G. WALLACE CHESSMAN
Town Promotion in the Progressive
Era: The Case of Newark, Ohio
On July 8, 1910, an angry mob stormed
the county jail at Newark,
Ohio, seized a young, white "dry
detective" being held there, carried
him off to the courthouse square and
lynched him.1 That violent act
stunned local leaders who had long
promoted their booming industrial
town in Licking County as "the best
place in Ohio to live and work."
At the same time it dramatized the
inter-city struggle that had long
engaged business interests in most
American cities of that era, as each
sought to outdo its closest rivals in
the competition for growth.
Town promotion has a history going back
to the "urban frontier"
of the late eighteenth century. Few
American communities did not have
boosters seeking to attract new
migrants, new means of transport,
new institutions public and private. By
the 1850s civic leaders in Cin-
cinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus had
formed local associations to pro-
mote trade in a regular, systematic
fashion. With the rise of manufac-
turing in the post-Civil War period, the
focus of inter-city rivalry east
of the Mississippi shifted to the
acquisition of new industry. It was into
this latter competition that Newark and
other towns of similar size soon
entered.2
Characteristically, Newark promoters
approached their work in a pa-
rochial fashion. They did not place
their efforts within a historical con-
G. Wallace Chessman is Professor of
History at Denison University, Granville,
Ohio.
1. A "dry detective" was a
private individual hired by prohibitionists to enforce local
liquor laws.
2. On earlier efforts at town promotion,
see especially Richard W. Wade, The Urban
Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities,
1790-1830 (Cambridge, 1959), Chapters
1-2, 6, 10;
Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans:
The National Experience (New York, 1965), Part
Three; Harry N. Scheiber, "Urban
Rivalry and Internal Improvements in the Old North-
west, 1820-1860," Ohio History, LXXI
(October 1962), 227-39, 290-92; Charles N.
Glaab, Kansas City and the Railroads (Madison,
1962); Blake McKelvey, The Urbaniza-
tion of America 1860-1915 (New Brunswick, 1963), Chapter 2; Kenneth Sturges,
American Chambers of Commerce (New York, 1915). See also Henry L. Hunker, Indus-
trial Evolution of Columbus, Ohio (Columbus, 1958). Milwaukee's Chamber of Com-
merce was one of the first to raise a
fund to "promote the city's industrial growth," in
1869; see Bayrd Still, Milwaukee: The
History of a City (Madison, 1948; rev. ed., 1965),
348-53.
254 OHIO HISTORY
text, nor did they generalize broadly
about American developments;
theirs did seem in the 1880s an
"island community" such as Robert
Wiebe has described. From examples close
at hand they nevertheless
derived some notion of wider influences,
whether in schemes for at-
tracting industry or later in programs
for civic improvement. Through
three and a half decades after 1880
their town would become ever more
involved in the new urban-industrial
system that was destroying auton-
omous communities across the land.
Theirs would indeed be an evolu-
tion typical of small-town America
during the Progressive Era.3
To contest with other cities at all
required certain "natural advan-
tages" that Newark boosters
appreciated. Situated in a farming area
that in the 1880s led all Ohio counties
in wool production, their town
was a logical market center. To the
south were abundant coal fields,
while the Licking River valley assured a
copious supply of water; and
in 1887 drillers brought in the first of
many wells from the natural gas
and oil beneath Licking and Knox
counties. "Columbus is green with
envy over Newark's success in the
natural gas line, and her press
sneers at 'these fools from Newark who
blow their money in the gas-
hole'," the Newark Advocate soon
reported. "Regards to Columbus.
These fools from Newark will come over
and buy your village presently,
and make a base ball park out of
it."4
To these natural advantages were added
those of transport. By the
1880s Newark citizens no longer prized
their access by the Ohio Canal
to Cleveland, or to Portsmouth on the
Ohio River, but the Baltimore
and Ohio and the Pennsylvania's
Panhandle line gave them first-class
rail facilities in all directions. The
National Road between Zanesville
and Columbus passed six miles to the
south, and the Toledo and Ohio
Central Railroad from Pomeroy to Toledo
passed three miles to the
west, but neither of these tricks of
fate seemed crucial to business.
Newark soon connected with T.&O.C.
at the college town of Granville
over the electric interurban completed
in 1890.
Beyond natural advantages and transport,
men valued the social and
cultural character of a community.
Newark's population of 9,900 in
1880, which was almost to triple by
1910, was for the most part law-
abiding and moral, interested in good
schools and attractive churches
and decent entertainment. A substantial
minority of first- and second-
generation immigrants supported a
German-language weekly, the New-
3. Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for
Order 1877-1920 (New York, 1967).
4. Newark Advocate, June 23,
1887. The Licking-Knox discoveries were less spectac-
ular than the great Karg well at
Findlay, Ohio, but had much the same impact described
for the Indiana field by the Lynds; see
William D. Humphrey, Findlay: The Story of a
Community (Findlay, 1961), and Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd, Middletown:
A Study in
American Culture (New York, 1929).
Town Promotion in Newark
255
ark Express, while most Republicans subscribed to the American,
and most Democrats to the Advocate. College-bound
youth looked
first to Granville's two female
seminaries and to its men's college,
Denison University. Along Gingerbread
Row and near the B.&O. sta-
tion were many bars and sporting houses,
as in any railroad town, but
around the public square were a Music
Hall and several excellent res-
taurants.
In fact Newark had so many advantages,
argued Common Pleas
Judge Samuel M. Hunter in 1882, that its
prosperity was only being
retarded "by the careless and
disparaging talk of its own citizens, and
by the ill-will of its neighbors. It has
natural advantages that are equal
to any inland city in the State; its
population, in intelligence, and all
that goes to make up a good community,
is surpassed by none of its neigh-
bors; its public schools are the peer of
any in Ohio; its health is un-
equalled; and it is the county seat of
one of the very best counties in
the great State of Ohio."5
Hunter and other boosters agreed with Advocate
editor J. H. Newton
that what Newark needed was "more
manufactories." In 1880 the city
had a carriage works, several foundries,
a glass plant, some machine
shops, flour and planing mills, but all
were small-scale operations;
by far the largest employer was the
B.&O., with some two hundred
men in its yards and shops. Newton did
not hold out much hope for
acquiring "rolling mills, blast
furnaces, nail works, potteries and the
like"; rather he wanted "some
works . . . to meet the requirements of
the farmer and local commerce,"
such as a factory producing agricul-
tural implements, or furniture, or a
score of other products "so largely
used in this community, which are now
brought from a distance." To
establish new industries that would fill
chiefly rural needs, and to in-
duce Licking County residents to do more
buying "at home"-that
was Newton's formula for growth.6
The great obstacle to this plan was the
paucity of private local capi-
tal to establish or attract new
industry. To fill the gap the city issued
municipal bonds. In 1881, under an Ohio
law which Canton, Spring-
5. Advocate, February 24, 1882. Newspapers are the central and
essential sources for
this study, and the Newark Advocate is
especially useful because its proprietors followed
Board of Trade doings so carefully and
fully; the weekly or semi-weekly editions (which
are usually used in this article prior
to 1916) carry all the major stories from the daily,
usually identified by the day itself.
The most recent study of Newark and Licking County
is Gordon R. Kingery, A Beginning (Newark,
1967); older works, of most use for the
earlier years, are N. N. Hill, Jr.,
comp., History of Licking County, 0., Its Past and Pres-
ent (Newark, 1881), and E. M. P. Brister, Centennial
History of the City of Newark and
Licking County, Ohio (2 vols., Columbus, 1909).
