Henry Disston was born in Tewkesbury, England in 1819, the third
child of Thomas and Ann Disston. The story of his father's death
within three days of arriving when the father, Henry, and a sister
emigrated to the States in 1833 has been written in several
biographies, including one by Jacob S. Disston, Jr. reprinted on this website.
Henry Disston served an apprenticeship with the Philadelphia saw
makers William and Charles Johnson, or maybe it was Lindley,
Johnson & Whitcraft as reported in the Jacob S. Disston
biography. This has been researched by Carl Bopp and published in
the Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association
(12/04). Bopp found no evidence of a Lindley, Johnson &
Whitcraft company ever existing.
Disston's apprenticeship ended when his master's company went
bankrupt in 1840. He was compensated with tools and materials in
lieu of cash payment for his work and was freed from his employer
at the age of 21.
During the 1840's Disston operated his business at a series of
rented properties in Philadelphia, including basements,
storefronts, and a private home. One creative man rented Disston
space and left town with the money. What Disston didn't know was
his "landlord" was actually a tenant behind in his rent. The owner
of the building had Disston's shop seized, and its contents become
property of the real landlord.
In 1841, Disston married Amanda Mulvina Bickley. While pregnant
with twins, she fell down stairs in their house on January 1, 1842.
She delivered prematurely, the newborns soon died, and the mother
died on January 7. They were buried in the Mennonite Cemetery in Germantown,
Philadelphia. Disston's first apprentice was David D. Bickley,
his brother-in-law. Bickley worked in the Disstons' factories for 50 years.
Henry Disston remarried in 1843 to Mary Steelman, and they had
five sons survive to adulthood, all of whom went on to be officers in the company.
The saw works had been destroyed by fire in 1849. Despite all
the setbacks Disston suffered thoughout his
company's first decade, the saws were of superior quality, as
evidenced by those saws that survive. By the early 1850's the
Disston company had turned a corner and was well on its way to
being a profitable and leading manufacturer of saws. In 1855,
Disston became the first saw manufacturer to produce his own steel.
This was the factor that made Disston the most successful saw
manufacturer in the U.S. The Morrill Tariff Act of 1861 greatly
increased the cost of imported steel, making it impossible for
other saw makers to compete with Disston.
Disston accumulated huge profits by supplying steel products to
the Union Army during the Civil War. This enabled him to invest in
the factory, mechanizing much of the process of saw and tool
making, lowering cost and increasing production. Some of the
machines used in saw production and the manufacturing of files were
unique to Disston. For over half a century, Disston was the leading
manufacturer of saws in the world. A Time Magazine article claimed in 1940 that 75
percent of the handsaws sold in the U.S. were Disston.
Four of Henry Disston's five sons had management positions in
the factory after completing apprenticeships. The first son,
Hamilton, was an apprentice when he joined the Union Army. When he
returned from the Civil War, he was made a partner in the company.
He took over presidency of the company after Henry's death in 1878.
Albert (1849-1883) had a short life, but his son Frank was company
president 1915-29. Horace (1855-1900) ran the steel mill. William
(1859-1915) was president of Disston and Sons, Inc. after
Hamilton's death in 1896. William's son and grandson also were
company presidents. The youngest son, Jacob (1862-1920), did not
apprentice in the factory; he had a college education and a leading
role in the finances of the company. Jacob's son and grandson were
company presidents as well.
As Disston and Sons' company centennial approached, the saw
manufacturing industry was changing. In the 1920's, Disston reduced
the size of its product line, dropping redundant models, offering
fewer options in size and tooth pitch and making the features of
the remaining saw models more universal across the line. Handle
shapes were simplified, saws were narrower, and, overall, the
different models had more features in common than previously. The
Lightweight versions of Disston handsaws were offered in 1927, with
the explanation that "modern building methods had taken a great
deal of [heavy sawing] away." Disston claimed lighter, narrower
saws were easier to handle when sawing the lighter materials in use
at the time. The saws were redesigned the following year, 1928, and
referred to in advertising as "modern saws for modern sawing."
Between World War I and the early 1920's, the No. 8, No. 9, No.
76, D-21, D-22, and D-100 saws were discontinued. By 1930 the newly
redesigned D-16, D-112, and D-120 saws also were dropped. The trend
to eliminate slow-sellers continued up to the time the company was
sold to H.K. Porter, Inc. in the mid-1950's.
Four portraits of Henry Disston
For the first 75 years of production, Disston expanded its line
of saws and other tools constantly. Innovation in design and
methods of manufacturing made Disston's products more popular with
buyers and more profitable for the company. Every conceivable
variation in a saw's features resulted in a different model number.
A No. 7 saw with "spring" steel and an apple handle was called a
No. 8. A No. 9 saw with a polished blade and carving on the handle
was called a No. 12. A D-8 saw with a straight back was called a
D-30. A D-8 saw with carving on the handle was called a D-100. A
D-115 saw with a straight back was called a D-15. A D-17 saw with a
straight back was called a D-117.
During these first 75 years, the corporate culture at Disston
was paternalistic. The second generation of Disstons generally ran
the company as Henry Disston had, by working closely with their
employees, apprenticing in the factory, maintaining a presence on
the floor by regularly walking through the works, and providing
housing and services to the residents who lived and worked in the
northeast section of Philadelphia called Tacony.
