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A topic for recording information regarding the Towle & Jones, A.F. Towle & Sons Co., Towle Mfg. Co., and Towle Silversmiths companies.
If you have any details of the above company, advertisements, examples of their work, etc., anything that you are willing to share, then here's the place to post it.
The premises of the Towle Manufacturing Company at Newburyport, Massachusetts, c.1895
A new factory has been started at Greenfield, Mass., for the manufacture of jewelry by H.F. Koonz, who was formerly connected with the A.F. Towle & Sons Company. Mr Koonz is a skilled designer in work of precious metals and comes from Melrose Highlands, where he has been located for the last thirteen years. About fifteen people are now employed and it is thought the number will eventually be increased to fifty.
THE SILVERSMITHING INDUSTRY A LEADING ONE IN NEW ENGLAND
The center of the silversmith industry in New England is in and around Boston, and even in the towns where much of the actual work is done Boston is looked to as the place to learn just what the trade is asking for and what are the tendencies of the silver-buying public.
There was never any dearth of silversmiths in Boston, and it is possible for a person to buy here the equal of goods sold in New York, which by the very fact of selling in New York assume in many cases a false value. The person who cannot find in the Boston stores as fine and as large a variety as is to be found in other places in this country has simply failed to search carefully.
Towle Manufacturing Company—A recent writer has, with some truth,characterized the successful business enterprise as " the lengthened shadow of one man." Without detraction from this tribute to the individual, however, there may be found in this achievement and its environment a continuity of like effort linking the latter-day industry indissolubly to the old-time craftsmanship.
The Towle Manufacturing Company, with its teeming factories, is the growth of a quarter of a century, but its impulse spans two centuries and was originally derived from the labors of William Moulton, who was established as a silversmith in Newbury (now Newburyport), in 1689. The Moulton family flourished and perpetuated the craft from generation to generation, its last manufacturing silversmith, Mr. Joseph Moulton, being in active business when the Towle Manufacturing Company was incorporated. Mr. Anthony F. Towle served as an apprentice in the Moulton shop and in 1855 established a business in his own name. For some years this business was continued with William P. Jones, under the name of Towle & Jones, following which, with the withdrawal of Mr. Jones and the entrance of Edward B. Towle. the firm was known as A. F. Towle and Son.
The movement toward centralization and specialization, which has been the keynote of modern manufacturing and which first manifested itself by drawing the scattered shoemakers from their little neighborhood shops to the broad roof and whirring wheels of the factory, had already closed about the silversmith, hammering interminably his bar of pliant metal, and this industry in turn delivered its manual burden to the powerful, swift, and untiring machinery, and devoted its energies to solving the problems and administering the greater business of the new regime.
In this instance new capital assisted the transition, and the partnership gave way to a corporation under the name of the Towle Manufacturing Company, by which name it has been known, with a steadily widening appreciation, for almost a generation.
Great as is the disparity between the methods of forty years ago and those which now prevail in the manufacture of silver spoons—under which head is included all flatware—in its chief distinction, the stamping of the silver in dies, instead of hammering it by hand, is one of degree only, while the real departure and economic advance consist of the substitution of grade rolling and form cutting by machinery. The use of dies of some sort is practically as old as spoon making itself, as this is the logical and only reasonable way of producing a spoon bowl in the harder metals, and their use to form the handles of such articles can be traced interestingly from the "tip," first produced by hammering or "swaging" the end of the spoon handle into a small steel matrix held in a vise.
From these beginnings it was but a further development to sink in the steel a cavity for the entire handle, and setting this in a solid foundation to hammer it with another similar steel fixed to a heavy weight which supplanted the force of the workman's arm by dropping between guides which insured accuracy and provided safety in the operation. At this stage we have the drop hammer, in which nearly all such work is done to-day and the use of which has extended to many other branches of silver work and to the forming of articles in every metal.
To return to the real divergence from the workman to the machine—from the slow and laborious method of the old shop to the rapid system of the present—we find the smith with a small bar of silver which he has cut to furnish the required metal for a spoon of a certain size, and this he hammers into shape, at first roughly, then delicately, beginning by narrowing it at a point not far from the middle and thereby lengthening it, and then spreading the shorter and broad and thin to give the area for the bowl, subsequently drawing out and spreading the handle for its swaging and filing and smoothing. He has accomplished the transformation from a bar of uniform width and thickness to a spoon having the bowl and handle and shank—the junction of the two former—of suitable and varying thicknesses which, before stamping bowl and tip, is called a blank. We leave this workman, making his dozen or two of spoons a day, and we push the bars of silver between two steel rolls driven by resistless gears. We have ground these rolls with carefully calculated depressions extending across their faces and we receive our bars on the other side of the machine, lengthened and " graded" exactly as required, lacking only a proper outline to constitute the necessary "blank." This outline is quickly given by another machine which cuts out the spoon shape by freeing it from the surplus, which goes back to the crucible to be melted and rolled into bars.