6. Advocate, August 20, 27, September 3, 10, 1880. An engaging
reminiscence of
family life in Newark then is Robbins
Hunter, The Judge Rode a Sorrel Horse (New
York, 1950).
256 OHIO
HISTORY
field and Delaware had each employed
previously, the voters of Newark
approved issuance of "Machine Shop
Bonds" to assist industries that
would locate there. The city council
authorized $50,000 in six-percent
bonds, from which $37,500 was to be
devoted to relocating the Hagers-
town (Md.) Agricultural Works. Renamed
the Newark Machine Com-
pany, the new factory functioned
successfully for two years, whereupon
a fire and a drawn-out insurance dispute
necessitated transfer of oper-
ations to rented facilities in Columbus.
Not until over a decade later,
and then only after a financial
concession by the city and a $5,000 sub-
scription drive by the Board of Trade,
was Newark Machine to return
to its West End site.7
In 1887 city business interests formed a
Board of Trade. Hitherto
it had been up to individuals or ad hoc
groups, in the informal, unor-
ganized way of the small town, to
advance some manufacturing project
or to agitate for an improvement in
municipal services. The weakness
of such disjointed efforts had become
apparent in ill-directed campaigns
to secure a rail connection with the
T.&O.C. and to construct a munici-
pal water plant. And from their
"island community" Newark boosters
had to look no further than Columbus to
see that the Board of Trade
there was so well established that it
was about to construct its own
building. Even Zanesville had had a
trade association since 1868; in-
deed, in forming such a body Newark
would only be doing what city
after city had been doing since the
Civil War. By 1886 the Newark
American was calling for a "Board of Commerce" to do
something
about relocating a Columbus shoe firm in
the city. In February 1887 the
Advocate simply announced that the "Board of Trade"
had obtained a
new industry, the Newark Wire Cloth
Manufacturing Company.8
The first president of the Newark Board
was a dry goods merchant;
the secretary, a prominent grain dealer.
At annual elections subse-
quently the body also elected a
vice-president, a treasurer, and a board
of directors. Local railroad officials,
bankers, lumber dealers, real estate
brokers, builders, lawyers, editors, small-business
proprietors, man-
agers in various enterprises-such men
made up the membership. Labor
unions were not represented, nor did
clergymen, doctors, or city officers
7. Advocate, April 8, May 20, 1881; July 10, 1884; November 8, 1894.
8. Newark American, December 2,
1886; Advocate, February 24, 1887. McKelvey,
Urbanization, 42-45. The Columbus Board of Trade was first formed in
1858; it had to
be re-formed in 1866, 1872, and 1884,
and in December 1886 resolved to construct its own
building, finally completed in 1889.
Osman C. Hooper, History of the City of Columbus,
Ohio (Columbus, 1920). 263-64. On the Cleveland Board of
Trade, first formed in 1848
and reorganized as the Cleveland Chamber
of Commerce in 1893, see William G. Rose,
Cleveland: The Making of a City (Cleveland, 1950). Cincinnati boasted the state's old-
est commercial body; see Philip D.
Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age, 1873-1900, vol. V of
Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the
State of Ohio (Columbus, 1943), 243.
Town Promotion in Newark 257
usually participate, but the community's
business interests, both mer-
cantile and industrial, were well
represented.
Initally Board leaders did not visualize
a financial role for the organi-
zation. Acquisition of the wire cloth
firm had involved no bonus, nor
were members assessed for a fund to
attract industry. Instead, influ-
enced quite obviously by the Columbus
Board of Trade, Newark direc-
tors in 1889 helped to organize "an
Industrial association-an associa-
tion of the people-to co-operate with
the board of trade of this city in
securing new manufacturing enterprises
and in developing the city's re-
sources in a manner commensurate with
her many natural advantages."
In a public letter a former
vice-president of the Board urged "every citi-
zen to become a member of the Industrial
Aid Society," which was de-
signed "for and within the reach of
every citizen, and if the people give
it the aid it deserves, Newark will soon
be placed to the fore front as
one of the best cities of the
state."9
Few citizens gave their dollars to the
new society, yet the Board soon
learned how useful such a fund might be.
In November 1889 a New
York promoter who had organized the
city's first horse-car railway
company offered to build a rail
connection with the T.&O.C. if citizens
would "donate the comparatively
small sum of six thousand dollars
toward the project." Hurriedly a
subscription paper was circulated;
within a week the sum was pledged.
Though the scheme eventually
fell through, the lesson was clear: the
Board needed capital if it was to
exploit opportunities.10
"Newark is just now at that point
in her history when she must take
aggressive steps to insure her progress
or she will retrograde to the point
where the property now owned will
depreciate in value to an alarming
extent," the American pointed
out in March 1890. "Not a week passes
that members of the Board of Trade do
not receive proposals from
manufacturing institutions working from
fifty to five hundred hands
who want to locate in our city if we can
give them a little help." If we
can give them a little help-that was the crucial element. "At present the
Board of Trade and the city council are
without a cent to aid in this di-
rection," editor W. C. Lyon quickly
noted, "and as a result other cities
are securing these institutions, and are
gaining upon us in point of popu-
lation and commercial standing, . .
."11
On March 6, 1890, this Republican paper
enthusiastically endorsed
the Board of Trade's request that the
city council call a special munici-
pal election asking the legislature to
pass an enabling act giving a cer-
9. W. H. S. (William H. Smith) to the
editor, Advocate, October 31, 1889.
10. Ibid., November 7, 1889; see
also June 30, 1887, and American, July 19, 1888.
11. Ibid., March 6, 1890.
258 OHIO
HISTORY
tain sum of money to be used in getting
manufacturing plants located
in the city. Within a month Newark
leaders had obtained a state law
permitting city council to authorize
$60,000 in bonds and to levy taxes
in order to assist manufacturers. In
June 1890 the citizens gave their
approval by a majority of 158 in a total
vote of 1,334.12
The first applicant to the Board of
Trade and city council for a portion
of these new funds was young E. H.
Everett, who in 1880 had taken
over the Newark Star Glass works and now
was anxious to convert
from pots to the more efficient
continuous-tank system of manufacture.
Everett's request for $50,000 for his
plant (maker of "the best self-seal-
ing lightning fruit jar in the world . .
. the best and most extensively
used rubber stopper bottle") struck
some councilmen as much too large;
negotiations stalled until a committee
of the Board of Trade concluded
from extensive investigation that
"continuous tank furnaces are the
coming system for the manufacture of
glass" and that an efficient in-
stallation would require a $52,900
investment. By making the building
only partly fireproof the cost could be
reduced to $35,000, which sum
the Board and then the council finally
voted on condition that 350 hands
be worked ten months a year for ten
years.13
The Board's work was far from over,
however, because Judge
Charles Follett and engine manufacturer
Julius J. D. McNamar filed
suit to stop the whole bond issue. For
weeks Board representatives
interceded with these men to withdraw
their action. If only they would
do so, Judge Hunter assured a packed
house at the Music Hall in
April 1891, "there was not another
man in the city who would exercise
his legal right to bring injunction
proceedings as to the constitutional-
ity of the enabling act." American
editor Lyon also joined the effort,
arguing that "we should have the
constitutional right as a city to tax
ourselves as we see fit." But
neither Lyon, nor Hunter, nor anyone
else could shake the stubborn McNamar.
The municipal-aid scheme
simply collapsed before the challenge.14
At this critical juncture some Board
members tried to resurrect the
Industrial Aid Society, but Everett
thought so little of that possibility
that he went ahead privately with his
reconstruction. Others turned to
what proved to be a successful project,
location of the state encamp-
ment for the National Guard in West
Newark. By the spring of 1894,
12. Ibid., March 6, April 24,
June 12, 1890.