Tacony was a factory "town", actually
located within the Philadelphia city limits. Until Disston moved
in, it had been a sparsely populated area near the Delaware River,
used mostly for summer recreation. In the 1870's Henry Disston
bought large parcels of land in Tacony and set out to build a town
to house his factory and its workers. Compared to the urban squalor
in which many of his employees and their families lived, his
detached single family and duplex houses were working-class
castles. The houses were rented to workers and maintained by
Disston. The trade-off was a straight-laced lifestyle, resulting
from the prohibition of vices and outside influences, which might
distract or reduce the productivity of workers. There were
restrictions on the sorts of businesses that could operate in
Tacony. There were no bars, only tea houses. For a time there were
no other factories in Tacony, so there was no competition for
workers. Livery stables were not allowed near the center of town,
so transportation in and out of Tacony was limited to the trolley,
which was too expensive for most people to use on a regular basis.
Disston employees had no choice but to live in Tacony, so a
lifestyle that groomed and maintained suitable factory workers was
imposed benevolently upon them.
photo property of Tacony Public Library
For the most part, workers seemed happy with the arrangement for
some 50 years. As the Great Depression wore on in the 1930's,
workers had seen reductions in hours and their wages in an effort
to keep the factory running. Because this and other social and
economic changes, the age of paternal corporate structure
disappeared. As in other manufacturing industries, this was when
the Disston workers unionized.
Now in its third and fourth generations, the Disston family was
large and had many members depending on stock dividends from the
privately-owned corporation for income and maintenance of their
comfortable lifestyles. On the right are two Disston family homes
from the 20th century. The college-educated youngest son of Henry
Disston, Jacob (University of Pennsylvania Class of 1883), lived in
the home in the upper photo. Below that is the home of William D.
Disston, grandson of the founder, and once the company president.
Dwindling profits and the need to keep paying dividends to the
family forced marketing and cost-cutting decisions that would prove
detrimental to the long-term health of the company. One area that
was neglected for decades was capital investment in the factory.
Much of the equipment on the line had been in use since the 1880's.
It was old, inefficient, and overworked. By some accounts, nothing
was being spent to do more than the most basic maintenance on the
factory.
The company's 100th Anniversary celebration was planned for
1940. Labor and management were at a stand-off over contract
negotiations. After years of neglect and worker complaints, the
employee rest rooms were remodeled just before a tour of the
factory by business leaders and politicians to observe the
centennial. Out of anger and disgust, some of the workers trashed
the rest rooms. Days before the anniversary, workers went out on
strike, and the centennial festivities were cancelled. It was the
company's first strike since 1886, according to Time Magazine.
During WWII and for about five years after, the company made
much of its money selling steel, not saws. After the war, America
there was no steel production in most of Europe and Asia. Germany
and Japan both invested a great deal of money and effort in new
steel mills and other factories. This paid off for them in the
early 1950's when these modern plants started production. Disston
on the other hand was essentially a 19th-century factory with no
cash to invest in modernization. Workers were striking every few
years for an increase in pay, and the Disston family members with
stock in the company wanted their dividends.
Disston had been trying since the 1930's to develop a practical
chainsaw. There was a pneumatic version used during the war, and in
the late 1940's, one- and two-man saws made in partnership with
Kiekhaefer, the producer of Mercury outboard motors. These saws
were heavy, and Kiekhaefer's motors were not ready for production
soon enough for Disston to make much of an impression on the market.
Then Disston tried unsuccessfully twice to manufacture chainsaws
without Kiekhaefer. During the second attempt, the family decided to
sell the company to H.K. Porter, a holding company owned by Thomas
Mellon Evans. The company had been running on borrowed time, but Evans
wasted none when it came to liquidating every asset at Disston. Any
machines that could be sold for a quick profit were gone. Most members
of the Disston family at that time had no interest in saw making, but
they didn't want to close down the place, either. H.K. Porter moved
the Disston factory to Danville, Virginia, starting in 1956. After
Disston left Philadelphia, that was the end of an era.
photos property of Chestnut Hill Historical
Society-John Naylor Collection
It wouldn't be right to talk about Disston and
not show pictures of a saw. This is the 1940 Special, a
commemorative saw manufactured in conjunction with Disston's
company centennial. The etch is an interesting study in the
phenomenon of streamline design, popular in the U.S. from
1935-1941, originating with the train, the 20th Century Limited.
The handle has a dark orange lacquer finish; the wood
species is an unidentified hardwood, most likely beech. It appears
all 1940 Specials were 26" eight-point crosscut handsaws,
taper-ground.
[BACK HOME]
Tacony was a factory "town", actually
located within the Philadelphia city limits. Until Disston moved
in, it had been a sparsely populated area near the Delaware River,
used mostly for summer recreation. In the 1870's Henry Disston
bought large parcels of land in Tacony and set out to build a town
to house his factory and its workers. Compared to the urban squalor
in which many of his employees and their families lived, his
detached single family and duplex houses were working-class
castles. The houses were rented to workers and maintained by
Disston. The trade-off was a straight-laced lifestyle, resulting
from the prohibition of vices and outside influences, which might
distract or reduce the productivity of workers. There were
restrictions on the sorts of businesses that could operate in
Tacony. There were no bars, only tea houses. For a time there were
no other factories in Tacony, so there was no competition for
workers. Livery stables were not allowed near the center of town,
so transportation in and out of Tacony was limited to the trolley,
which was too expensive for most people to use on a regular basis.
Disston employees had no choice but to live in Tacony, so a
lifestyle that groomed and maintained suitable factory workers was
imposed benevolently upon them.
It wouldn't be right to talk about Disston and
not show pictures of a saw. This is the 1940 Special, a
commemorative saw manufactured in conjunction with Disston's
company centennial. The etch is an interesting study in the
phenomenon of streamline design, popular in the U.S. from
1935-1941, originating with the train, the 20th Century Limited.
The handle has a dark orange lacquer finish; the wood
species is an unidentified hardwood, most likely beech. It appears
all 1940 Specials were 26" eight-point crosscut handsaws,
taper-ground.