On these fundamental operations factories have been founded; and where skill and artistic merit have dominated the forces, the results are beautiful and worthy. The Towle Manufacturing Company was one of the first to adopt these methods and by superior equipment and a high standard of design and execution, early achieved an enviable reputation in this line, which is sustained and extended from year to year. Its variety of colonial patterns is perhaps the most noteworthy and successful of any that have been produced.
When the success of its flatware business had been demonstrated this company set about the manufacture of sterling silver hollow ware and by the assembling of skilled workmen and mechanical facilities of every sort it has been able to produce a most extensive line of permanent merit, for which also a ready market has been found.
In this department the elemental methods of the craftsman who plied his trade in Newburyport one hundred years ago are still to a great extent practiced, and although machinery has rivalled them with growing success it cannot supplant them.
The silversmith or "plate maker" of to-day has, unlike the spoon maker, who, with a few exceptions, has passed from view, inherited all the skill and traditions of his craft and he is also favored with many appliances and conveniences not obtainable by his predecessors. Of the latter, the first in sequence and importance is the facility with which, through the ponderous rolling mills which he has at his command, he can obtain sheets of silver of any and of uniform thickness of any required size, from which to form his product. If he is to make a teapot , he calculates, from a drawing, the size and shape of the plate required, and lays out in the middle of it the shape of the bottom of the piece, which is the only part to retain the original texture of the rolled sheet. By gradual processes of hammering which stretch or compact the metal at will, be brings the sides to form a basin shape and then, after softening, or annealing, in the fire, higher and higher, until they close around the neck with a semblance of the desired shape. This is the rough and laborious part of the operation, accomplished by thousands of heavy, yet perfectly adjusted blows, from hammers of wood, horn, and steel. His finer skill is now called forth in giving the determining and distinctive form to the rudely-shaped "body." as it is called. Curves are pressed inward and stretched outward, lines trued and surfaces smoothed by delicate blows with light hammers that in their incomprehensible variety seem to the uninitiated shaped in pure vagary of invention, but each of which has its own quality of blow or fits some otherwise inaccessible part. To make these pattering blows effective, small anvils or "stakes," still more abundant and less intelligible, are inserted within the pot, their long body or supporting arm held firmly in a vise, and the shape of each is to a degree imparted to the particular section it alone matches.
The handle, spout, and cover may be made in the same manner, only the rough shapes for the two former are given by folding the sheets of silver into tubes and uniting the edges with solder, and then tliese parts are assembled and attached at red heat, in the flame of the blow-pipe, with a solder that is only slightly less in its content of pure silver.
In the old days, after filing the edges and excess of solder, the surface was smoothed by abrasion with pieces of fine-grained stone, and then burnished with a blunt and smooth steel tool. Here again, to-day, the power and speed of machinery lends its aid and supplaces the latter operation. Leather and cloth wheels revolving at invisible speed—it may be 5,000 revolutions a minute—carry powdered stones and metallic oxides, and utilized by skill that in its perfection approaches art, removes the imprint of formative labor and draws from within the peerless luster whose potency can only be surpassed by the crystal sphere of occultism.
With this outline of the evolution of hollow ware, equally ancient and modern, before us. we can retrace our steps and note briefly the economic departures which have lessened labor and cost in many varieties of the product.
First of these was the spinning of such pieces as are circular in plan. A "chuck," as it is called, is turned from wood in exact counterpart of the teapot, dish, or other article to be made, and is attached to the revolving arbor of a high-speed lathe: a disc of silver is then firmly fixed between the bottom of this and a resisting center which revolves with and steadies it; the workman, with a heavy steel tool held firmly under his arm, presses the back of the revolving silver at the point where in its flat state it diverges from the chuck, and as the pliant clay rises on the potter's wheel under the guiding touch of his hands and forms the fictile vessel, so the silver, under the compelling pressure of the steel, closes steadily about the chuck, until, having passed its length, the tool leaves it at the top closely enveloping the wood, which in cases where the neck or top is reduced, is withdrawn in pieces, having been so contrived that the removal of a central core makes this possible and leaves the chuck for indefinite use.