13. Brister, Centennial History, I,
524; Advocate, February 12, March 12, 1891.
14. Ibid., March 19, April 23,
1891. In his account of the Board's history (see Advo-
cate, January 2, 1913), Charles C. Metz states that "an
attempt made by a few manu-
factories already located here to take
advantage of this appropriation to secure for them-
selves this financial aid . . . arrayed an opposition to the whole scheme"; personal
hostility toward Everett may have been
involved here.
Town Promotion in Newark 259
using the familiar subscription method,
the Board of Trade had raised
$2,700 of the $5,000 needed to bring
Newark Machine back from
Columbus.15
No local leader came up with a promising
plan for attracting new in-
dustry before W. H. Parrish, once a
Pennsylvania agent at Newark, ap-
proached his former colleagues on the
Board of Trade in September
1894. A tin plate company would build
"a Four Mill Tin Plate plant
with Bar Mill, the same to employ not
less than 250 people," on condi-
tion that Newark citizens "buy from
them 400 town lots, at an average
price of $250 per lot," from the
100-acre farm north of the Panhandle
tracks in East Newark, upon which
Parrish had just taken an option.
Payments could be made in installments
of "20 per cent down and 10
per cent per month until the lot is paid
for," Parrish indicated. A trus-
tee would make scheduled allotments to
the company as building
progressed, the final 20 percent coming
"after works have been in op-
eration 30 days."16
The public greeted the plan with favor.
Investigation of the tin-plate
company directors, moreover, produced a
commercial report that they
were "A-l." Within a month signatures
were secured for 340 lots, and
the remainder probably would have
presented no obstacle if the com-
pany could have handled the further cost
of what reportedly would
have been a $150,000 plant. But as Lyon
later explained, "the tin plate
project . . . failed because the parties
at the head of it were financial-
ly unable" to carry through their
part of the bargain.17
No one regretted this more than the
Pennsylvania's division officers,
who "decided that Newark should not
lose by the failure of the tin
plate, and . . . put forth every effort
to secure a factory that would be
equal in every respect . . . and have an
unquestioned financial stand-
ing." Anxious to build up their
freight business, they wanted some
reliable firm to build upon the ten
acres allotted beside their tracks.
At the suggestion of Parrish's immediate
superior, J. J. Turner, a
Pennsylvania vice president, Major
Augustus H. Heisey of Pittsburgh
soon became interested in locating a
glass factory in Newark.18
The Board of Trade received excellent
references from Pittsburgh
banks and business organizations on
Heisey. And though the chairman
of the Board's investigating committee
at first felt "that the demands
of these people for an equal number of
lots with the tin plate company
15. On the encampment grounds, see Advocate,
August 13, 1891; February 4, March
3, 10, 1892; on Everett, see Ibid., November
17, 1892.
16. W. H. Parrish to Charles C. Metz,
president, Board of Trade, September 21,
1894, printed in Advocate, October
11, 1894.
17. Ibid., September 27, October
11, 18, 1894; April 11, 1895.
18. Kingery, Beginning, 78; Advocate,
April 11, 1895.
260 OHIO
HISTORY
were exorbitant," he changed his
mind after visiting the plant at Wash-
ington, Pennsylvania, operated by
Heisey's brothers-in-law, "an exact
duplicate" of the one proposed for
Newark. "After looking through
this factory and consulting those who
were intimate with the working,"
reported merchant H. H. Griggs, the
Board's chief emissary, "I made
up my mind that the money I had agreed
to invest in the tin plate con-
cern could be better spent in the
securing of a magnificent concern
like this."19
A. H. Heisey applied his own pressure
when he warned in April
1895 that "the people must take
hold or I will drop the matter"; he
was in a position to lease a factory in
Uniontown, he asserted, "and I
must give answer this week, so, unless
the Newark deal looks like a
success, I will take hold of the
latter." Spurred on also by the Board
of Trade and the local press, enough
citizens switched their subscrip-
tions over to the Heisey Land Syndicate
to obtain the factory. Newark
boosters had reason to rejoice. As
production started up the next year,
210 workers were employed in the plant.
The land seemed to have
solved their perennial problem.20
Though the Heisey Land Syndicate never
published a profit-and-loss
statement, the beauty of a
land-financing scheme was readily apparent.
The railroad stood to gain not only from
Heisey traffic, but from any
other industry attracted by the promise
of a free site in the seventeen
acres set aside for that purpose in the
100-acre tract. Heisey acquired
ten acres for location, plus buildings
and equipment from profit on
land sales. A purchaser of one of the
450 lots, at an average price of
$175, obtained a saleable property on
which a workingman's house
could be erected. Workers attracted to
Newark by employment oppor-
tunities could find convenient housing
at reasonable prices. And every
businessman in town anticipated an
expanded trade.
An astute entrepreneur like E. H.
Everett immediately recognized
these advantages. As co-owner of a
100-acre farm just north of the glass
works, Everett indicated that he was
agreeable to the industrial ex-
pansion that "a good many people of
Newark" seemed to desire. "If
the people are willing to buy at an
average price of $350, three hundred
lots into which the Hoskinson farm might
be divided," he told an Ad-
vocate reporter, "I would agree to establish a window
glass factory on
19. Brister, Centennial History, II,
103; Advocate, April 18, 1895.
20. A. H. Heisey to W. H. Parrish, April
15, 1895, printed in Advocate, April 18, 1895;
Ibid., August 8, 1895; American, June 16, 1896; Advocate,
January 3, 1900. Heisey's
contract with W. H. Parrish and J. J.
Turner provided that after he was reimbursed for
the $25,000 he paid for the Penney
property and also received $30,000 as a bonus for
putting up the plant, the residue would
be divided among the three parties; the lots
failed to sell well enough to pay the
$30,000, so there was subsequent legal controversy
over how the remaining lots should be
divided; see Advocate, June 5, 1900.
Town Promotion in Newark 261 |
|
one corner of that strip of land that would employ at the start not less than 200 men."21 With the Heisey syndicate absorbing so much local capital, however, and with Newark showing the effects of the nationwide depression in spring of 1895, there was not the demand for another land-financed project. In fact the syndicate itself had no luck the following December with a more modest proposal, to bring in a "large manufacturing in- dustry" employing not less than fifty men "if the citizens of Newark will take twenty lots, at an average price of $175." Traffic and employ- ment were down sharply for the B.&O., which finally went into re- ceivership in August 1896. That same year the Newark street railway defaulted also, and columns of the local papers were filled with sher- iff's sales. Indeed, for three years the Board of Trade did not even meet. Hard times had really come.22
21. Ibid., April 18, 1895. 22. Ibid., November 29, 1895; American, April 10, June 5, August 6, 1896. |
262 OHIO HISTORY
The situation began to improve slowly.
By 1899 the B.&O. shops
were employing six hundred men six days
a week, tripling the 1893-
1896 payroll. The booster spirit revived
as well. "All about us are
cities working for their own
advancement," the Republican American
Tribune observed in July 1899; "Zanesville and Coshocton
on the east
and Columbus on the west are offering
sites, buildings, and bonuses
while Newark sits still and sucks its
thumb in quiet complacency."
