark, in public auditoriums, theatres, and schools, from where rolls the Columbia to Cape Cod.
One man said: “I will build the seats of the nation for public seating,” and you will find t hem to-day in every hamlet, village, town, city, metropolis — gathered in school groups for little tots, and congregated in concourses of fifty thousand for big-uns. You will find them in every type of church of every faith; in village, city, metropolitan schools; in universities; in ball parks, theatres, Chautauquas; in circuses; in lodges; in auditoriums; in mortuary chapels; in factory and public halls; and in all the country’s chambers. You will find them of low and high degree; some, having served their part, are discarded; others will be found reposing in places of long age, cherished as though they were not made by hands, but held priceless, eternal.
In a rude sort of way, one learns the earliest pieces of practical furniture constructed by men were chairs. Oak woods were used; to-day oak still symbolizes church character; its grain lends added splendor to thought — a realization of harmony.
It is easily seen that when Thomas M. Boyd of Hamilton, Ohio, came to the conclusion to seat the nation he started a man’s size job — one that compelled him to gather together a large group of men skilled in nearly every sort, of human endeavor: the artist and the artizan, the college professor and the woodsman, the men of iron and steel,—from foundryman to polisher, — the disciplinarian, engineer, business man, lawyer, doctor; the man who cares naught for money, works for art’s sake, and the man who knows all about money and counts that day lost when the concern is not advanced to a better and stronger financial position.
At one time it is actually true nearly everyone seemed to make a seat or two — but of factories that earnestly delved in seat-making there were really none. Under the then conditions, seats were bought largely within three or four months of the year. Statistical compilations of demand were nonexistent. The industry was chaotic and the problem of supplying an intensely seasonal demand in the absence of data permitting the building of an intelligent, economical, and continuous manufacturing-program seemed to be a problem impossible of solution.
To cut and gather and season and dry and prepare the woods, and to fashion and assemble and pack and ship millions of seats in three months involved too large an economic loss, too great a drain on the nation, and these conditions which generally existed had to be met and solved.
In order to do so one had first to buy the factory, patent rights, and goodwill of nearly thirty of the larger seatmakers, who had other lines of business as well. This was finally worked out in a practical manner. There are still many manufacturers of public seats, but by far the largest concern to-day is the American Seating Company, of which Thomas M. Boyd is the president, and the real genius of the business.
It is an organization that has been gathered by dint of close thought, hard work, and coöperation; of self-effacement, with a common purpose for progress. Every type of man seemed to be represented in the official personnel: men of knowledge, of skill, of thought, of poise; and in addition to the official personnel we have the distributor, whose acumen has shown him the way so to coöperate with the management as to make a complete circle; an industrial family. One of the leading officers will tell you that the president’s idea, now established, has been pride of ownership, financial independence, earnings control, market preëminence, expense control, organization superiority; but above all is institutional goodwill — this is maintained by temporary sacrifices when necessary.
The rise, the growth, and the present operation of the American Seating Company have a romance of their own. Without seeming to, the company makes American citizens out of Americans as well as aliens. It has established a real factory government of men and officers that actually functions to the benefit of the user of the furniture. It encourages art that seems to be for art’s sake, yet yields a profit for the artist wood-carver. It has created most wondrous pieces of wood tracery: delicate, inspiring, speaking—yes, moving—pieces of wood carving. Many pieces and groups of these wood carvings are beyond price.
This company has aided a multitude to a life with peace of mind and the comfort of a home. The average schooling of its workers has increased from three and a half years to eight years. Men are given work the year round instead of four months. What sounds like a drama is a reality—peace and plenty and harmony abound where naught but discord and strife might have prevailed. In all this the president of the company has not only had the full coöperation of a group of the company’s own officers, but a sterling group of dealer associates as well.
These ideas at work must be seen to be realized. We are now going to and through one of the larger plants of the American Seating Company located in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Physically there are four hundred and fifty thousand square feet of factory space in light, heat, and comfort, in which are engaged each year upward of fifteen-hundred men, varying slightly.
As you go into the main factory office you discover a bank — which employees use; the bank is a branch of a city institution.
The next presentation looks like the display of a large retailer of silverware; a closer view shows it to be hundreds of silver trophies that have been won by the different factory groups in outdoor and indoor sports.
The management gives you a little white tag and you wander about at will.
Here you find Young America has decided comfort is an asset; that the knowledge required in making schooldesks has been in the process of accumulation the past fifty years; that desks may be made from maple, birch, gum or oak woods. Hard maple has been found to be the accepted standard material for school-desk manufacture, however, and it only is looked upon as a standard by the American Seating Company.
There are virtually millions of seats in various processes. The finished articles show chairs and desks for tots, for study halls, laboratories, recitation and fixed-purpose rooms — pedestal-type chairs. One type of movable chair when folded is so compact as to reflect almost a single line; of this particular type one is told upward of a million have already been made. And there are all kinds of theatre chairs — from simple wood affairs to elaborate overstuffed ones. Here is also to be found school furniture, including elaborate tubular-steel combination-desks, steel adjustable box-desks and chairs, and many which are both adjustable and movable.