Where articles of overdosing design and other than circular plan are to be reproduced in numbers. dies are made of iron or steel of such form that. where the piece is symmetrical, two impressions from this die joined at the edges furnish the desired shape. The impressions are made in heavy drop hammers or in various forms of presses of which the most powerful is hydraulic, with a capacity of 1,000 tons per square inch. Handles, spouts, and trimmings of all kinds are reproduced in the same way, the line of juncture being in most cases in a vertical plane of the article, and, when skillfully soldered, invisible in the finished work.
In all this work the silversmith is still paramount. The steel rolls save his strength, and the fierce blast of the gas flame, under most delicate control, anneals his work and fuses the solder with greater accuracy and facility than the charcoal fire on which he was formerly dependent; the spinning lathe and the press may or may not provide the shaped body, but if not made entirely under his hammer, few pieces are completed without its finishing strokes, rectifying and compacting here and there, and imbuing the whole with individuality and strength.
In this imperfect sketch the aim is merely to show how, figuratively, the roots of the Towle Manufacturing Company were in primitive soil and its branches and fruit are in the most modern atmosphere. It provides handwork of the most artistic character, and it has. by the aid of perfected machinery, so lessened the cost in many departments, without deterioration of quality, that the market has been greatly widened and from the nucleus of twenty-five years ago its plant has been steadily enlarged to keep pace with the growing demand, while it has acquired a reputation and stability that bid fair to perpetuate indefinitely this important industry that has done so much for New England.
Source: Commercial and Financial New England Illustrated - Boston Herald - 1906
Newburyport, Mass., April 5.—Anthony F. Towle, widely known in the jewelry trade, died here to-night. He was born in Newburyport, Dec. 12, 1816. He learned the silversmiths' trade with the late firm of N. & T. Foster, and in 1855 established the firm of Towle & Jones, jewelers and silversmiths. Subsequently the firm name was changed to Towle, Jones & Co. and A. F. Towle & Son.
Under the last firm name, in 1880, the manufacture of silverware was established in this city by the deceased. Mr. Towle retired from active business in 1892, and enjoyed excellent health until Sunday, when he was taken suddenly sick. He leaves a widow and three children, Mrs. E. B. Horn, of Boston, and Edward B. and William A. Towle, of this city.
Source: The Jewelers' Circular and Horological Review - 7th April 1897
Among the new designs of tableware which have been recently placed on the market is one shown by the Towle Manufacturing Company of Chicago, a specimen of which we give in our illustration. The firm have appropriately given it the name of Georgian. The Ionic column forms the basis of the de sign and its elegance and perfect suitability for such a purpose causes surprise that it has never been adopted before. The capital of the column, as will be seen in our illustration, is surmounted with a basket of flowers, a wreath of which hangs gracefully down. Although furnished in bright silver, if so desired, the Georgian is especially adapted to the "French" or Gray finish, which in this ware has been carried to a high degree of perfection. The effect of this finish is to enhance the delicate details, and passing from the pearly gray of the plainer parts to the accented shadows of the prominent figures blends all in an agreeable and harmonious whole. The design while strictly speaking Georgian, is also in the Colonial style, and in this way is the nearest approach to a purely American style of design of anything we have seen in tableware. The Towle Manufacturing Company have just issued a handsome catalogue containing illustrations of the varied articles of silverware they manufacture in this design. These include, in addition to the regular dozen work, cutlery and other indispensable articles, many designed for special use.
A. L. Fuller, Chicago manager for the Towle Mfg. Co., has gone to Newburyport, Mass., to attend the annual meeting of salesmen of the company. Frank J. Spellman, O. F. Samuelson and Charles A. Bartling. traveling representatives from the Chicago offices, will attend the convention and will spend some time visiting New York and other cities of the east, accompanied by their wives.
William B. Ingalls, for many years, until his retirement several years ago, master mechanic and superintendent of the Towle Mfg. Co., Newburyport, Mass., maker of silverware, died at his home in that city, Aug. 28, aged 81 years.
Source: The Iron Trade Review - 8th September 1921
The sample, piercing, filing and sawing rooms of the Towle Mfg. Co. of Newburyport, Mass., manufacturers of sterling silver wares, are being combined into one room. The floor boards have been taken up and burned to recover the silver that has lodged in them.
Source: The Brass World and Platers' Guide - July 1907
Newburyport, Mass.—Since 1880 the Towle Silver Company, of this city, has sold $10,000,000 worth of manufactured goods and has paid $2,000,000 in wages to the employes of the company.
The handsome salesrooms of the Towle Mfg. Co. present a busy appearance these days. The house is fully employed, and the new pattern, the "Empire," an exceptionally choice design, comes in for a large share of praise. Orders are in excess of factory output.
Source: The Jewelers' Circular and Horological Review - 21st November 1894