The old Board of Trade was
"defunct," declared the editor. "Let us be
up and doing."23
Within a month the Board was meeting to
consider a report by the
Pennsylvania's W. H. Parrish on the
Jewett Car Company, manufac-
turer of the Newark electric railway's
new cars, which was contempla-
ting a move from the small town of
Jewett in eastern Ohio. By Septem-
ber this firm was ready to come to
Newark if it could obtain a free site,
a 50- x 250-foot building, and the cost
of transferring its shop. Total
cost to the Board of Trade would be
$8,000. On its part Jewett agreed
to employ an average of not less than
one hundred men a day for ten
months a year for five years. In
surprisingly short order, the deal was
made and the Board of Trade had raised
the $8,000 needed.24
That such a sum could be subscribed in
little more than a month's
time revealed the fresh confidence the
return of prosperity brought the
city's prospects. Following a
reorganization meeting in December 1899,
the Board enthusiastically reelected
lumber dealer W. H. Smith pres-
ident and set a five dollar fee for
membership. In April 1900 it under-
took to raise $2,500 to bring in another
firm, the E. T. Rugg Company,
maker of rope and halters in the small
town of Alexandria, ten miles
to the west.25
With five employees, E. T. Rugg had
started his factory ten years
before and had built it into a firm
employing sixty-five (mostly women
at $1-$2.50 per day) turning out 8,000
halters daily. Like Jewett, Ohio,
the village of Alexandria had a limited
labor pool and inferior trans-
port facilities, so Rugg sought a better
place in which to expand. He
found an unused foundry alongside the
B.&O. tracks, the Board of Trade
23. Newark American Tribune, September
7, 14, 21, October 28, November 30, De-
cember 7, 1899. On the Coshocton Board
of Trade, organized in 1899, see William J.
Bahmer, Centennial History of
Coshocton County, O., I (Chicago, 1909), 216-17. On the
Zanesville Board, first organized in
1868 to promote "the city of natural advantages," see
Norris F. Schneider, Y Bridge City:
The Story of Zanesville and Muskingum County,
Ohio (Cleveland, 1950), 232ff., and Thomas W. Lewis, Zanesville
and Muskingum Co.,
Ohio (3 vols., Chicago, 1927).
24. American Tribune, September
7, 14, 21, October 28, November 30, December 7,
1899. The Board of Trade obtained some
portion of the $8,000 from lot sales on the
thirty-two acres adjoining the five-acre
site set aside for Jewett Car; see American Tri-
bune, October 28, 1899.
25. Advocate, January 2, 1913; American,
January 10, 1900.
Town Promotion in Newark 263
put together the $2,500 needed, and by
July 1900 there were twenty-
five workers on three looms producing
over 7,000 feet of webbing a day
at the new plant.26
"The Board of Trade does not
propose to stop with the excellent
work that has been done, neither does it
want to impose any hardships
on the men who have generously helped in
capturing the two industries
just mentioned," the Advocate announced
in printing the list of con-
tributors to the Rugg subscription,
"but it feels that there is just one
more thing to do this spring and that is
by the sale of a few very de-
sirable lots put fully 400 more people
to work in this city." It was a
propitious time indeed for the
land-financing method, for the influx
of workers at Jewett and Rugg and the
boom in production at Moser,
Wehrle and Everett Glass were already
straining the housing market.
If the lots were carved out of Everett's
land north of his plant, more-
over, as the Board agreed should be
done, then they would help to pay
for the addition of a ten-ring tank to
the five continuous tanks in-
stalled there since 1890. Once again the
land would serve several pur-
poses.27 More than half the 250 lots in
Everett's "Riverside Addition"
were purchased for $250 each by August
1900; in turn E. H. Everett
began the expansion that eventually made
it the largest glass-bottle
plant in the nation.28
Of course, land-financing was not unique
to Newark. In neighbor-
ing Zanesville, for example, the Board
of Trade used all the methods of
fund-raising of the Newark organization.
In 1891 J. B. Owens had
transferred his tile factory from
Roseville with the encouragement of a
free site and $2,500 in moving expenses.
In 1892 American Encaustic
Tiling Company built a larger plant
there with the aid of a $40,000
bond issue. In 1894 Kearns Gorsuch and
Company received $30,000
from the Zanesville Board to reorganize
its glass operations. And after
an unsuccessful attempt at a lot sale in
1899, the Citizens' League in
November 1900 resolved to try that
method again, to raise a bonus of
$30,000 for a Dresden (Ohio) firm to
construct a steel mill in the Y
Bridge City.29
A manufactory such as Newark's Moser-Wehrle,
on the other hand,
was reluctant to resort to
Board-assisted financing of any sort. The
guiding genius of this firm's expansion
from a small East End foundry
to the nation's largest stove
manufacturer was William W. Wehrle,
26. Ibid., April 21, 1900; Advocate,
May 6, May 24, July 5, 1900.
27. Ibid., May 24, 1900; American,
February 3, 1900.
28. Brister, Centennial History, I,
524; Advocate, August 23, 1900; C. H. Spencer,
"Industrial Newark," The
Ohio Magazine, III (July 1907), 47-48.
29. Schneider, Y Bridge City, 260-62;
Advocate, November 29, 1900. Coschocton also
used lot sales; see Bahmer, Centennial
History, 216-17; Advocate, December 13, 1901.
264 OHIO HISTORY
who with his brother August had assumed
active direction after their
father's death in 1890. A truly rugged
individualist who kept his own
counsel, Will Wehrle relocated in West
Newark, eased out former
partner John Moser, and in December 1900
launched a building pro-
gram that lifted employment from 225 to
over 600 workmen. By June
1901 the Wehrle factory was fourth in
size among American stove and
range manufacturers, equipped to turn
out 75,000 units annually.30
Still demand increased, especially as
the rapidly developing Sears,
Roebuck and Company of Chicago began to
take more and more of the
Wehrle products, so that by 1902-1903
Will Wehrle saw need to en-
large further. This time he did turn to
the Board of Trade, forty members
of which pledged "to give at least
one day" to selling "200 lots at an
average price of $250 each" in West
Newark for the benefit of Wehrle
and the much smaller James E. Thomas
foundry. By January 1903
these volunteers had sold over 250
parcels in the "Wehrle Addition,"
at 20 percent down and 10 percent a
month, and though some pay-
ments lagged, the companies proceeded
with construction. By 1905
the Wehrle monthly payroll of $75,000
reportedly ranked second in
Newark only to the B.&O.'s
$120,000.31
The Wehrle project was nevertheless the
Board of Trade's last ven-
ture in land-financing. Some Board
members questioned privately
whether the Wehrle promotion had been
worth their time and effort,
since he would have had to expand
anyway. Moreover, officials were
beginning to be more cautious about
accepting such additions to the
city; before council finally passed it
over his veto, the mayor twice
turned down the ordinance on the Wehrle
addition, on the grounds
that the grading and streets were not in
proper condition. Then, too,
the land available for workingmen's
homes close by the factories was
no longer so plentiful, whereas real
estate men sought other sites to
develop for their own profit.32
Local boosters were too busy exulting at
Newark's growth to mind
these changes. At annual meetings of the
Board of Trade in 1903 and
1904, speakers loosed a flood of
panegyric over expansion of Wehrle
and Everett Glass, discovery of new gas
fields in the county, connec-
tion by interurban with Zanesville as
well as Columbus, lack of "loaf-
ers and idle men," prevalence of
good schools and good health.
"Newark, therefore, is a good place
to live in," concluded the Rev-
erend J. C. Schindel, and "it has a
great future-before us stands the
30. Brister, Centennial History, I,
524; Spencer, "Industrial Newark," 45-47; Ameri-
can Tribune, April 6, 1899; Advocate, December 27, 1900, June
7, 1901, June 6, 1905.
31. Advocate, January 20, 1903,
March 24, 1905.
32. Ibid., February 6, October
23, November 20, December 25, 1903.
Town Promotion in Newark 265
possibility and you have it in your
hands to make it what we all hope
to see."33
Amid the chorus of congratulation came
notes of warning, however.