The first real view you get in seeing the men at work is of motion. You seem to realize a sense of the harmony of effort on the different floors; it does not appear to be studied — each one impresses you that he is working without fear or favor, that he is doing his best.
The whistle blows and you go with the men. As you reach the outer yards on a hot August noonday you encounter a big milk wagon. The man on the wagon has delivered his milk and he tells you he delivered eleven hundred bottles of milk to-day. In semichaff you say: “ These people must have money.” The answer comes quickly: “You are blank right they have money — and they are always working. ”
There was a time when the men at work in this kind of effort worked largely no more than four months in the year. Now the man has a real job, the company has a real force, the economy of overhead makes a profit.
Back to the workshop and actual scientific reporting begins. You find the declaration of principles and articles of association of the American Seating Company’s Employees’ Congress. All employees are welcome at the meetings of Congress as spectators.
“ We, the employees of the American Seating Company, believe that the best solution for all difficulties which arise in connection with the manufacture of our product is the organization of this Congress.
“ Greater economy in manufacture in order that we may be successful in bidding for trade through keeping this factory operating on an even production basis shall be our aim. We believe close coöperation between the employees and the Company will result in an improved product.”
The Congress has three main divisions —Cabinet, composed of plant manager, office manager, steel superintendent, mechanical engineer, iron superintendent ; Senate of department and assistant foremen; House, with one representative chosen by ballot for each department . Women employees are entitled to one representative elected at large, regardless of how many other women may be in Congress. Since the organization of the Congress peace and plenty have prevailed.
One foundryman said: “We have been going fine since we put the government in the works. ” You could not get a clearer view — it tells exactly how the many are thinking.
Grand Rapids is a community of individually owned homes, and the people of the American Seating Company nearly all own homes.
One of the most striking reflections of a long day’s work was the continuous voicing of the men that they knew the manager of the American Seating Company’s Grand Rapids Plant.
Not so many years ago the percentage of American-born in the Grand Rapids Plant was twenty-nine — foreign-born, seventy-one. To-day the percentage reads — American-born, seventy-one per cent—foreign-born, twenty-nine per cent. In education less than sixth grade, twenty-two per cent; less than twelfth grade, sixty-nine per cent; twelfth grade and over, ten per cent. Everyone is an American citizen or has made a declaration.
In the employment department one learns that the average schooling for everyone is now close to eight years, against three a few years ago. Good Will Departments abound.
The church seating is produced in the Manitowoc, Wisconsin, factory. For more than thirty-six years the Manitowoc factory of the American Seating Company has been in continuous operation, making ecclesiastical furniture, including the higher class of wood carving.
One of the earliest specimens of Egyptian Art in wood is that of a statue Shekh El Beled found in a tomb of Sak Kara; ebony, acacia, cedar, and sycamore woods were employed.
Fine wood-carving dates back to the thirteenth century and specimens are shown in Exeter Cathedral, England, erected by Bishop Bruere in 1222-1244. In fifty stalls are rare carvings showing fine sprays of raised foliage. One good piece with a man’s head represents Nebuchadnezzar in his debasement.
The horrors of the black death of 1349 drove the people into churches and men began to build in wondrous splendor churches all over England.
The fifteenth century produced quantities of the most remarkable wood-carving the world has ever seen.
Worcester Cathedral shows fine specimens; also All Souls Church, Sutton, Courtenay, Berkshire; at St. Andrew’s Church, Sohan, Cambridgeshire, Ten Misericordes in the chancel date from the fifteenth century.
Now in our everyday life wood-carving in a large way is being carried on at the Manitowoc Wood Carving Studios of the American Seating Company.
The men at work are real artists. They make their own designs or follow the design furnished by churchman or architect. Some of these pieces are works of real art. For cathedral or church one may order carved statuary whose tracery will live for ages to the glory of God.
Architects are now realizing that they can have their ideas exactly expressed and coördinated with the tone, the finish, the light, the vision of the church.
Care is devoted to woods from a long series of effort and knowledge. Moisture is eliminated to suit the atmospheric conditions of the requirements. The furniture is built to last the life of the church in the climate in which the church is located. Furniture and interior woodwork for churches — pews, pulpits, altars, railings, and ecclesiastical cabinet work—are made in the more than one hundred thousand square feet of factory and studio space.
You begin to get an idea of their business when you learn at their General Offices, 14 East Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, where the executive offices are located, that in the past years more than fifteen million theatre-chairs have been produced by the company. You are talking to the founder of the company, Thomas M. Boyd. He says: “As the father of the institution I have always looked up to our effort for Something beside money. I have always felt that we could economically sell to the entire world. It is gratifying to know that we furnish the great national theatres of the western hemisphere with our effort; that we are able to send our labor to the Indies, to Africa, to farflung countries; that we have gotten beyond the idea of grasping competition, into the security of world service, and this condition has been brought about through the coöperation of factory men, office men and women, officers of the company, and a group of distributor associates who market our products. ”