The interurban brought shoppers to
Newark, but it took them to Co-
lumbus as well. And the merchants of
Ohio's burgeoning capital city
were advertising their wares more
aggressively. "When you have a
dollar or two to spend, spend it in
Newark," asserted the Advocate in
an otherwise optimistic article in July
1903; "the stores here are equal
to those in surrounding cities and the
values are as good, if not better."
"If you spend a dollar here you may
get a piece of it back sometime,"
the Advocate added, in what would
become a recurrent refrain, "but
if it goes to another city you may as
well say good bye forever." Came
the clincher: "We need the money,
so keep it in town as far as pos-
sible."34
A more ominous note sounded in the wake
of the $100,000 fire that
destroyed the Wehrle steel shop in 1904,
throwing 1,000 men out of
work. The company rebuilt upon a larger
scale and even diversified
operations by buying out Atlas Safe at
Fostoria and moving the equip-
ment to Newark, yet Will Wehrle
complained about the inadequate
fire protection in the West End. "I
don't intend to do anything more
for the city of Newark," he told a
reporter in April 1905. "Any new
building I have to put up, other than
those necessary to handle the out-
put of our present industry, will be
erected outside of Newark,"
Wehrle asserted. "We are way out
here from the city and have prac-
tically no fire protection."35
Newark's water situation was just then
so confused by the transfer
from private to municipal ownership that
the Board of Trade finally
got up a special subscription of $3,600
to supply a new fire main out to
the Wehrle plant. That emergency action
must have impressed the
Wehrle brothers favorably, for within
two years they were adding two
cupolas to the four in operation,
lifting capacity to 900 stoves a day
and employment to almost 2,000 workers.
Though they did open up a
subsidiary at Coshocton, forty miles to
the northeast, the bulk of pro-
duction remained at the Newark plant,
which with twenty acres under
roof was popularly billed as "the
largest stove foundry in the world."36
The expansion of Everett Glass also
seemed to counter any pessimism
33. Ibid., February 6, 1903;
February 23, 1904.
34. Ibid., July 31, 1903.
Columbus had grown even faster than Newark, from 51,647
in 1880 to 125,560 in 1900; after 1900
Newark papers carried more advertising by
Columbus firms, particularly in the
Christmas season.
35. Advocate, April 18, 1905.
36. Ibid., August 1, 4, 8, 1905;
April 7, June 7, July 30, August 2, 1907; see artist's
sketch of the Wehrle Company in the
sixty-four-page pamphlet issued by the Newark
Board of Trade in 1911, at Licking
County Historical Society, Newark, Ohio.
266 OHIO
HISTORY
among boosters. In 1904 Everett
incorporated his factory into a new
$4,000,000 concern, the Ohio Bottle
Company (of Newark), which also
absorbed glass-making facilities at
Massillon and Wooster. The next
year Ohio Bottle sold some of its land
in the North End to Everett's
newly incorporated Newark Machine
Bottle, which would install the
revolutionary Owens machine, capable of
turning out "14 perfectly
formed bottles a minute." And in
August 1905 Ohio Bottle and Ne-
wark Machine Bottle merged into another
corporate creation, the
American Bottle Company, capitalized at
$10,000,000, to include "all
the plants heretofore the property of
the Adolphus Busch Manufac-
turing Company of St. Louis, Mo."
at Streator and Belleville, Illinois.
By May 1907, employing fifteen machines
and 1,600 workmen, Amer-
ican Bottle at Newark shipped a record
412 car loads of glassware
a month; with six more tanks scheduled
to start up the next fall, it too
would be one of the greatest plants of
its kind in the world. With
stove and now bottle production tied
into a national market, the New-
ark economy was more integrated into the
emerging urban-industrial
system.37
While American Bottle and Wehrle Stove
were capitalizing upon
national marketing and advanced
technology, however, the Board of
Trade was having troubles elsewhere. For
one thing, the Newark
Fuel and Gas Company was raising prices.
That did not bother Ever-
ett or Wehrle or Heisey, for they piped
in their own gas from their
own wells out in the county. It did
bother the Board leaders, for in
1906 they "had a glass factory on
the string, but nine cent gas was
too high, and another iron industry
seeking a location was discour-
aged by the same fact." When Heisey
indicated the next year that
"any industry locating outside the
city limits could get gas from his
mains at seven cents per thousand
feet," the Board president was un-
derstandably pleased. "Cheap fuel
is better than a bonus, lot sales and
money contributions to offer factories
that are seeking a location,"
President F. M. Black asserted. "It
is something substantial, and we
have lots of it to offer."38
37. Advocate, August 5, 12, 1904;
May 9, August 25, 1905; May 17, 1907. The
Board's brochure of 1911 has a similar
sketch of American Bottle. In 1905 Heisey Glass
also doubled its capacity; Spencer,
"Industrial Newark," 50. Michael J. Owens developed
his machine at Newark in 1899; see John
M. Weed, "Business as Usual," in Harlow
Lindley, comp., Ohio in the Twentieth
Century, 1900-1938, vol. VI of Wittke, History of
Ohio, 178.
38. Advocate, April 5, 1907; see
also Black's article, "Natural Gas in Licking
County," The Ohio Magazine, III
(July 1907), 56-60. Zanesville industry was having
similar problems with Ohio Fuel Supply
Company; Advocate, August 24, 1906. At the
same time Zanesville was increasingly
worried over why it had not grown since 1900; see
the Zanesville Signal, cited in
the Advocate, March 28, 1905, as well as Schneider, Y
Bridge City, 293.
Town Promotion in Newark 267
At the same time Black admitted that
traditional fund-raising meth-
ods were not working well. Newark
businessmen "were either getting
tired of contributing to the Board of
Trade and lot sales," he stated
at the Board's annual banquet in 1907,
"or were tired of being called
upon by the same old members of the
board." He recommended that
Newark follow the Columbus Board's
example and hire a secretary
who would "do all the
correspondence work and seek the new indus-
tries which are solicited to locate in
the city." One member objected
that a professional secretary would be
too expensive, but the general
sentiment was that without some such officer,
the directors "would di-
vide their time and attention between
their own respective interests
and those of the board and as a result,
neither would receive the proper
attention."39
Discouragement over Board efforts had
arisen out of its year-long
struggle to reactivate the West End
plant which Weldless Tube and
then Newark Iron and Steel had operated
without much success since
1896. The Board directors had finally
found a Pittsburgh company
willing to turn it into a mill to
re-roll steel rails; they had also dunned
members for their part of the required
payment of $8,000. But active
businessmen were more reluctant than
they once had been to devote
many hours to such a project. Since
Boards of Trade not only in
Columbus but in Detroit and other cities
were successfully using spe-
cialists, it seemed wise to hire as
secretary J. M. Maylone, one of
Newark's longtime boosters. The Board
opened an office on the top
floor of Newark Trust's new ten-story
"skyscraper," and started a
drive for five hundred members to pay
the added costs.40
No sooner had Maylone begun the
membership canvass than the
economy slumped following the Panic of
1907. He stayed on for two
years before taking a cashier's job at
Coshocton, but did not attract
any new industries. The one major
accomplishment of this depressed
period was to bring the 1909 G.A.R.
summer encampment to Newark's
"Permanent Encampment" site.41
Through the influence of Maylone's
successor, I. M. Phillips, and the offer
of a free site and bonus pay-
ment, the Board did induce a Columbus
shoe company to expand its
small local shop into a three-story
factory in the West End. Yet New-
39. Advocate, April 5, 1907.
Columbus had had a secretary since 1884; see Hooper,
History of Columbus, 264.
40. Actually only $5,000 was raised for
the rolling mill, and as late as 1912 only $3,090
of that was paid in; see Newark Board of
Trade, "Confidential Bulletin," I (April 6,
1912), in "Old Board of Trade"
file, Newark Chamber of Commerce. See also Advocate,
December 11, 1906; February 12, August
30, 1907.
41. Ibid., February 6, March 6,
June 4, 25, 1908; May 13, October 21, 1909. This site
had just been deeded back to the Board
of Trade since the National Guard no longer
needed it.
268 OHIO HISTORY |
|
ark merchants were so distressed at the general inactivity of the Board that they formed another body, the Business Men's Association, to hold regular monthly dinner meetings through the winter of 1909- 1910. The Board of Trade's directors provoked further dispute by pro- posing in April 1910 to lease the encampment grounds for $650 a year to a private group for a country club; dissent only subsided upon agreement that the contract might be terminated at any time upon a year's notice.42 It was at this crucial point in the Board's trials that the prohibition struggle violently intervened. Some kind of confrontation had been building ever since the county dry forces defeated Newark's wet ma- jority in the 1908 election under Ohio's county-option law. As saloons
42. A few records of the Business Men's Association, including a letter from W. H. Mazey to Frank L. Beggs, March 28, 1910, illustrating the hard feelings of the time, are in "Old Board of Trade" file, Newark Chamber of Commerce. See also Advocate, May 27, July 22, December 9, 1909; February 17, April 14, 1910. |
Town Promotion in Newark
269
closed and license revenues declined,
the ranks of the anti-prohibition-
ists grew stronger. At the same time
continued violations and weak
enforcement exasperated the anti-saloon
leaders, who began to employ
"dry detectives" armed with
special warrants to uncover illegal opera-
tions. On July 8, 1910, one of these
out-of-town investigators fatally
wounded a saloonkeeper following a
Newark raid. In retribution an
unruly crowd broke into the jail, took
off with the accused, and strung
him up on the public square.43
Aghast, alarmed, ashamed, Board of Trade
members rallied behind
their president, Advocate officer
C. H. Spencer, whose paper proclaimed
"NEWARK MUST CLEAN HOUSE."
"Today this city stands in dis-
grace and has made proud Ohio hang its
head in abject shame," the
Advocate declared. "It now remains for Newark to show the
world the
real stuff of which she is made by
making amends so far as is possible
for the heinous tragedy which has been
enacted."44
While public authorities removed
delinquent officials and began to
prosecute those charged with the crime,
the Board of Trade launched
a determined drive to overcome its latest
handicap. It mended the
breach with the Business Men's
Association and signed up over six
hundred members, far more than had ever
joined before. It sponsored
the city's first Clean Up Day and Arbor
Day, raised subscriptions for
the library fund and the Court House
Park Improvement, promoted
the hospital, the Y.W.C.A. and the Good
Roads Movement. It care-
fully investigated the "Direct
Drive" patented by F. M. Blair of Cin-
cinnati and then secured backers to
finance constructions of a two-ton
four-cylinder auto truck equipped with
this novel transmission. All
this the Board accomplished within a
year of the tragedy.45
43. Ray Stannard Baker gives colorful
background in "This Crust of Civilization: A
Study of the Liquor Traffic in Newark,
Ohio," American Magazine, LXXI (April 1911),
691-704, as does Sloane Gordon in
"Booze, Boodle and Bloodshed in the Middle West,"
Cosmopolitan Magazine, XLIX (November 1910), 761-775; see also Advocate, January
7, 21, March 4, 11, 18, May 20, 27, July
8, August 12, 1909; March 24, June 9, 1910.
44. James Lee Burke, "The Public
Career of Judson Harmon" (Ph.D. dissertation,
The Ohio State University, 1969),
216-21; Advocate, July 14, 1910. Governor Harmon
suspended Newark's mayor and Licking
County's sheriff, who then resigned. Augustus
Raymond Hatton argued that "the
Newark affair" was unusual, "an exceptional case
in which many elements combined to lead
to disastrous results"; see "The Liquor
Situation in Ohio," Proceedings
. . . of the National Municipal League (n.p., 1910),
395-422.
45. Edward Kibler to the Board of
Governors of the "Newark Club," January 11, 1910,
in "Old Board of Trade" file,
Newark Chamber of Commerce, shows earlier concern
about reuniting the Board and the
Business Men's Association; the Advocate, January
19, February 23, March 30, April 13, 27,
May 18, 1911, followed the Board's activities
closely. Chalmers L. Pancoast made the
"Solid Foundation Work" of the Newark Board
of Trade his theme for "Record in a
6 Months Campaign," Town Development, IV
(June 1911).
270 OHIO
HISTORY
By 1912 the Board leaders were advancing
so many schemes for
civic improvement that at least one
member objected, arguing that
"a half dozen or more of the
suggestions accomplished would be
better than fewer half done." Yet
another member was disappointed
that among thirty areas for action the
program committee included
construction of a workhouse and a
convention hall but ignored the
disgraceful condition of the city hall,
where there was "a difference of
nearly 12 inches in the floor from one
side of the room to the other."
In its zeal for municipal improvement
the Board did not entirely
forsake acquisition of new factories,
yet the search for such oppor-
tunities was less active, the concern
for beautification and boosting
more apparent.46
Civic improvement on the "City
Beautiful" model was a common
urban aspiration of the Progressive era,
but communities such as New-
ark lacked the financial resources to
accomplish much. Boosting
through Board of Trade signs and
stickers proclaiming "A Busy Factory
Town Welcomes You" and "Boost
Newark" was easier and less ex-
pensive. "The boosting spirit which
has developed in Newark is the
kind of a spirit which will make a
successful city," declared urban
publicist Chalmers L. Pancoast, an
ex-Newarkite whom the Board paid
to do some advertising for its
membership campaign. "It is the 'do
something' spirit which reinfuses red
bood in the deadest town in
existence," he added, "the
spirit which will attract the attention of the
outside world and make investors and
promoters investigate a
town's possibilities."47
To attract new industry remained the
ultimate goal of Board of
Trade members. As memory of the lynching
faded, moreover, there
was less concern generally about the
city's image. Fourteen of the
twenty-six men indicted for complicity
in the tragedy had been con-
victed; prohibition had been repealed in
Newark under local option;
the laws were being more strictly
enforced in what had been "one of
the most pronouncedly 'wide-open' of the
smaller cities of the state."
46. C. H. Spencer, president, "A
Personal Letter to 614 Members, Newark Board of
Trade," February 10, 1911, in
"Old Board of Trade" file, Newark Chamber of Com-
merce; Advocate, March 7, 1912.
Article after article in American City demonstrated
that it was the popular thing to broaden
Board of Trade activities in these years; see
e.g., Richard B. Watrous, "The
Responsibilities of Commercial Organizations in Fur-
thering the Adoption of City Plans"
(May 1910) and Logan McKee, "Civic Work of the
Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce"
(July 1911). "Clean up days" were becoming "the
vogue" in the "Central
West," said American City, III (November 1910), 255.
47. Newark Board of Trade,
"Confidential Bulletin," I (April 6, 1912), 3-4; Advocate,
January 18, May 16, 1912; June 12, 1913.
For an example of Pancoast's work, see
Advocate, February 16, 1913. On the "City Beautiful"
movement, see Mel Scott, Ameri-
can City Planning Since 1890 (Berkeley, 1969), 26-71.
Town Promotion in Newark 271
It was time to do more to bring in
factories, argued a majority of the
directors, and the place to begin was by
replacing Phillips' amiable
successor, retired merchant tailor
William C. Wells, with a real exec-
utive secretary who would work more
aggressively. In October 1913,
over three years after the lynching, W.
C. Wakefield took over as the
Board's new "Business
Manager."48
Fresh from organizing Lancaster, Ohio's,
Chamber of Commerce,
Wakefield at once indicated that he
would not pursue civic improve-
ments: "The business of a trade
body is TRADE, not morals, politics,
legislation, reforms, but pure and
unadulterated TRADE." In his brief
time in the city he had found that the
Board was "not a popular orga-
nization," that there was "no
unity of purpose among its members," he
told the first general meeting in
October 1913. What was needed was
an objective to be pursued
"relentlessly," and for Wakefield the
"prime object" must be
"to encourage industry, this by securing new
industries."49
To take such a strong stand in such an
indiscreet manner did not
contribute to unity of purpose: it only
underlined the divisions within
the organization. Within weeks of his
appointment the retail-store
owners revived their renamed Merchants'
Association. Within months
the Board's campaign for a new factory
fund encountered much oppo-
sition. Within a year Wakefield himself
was gone, victim of the "worst
season of criticism" that the Board
of Trade "has ever suffered."50
Though often tactless, Wakefield's
failure resulted mainly from con-
ditions over which neither he nor the
Board of Trade had much control.
His fund campaign was well organized,
but many spare dollars had
already gone into the recent
construction of three large churches and
the Masonic Temple. In the spring of
1914 the local economy was
also in the same slump that was
troubling the nation. As late as Febru-
ary 1915 "it was not thought
advisable to solicit funds for Belgium
relief work in a direct way"
because of "the present financial condition
of Newark."51
The financial pinch also affected Board
efforts to assist Blair Truck.
That company had used the $36,000 from
its initial stock subscription
48. Outlook, C (January 6, 1912),
7-8; Newark Board of Trade, "Confidential Bulle-
tin," I (April 6, 1912), 1-2; Columbus
Dispatch, January 26, 1913; Advocate, October 30,
1913. On Wells, see Brister, Centennial
History, II, 592-93.
49. Advocate, November 20, 1913.
50. In addition to the factory fund,
Wakefield had suggested new election procedures,
stricter rules on attendance, and a
weekly publication called "Ginger Snap" to keep
members "alive to 'what's doing'
"-"An entirely new order of things" was coming, said
the Advocate. See November 6,
1913; January 24, March 12, April 2, December 17,
1914.
51. Ibid., April 16, 1914;
February 17, 1915.
272 OHIO HISTORY
to take over part of the Newark Machine
property and start up produc-
tion. The increase in orders attendant
upon the outbreak of war in
Europe created a crisis: would Newark
citizens invest at least $64,000
more to convert the whole plant into a
larger, more efficient operation,
or would it be necessary to bring in
outside capital which might re-
move the plant to another city?
Encouraged by the Newark Lumber of-
ficial who disposed of his business
interests to put $20,000 into Blair
and become its new sales manager, a mass
meeting of "former mem-
bers of the Newark Board of Trade"
agreed in December 1914 to "Try
to Keep Plant in Newark." But hard
times conspired with the Board's
enfeebled state to inhibit stock sales.
Finally an investment firm in
Hamilton, Ohio, contracted in February
1915 to finance the expansion:
for a while Blair Truck was saved for
Newark.52
The "reunion" meetings of the
old Board encouraged local boosters
to look beyond their difficult season
with Wakefield. Indeed, the need to
promote the "greater Newark"
first projected in 1907 seemed more
urgent than ever. Competition among
cities was becoming keener, and
some Ohio communities were rapidly
expanding, but Newark appeared
to be standing still, if not actually
declining. Soon one leading lawyer
was admitting that "Newark six
years ago was as far advanced indus-
trially as it is now." Another pointed
to lower school enrollments and
more vacant houses to show "beyond
a doubt that the population of
Newark is falling off." After three
decades of better than average
growth, the town was falling behind.53
Factors more basic than the lynching or
any failing of the Board of
Trade accounted for this decline.
Shortage of natural gas had already
forced so many residents to switch to
coal that Newark was becoming
a "two-collar-a-day town."
Prohibition laws cut production at Ameri-
can Bottle; autos and buses reduced
demand for Rugg halters and
Jewett interurban cars. E. H. Everett
and other capable entrepreneurs
left for busier centers and grander
projects; the Wehrles interested them-
selves in Catholic causes in Columbus
rather than in Newark institu-
tions. Competition and regulation hurt
the railroads, for so long the
city's mainstay, whereas Blair Truck and
Pharis Tire and Rubber were
far from strong entries in the race for
automotive dominance. As the
whole American economy shifted away from
local business and in-
dustry toward regional markets and
national corporations, major
centers such as Cleveland or Columbus
profitted at Newark's ex-
pense.54
52. Ibid., April 27, September
17, 1911; January 18, 1912; September 13, December
17, 1914; February 24, 1915
53. Ibid., April 23, 1907; April 8, 18, 1916.
54. Ibid., January 14, November 19, 1914; January 11, 1915
(natural gas); June 18,
Town Promotion in Newark 273
The conventional wisdom among boosters,
on the other hand, tended
to ignore such handicaps: it relied
instead on the "many authorities
who say that the growth of cities is in
direct proportion to the efficiency
of
their commercial organizations." As
competitive pressures
mounted, the more informal and
amateurish efforts of the past would
have to go, argued newly-established national
periodicals such as
American City and Town Development: if a modern board of trade
or
chamber of commerce was to be effective,
it would need a trained sec-
retary employing expert methods. In
fact, the founding in 1909 of these
specialized journals indicated how
widespread were the difficulties that
Newark promoters were experiencing, how
general was the demand
for more efficient operations.55
Many Newark boosters agreed with the
conventional wisdom: the
trouble with their town was that it had
been "backward in organizing
its commercial forces for city-building
purposes." The old Board of
Trade had been "doing the best they
could with nothing to work with";
they had "always been poor and a
subject of charity"; "like all insol-
vents" they had been "subject
of the kicks and scorn of the business
world." The remedy was obvious.
"We want a Chamber of Commerce
that we can all be proud of, with money
sufficient to its needs, with an
expert and efficient secretary, a
trained man, and then you will see the
old town go along some."56
In April 1916, their ears ringing with
such sentiments, three hundred
Newark businessmen transformed the old
Board of Trade into a new
Chamber of Commerce with which the
Merchants' Association would
affiliate. In so doing they did not
dwell upon the city's "natural advan-
tages," nor did they publicize the
fact that Town Development Inc. of
New York, publisher of Town
Development and paid consultant on
promotions of this type, had been hired
to manage a "whirlwind cam-
paign" for members of the new
Chamber. Many American cities had
successfully revived their trade bodies
in this fashion, yet the whole
"Forward Newark Movement"
mounted by outside professionals had a
merchandising flavor that suggested a
lack of substance. It suggested
1914 (American Bottle); June 22, 1911
(Everett); August 25, 1910 (Wehrle); October 1,
December 24, 1914 (railroads).
55. Ibid., April 18, 1916. An excellent example of the
"conventional wisdom" is Ryer-
son Ritchie, "The Modern Chamber of
Commerce," National Municipal Review, I
(April 1912), 2, 161-69; in comparing
Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Buffalo, and Cin-
cinnati in their relative growth in
population between 1890 and 1910, he contended that
their standing was "in exact line
with the relative efficiency of their respective organiza-
tions" and that "Cleveland and
Detroit won the race over their rivals because they had
the advantage of united, vigorous, well
directed effort." See also Harold M. Weir, "Growth
of Population of Cities," Town
Development, III (September 1910).
56. Advocate, April 18, 1916.
274 OHIO
HISTORY
that the new Chamber, though better
financed and more efficiently
managed, would be no more effective than
the old Board in sustaining
Newark's growth.57
Board reorganization could not dispose
of the basic factors, eco-
nomic and social, which since 1907 had
increasingly impeded the
town's industrial development. Nor did
reorganization improve New-
ark's competitive position for war
orders, the bulk of which in Ohio
went to major firms in larger centers
such as Cleveland and Dayton.
The 1920 census told the story: from
1910 to 1920 the population of
Newark increased by only 5.2 percent,
the smallest gain in any Ohio
city of 25,000 or over, whereas the
nation as a whole went up 14.9 per-
cent and its urban territory 25.7
percent. Though Newark's rate of
growth would recover after 1920, it
would still not match the national
average, nor would it ever again
approach the advances made in the
period 1880-1910, when the old Board of
Trade was operative.58
In retrospect, no simple calculus can
gauge the Board's contribution
to Newark's growth. It is obvious that
"natural advantages" and good
transport facilities and a few
enterprising manufacturers were essen-
tial ingredients. It is apparent also
that the lack of local capital to at-
tract or develop industry represented
the main obstacle, though an in-
genious method of land-sale financing
temporarily helped to meet that
challenge. For more than a decade Newark
promoters moved success-
fully toward the goal that seemed to
animate every comparable com-
munity across Ohio and the Midwest in
these imperial years-a larger
and therefore "greater" city.
The lynching gave a unique impetus to
that effort. It also turned it in
57. Minutes, Board of Directors, Newark
Chamber of Commerce, May 4, 1916; F. L.
Beggs to Secretary, Harrisburg Chamber
of Commerce, May 29, 1916; A. H. Heisey to
F. L. Beggs, June 1, 1916; Beggs to
Heisey, June 2, 1916; Newark Chamber of Commerce
file, 1916. In August Beggs announced
that Town Development Company received 25
percent of the first year's fees
collected in the membership drive; the membership fee
was $75 for a three-year subscription,
and 555 members had been signed up in a week's
time in April; see Advocate, April
27, August 17, 1916. Town Development, XVII (June
1916), described the Company's Newark
campaign in D. H. McFarland, "A Notable
Civic Awakening"; similar drives
prior to March 1916 were conducted in fourteen cities
under 25,000, seven from 25,000 to
50,000, seven from 50,000 to 100,000, and ten over
100,000. The American City Bureau in New
York City, educational adjunct of the publi-
cation American City, did
promotional work of this type also; see "The Upbuilding of
Three Organizations," American
City, XI (July 1914), 58-59, and "The Reorganization
of the Syracuse Chamber of
Commerce," X (January 1914), 47-48.
58. E. T. Rugg had a war contract for
halters, and Wehrle for stoves, kettles, and fi-
nally shells, but most of the eleven
plants in Newark engaged in war work had small
jobs received too late in the conflict
to boost manufactures substantially; see Advocate,
September 16, 21, October 4, 30, 1918;
January 13, 1919. From 1910 to 1920 the pop-
ulation of Licking County only went from
55,590 to 56,426 and of Newark from 25,404
to 26,718.
Town Promotion in Newark 275
abrupt and sweeping fashion toward
"civic improvement" as a major
means to promote the city's interests.
But the Newark Board's change
here coincided with a general shift
toward more sophisticated methods
after 1910. Before then small-town
commercial bodies were still concen-
trating primarily upon industrial
acquisition through bonuses or guar-
anty plans or development funds-in
short, through some financial
manipulation. But increasingly
thereafter, influenced in part by the
burgeoning city-planning movement,
attention shifted toward a new
means: the best way to build a city was
by making it a better city in
which to live. Streets, yards, schools,
playgrounds, parks, a hospital-
the list of civic improvements grew
larger and larger. "Community bet-
terment first-factories when
possible," concluded an Indiana poll of
seventeen commercial secretaries.59
Though more restrained in promoting
community betterment after
1913, the Newark Board was typical of
many trade organizations
caught up in these years in spirited
rivalry for industrial expansion. As
the pages of American City and Town
Development amply demon-
strate, its efforts to secure new
industry, to develop more effective
leadership and a more attractive
city, had their counterpart in
community after community across this
country. From the frequency
with which comparable bodies elsewhere
were seeking help from the
new urban specialists who published
these periodicals, it was apparent
that Newark's difficulty at sustaining
growth was a common problem.
What should or could be done about it
was still unclear: here the con-
ventional wisdom confused the real
economic situation. But this Ohio
town well reflected the troubled times
ahead for American's smaller
cities.60
59. D. H. McFarland, "Comprehensive
Commercial Endeavor," Town Development,
XIII (October 1914); on Dayton, Ibid.,
XIV (March 1915); C. T. Boykin, "Why do
Chambers Lack Sustenance," Ibid.,
XVI (February 1916); "Give no Bonuses," Ibid.,
XVII (April 1916).
60. The experience of Newark's Board of
Trade well illustrated the general conten-
tions of J. O. Hardy, secretary of the
Commercial Club of Fargo, North Dakota, in
"Small City and Town
Problems," Ibid., XVI (October 1915).
G. WALLACE CHESSMAN
Town Promotion in the Progressive
Era: The Case of Newark, Ohio
On July 8, 1910, an angry mob stormed
the county jail at Newark,
Ohio, seized a young, white "dry
detective" being held there, carried
him off to the courthouse square and
lynched him.1 That violent act
stunned local leaders who had long
promoted their booming industrial
town in Licking County as "the best
place in Ohio to live and work."
At the same time it dramatized the
inter-city struggle that had long
engaged business interests in most
American cities of that era, as each
sought to outdo its closest rivals in
the competition for growth.
Town promotion has a history going back
to the "urban frontier"
of the late eighteenth century. Few
American communities did not have
boosters seeking to attract new
migrants, new means of transport,
new institutions public and private. By
the 1850s civic leaders in Cin-
cinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus had
formed local associations to pro-
mote trade in a regular, systematic
fashion. With the rise of manufac-
turing in the post-Civil War period, the
focus of inter-city rivalry east
of the Mississippi shifted to the
acquisition of new industry. It was into
this latter competition that Newark and
other towns of similar size soon
entered.2
Characteristically, Newark promoters
approached their work in a pa-
rochial fashion. They did not place
their efforts within a historical con-
G. Wallace Chessman is Professor of
History at Denison University, Granville,
Ohio.
1. A "dry detective" was a
private individual hired by prohibitionists to enforce local
liquor laws.
2. On earlier efforts at town promotion,
see especially Richard W. Wade, The Urban
Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities,
1790-1830 (Cambridge, 1959), Chapters
1-2, 6, 10;
Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans:
The National Experience (New York, 1965), Part
Three; Harry N. Scheiber, "Urban
Rivalry and Internal Improvements in the Old North-
west, 1820-1860," Ohio History, LXXI
(October 1962), 227-39, 290-92; Charles N.
Glaab, Kansas City and the Railroads (Madison,
1962); Blake McKelvey, The Urbaniza-
tion of America 1860-1915 (New Brunswick, 1963), Chapter 2; Kenneth Sturges,
American Chambers of Commerce (New York, 1915). See also Henry L. Hunker, Indus-
trial Evolution of Columbus, Ohio (Columbus, 1958). Milwaukee's Chamber of Com-
merce was one of the first to raise a
fund to "promote the city's industrial growth," in
1869; see Bayrd Still, Milwaukee: The
History of a City (Madison, 1948; rev. ed., 1965),
348-53.